Tag Archives: Labour

QP: Variations of keeping the heat on

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While the prime minister and his deputy were meeting with premiers about future health transfers, most of the other leaders were absent, safe Pierre Poilievre. Poilievre led off in French, then pointed out the increase in the national debt without fixing the system, and demanded the prime minister take responsibility for the problems he caused, never mind that this is the result of generations of provincial premiers cutting their systems to the bone. Randy Boissonnault reminded Poilievre of the additional transfers under the pandemic, and that the PM is meeting with premiers today. Poilievre went another round in English and got the same answer. Poilievre went back to French to accuse the government of causing runaway inflation with overspending, misquoting people left and right along the way, to which François-Philippe Champagne vociferously defended the government’s investments in science and innovation. Poilievre returned to English to mock the investment in Medicago before reciting his “triple, triple, triple” ear worm and his new line about keeping the heat on while cutting the tax. Champagne got back up to defend the investment in Medicago as investing in all vaccines until they found ones that work. Poilievre listed a bunch of non sequiturs he considered misspending, and then modified his talking point to promise that they would keep the heat on until they take off the tax. Karina Gould got up to list the things the government has done to help people while the Conservatives voted against it.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc and he accused the prime minster of dividing people with his appointment of Amira Elghawaby and the Liberal MPs raising concerns about the Charter of the French language. Pablo Rodriguez got up to taunt that the Bloc only exists to divide. Therrien got up to rail some more about those Liberal MPs, to which Ginette Petitpas Taylor recited well-worn talking points about the bill protecting French across the country, after the opposition benches stopped chanting “Pablo! Pablo!” in the hopes he would respond a second time.

Don Davies rose for the NDP, and he railed sanctimoniously about private delivery of healthcare, and Adam van Koeverden read some pabulum about the investments under discussion with the premiers. Daniel Blaikie repeated the question in French, and van Koeverden repeated his script in French.

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Roundup: New Zealand’s leadership selection

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New Zealand is about to have a new prime minister, and lo, it was a process that took a single day. Yes, it was an acclamation where only one person put his name forward (“to avoid disunity,”), but that is less of an issue because New Zealand is one of the last remaining parliaments where it’s decided by a vote held within the caucus among the MPs—the way that Westminster parliaments are supposed to work. And of course, it’s completely alien to how things have devolved in this country.

The quasi-American pseudo-presidential primary system that we’ve adopted in this country is corrosive to politics. It has hollowed out the political parties, and pretty much killed grassroots riding associations, because they no longer matter to the party. Memberships—paid or unpaid (as is the latest craze)—is about leadership selection, not sticking around to do the hard policy work, because the parties have centralized that and justify it using Big Data. It’s all about populating databases rather than ensuring you have a base of engaged partisans who act as a link between the community and the caucus in Parliament. The leader then turns the party into a personality cult while they wield almost absolute power because there are almost no checks on that remaining. At least with caucus selection, there is a direct line of accountability so that the caucus that chose the leader can remove said leader as well, which is one of the most important considerations.

Suffice to say, while one might have preferred that they at least had a vote between two candidates for the job, the fact that they have retained caucus selection is important, and Canada needs to return to the same system if we are to have any hope of fixing the damage to our system.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 332:

Russian forces claim that they took control of the town of Klishchiivka, south of Bakhmut, which their mercenaries claimed to have taken already. And they’re still claiming they’ve taken Soledar, which Ukraine disputes. Meanwhile, the NATO meeting in Ramstein, Germany, ended without an agreement on sending Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, as Germany is the holdout and needs to authorize the use of their technology.

https://twitter.com/oleksiireznikov/status/1616506280876642317

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Roundup: Encouraging noises on health transfers

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There seems to be a noticeable shift in tone coming from several premiers when it comes to the federal government’s demands that there be more strings attached to future federal health care transfers, and that they seem to be realizing that their time-old tactics of simply blaming the federal government isn’t working as well as it used to. In part, I think that Justin Trudeau has stepped up his game on communication around this issue more than he usually does, and made effective use of his round of year-end interviews on this file, and showed that he was willing to give them more money, but that there needs to be changes rather than putting money into a broken system that won’t get meaningful results. I also think that shit is getting real for the premiers as we are now seeing an increasing number of deaths in ERs that should have been preventable, and that the patience of the population when it comes to children’s hospitals in particular is now gone, and they are being forced to wear it more than they would normally have had to in the past.

So, this sounds like an increased willingness to rebrand federal strings as “shared priorities,” and that’s a climbdown that premiers seem to be increasingly willing to live with. But then again, I wouldn’t trust all of the premiers, and in particular Doug Ford, whose math about new beds is false advertising, and who is hilariously claiming that new private surgery clinics won’t cannibalise hospital staff or resources, because of course they will. That’s the whole gods damned point. His “safeguards” will be as effective as toddler gates whose latches can be figured out and overcome within seconds. So, while it’s good to hear the shift in tone, I wouldn’t count any unhatched chickens just yet.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 325:

Russians are once again claiming that they are now in control of the remains of Soledar, but the Ukrainians continue to say their units are still there and still fighting.

https://twitter.com/bachyns/status/1613939963237732365

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Roundup: Sanctimonious outrage over unsavoury characters

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There was another bout of sanctimonious outrage in the House of Commons yesterday as a notorious Holocaust-denier attended an event put on by MPs of the Canada-Palestine Parliamentary Friendship Group, and the Conservatives (and Melissa Lantsman in particular) demanded apologies and denunciations. While at least two Liberals, Salma Zahid and Omar Alghabra, denounced, there hasn’t been much of an apology, but noted that said denier was not invited, but that an open invitation went out to the Palestinian community and he was one of 150 or so who showed up. One would think that with a topic as sensitive as solidarity with the Palestinian people that there would have been more of an emphasis on ensuring that someone like this didn’t show up, but they didn’t. In QP, Alghabra was not incorrect in noting that they can’t control the attendance at every public event and that sometimes unsavoury people will show up, which is true—but again, you should know with an event like this that it’s going to attract certain characters, and to beware.

What is rich, however, is that when far-right extremists showed up at Pierre Poilievre’s rallies, or when he cavorted with the occupiers on Parliament Hill in February, or when he went on that walk with members of Diagalon, that he and his caucus insisted that he couldn’t be held to account for those people showing up. And lo, they have a different standard when it happens to others. It’s something of a pox on all their houses situation—the MPs who hosted the Palestinian event should have been more careful, and headed off trouble when they saw who showed up, while the Conservatives need to own when they were attracting extremists, and consorting with them. But I have little doubt that either side will own this, and the sanctimonious outrage will continue, back and forth from each side, in perpetuity.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 282:

Russian shelling has taken out power in over a third of recently liberated Kherson, and Ukrainian officials are reiterating their call for civilians to relocate for the time being. Meanwhile, here’s a look at the grinding battle near Bakhmut, whose strategic importance is questioned, but nevertheless, the well-fortified Ukrainians are exacting a heavy toll from Russian forces, even though it is costing between 30 to 50 Ukrainian casualties per day.

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Roundup: A nightclub shooting and sportwashing

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There was another shooting at an LGBTQ+ nightclub over the weekend, this time in Colorado Springs. It comes after a marked increase of far-right groups targeting drag queens and trans people, and make no mistake that such rhetoric is very much leaking into Canada, and was present in the election through the People’s Party, and featured in some of the discourse coming out of the occupation in Ottawa back in February. It is having an impact here—I’ve spoken to out gay MPs who say they haven’t faced these kinds of threats in years, but now they’ve made a comeback, and this is going to mean a concerted effort to take this seriously in our politics. Unfortunately, I’m not sure how much I trust that it’ll happen, given that our current government talks a better game than they do in following through, and the Conservatives are hoovering up the far-right tactics and propaganda as a way of trying to use the far right to win votes rather than playing to the centre, and Poilievre has insulated himself from criticism on this by putting his two out MPs in his leadership team, including making Melissa Lantsman one of his deputy leaders.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1594362156547547145

https://twitter.com/carl_s_charles/status/1594358215226990598

With this in mind, and Trudeau’s words especially, I am curious why he and his government then chose to send a delegation, led by Harjit Sajjan, to the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, a country that criminalises LGBTQ+ people, and which is essentially a modern slave state where hundreds of migrant workers died in order to build the facilities for these games. By choosing to send the delegation (as opposed to letting Team Canada participate), they are actively participating in the sportswashing happening. Not to say that Canada hasn’t done its share of sportswashing (thinking especially of the Vancouver winter Olympics), but this is egregious, and incredibly disappointing that they made this choice.

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Roundup: National Remembrance ceremonies in Canada as Kherson is liberated in Ukraine

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National Remembrance Day ceremonies were held in Ottawa, with some particular attention paid to it being the 80thanniversary of the raid on Dieppe, as well as some particular attention to the memory of the Queen, who was herself a veteran of the Second World War.

Of course, someone had to be churlish and parochial today, so the Conservatives put out a press release denouncing the fact that Justin Trudeau was absent, because he’s on his way to an important summit in Asia. And he met with troops in New Brunswick yesterday, and during his refuelling stop in Alaska. And yes, Stephen Harper also missed several Remembrance Day events because of foreign travel, so the complaints about Trudeau are not only weird and hypocritical, but they’re indicative of the fact that the Pierre Poilievre has just hired an avowed shitposter as his director of communications, and this level of juvenile partisan sniping is what we can expect more of in the coming days because this is exactly what he thinks is going to speak to Canadians.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 262:

Ukrainian special forces arrived in Kherson to a hero’s welcome, but the real work begins now of trying to deal with the landmines the Russians left behind in the city. There are also concerns about “sabotage operations” by Russian troops in civilian clothes. Kherson is strategic because it allows Ukraine to control fresh water flowing to occupied Crimea, and keeps Russian control out of the southern part of the country in an attempt to keep the land bridge to Crimea.

https://twitter.com/maksymeristavi/status/1591099528736051205

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Roundup: The federal walkout in the face of the premiers’ games

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The federal-provincial health ministers’ meeting broke down with federal ministers Jean-Yves Duclos and Carolyn Bennett walking out after a communiqué from the premiers was leaked, decrying a failure of the talks, drafted five days ago, indicating that there was no intent to listen to the federal government’s position on tying increased funding to accountability measures like outcomes and pan-Canadian data. Duclos said in his press scrum after walking out that just increasing the transfer to provinces is not a plan, which is one hundred percent correct, because we know that provinces have a demonstrated history of spending additional federal dollars on other things that are not healthcare. (Duclos’ statement here). The provincial spokes-minister, Adrian Dix, carried on with his disingenuous talking points about not being able to fix the system without more money, or demanding a first ministers’ meeting about this, the only purpose of which would be for the premiers to gang up on the prime minister for the cameras. Dix also painted this false picture of lamenting that the federal government couldn’t come together with them like they did over COVID, completely ignoring that the federal government sent billions of additional dollars to provinces for COVID and most of those provinces simply put that money directly onto their bottom lines to end their fiscal year with a surplus, which is not the point of sending money to them for healthcare.

Justin Trudeau, earlier in the day, was already calling the premiers out on this bullshit by pointing out that they are crying poor while they are offering tax breaks for their wealthier citizens, which is not a sign that their budgets are hurting for federal dollars. And this is exactly the point—premiers have largely decided to make this the federal government’s problem, because they can get away with this particular lie. Legacy media will continue to take the line that so long as a single federal dollar is involved, this becomes a federal responsibility, which is not how this works. The crumbling healthcare system is not the federal government’s problem. They have done nothing but increase funding year over year. The provinces have created this mess, and in all likelihood exacerbated it deliberately in order to force the federal government’s hand in giving them a lot more money with no strings attached, but the federal government isn’t blinking, and is finally starting to call bullshit. Let’s see if legacy media actually catches on (but I have serious doubts they will).

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 259:

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he’s willing to negotiate peace—on his terms, and not Russia’s, but forestalled criticism Russia was levelling against him. Otherwise, there was more shelling in Bakhmut, and two civilians were seriously wounded by unexploded mines around Kharkiv.

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Roundup: Pretending the promise of money was new

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Provincial health ministers met in Vancouver yesterday in advance of their federal counterpart joining them, and boy did the bullshit ever flow, particularly in their characterisation of what has transpired. The federal minister, Jean-Yves Duclos, put out a statement before the provincial minsters had a press conference that basically reiterated what the federal government has been saying for months now—that yes, they are willing to spend more money, but they want outcomes attached. What was different was specific language about common metrics for health data, cooperation on health workforces, and that the federal government was willing to also engaged in specially tailored one-off agreements with provinces on specific investments.

To hear BC’s health minister, Adrian Dix, tell the tale, the federal government has been “radio silent” for over a year, which is not true, or that this is the first time they’ve raised money issues, which is again, not true, and the message has been consistent. But some of his counterparts are already rejecting the federal strings, and insisting that this is some kind of centralization or micromanaging (it’s not). Dix also pretended that the progress he has made around some reforms in BC are being done elsewhere around the country (they’re not) as “proof” that the provinces are getting their acts together on healthcare, which is, again, not true, and nobody wants to call out the provinces for letting things get to a crisis through chronic underfunding, in large part because they spent federal dollars on other things, and because certain premiers appear to be wilfully breaking their systems in order to try and privatise as much as they can without penalty under the Canada Health Act. If the starting point for these negotiations is the truth, well, that appears to be in short supply, which could be a big problem for everyone going forward.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 258:

Ukrainian officials are accusing Russian forces of looting empty homes in Kherson after they ordered civilians out of the city (likely a forced deportation, which is a war crime) in advance of the Ukrainian advance on the city, and then the Russians cut the power to the city and blamed Ukrainian “sabotage.” The epicentre of the fighting remains Bakhmut and Avdiivka in the Donetsk region, where Ukrainians say that hundreds of Russians are being killed every day.

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Roundup: Don’t just rely on the federal government

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While at a feel-good announcement yesterday about the enhanced GST rebates going out to Canadians, Justin Trudeau told reporters that he was weighing “all options” on what to do about Doug Ford’s pre-emptive use of the Notwithstanding Clause, though federal options are extremely limited because it is a legitimate constitutional power under certain circumstances, and doing anything about that would require a constitutional amendment, which if Quebec or Ontario are not on board with, would be dead in the water. And disallowance is likely a Pandora’s box of federal-provincial warfare, which limits options.

Trudeau also said that Canadians themselves need to stand up to provinces using this power rather than waiting for the federal government to intervene (as the pre-emptive use pretty much rules out the courts becoming involved), because we shouldn’t underestimate the power of popular discontent—particularly for someone like Doug Ford, who doesn’t like it when people are mad at him. The powers are being invoked by populists who think they can get away with it by pandering to baser instincts, and of people put sustained pressure on those governments to let them know that no, using these powers are not okay, that could force them to back off, but that means actual sustained pressure, and not just the kinds of slactivism that we have become accustomed to. That is the kind of democratic power that still exists and holds sway, and we shouldn’t discount it.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 255:

Russian authorities in occupied Kherson continue to attempt to evacuate civilians from the city, moving them deeper into Russian-occupied territory, but President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warns that Russia could be laying a trap to ensnare Ukrainian forces into intense urban warfare. Zelenskyy also said that Ukrainian forces have been holding their positions around Bakhmut and Soledar in the Donetsk region, while Russians send more troops into the “meat grinder.”

https://twitter.com/AnitaAnandMP/status/1588684951381508097

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Roundup: The possible constitutional crisis Ford wrought

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The fallout of Doug Ford’s pre-emptive use of the Notwithstanding Clause to bigfoot labour rights carried on yesterday on a few different fronts. In Queen’s Park, the NDP’s interim leader and half of their caucus were ejected by the Speaker for calling Doug Ford a liar over his comments about the CUPE strike, and not retracting. And when one was ejected, another one did on their turn, and so on. This is becoming a problem in legislatures and the House of Commons federally, where it becomes difficult to call out blatant falsehoods because of the prohibitions from calling someone a liar, which has absolutely emboldened parties and elected officials in their respective legislatures at different times, but it’s really bad right now.

Federally, NDP MP Matthew Green tried to call for an emergency debate on this abuse of the power, but it was not deemed worthy, and I’m at a loss as to how it could be because this isn’t a federal matter, and there is nothing the federal government can legitimately do (and don’t say Disallowance, because that is a constitutional dead letter). Later in the day, Justin Trudeau had a call with Doug Ford to tell him that his pre-emptive use of the Notwithstanding Clause was “wrong and inappropriate,” but I’m not sure what more he can do about that, other than try and encourage enough public sentiment against Ford. After all, he likes to be the fun uncle, and if enough people are mad at him, he will back down. The question is sustaining enough anger and ensuring it is widespread enough for Ford to blink.

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/1587989392383148032

Meanwhile, Andrew Coyne argues that federal disallowance powers should be revived to stop provinces’ abusive pre-emptive use of the Notwithstanding clause, and it’s a position I’m going to have to give more thought to, because in a limited way there could be an argument, but it would have to be very particular. I will also note that over Twitter, there has been some chatter that there wasn’t this disallowance talk with Quebec using the Notwithstanding Clause, which is wrong—it has been there, but it is usually met with the same reply, that it’s a constitutional dead letter, and you’re provoking a constitutional crisis. But the constant abuse may have provoked that very crisis, so it’s going to need some very careful consideration as to what next steps are, and what the unintended consequences may be.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 253:

Russia is re-joining the deal to export Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea days after it pulled out of the agreement, saying that their security concerns have been met. Ukraine has officially denied being involved in the attack on Russian ships over the weekend, but president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that Russia seeking security guarantees from Ukraine is a sign of how badly its invasion has gone for them.

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