Tag Archives: Housing

QP: No, you’re the ultra-wealthy!

Posted on by

Wednesday post-budget, and both the prime minister and his deputy were present, as were all of the other leaders who wanted their camera time decrying the budget, Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and gave a direct-to-camera appeal of “who will pay for this orgy of spending” and claimed it wouldn’t be the wealthy, but “you, the ones who are paying too much taxes. The Speaker warned him that comments need to be directed through the chair. Trudeau insisted that Poilievre was defending the wealthy, while he was defending the Middle Class™. Poilievre insisted that after nine deficits, it was not a fair county for young people. Trudeau insisted that they made the choice to invest to build a stronger economy while the Conservatives only wanted austerity. Poilievre switched to English and repeated the talking directly to the camera appeal, and got a second gentle caution from the Speaker. Trudeau repeated that Poilievre was defending the wealthiest 0.1 percent. Poilievre railed that Trudeau was blaming the rest of the world for his failures that raised inflation (erm…) and repeated the same line about the government repeating the same mistakes and hoping for a different outcome. Trudeau repeated that Poilievre is only looking out for the ultra-wealthy, to which Poilievre insisted that Trudeau was the ultra-wealthy. (No, he’s really not). Trudeau said not on a tear about the people that they are standing up for and the Conservatives were standing against.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and said that the prime minister was so enamoured with areas of provincial jurisdiction, and wondered if he would run in his preferred province—Ontario. Trudeau noted he as a proud Quebecker and praised the investments they were making to enhance programmes in provinces like Quebec. Blanchet shot back that he was such a proud Quebecker that he wanted them to be their own country, and demanded unconditional transfers. Trudeau went on a paean about his pride in Quebec being secure in Canada, and praised Quebec for being ahead of the rest of the country with their programmes, and that the government was there to help Quebec advance those programmes. 

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP and started shouting about “corporate greed” and that the government was not clamping down on it in the budget. Trudeau praised the measures in the budget to help younger generations. Singh repeated the question in French, and Trudeau spoke about asking the wealthiest to pay a little more to help the next generations. 

Continue reading →

QP: Bizarre accusations, crying about being shushed

Posted on by

As the countdown to the budget release was underway, neither the prime minister nor his deputy were present, and while she had the excuse of being in the budget lock-up meeting with journalists, I’m not sure the PM’s excuse. Most of the other leaders were also present, and Pierre Poilievre led off in French, read off his slogans, and then claimed that the “millionaire prime minister’s” friends who never pay for the cost of his spending, but welders and single mothers. François-Philippe Champagne insisted that the Conservatives have no vision and no plan, and nothing but new slogans, while a country that has ambition is one that invests. Poilievre insisted that their vision was to replace his boss, and complained about the size of the debt and deficit. Champagne noted that slogans don’t build homes, pave roads, or create jobs. Poilievre switched to English to repeat his slogans, and railed that seniors and single mothers who foot the bill for the government spending and not their “wealthy friends.” Anita Anand listed supports for people while remaining fiscally prudent. Poilievre listed other “working class” people that he is in support of, and Anand repeated her same assurances. Poilievre insisted that the Liberals are the problem and not the solution, but Sean Fraser took this one, mocked Poilievre’s statements about electricians capturing lighting or welders using their bare hands, and suggested he talked to people with real jobs—as Poilievre walked out during said answer.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, claiming that Quebec was being “cheated” out of housing funds, and demanded they pay their fair share of housing funds immediately. Fraser said that the Bloc are not defining housing policy in Quebec while they have an agreement with the provincial government to build 8,000 homes. Therrien demanded a second time, and this time Pablo Rodriguez got up to rant about the Bloc not doing anything but pick fights.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and praised Biden’s policies in the US, to which Champagne took issue with the premise, and praised their work in fixing competition in the country. Laurel Collins complained that the government wasn’t going to implement a windfall tax on oil and gas companies. Jonathan Wilkinson got up to list the measures they are taking to reduce emissions. 

Continue reading →

QP: Another slogan to “fix” the budget

Posted on by

While both the prime minister and his deputy were in town, they were not present for QP, though most of the other leaders were present. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and listed off his slogans before noting that the government was spending more on interest on the debt than healthcare, and demanded the government take is “dollar-for-dollar” plan to “fix the budget.” Sean Fraser wondered if it was common sense or nonsense to cut programmes to help people. Poilievre took a swipe at Fraser for his alleged incompetence around immigration numbers, which “doubled” housing prices, and demanded the government reduce the deficit and interest rates. François-Philippe Champagne recited that Poilievre only built six affordable housing units when he was “housing minister” (which he wasn’t really), and that they wouldn’t take any lessons. Poilievre switched to English to misquote a Scotiabank report claiming government deficits were adding two points to the interest rates, to which Fraser accused him of knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing in his opposition to programmes to help people. Poilievre insisted there was no value in food programmes that don’t exist or the doubling of the cost of housing, and repeated his same misleading declaration about interest rates. Fraser needled Poilievre about the number of affordable units lost when he was “minister” and the number of houses that weren’t built. Poilievre accused Fraser of being incompetent as immigration minister before being named housing minister, and then gave some misleading nonsense about rental prices when he was “housing minister.” Fraser took a shot at the Conservatives for opposing the resettlement of Afghan refugees who had helped the Canadian Forces, and after the Speaker finally restored order, repeated the points about Poilievre’s housing record.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and complained that Quebec didn’t get their fair share of housing funds, to which Pablo Rodriguez talked about the Bloc’s lack of priorities as they keep demanding referendums while the government is investing. Therrien tried his complaint again, and Fraser insisted that they were working with the province to ensure they would get their fair share.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he railed about corporate handouts to companies like Loblaws, and wanted the government to roll back Conservative policies. Champagne thanked him for his help in reforming competition law, but said they still needed support to get the Grocery Code of Conduct passed. Singh switched to French to demand an excess profits tax on grocery giants, and Champagne repeated his response.

Continue reading →

Roundup: A housing plan to challenge the provinces and municipalities

Posted on by

In one of the last pre-budget announcements, the federal government delivered their overall housing plan for 2024, which was a mixture of previously made announcements over the past couple of weeks, with a few more added in—such as plans to lease and not sell public land—to offer a more complete picture of the things that they are doing as a federal government to “unlock” the construction of hundreds of thousands of homes. And I am going to make the point that the term “unlocked” is interesting and deliberate, while most media outlets keep using the term “build” incorrectly, because they’re not saying they’re going to build x-number of units, because they have no way to actually guarantee that because they have very few levers at their disposal to actually build. The other part of “unlock” is that it very much puts the onus on the other levels of government, who do have those levers, to do the work now that the federal government has cleared the way for them.

A lot of this has shown that they have been listening to expert like Mike Moffatt, and while you can read his full thread, I did think it was nice that they put out a chart as to whose responsible for what, because there are a lot of people who are ignorant about these kinds of jurisdictional questions (or pretend to be in any case), so it’s handy that they actually spell it out.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1778804892183748617

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1778808362668306508

And a couple more thoughts from Jennifer Robson in this thread:

Ukraine Dispatch:

Shortages of air defences is leaving Kharkiv in particular more vulnerable to Russian attack. A drone attack hit an energy facility in Dnipropetrovsk in the south. Reuters has another photo series of the front lines.

Continue reading →

Roundup: The NDP back away from carbon pricing

Posted on by

The NDP have shown their true colours as populist used car salesmen, and are starting to back away from supporting the federal carbon levy, with Jagmeet Singh telling the “Progress Summit” that they can fight climate change by focusing on corporations and not working families. Which is stupid, because those corporations will pass along the costs in a less transparent manner, there won’t be the rebates that benefit lower-income households, and in the biggest irony, dismantling the consumer carbon levy will only benefit the top one percent of earners.

None of this is actually surprising, considering that the NDP don’t have original thoughts or policies—virtually everything they do is just reheat American Democrat policies, with no regard for whether the situation applies in Canada or not, and then runs with it, and that means adopting the rhetoric around billionaires and corporations, never mind that the handful of billionaires who live in this country couldn’t be taxed enough to pay for the NDP’s plans, or that taxing grocery oligopolies at a higher rate won’t lower prices. Every couple of weeks, Charlie Angus will stand up and demand to know why the government isn’t aping Joe Biden’s policies. It’s embarrassing, but what can you do?

Meanwhile, the Conservatives have forced another voting marathon on report-stage amendments to the government’s sustainable jobs legislation, which the government contends were AI-generated, which the Conservatives deny. Of course, the Conservatives have been spouting complete horseshit about the substance of the bill, calling it “a global, top-down, socialist agenda to central plan a forced economic — not only energy — transition away from the sectors and businesses that underpin all of Canada’s economy: energy, agriculture, construction, transportation and manufacturing.” Utterly unhinged. Nevertheless, thanks to the motion passed in February, there won’t be any more overnight votes, and they suspended the sitting shortly after midnight, and will resume voting at 9 AM, but that will mean it’s still Thursday in the House of Commons, and there won’t be Friday QP. (Such a loss).

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian missiles and drones have completely destroyed the Trypilska coal-fired plant near Kyiv as part of what they claim to be retaliation for the Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries. A Russian missile also struck the southern city of Mykolaiv, killing four civilians. Here is a photo series about the winter war happening. Ukraine’s parliament has now passed the mobilization bill, and this is what it contains. Ukraine has also just signed a security agreement with Latvia.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1778322274304541004

Continue reading →

QP: Friday energy on a Thursday

Posted on by

The prime minister was again absent from QP today, as was his deputy, and all of the other leaders were also away. Melissa Lantsman led off, railing about the carbon levy increase, and demanded the prime minister respect the vote on having a televised meeting with the premiers and on what day it will be. Steve MacKinnon noted that today they are debating their sustainable jobs bill, and that the Conservatives have put forward 20,000 amendments generated by AI, calling them the “robo-caucus” doing “robo-work” and told them to stop gatekeeping opportunities, Lantsman said that was false and not an answer, before she listed food bank stats, and again demanded a meeting. MacKinnon suggested they “plug into the reality channel,” because of the jobs at stake that they are standing in the way of. Lantsman insisted that the prime minister was being defiant and wondered what he was covering for. Anita Anand noted that the invitation is open for premiers to come up with a better plan but they haven’t put any forward, and that Scott Moe even stated this was the most cost-effective plan. Dominique Vien took over in French and listed failures from the government, before citing the premier of Quebec telling the federal government to butt out of its business. Jean-Yves Duclos noted that Poielivre only built six housing units when he was minister, and invited her to visit an affordable housing project in her riding. Vien claimed federal incompetence in fiscal management, and repeated the demand to butt out. MacKinnon got up to point out that she was in Charest’s Cabinet and voted for a carbon price, and now she wants to be hypocritical about housing.

Claude DeBellefeuille led for the Bloc, claimed that Quebec was being short-changed and demanded higher unconditional housing transfers to the province. Duclos praised an affordable housing project in her project. DeBellefeuille tried the same demand a second time, and Duclos again praised the agreement signed with the province a few weeks ago, which was the largest in provincial history.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and blamed the federal government for rental increases in Montreal and for not building enough affordable housing. (Guess whose jurisdiction that is?) Duclos returned to his talking points about Poilievre’s six units. Lindsay Mathyssen decried inadequate military housing across the country, and Bill Blair pointed out that the work has already begun to build new units on bases across the country. 

Continue reading →

QP: “Intruding” into the competences of the provinces

Posted on by

Even though Wednesdays are usually the day the prime minister answers all questions in QP, he was absent today, as he was due to begin his testimony at the foreign interference inquiry before QP was likely to end. His deputy was also absent, but not all of the other leaders were present, even though it’s Wednesday. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, listing off a number of falsehoods around things like inflation, and wondered why the federal government was meddling in Quebec’s affairs. Jean-Yves Duclos noted that it was odd for Poilievre to talk about incompetence because when he was housing minister, he built a whole six units, but you called Quebec mayors incompetent. Poilievre then noted that interest rates did not come down today and blamed federal spending, but Duclos kept on with his same points. Poilievre repeated the false point about interest rates, and Anita Anand pointed out that it’s possible to provide supports for Canadians while being fiscally prudent, and listed their measures. Poilievre repeated the false claim that government spending is fuelling inflation, and Anand noted that wages are growing faster than inflation and that the current government has brought down poverty rates across the country. Poilievre gave his Mark Carney lines, and this time François-Philippe Champagne stood up to declare that he would take no lessons from the Conservatives, and listed their plans to help Canadians while the slogans on the other side wouldn’t build homes.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc—even though Yves-François Blanchet was just out in the Foyer answering questions—and accused the federal government of meddling in Quebec’s jurisdiction and demanded they just give them money. Duclos listed investments the government is making to help Canadians. Therrien repeated his same demand, and listed more ways they work with Quebec.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and decried the Indigenous infrastructure funding gap (Hajdu: It was important for the AFN to help us write this report so we can close the gap faster), and then asked about the Canadian Disability Benefit implementation (Kiera: We are on track to deliver the benefit, and we will get it right).

Continue reading →

Roundup: Not spelling out a non-binding motion

Posted on by

The Conservatives spent their Supply Day yesterday calling for an “emergency” televised meeting with premiers on the carbon levy, which was full of the usual nonsense and false talking points about the effect the carbon levy is having on food affordability, or using the torqued numbers from the PBO report in a misleading way. Nevertheless, Pierre Poilievre was trying to make a point about Trudeau being somehow afraid to face the premiers, which is just more of his terminally online “Debate me!” energy going on, even though we all know this wouldn’t actually be a debate, it would be the premiers ganging up for the sake of them all gathering video clips for fundraising purposes.

This having been said, I find myself one again supremely irritated by how the CBC—and in particular a certain journalist in the CBC’s bureau—chose to write up the day’s activities, with the headline about the motion trying to “force” Trudeau to meet with the premiers. The motion is non-binding. It can’t force anything. All Supply Day motions are non-binding. But the headline seems to indicate that it could bind the government, and nowhere in the text of the piece does it point out that it’s non-binding. This is malpractice at this point, because it’s painting a completely false picture of what the debate was. The “debate”—and I use the term loosely because it was MPs reading twenty-minute speeches into the record—was posturing for the sake of gathering clips for social media. That’s all. And this particular writer has been on the Hill long enough that he should know this, but he has a habit of ignoring relevant facts about procedure or jurisdiction to try and lend weight to his pieces. It’s not cute, and it’s not doing anything for the CBC’s reputation.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukraine says that they downed 20 attack drones overnight, though there was still infrastructure damage in the west of the country. Ukraine is trying to repair and shield their power systems after the recent spate of attacks. A retaliatory strike inside of Russia hit an aviation factory in the Voronezh region. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited fortifications in the Kharkiv region, while the Americans are offering to send seized Iranian weapons, and to sell them $138 million USD air defence upgrades.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1777666453950337220

Continue reading →

QP: Demanding a televised meeting

Posted on by

Although he had not been initially scheduled to attend Question Period today, the prime minister updated his itinerary late morning to indicate that he would be here today after all, even though his deputy would not be. All of the other leaders were also present, as is usual when the PM is here. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, recited his slogans, accused the government of ramping up “generational inflation” (which is not what happened) and said the government was giving more to bankers than healthcare. Trudeau listed what they are investing in healthcare, as well as school food, and child care, but didn’t correct the disinformation about inflation. Poilievre again falsely claimed that they government’s programmes were inflationary and demanded a meeting with the premiers, and Poilievre insisted that they were there to work with the provinces, as opposed to Conservative austerity. Poilievre switched to English to once again recite his slogans, falsely quoted the PBO report, and demanded a televised meeting with the premiers. Trudeau said that if they really cared about people having a hard time, they would help to pass the rural top-up. Poilievre insisted that they could do so with the NDP’s support, and repeated his demand for the televised meeting. Trudeau noted that they did agree to carbon pricing before, and noted the upcoming the upcoming rebate payments to people. Poilievre repeated the same falsehoods as before and wondered why Trudeau wouldn’t meet with the premiers. Trudeau noted that Poilievre was spouting misinformation and disinformation and that he got an endorsement from Alex Jones.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and worried about interference in Quebec’s jurisdiction, and that the federal government had no competence in healthcare, child care and education. Trudeau said that even though provinces have the competence, there are gaps that people are falling through so they are investing in the help people need along with provinces. Blanchet made a remark about not going to a dentist to fix his car, which gave Trudeau an opening to praise dental care.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP and railed about corporations delaying climate action, and oil and gas subsidies, to which Trudeau noted that they have eliminated those subsidies ahead of schedule and praised carbon pricing. Singh repeated the question in French, and got a paean about the costs of climate change, and the carbon rebates.

Continue reading →

QP: Sniping in advance of the eclipse

Posted on by

The first day back from the Easter break, and Eclipse Day, and neither the prime minister nor his deputy were present, having spent the morning in Trenton making the defence policy update announcement. Most of the other leaders were present today, for what it’s worth. After the introduction of Jamil Jivani as the newest Conservative MP, Pierre Poilievre led off in French, reciting his slogans and accusing government of being “pyromaniacs” fuelling inflation. (That’s not what was driving inflation). Jonathan Wilkinson read a statement about investing in Canadians. Poilievre recited a bank report to claim the government was stoking inflation, and Wilkinson read more talking points about those investments. Poilievre switched to English to repeat his pyromaniac line, and Wilkinson again read lines about investing in Canadians. Poilievre went on about a “carbon tax election,” and recited more slogans. Sean Fraser got up to scoff about the lack of seriousness of Poilievre’s supposed plan. Poilievre insisted that his plan would lower prices for farms, food and homes, and Fraser responded by listed Poilievre’s record a “housing” minister (even though he really wasn’t).

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he railed that the government was trying to tell Quebeckers how to build housing, and listed all of their supposed failures along the way. Pablo Rodriguez was incredulous that the Bloc was against housing, child care, or school food. Therrien railed that federal government was holding Quebec hostage, and Rodriguez reminded that that they were not the Quebec government. 

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and railed about corporate handouts, and went on a tangent about Conservative corporate handouts and if the Liberals would carry them forward. Wilkinson read more of his talking points about investments and fairness. Singh repeated his question in French, and this time Fraser got up to talk about some of their housing announcements from last week.

Continue reading →