Tag Archives: Jagmeet Singh

Roundup: Johnston carries on with the job

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As expected, all of the opposition parties voted for the NDP’s motion to call on David Johnston to step aside and for the government to call a public inquiry, and it passed. It’s a non-binding motion, and so it doesn’t have much weight, and Johnston put out a reply shortly thereafter saying that his mandate comes from government and not Parliament, so he’s going to keep doing his job. (Of note, only government and not Parliament can call a public inquiry as well, so the notion that Johnston is “not independent” because his mandate comes from government is stupid, illogical, and made in bad faith). The NDP motion also ignores one other crucial bit of reality, which is that there is almost zero chance that there would be a suitable replacement who would actually want to subject themselves to ongoing character assassination and harassment, whom every party leader can also agree to because they have no conflicts of interest, real or invented (and there are a hell of a lot of invented ones at play).

I will note that David Cochrane put these questions to Jagmeet Singh on Power & Politics last night, and Singh just flailed and kept repeating his talking points about the “appearance of bias,” and accusing Johnston’s lawyer of being biased because she has been a Liberal donor (never mind that she doesn’t actually make any decisions here), and kept saying that he wasn’t casting aspersions on Johnston when he obviously was by repeating the false accusations of bias.

Meanwhile, here’s Jessica Davis on how untenable this situation has become, which is why Johnston unfortunately remains the best-placed person to finish the job (click through for the whole thread).

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians have kept up their air attacks on Kyiv, and at least three people were killed overnight as a result. Russians are claiming that Ukrainians shelled one of their towns, and that their drones struck two oil refineries (the veracity of said claims remains untested).

https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/1663786012164734977

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Roundup: Arguing over an appearance already scheduled

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It’s not even a sitting week, and yet we were treated to another instalment of the parliamentary clown show that has infected our House of Commons. The Procedure and House Affairs committee held an emergency meeting to demand that David Johnston appear before them to explain his reasons for not recommending a public inquiry. But the moment they got there, the chair said that Johnston was already scheduled to appear at the committee on June 6th, and that this had been arranged previously, and it just confirmed that this insistence he appear right away was just really, really bad theatre.

And then it went downhill from there, as MPs spent the next four hours debating a motion for Johnston to appear even sooner than the 6th, for no less than three hours, alone, because remember, they need to put on a bit song and dance about how they’re so serious! about all of these allegations. As I said, bad theatre. And then, the Liberals and NDP decided to try and be clever about this, and include a recommendation in the motion that all party leaders go through the security clearance process in order to read the full report and all of its classified evidence used to compile it. Well, that didn’t go over very well, and in the end, the Conservatives voted against their own motion because they didn’t want to be called out for refusing to actually read the full documents.

Spending four hours to try and sound tougher about a pre-scheduled meeting, to give themselves the last word, is just one more reason why our Parliament is no longer a serious institution. It’s appalling that they have wasted everyone’s time and resource like this, because Michael Cooper needed to make himself look like a tough guy. Inexcusable.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Wagner Group mercenaries are preparing to turn over control of their positions in Bakhmut to Russian soldiers, while Ukraine says that Wagner is only turning over positions on the outskirts of the city, and that they have drawn Russian forces into the city, where they are inflicting high casualties and weakening Russian defensive lines elsewhere. A prisoner swap took place for 106 Ukrainian soldiers, some of them captured in the fighting in Bakhmut. Russian control of one of the dams along the Dnipro river is causing flooding because they haven’t been working to level the water flow with the other dams in the network.

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Roundup: The optics ouroboros

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So, that big CBC/Radio-Canada “scoop” that dominated the news yesterday about Justin Trudeau’s Christmas vacation. Because this is sometimes a media criticism blog, I figured I would make a few remarks, because there were some very obvious things about it that were just being shrugged off, or actively ignored by some of my fellow journalists. To begin with, there is not a lot of substance to the story. It’s some typical cheap outrage—how dare the prime minister go on a luxury vacation on taxpayer dollars when there are people struggling in Canada—mixed with a specious connection that doesn’t mean anything in substance, but which looks bad when you make it sound sinister in order to fit it in with the current nonsense around the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. Fit those two in a particular frame that makes it sound salacious, and you have the makings of a story that dominates Question Period. Congratulations! You’ve set the agenda for the day, you can pat yourselves on the back to your heart’s content.

But the whole connection to the Foundation is a construction that implies a relationship that doesn’t exist. Yes, the Trudeau and Green families have been friends for 50 years, but the donation to the Foundation was a bequest after the death of one of the Green family members, and it was done two years ago, which was eight years after Trudeau stepped away from any involvement in the Foundation. Implying that there was something untoward about the donation and then vacationing with Trudeau—who has been family friends his entire life—is simply scandal-mongering. And this gets justified with the pearl-clutching about “optics!” But you’re the one creating the optics with the distorted framing of the situation, so you’re literally inventing a mess that doesn’t actually exist, so that you can report on the invented mess, and then report on the follow-up reactions from other political leaders who will tut about “optics.” Which you created in the first place with your framing, like some kind of ouroboros. Very convenient, that.

None of this is to say that Trudeau shouldn’t know better than to take these kinds of trips, because he knows full well that there is an intrinsic culture of petty and mean cheapness in Canadian media, and that his opponents will take full advantage of it. And lo, the story also quotes unnamed Liberal Sources™ who are once again shocked and dismayed that the prime minister once again did something with poor optics, because that’s who he is. And Trudeau then made it worse, as pointed out in my QP recap, by not answering about the gift of the accommodations, which just perpetuates the story rather than cutting it off at the start. “Yes, I accepted the gift of the accommodations. Yes, the Ethics Commissioner cleared it. Yes, I paid the equivalent commercial rate for the flight.” And it stops their ability to try and stretch this into a scandal. But Trudeau and the people who advise his communications are so tone-deaf that they keep doing this. They keep stepping on every rake in their path, every single gods damned time.

Ukraine Dispatch:

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited troops in the eastern city of Avdiivka, which is facing an advance like Bakhmut, which itself is facing an increase in Russian shelling and air strikes. Ukraine has reached a deal with Poland about grain and other food products transiting that country, but the future of the Black Sea deal remains in doubt.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1648431809200553985

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Roundup: No, David Lametti isn’t threatening to tear up the constitution

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You may have noticed that the Conservatives engaged in a lot of rage-farming over the long weekend, sometimes to the point of flailing and reaching. There was one particular bad-faith episode (well, they’re all bad faith episodes) that was particularly egregious, and roped in several premiers, who were also engaged in their own bad faith. Late last week, justice minister David Lametti attended a special chiefs’ assembly of the Assembly of First Nations, and was asked about the Natural Resources Transfer Act of 1930, and how these treaty nations were not benefitting from them, and Lametti said he’d look at it, but acknowledged this would be controversial.

And how! Immediately, Danielle Smith, followed by Scott Moe and later Heather Stefanson insisted this was a plan to “tear up the constitution” and nationalise the control over natural resources, and before long, Pierre Poilievre got in on it, along with a chunk of his caucus who insisted this was some sinister federal plan. It’s not, and this is more bad faith bullshit (which, of course, the gods damned CBC just both-sidesed, because they still think you can both-sides bad faith).

It’s actually in the legislation that the federal government can give back land to the First Nations to honour treaty obligations, and that’s at the heart of this. It’s their land. The treaties are to share the wealth, and, well, we haven’t been. They have a legitimate point here and the government has an obligation to at least hear them out on this. Is that going to cause a fuss? Yeah, probably, because settler governments, particularly in provinces, particularly those who are dependent on resource revenues, are not going to want to share that wealth. But the time is coming, sooner or later, when these conversations need to be had, because economic reconciliation means more than just dangling bribes to affected First Nations when resource extraction projects happen on their lands. Not that bad faith actors like Danielle Smith, Scott Moe or Pierre Poilievre will acknowledge this reality.

Ukraine Dispatch:

In what seems to be a repeating story, Russian Wagner group mercenaries claim—again—that they control most of Bakhmut, while Ukrainian forces claim, again, that they are holding firm. Not far away in Avdiivka, it is estimated that some 1800 people are still living in the city as Russian forces pound it. There was a prisoner swap of about 200 Russians and Ukrainian soldiers on Monday. Ukraine also resumed electricity exports to Europe now that they are able to meet their domestic demand after Russia targeted their energy infrastructure late last year.

https://twitter.com/denys_shmyhal/status/1645857297955192848

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Roundup: Strange Five Eyes anxieties

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Every now and again, a weird little subplot turns up in Canadian politics centred around anxiety about our place in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance. Lately, this has been heightened because of the AUKUS agreement, which is mostly about Australia buying American nuclear submarines, and that’s the reason why Canada wasn’t invited to join. We as a country have not been having the necessary dialogue around replacing our submarine fleet (which we absolutely should be), so us joining AUKUS would be particularly ill-timed.

Nevertheless, this bit of anxiety crept up again over the weekend, whereby an American intelligence official needed to go on television in Canada to assure us that no, the leaks from national security personnel to media over allegations of foreign interference are not going to jeopardise our Five Eyes membership. But cripes, people—we have had far worse leaks in recent memory, be it Jeffrey Delisle, who was sending information to the Russians, or the allegations surrounding senior RMCP intelligence official Cameron Ortis (who is still awaiting trial). Are these leaks to the media damaging? Yes, of course, particularly because they seem very much to have a partisan focus to them. Is it going to get us kicked out of the Five Eyes? Hardly.

Ukraine Dispatch:

As Russian forces pound the town of Avdiivka, shifting away from Bakhmut, Ukrainian leadership is calling for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council after Russia said it would be transferring tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1639971295113670656

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Roundup: No actionable intelligence?

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The Globe and Mail advanced the allegations surrounding MP Han Dong last night, apparently having received the same intelligence that Global did, and asked the PMO about it two-and-a-half weeks ago. Their sources say that PMO asked for a transcript of the conversation Dong allegedly had with the Chinese consulate, and deemed there to not be enough actionable in there. It does raise further questions about the leakers, and if they are leaking to both Global and the Globe and Mail, or if their sources remain separate.

https://twitter.com/JessMarinDavis/status/1638932464839147526

Nevertheless, both outlets’ reporting lacks crucial nuance or expert checking with former intelligence officials that can provide both context or a gut check. And the fact that a transcript was provided doesn’t entirely tell us if this conversation was in English or Mandarin, and if it was in translation that could lose context or proper nuance in the language, which are all important around how we are to evaluate the allegations. And irresponsible reporting is taking us into witch-hunt territory, which is going to get ugly really fast.

https://twitter.com/chercywong/status/1638869879351808000

Meanwhile, the House of Commons voted for a motion to launch a public inquiry immediately, but it’s non-binding, and the government is waiting on recommendations from David Johnston. It was noted that Dong voted for the motion, while Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith abstained, later explaining over Twitter that he supports an inquiry but wants to wait for Johnston’s recommendations.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces are gearing up for their spring counter-offensive as Russian forces are flagging in their assault on Bakhmut, but president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is warning European allies that unless they step up weapons shipments, the war could drag on for years. Zelenskyy visited the region around Kherson, and vowed to repair the damaged Russia had caused. Here are stories of Ukrainian fighters wounded in the fighting in Bakhmut, as they repelled Russian attacks. Seventeen children previously deported to Russia have been returned to Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1638932049380745217

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Roundup: Demanding the Speaker to something he can’t

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The Liberals are no stranger to stunts, and the “poor me” stunts are some of the worst of all. With this in mind, it should be no surprise that MP Ya’ara Saks has written an open letter to the Speaker to demand apologies from Conservatives for sexist remarks, be it Michael Cooper in Committee or Rick Perkins telling Jean Yip that she deserves a participation ribbon. The problem? There’s nothing the Speaker can really do about it.

Saks didn’t cite any Standing Orders that were contravened, and the Speaker is bound to operate within the Standing Orders. Those are the rules by which he is refereeing. And for well over a generation now, the Canadian House of Commons has seen fit to effectively neuter the Speaker so that he (or she) doesn’t have much in the way of leeway in order to enforce, well, anything. Other Speakers in other Westminster parliaments have a lot more authority and latitude—Australia’s Speaker can even demand that governments answer the question when they are seen to be evasive (though this can sometimes stray into Speakers acting in potentially partisan ways). But ours? Nope—because MPs chose to have a ridiculously unempowered Speaker. The result? More of a gong show, more speaking lists, more canned speeches without any flow, and overall, an unserious Parliament, particularly in relation to our comparator countries.

And MPs could change this. But they don’t want to, so they won’t. And that is a problem.

Ukraine Dispatch:

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that his country’s military chiefs are unanimous to keep defending Bakhmut, probably because they are grinding the Russian forces down there at a fairly alarming rate. Meanwhile, the Americans are accusing the Russians of downing one of their drones over the Black Sea, which Russia denies.

https://twitter.com/yermolenko_v/status/1635649300922245120

https://twitter.com/oleksiireznikov/status/1635665484954718208

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Roundup: Poilievre’s facile budget demands

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Pierre Poilievre called a Sunday morning press conference, which is a particularly Conservative tactic that tries to set the agenda for the week, in which he made his demands around the upcoming budget. We all know that it’s pretty much set in stone by this point and is on its way to the printers, but that never stops parties from making performative demands right up until the end. To that end, Poilievre had three main demands:

  1. Bring home powerful paycheques with lower taxes, so hard work pays off again.
  2. Bring home lower prices, by ending inflationary carbon tax hikes & deficit spending that drive up inflation & interest rates.
  3. Bring homes people can afford by removing government gatekeepers to free up land and speed up building permits.

First of all, the thing he refuses to acknowledge or understand is that tax cuts fuel inflation. If he’s worried about the increasing cost of living, tax cuts won’t actually do anything meaningful, and are more likely to just add fuel to that fire. (Meanwhile, taxes aren’t going up for anyone except profitable corporations and on luxury goods). When it comes to housing prices, carbon prices are not inflationary (the Bank of Canada has cited that their effect on inflation is negligible), and deficit spending has absolutely nothing to do with either inflation or interest rates. This is a facile narrative that Poilievre keeps insisting, preferring an austerity budget that will only make the vulnerable even more precarious without government supports, but this economic message still resonates for a particular generation. Meanwhile, none of this will affect housing prices, because that is driven by a lack of supply, which is because municipalities refuse to zone for density, and because provincial governments won’t use their powers to force the issue. And that leads us to the third point, which is that the federal government has no ability to “remove gatekeepers” at the provincial or municipal level. They can’t do anything about building permits, and I am dubious that there is enough federal land that is suitable for housing developments in major cities around the country that is underutilized. I may be wrong, but this has been a perennial promise by governments for years and nothing has really moved, which leads me to believe there’s not a lot to be had.

It’s not at all surprising that Poilievre is sticking to facile and wrong budgetary narratives, but it would be great if he could actually be called out on it rather than both-sides at best, which is barely even happening. This is important stuff and we’re just shrugging it off, and focusing on more bullshit polls about people believing the Conservatives are still the better economic managers in spite of decades of proof to the contrary.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian forces have believed to have suffered more than 1100 dead in a week of battles near Bakhmut, with another 1500 wounded so badly as to be removed from the fighting. The Institute for the Study of War believes Russia’s planned advance has stalled in Bakhmut, and that the assault will be more difficult to sustain without more significant losses.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1634849209840173057

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Roundup: A caution around more nomination “safeguards”

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There has been some renewed interest in party nominations after the accusations of shenanigans in Liberal MP Han Dong’s nomination, and unsurprisingly, we get a rather tepid piece asking if we need more safeguards. There are a few things that this ignores, part of which is the history. MPs actively wanted to keep Elections Canada out of policing nominations (though they now have a bigger role in policing the funding of said contests). This is one of the reasons why the decision was made to have party leaders sign off on nominations forms—to keep Elections Canada out of the process. (That later turned into a problem of leaders using this power to blackmail members into staying in line, which was not something contemplated at the time, and yes, I did study the Hansards of those debates as part of research for my book).

The other thing that the piece missed is how parties have been monkeying with nomination processes to get their favoured candidates installed. The Samara Centre for Democracy has a great report on this (though they were a little too credulous at the NDP’s claims they always run open nominations when they don’t), and my particular caution is that more “safeguards” for nominations may very well mean a greater ability for the party or the leader’s office to monkey around or put their thumbs on the scale. Already we are in a veritable crisis where open nominations are fast disappearing behind the curtain of protected nominations for incumbents and invoking “electoral urgency” rules unnecessarily that allow the leader to just directly appoint candidates. Parties used to be robust enough to fight this kind of interference, but they are losing that ability, particularly in the Liberals, who rewrote their party constitution to centralize even more power in the leader’s office and disempower the grassroots after Trudeau became prime minister.

Should there be more safeguards? Probably. But that means returning the power to the grassroots riding associations so that they can run proper, open and transparent contests, rather than what has been happening.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces say that in spite of Russian claims, Bakhmut is not surrounded, and the fighting continues. In fact, the head of the Wagner Group mercenaries has said that their position is at risk if they can’t get more ammunition. The Ukrainains are, however, trying to evacuate the remaining civilian population, who are still there for many different reasons.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1632023670087352321

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1632403808016908288

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Roundup: A smear to precede the report

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The day began with the Globe and Mail dropping another “big scoop” of CSIS uncovering that China tried to somehow influence the prime minister by donating to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation…after Trudeau had already stepped away from its board because he was Liberal leader. And more to the point, this story is old—2016 old—with the new CSIS headline, and further down was a smear at Morris Rosenberg, who used to head the Foundation, whom the Privy Council Office chose to write the report coming out on attempts at interference in the last election. And it was absolutely a smear, and the Globe was simply parroting a Conservative attack. It’s also worth noting that Stephen Harper had appointed Rosenberg to be the deputy minister of foreign affairs, so these attacks are all the more unseemly. (For more on these leaks, check these threads from Jessica Davis and Stephanie Carvin, which provide a lot of context to these stories and why they’re not treating intelligence properly.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1630578153277071366

Much later in the day, Rosenberg’s report was released, and in it, he relayed that the task force monitoring the election found that while there were attempts at influence, including the misinformation around Conservative incumbent Kenny Chiu, but nothing rose to the level of actual concern in the panel’s estimation. Rosenberg makes sixteen recommendations, some of them around increasing transparency including providing unclassified briefings, and extending some monitoring to the pre-writ period (which can be tricky because so-called “fixed” election dates are rarely that, nor should they be). It’s also worth noting that there were also concerns raised about domestic disinformation (much of it around COVID) and rising threats of anti-government violence, which the task force made note of and could require adjustments to the protocols in order to better deal with it.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Things in Bakhumut are getting bad, as Russians are destroying anything that can be used for cover or defensive positions, and president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has admitted that they may have no choice but to pull back so as not to simply cost lives for the sake of it. Ukrainian aircraft did launch three strikes on areas of concentration of Russian forces. Meanwhile, Russian television stations and radio were hacked as a string of drone attacks hit near St. Petersburg. (Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the incident).

https://twitter.com/imurniece/status/1630240144145129472

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1630685523978203136

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