Tag Archives: Justin Trudeau

Roundup: Bad-faith grievance narratives and faux confusion

Posted on by

The day started off on something of a petulant tone, as Andrew Scheer complained that people were “upset and confused” by prime minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to attend the Black Lives Matter protest in spite of the pandemic, and furthered the bad faith grievance narrative by pointing to the Ottawa restaurant that was fined $880 for opening its patio. Scheer, and other Conservatives, spent the day obscuring the difference between what the federal government is in charge of and what falls under local public health guidelines, and deliberately playing up this “confusion” where none should actually exist – there were public health guidelines that said that if people were going to protest that they should wear masks and social distance, and then self-isolate afterward, if anyone bothered to pay attention.

Trudeau was up shortly thereafter for his daily presser, and he talked at length about those protesting, and people being afraid of the police, and that he promised to deal with systemic racism and listed actions that his government has taken to thus far to deal with it, including mental health resources for the Black community, an anti-racism secretariat and strategy under the Minister of Diversity, and agreed that it’s not enough. He also said that he has been in discussions with Cabinet, as well as the RCMP commissioner, and that he was also raising the issue of body cameras with premiers this week. Trudeau also mentioned that Bill Blair was following through on their commitment to Indigenous policing, and that this week the government would be undergoing a stock-taking on their reconciliation efforts with Indigenous people. He then pivoted to the wage subsidy and other measures being taken to help people, the $14 billion being offered to help provinces with their economic restarts, and finally announced that they had introduced a number of limited exemptions at the border for immediate family members of Canadians to cross – spouses, children, parents of minor children in Canada – but that they must still self-isolate for 14 days upon arrival. During the Q&A, he defended his attending the protests as balancing competing interests.

On body cameras, it looks like the RCMP has agreed to outfit some members with them, but it remains a controversial move, that may be seen as a band-aid solution to deeper problems. (Here’s a good thread by lawyer Michael Spratt to that effect). It’s also pointed out that if we want to shift resources away from the current model of policing, this is a big expense that makes it even harder to do so.

As the talk of the defunding/abolishing police gains momentum, here is a look at how Camden, New Jersey, has been doing an experiment in scrapping their police force and starting over, and some of the more important things to realize in his are that the incentives changed – not judging performance by the number of arrests or tickets issued, and a focus on making connections in communities. Of course, it also says that they haven’t made enough investments in the other community supports that are supposed to underpin this model, so that’s something to think about.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Trudeau takes a knee

Posted on by

The day began with a federal response to the death of an Indigenous woman in New Brunswick at the hands of police during what was described as a “wellness check.” Mark Miller, the Indigenous Services minister, very bluntly stated that he was “pissed” and outraged and wanted answers as to what happened. He also demanded answers on the video of RCMP in Nunavut using a truck door to knock down an intoxicated man, calling it out as “disgraceful” and “dehumanizing.” And while the prime minister later said that he would be speaking to Cabinet and the RCMP Commissioner about these incidents, Miller was correct in pointing out that there continues to be this pattern of behaviour. (Commissioner Lucki put out a statement later in the day that was long on platitudes).

Trudeau was up next with his daily presser, making some fairly vague mention of those police incidents before moving onto the day’s announcement – a $600 disability payment for those who qualify under the federal disability tax credit (because, again, most disability supports fall under provincial jurisdiction), as well as announcing an accessibility stream for employers to tap into. He also announced that he has put $14 billion on the table for provinces as part of their safe restart plans, to assist with more personal protective equipment for front-line workers and businesses, as well as for child care, support for municipalities, and made mention of the attempts to get that sick pay into place using federal dollars. (That isn’t going well either, as premiers like Doug Ford say that they don’t want the sick leave, but want even more money than what’s on offer – with no strings attached, obviously). During the Q&A, he was asked repeatedly about what he would do about police violence and systemic racism, but he would only offer his usual generalities and no specifics. He also again committed to collecting race-based disaggregated data, but put in a few digs about the quality of data that some of the provinces are providing because that’s who we are relying on to collect it. (Ontario’s health minister says she’s working on it).

Later in the day, as a number of Black Lives Matters protest marches took place peacefully all across the country, Trudeau showed up at the Ottawa protest and took a knee on a couple of occasions while holding a Black Lives Matter t-shirt, flanked by minister Ahmed Hussen and MP Anju Dhillon. (Catherine McKenna was also in the crowd but not with Trudeau). While Hussen said the image of the head of government taking a knee and clapping when people say “Black lives matter” is powerful, it does raise questions about just what is being said. Taking a knee was a form of protest about the government (of the United States, granted), but if Trudeau takes a knee, who is he protesting? Himself? I would charitably say that this is Trudeau showing solidarity, but it does open himself up to criticisms about doing this for the sake of appearance over substance.

Senate selection committee

I did want to mention the CBC story about senators getting pay increases for sitting on the Selection Committee when it’s only met twice. It’s yet another story in the vein of never-ending stories about how the Senate is full of grasping drains on the public purse, but as so many of these stories go, it ignores the mechanics of the situation. Selection committee meetings are meant to formalize the work that caucuses do internally to allocate committee seats – they don’t make those determinations in committee meetings. They do the work beforehand in whatever assignment process the caucus uses, and it can be a fair amount of work and one could make the argument that any kind of work like that deserves additional compensation. But it is work done that even if the actual committee meets very infrequently, that is the tip of the iceberg of work. The only thing that is particularly unusual in this circumstance is that ISG leader Senator Yuen Pau Woo named himself to the Selection Committee. Normally, it was the caucus whips who were on the committee because they usually did the bulk of the work of allocation committee assignments (and arranging for alternates if a senator couldn’t be present for their scheduled committee meeting for whatever the reason). Considering that Woo has been agitating for changes to the Parliament of Canada Act because as a caucus leader who is not leader of either the government or the opposition, he doesn’t get an additional stipend, so perhaps this was his way of trying to earn himself some additional compensation. This being said, Senator Pierre Dalphond, who recently defected from the ISG to the Progressives, took the opportunity to unload on Woo for this in a press release, which makes me wonder just what happened between the two that has apparently caused this drama.

Continue reading →

Roundup: That 21-second pause

Posted on by

Sometimes the news out of prime minister Justin Trudeau’s daily pressers is unexpected, and yesterday was no exception. After first acknowledging that he would be speaking more on the situation with anti-Black racism in the House of Commons later, Trudeau turned to the subject of the government’s efforts to procure more personal protective equipment and the industry retooling to supply it domestically in Canada. But none of this was the actual news. It was during the Q&A that, after a question on Hong Kong (Trudeau: We are very concerned because there are 300,000 Canadian citizens there), he was put on the spot about what Donald Trump is doing in the US, and what Trudeau’s silence in not denouncing it says. And then Trudeau paused. Gathering his thoughts, for twenty-one seconds, there was uncertainty as to what was going on in his mind, when he finally spoke about the “horror and consternation” of what was going on in the US – but he was very diplomatic and not calling out Trump on anything specifically. There is a relationship to manage there, especially during this global pandemic. When asked about Israel, Trudeau reiterated the support for a two-state solution and that he is “concerned” about annexation plans into Palestinian territory and that he told both prime ministers of that country (because there are now two) about it personally. He was also was asked about the MMIW Inquiry report and its finding of “genocide,” and Trudeau prevaricated somewhat, using the term “cultural genocide” before talking about the need to do better and work on the road to reconciliation, but wasn’t going to allow himself to be drawn into using other language.

A short while later in the Commons, Trudeau stood to give his speech on racism, and made sure that he had MP Greg Fergus and minister Ahmed Hussen in the frame behind him – because it’s always about optics. Nevertheless, he stated that he didn’t want to be another white politician lecturing about racism, and said that not being perfect is not an excuse for not doing anything, before he listed actions his government had taken in engaging the Black community, for what it’s worth.

Andrew Scheer gave a far more predictably milquetoast denunciation of racism, name-checking convenient names for his narrative along the way, like Lincoln Alexander and John Ware. But in his denunciation of racism – including anti-Asian racism and anti-Semitism along the way in light of a recently vandalized synagogue, he kept going on about peaceful protests over riots, and the importance of freedom, singling out economic and religious freedom. There was zero awareness from Scheer about structural racism, or self-awareness in how his party’s “tough-on-crime” fetishism contributes to over-policing at the heart of these protests.

Yves-François Blanchet was less equivocal than Scheer, going on about the anthropology of there being no such thing as race and that racism was about othering – but then stated that the Canadian and Quebec governments “weren’t racist” (erm, you do know what Bill 21 in Quebec was all about, right?) before saying that there may be “traces” that create systemic barriers. And then this shifted to a demand to process the claims of certain asylum seekers (because there’s nothing like the reliance on low-wage and untrained labour that is a direct beacon to the systemic barriers that these very minorities face) before citing that peaceful protests were legitimate and violent ones were not.

Jagmeet Singh kept saying that the government needs to make concrete action instead of making “pretty speeches,” and that the prime minister has the power to do things beyond words, demanding things like ending racial profiling, ending the over-policing of Black and Indigenous bodies, subsequent over-incarceration of Black and Indigenous people, and the need for race-based data. But as Singh can’t even grandstand properly, when he was up to question Trudeau several minutes later in the special committee, he seemed to indicate that things like ending racial profiling could be done with the snap of a finger, and when he demanded that boil water advisories be lifted in First Nations communities, Trudeau reminded him that they are on schedule for doing just that.

Elizabeth May closed out the speeches by naming as many Black and Indigenous deaths at the hands of police that she could recall, before talking about the cyclical nature of these kinds of denunciations every few months, acknowledging her white privilege, denounced Trump, and called on the government to root out white supremacist groups as a terrorist threat, particularly within police forces in Canada.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Acknowledging anti-Black racism

Posted on by

It was not really surprising that right off the top of his daily presser, prime minister Justin Trudeau addressed the situation of the anti-Black racism protests across the country, saying that Canadians can’t pretend that it doesn’t exist in Canada, and that that he hears Black Canadians, that he’s listening to them, and says that the government knows they need to do better. From there, he announced that the federal government had accelerated the $2.2 billion allocation to municipalities via the federal gas tax fund, but this is an advance of existing funds which are earmarked for infrastructure. When pressed, Trudeau said they are willing to do more, but they can’t go ahead and do it because municipalities are the creature of the provinces, and they need provincial coordination for that to happen, again placing the onus on them. (Speaking of premiers doing things in their jurisdiction, BC banned commercial landlords from evicting tenants if they forgo the federal rent subsidy, so that’s something).

During the Q&A, Trudeau reiterated several times that when it comes to race-based data collection on the pandemic, the federal government has been working with the provinces on a data collection strategy to provide disaggregated data, and ensure that they’re all measuring the same things so that they can provide a more accurate picture of what’s happening in the country. But again, that relies on the provinces doing their part. Federalism! *jazz hands* When asked about the plans for the G7 being pushed back, but also Trump’s suggestion that Russia participate, Trudeau reminded everyone that Russia was kicked out of the G8 – returning it to the G7 – because of their illegal invasion of Crimea, and the UK later stated that they too agreed with that position.

In keeping with the messages about racism, here is Liberal MP Greg Fergus, and former Nova Scotia lieutenant governor Maryann Francis

Continue reading →

Roundup: Selling out parliament for a press release

Posted on by

If there was any more sign of crass politicking than Jagmeet Singh starting the day by declaring that he would only agree to the government’s plans regarding continued special committee hearings in lieu of actual parliamentary sittings if the government ensured there was access to two weeks of paid sick leave available to Canadians, I’m not sure what else it could be. To predicate kneecapping the House of Commons in exchange for something you can count as a win is…quite something. Not quite the petulance of Andrew Scheer’s short-lived declaration that he would only wear a non-medical mask if regular House of Commons sittings resumed, but certainly brash.

To that end, Justin Trudeau held his daily presser and, in reference to the hipster jamboree at Toronto’s Trinity Bellwoods park on Saturday that social media spent the rest of the weekend litigating, said that the variety of local rules can be confusing but people should pay attention to what their jurisdiction’s rules are, and to keep physical distancing. Then then announced that the commercial rent assistance programme was now accepting applications, and outlined that half of the provinces would accept applications on that day, listed the provinces that would accept applications Tuesday instead, and that those with ten or more tenants were to apply Wednesday. Trudeau then said that he had spoken to Singh, and assured him that he was in discussions with the provinces to ensure that people got access to those ten paid sick days per year, but in the Q&A, gave the credit to BC premier John Horgan. That didn’t stop Singh from putting out a self-congratulatory press release immediately, as though this were a done deal and not negotiations that were ongoing because it’s mostly provincial jurisdiction. Trudeau also defended his party’s use of the wage subsidy, but because he can’t answer these questions like a real human being, it was mostly a lot of platitudes and verbal pabulum.

In the wake of this, a bunch of my Twitter critics felt like Trudeau’s discussions with the province on this sick day policy was some kind of an own to my constant reminders that this is provincial jurisdiction, which is bizarre because nothing has been agreed to. Trudeau can’t force the provinces to do anything, and even pointed out that the mechanism to make this happen is complicated – particularly if the provinces are going to expect the federal government to pony up for those paid days instead of forcing employers to pay for it themselves. But again, this isn’t something Trudeau himself can do on his own – he can try to get the provinces on board, but that’s not always a winning proposition. Look at the dog’s breakfast that the commercial rent subsidy managed to be, which is because it’s what the provinces could agree to, while Trudeau takes the blame. And even if the provinces get on board with this paid sick leave, it’ll still be months before that comes to fruition, but hey, Singh got a press release out of it, so he can declare victory to his base.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Setting the Auditor General up for failure?

Posted on by

Andrew Scheer was first out of the block this morning for a presser to call for the return of more in-person sittings of Parliament when the current suspension order lifts in a week’s time – which he is correct to do – but his bombast and rhetoric about Trudeau looking to avoid accountability is over the top and unnecessary, and simply alienates the audience he needs to persuade. Score another one for Scheer’s complete inability to read the room. Later in the day, the Procedure and House Affairs committee tabled its report recommending full virtual sittings (over my dead body – and yes, I’ll write more about this next week), but we’re faced with a number of MPs who immediately start to clutch their pearls about travel to Ottawa, as though there weren’t better options available to minimize said travel.

Prime minister Justin Trudeau was up next for his daily presser, and he announced some $450 million in funding for health researchers and others who have been unable to access the existing aid programmes due to technicalities, so it shows that the government has been responsive to some of the complaints that have been lodged about those programmes (well, those that are within federal jurisdiction, anyway). Trudeau also announced that the wage subsidy programme would be extended until August, as well as expanding the eligibility criteria, which is a signal that they are looking to transition more people on to the payrolls of their employers and not the CERB.

Little remarked upon was the fact that the nominee for Auditor General went before committee of the whole in the Senate yesterday, after they completed their debate on the dairy bill, as is customary for the appointment of any new Officer of Parliament. And Senator Peter Harder did make a pretty good intervention on the focus on value-for-money audits that the AG’s office seems to have shifted toward in recent years.

https://twitter.com/SenHarder/status/1261429867410751488

This having been said, I find myself irritated by this concern that MPs are apparently setting up the new AG for failure because her office is currently “underfunded.” Why? Because they created these conditions, and are trying to now blame the government for them. There have been concerns about the office’s resources, which are fair, and some of that blame has to lie with the previous AG, Michael Ferguson, who voluntarily cut his budget and put off needed IT overhauls in order to please the Harper government and its deficit reduction plans. The current government increased the funding, but apparently that’s not enough. But in the past few months, the current crop of MPs have passed a motion in the Commons to order the AG to audit the federal infrastructure programme in a politically motivated move to try and embarrass the government (when it was the slow response of provincial governments that has been holding up federal dollars going out the door), and then on the eve of the pandemic and the suspension of Parliament, MPs ordered the auditor general to track all of that spending rather than doing their jobs and checking the money before it goes out the door, like they’re supposed to. And now they want to complain that the Auditor General doesn’t have enough money to do the audits that he was working on before this happened? Seriously? Does nobody have any self-awareness? Add to that, this notion that the office needs an apolitical means of funding its budget so that governments can’t “politicize” the resourcing is technocratic bullshit that has no place in our system. Officers of Parliament have already been given way too much power and authority without any accountability for it, and now we want to turn over the ability for them to get any of the resources that they demand, when they already have no accountability? Seriously? Does nobody actually listen to themselves? Would that we could get some MPs who know their own jobs and do them. It would be embarrassing if they had any sense of shame.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Dairy commissions and questions of jurisdiction

Posted on by

There were a couple of announcements for prime minister Justin Trudeau’s daily presser yesterday – that Health Canada had approved a serological test that was critical to the work of the immunity task force; that some $1 billion in additional funds was being allocated to regional development agencies to help struggling businesses; and that the student benefits would be open for applications as of Friday. There were a lot of things that came up during the Q&A – demands from reporters for a budget or a fiscal update, for which Trudeau said that they couldn’t predict what was going to happen in a few weeks, so it didn’t make much sense to try to lay out a plan for the next twelve months. On the Canada-US border, it was strongly hinted that the current closure would continue for another month, but he wasn’t going to speculate past then. He talked about the need to work with provinces and municipalities as transit operators face a huge revenue shortfall. Regarding Norway’s sovereign wealth fund pulling its investments out of the oilsands, he remarked that it was clear that climate considerations were becoming a bigger feature in the investment landscape. He also promised to look into the issue of health researchers in the country facing layoffs because funding sources evaporated and they aren’t eligible for the federal wage subsidy because of a technicality.

And then it was off to the House of Commons, first for the in-person meeting of the Special Committee, which descended into farce fairly quickly and stayed there – Andrew Scheer railing about the revelations that potential fraud of the CERB isn’t being caught up-front, while his MPs both demand easier access to small business supports while clutching their pearls about the potential size of the deficit, apparently blind to the contradiction in their position. Meanwhile, Jagmeet Singh was demanding that the federal government swoop in and offer some kind of national guarantee around long-term care, giving Trudeau the chance to chide him about his disregard for provincial jurisdiction (and Trudeau was a little sharper on this than he often is).

The special committee eventually gave way to a proper emergency sitting of the Commons to pass the latest emergency bill, this time on increasing the borrowing limit of the dairy commission, while many a journalist mischaracterized this as “debating” said bill. There was no debate – it was pre-agreed to, and each party would give a couple of speeches that may or may not be related to the bill before they passed it at all stages for the Senate to adopt on Friday. At the beginning of this, however, Singh was back up with yet another motion, this time to call on the government to ensure that there was universal two-week paid sick leave – which is, once again, provincial jurisdiction. (The motion did not pass). I’m torn between trying to decide if Singh is genuinely clueless about what is and is not federal jurisdiction (a position bolstered by his promises in the election around things like local hospital decisions), or if he’s cynically trying to make it look like the federal government doesn’t care about these issues when they have no actual levers at their disposal to make any of these demands happen. Either way, federalism is a real thing, and trying to play it like it’s not is a real problem for the leader of a federal party.

Continue reading →

Roundup: One-time benefits for seniors

Posted on by

The day began much as Monday did, with a ministerial presser in Toronto, where Bill Morneau and Deb Schulte announced a one-time additional benefit for seniors who earn low-income supports. People may ask why this was necessary given that they haven’t lost incomes (like others have), and the theoretical justification is that they may be facing some increased costs around things like deliveries, taxis, or prescription fees. There is also a particular political justification in that this is a bit of a sop to the Bloc, who have been howling about this for weeks, and we all know that it’s because seniors vote.

Shortly thereafter, Justin Trudeau held his daily presser at a slightly earlier time because of the impending sitting of the Commons “virtual” special committee, and he reiterated much of what had been announced earlier, but somewhat more unusually, stated that this pandemic has revealed uncomfortable truths about how we treat seniors in this country, and that there are serious underlying challenges that they will help the provinces with in finding lasting solutions. This particular construction is pretty key, because this is explicitly a provincial issue, and the federal government can’t just write in long-term care to the Canada Health Act as certain people have been demanding. The Act doesn’t work like that, as they should very well know. During the Q&A, Trudeau stated that the government planned to be very careful when it comes to easing border restrictions, and that he wasn’t going to ask for Carolyn Bennett’s resignation over the dispute over the Wet’suwet’en MOU.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1259819355866632192

During the special committee meeting that followed, the Conservatives were hung up on the reporting that civil servants were instructed to ignore any potential cheating on CERB applications and process them anyway, with the goal to investigate and pursue repayment after this is all over. We’ll see if this concern over the government “ignoring fraud” carries over the next few days, or if this is an instance of the opposition chasing headlines.

Continue reading →

Roundup: A bridge loan, not a bailout

Posted on by

It was a bit of a staggered rollout of the message of the day, starting with Bill Morneau and Navdeep Bains in Toronto to announce the creation of the Large Employer Emergency Financing Facility (LEEFF), which is designed to give large employers temporary bridge financing if they can’t get it by other means, but that comes with a great many strings attached, such as ensuring that jobs and collective agreements are maintained, that climate change plans are not affected, and that there are limits to executive compensation, share buybacks, dividends, and on top of that, these companies will need to disclose their financial structures to ensure that they’re not avoiding taxes with offshore banks or shelters.

Justin Trudeau was up shortly thereafter for his daily presser, noting the start of National Nursing Week, before he spoke about enhanced measures for medium-sized businesses, and then reiterated the messages around the LEEFF, citing that these were bridge loans and not bail-outs, and that the government was only to be a lender of last resort. When asked whether this was some kind of attack on oil companies with the focus on environmental plans, Trudeau insisted that many of them had net-zero-by-2050 plans, so this condition should not have been more onerous on them – but that didn’t stop the usual suspects from complaining that this wasn’t the kind of help that the energy sector was looking for.

During the ministerial presser, Chrystia Freeland said that they working with the US to deal with the inevitable increase in cross-border traffic as economies started re-opening, as premiers express reservations around the possibility of visitors once again coming to Canada.

Meanwhile, here’s economist Kevin Milligan on the path of the labour market and the economy, that’s worth thinking about.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1259641163989970945

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1259641908436930560

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1259642852260278272

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1259644740460404736

Continue reading →

Roundup: Possibly a criminal leak

Posted on by

The day got off to a very brow-raising start when someone – meaning almost certainly a minister’s office – leaked StatsCan jobs data ahead of its official release to soften the narrative around it, given that the predicted number of job losses were twice as many as what wound up being reported. This is a big deal – it’s market-moving information that should have criminal consequences for leaking, and yet here we are. And what is particularly galling about this is that I have my suspicions about which minister’s office leaked the information, and it’s one that has been showing a particular pattern of impunity, which is a very bad sign for how this government works – and not to mention how it communicates. Because they can’t communicate their way out of a wet paper bag, someone took it upon themselves to leak sacrosanct data (which, it needs to be reiterated, should not and cannot happen in a gods damned G7 country) in order to spin the narrative. Heads should roll for this.

And then prime minister Justin Trudeau had his daily presser, acknowledging the jobs numbers before he announced that the government would be extending the wage subsidy beyond June in order to keep the (eventual) economic recovery strong, while also announcing that Navdeep Bains would be leading a new industry strategy council. During the Q&A, Trudeau also had to face questions about why nobody can say “Taiwan” when it comes to thanking them for donations of personal protective equipment, so Trudeau did just that, so I guess certain MPs will need to find something else to have a meltdown over next week.

And for the 75th anniversary of VE Day yesterday, the Queen made a televised address in the footsteps of her father.

Continue reading →