Tag Archives: Justin Trudeau

Roundup: A victory for carbon prices

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In a 3-2 decision, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal has ruled that the federal carbon price backstop is not only constitutional, but it also qualifies as a regulatory charge and not a tax, which means that the way it’s being applied is also constitutional. Predictably, Scott Moe has vowed to take this to the Supreme Court of Canada (and a 3-2 decision made this a certainty if the political element wasn’t there already), while Catherine McKenna, predictably, called it a victory for the planet.

In terms of analysis, here is the long thread from economist Andrew Leach’s reading fo the decision, and his commentary on what the dissenting judges got wrong is particularly illuminating. As well, economist Lindsay Tedds’ wheelhouse is the whole difference between taxes and regulatory charges, so she has some comments here. I would note that the majority decision is going to be some of the precedent that Ontario’s Court of Appeal will look at as they’re drafting their own ruling on the Ontario reference, and if New Brunswick, Alberta, and Manitoba proceed with their own challenges, it will help to inform them as well. But with it headed to the Supreme Court of Canada – as Ontario’s will inevitably as well, and everyone knows it – it may not make any more sense for those other provinces to carry on their own challenges as it’s unlikely that they’ll make any more novel arguments, and it would seem to be swifter for all involved to let the SCC process happen sooner than later (though it certainly won’t happen before the next election, and there is a hope among opponents that a Conservative win will render the whole issue moot if they scrap the federal law beforehand).

Jason Markusoff notes that while the court victory is a modest win for the Liberals, the continued carbon tax crusading by Kenney and Ford isn’t winning them much applause from the blue-chip Toronto corporations that they’re looking to attract with their “open for business” shtick. (Here’s a hint: Stop creating uncertainty by cancelling established environmental plans and creating political risk by cancelling projects and immunizing yourselves from litigation). Andrew Coyne, meanwhile, asserts that the ruling is a victory for common sense – as well as the planet.

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Roundup: Kenney’s a federalist, but…

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Jason Kenney made his triumphant return to Ottawa yesterday, now bearing the title of premier of Alberta, and he went before a Senate committee to a) bluster, and b) warn that if he didn’t get his way that separatist sentiment would rise in Alberta, even though he insisted that he’s a federalist, but this was somehow beyond his control. Erm, except an actual federalist wouldn’t give oxygen to these swivel-eyed loons, nor would someone who was actually concerned about the state of the federation feed them a diet of lies and snake oil to keep them angry for the sake of electoral gain.

Part of Kenney’s bluster was his threatening to launch court challenges against Bill C-69 if it gets passed in its current form, because he claims it intrudes on provincial jurisdiction – but he’s also said a lot of bogus things about the constitutionality of his promises (up to and including his threat about holding a referendum on equalisation, which he is also now equivocating on in the media), so I’m not sure he’s got a lot of credibility to spare in this legal analysis. But these kinds of threats also put me in mind a certain sense of contagion with the court cases around the carbon tax, and according to one environmental lawyer that I interviewed recently for an upcoming article, there is a sense that the provinces are trying to lay out markers in the area of shared jurisdiction, and this may be more of that – provinces trying to grab more power for their own sake.

The thing that really bothers me about Kenney’s “I’m a federalist, but…” line is that he doesn’t seem to care how dangerous it is, and how very antithetical it runs to his so-called “open for business” shtick. Do you know what drives away business investment (beyond destroying certainty by promising to tear up the environmental regime that they were partners in developing and increasing the political risk by constantly threatening lawsuits)? Separatist sentiment. Ask Quebec what it did for them, when all of those national headquarters fled Montreal for Toronto (remember when Montreal used to be the financial capital of Canada?) and their housing market plummeted? Yeah, not sure that’s something that Kenney should be trying to repeat, even if he’s using it as a threat. Beyond that, he can’t just say “I’m a federalist, but…” and not take some responsibility for the anger he’s stoked knowing full well that he can’t deliver on those promises, which will just cause that anger to fester. I know some people are trying to claim that he’s simply trying to channel that separatist sentiment into more harmless paths, but he’s courted it rather than smacked it down. “I’m a federalist, but…” just winks to them, and it’s beyond irresponsible.

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Roundup: Untenable ideas that get print

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There were a couple of pieces over the weekend that had me scowling a little, mostly because they don’t seem terribly well thought-through when you actually delve in a little. One of them was a piece in Maclean’s that used polling data to posit the idea of a Green Party-NDP merger which is a bit silly because the parties are nothing alike in the slightest. The premise that they both claim to care about the environment and appeal to youth is flimsy on its face, because the Greens aren’t really that “progressive” of a party seeing as the federal party came into being with a lot of disaffected Red Tories in their mix, and if you delve into some of their non-environmental policies, there’s not a lot of millennial progressivity in there. (Seriously, it’s a dog’s breakfast of things, as they discovered in the last election when it turned out that a bunch of their social policies were written by men’s rights activists, given that there is a lack of adult supervision when it comes to policy development in that party). Add to that, the party cultures are essentially night and day – the NDP are centralizing and are about solidarity at all costs (and they rigidly enforce it), while the Greens are decentralized to the point of practical incoherence. I get that there is going to be a bit of a fad in political circles right now that believes that Alberta “proved” that mergers work given the Progressive Conservative + Wildrose Alliance “merger” into the UCP was prototypical, but that would be looking at quantitative data over qualitative – and the UCP is still young.

The other piece that deserves some consternation was Justin Ling’s op-ed that suggested that co-leaders would be a great thing for parties to deal with the problem of presidentialised leadership politics, and look how great it’s working for Quebec Solidaire. Err, except the solution to our presidentialised leadership politics in this country isn’t to share power, but rather to restore the selection and firing process to the hands of caucus. The biggest flaw in Ling’s argument, however, is that it’s antithetical to the way in which our system is structured, which is that it’s about giving advice to the Queen (and by extension, the Governor General/lieutenant governor). That requires a single voice – which is why Cabinet Solidarity is a Thing – and it’s also to create a single point of accountability. If you have dual leadership, then it becomes harder to pin blame. It also has more than enough potential to create factionalisation within parties more than we have already, as different parts of the caucus align themselves behind one co-leader or the other in power struggles. As with so many of these kinds of reform ideas, they sound interesting on the surface, that’s about it.

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Roundup: Vetting judges? Oh noes!

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Yesterday the Globe and Mail had a story about how the current government will run potential judicial nominees through the Liberal party’s voter database as part of the vetting process, which was followed by an analysis of how many appointees were Liberal donors. This first came up weeks ago when yet another Jody Wilson-Raybould-related leak revealed that she was trying to “depoliticize” the appointment process by not providing certain information to PMO when she passed along recommendations, which is a problem – not that it was framed that way. This current story follows up on that, and has a few framing issues of its own. There are a few things to unpack in this, but first of all, I’ll let Adam Goldenberg point out a few issues with this analysis:

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With this in mind, I have a few thoughts of my own – first of all is that I think Goldenberg is correct in his reminder that vetting includes political vetting – and the party’s database (as Susan Delacourt noted on Power Play) contains more than who donated – they will collect all manner of information as part of their construction of voter profiles, so it makes sense that they would also run potential appointments through this. (The fact that parties don’t have stringent privacy rules around their databases is a discussion for another day). Why? Because the prime minister is ultimately politically accountable for all Governor-in-Council appointments, and that includes judges. And so long as the prime minister is politically accountable, I think it’s reasonable that his office does whatever vetting they deem necessary – and there’s nothing in here to indicate that they’re checking to ensure that they’re voting for Liberal partisans, which we need to keep in mind.

The other aspect of his story that makes me a bit queasy is the implication that there is favour being shown to Liberal donors – and the math bears out a little bit that while seventy percent of appointees hadn’t donated to anyone, twenty-five percent of them donated to the Liberals, which is disproportionate to other parties. But we also need to remember a few things, the primary one being that we need to stop treating political donations as a bad thing. The donation limits in this country are quite small – you’re not going to bribe someone for $1200, let’s face it – and we donations are a form of engagement. Engagement is a good thing. The more we stigmatize past political donations – and those donations could be for a variety of reasons, such as an acquaintance running in a local campaign, or because they wanted the tax receipt – the more we send the message that engagement is bad, which is the very opposite of what we should be doing in a country where we already have abysmal levels of engagement, whether it’s taking out party memberships, donating, or volunteering (and yes, Samara Canada has done research on this). Pearl-clutching stories like this just reinforce this narrative, which is bad for democracy.

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Roundup: Kenney changes his tone

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In the wake of Jason Kenney’s win in the Alberta election, he took to the microphones yesterday to try and sound statesmanlike, immediately ratcheting down his rhetoric on a number of files including his “turn off the taps” pledge (which never made any business sense) and his demand that the Trans Mountain Expansion construction get underway – acknowledging realities that he never did on the campaign trail. Of course, he still plans to kill the province’s carbon tax (and lift their emissions cap) which sets up for constitutional battles that they are doomed to lose. As for Rachel Notley, she becomes yet another woman first minister who has failed to win a second election, keeping that established pattern going. And I would encourage you all to read Jen Gerson’s roundup of the whole election, and the lessons in the end – that you can’t hope to paint your opponents as bigots and win, and that you can’t run a campaign about lashing out against the world without consequences.

This having been said, a narrative started emerging over social media as soon as it became clear that Kenney was winning last night, which was conservatives across the country were insisting that the NDP’s campaign as solely “nasty” and full of “personal attacks” which was why they lost. Kenney himself, during his press conference yesterday, insisted that he had a “positive campaign” that the media somehow missed. I’m not sure what part of lies and snake oil promises are “positive,” nor am I convinced that pointing out racism, misogyny and homophobia/transphobia is a “personal attack.” In fact, it seems to point to this aggrieved sense that I’ve seen where the Conservatives in Ottawa will go to bat for avowed racists because their racism was being pointed out – that being called a racist is somehow worse than the actual racism being espoused. That’s a fairly troubling mindset, and yet we’re no doubt going to be seeing a lot more of it as Justin Trudeau makes a concerted effort to point out the winking and nudging to white nationalists that Andrew Scheer has engaged in.

And now the hot takes – because everyone’s got one. Colby Cosh points out that this really wasn’t the Lougheed vs Klein fight that some people portrayed, and that the broader climate fight is in the works. Stephen Maher advises that Trudeau abandon his “sunny ways” (more than he already has) and start bare-knuckle brawling, adding that if Kenney lets his social conservatives loose, that could work to Trudeau’s advantage. Andrew Coyne notes Kenney’s adoption of a statesman-like tone in victory following “campaign exuberance,” and that Trudeau would be in a tough spot to not approve Trans Mountain if Kenney repeals the province’s environmental plan. David Moscrop wonders if the trends in Alberta are changing and whether its conservatism will hold for Kenney’s benefit. Tristin Hopper makes the salient point that the increasingly uncompromising nature of the environmental movement hardened Albertans against the NDP.

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Roundup: Drawing the wrong lessons

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At the time I’m writing this, it’s not looking too good for Rachel Notley and her NDP in the Alberta election (and sorry I couldn’t stay up late to track results, but StatsCan waits for no journalist). With that in mind, I wanted to just post a couple of thoughts about what this could bode – not just the immediate nonsense of Jason Kenney theatrically tabling a bill to repeal the province’s carbon tax (and immediately subjecting him to the federal backstop), or his threat to “turn off the taps” to BC when it comes to oil — something a court would strike down immediately because it’s utterly unconstitutional. Rather, I suspect that this will provide additional encouragement to Andrew Scheer to emulate Kenney’s tactics — fomenting anger, and selling people a steady diet of lies and snake oil, and hoping that he can find someone to blame when he’s unable to deliver on any of it should he get into power. Scheer’s problem will be that he doesn’t have another level of government he can cast too much blame upon, but that won’t dissuade him from the other tactics.

I also suspect that we’re going to get a renewed round of wailing and gnashing of teeth from “progressives” about how they couldn’t coalesce their votes around Notley and the NDP, and there will be all manner of blame being cast at the Alberta Party and the Alberta Liberals for splitting their vote (which is nonsense, of course, but we’ll hear it anyway).

Meanwhile, my column offers my personal loathing and dread about the way the election happened, and the problem with stoking anger and promising magic wands and snake oil.

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Roundup: Statute or prerogative?

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Because there was (thankfully) not a lot of news this weekend, and I just can’t about the Alberta election right now (seriously, does nobody realize the how much fire they’ve playing with by stoking anger and making unrealistic promises?) I’m instead going to leave you with some food for thought from Philippe Lagassé about the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians’ report and the calls for military intelligence to be a subjected to a statutory framework rather than carrying on operating under Crown prerogative, as they currently are. Enjoy.

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Roundup: Missing the mark on encouraging participation

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The House of Commons’ status of women committee tabled a report this week that is about getting more women into politics? The problem? That all of its recommendations are focused on what the government can do, when it’s not their job. Rather, it’s the job of political parties, and only some of them take it seriously. Add to that, the one recommendation that people tend to focus on — that the federal government give some manner of financial compensation to parties who recruit more women candidates — is bad policy because it simply rewards parties for putting women candidates in unwinnable ridings and lets them claim their percentages. The Conservatives had their own dissenting report as well, which focused on their notion of women running on “merit” rather than quotas (because there’s apparently no tokenism in their party), and wanted more focus on women who bully and discourage other women in politics. (The NDP’s own dissent focused on some of the language of the recommendations, and more funding for women’s groups, childcare, and so on).

And I have to stress that this is a party issue, not a government issue. Parties are the ones who set the rules for their nomination contests, and are responsible for recruiting their own candidates, and even more to the point, these should be grassroots efforts rather than coming on high from party headquarters. That means mobilising party members at the ground level to find and recruit more women, and to convince them to run. The Liberals have had success with this — they instituted a programme of getting people to find women in their communities and then asking them several times to run, because they know the research that shows that while a man would likely accept on the first request, women can take something like seven times being asked before they will accept to run. Overcoming that socialised reluctance is a big part of it, and where the focus needs to lie — on top of the parties making their nomination rules more clear (and less reliant on the “unwritten rules” as have been spoken of), and ensuring that things like childcare are being taken care of so that women can do things like door-knock and and canvas. None of this is something that the government can take care of, but the party grassroots needs to be aware of and work toward implementing.

It’s not just rules — it’s an ecosystem. Part of that is civics education, because we don’t teach students about things like nomination races and why they matter, and how to get involved. That’s one of the most fundamental parts of our system, and we don’t teach it. How do we expect more young women to get involved if we don’t tell them how? This is where the focus needs to lie if we’re to make any lasting change.

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QP: Concern trolling over perjury

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The Thursday before the Easter break, and neither Justin Trudeau nor Andrew Scheer were present. That left Alain Rayes to lead off in French, and he demanded that the prime minister commence his legal action right away. Bardish Chagger said that Canadians heard the truth because the PM had the courage go waive any confidences, but the legal letter was sent because the leader of the opposition keeps speaking falsehoods. Rayes dared Chagger again, and Chagger reiterated that they took the first step with the letter. Mark Strahl took over in English, with added bluster, in demanded that the prime minister see his leader in court. Chagger reiterated her points in English, and so Strahl tried again, and again, not that the answer changed. Jagmeet Singh was up next, and he wanted assurances that the government would not interfere with the Director of Public Prosecutions, to which Chagger was concerned that Singh seemed to indicate a lack of confidence in the Ethics Commissioner of other institutions. Singh demanded a public inquiry in French, to which Marc Garneau stood up to say that Canada was cooperating with the OECD. Singh then asked about big banks’ sales practices and worried the government was only worried about big corporations, and Ralph Goodale reminded him that they introduced tougher penalties against banks giving misleading information. Singh tried again in English, and Goodale repeated his response with a tone of exasperation. 

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Roundup: Forcing a partial denunciation

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While Andrew Scheer was goading Justin Trudeau to carry on with his libel lawsuit against him, it seems that Trudeau did manage to get Andrew Scheer to do one thing that he has thus far avoided, which was an actual denunciation of white nationalism, and that he actually said those words rather than talking around them. He didn’t denounce Faith Goldy for appearing with him at that “convoy” rally, and he didn’t say anything about his cherry-picking of wilful blindness of the “Yellow Vest” contingent with their racist and whites supremacist messages at that rally, but it was a start. Baby steps. 

Part of the backdrop for this was an exchange between Senator Leo Housakos and Chrystia Freeland at a Senate committee hearing on Tuesday, where Housakos said he didn’t see any white suprematist threat (which he later said was poorly worded), and Freeland laying down the law on it. 

Amidst this drama, the head of CSIS was appearing at a different Senate committee, this time to talk about Bill C-59, the national security bill, and he did state that the intelligence service was becoming more and more preoccupied with the threat of white nationalists and far-right extremists, even though religious extremism was still one of their largest focuses. It’s something that is of concern and we can’t ignore the winking and nudges that absolutely takes place, or especially the blind eyes that get turned, but we do seem to be having a conversation about it, so that’s probably a good start.

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