Tag Archives: Justin Trudeau

Roundup: Summer showboat season has begun

Posted on by

It’s day one-hundred-and-forty-three of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and a missile strike in the more central city of Vinnystia killed a four-year-old disabled girl, which was used by president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and others to demand that Russia be declared a state sponsor of terrorism as a result. There have been other strikes in Dnipro, near the centre of the country, and in Mykolaiv, which is closer to the front lines in the south. CBC has a video of the week in the war here.

Ukraine, meanwhile, is preparing a counteroffensive in the south, particularly to reclaim Kherson, which is a strategic objective that could give them control of the region, including of giving them the ability to strike Russian positions in Crimea. The fact that the Ukrainians have now accepted delivery of the American HIMARS rocket system is giving them a new advantage over the Russians, and could turn the campaign, which is in a “grinding” phase of attrition currently. There have been no Russian advances in the east part of the country for over a week now, so the supposition that Russia needs time to regroup seems to be proving true.

Closer to home, summer showboat—err, committee season has begun, with two emergency meetings yesterday, being the foreign affairs committee, and the industry committee. In the former, they have committee agreed to meet over the summer to discuss the return of those gas turbines to Germany, and will call ministers to testify. The latter used the day to plan meetings on the Rogers outage, where they plan to call ministers, Rogers executives, and the CRTC, and you can bet that MPs from all parties are planning who their best performers on camera will be in order to give some outrage and sanctimony clips that they can then use for shitposts and fundraisers. Because that’s what our Parliament has devolved to.

Continue reading →

Roundup: An “adult conversation” consisting solely of a demand for cash

Posted on by

It’s now day one-hundred-and-thirty-nine of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the Russians have resumed pounding the city of Kharkiv, destroying civilian buildings. The Russian government is trying to fast-track giving Russian citizenship to all Ukrainians, an attempt to exert more influence over the country. Meanwhile, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is calling out Canada’s decision to return those gas turbines to Russia by way of Germany, saying that Russia will interpret this as a sign of weakness that Russia will try to exploit, and he’s not wrong, but one wonders if there may not be a greater danger in alienating Germany as they are already facing rationing. For what it’s worth, the US State Department is backing Canada’s decision, but this situation was very much a Kobayashi Maru.

Closer to home, the Council of the Federation got underway yesterday, and of course the opening salvos were about healthcare funding, without strings attached. BC Premier John Horgan, who is currently the chair of the Council, was dismissive about the federal government’s concerns, calling them “accounting differences,” when Dominic LeBlanc called them out for their misleading figures about the current transfers, and the fact that several provinces are crying poor while simultaneously bragging about surpluses that they paid for with federal pandemic dollars, of the fact that Quebec is sending vote-buying cheques out to people ahead of their election. And LeBlanc is absolutely right—there need to be strings to ensure that provinces won’t use that money to pad their bottom line, reduce their own spending, or lower taxes, because they’ve all done it in the past. The best part is that Horgan keeps saying he wants an “adult conversation,” but the only thing the premiers are bringing to the table is a demand for more money, and that’s it. That’s not an adult conversation. (For more, the National Post took a dive into the issue, and came out with a fairly decent piece that includes the actual history of transfers, tax points, and provinces who spent those health care transfers on other things).

There will be a few other things discussed, and there’s a primer here about them. Jason Kenney wants to spend the premiers meeting pushing back at the federal emissions reduction targets, because of course he does.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Stampede politicking in full swing

Posted on by

We’re now on or about day one-hundred-and-thirty-eight of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and there are reports that Russian reservists are starting to assemble near the border for a future offensive. There have been rocket attacks against the eastern city of Chasiv Yar, in the Donetsk region. Civilian evacuatiosn are underway in parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, as the shelling continues in the eastern part of the country. Meanwhile, a cohort of Ukrainians has arrived in the UK for combat training in an attempt to more rapidly turn civilians into soldiers.

Canada has been in the middle of a dispute over a gas turbine undergoing repairs here, for the Nord Stream One pipeline from Russia to Germany. Germany has been trying to urge our government to return the turbine, while Ukraine wanted us to withhold it as a part of Russian sanctions. In the end, the Canadian government opted to return the turbine, but put more sanctions on Russia, though the decision came with much criticism from Ukrainian officials.

Closer to home, it’s Stampede time in Calgary, which has become a major political event over the years. Justin Trudeau attended the Stampede yesterday, and was mobbed by supporters, while a single person yelling “traitor” was escorted out. For Conservatives, this has been one of the hallmarks events for their leadership contest, and of course, Pierre Poilievre has been the darling of the event, touted as “more Albertan than Stephen Harper and Jason Kenney,” seeing as he was actually raised there unlike the other two. Others were not so lucky—Jean Charest was booed at the event, which is not a surprising in the “Conservative heartland” given that he’s from Quebec. Just more of Alberta’s childish politics of resentment that Poilievre is playing into.

https://twitter.com/R_Boissonnault/status/1546307252696805376

Continue reading →

Roundup: Papering over party divisions

Posted on by

It’s day one-hundred-and-twenty-four of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Severodonestk has fallen, mostly pounded into rubble the way that Mariupol was. Up next for Russian forces is across the river, to the city of Lysychansk, where they are now trying to once again encircle Ukrainian forces, while more civilians try to evacuate the area. Emboldened, Russians have also fired missiles again at Kyiv, killing at least one person. This is likely seen as a warning as NATO leaders are gathering early this week to reaffirm support for Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1541103194184601601

Closer to home, all does not sound well in the Conservative caucus. Last week, in her blog post announcing she wouldn’t be running to lead the UCP, Michelle Rempel Garner noted that:

…in both parties there have also been squabbles that have erupted in the pages of national media, public meltdowns, nearly missed physical fights, coups, smear jobs, leaked recordings and confidential emails, lack of consensus on critical issues, caucus turfings, people harassed to the point where they resign roles, and hours long meetings where members have been subjected to hours of public castigation. There have been heated exchanges to get basic concerns addressed, unjustified insularity in decision making, shunnings, exclusionary cliques and more.

So of course, over the weekend, Candice Bergen was asked about this, and while she refused to say anything about it to the Star, she denied this was the case to CTV, seeming to imply that Rempel Garner is either making it up, or is “experiencing things differently.” Bergen is also talking a big game about party unity, and is going to spend Canada Day in Halifax with Peter MacKay, for some inexplicable reason, as though this makes a point about party unity. (Remember, MacKay was never really a Red Tory, given that he voted in lockstep with Stephen Harper on everything, and couldn’t vote for socially progressive issues when other former Red Tories would). Bergen is also denying that she has any safety concerns, and seems to pin blame for the level of harassment that MPs are facing onto Justin Trudeau because he made people get vaccinated, and called out far-right extremists for what they are.

Also over the weekend, former Conservative Senate den mother leader Marjorie LeBreton emerged to voice her concerns about the direction the party is heading in, particularly around their support for the occupation, which erodes their credibility as a law-and-order party. She’s so incensed about Poilievre’s support for the occupation that she resigned from her position as a member of his riding association over it, and worries that the party may be “fracturing beyond repair.” None of this is painting a promising picture of a party that Bergen is insisting nothing is wrong in, but perhaps she is not the most credible source for what his happening behind closed doors, because it’s not in her interest to tell the truth about it.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Reverberations north of the border

Posted on by

We’re now in day one-hundred-and-twenty-two of Russia’s invasion of Ukriane, and it looks like the battle for Severodonestk is ending as Ukrainian forces are withdrawing before they are completely encircled. That means Russians are now advancing on its twin city of Lysychansk, across the river, which will secure hold on the Luhansk province. More heavy American weaponry is arriving, but we’ll see if it’s enough to change the balance.

Closer to home, there was a lot of reaction in Canada to the US Supreme Court overturning the Roe v Wade decision, which essentially re-criminalises abortions in many states. Conservative leadership candidate Leslyn Lewis was quick to jump on it to encourage an “adult conversation” about it in Canada, which apparently involves abortion doctors being mind-readers and taking away these rights from women in other countries. (Other Conservative leadership candidates, including Pierre Poilievre, have reiterated that they are pro-choice). There are also a bunch of voices, some of whom are concern trolling, others of whom are genuinely clueless, who point out that Justin Trudeau hasn’t done anything to enshrine abortion rights in the constitution, which is a) dumb, and b) counter-productive as it actually plays into the hands of anti-abortionists who would use the opportunity to introduce limits. Yes, Trudeau has promised more about access, and he has tasked both ministers Duclos and Ien with consultations on adding regulations to the Canada Health Act around abortion access, but that’s not something that can happen overnight, as there is a process for regulation, and as we have long established, putting strings on healthcare funding for provinces is touchy business. But provinces are where the fight is in Canada, because they control access.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1540380879519875073

There was also a number of news programmes yesterday which ran interviews with anti-abortionists in a completely uncritical fashion, allowing them to frame the conversation in their usual bullshit terms, and getting only the most minor pushback to some of their claims of popular support for their cause. These kinds of uncritical interviews are key to how misinformation and disinformation is spread through the media, because they have no capacity to do anything other than both-sides the issue, which again, allows misinformation and disinformation to spread because it isn’t challenged. We are fully in the age of disinformation, and our media outlets have learned absolutely nothing about how to deal with it, and yesterday was case in point about that.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Allegations of political interference amidst other errors and omissions

Posted on by

It’s now around day one-hundred-and-nineteen of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and while the fighting continues at Severodonetsk, the people of Kharkiv are emerging from the subways and underground shelters they were in when Russian forces bombarded their city, and are finding so much of it shelled and burned. Meanwhile, we’re learning more about the Ukrainian helicopter pilots who were flying rescue missions from the steel plant in Mariupol, getting some of the wounded soldiers to safety.

Closer to home, allegations emerged from documents made public in the mass shooting inquiry in Nova Scotia that a superintendent’s notes said that RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki said she felt she had been disobeyed because he had not released any information about the weapons used, citing that she had promised PMO and Public Safety the information because it was tied to pending gun control legislation, while he said he didn’t want to release it because it would interfere in their investigation into how the weapons were acquired. In a separate interview, the director of communications for the Nova Scotia RCMP was expressing frustration that Lucki’s statements did not match what the department was putting out, and blamed that on political interference. The government immediately denied having made any orders or applied any pressure, and Lucki put out a statement a few hours later which she too denied interfering, but said she should have been more sensitive in her approach to the meeting.

This, of course, touched off a round of outrage and insistence that if the allegations of interference were true that there would need to be heads rolling, but I will confess to having a hard time sorting through this, because what I’ve read of these same documents shows a lot of errors and omissions in the statements the RCMP was putting out, and there is an imperative for RCMP brass and the government to have details and facts that the media are demanding from them. And the RCMP in the province seem to have been self-satisfied that they were putting out false or misleading information throughout the event, which is hard for the Commissioner or the government to deal with when they know there are other facts that aren’t being released. Was there an element of crassness in wanting to know what kinds of weapons were used? I mean, it sounds like it was a legitimate question that media would be asking, so it’s hard to say. I will say that the demands for an emergency committee meeting is unlikely to solve anything more than what we’ve already learned from all involved, and that this is just an excuse for more theatrics at the start of summer that Conservatives want to be able to fundraise off of, but they’ll probably get their wish because all MPs can’t resist putting on a show—especially if it gets unhinged as these meetings inevitably will.

Continue reading →

Roundup: An apology for Zoom—but not for why you think

Posted on by

It’s now on or about day one-hundred-and-thirteen of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and it looks like Severodonetsk has not fallen, and lo, the promised humanitarian corridor did not happen. (This is my surprised face). Russians did shell a weapons depot near Lviv in the western part of the country, where Western munitions were allegedly stored. Meanwhile, civilians in areas where Russian forces were repelled are being faced with mines, which are killing and maiming people. Canada will be sending $9 million worth of barrel replacements for the howitzers we shipped to Ukraine earlier in the year, while Anita Anand is calling on the defence industry to be more responsive.

Closer to home, there was an interesting apology in the Senate on Tuesday, which was when Senator Rosa Galvez apologised for having attended a committee meeting over Zoom from out of the country. You see, the Senate adopted rules around their hybrid sittings where they must be at a designated office or residence, and that’s it. There is a sad history in the Senate of abuse going back decades were certain senators basically lived in Mexico and showed up for one day a year, and collected their base salary, and it was a scandal. Since then attendance records are made public and they essentially couldn’t get away with it any longer. (I remember after an earthquake, I went to the Hill just after it happened, and while senators were gathered on the lawn, they were keen to ensure that the person who recorded their attendance saw that yes indeed, they were present even though they were out of the Chamber at the moment it happened and the building was evacuated, because they take it seriously). Regardless, this senator says she was caught up in wanting to do her committee work while she was at the Summit of the Americas, which is commendable in a way, but also shows some of the dangers of this reliance on hybrid sittings in that it creates a new obligation of presenteeism.

Meanwhile, over in the West Block, voting was suspended for a few minutes yesterday afternoon because there was a problem with the voting app that MPs use, and once again, this is a problem with how hybrid sittings are operating. I’ve already written about how this creates a new standard of perfect attendance which is a problem for all involved, but we’re already seeing a greater move for MPs and ministers who are in town not sticking around in the Chamber, but taking off and voting by app, and this is going to have profound consequences the longer it goes on. Votes were one of the few times when ministers could reliably be found in the Chamber, and backbenchers and opposition members could buttonhole them about pressing issues. If they take off as soon as votes are about to start because they think it’s easier to press a button (and have their faces recognised), then we’re straying dangerously far from one of the core symbolic elements of our parliamentary democracy. This should be killed with fire, along with the hybrid sittings, as soon as possible.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Running out of patience on procedural warfare

Posted on by

It’s day one-hundred-and-eleven of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russian forces have destroyed the final bridge connecting Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, which cuts off the escape route for other civilians in the region. In echoes of the siege of Mariupol, there are allegedly people sheltering below a chemical plant, and Russians are telling those trapped in Severodonetsk to surrender or die. This is giving urgency to the calls for western governments to hurry up with their deliveries of heavy weapons in order to force Russians back. Elsewhere, more mass graves have been found near Bucha, and exhumations have begun. Here is a look at the network helping to transport vulnerable elderly Ukrainians out of the conflict zones toward safer destinations further west.

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1536273801599672321

Closer to home, there are eight scheduled sitting days left in the House of Commons before the summer break, and the government is trying to move on several key pieces of legislation in the face of Conservative obstruction. While the bill to preserve Quebec’s seat count is likely to pass with little issue, Conservatives continue to fight the bill to remove mandatory minimum sentences, and the changes to the broadcasting rules to include online platforms. The Commons spent the day moving a programming motion on the online bill that includes mandating that it finishes up at committee by the end of the week, while the Conservatives decry this as draconian and undemocratic, and so on. They’ve completely ground the progress of the bill to a halt at committee, and are insisting they need to hear from more witnesses, never mind that they have wasted the time of the witnesses who have tried to appear by filibustering on procedural issues. Also never mind that they would not tolerate the same level of obstruction when they were in government, where they simply time allocated everything from the start rather than negotiate timelines. Of course, that’s the thing about procedural warfare, is that eventually something has to give, and seeing as the Liberals have the support of the NDP, their patience has run out. Nobody is acting responsibly here, and it’s just one giant gong show at this point. Perhaps eight more days is too long.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Just who is lacking in self-awareness?

Posted on by

It’s day one-hundred-and-ten of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russian forces have destroyed a bridge liking Severodonetsk with its twin city of Lysychansk, which cuts off a possible escape route for civilians fleeting Severodonetsk. Street-by-street fighting continues in that city. Meanwhile, here’s a look at the uneasy state that inhabitants of Kyiv find themselves in at this juncture of the war. Elsewhere, two UK citizens and one Moroccan fighting on Ukraine’s behalf has been captured and given an illegal show trial by the so-called separatist government in Donetsk, and has been sentenced to death, creating an international outcry.

https://twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1535918133801889799

Closer to home, I’ve seen a few conservatives sharing a two-minutes video of Justin Trudeau talking with what I presume to be a radio or podcast that he appeared on while in California last week, talking about how there has been a backsliding of democracy around the world because it’s hard and takes work, and you have people who are offering simple solutions and stirring up hate against other groups to achieve their ends. While these conservatives seem to think that Trudeau lacks self-awareness here, I suspect that they are the ones who need to look in the mirror. Trudeau is not saying that the solution to the problems are to “fire the gatekeepers,” or the governor of the Bank of Canada, while making contradictory statements about the housing market. Are the current Liberal policies getting it done? Some of them, but I struggle to think of some simple solutions he’s offering for complex problems. I’m also not sure who they think he’s stirring up divisions against, unless they think that the unvaccinated are an identifiable minority whose rights need to be protected (they made a choice and get to live with the consequences of that choice), or that because he said mean things about the coalition of far-right extremists, grifters, conspiracy theorists and grievances tourists who occupied downtown Ottawa for three weeks that somehow he’s the monster (and if these conservatives want to go to bat for that crowd, then they should do so honestly and not whitewash just who those occupiers were, pretending that this was some kind of class warfare). And while I don’t have a great deal of affection for Trudeau, and think that he’s really his own worst enemy, he’s not wrong in what he says in that clip, and if conservatives think that he’s somehow talking about himself, they should give their heads a shake.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Lessons to be learned, and hopefully soon

Posted on by

It’s day one-hundred-and-eight of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the fighting continues around Severodonetsk. For the people of the city, they can see what happens when they fall under Russian control—in Mariupol, which has fallen, the remaining residents are dealing with the fact that sanitation has broken down, and corpses are being left to rot, which means there has been an outbreak of dysentery and cholera. Meanwhile, it looks like Russia’s move is to attempt to keep the fighting going on for long enough for the West to lose interest, at which point they can push for Ukraine to make territorial concessions, which Ukraine has no interest in doing.

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1535149890950643712

Closer to home, some of the official counts from the Ontario election have been released, and it’s disrupted a whole lot of narratives, particularly around the notion that it was vote-splitting that sunk the NDP’s chances. Nope—in the vast majority of ridings, the Conservatives won by a margin larger than both the Liberals and NDP votes combined. And yes, I know it’s easier to blame the other guy than looking at your own abysmal performance, but come on. Full thread from Mike Moffatt here, and some additional commentary from Hunter Knifton on the Liberal loss here.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1535296477202993154

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1535307246028087297

https://twitter.com/hunterknifton/status/1535323152963837953

Meanwhile, Scott Reid (not the MP, the other one) calls out the Toronto Star editorial board’s assumptions that Pierre Poilievre is just putting on a show that he’ll moderate once he wins the leadership. Reid doesn’t believe he will, and I suspect he’s right. Full thread here, but some highlights. As to whether the Liberals can let go of their happy-clappy pabulum and take this threat seriously, I have some serious doubts, which should worry everyone.

https://twitter.com/_scottreid/status/1535267527139418113

https://twitter.com/_scottreid/status/1535267532449501184

https://twitter.com/_scottreid/status/1535267544935845889

Continue reading →