Tag Archives: Housing

Roundup: Blaming the wrong government for the shortage of doctors—again

Posted on by

Because this is sometimes a media criticism blog, I turn to the big piece on the weekend the CBC ran about family doctors, and which its author, JP Tasker, pursued while in the fill-in host’s chair on Power & Politics yesterday. This is something Tasker has been on for a while now, and he seems to think he’s on a righteous crusade about the shortage of doctors in Canada, and yet his article misses almost all of the important parts of the discussion, while he kept trying to set up this dichotomy on P&P between more doctors and pharmacare, getting that wrong as well, as it too will rely on provincial governments.

Reading the story, you wouldn’t know that healthcare is a provincial responsibility. There are mentions of the deals that the federal government has been making with provinces, but the focus remains on this somehow being a federal issue when its not. And the main cause of the shortage of doctors traces back to the cuts in the 1990s, when provinces cut the number of medical school and residency spaces as part of their cost-saving measures after the federal transfer cuts. While this isn’t mentioned, what is also not mentioned is that when the Martin government re-invested in health transfers, the provinces didn’t similarly reinvest. They didn’t significantly re-open training or residency spaces like before. And as the health transfers were rising at six percent per year, health spending by the provinces were certainly not, and a lot of that money that was supposed to go to healthcare went to other things (often lowering taxes or reducing provincial deficits). And now here we are reaping what has been sown, but are the provinces being blamed for the problems they created? Of course not.

These were their choices. It’s their jurisdiction. They should be the ones who shoulder the blame here, but in this country, legacy media is allergic to holding premiers accountable for pretty much anything (except maybe education), and once again, they get to skate after shitting the bed, while the federal government is being given all the blame. If there’s a chef’s kiss of just how terrible Tasker’s article is, he got a quote from someone who said the ArriveCan money should have been spent on hiring doctors, as though that was something the federal government could do. Slow clap.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian forces say that they have crushed the last pockets of resistance in Avdiivka now that the Ukrainians have pulled back. Those Ukrainian forces are now digging in to new positions just outside of Avdiivka to repel further advances. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the front lines in the north-eastern part of the country.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1759625711353053426

Continue reading →

Roundup: Leaking an MP’s private conversation

Posted on by

There were plenty of tongues wagging yesterday as a private phone conversation that parliamentary secretary for foreign affairs Rob Oliphant had with a constituent about the situation in the Middle East was leaked to the media, showing how he disagreed with some of the positions the government has taken for political reasons, and how they have badly communicated on some of the particulars. It’s a little bit grubby to have leaked the conversation, because it makes it harder for more MPs to be frank in their interactions for fear of this exact thing happening, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the leaders of other caucuses in particular used this as an object lesson in message discipline and never straying from it. (And before anyone says anything, the NDP tend to be worse than the Conservatives about this sort of thing).

When asked about the leaked comments, prime minister Justin Trudeau didn’t go off, and talked about how it’s great how much diversity of opinion there is in the Liberal caucus, so it sounds like Oliphant’s job is safe, but then again it’s also possible Trudeau was saying this and that Oliphant will be dropped in a week or two, once the spotlight isn’t directly on him, because he broke message discipline, even if this was supposed to be a private conversation.

Regardless, Oliphant says he sticks by his words and says there’s nothing he wouldn’t say publicly, and if anything, he’s probably conveying the delicate tightrope that the government is being forced to walk on this better than the government is doing, in particular because he has a deep knowledge of the region, and can express it better. If Trudeau and his inner circle have any brains, they would get him to do a better job of crafting their messaging for them, but we all know that the communications geniuses in this PMO are allergic to taking any lessons, so I have my doubts that they’ll turn to Oliphant to up their game.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russia launched new missile and drone attacks against several Ukrainian cities, air defences taking out half of them. At least three civilians were killed in an airstrike on the Kharkiv region; in spite of the constant attacks, the people of Kharkiv keep on. Ukraine is withdrawing some of its forces from Avdiivka in order to get them to more defensible positions while one of their special forces heading to the region. France will be signing a security assurances agreement with Ukraine in Paris today.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1758143268313870473

Continue reading →

QP: Demands to turn over documents

Posted on by

The prime minister was off in Winnipeg for a healthcare announcement with premier Wab Kinew, and his deputy was away in Toronto, while most of the other leaders were also absent. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and after deploying a half-dozen slogans, he broached the ArriveCan issue and said that he was told that a court order would be required to get a court order for the production of documents, and wanted the government to turn them all over. Jean-Yves Duclos said that the Auditor General did good work in her damning report, and that they have taken steps and more would follow soon, and that they were being transparent and turning over all requested documents to the RCMP and elsewhere. Poilievre switched to English to repeat the allegation that the RCMP needs a production order for records and again demanded that the government simply turn over the documents to the RCMP and committees. Duclos cautioned that Poilievre sounded like he was calling into question the capabilities of the Auditor General. Poilievre repeated his claim and again demanded that all documents related to ArriveCan or GC Strategies be turned over. Dominic LeBlanc insisted that they have been cooperative. Poilievre then quoted Thomas Mulcair on the situation, Poilievre wondered why the NDP were keeping the government in power, but that wasn’t a question to government. LeBlanc got up anyway to insist that they have taken this situation seriously. Poilievre then quoted Sean Fraser, claiming he was attacking himself, and demanded the government start building homes. Soraya Martinez Ferrada got up to pat the government on the back for working with mayors, and said that unlike when Poilievre was minister, they were getting housing built.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he wanted an expanded investigation into GC Strategies. Duclos reminded him of the scope of urgency in the pandemic, but said it wasn’t an excuse for civil servants not to do their jobs properly. Therrien demanded a “clean sweep” at CBSA, to which Duclos agreed that there needed to be an investigation, several of which are ongoing.

Heather McPherson rose for the NDP, and raised the number of casualties in Gaza, but insisted that the government is keeping up with arms sales (which they haven’t), and called out Rob Oliphant’s leaked comments. Ahmed Hussen insisted that Canada was the first to start offering humanitarian aid. Daniel Blaikie wanted support for the party’s bill on amending EI benefits, and Randy Boissonnault said that the work to modernise the system is ongoing, and this particular issue of women on mat leave being laid off was before the courts.

Continue reading →

Roundup: A dubious Federal Court decision, but right about judicial appointments

Posted on by

The Federal Court ruled yesterday that the federal government must start filling judicial vacancies faster because, which is true, but the judgment itself is something of a mess. It’s hard to see how the Court has jurisdiction here, and the judge seems to have invented a bunch of justification and has handwaved around constitutional conventions, and in the end, declared that the government must fill most of those vacancies “in a reasonable period of time,” which is vague and of little value other than the declaration. Emmett Macfarlane has promised a post on this soon, and Leonid Sirota has a thread here taking issue with the reasoning (though not the underlying issue of not making sufficient appointments—everyone is agreed on that point).

I have been writing on this government’s problems with appointments since probably their second year in office, possibly even sooner than that. While you can look up the myriad of columns I have written, the short version is this: The government wants to make diverse appointments (which is good! This is a good thing!) but they insisted on a system of self-nominations rather than going out and nominating people. We know that women, people of colour, and LGBTQ+ people routinely don’t apply for positions like this because society has drilled into them the message that only straight, old white men get positions like this. Even the Liberal Party itself gets this in their candidate selection process, where they set up systems to be persistent in getting women and diverse people to seek nominations. And even with that, the federal government has utterly dropped that ball and thinks that they can simply say “We’re accepting diverse applications!” and expecting those applications to flood in. They seem to act like the Sesame Street sketch where Ernie simply goes “Here, fishy, fishy, fishy!” and the fish leap into the boat. That’s not how this works, and when they don’t get enough applications, it slows down the process tremendously. And after seven years, they have absolutely refused to learn this lesson. Refused! It’s some kind of giant ideological blinder that they cannot get their collective heads around, no matter how many times the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court warns them, or the Auditor General sounds the alarm about vacancies on port authorities or the boards of Crown corporations, or even their process for appointing senators. They absolutely refuse to learn the lessons of their failures.

It does bear mentioning that there has been an uptick in the pace of appointments in the past few months, and filling vacancies for provincial chief justices and associate chief justices has also picked up speed (and yes, I have been keeping an eye out for this). That said, making federal judicial appointments faster won’t solve the problems with our justice system because a lot more of them involve provinces not properly resourcing provincial courts or superior courts, where you have a lot of cases where there are no court rooms or court staff available, and that causes as many if not more problems. The issue of federal appointments, however, is low-hanging fruit so it’s taking a lot more attention than it should, and once again, premiers are being allowed to skate because of it.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians have struck a hospital and apartments in Selydove in eastern Ukraine, killing three people. Here’s a look at how Ukrainians are decoding Russian battle communications to save lives on the front lines. Russia is pulling old tanks out of storage and refurbishing them after having lost more than 3000 in the fighting in Ukraine over the past two years. Ukraine’s military intelligence is now saying that Russia has been buying Starlink terminals by way of “Arab countries.”

Continue reading →

QP: Call in the RCMP…that we don’t direct

Posted on by

Both the prime minister and his deputy were present today, as were all of the other leaders, so that was nice to see. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and after reciting some slogans, he mischaracterized the Auditor General’s report into ArriveCan and boasted that he wrote to the RCMP to call on them to expand their investigation into wrongdoing and demanded that the prime minister not block their efforts. Justin Trudeau stated that the pandemic was a once-in-a-century event and that they expected rules to be followed in spite of this, and that the RCMP will do their job, but that this government is for border security, which the Conservatives vote against. Poilievre listed some revelations in the report and demanded that the prime minister respect the independence of a criminal investigation. Trudeau assured him that they would, and that there would be consequences for any civil servants that broke rules. Poilievre switched to English to repeat his boast that he wrote the RCMP to expand their investigation, and Trudeau repeated that the pandemic was once-in-a-generation event, and that they expected civil servants to follow the rules, but they don’t need to tell the RCMP to do their jobs. Poilievre howled that Trudeau keeps blocking investigations and accused him of filling the pockets of friends, all of which is specious on its face. Trudeau said that this was an example of Poilievre reverting to type and playing partisan games. Poilievre tried to spin this as Trudeau calling the Auditor General the conspiracy theorist, which was bizarre. Trudeau said that Poilievre needs to work on his listening skills, and that they await the results of the investigation so that those who broke the rules will be held to account.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and wanted the government to adopt the motion to allow for advanced directives on assisted dying. Trudeau recited that this is a very personal decision, and that they responsible for ensuring that vulnerable people are protected. Blanchet insisted that they move ahead with their motion, and Trudeau insisted that these are the kinds of conversations they need to be having.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP and quoted the National Housing Advocate and demanded that he follow her recommendations. Trudeau said that he welcomed the NDP’s support in their housing measures. Singh repeated his demand in French, and Trudeau said that they will continue to listen to community organisations and municipal partners. 

Continue reading →

Roundup: Bad Supreme Court reporting is bad

Posted on by

There is a reason why journalists should have beats, and why it can be dangerous to write about topics or institutions when you’re not familiar with them. There was a case in point yesterday in the National Post which was trying to sound some kind of alarm about what’s going on at the Supreme Court of Canada—except there’s actually no story here. I’m really not trying to pick on the reporter of the piece, because he’s a good journalist, but he just doesn’t know the file, and got swept up in what a particular lawyer was telling him without having a proper bullshit detector.

The supposed crisis is that the Court is hearing fewer cases lately, and a lot of what it is hearing is being decided in rulings from the bench, meaning they generally don’t release written decisions, and that this is somehow bad for developing case law. Because he talked to one lawyer who tracks stats, he figures that’s the story. Except it’s really not. They’re hearing fewer cases as a direct result of the pandemic, which slowed down the ability to hear cases at the trial court level, which then slows down appeals, which slows down their ability to get to the Supreme Court. They piece pooh-poohs that almost four years later this is still a problem, when of course it is. These things take a long time, particularly when courts were operating on a minimal standard for nearly two years. And because they were operating minimally, most of what they did hear were criminal cases, because they have timelines attached lest they get stayed for delays. That means that most of what does filter up to the Supreme Court are criminal cases, many of them as of right (meaning that at the appeal level, it wasn’t unanimous, so it automatically goes to the Supreme Court of Canada). That’s why a lot of these cases are being decided from the bench—there isn’t any matter of national importance being decided, so they have few needs for written rulings. In the Court’s current session, only two of the cases are not criminal because that’s how the lower courts have been operating. It’s a problem for sure, but it’s one because provinces aren’t funding courts adequately, and the federal government is too slow to make appointments to fill vacancies. This is not a Supreme Court problem.

Furthermore, the piece quotes from a literal constitutional crank—a particular law professor who is of the “burn it all down” school—because it’s a lazy journalist’s trick to make the piece sound more controversial or edgy. But here, he’s saying that he can’t believe they weren’t hearing certain cases without actually saying what he wanted them to hear, and then, out of nowhere, says the Court is going to have to expand, but doesn’t explain why. It makes no sense other than it’s piggybacking on an American issue that has nothing to do with our Court. There is also concern that the court’s decisions are a lot more divided these days and not unanimous without actually exploring that. This is largely because of the different styles of chief justice—under Beverley McLachlin, she strove for more unanimous decisions, and in the end, many of the rulings became so narrowly focused in order to achieve unanimity that they were largely useless for the purposes of developing case law. There is more dissent now because Richard Wagner isn’t concerned with achieving unanimity to the detriment of the decisions, and you have a couple of judges on the court who like to be contrarians. That’s not a bad thing. There is no crisis with the Supreme Court, and if the reporter had any grounding in the institution, he would have seen that there’s no smoke, no fire, and stats without context are useless.

Ukraine Dispatch:

The fighting is now inside the city of Avdiivka, which Russians have been trying to capture for months. There was another prisoner swap yesterday, with 100 exchanged on each side. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has replaced the top army commander, looking for fresh ideas on how to push Russian invaders back. (More about the new chief here).

Continue reading →

QP: Getting partisan about gendered violence

Posted on by

The prime minister was off attending the big auto theft summit several blocks away from the West Block, while his deputy was similarly absent, as were all other leaders. Andrew Scheer led off in English, read some specious statistics about auto theft, and demanded more tough policies. Jennifer O’Connell countered with the fact that five years under the Harper government saw even higher auto theft rates than now. Scheer volleyed that those were the first five years with the problem they inherited, before giving a misleading statement about carbon prices and grocery prices. François-Philippe Champagne deployed his “take no lessons” line and gave a swipe about Jenni Byrne. Scheer returned with the number of former Liberal staffers who lobby for Loblaws, and gave an “it’s the carbon tax, stupid.” The Speaker warned him, before Champagne extolled his efforts to get new grocers into Canada. Gérard Deltell took over in French, and accused the government of prioritising photo ops over building housing. Champagne said that the only thing the Conservatives are good at is insulting  mayors. Deltell noted the decrease in housing stocks under the Liberals and demanded action. Champagne said that he has nothing to learn about videos and photo ops from the Conservatives, as they don’t solve problems.

Claude DeBellefeuille led for the Bloc, and she wanted the government to let Quebec proceed with advanced request for MAiD, to which Jean-Yves Duclos noted that as the former minster of health, he wanted to recognise Quebec’s movement and said that they would work together. DeBellefeuille repeated the demand for the Criminal Code changes, and Duclos said that they need to protect the most vulnerable, and promised to look closely at this.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the Bloc, and demanded support for their “grocery prices” bill, and in response, Champagne stated that they have moved forward with competition reform and took most of the NDP’s recommendations. Lindsay Mathyssen repeated the demand in English, to which Champagne repeated the same response in English.

Continue reading →

Roundup: It’s auto theft summit day

Posted on by

It’s the big auto theft summit happening in Ottawa today, and it’s more than just federal and provincial governments and police who are meeting—it’s also insurance companies and auto manufacturers, because part of the problem are the ways in which auto companies have made unsecured RFID technology with key fobs and so on part of the recent lines, which means thieves can capture the frequency of your fobs and steal your card by cloning said fobs. Insurance companies could wield their might in insisting on these changes, which could make a measurable impact. As a down-payment of sorts, Dominic LeBlanc announced a $28 million boost to CBSA’s ability to detect stolen vehicles with more detection tools and analytics.

Meanwhile, as Pierre Poilievre tries to insist that this problem can solely be attributed to Justin Trudeau because of certain legal changes around conditional sentencing and bail (which were in response to Supreme Court of Canada decisions, it must be stated), he’s also made a bunch of specious correlations about how car thefts were lower in the Harper era in order to back up this claim. Except, that’s mostly not true either. But then again, facts, logic or honesty are never really in play when Poilievre is speaking, and this is no different.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces downed 11 out of 17 drones in the early morning hours of Thursday. Russia launched massive attacks on Kyiv and other cities over the day yesterday, which killed five and wounded more than thirty. The mobilisation bill has now passed first reading. Here’s a look at the corps of retired Colombian soldiers fighting for Ukraine

Continue reading →

QP: Who has more connections to Loblaws lobbyists?

Posted on by

The prime minster was present as is customary for a Wednesday, while his deputy was away. All of the other leaders were present as well for a second day in a row. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, citing rental increases as though that were a federal jurisdiction. Justin Trudeau cited a Conservative MP pointing out that the government has new announcements every day, which Trudeau agreed, that they were rolling out programmes to help Canadians and speed up home building. Poilievre insisted that the government just bloats bureaucracy but doesn’t build houses. Trudeau called him out for insulting mayors and using the homeless as props while offering nothing. Poilievre cited CMHC figures and population estimates for needing another five million units. Trudeau said that they were investing in municipalities to decrease red tape and accelerate building while increasing densification. Poilievre switched to English to repeat his first question, to which Trudeau repeated his same response. Poilievre trotted his line that people can’t live in programmes and announcements, to which Trudeau walked into the trap by pointing to an announcement he made about investments made years ago turned into houses today, and accused Poilievre of insulting mayors and people’s intelligence. 

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, pointed to the government delaying the expansion of MAiD and that if the Conservatives get in, they will lock it down when the delay expires. Trudeau said that they are upholding fundamental rights and freedoms, but this is a difficult issue that they will “continue to reflect” on. Blanchet wanted the government to adopt Quebec’s request for advance requests, to which Trudeau insisted this was an very difficult decision for them to make as a society.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, to demand the government support his bill on grocery prices. Trudeau noted that they have measures in the Fall Economic Statement that align with the NDP proposal, and trotted the accusations around Jenni Byrne. Singh switched to French to repeat the demand, and Trudeau repeated his same response. 

Continue reading →

QP: Quoting the Criminal Code to one another

Posted on by

Neither the prime minister nor his deputy were present today, in spite of both being in Ottawa, though most of the other leaders were present. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, fresh from his press conference earlier this morning in Brampton, and he tied the Bloc to government legislation around bail conditions and conditional sentencing, blaming them for the rise in auto thefts (which is pretty specious at best), before asking the government to reverse those positions. Steven MacKinnon says that the Conservatives were pretending to care about auto theft like they pretended to care about grocery prices, and tried to connect Poilievre’s campaign chair, Jenni Byrne, with lobbying Loblaws. (She wasn’t the lobbyist, and they were only lobbying about beer and wine sales, for the record). Poilievre declared that he announced “common sense” solutions for ending auto thefts, most of which are unconstitutional. MacKinnon repeated the insinuations that Poilievre had made promises to Byrne, who is advising the caucus. Poilievre switched to English to again claim that “catch and release” bail was to blame for the rise in car thefts, and MacKinnon repeated his claim that the Conservatives were only pretending to care, and made the insinuations about Byrne in English. Poilievre insisted that Byrne’s advise was the slogan he repeated, and once again blamed the government for increasing car thefts and touted his “common sense” plan. Arif Virani reminded him that mandatory minimums for auto theft are already on the books, so he’s demanding a policy that already exists. Poilievre insisted that bail reform didn’t apply to auto theft so he should have read his own legation. Virani responded that he listens to police and noted that this isn’t an issue of individual crime but organised crime, and that the Conservatives are blocking measures to combat money laundering.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and railed that Quebec is owed $470 million for asylum seekers, no less. Marc Miller said the money they have sent is not nothing and that they are working with the province. Therrien listed grievances related to immigration and asylum seekers, to which Miller accused them of being “armchair managers,” and cherry-picking statistics.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and took credit for Manulife walking back their decision to only fill certain prescriptions at Loblaws, and demanded the government stop working for Big Pharma. Mark Holland pointed to actions they have taken to lower drug prices across the board. Singh switched to French to complain that the government met with Loblaws lobbyists 60 times—which means nothing—and Holland repeated his response in French.

Continue reading →