Tag Archives: Parliamentary Budget Officer

Roundup: Disingenuous threats to national unity

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As bullshit political theatre goes, Jason Kenney continues to exercise it to its fullest as he released an “urgent letter” to the federal government yesterday, co-signed by five other premiers (four of them conservative, one of them without ostensible party affiliation) to demand that both bills C-48 and C-69 be withdrawn, and warns of consequences to “national unity” if they are not. And it’s a bit galling to play the national unity card, considering that it’s both groundless and petulant – like a tantrum where a child threatens to hold his breath until he turns blue to teach his parents “a lesson.”

Nobody is going to pretend that these are perfect bills, but for the purposes of what is being argued, neither can do the harm that Kenney and his allies are claiming. For example, C-48 will not landlock their resources, and there has been expert testimony to say that it would have a negligible impact on the oil and gas sector because there are no pipelines along that route, nor are there any planned (thanks in large part to how badly the Conservatives botched the Indigenous consultations on the Northern Gateway project). And C-69 is not going to make major infrastructure projects impossible – if anything, it would have a better chance of streamlining environmental assessments by ensuring clearer lines and better scoping of those assessments, so that there can be more focused work with the assessments. But the status quo is simply a path of more litigation because the current system is badly flawed. The branding it as the “no more pipelines bill” is and always has been disingenuous and an outright lie, but that’s what this all boils down to.

Kenney and company have lied repeatedly about the current government’s environmental programme – abetted by the fact that this government can’t communicate their way out of a wet paper bag, and they somehow refuse to call Kenney, Scheer, and company, on their bullshit. And given that Kenney managed to win an election by whipping his electorate into a state of irrational anger with a diet of lies and snake oil – anger that won’t abate now that he’s in charge – the attempt to export that technique to the rest of Canada is dangerous, but they don’t seem to care. That is the real threat to national unity, and it’s Kenny and company who are stirring it up, and they should be called out for it.

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Roundup: Incoming amendments

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There are a tonne of amendments coming out in committees in the Senate, and there are likely going to be some fairly major developments and debates on these in the coming days – particularly once the House of Commons starts debating (and ultimately rejecting) a number of them. One of the more unexpected ones for me were the fairly major amendments to the solitary confinement bill. I was fully expecting the committee to recommend the bill not proceed because the courts had already found the bill unconstitutional and the committee was on the road to deeming it unsalvageable. Apparently, they’re going to make amendments instead, so we’ll see where this goes, because they have at least two court decisions on their side already.

The legal and constitutional affairs committee has also amended the Criminal Code revamp bill to ensure that there are tougher sentences for those who perpetrate domestic violence against Indigenous women. The problem? Well, most of those perpetrators are Indigenous men, and there is already a problem with over-incarceration, so this is going to be a tough needle to thread (but we’ll see how they attempt to do so.

Meanwhile, it looks like that major revamp of C-69 – the environmental assessment bill – was left intact at report stage on a vote on division, which means that they didn’t hold a standing vote, but were simply acknowledging that the vote was not unanimous. It’s a bit…suspect that they chose to go this route, considering how many of these amendments essentially gut the bill (and were indeed written by oil and gas company lobbyists, which totally isn’t problematic at all). But what is ultimately happening here is that these senators – and Senator Peter Harder in particular – are going to send this to the House of Commons so that they can reject them, and then send it back to the Senate where they will ultimately pass it after some minor theatrics, because of the will of the elected house, and so on. It’s not exactly the bravest route, and for the opposition in the Senate, it forces Trudeau to wear the decision more directly. There may yet be senators who will try to move amendments or delete some at third reading, but given Harder’s stance, I think the strong impetus will be for them to get the Commons to make the defeats so as to protect their own backsides from the wrath of Jason Kenney and others.

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Roundup: An economic vision without an economic case

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Andrew Scheer gave the second of his policy keynote speeches yesterday, this one on his economic vision, and as could be expected, it was full of hyperbolic declarations about the size of the deficit (it’s tiny in comparison to our GDP), and the state of Canadian household finances (which have been growing). He promised that any new spending programmes would have to be paid for out of government “savings,” and in his pledge to balance the budget in two years, that would mean cuts. Of course, Conservative mouthpieces say this is easily enough achieved because they did it before (forgetting of course that the previous government had a habit of booking savings that were never going to be achieved for the sake of getting to a paper balance, like Shared Services Canada, or the Phoenix Pay System). The Liberals, incidentally, were quick to put out Bill Morneau to put a price tag on those cuts and warn that they would come out of families, and with the spectre of seeing what Doug Ford is doing to those families in Ontario, well, it’ll make things harder for Scheer.

The part that everyone talked about, however, was his grand vision of an “energy corridor” across the country where pipeline projects would magically cross the country with buy-in from Indigenous communities and everyone would be happy and prosperous, and we would have energy security and would never had to import oil from Saudi Arabia ever again. The problem with this fantasy picture, however, is largely economics. Even if Energy East were to get built, by some miracle, it would not have an economic case given that it wouldn’t be used for domestic oil in the eastern provinces as it would be far more expensive than the oil they’re importing. In fact, Energy East did not make it off the drawing board because there was no economic case – it wasn’t because there was opposition in Quebec (which has already achieved some kind of mythical status), but because there was no economic rationale for the company given that Keystone XL was back on the table. Scheer’s promise (other than the fantasy of it even happening) is that Alberta will either have to take a huge discount per barrel of oil, or oil prices in the eastern provinces start taking a major jump because they’re paying a lot more for it, and upgrade it from heavy petroleum and refine it (in refineries that would have to have been refitted, likely with yet more taxpayer subsidies). But since when should logic or basic economics be part of an “economic vision”? That would be silly.

Chris Selley offers a critique of Scheer’s rhetoric, but finds it more astonishing that it’s the Liberals’ own self-inflicted damage that is putting Scheer in a position where he has a reasonable shot of winning.

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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: Undaunted by the facts

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The Parliamentary Budget Officer issued a report yesterday that confirmed what the federal government has been saying – that yes indeed, because the federal carbon price backstop is legislated that 90 percent of proceeds must be returned to individual households, that the vast majority of Canadians will be better off as a result, and yes, this includes both direct and indirect costs, and he did a whole analysis based on input and output-based pricing, and confirmed it all with StatsCan data. The federal government might as well have said “I told you so.” But did this force a mea culpa from the Conservatives that perhaps they were wrong about the whole thing? Nope. Instead, both Andrew Scheer and Ed Fast, his environment critic, issued released that cherry picked a couple of pieces from the report, divorced of proper context, to say that it “proved” their false narrative about said price. Because of course they did. And did we see any fact checking about their statements? Not anywhere that I could see. Which is your preview of the coming election – that fact-free shitposts will continue to spin lies, and they will largely get away with it, even after they’ve been debunked.

Meanwhile, the Globe and Mail reports that Andrew Scheer and several of his campaign team were meeting up with oil and gas executives to help plot the demise of the Liberals in the coming election. And before you get any ideas about this being old boys with cigars in backrooms, it should be noted that these were executives from fairly junior companies and not the big players, who do support carbon pricing (for which Jason Kenney wants to go to war with them). (As an aside, one of these junior company executives is a fairly robust troll on Twitter, so that should give you a taste of what this was about). Much like Kenney’s rhetoric, the players at this conference discussed using litigation as a tool to fight their critics, but one has to wonder how they possibly think this is going to appeal to the centrist voters they need in key battlegrounds like the 905 belt around Toronto, let alone to have any hope of winning seats in Quebec. You would think that a meeting like this just confirms for Canadians the caricatures that they have about the energy industry and its lobbyists, and doesn’t really engender sympathy for the pain that the industry is feeling at present. But maybe I’m just missing something.

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Roundup: An important first report

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While everyone was focused on Jane Philpott’s attempt to claim that the provisions in the garbage Reform Act weren’t met as it regards her expulsion from caucus, a much more important event was taking place, which was the release of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians’ first public report. This is the first time that Canada has seen any kind of public oversight into our national security and intelligence services, and it was important to see. One of the things that they focused in on was the oversight of military intelligence operations, for which the military thanked them for their suggestions on improving governance, but balked at the proposal for a legislative framework.

Nevertheless, the expert in this stuff is Stephanie Carvin, so I will turn over the reactions to her (full thread starts here):

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1115716056247676929

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1115717071185301504

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https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1115678714291871746

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https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1115688317452935168

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Roundup: Media rounds and brand damage

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Freed from the expectation that they needed to stay quiet(er) in order to not jeopardise their chances of remaining in caucus, both Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott hit interview circuit, the former in Maclean’s and the Globe and Mail, the latter also in Maclean’s and on CBC Radio and Power Play. And there is no doubt that both of them thought they were doing the right thing, but I’m not sure they quite grasp some of the political realities that the prime minister is grappling with. They kept saying that if Trudeau had just apologised from the start, this all could have been avoided, but that would have meant admitting that he was in the wrong, and that’s both a problem on every level for him to do, and I get the impression that nobody thinks they were trying to interfere or apply inappropriate pressure. And because they both think they’re right, we’re in the situation we’re in. Philpott did tell Don Martin that she’s aware of other conversations that are still relevant to what happened, but she’s not going to dangle them out there (err, she just did) because everything that people need to know is already public, but she didn’t say that she thought the prime minister was lying. In her interview with the Globe, Wilson-Raybould admitted to clashing with Carolyn Bennett over the Indigenous Rights framework, but it was her comments to Maclean’s that really made me pause, where she said she didn’t really understand the Liberal Party anymore, and it makes me wonder if she actually understood them to begin with, given how the party morphed itself as the cult of Trudeau after his messianic leadership campaign, and that many of the new MPs are as a result of that rather than stalwarts who stood with the party through the lean opposition years. Oh, and Wilson-Raybould also sorta disputed that there were negotiations regarding ending the tiff with Trudeau, and some confusion as to whether that was before she quit Cabinet or in the weeks that followed, and we got a bit of clarification.

Speaking of Trudeau, there has been a lot of focus on the damage to his brand, in particular his Feminist™ brand in the past few weeks, and with the ouster of Wilson-Raybould and Philpott (not to mention Celina Caesar-Chavannes’ decision to leave caucus of her own accord). In particular, the symbolism of the whole Affair crashing down around the Daughters of the Vote event was a darkly ironic for the prime minister, with one of his former youth delegates calling his rhetoric hollow. Add to that, there has been an expectation built up around him that his “doing politics differently” led people to believe that when push came to shove that he wouldn’t act like a politician, in spite of all of the symbolism he invested in. (There is probably a lesson in there too about filling in the blanks when someone says they’ll be different, but won’t specify how). Over on Twitter, Moebius Stripper reminds us not to confuse the actual good feminist work of this government with its Feminist™ branding.

Amidst the awfulness and brand-torching, Chris Selley recalls weeks ago when the Liberals floated a trial balloon to say that Trudeau would apologise for…something, didn’t, and now the claims that Wilson-Raybould tried to force an apology. Paul Wells, meanwhile, is in a Mood, and he (quite properly) lambastes this while Affair as another in a line of incidents that reveals the true heart of this government, and the ramshackle way in which they run this government (and if you looked at what they’ve done to the Senate alone, I would absolutely agree).

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Roundup: Predictable committee stunts

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As expected, the justice committee meeting yesterday was short and went nowhere, as the Liberals on the committee (most of whom are not regular members of said committee) voted to respect the original schedule, which is to consider next steps on Tuesday, like the plan was all along. And predictably, there was much performative outrage and the pundit class all shook their fists in outrage that the Liberals would dare to shut down the inquiry (which they didn’t), and lo, why doesn’t the PMO get it right on this whole sordid affair, woe is us, woe is us. If you need any clues that this “emergency meeting” was anything other than a stunt, let’s consider the fact that despite the fact that the committee was going to deal with next steps when Parliament returned next week, they nevertheless demanded said “emergency meeting” in the middle of March Break to denote how seriousthey were about it. (Meanwhile, if any of these MPs complain about how hard parliamentary life is on their families and children, we need only remind them that they pulled stunts like this). But when most of the actual committee members are unavailable, it’s not exactly like the bodies they’re filling the seats with are in a position to do the work of the regular members of the committee for them and to evaluate what they’ve heard. Oh, and putting Pierre Poilievre in the lead seat for the Conservatives is a flashing red light with accompanying klaxon that this is a stunt. The opposition also wanted this debate on inviting Jody Wilson-Raybould back to be in public, despite the fact that committee deliberations on witnesses and timetables happen behind closed doors for a reason. I cannot stress this enough. This kind of meeting to demand a vote in public is showmanship designed for the cameras. The feigned outrage and unctuous sanctimony when the Liberals voted the way everyone expected them to is also indicative that this was entirely a stunt. And We The Media bought it all, and nobody I saw bothered to challenge them on any part of it. Well done us.

Now, the Liberals have a choice next week, and if they don’t invite Wilson-Raybould back, it’ll be a black eye for them, deservedly. I suspect they know this. As for Wilson-Raybould, I’m not sure that anyone believes she can’t speak to her resignation, because it has nothing to do with solicitor-client privilege, Michael Wernick stated that none of this was discussed at Cabinet (hence essentially waiving any Cabinet confidence on the matter), and Gerald Butts has also spoken about this time period. If she insists she can’t, the credibility of that assertion needs to be questioned. But until the Liberals on the justice committee actually vote to shut it down and write their report, can we hold off on the pearl-clutching until then? Otherwise, we’re playing into stunts.

Speaking of predictable pundit outrage, here’s Andrew Coyne decrying that prime ministers can get away with anything in this country. Well, except for the resignations, the committee study, the Ethics Commissioner investigation, strongly worded letter from the OECD and intense media scrutiny. As for his shaking his fist at “our system,” I don’t exactly see the system south of the border any better at dealing with the blatant corruption of their president, so…yay?

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1106007982209294336

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1106012461910581255

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Roundup: In the testimony’s aftermath

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Yesterday was the day for performative outrage, as the Conservatives demanded – and got – an “emergency debate” on their call for Justin Trudeau to resign. Of course, given the reality of how our parliament works these days, “debate” is a term to be used very loosely, and it was more like several late-night hours of stilted speeches being read to one another for the sake of looking tough. Woo. On the committee front, Gerald Butts offered to testify on his own behalf, which was accepted, and both Michael Wernick and the deputy minister of justice are on their way back for another round, though none of the other staffers mentioned by Wilson-Raybould are (though that is also because they shouldn’t appear before committee, under the doctrine of ministerial responsibility – it’s for ministers and deputy ministers as accountability officers to appear as they are responsible for them). Ministers of the Crown were also doing the media rounds, including Bill Morneau and Chrystia Freeland, and most of them were offering variations of the line that while they thought that Jody Wilson-Raybould was telling the truth as she saw it, they also believe the PM in that he would never be inappropriate or cross a line, which made most of the pundit class’ heads implode – never mind that the crux of this whole matter is that it’s a subjective test as to what kind of pressure is or is not appropriate. (On a related note, the Liberals really, really need to put Carla Qualtrough out more. She is easily one of the best communicators that they have in Cabinet, but she never gets out there enough on items other than Phoenix, which is too bad because they desperately need someone with her communications skills out in public). And we’ll see how this continues to play out in the caucus as well, given that the usual suspects are not remaining so silent, and the not-so-usual suspects have openly stated things like “sour grapes” (before being made to apologise).

https://twitter.com/WayneLongSJ/status/1101160075023011840

For context, here is a comparison between what Wilson-Raybould said, and what Michael Wernick testified before the committee. Here’s a look at whether the Ethics Commissioner really can get to the bottom of this whole mess. Here’s the who’s who of everyone Wilson-Raybould named in her testimony. Here’s a roundup of how the Quebec press is treating Wilson-Raybould’s testimony.

In punditry, Susan Delacourt looks at how nervous the Liberal caucus seems by this whole affair, and what that disaffection may be doing to the party in the longer term. Robert Hiltz suggests that Trudeau take a long, hard look at himself and his government, given what this situation has revealed about them. Chris Selley points out that the Liberal treatment of not being Stephen Harper as a virtue is going to be something that ends up costing them.

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Roundup: Wernick calls out Wilson-Raybould

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Thursday in the SNC-Lavalin/Wilson-Raybould Affair was much more explosive, on a couple of fronts. First, the Globe and Mail reported that Jody Wilson-Raybould told Cabinet that she was improperly pressured, which raises some real questions as to who the Globe source is, and also raises the question as to why Wilson-Raybould didn’t resign in protest at the time. (It also said that SNC-Lavalin is threatening to relocate their headquarters to the UK, which would be the first company looking to move there in the midst of Brexit chaos). And then, after a forgettable appearance by David Lametti at the Commons justice committee, where he could not guarantee that the solicitor-client privilege issue would be solved by the time Wilson-Raybould appears at committee, Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick let blew up the media cycle, not only with his very frank introductory comments, but also his belief that not only did any improper pressure not happen (going so far as to call the original Globe story false and “defamatory”), but that none of this should be covered by Solicitor-Client privilege because it was not discussed in Cabinet, and no legal advice was given. (Full text here).

Wernick’s comments were praised by some, criticised by others – particularly the Conservatives – with a lot of concern trolling going on about the perception that they were partisan (despite the fact that Wernick praised both the Harper government’s work as well as Trudeau’s). As John Geddes points out, the testimony also gave a glimpse as to how he interacts with power in this city, going so far as to leave an NAC gala to avoid being near SNC-Lavalin executives.

In related news, it looks like Wilson-Raybould didn’t renew her law licence in BC in 2016, which could mean that she’s not a practicing lawyer, which might also invalidate her claim to solicitor-client privilege. The Canadian Press’ Baloney Meter™ also tests Trudeau’s assertion that waiving solicitor-client privilege may impact the other two ongoing court cases involving SNC-Lavalin.

In pundit reaction, Susan Delacourt lays out how Wernick’s testimony is a direct challenge to the version of events that the Globe and Wilson-Raybould’s silence has allowed to develop, which puts pressure on Wilson-Raybould to confirm or deny his testimony. Jen Gerson doesn’t see Butts’ resignation as solving any of the Liberals’ problems. Robert Hiltz says that more than anything, this whole affair puts a lie to the government’s promise of being “real change” in doing politics.

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