Tag Archives: Mary May Simon

Roundup: Ford’s Greenbelt corruption

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The long-awaited Auditor General’s report into the Greenbelt scandal was released yesterday, and it outlined some utterly bald-faced corruption as Ford’s sudden desire to develop the Greenbelt saw the chief-of-staff for the housing minister meeting with developers who had just bought these un-developable tracts of land and persuaded him to make those tracts developable, to the tune of an $8.3 billion benefit to them. That’s billion with a b. The process was flawed and contravened pretty much every rule. (The ten take-aways are here). But this all having been said, the Auditor General seemed to also credulously believe that Ford and the minister had no idea that this was going on—which…is hard to believe, considering how many of these developers were at events related to Ford’s daughter’s wedding. And while I can see Ford not knowing the details, because he’s a retail politician and doesn’t care about details, he’s nevertheless responsible for this as premier, and that responsibility absolutely extends to chiefs of staff when they “go rogue.” The report makes fifteen recommendations, which Ford says they’ll follow—except the one about stopping the process of developing the Greenbelt, because apparently his mind is made up.

But in spite of the outright corruption that happened, don’t expect any particular consequences—at least not in the near future. While the OPP’s anti-racket division is looking into this, the “rogue” chief of staff is keeping his job, and so is the minister, because we no longer care about ministerial responsibility when you have corruption to the tune of $8.3 billion. Ford says the buck stops with him, but he spent the afternoon rationalizing and insisting that this is necessary for housing (it’s not), and then blamed the federal government for high immigration numbers (which Ontario has been crying out for), never mind that Ford and company have been ignoring the recommendations of the very task force that they set up to look at the housing situation. And Ford will skate, because he’s not only Teflon-coated, but possesses the Baby Spice Effect™, except instead of her cute smile, he just says “aw, shucks, folks,” and everyone’s brain melts and he gets away with murder. (Well, negligent homicide as the pandemic showed).

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1689294359441604608

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1689323838343979031

In pundit reaction, David Moscrop demands resignations, firings and further investigations for this blatant corruption. Martin Regg Cohn points to the bitter irony of Ford riding into office alleging corruption everywhere only to be engaging in it much more blatantly here.

Ukraine Dispatch:

There was a Russian missile attack against Zaporizhzhia that hit a residential area, killing at least two. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that they have reached an agreement to get more Patriot systems from Germany.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1689329656481103872

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Roundup: The “filibuster” that wasn’t

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A particular level of self-aggrandisement seems to be taking hold in the Leader of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, as he describes things that are not reflective of reality. Yesterday morning, he summoned the media to a speech he delivered to caucus—something that is not uncommon for the last caucus meeting before the summer break, but we are still two weeks away from that. There, he promised that he was going to rise in the House of Commons at 7 PM and begin a filibuster of the budget bill, and that he wouldn’t stop until the government backed down and acceded to his demands.

Except it was all bullshit.

There wasn’t going to be a filibuster. The House had already passed a programming motion, thanks to the NDP, that laid out just how many hours left of debate there were before the final debate, and Poilievre couldn’t just talk and talk past he expiry of that clock. It was already set in stone. So, after another attempted abuse of remote voting as a procedural tactic (which the Deputy Speaker lost all patience with), Poilievre got up to give his five hours of allotted time. But again, this isn’t actually a filibuster because the leader of the opposition gets unlimited speaking time to certain items on the Order Paper, and this was one of them. He wasn’t filibustering anything. He was showboating.

While Conservatives flooded social media with effusive praise about how he was standing up for defenceless Canadians against the predations of the government, and they kept praising how long he was speaking, he wasn’t actually accomplishing anything other than playing to his own backbenches. It’s not like anyone other than a few shut-ins and reporters who drew the short straw were watching. He didn’t stop the budget bill, because it was already the subject of a programming motion. He just talked for the sake of it, and was even finished before midnight hit, when the time would have expired automatically. There was nothing heroic about this action, and it accomplished exactly nothing at all.

https://twitter.com/a_picazo/status/1666653154694266880

Ukraine Dispatch:

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is calling for international assistance in dealing with the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, as they continue to evacuate people from floods, and local authorities rush things like drinking water to the affected area. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces have gained more ground around Bakhmut, but insist that this is not part of any ongoing spring offensive.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1666417873776959489

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Roundup: The campaign leaders testify

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Yesterday was the big day when top campaign officials from the Liberals and Conservatives appeared at the Procedure and House Affairs committee to talk about foreign interference allegations in the previous two elections, and we learned a couple of things. One of which is that Fred DeLorey, the Conservative campaign director, is eminently reasonable and acknowledges they don’t know if there was any actual interference in those ridings they lost, or if it was the result of other factors, like their hard-line rhetoric on China, or gun-control measures (as the Liberal campaign insists). Another thing we learned is that the reporting on the CSIS “warnings” about MP Han Dong were not described accurately, and that they didn’t insist the party drop him as a candidate—which never did make sense if you listened to the actual intelligence experts who said at the time that that didn’t sound right.

There was also talk about how it takes an incredibly high threshold for a party to be able to drop a candidate, so if intelligence agencies had concerns, they would need to come up with something pretty tangible for the parties to exercise that kind of power (and don’t forget that their spending caps are determined by how many candidates they’re running, so if they need to drop one after the cut-off point to replace a name on the ballot, that creates even more headaches). There was also talk about how there needs to be more ongoing dialogue between national security agencies and parties, particularly between election cycles, because these agencies didn’t seem to understand how parties operated, which makes it hard for them to be making determinations about how any interference might be happening (and again, considering that the reported leaks had a bunch of details that didn’t make any sense, this could be the reason why).

Suffice to say, these were the people who should have been testifying the whole time rather than the dog and pony show we had with Katie Telford, which was just a waste of time and resources.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian missile struck a museum in Kupiansk, in the Kharkiv region, killing one civilian and wounding ten others. As well, a woman died from shelling in nearby Dvorichna, and two others in the eastern Donetsk region. Elsewhere, Ukrainian forces staged raids on the east side of the Dnipro river in order to degrade Russian capacity, particularly in their shelling of Kherson, in a sign that the counter-offensive is near. Ukraine is planning on a “complete transformation” of six war-torn cities that were badly damaged in the invasion, to be rebuilt under an experimental programme according to “new principles.”

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1650769182286331905

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Roundup: Ford blames Trudeau for his failures (again)

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You’re seeing a lot of blame being placed at the federal government for the rising crime rates, and a tonne of disinformation about the so-called “catch and release” bail system, which is not catch-and-release, and in some cases is pure distraction. Case in point was around the murder of a teenager at a Toronto subway station. Doug Ford is making noises blaming the federal government for this incident, demanding immediate changes to the bail system—changes that would no doubt be unconstitutional, since the changes they have agreed to with provincial counterparts are very narrowly targeted.

But the real problem is in the provinces. It’s provinces under-resourcing courts, and mostly underfunding social programmes that would keep these kinds of people out of the criminal justice system. In this particular case, the accused has a long history of interactions with the justice system because he has been failed at every turn, and was in dire need of rehabilitation and mental health supports. And you know whose responsibility that is? The province. Ford has been under-funding the system for years, most especially healthcare, which he deliberately underfunds and then cries poor in demanding more federal money, with no strings attached (which he then puts on the province’s bottom line to reduce his deficit, like he did with pandemic spending). Locking these people up in jail doesn’t solve the problem, and only makes it worse in the long-run, and yes, Ford’s predecessors are also guilty of underfunding the system (though I don’t seem to recall them underspending their healthcare budget—merely cutting it to the bone in the name of “efficiencies.”)

The problems we’re seeing are broader, more systemic societal problems, and removing the presumption of innocence and the right to bail doesn’t change that. In fact, it just creates more problems, and political leaders need to start recognising this fact rather than just blaming the federal government for codifying a number of Supreme Court of Canada decisions.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces destroyed 14 out of 17 Iranian-made drones launched over Ukraine, mostly around Odessa. Over in Bakhmut, Ukrainian forces are mocking the Russian claims they captured the city, saying that the Russians raised their flag over “some kind of toilet.” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be visiting Warsaw this week to meet with leaders, as well as Ukrainians taking shelter in that country.

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Roundup: The “Blue Seal” nobody else ever though of

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Pierre Poilievre held another Sunday press conference (which I fear is going to become a regular feature for the coming months, because the calculation is that it lets them set the agenda for the week), wherein he proposed a “blue seal” programme for doctors, nurses, and other medical practitioners, akin to the “Red Seal” programme for skilled trades, so that they can work anywhere in the country. Gosh, it’s as though nobody had ever thought of this before, and that these kinds of regulatory non-tariff barriers have been a bane on the country since literally Confederation. But hey, I’m sure because he’s demanding it, it’ll be different this time.

This being said, some provinces have been finally moving ahead on this kind of thing, with the Atlantic provinces loosening restrictions so that doctors can practice in any of those provinces, so there is progress. But it has taken a crisis for us to get to this point (because that is apparently how we overcome our pervasive normalcy bias in this country) and not because Poilievre goes around calling things “broken.”

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces destroyed five Russian ammunition depots near Bakhmut on Friday, and say that they are still able to supply their forces in the city and get wounded to safety, as they continue to cause massive damage and casualties to Russian invaders. Meanwhile, Russian president Vladimir Putin made a surprise visit to occupied Mariupol, which Ukrainian officials regarded as “the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime.”

https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/1637345862077513730

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Roundup: The allegations reach Queen’s Park

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Another day, another Global news story about supposed foreign interference allegations, this time naming Ontario PC MPP Vincent Ke as someone who has been working on behalf of the Chinese government, and who was given funds to disperse for election influence. Ke denies this, but Doug Ford swiftly demoted him from parliamentary assistant to committee chair, and then hours later, Ke “voluntarily” stepped out of caucus for the time being. But there are a lot of problems with the reporting in the piece, as both Stephanie Carvin and Jessica Davis—both of whom are former CSIS analysts—point out in separate Twitter threads that are absolutely essential reading to understand why this reporting is so suspect.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1634268769697640449

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1634272246817607682

https://twitter.com/JessMarinDavis/status/1634282290921590798

Meanwhile, former Senator Vern White is calling out the Conservatives’ characterisation of NSICOP to be the bullshit that it is, and says that it would be faster and cheaper for that committee to do the review into interference allegations than a public inquiry. He also doesn’t believe an NSICOP member leaked an unredacted report to Global news considering how strict the security is. I previously wrote a piece about the legislation empowering NSICOP and how it compares to other Westminster parliaments’ own parliamentary national security committees, and they too face redactions from their political executives—NSICOP is not out of line in that regard, not to mention that we don’t have secure places for a secret-cleared parliamentary committee to meet on Parliament Hill (which should be part of the renovations to Centre Block).

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1634335994525757440

Ukraine Dispatch:

An aide to president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that the decision to stick out the battle in Bakhmut has to do with the ability to pin down and degrade Russia’s best forces ahead of the planned spring Ukrainian counter-offensive. Meanwhile, most of the power in Kyiv has been restored after Thursday’s missile barrage from Russia.

https://twitter.com/gerashchenko_en/status/1634182540868108290

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1634245229627809792

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Roundup: A leaked NSICOP report?

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Another day, another story on foreign interference, this time from Global. It was largely a rehash of material released earlier, but hidden inside was mention of seeing an unredacted report from NSICOP, which raises more questions about who is leaking this material (and to what end). Justin Trudeau continues to be evasive and not give any answers to fairly clear and specific questions about what he was told and when, which is not something you should need the special rapporteur for, and which shouldn’t be a matter that requires the blanket of national security secrecy, but the barrage of pabulum about the importance of national security oversight bodies is not exactly helping his case, or making it look like he has everything under control.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1633509940064133130

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1633509943625105411

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1633472781428948998

NSICOP did announce that they will look into the allegations of foreign interference, but the fact that one of their unredacted reports was leaked to the media is going to undermine trust in that process by security officials in this country, who were dubious about the process from the start, and who will find it even harder to trust now. That’s not good for the ongoing ability to have parliamentarians play a role in the oversight of those bodies, which is necessary in a democracy.

In the meantime, there’s more that the government could get started on right away when it comes to combatting foreign interference, and Jessica Davis has a good thread about those actions here.

https://twitter.com/JessMarinDavis/status/1633488015573041153

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians fired a massive missile barrage across Ukraine early this morning, with more critical infrastructure being targeted. The Wagner Group is claiming that they have made advances into Bakhmut, but it’s still too early to tell the veracity or what it means in the bigger picture. Here’s a look at Canadian soldiers training Ukrainians on how to operate the Leopard 2 tanks we’ve sent them.

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Roundup: A smear to precede the report

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The day began with the Globe and Mail dropping another “big scoop” of CSIS uncovering that China tried to somehow influence the prime minister by donating to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation…after Trudeau had already stepped away from its board because he was Liberal leader. And more to the point, this story is old—2016 old—with the new CSIS headline, and further down was a smear at Morris Rosenberg, who used to head the Foundation, whom the Privy Council Office chose to write the report coming out on attempts at interference in the last election. And it was absolutely a smear, and the Globe was simply parroting a Conservative attack. It’s also worth noting that Stephen Harper had appointed Rosenberg to be the deputy minister of foreign affairs, so these attacks are all the more unseemly. (For more on these leaks, check these threads from Jessica Davis and Stephanie Carvin, which provide a lot of context to these stories and why they’re not treating intelligence properly.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1630578153277071366

Much later in the day, Rosenberg’s report was released, and in it, he relayed that the task force monitoring the election found that while there were attempts at influence, including the misinformation around Conservative incumbent Kenny Chiu, but nothing rose to the level of actual concern in the panel’s estimation. Rosenberg makes sixteen recommendations, some of them around increasing transparency including providing unclassified briefings, and extending some monitoring to the pre-writ period (which can be tricky because so-called “fixed” election dates are rarely that, nor should they be). It’s also worth noting that there were also concerns raised about domestic disinformation (much of it around COVID) and rising threats of anti-government violence, which the task force made note of and could require adjustments to the protocols in order to better deal with it.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Things in Bakhumut are getting bad, as Russians are destroying anything that can be used for cover or defensive positions, and president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has admitted that they may have no choice but to pull back so as not to simply cost lives for the sake of it. Ukrainian aircraft did launch three strikes on areas of concentration of Russian forces. Meanwhile, Russian television stations and radio were hacked as a string of drone attacks hit near St. Petersburg. (Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the incident).

https://twitter.com/imurniece/status/1630240144145129472

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1630685523978203136

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Roundup: The full closure of 24 Sussex

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News that has been years overdue arrived yesterday that the National Capital Commission is finally—finally!—closing 24 Sussex to personnel, so that they can begin abatement of things like asbestos at the site, which they’d need to do even if they decide to tear it down at some point. But no, there hasn’t been an actual decision on its future, because of course there hasn’t been, but at least they have reached this step, seven years later. But who is still there if the prime minister and family have been at Rideau Cottage the whole time? Well, for one, the prime minister’s chef still operates out of 24 Sussex (and the food is transported over by staff), likely because the kitchen in Rideau Cottage is too small for both the chef and the family, based on what glimpses we got of it during the pandemic; one assumes likewise with any other household staff. They are being relocated to another NCC property, but they won’t say where.

When this news broke, my Twitter feed was full of people outraged that the leader of the opposition has a nicer house than the prime minister, and demanded that the PM take over Stornoway instead. The reason Stornoway is in better shape was because Preston Manning refused to move in when he was opposition leader, so the NCC took the opportunity to do needed renovations that 24 Sussex never had, and no, the prime minister is never going to take it over because the property is too vulnerable, and would be a security nightmare. Never going to happen. As for those who wonder why our opposition leader even has an official residence, I say that it’s because it reflects the importance of the position in a Westminster democracy like ours, and should have status appropriate to that importance. It doesn’t matter that other Westminster countries don’t also follow that—Canada chose to value its opposition leader in such a way, and it is important, so let’s treat it as such.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 268:

There were more Russian missiles targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, leaving some 10 million people without power as winter sets in, while fighting intensified in the east as Russia tries to secure its hold on Donetsk. In liberated villages near Kherson, there are survivors talking about beatings and torture by Russians, and more graves have been found with bodies bearing signs of being tortured.

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Roundup: Sloly’s first day at the inquiry

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It was the first of two days that former Ottawa police chief Peter Sloly took the stand at the Emergencies Act public inquiry, and, well, ooooof. The man did not acquit himself or his actions very well. He blamed the media for the perception that the police weren’t doing anything (erm, they weren’t), he defended the belief that the occupation would end in two or three days, he praised the officer who fed him the widely discredited Rex Murphy-sourced intelligence, and generally insisted that everyone was doing the best job that they could, but wow. Oh, and then he got emotional and teary at the end about how the situation that he allowed to escalate got to be too much. No, seriously.

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1586011336987009029

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1586075397212770304

 

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 248 (because apparently, I lost a day somewhere):

Kyiv is facing increasing blackouts as a result of increased Russian attacks on electrical infrastructure. Russian forces continue to shell Bakhmut, in the hopes that it could open the way to hitting other strongholds in the Donetsk region, and that it could blunt the advance on the southern city of Kherson, which itself is a gateway to Crimea.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau unveiled a new five-year bond-buying programme for Canadians to support Ukraine financially, along with new sanctions on Russians.
  • Chrystia Freeland announced that the Fall Economic Statement will be delivered on November 3rd (just before the constituency week, so they can fan out to sell it).
  • As of August, the federal government was still in a surplus position.
  • The federal government is moving to restrict the involvement of foreign state-own enterprises in the critical minerals sector.
  • Health Canada is looking to hire an external company to process dental claims in a standalone federal insurance programme rather than involving the provinces.
  • In advance of the COP27 meeting in Egypt, developed nations haven’t stepped up to meet climate finance goals, and Canada may be asked to do more.
  • The Supreme Court of Canada struck down elements of the mandatory registration to the federal sex offender registry in all cases, restoring judicial discretion.
  • MPs on the Heritage committee pushed back at Meta’s threat to remove news content from Facebook if they go ahead with the online news bill.
  • Premiers are huffing and puffing at the news that Trudeau is looking to play hard ball with them on future health care transfers.
  • It looks like Doug Ford was happy to participate in the public inquiry back in June, but has now changed his tune and lawyered up to avoid having to testify.
  • Susan Delacourt ruminates on how politicians have dealt with defeat, and whether some rebounds are more of a sign of workaholism.
  • Justin Ling goes through the public inquiry documents to confirm that yes, there were concerns about weapons in the occupation, and firearms charges were laid.
  • My weekend column on the facile inflation narratives coming from the opposition, and the inability of the government to call it out.

Odds and ends:

Governor General Mary May Simon’s Coat of Arms was revealed yesterday.

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