Tag Archives: Justin Trudeau

Roundup: Aspirational job targets

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Stephen Harper’s election pledge du jour was a target of 1.3 million net new jobs by 2020, which sounds terribly impressive, but if you listen to the economists talk about it, there are a few caveats. Of course, we should note first that really, government’s don’t create jobs as such, but they can provide the environment that is conducive to investment and hiring. The question for Harper really is a) how many of these jobs would be created regardless of whatever you do, and b) what measures exactly are you proposing to create these jobs, considering that it’s becoming ever more clear that we’re moving into an era of really low growth. And no, just signing trade agreements isn’t enough, nor is just lowering taxes and calling it a day. The Conservatives asked Mike Moffatt and Kevin Milligan to check their figures, and both say that sure, it’s plausible – but it’s going to depend on strong global growth, immigration, and older workers staying in the workforce longer (as in not retiring). Mike Moffatt gives his analysis here, while Milligan (and others) have tweeted their comments.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/646353978452668416

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Roundup: Globe Debate debacle

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The big “economic debate” was last night, hosted by the Globe and Mail, and well, it wasn’t exactly edifying on any account. The moderator was also commenting, he rushed segments so the leaders were alternating between slow points and rushing through, and then there was the shouting and the non sequiturs. And what non sequiturs they were – I’m not sure what C-51 had to do with taxation, but Thomas Mulcair brought it up anyway. Truth be told, much of the “debate” was leaders trying to go down their talking point and catchphrase checklists. Alas. Kady O’Malley offers advice for future single-issue debates, while Drake Fenton gives an ode to the moderator’s bell/egg timer. Reaction from the Citizen’s pundit panel, Paul Wells, and Micheal Den Tandt.

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Roundup: Uncomfortable tax truths

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It’s one of those funny things that happen during campaigns, when one leader tells an uncomfortable truth about an issue, and the other leaders rush to condemn him or her about it. In this particular incidence, it was Justin Trudeau telling Peter Manbridge that he was less keen on a blanket reduction in small business taxes than he was in tweaking the system, because a “large percentage” of those small businesses are wealthy Canadians using those businesses to pay less tax. And he’s absolutely right about it – particularly after changes were made to the system a few years ago that basically turned it into an income-splitting mechanism for some particularly wealthy Canadians. The Conservatives and NDP, however, are outraged, as they are promising small business tax cuts, the NDP going so far as to demand that Trudeau apologise for “smearing” small businesses – except that they don’t have the facts on their side. The Canadian Press’ Baloney Meter™ checked out Trudeau’s statement, and found it to be true, with minor quibbles about the meaning of “large percentage.” (Trudeau seems to be relying on the studies that say that up to 60 percent of small business filers are problematic). There is also the added contention that another good percentage of these filers aren’t actually job creators, like the Conservatives and NDP keep saying – mom and pop shops aren’t, for example. Economist Kevin Milligan delves further into the issue, and notes that Quebec has been making changes to their small business tax laws to ensure that companies have at least three full-time employees to be eligible – thus ensuring that it’s a “ job creator” and not a couple splitting income or a mom-and-pop shop that has no intention of hiring someone else. It is a problem that needs fixing and not platitudes, and it’s good that at least one leader sees fit to recognise that fact, and has so far stood up for it despite the heat he’s taking.

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Roundup: Scaling back on tax promises

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With a boatload of spending promises but almost no details in how he plans to pay for the, Thomas Mulcair appears to be scaling back on how much of that shortfall he plans to make up by raising corporate income taxes because as he’s quickly learning, that’s not going to raise all that much money. He also likes to use the phrase “making different choices like cancelling income splitting,” but that’s also maybe a couple of billion, which isn’t going to pay for a whole lot. It also seems to me that by pushing back a number of promises, like the childcare spaces, to full implementation some eight years down the road, it seems to indicate a theory that economic growth is on the way, and soon there will be plenty to fill the coffers. That ignores the fact that a) the projected surpluses depend on continued austerity, which the NDP keep promising to reverse, and b) economists are starting to warn that this slow growth may be the new normal and not just a hangover from the last financial crisis. With no plans to create economic growth coming from any of the parties, it’s going to be uncomfortable trying to come up with promises for major spending plans while maintaining balanced budgets, like they also plan. (And yes, the Liberals still have their own costing figures to produce as well). What the corporate tax piece doesn’t mention are the NDP plans to tax stock options, which economist Kevin Milligan has questions about:

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/635570314882125824

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On the campaign:

  • Stephen Harper announced yet another boutique tax credit, this time for membership dues of service organizations. Also, he’s not changing his limited questions policy.
  • Justin Trudeau sent a letter to Quebec premier Philippe Couillard outlining his desire to be a “true partner” of the provinces.
  • The Liberals are expected to announce a major policy around veterans’ benefits today.
  • Here’s a recap of last week on the campaign.

Good reads:

  • The Ontario government disputes Mulcair’s claim that they support his childcare policy because they don’t have enough information about how it will be funded.
  • Apparently we rank fairly low among OECD countries for public pensions.
  • Here’s a video comparison of the three parties’ childcare benefit promises.
  • Here’s a fact-check of Trudeau’s flexible work hours announcement (spoiler: It won’t amount to much).
  • Christopher Curtis offers a portrait of Trudeau on the campaign trail.
  • Aaron Wherry muses about the issues of control and how that erupted into the ClusterDuff mess.

Odds and ends:

As part of their announcement to protect BC salmon, the Conservatives used a picture of an Atlantic salmon. *slow clap*

Here’s a bit of Ottawa history related to our first general election.

Scott Feschuk gives us his take on the election to date.

Roundup: Delving into Wright’s emails

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Nothing too explosive in the Duffy trial yesterday, but more those emails from Monday are certainly creating a bit of a stir, showing the PMO ignored the scandal for the first while, how Harper’s lawyer ended up disagreeing with Harper on the residency questions, and how Duffy didn’t want to repay anything because it would have made him look guilty, which he certainly didn’t think he was. Most of those players in the emails are still around Harper today. Incidentally, Pamela Wallin’s travel claims also come up in the emails. Andrew Coyne meanwhile has sorted through them and come to a conclusion on his own, so I’ll let him:

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/631986747455471616

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Roundup: Bemoaning members’ statements

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Over in the National Post, Tristin Hopper despairs at how much of Hansard is taken up by ridiculous and ultimately meaningless members’ statements, not to mention the plethora of petitions. And while the notion of members’ statements used to be kind of sweet and noble, it’s largely degenerated into a daily dumpster fire in the Commons, with a handful of feel-good statements followed by a number of increasingly nasty partisan attacks. Petitions, however ridiculous many may be, is a measure of political engagement so we shouldn’t discount them just yet – and we’re about to see a whole bunch more of them now that they’re going to all electronic petitions. Hopper suggests we follow the European example and put Members’ Statements at the end of the day. I tweeted some thoughts on that.

Bottom line: Pretty much all of Parliament is terrible right now with speeches because we’re electing a cohort who has largely lost the ability to think for themselves on their feet, whose greatest skill now is reciting the lines that are given to them. (Not all are like this, but most are, and I will note that the Liberals seem to be the least scripted from the leaders’ office these days). While I can sympathise with Hopper, it’s not the rules that are the problem – it’s the fact that we have apparently stopped valuing MPs who can speak or think for themselves in favour of ciphers for the leader.

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Roundup: Stability versus change

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As Stephen Harper made his big annual Stampede speech to the party faithful over the weekend, a couple of familiar themes emerged – security and stability, versus a shambolic European-style economic calamity and open season by “jihadist terrorists.” Because there’s nothing like cartoonish hyperbole to get people all excited, or a slogan like “choose security over risk.” The problem would seem to be that Harper might not have been paying too much attention to his own record, or the expert opinion on what he has done. You know, like pretending that the economy is going just fine, thanks, and that oil prices are going to rebound sooner than later. Or the expert commentary from his own security agencies who said that all of the new powers that they were given weren’t actually necessary or able to stop lone-wolf attacks like we saw in October, nor does he give them the resources they’re asking for, but rather letting them just reassign all of their people from combating organised crime to fighting terrorism instead. How is that working out for everyone? All of which to say is that it makes the case for four more years of the same to be one where people should be asking him some tougher questions – that is, assuming that he’ll take questions from the media, and that they won’t waste their questions asking about hockey. Again. Of course, the competing visions are “good competent public administration” and “Real Change™,” so we’ll see which message takes hold among the public imagination, but changing up governments every decade or so is a good and necessary thing in our political system, which makes the case for another mandate to be tougher to ask for and probably drives the cartoonish hyperbole. Will people buy it remains the question.

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Roundup: And now the environmental policy

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Justin Trudeau was out in Vancouver yesterday to unveil the next plank in his party’s platform, filling out his previous environmental proposal to sit down with the provinces to allow them to collectively come up with a climate plan in the short time between the election and the Paris climate conference in December. Trudeau’s new announcements included phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, putting more money into clean tech jobs, restoring the environmental assessment process and adding more teeth to the National Energy Board and its review processes, increasing the amount of protected coastal areas, and cancelling fees at national parks in 2017 to celebrate Canada’s 150th anniversary. Overall, his message was that there will be a price on carbon if the Liberals form government. Predictably, the Conservatives came out with cries of “carbon tax!” while the NDP rolled their eyes and muttered about vague targets with no actual named carbon price. Paul Wells notes that one really can’t criticise Trudeau for being devoid of policy any longer, and that it may force voters to give him and his party a second look.

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Roundup: The Reform Act makes everything worse

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On a vote of 38 to 14, with four abstentions, Michael Chong’s Reform Act passed third reading in the Senate last night, despite a couple of late attempts at amendments that were designed to essentially kill the bill. MPs who bullied senators into passing the bill – Chong included, never mind that he wants them to kill a different bill he doesn’t agree with – were jubilant over social media, but they all seem oblivious to the fact that they’ve just undermined their own stated goals in passing this bill. I’ve written on the subject numerous times – here, here, here, here and here, and long story short is that it won’t actually remove the power of the leader to veto nominations because it doesn’t stop the leader from just giving his chief-of-staff that power, and instead of giving caucus the power to remove a problematic leader, it insulates that leader by creating a high enough bar that any MP who grows enough of a spine to go public will face a media that demands the names of the twenty percent of other rebellious MPs, and any opposition will crumble. Oh, and our current broken system of unaccountable presidentialised leadership selections are now being codified into legislation because we really want to make sure that we really break our system of Westminster democracy well and truly while patting ourselves on the back for “modest reforms.” It’s not reform, and I can guarantee that we will live to regret it, like we have every other “reform” attempt that has inevitably made our system worse off. Congratulations, 41st Parliament – you’ve done an ace job in making things worse. Slow clap.

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Roundup: Half-assing discussions on the Senate

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With all of the recent attention on the Senate lately, there has been no shortage of columns and think-pieces about the institution, calls for its abolition, and the conflation of a host of issues under the banner of “scandal” writ large, all senators painted with the brush of criminality, all of the expense issues flagged by the Auditor General treated as outright graft, and now with the accusations against Senator Don Meredith of sexual impropriety with a teenager, the institution itself seems to bear the blame. Never mind that elected officials are often caught misspending or engaging in inappropriate behaviour (there is a reason why the Commons Clerk has a conversation with the female pages at the beginning of every session). Add to the pile is the weekend longread in the Ottawa Citizen about what to do with the problem of the Senate. And for as much as it was a noble effort, it fell apart rather quickly on a number of fronts. For one, for a piece of its length, it relied on astonishingly few sources – one retiring Conservative senator who is engaged in a campaign of self-serving legacy-building, one who has already retired, the same political scientist that every reporter goes to for a quote, and one more lesser-known political scientist to push back against a few of the claims. That’s not a lot for a fairly complex issue. Much of the article is taken up by the fixation on a referendum on Senate abolition, be it from Hugh Segal’s outright bizarre notion that it could somehow give the institution legitimacy if it were rejected, to the usual nonsense that it will somehow spur premiers to action. Completely absent from the self-awareness of any of these arguments is the fundamental concept that one of the Senate’s very primary purposes was to protect the interests of minority provinces – to say that referendum result can somehow wipe away those very real interests is a complete betrayal of the principles of a liberal democracy which is supposed to mediate against the harms of mob rule. The piece also makes boneheaded statements like the composition of the Senate over-representing smaller provinces – which was the whole point, to have a system of regional representation that was not bound to representation-by-population. The Senate’s model of equal regions was designed to counter the rep-by-pop of the Commons, and the inability for people to grasp this simple fact is gob smacking. Nowhere in any discussion of reform are the reasons the Senate was structured the way it was – to provide institutional independence against the reprisals of a government they push back against. Accusations of ineffectiveness are mired in the recent past as opposed to a broader look at times when the Senate has less deferential, nor does it look at reasons why it’s in a deferential state right now (hint: the manner in which the current Prime Minister made his selections). And the issue of the lack of seriousness by which successive prime ministers have taken their appointment powers is not explored at all, when it is probably the most important part of the discussion about what to do about the Senate. If we’re going to have a discussion about the Senate, then let’s be serious about it. Half-assed attempts like this don’t help the conversation.

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