Tag Archives: Justin Trudeau

Roundup: Kenney looking to weaponize populist anger

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It was Throne Speech day in Alberta yesterday, and while Kenney temporarily toned down his bellicosity for the sake of decorum, the speech was still full of strange promises. While Kenney promised to reduce unemployment, he nevertheless cited the report he devised to show that spending was too high while ignoring the province’s revenue problem, meaning more cuts are still likely. He also hinted at government investment in resource projects, which is mighty odd for someone who claims to support the free market (and this thread shows some of the context of Peter Lougheed’s investments in the sector which Kenney invoked). He also tabled the first bill, which promises fine for interrupting “critical infrastructure” – such as the rail blockades – because that’ll help.

The one thing that caught my attention most of all, however, was a proposal for recall petitions that would not only target MLAs, but also municipal councillors, mayors, and even school board trustees. I cannot stress enough how boneheaded an idea this is, because it will do absolutely nothing to enhance the practice of democracy, and will in fact weaken the representative democracy – along with their plans to allow citizens to petition referendums on whatever they want. Why they are even more concerning in the current context is because I am certain that this is about Kenney looking to weaponize populist anger against anyone who stands in his way. He has a cadre of paid shitposters, both in his office and in his $30 million a year “war room” that he can deploy against anyone in the province who stands up to Kenney – most especially the mayors of Edmonton and Calgary. Even if there is a high enough bar set to trigger these, as in BC, it nevertheless undermines the practice of Responsible Government and the confidence conventions inherent in our system. We already have accountability mechanisms – they’re called elections. Recall is not only an Americanism that does not fit with our system, I have no doubt that this is about portraying dissent as illegitimate, and using recall legislation as a threat. This will only increase the ugliness that is creeping into our politics, and that Kenney is gleefully throwing these things out there is a very big problem.

Meanwhile, to top it all off, Teck Resources appears to be trolling some particular voices like Kenney who have been caterwauling the past few days, as they announced they are investing in a solar facility at a reclaimed coal mine in BC. Oh, the delicious, delicious irony of it all.

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Roundup: Reverberations and court references

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The fallout from the Teck Frontier decision reverberated yesterday, whether it was with disappointed local First Nations, or industry groups giving the usual lamentations about investor confidence. More blame was thrown around, most of it at Justin Trudeau’s direction which seems to be in direct contradiction to what the company’s CEO said in his withdrawal letter, which talked about partisan bickering between levels of government, while also talking about how they supported carbon pricing and the emissions caps – in other words, largely siding with the federal government as the provincial government tore up the comprehensive and reasonable plan that the former NDP government had put into place with a great deal of thought and consultation, which introduced all manner of uncertainty into the market and put them into direct conflict with the federal government unnecessarily – but they also made the gamble that Andrew Scheer would win the last federal election and they wouldn’t have to worry about carbon pricing or strict regulations any longer, and well, that didn’t happen. Of course, it didn’t stop Kenney, Scheer or others from making up things wholesale in order to keep the blame on Trudeau, after they already overly raised expectations for the project (in part by lying about what its promises actually were). In conversation yesterday, a fellow journalist made the supposition that Teck may have been afraid of federal approval at this point because the expectations for it had been built so high when they knew they couldn’t deliver on it, in large part because the price of oil is simply far too low for the project to be viable, not to mention that it’s hard to attract financing as global investors are looking for climate-friendly projects these days.

In pundit response, Heather Scoffield points to the lack of the next stages of the federal climate plans, combined with Alberta’s battling those plans, as factors making us unattractive to investors. Scoffield also blames a lack of leadership for why it’s taking so long to get those needed plans in place. Max Fawcett considers Teck Frontier a metaphor for an Alberta past that won’t come back, and that the withdrawal of the application should be a wake-up call for those who are trying to bring that past back. Kevin Carmichael calls out Teck’s CEO for playing martyr while sabotaging the kind of conversation over energy and the environment that the country needs to have, but now won’t because the deadline is off the table and we have degenerated into assigning blame.

And then, as if things couldn’t get any more interesting, the Alberta Court of Appeal released their 4-1 decision that said that the federal carbon price was unconstitutional, in direct opposition to the decisions from Ontario and Saskatchewan (both of which will head to the Supreme Court of Canada next month). But that being said, there is a curious amount of overtly political editorialising within said judgement, from one of the concurring judges in particular, which I am assured by a law professor will be a field day for the Supreme Court of Canada when this ruling makes it to them.

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Roundup: The limits of Trudeau’s patience

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Late in the day yesterday, Justin Trudeau announced that he had come to the limit of his patience, that his calls for dialogue were not being heeded, and that it was time for the barricades to come down – something that was hinted at during Question Period a couple of hours earlier when the parliamentary secretaries sent to recite scripts said that “dialogue has its limits.” Trudeau did not say how those blockades were to come down – he wasn’t issuing orders to police, given that the enforcement was a matter of provincial jurisdiction, but part of the call was for Indigenous leadership to basically get their own people to stand down (though that didn’t seem to go so well on Wednesday after one Mohawk grand chief had to walk back his calls for de-escalation). And while some of the premiers, Scott Moe included, said they were pleased by the changed message, Doug Ford continued to blame Trudeau for things happening in his own backyard.

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In the hours after the press conference, one sympathetic blockade south of Montreal was abandoned when riot police showed up to enforce the court injunction there. And in BC, the province’s Environmental Assessment Office suddenly told Coastal GasLink that they needed to engage in further consultations with the Wet’suwet’en people, since deficiencies in their previous efforts were pointed out to them over the course of the past couple of weeks, and were given 30 days to do so, which could further de-escalate the situation as the RCMP are moving out of their enforcement operations. But at the same time, that same group of hereditary chiefs has been shifting their demands, so that one minute on TV they’re saying the RCMP physically removing themselves from those operations was enough to start talks, the next minute putting out a press release saying that the RCMP needed to be out of their territory entirely, including routine policework, and then telling a radio station that because of Trudeau’s statement that they’re going to delay talks even further – all things that seem to me to further bolster Trudeau’s position that he’s been the reasonable one and the other side hasn’t been. And as for all of those people who insist that Trudeau is simply saying what Scheer did four days ago are ignoring the very important nuances of what has happened, as Andrew Coyne points out below.

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As for the handwringing by the likes of Scheer and Jason Kenney that these protests send a signal that things can’t get built in Canada, perhaps the signal is that things can’t get built the same way, cutting corners and running roughshod over these First Nations like they used to be able to. It’s like people who lament that we couldn’t build the railways these days, who seem to blithely ignore that said railways were built by displacing First Nations along its path, and importing virtual slave labour from China to do the work. If they think that’s the kind of thing that would fly today, then perhaps they need to give their heads a shake.

Meanwhile, Chantal Hébert worries that these protests were the “dress rehearsal” for future protests against the Trans Mountain construction, however I have a feeling that there are enough points of difference between the facts related to Wet’suwet’en territory and the Trans Mountain route that it will wind up playing very differently if that were to happen. Matt Gurney delves into the logistics and supply chains that depend on the rail corridors in this country, and how vulnerable the blockade has made us. Gurney also has a very good three-part series on Wet’sewet’en law and how it relates to the situation, which is well worth your time (parts one, two, and three). Paul Wells is dubious about Trudeau’s four-day limit to his patience, and the signals that it sends.

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Roundup: Urging calm, patience, and police action

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Yesterday was a long and very busy day, as everyone scrambled to get their say on the ongoing protest and blockade situation across the country, with a mounting economic cost to them. First thing in the morning, the AFN National Chief, Perry Bellegarde, and several First Nations leaders held a press conference to ask the Mohawk protesters to dismantle the barricades – not as surrender, but as compassion for those who would soon be affected by shortages – but one of those Mohawk leaders also noted that his band office has been locked out and protesters among his own people say they want him out. A short while later, Justin Trudeau gave a speech in the House of Commons to counsel patience and to reiterate that dialogue remained the best way to resolve the situation – something Andrew Scheer denounced as weak, and he continued to insist that the police end the protests, insisting that this was but a group of “professional protesters” and “radicals” and that the “real” position of the Wet’suwet’en people was for jobs and resource development (even though he later said he hadn’t actually spoken to any of them) – something that both Peter MacKay and Erin O’Toole also echoed, because police action has never gone badly before. Oh, wait. (Marilyn Gladu, for the record, wants the military to step in). Shortly after Trudeau’s speech, he had a meeting with Yves-François Blanchet, Jagmeet Singh, and Elizabeth May, and made a pointed remark that Scheer had not been invited because his remarks were “disqualifying” – which led to Scheer’s agitated breathy and high-pitched performance during QP. Oh, and while all of this was going on, some activists in Victoria tried to perform a “citizen’s arrest” on BC premier John Horgan (and they got arrested instead).

By the time the five o’clock politics shows rolled around, Carolyn Bennett had concluded a meeting with some of the hereditary chiefs – who stated on one of the shows that they wouldn’t actually negotiate until the RCMP were off of their territory – and Marc Miller refused to discuss whether that was on or off the table when asked, leading the pundits to make hay of that. (“He didn’t say no!” is the worst impulse in journalism, guys). Oh, and hilariously, Jody Wilson-Raybould offered her services as a mediator, as though anyone in the government would be willing to trust her. As the day wound down, Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe said he was holding a meeting of premiers today because Trudeau “refused to act” – though I’m not sure what exactly he proposes, unless it’s to try to direct provincial police forces to start cracking skulls, both violating the rule of law and making the situation worse. And that’s where we are.

Meanwhile, here is a good primer written by a lawyer and a law professor about what “rule of law” means and why it’s important – as Scheer and company keep misusing the term. Heather Scoffield sees the business impacts of the blockades and deduces that it will be impossible to resolve them both quickly and peacefully – it would have to be one or the other. Andrew Coyne counsels patience in threating the needle that the protests can both be illegal while still noting that using force will only create martyrs. Matt Gurney worries that if the blockades go on much longer, they could fuel populist anger and damage the cause of reconciliation. Paul Wells attempts to make sense of the day that was, and the Liberals’ high-wire act in the middle of it all.

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Roundup: An emergency clip-gathering

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Sympathetic protests continue across the country as Justin Trudeau and several Cabinet ministers convened the Incidence Response Group yesterday, but had little to say as they emerged, other than dialogue remains the best option to resolve the situation as opposed to sending in the police to crack heads. Some new protests included demonstrations that closed Bloor Street in Toronto, and another blockade on the Thousand Islands international bridge (which was short-lived). Carolyn Bennett is still waiting on more meetings, apparently, while the CBC got a leaked recording from Marc Miller’s meeting with the Mohawks in Ontario on Sunday, so there’s that. And amidst this, police associations are grousing that they’re caught in the middle of all of this, criticized for both being too aggressige and not doing enough at the same time.

And with Parliament back again today, the request has been made for an emergency debate on the situation – but I can tell you right now that it’s going to be nothing shy of a five-alarm clown show. If the Speaker decides to grant it, it’ll happen after the close of regular business, so somewhere between 6 and 7 PM, and designated to run until midnight, unless debate collapses sooner. But you can bet that the most that can come of it – and the parties bloody well know it – is that they’ll simply be gathering clips for their social media of their righteous indignation for their side of the debate, whether it’s that the economy is being affected, that police are supposedly not enforcing the rule of law (hint – that’s not what “rule of law” means), or that this government has failed in its goals of reconciliation (as though that could happen in the space of four years). And if it’s outraged clips they want, well, isn’t that what Question Period has devolved into? In other words, I see zero actual utility in the exercise, but then again, I’m cynical (or realistic) like that.

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Meanwhile, Susan Delacourt tries to evaluate this government’s communications around the current situation after they handled the previous two (Flight PS752 and COVID-19) fairly well, and outlines the difference between complex and complicated problems. But being unable to communicate their way out of a wet paper bag is this government’s usual schtick, so that should be no surprise.

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Roundup: Call in the Incident Response Group

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Given the ongoing protests and rail blockades, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has opted to skip the Caribbean leaders’ summit next week, and will instead be remaining in Ottawa to convene with his Cabinet ministers and the Incident Response Group over the ongoing situation. Layoffs have already begun, and there are concerns about shortages along the supply chains as the blockades continue. On Saturday, minister Marc Miller met with Mohawk leaders in Ontario, responsible for the blockade there, and after a day-long meeting reported “modest progress” and items that he would have to discuss with his Cabinet colleagues as a result. Minister Carolyn Bennett, meanwhile, is holding conversations with chiefs in BC, and is awaiting a meeting between them and the province’s Indigenous affairs minister, but it all may be for naught as the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs insist that they won’t allow the pipeline regardless.

Meanwhile, when it comes to that pipeline route, here is a look at some of the backstory involved – particularly why the alternate routes that those hereditary chiefs proposed were deemed unsuitable by the company (and there is a lengthy thread here where the journalists shows his work). This will be an interesting question around duty to consult, attempts at offering accommodations, and what the legal paths are in light of the police actions to enforce court orders (which led to the sympathetic protests and blockades).

At the same time, the calls continue by certain voices that the police need to step in and enforce the “rule of law.” Except that the government can’t actually order them to do anything. Here’s Jennifer Robson with an explanation as to why not.

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Roundup: Ministers inbound

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The ongoing protests in support of those First Nations hereditary chiefs protesting the Coastal GasLink pipeline have not yet resulted in arrests, raids, or other police action to enforce the court injunctions just yet, and VIA Rail has shut down passenger rail service throughout the country, while CN Rail has shut down their eastern Canadian operations for the time being, and that means temporary layoffs. There has been more government responses now – BC premier John Horgan is setting up new meetings, while Carolyn Bennett is heading to BC to meet with those hereditary chiefs, while Marc Miller will be meeting with the Mohawk leaders setting up the blockades in Central Canada (while Justin Trudeau says he remains apprised of the situation while abroad, and will be returning to Ottawa tonight following the conclusion of the security conference in Munich). Trudeau reached out to one of the First Nations leaders leading a solidarity protest blockading the port in Prince Rupert, and that seems to have worked, as they agreed to dismantle that particular blockade.

Part of what is underlying the response to these protests seems to be an aversion to another Oka crisis – so we’ll see whether there have really been any lessons learned, thirty years later. And police action would inflame the situation, and they seem to be alive to that situation, which is probably a good thing. I have to wonder if part of the response to this isn’t also a bit of a mirror of what we saw recently with the CN Rail strike, where certain voices started immediately howling that Parliament needed to be summoned in order to ram through back-to-work legislation or there would be dire consequences, and the government held off and lo, a resolution came within about eight days. Was there some disruption? Yes. Was the outcome better than if they had taken out the sledgehammer? Undoubtedly. And it would seem to me that similar thinking is underway here. Despite a few middle aged, white male columnists are melting down over, things are not at a crisis level – they are largely inconveniences, which is the point of protest. And by not making things worse, there remains a chance to resolve this in a peaceable manner.

This having been said, the cries that Trudeau is off trying to secure a UN Security Council seat instead of dealing with this “crisis” are myopic and don’t grasp what the seat would do for Canada (articulated in this thread), though I will lay that on this government’s chronic inability to communicate their way out of a wet paper bag. I also suspect that the hereditary chiefs’ attempt to launch a constitutional challenge against the pipeline on an environmental basis is going to blow up in their faces, so I’m not sure either side is doing themselves any particular favours in all of this.

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Roundup: Holding off on enforcement

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Indigenous protests continue across the country in support of those protesting the Coastal GasLink pipeline, with not only rail disruptions, but also blockades around legislatures and city halls (Halifax city hall being a target that nearly kept Chrystia Freeland from the building). Thus far, police have not cleared any of them despite warnings that enforcing the various court orders will be imminent, and even some Indigenous leaders are calling on their people to end the blockades. That doesn’t seem to have persuaded any of them just yet. (The Star hears from protesters themselves here).

While Jagmeet Singh is calling on Justin Trudeau to return from his foreign trip early to deal with the situation, and Andrew Scheer hinting that he wants politicians to direct the RCMP to enforce those court orders right away (which is a very bad idea and has led to past flashpoints with Indigenous communities), Trudeau says he and his Cabinet are monitoring the situation but are content to let the provinces continue to handle those issues that are within their jurisdiction – as well he should. I suspect that one of the reasons why the RCMP and OPP are holding off on any enforcement actions just yet are because moving too soon will simply generate more sympathy for the protesters and possibly escalate the situation across the country, whereas waiting another day or two will lose those protesters any sympathy as the inconvenience becomes too much for most Canadians, and that most of the protesters will get bored and go home on their own before too long.

Meanwhile, Susan Delacourt remarks on the impossible situation that Justin Trudeau has been placed in by this situation, while Chris Selley wonders how we can be considered a grown-up country if we can allow the disruptions to continue without treating it like a serious situation that it is for many people affected by it. As well, here is an explainer from last year about the dispute within the Wet’suwet’en First Nation, and how that affects the duty to consult.

Teck Frontier mine

I wanted to point you to this piece, written by energy economist Andrew Leach and environmental law professor Martin Olszynski, which puts a lot more facts and context on the table regarding the Teck Frontier mine application and what is really being considered by Cabinet. In particular, because market conditions have changed so much since the project was first proposed in 2011, and the (flawed) economic impact analysis along with it, it means that the expected economic benefits are far, far less than what was initially promised (when they assumed oil at $95/barrel; it’s currently hovering around $50/barrel), and that will have to weigh in on the government’s decision. After all, the decision tends to boil down to how much economic benefit is worth the significant adverse environmental impact of the project – and it will be significant. And if the benefits are far below what they were initially sold to be, does that make it worthwhile to approve the project knowing that the benefits won’t necessarily outweigh the impact. It’s certainly worth thinking on – especially as the provincial government is now casting aspersions on the First Nation that is balking after the lack of ongoing engagement, and the rhetoric continues to heat up to outsized proportions.

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Roundup: Protests and impossible demands

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The protests in support of the hereditary chiefs who are against the BC Coastal GasLink pipeline continue to disrupt the rail corridors in central Canada, though that may soon come to an end as the OPP has stated that the situation has become “dire” and threatened enforcement of court injunctions soon enough. Rail service has been cancelled for both freight and passengers, which is going to cause some economic disruption, especially as other sympathetic protesters have been attempting to blockade ports on both coasts. The federal government maintains that they are very concerned about what is happening, but state that these remain areas of provincial jurisdiction, and that’s something that we can’t simply handwave away.

And this is something that should be remarked upon a little more – the demands that the federal government get involved with the Coastal GasLink situation are essentially saying that the government should ignore the constitution, or that when a group feels aggrieved by the provincial government that they can then turn around and demand that the federal government do something, like asking your mother for permission after your father says no. Meanwhile, some of the protesters – like those staging a “sit-in” in the Department of Justice building, are making novel demands of the minister that are outside of his powers, and which don’t respond to how government operates in Canada – particularly given that the RCMP operates at arm’s length and doesn’t take orders from the justice minister or any Cabinet minister. In this case, they are enforcing a court order, which again, the government can’t simply step in and make disappear. We have a rule of law. And yes, the situation is complicated by the fact that there aren’t treaties in this area of BC, which means there is uncertainty as to the rights and title question (which have been under negotiation for years, if not decades), but the justice minister can’t wave a magic wand. Real life doesn’t work like that, and for this group to declare that if he doesn’t wave a magic wand by today that “reconciliation is dead,” well, it’s more than a little precious.

Meanwhile, these protests are giving rise to other voices who want to exploit the situation, like Conservative leadership hopeful who says that if he was prime minister, he would do something about it. He won’t say what – but by gum he’d do something! Jason Kenney, meanwhile, is trying to build the case that this is somehow a “dress rehearsal” for future pipeline protests, and calling these actions “ecocolonial” (whatever that means). Meanwhile, his environment minister is slagging the First Nation chief who has raised concerns about Teck Frontier and the lack of engagement by the provincial government, saying that it’s just about money and the government has to worry about taxpayers. Of course, unless Kenney and company don’t tone it down, things are bound to get worse because of the underlying complexity, so perhaps people need to take a deep breath.

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Roundup: Kenney’s Washington mistruths

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Apparently the lure of trying to wade into American politics was too strong for Jason Kenney to resist over the weekend, and he joined Doug Ford in taking swipes at Democratic Party hopefuls over the Keystone XL issue, before telling a Washington audience that Justin Trudeau’s former principal secretary, Gerald Butts, had conspired with the Obama administration to kill the Keystone XL pipeline – which is funny, because it was during the Harper government, and Trudeau has been on the record of being fully supportive of Keystone XL the whole time. Kenney’s Mini-Me, Scott Moe, insisted that this fable was “absolutely correct,” which is a lie in and of itself. And of course, people brought their receipts.

Of course, Kenney has nothing to fall on but lies about the state of the oil industry in order to keep the attention off of himself and his government’s failings in trying to manage the shifting economy – and his convenient target is always Justin Trudeau, whom he needs to keep his voters angry at as a means of distraction. That said, his audience laps it up, and that has pretty much eliminated any sense of shame that Kenney had left. There was a piece in this weekend’s tablet edition of Maclean’s that interviewed so-called “Wexit” supporters, and they all repeated the same memes and lies that Kenney and company peddle, along with a healthy amount of self-delusion, that Kenney also stokes by way of his rank dishonesty. He is continuing to play with fire, as he feels he’s clever enough to put it out and be declared a hero before it gets too big, and trying to do it from Washington is not only a sign of hubris, but possibly of his own desperation.

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