Tag Archives: Maxime Bernier

Roundup: Setting a trap at committee

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The use of Commons committees for performative outrage continued in fine tradition yesterday as an emergency meeting of the natural resources committee was convened, during which the Conservatives demanded that the ministers of natural resource and finance appear before them no later than Thursday with “concrete” plans for the next steps of the Trans Mountain pipeline. This, of course, is a bit of a trap, and unrealistic for any government to comply with, and yet here we were. Why it’s a trap, of course, is that when they inevitably refused and the Liberals con the committee voted it down, Andrew Scheer and his caucus could rush to the media about how outrageous it was that Trudeau was avoiding accountability for his “failure” when their demand was utterly unreasonable in the first place. But why should facts or context matter?

Now, don’t get me wrong – I do think that these ministers should absolutely appear before committee, but not for another couple of weeks, until they’ve had time to digest the Federal Court of Appeal decision, at which time they should answer for why they considered the flawed NEB report, and why they did not engage in an adequate consultation process that would meet the requirements of Section 35 of the Constitution. You know – to hold them to account like a committee should.

As for next steps, there have been boneheaded demands for a “legislative solution” that people keep tossing around, and it’s so stupid – the FCA decision specifically stated that this is a Cabinet decision to approve the licence, so you can’t legislate it into existence, nor would trying to retroactively change the legislation that the NEB was operating under when it didn’t properly scope the marine safety aspect of their report be a feasible option, because it opens all manner of cans of worms. And you most especially can’t legislate away the duty to consult under Section 35, so good luck there. The Conservatives won’t say what they’d do, let alone do differently, while the NDP continue to demand that Trudeau cancel the expansion, and have been giving this ridiculous line that they wanted a Supreme Court reference in the first place and nobody listened to them. The problem was their reference was about jurisdiction, which this decision has nothing to do with, which makes their talking point especially specious.

Meanwhile, Chris Turner has a spectacular piece in Maclean’sabout the history of the pipeline and how it got to be the dumpster fire of an issue that it is today, and I’d encourage you to take the time to read it.

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Roundup: Negotiating in good faith

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After another day of drama, there is no NAFTA deal, and talks have been suspended until Wednesday. And what drama there was, when off-the-record comments that Donald Trump made in an interview with Bloomberg were leaked to the Toronto Star, who published them, which showed Trump bragging that he wasn’t negotiating with Canada in good faith, and later in the day, he confirmed the remarks over Twitter with the note “at least Canada knows where I stand.” (Speculation now stands in that he deliberately leaked the comments). The revelation of the comments no doubt put a strain on the talks, but Chrystia Freeland later noted that she was negotiating with Robert Lighthizer, not Trump, and he was negotiating in good faith. So a little wedge in there, in any case. But in the end, Freeland insisted that we are close to a deal, so we’ll see once the long weekend is over and tempers cool a little.

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Meanwhile, here’s a look at the issue of Chapter 19 – arbitration – that the Americans want scrapped even though it’s been as useful to them as it has been for us, so it’s a demand that makes no sense. Also, here are other things to look for when a deal is concluded, and what areas that we have made concessions on and what it means.

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Roundup: Trans Mountain tantrums

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The Federal Court of Appeal’s decision to quash the approval of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion (temporarily, at least) – both because of an inadequately scoped NEB report around marine protection and because the government didn’t properly consult with Indigenous communities – caused no shortage of meltdowns and tantrums over all forms of media – with a dash of triumphalism from the environmentalists and some of those Indigenous communities. All of it, from both sides, is pretty much overreaction, but some of the reactions were ludicrous.

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The one reaction that was probably most ridiculous and unhelpful was that of Alberta premier Rachel Notley, who in a fit of pique, declared that she was pulling out of the federal climate framework until the pipeline was built, and made a list of nonsensical demands that will do absolutely nothing to get said pipeline built. Appealing it to the SCC? On what grounds (and delaying things another 18 months)? Recalling Parliament? To do what? Hold an angry take-note debate? Yes, this is the federal government’s mess, but none of this actually solves it. What will solve it is to follow the roadmap in the FCA judgment, which means reassessing the marine risks and doing proper consultations with those First Nations on their substantive issues. I get that Notley has to make a show of this, but none of this tantrum is constructive in the slightest, and worse yet, it likely undermines her own environmental agenda.

Meanwhile, Jason Markusoff notes that while the government owns this failure, it’s not as though the opposition has offered a solution that would have worked either. Trevor Tombe walks through the decision and what can be done to fix the problems identified therein, but notes there are costs to delays. Tyler Dawson looks at how the populist outrage over this move can start another round of Western alienation (in which, the actual facts of what’s going on won’t matter, because populism).

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Roundup: Negotiations and narratives

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It was another day of NAFTA developments, or rather the hints thereof, since Chrystia Freeland repeatedly said that they weren’t going to negotiate in public – just that they were making progress, and that they would go all night if they had to. Justin Trudeau said that they could reach a deal by Friday, but kept insisting that Supply Management would not be given up, and on the campaign trail in Quebec, Premier Philippe Couillard warned of “serious political consequences” if it was touched. Trudeau, meanwhile, will have a call with all of the premiers today in order to discuss what’s going down with the deal, so it may actually be getting close. Maybe. Of course, the Friday deadline appears to be more bluster, so we’ll see how it all plays out.

Meanwhile, closer to home, the Conservatives have tried to ramp up their narrative, and are insisting that all of the talk about the Canadians having been “sidelined” in NAFTA talks, and that we were now cornered into accepting a bad deal was indicative that Trudeau had “failed” – somehow, based on no information on mostly Trump talking points that don’t match reality.

You’ll notice a couple of things – one is that the “Trudeau” + “failed” in every tweet is part of their overall ham-fisted narrative-building strategy, and I’d imagine that every time they deploy it, campaign director Hamish Marshall gives them a cookie. Scheer is also going to town on this line from his convention speech about needing to be the “grown-ups in charge” again, which is tough to swallow given how little foreign policy depth their bench actually has, or even had in the previous government. And while there is room for the opposition to critique a government’s performance and holding them to account, coming up with false narratives, snide commentary, and shitposts in the middle of trade negotiations don’t exactly scream “grown-ups in charge.” And speaking of false narratives, the data show that the Conservative doomsaying about investment fleeing the Canadian economy isn’t holding water. Shocking, I know.

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Roundup: Mandate letter madness

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Yesterday was the big day that the mandate letters for the new cabinet minister were finally released, and the Cabinet committees got a bit shake-up. You can get an overview of the letters here, and some deeper analysis on what’s being asked of Jim Carr in international trade, Dominic LeBlanc in intergovernmental affairs, and Jonathan Wilkinson in fisheries. Reading through the letters, however, I found that almost all of the new letters – either with established ministries or with the new ones that they are establishing – were all giving them specific direction on which other ministers they should be working with to achieve specific goals. Very few of them were goals that they were to pursue on their own, which I find to be very curious from a governance perspective.

The big question mark remains around Bill Blair and just what he’s supposed to do as Minister of Looking Tough on Stuff – err, “border security and organized crime reduction.” We got no insight as to whether he has any actual operational control over a department or an agency like CBSA. Rather, his list of goals included looking at a ban on handguns and assault rifles as part of the existing Bill C-71, and that as part of his duties in relation to the border, he should have discussions with the Americans about the Safe Third Country agreement, but it was all rather vague. (There was also some talk about opioid smuggling as part of his border security duties, for what it’s worth). Nevertheless, it was another one of those letters that was focused on which other ministers he’s supposed to be working with as opposed to providing oversight of a ministry, which I find weird and a bit unsettling as to what this means for how the machinery of government works under Trudeau.

Meanwhile, the number of Cabinet committees was reduced, and some of the files that certain of these committees were overseeing got shuffled around. We’ll see how this affects governance, but it’s all a peek into the sausage-making of governance (which, it bears reminding, that the Ford government in Ontario refuses to give any insight into as he refuses to release his own ministers’ mandate letters).

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Roundup: A sudden focus on birth tourism

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So that was the Conservative policy convention. There wasn’t a lot of drama, post-Bernier, and most of the reactionary and social conservative policy resolutions got voted down in the end, including those related to abortion. What did wind up being contentious was a resolution around stopping automatic birth citizenship, which was supposedly aimed at stopping “birth tourism” but would have the alternate effect of creating stateless individuals, which is contrary to international law. Mind you, the Liberals didn’t help any when they started talking about how this meant revoking existing citizenships (which it wasn’t), and then certain Conservative partisans started complaining that this was being unfairly cast as xenophobic (I’m not sure that’s really an unfair assessment), but there you have it. Incidentally, MP Deepak Obhrai came out against this. There was a bit of other drama when opponents of supply management stole the briefing binder for dairy lobbyists and found proof therein that regardless of what was decided, Scheer would use his prerogative as leader to ensure the policy was untouched. When this hit social media, his people insisted that no, that’s erroneous information, they had it wrong, but remember that leaders’ prerogative is pretty much how every party operates since we’ve started privileging leadership over the grassroots, but people seem to keep forgetting that.

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Here’s a sit-down interview with Scheer to get his thoughts on policy positions that the convention was debating over the weekend, and another where he refuses to say if the Bernier split worries him. Scheer does complain that it’s hard for ordinary people to learn his name because he’s not suave and photogenic like Trudeau (never mind that a lot of what people in other countries remark about Trudeau is regarding his stances and policies, not just his looks). That said, it’s his party now, and it remains to be seen what his mark will inevitably be on it.

Meanwhile, the first poll about how people would vote with a theoretical Bernier-led party in the mix is out, and it would take enough votes away from the Conservatives and NDP to give the Liberals a bigger margin of victory. But remember, it’s early days and it’s pretty much the equivalent of putting “a pony” as the choice in the polls and people will immediately respond to it based on what they’re projecting rather than the reality, but that’s not unexpected.

Good reads:

  • Trilateral NAFTA might resume this week, but without Chrystia Freeland as she is on a diplomatic tour in Europe until Friday.
  • There are concerns that Shared Service Canada is gearing its procurements to favour multi-nationals over home-grown companies for contracts.
  • Families of fallen soldiers want public access to the rebuilt Afghanistan war cenotaph.
  • CRA’s tax evasion tip line netted some 32,000 leads last year.
  • Kevin Carmichael doesn’t think that there will be another interest rate hike in September.
  • Susan Delacourt sees problems with the conservative coalition that Andrew Scheer should be cementing at this point in his leadership.

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Roundup: A “positive vision” full of falsehoods

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Andrew Scheer gave his first major speech to the party faithful at the Conservative convention in Halifax on Friday, and it was, in a word, meh. After telling the tale of his grandparents and parents struggling to get by, and establishing his “regular guy” credentials (despite the fact that his career suggests he’s been anything but), but from there, it was his usual litany of lies and nonsense talking points. “Conservatives would never leave a credit card bill to our children and grandchildren,” says the party that racked up hundreds of billions in debt during their term; vague assurances about the environment that would actually do nothing to address emissions while also maligning carbon taxes while claiming to understand them and yet demonstrating he doesn’t – or that if he does, he’ll simply lie about them. He went on a whole tangent about Sir John A Macdonald, and this whole bit about how activists were only targeting him because he’s a Conservative and not Liberal prime ministers who arguably did worse (and another lie was about how they weren’t going after Mackenzie King on the $50 banknote – he is being phased out in the next series, as Viola Desmond on the $10 banknote pushes the established prime ministers to higher denominations). He claimed he got to work with UK prime minister Theresa May on a post-Brexit trade deal – something that Trudeau actually did, given that he has no standing to do anything, and claimed that he would be the “adult in the room” in his planned trip to India (which, again, he has no diplomatic standing to do anything on, and that there is no “damage” for him to “repair.”) And his “positive vision” for Conservatives? That he won’t look back at history with shame, and he would have space for debate with viewpoints he disagreed with (this after being astonished that Trudeau would call an avowed racist a racist, characterizing it as a “smear.”) So…yeah. If your positive vision is to simply keep lying about issues, I’m having a hard time squaring that circle.

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Also at the convention, the party will send the resolution around abortion regulation to the full membership, while they voted down the attempt to make repealing gender identity legislation part of the policy book. Not debated was the resolution around ending supply management, which infuriated a number of delegates – some saying they felt that the debate was deliberately stifled, others that it’s emblematic of a party that doesn’t actually care about free market conservative ideas – and that this may drive them to Bernier’s camp.

Meanwhile, the Bernier fallout continues apace at the convention. While he appears to have zero caucus support, there is talk that he can theoretically get the bare minimum he needs to register a party with Elections Canada, and good news, Kevin O’Leary is thinking of supporting him, and he’s got an ally in Stephen Fletcher, whose nomination Scheer blocked. So there’s that. In the interim, Conservatives at the convention continue to mean girl him (to which Bernier says that’s typical of losers), and the anonymous sources with the behind-the-scenes drama have started spilling the tea, for what it’s worth.

In yet more reaction to events, Andrew Coyne notes that while Bernier’s criticism of the Conservative Party under Scheer rings true, Bernier’s planned party nevertheless still smacks of a vanity project. Colby Cosh notes that Bernier’s lack of intellectual hygiene in his veering into talk of diversity and immigration has corrupted his chance to attract concerned with economic issues to his nascent party. Chantal Hébert looks at the history of the Reform Party and it doesn’t compare favourably to Bernier’s record. Former Reform MP Monte Solberg has been there and done that, and he evaluates Bernier’s behaviour and performance in light of it. Terry Glavin thinks that Bernier did Scheer a favour, assuming he takes some of the swivel-eyed loons with him away from the Conservatives. Also, I was on Canada 2020’s /Thread podcast, talking Bernier and his ability to pull it off.

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Roundup: Maxime Bernier, drama queen

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Like a high school drama queen, Maxime Bernier made his move yesterday, removing himself from the Conservative caucus just as the party was about to begin their convention in Halifax. And not a moment too soon, apparently, as apparently the caucus was prepared to “belittle” him regarding his recent shitposting over Twitter, in an apparent attempt to Mean Girl him into falling in line. Well, that didn’t apparently work, and Bernier went out with a bang, calling the Conservatives a party that was “too intellectually and morally corrupt to be reformed,” and which only speaks in platitudes, and that he plans to launch his own party within the coming weeks. Good luck with that.

Minutes later, Andrew Scheer held his own press conference in Halifax and said good riddance, that Bernier was only in it for himself, but, curiously, stuck to platitudes. And notably, he didn’t refute anything that Bernier has been saying over the past couple of weeks, and in particular his winking to white nationalists. (Note to Conservatives: simply listing how many ethnocultural firsts your party has had is not refuting the aforementioned winking to white nationalists). And then Scheer said that Bernier evidently decided to help Trudeau, and then immediately started backpedalling to insist that no, this wasn’t going to split the party, and they’re united, and Bernier is a nobody, and you get the drift. So score one for Scheer there.

And then started up the tweets, many of them angry or belittling from fellow MPs, and a bunch of bizarre rumours started being floated to journalists like that Bernier used to sleep through Cabinet meetings under Harper (seriously? You actually expect us to believe that?) while other party stalwarts rallied around Scheer (and Bernier currently seems to have zero supporters, for what it’s worth). The Liberals, justifiably, are remaining cautious and are not openly popping any champagne bottles because who knows where this will go.

Meanwhile, Paul Wells has grave doubts that Bernier has what it takes to lead a new political movement, while Jen Gerson angrily writes about Bernier’s supposed defence of “Canadian values” and that he doesn’t seem to have a clue what he’s tweeting about. Scott Gilmore seems to think that Bernier’s fundraising record shows he may have the momentum to pull this off – but Stephen Maher has his doubts. John Ivison casts aspersions on all sides of the split, Martin Patriquin wonders about the effect that it will have with the ground ripe for messages of populist xenophobia like Bernier has been employing. Don Martin suspects this departure will rally the party around Scheer, while Robyn Urback takes Bernier to task in the most scathing, sarcastic way possible. (My own column on Bernier’s future will be up later today).

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Roundup: Scheer plans another ego trip

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Andrew Scheer has declared that in October, he and a group of MPs will head to India. While it’s not uncommon for opposition MPs to do a bit of foreign travel, particularly if they’re on some kind of committee or parliamentary friendship group, it’s a little more uncommon for them to go as the Official Opposition in any capacity (Washington DC excepted). But Scheer? He’s decided that his trip to India will be to “repair” the relationship with that country after the “disastrous” trip that Justin Trudeau made earlier this year.

Let’s unpack this a bit more. Scheer has zero diplomatic standing to do absolutely anything on behalf of the government of Canada. Add to that, I’m trying to figure out just what “damage” Scheer hopes to repair, because the only real “disaster” from Trudeau’s visit was related to Jaspal Atwal showing up at that event, which wound up being hugely overblown considering that India had allowed him back into the country and considered him rehabilitated from his former extremist views. The fact that Trudeau wore some expensive Indian clothes? The thing that people continue to underestimate/forget/ignore is that he was doing it to speak to a certain demographic in India which responds to these kinds of gestures – even if the upper-class voices that dominate their international press don’t. Trudeau didn’t lose points with that middle-class voter base in India (or the Indo-Canadian diaspora) – but that message was lost on the white press covering the trip, and given how the Conservatives reacted back in Canada (going so far as to use the insulting term of “costume,” which earned them a stinging rebuke from Liberal backbencher Ruby Sahota), they were tone-deaf to the whole thing. Was Trudeau snubbed my Modi? Not at all, and just because Modi didn’t greet him at the airport is not a snub considering that a) Canada doesn’t rank that high on his list of priorities, and b) we were greeted by an agriculture minister, who does have dealings with Canada. And on that subject, the fact that Trudeau wasn’t able to make progress on the tariffs that India imposed on pulse imports was not a “failure,” given that those tariffs were imposed for domestic political reasons (low prices due to a global supply glut, pandering to rural voters, and the fact that there has been a suicide crisis among Indian farmers for years now), and those tariffs hurt Australia more than they do Canada. But please, tell us again how those were done in retaliation for the trip. Meanwhile, Trudeau made several investment announcements and did have successful meetings with civil society groups in India. So again, I ask – what “damage” is there for Scheer to supposedly repair (for which he has zero authority to do anything about)?

We’ve seen this kind of self-aggrandisement from Scheer before with his trip to the UK to supposedly have talks about post-Brexit trade agreements, never mind that a) he’s not the government and can’t commit to anything, b) Trudeau and Theresa May already agreed to those talks once Brexit happens – because the UK legally can’t hold any talks until then, and c) he totally sold the trip with that photo of him at a red phone booth. So you’ll forgive my scepticism about this planned India trip, because it sounds dubious at best.

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Roundup: Those pesky gasoline prices

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While avoiding condemning Maxime Bernier’s choice of language and engagement (moving from just winking at white nationalists to now trying to delegitimize the media), Andrew Scheer has resumed his practice of shitposting misleading statistics memes over Twitter, and yesterday it was in relation to gasoline prices. Yes, Statistics Canada reported that the inflation rate in June was 3.0 percent, which is the Bank of Canada’s upper bound for their target, and yes, it was fuelled in part by gasoline prices. (Core inflation, stripped of volatile factors like gasoline, remains closer to the 2.0 percent target, so it’s not really anything to worry about). But why would those gasoline prices be higher? Hmm…

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That’s right – the world price of oil has increased over the past year after its recovery from the price collapse nearly two years ago, and that’s an unambiguous good thing for provinces like Alberta, who rely on oil prices being on the higher side for their economies. Trying to cast this as a carbon tax issue – and that oh noes, carbon taxes will make this even worse – is a bit disingenuous considering how small of a fraction of the price that entails.

Meanwhile, with a number of voices (Jason Kenney and Scheer among them) calling for the revival of Energy East in light of the Saudi Arabia spat, energy economist Andrew Leach crunched the numbers on the economic case for that pipeline. Short version: there is no economic case. Stop trying to pretend there is one or blaming Justin Trudeau for its demise.

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