While everyone’s attention was on the election south of the border, things got underway in the House of Commons for our own (superior) system of democracy. Erin O’Toole led off, script on mini-lectern and quoted Pierre Elliott Trudeau about the importance of free speech, to which Justin Trudeau rebutted that Canada always stands up for freedom of expression. O’Toole demanded to know if the PM stands up for freedom of speech, and Trudeau responded that nothing justifies violence or terrorism. O’Toole tried again, and Trudeau was even more forceful in his defence of free speech than the previous two times, without any of the equivocation that was being called out after this comments last week. O’Toole switched to French and recounted how the French president called the Quebec premier, and chided Trudeau on not getting a similar call, to which Trudeau repeated that they always stand up for free speech and will stand against terrorism and violence. O’Toole again brought up Trudeau’s father, and Trudeau reiterated for the fifth time that they unequivocally defend free expression and denounce terrorism. Yves-François Blanchet led off for the Bloc and he carried on with the same question, accusing Trudeau of twisting himself into knots over it, to which Trudeau again reiterated that they will always defend freedom of expression. Blanchet was not mollified, and they went for another round of the same. Jagmeet Singh was up next and in French, asked about flu vaccine supplies — orders for which is once again a provincial responsibility. Trudeau responded that they ordered more than usual, and it was good that more people were getting it. Singh tried again in English, to which Trudeau reiterated that they preordered more than usual, and that they would work with the provinces to get more.
Tag Archives: Justin Trudeau
Roundup: A gesture toward pettiness
There are a lot of symbolic gestures that politicians do that I cannot abide, but one of the most obnoxious and corrosive ones is the insistence on cutting their own pay when times get tough – and lo and behold, we have an Ontario senator who is moving a motion to do just that, asking both MPs and Senators to forgo statutory pay increases (to meet inflation) as a gesture. This is not really a symbolic or empty gesture – it is a signal to populist impulses that serve to devalue public life, and treats what they do as somehow being less valuable than people in the private sector – which is ironic considering how much less MPs and senators make than professionals and executives in the private sector.
Without entirely relitigating what I wrote on this before, I wanted to point out some of the fairly offensive characterizations of such gestures that were in the National Post piece, which describes the gesture as “important” for private sector and low-income workers, and the usual suspects at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation trying to insist that politicians aren’t making sacrifices when people are losing their businesses.
The problem with this line of logic is that these gestures don’t do anything. If anything, they come with a dose of schadenfreude, that if I’m suffering then watching politicians or civil servants being forced to suffer as well is satisfying, even if it ultimately makes things worse overall. What good does it serve to make everyone miserable or worse off? How does that make the situation better for everyone? It doesn’t. There are enough trade-offs that go with public life or public service that often make it a fairly unappealing to many people, so why pile on? Pettiness won’t solve the economic crisis or make people’s businesses reopen, and it certainly won’t make COVID go away, so why indulge it?
Roundup: Flirting with unconstitutional legislation
The bill to mandate sexual assault training for judges was a bad idea from the start, when Rona Ambrose first tabled it years ago, and the current iteration that this government is putting forward is little better, especially now that MPs have decided they need to start amending it to add other things. While Ambrose’s initial bill was blatantly unconstitutional (that the Commons passed on a whim because of the political syllogism: Something needs to be done, this is something, therefore we must do this), and needed to be gutted in the Senate to make it acceptable, the current version was more or less acceptable (barring one or two possible issues), but it seems that MPs want to make it blatantly unconstitutional again.
I see the Greens are flirting with making the training bill for judges unconstitutional again… #cdnlaw #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/DGBfd64Qf6
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) October 27, 2020
Former Supreme Court of Canada executive legal officer Gib van Ert warned back in February that this bill would be an invitation to demand that judges take training in other areas than just sexual assault, and lo and behold, we are there, with demands for the “social context of systemic racism.”
https://twitter.com/btaplatt/status/1321246603781570560
van Ert makes the point that if judges need to be seen as independent, then bills like this, where politicians appear to be giving them marching orders, is a bad look and will undermine the justice system. But since when to populist impulses consider the consequences of their actions? They don’t.
Roundup: Self-harm by way of platitude
I try not to make a habit of re-litigating my Twitter disputes in this space, but in this particular case, I find it’s a perfect illustration of how this government’s inability to communicate its way out of a wet paper bag, and why that harms them. To wit: A Global News piece declares that Trudeau won’t commit to ending boil-water advisories on First Nations by 2021 as is the current promise. It uses the recent evacuation at Neskatanga First Nation as an illustration of problems with boil-water advisories. It quotes Trudeau giving a bland talking point about “more work to do,” and way down at the bottom of the story is reference to the fact that in Neskatanga, not only has money been approved and delivered, but the new water treatment facility is nearly completed construction.
Headline: Trudeau is breaking his promise!
Bottom of the story: The money had not only been allocated, but the project is under construction now and nearly complete.
Come on, guys. https://t.co/rkgLri0Jzc pic.twitter.com/yBJaepOviD— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) October 24, 2020
So why is this a problem for the government? Because if they had the slightest bit of candour, they could have explained that capital projects like these take time, particularly in the kinds of remote and fly-in communities like these particular First Nations. Twitter is filled with people who are seriously asking why the government hasn’t solved these issues if they’re showering money around, without having the slightest clue about what he actual problems with these boil water advisories are, and accustomed to situations where they can simply throw money at a problem and it will go away. That’s not the case, and not understanding the logistical and capacity issues at play means that we get this ongoing confusion. For example, many of these reserves are only accessible to bring equipment up with ice roads for a couple of months of the year, which slows the ability to make timely solutions. (This is also an issue with housing on many reserves – small windows by which to bring in building supplies, and those windows are getting ever shorter because of climate change). This has been made even worse in the pandemic, because many communities won’t let the people who are building these new facilities into the community in an attempt to keep COVID out (which Trudeau made vague reference to, but folded it into his platitude so it gets lost). In some communities, it’s not a question of the equipment but of maintenance – as soon as they find and train someone local to do the work, they get headhunted and given a better offer, and the community has to start over again, as the equipment once again breaks down. And it would be great if Trudeau or one of his ministers could actually articulate these challenges, but they won’t. Instead, they fall back on their platitudes about “doing better,” and not giving people a clue about what the actual challenges are.
The government also assumes that these reporters will do the work to find out what the challenges are, but they won’t. Pressed for time, and under the constant pressure to produce, most of them will only both-sides the quotes and move on (as happened in this particular case). Most don’t understand the background or the actual challenges, so it doesn’t get reported – only the platitudes in face of the complaints. Actual candour from Trudeau and the Cabinet would fix this – easily! But they won’t do it. It’s maddening, and they’re just shooting themselves in the foot, over, and over, and over again.
Roundup: Another paralyzing motion
In the wake of Wednesday’s confidence vote, Erin O’Toole was strutting around saying that his party was going to focus on “issues” instead of “playing politics” – as though the stunt of the so-called “anti-corruption committee” was anything other than playing politics, or the fact that he has to continually lie about non-issues in order to make people angry than focusing on some of the actual issues that this government is getting wrong. And to that end, O’Toole and Michelle Rempel Garner spent yesterday on another Supply Day motion, this time geared toward ordering the health committee to conducting a wide-ranging study on the federal government’s response to the pandemic. Rempel Garner insisted that this was “non-partisan” and free of the hyperbole of the previous motion (and the government is not treating this as a confidence motion), but I still have issues with it (and I do not agree with Kady that this is “100% shenanigan-free).
.. which is really more of a protocol issue, but even so: I'm not a fan of this new trend of including provisions ordering ministers to appear. Start with an invite and let the actual committee take it from there. (2/2)
— kady o'malley (@kady) October 22, 2020
For starters, many of the items enumerated by the order are the kinds of things that the Conservatives have been engaging in a campaign of revisionist history around, so I absolutely do not consider their intentions to be pure and honourable regarding them, and I suspect there will be many a fishing expedition based on this order, particularly to satisfy the conspiracy theorizing that the Conservatives have engaged in around the role of China and the WHO. The motion also orders a massive production of documents going back to January 2018 in some cases – something that the government has warned would be physically impossible in the time allotted (because we need to remember that nobody is working from their offices, and access to many of their files is limited to non-existent because nobody can get to their offices for “health and safety” reasons). I don’t think that Patty Hajdu was being too hyperbolic herself when she said that this kind of order would grind the department to a halt. As Kady mentioned in her tweet, the protocol of ordering ministers to appear is bad and setting a terrible precedent, and I’m increasingly uncomfortable with orders that the Law Clerk handle redactions on a very limited basis, meaning that there is no room for Cabinet confidences under the order, and the fact that he may not necessarily have the right knowledge to know about national security exemptions, or commercial sensitivity as Anita Anand pointed out yesterday around some of the negotiations for contracts, whether it’s PPE or vaccines, and publicly releasing that information could undermine ongoing negotiations with other suppliers.
The vote on this won’t be until Monday, and it looks like the other opposition parties are lined up in favour of supporting it, as they have with most other Supply Day motions (that weren’t declared confidence). I do worry that these kinds of motions are going to start becoming commonplace, and that very bad precedents are being set for the future.
Roundup: Blustering through a climbdown
It was a day full of bravado, as Erin O’Toole began the day with a bit of a climbdown, saying they would change the name of their proposed special committee from the blatantly inflammatory “anti-corruption committee” to the “special committee on allegations of misuse of public funds by the government during the COVID-19 pandemic,” which is exactly the same thing (and whose first four letters – which committees abbreviate to – would be SCAM, which is yet another one of their childish tactics). Government House leader Pablo Rodriguez was not mollified, quipping “If you write a book about Frankenstein and call it ‘Cinderella,’ it’s still a book about Frankenstein.” O’Toole then tried to say they would amend their motion to insist that a vote for it was not a vote for an election, to which the government said no dice – you’re saying you don’t have confidence in us, so you get to put your money where your mouth is as this is going to be a confidence vote. And then O’Toole tried to say that he doesn’t have confidence in the government, but doesn’t want an election, and sorry, that’s not how this works. You’re accusing them of corruption and misusing public funds – which is a loss of confidence in a system like ours – and then saying you don’t want an election? Yeah, no. You have confidence and the government governs, or you don’t, in which case the government falls and you go to an election.
https://t.co/O56L2BcxZT pic.twitter.com/O8S9D5Mxqv
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) October 20, 2020
https://t.co/U8QyLEewUj pic.twitter.com/CYFcb3IM36
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) October 20, 2020
There is going to be a monumental amount of chest-thumping and testosterone being hosed across the carpet between the aisles in the Commons today as this comes to a head, but frankly, the government is calling O’Toole out for his bluster and tough talk. The Bloc are also blustering about being in favour of an election, leaving the NDP holding the bag. Jagmeet Singh insisted that this was a “farce” and “stupid” to trigger an election in a pandemic over creating a committee – omitting that the title of the committee implied corruption, which should be a de facto loss of confidence, and the fact that said committee’s terms of reference would give it priority over all other government business, including having ministers, the prime minister, and civil servants being expected to drop everything and appear or produce documents at the committee’s beck-and-call, in the middle of a pandemic where everyone is already stretched. (There was also Conservative sniping that Singh didn’t seem to have a problem with John Horgan calling an early election in the middle of a pandemic). I know the NDP want to play the grown-ups in the room (somewhat ironic after Charlie Angus’ histrionics and theatrics on the WE Imbroglio file), but at least represent the situation for what it is.
A committee which says the government is corrupt and misappropriating public funds. That’s kind of an important detail. https://t.co/tTjyBv4Dc9
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) October 20, 2020
Meanwhile, Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column explains just how the motion on creating that special committee can be considered a confidence matter. Paul Wells offers some intense snark over the current confidence showdown, and how Trudeau may not be gambling if he’s likely to win another election. Heather Scoffield sees utility in the government’s proposed pandemic spending oversight committee – assuming that it is set up as advertised.
Roundup: Special committee games
The competing offers for special committees got even more crowded yesterday as the Liberals suggested their own possible special committee to examine pandemic spending, in a bid to jam both the Conservatives and NDP as they make their own offers. The Conservatives, you may recall, are employing a stunt to call for a special “anti-corruption committee,” as though the penny-ante bullshit that happens here were actual corruption that happens in other countries, and called explicitly for the purpose of decrying any lack of support for this committee idea as being in support of corruption. The NDP have their own proposal for a pandemic spending committee, but it was intended as a kind of super-committee to draw in not only the WE Imbroglio, but to revisit other non-scandals such as the Rob Silver affair (which the Ethics Commissioner declined to investigate), or the fact that one of the many pandemic procurement contracts went to a company whose owner is a former Liberal MP (whose departure was a bit huffy and drawn out at the time, one may recall).
The Liberal plan is to offer a “serious committee” to do “serious work,” which is a political gambit in and of itself – citing that if the other parties don’t agree to this particular committee (whose terms of reference one expects will be fairly narrowly circumscribed), then it proves that they are simply motivated by partisan gamesmanship rather than helping Canadians. And they’re not wrong – that’s exactly what both the Conservatives and NDP are looking for, at a point where they can only expect diminishing returns the longer that they drag on the WE Imbroglio (though, caveat, they do have a legitimate point in the Finance committee about producing the unredacted documents because that was the committee order that the government didn’t obey, and risks finding themselves in contempt of parliament over; the Ethics Committee demands are going outside of that committee’s mandate).
To add to the possible drama, the Liberals are also contemplating making the Conservatives’ upcoming Supply Day motion on their committee demand a confidence vote, which will wind up forcing the hands of one of the opposition parties into voting against it because nobody wants an election (and that could mean a number of Conservative MPs suddenly having “connectivity issues” and being unable to vote on the motion to ensure its demise). Of course, there is always the possibility of an accident – that seat counts weren’t done properly and the government could defeat itself, though that’s highly unlikely in the current circumstances. Nevertheless, this game-playing is where we’re at, seven months into the pandemic.
Roundup: Conflating the “leader’s courtesy”
New Green Party leader Annamie Paul is running for a seat in the upcoming Toronto-Centre by-election, and this has already caused a bit of a friction between outgoing leader Elizabeth May and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh. Why? Because May argues that Singh should repay the courtesy that the Greens extended him when he was running for his own seat in a by-election in the previous parliament and not run a candidate to oppose him. The problem? That May’s conception of “leader’s courtesy” is not really what she thinks it is.
First of all, “leader’s courtesy” largely only existed when it came to government or official opposition – third, fourth, and fifth-place parties are not really owed any particular courtesies. Second, what this particular courtesy involves is a member of the new leader’s own party voluntarily resigning their seat so that the new leader can run there in order to get into the Commons as soon as possible – it’s generally not about unheld ridings, even if it just happens to coincidentally be the same riding where Paul ran in the last federal election. The Liberals are certainly not obligated to not run to keep their own seat for the sake of giving Paul a seat, no matter if she is a Black woman. Hell, they’re running a Black woman of their own in the riding. Not to mention, less than a year ago, during the election, Paul came in a distant fourth place in the riding with a mere seven percent of the vote-share. Bill Morneau, incidentally, got 57 percent, and the NDP came in second at 22 percent – even if Singh did the “classy” thing, as May demanded, and didn’t run a candidate, it’s still unlikely that Paul would win – especially when she’s running against a legitimate media personality like Liberal candidate Marci Ien.
I would also add that demanding that the other parties surrender their candidates so that Paul can win it because she’s a Black woman leader smacks of tokenism, and is an implicit declaration that she couldn’t win the seat on her own. Not to mention, it deprives the voters of the riding the chance to make the decision on who they want to represent them. Again, the historical “leader’s courtesy” was about a riding that the party held, and it was usually intended to be a short-term measure so that the leader would have a seat, and would then run in their intended seat in the next election and return the riding to the MP who stepped aside for the leader. This is clearly not what is happening in Toronto Centre, so unless May wants to resign her own seat so that Paul can run there, she’s conflating just what exactly this “courtesy” really is.
QP: A smarmy thanks for their concern
Both Erin O’Toole and Yves-François Blanchet claimed to have been recovered from COVID, though neither has stated that they have received two negative tests to prove that fact, and they were in the Commons to make their debut in the new session — O’Toole his first as party leader. To that end, he led off, with a mini-lectern and script in front of him, and he thanked everyone for their thoughts and prayers for him and his wife when they were diagnosed, before he launched into a demand for why there has been slow progress on the calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Justin Trudeau started off with well-wishes to both O’Toole and Blanchet, before he thanked the Conservatives for taking interest in reconciliation and stated that they have been making progress over the past five years. O’Toole repeated the question in French, and Trudeau gave a more expansive answer on the progress that has been made. O’Toole pivoted to the approval of rapid testing, to which Trudeau picked up a script to list the steps taken, and that one test was just approved this afternoon. O’Toole tried to insist that Canada not approving the same tests that were approved in the EU was a violation of CETA, and Trudeau noted that approvals had been granted in the spring in other jurisdictions that later had to be rescinded. O’Toole switched to French to lament the lack of availability for rapid testing, and Trudeau reiterated his previous response on the approval of a test, saying that they respected science. Blanchet was up next, and he led off by first giving a nod to O’Toole for his new role, before he offered the usual demand for higher health care transfers. Trudeau gave his usual response about working with provinces and having already given higher transfers. Blanchet tried to demand to know how many doctors and nurses the federal government was paying, to which Trudeau listed the places where the federal government does have jurisdiction for healthcare delivery. Jagmeet Singh raised the case of the First Nations woman who taped her racist nurses shortly before she died, and decried systemic racism, to which Trudeau offered a script about his condolences and his concerns over the racism on display. Singh then decried that there are still Indigenous communities that have no clean drinking water, and Trudeau listed the progress that they have made to date, and stated that they are still working toward their May 2021 goal of eliminating all long-term advisories.
Roundup: Taking credit for changing nothing
It’s becoming a tale as old as time, where NDP leader Jagmeet Singh calls a late-afternoon press conference to declare that he has achieved a great victory of pushing on an open door and getting nothing new that the Liberals weren’t already going to do, to be followed by his supporters taking to social media to crow about it. And thus, late Friday afternoon, Singh held a press conference to say that he had struck a deal with the Liberals about paid sick leave, and that this, along with their previous decision to keep EI and the recovery benefit at CERB levels, meant that he was likely to vote confidence in the government, thus avoiding the election that was never going to happen anyway.
But let’s review – you can be assured that the Liberals didn’t decide to boost the EI and recovery benefit levels from $400 to $500/week because of Singh’s pressure, but rather because they can see the COVID case counts climbing like the rest of us, and with the second wave here earlier than anticipated. That’s likely going to mean more shutdowns, even if they’re not as bad as the initial one in March, and their commitment to having Canadians’ backs means that it was easier to keep the benefit levels the same. On top of that, they had already committed to paying for the sick leave benefit that the provinces would implement, based on negotiations that happened at the behest of BC premier John Horgan (as Trudeau assiduously assigned him the credit and not Singh). When Trudeau got this assurance from the premiers, Singh declared victory and his supporters crowed that it was all him that did this when it clearly wasn’t. And now, Singh is again taking credit for this benefit, even though nothing has actually changed.
Well… this tweet didn't age well.
I imagine there were countless Dales yelling about provincial jurisdiction when Tommy Douglas was negotiating for universal healthcare.
Paid sick leave is happening thanks to Jagmeet Singh! https://t.co/g7hxEJZBBX
— Laurel Collins (@Laurel_BC) September 26, 2020
And then we get supposed dunks like this one. Nothing changed. Nothing the federal government does will unilaterally change provincial labour laws that will actually implement this sick benefit, especially on the permanent basis that Singh wants it to be. Sure, the federal government says they’ll pay for those two weeks of sick leave, but does that mean that the person’s job is going to be protected? Nope. There are provinces, like Nova Scotia, who were reluctant about it because they felt it was up to collective bargaining between employers and labour to come to an agreement on this leave. Does this agreement that Singh got change that? Nope. Nothing has changed, and yet he’s suddenly the new Tommy Douglas. Girl, please.
Tell me where provincial labour codes were unilaterally changed. I'll wait. https://t.co/y3o1ERoyXd
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) September 26, 2020