Tag Archives: Patty Hajdu

Senate QP: Hajdu highlights the problems with provincial data

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Ministerial Question Period in the Senate was actually being held a time that wasn’t counter-programming with QP in the Other Place, and so I was able to make it for a change. Today’s minister being grilled was Patty Hajdu, minister of jobs and families and minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario. As is usual for ministerial QP in the Senate, there is a longer clock for questions and answers, and the whole exercise is about 65 minutes and not 45, so it’s quite a different exercise than in the Commons.

At the Senate to watch Patty Hajdu for #SenQP.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-12-09T21:01:30.634Z

Senator Housakos led off, and he read a script about food insecurity and grocery costs, housing, and cost of living. Hajdu thanked the Senate for the invitation, before rattling off the government’s support programmes, and those benefits that are indexed to inflation, with some added back-patting for the school food programme. Housakos demanded the government change their methodology to get a different results, and Hajdu raised that report after report points to climate change affecting the price of food, they can control the supports for families who need it, which again got some back-patting for their programmes.

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Roundup: Minister shocked at decades-old endemic problem

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Things with the Air Canada labour dispute threatened to veer into farce yesterday as things did not go as the government had hoped. Early in the morning, the Canadian Industrial Relations Board declared that the ongoing strike action by the flight attendants was now an illegal strike—but they didn’t refer it to the courts for enforcement, even though union leaders said that they were willing to go to jail for it (but there is no criminal offence here, merely administrative monetary penalties). And then, gallingly, the minister declared that she was shocked—shocked!—to learn about the allegations of unpaid labour, and ordered a probe of the situation, promising to close any loopholes in the law, but she can’t have been shocked. This has been an ongoing issue for decades. In the last parliament, both the Conservatives and the NDP put forward private members’ bills about this. The NDP in particular made a bunch of members’ statements and questions in QP about the issue, but Hajdu is only now learning about it? Come. On.

https://bsky.app/profile/lyleskinner.bsky.social/post/3lwoofl4ahs2v

Air Canada, meanwhile, is cancelling more flights, because they didn’t think that the union would not obey the back-to-work order (that has no enforcement mechanism). The union is trying to get an injunction because they argue that the order is abusing Section 107’s powers (and they are very likely right about that). And then Air Canada insisted that they won’t negotiate until the planes are flying again…but then talks resumed with a mediator by night, so we’ll see where this is at by morning.

Meanwhile, the broader problem of the moral hazard of continued government intervention, particularly the use of Section 107 (which doesn’t require a legislative process, or anything other than an email or phone call), has other unions on edge that this is going to permanently imbalance labour relations, because employers can simply declare an impasse and wait for the government to intervene. While I do think that these Quebec unions in the CP story are not differentiating between provincial and federal legislation enough (Section 107 is a federal power that applies only to federally-regulated workplaces), but we also know that many provincial governments are not exactly worrying about rights these days, which includes labour rights. Next steps remain the courts, who are likely to strike down these uses of Section 107 as being abusive.

Ukraine Dispatch

The toll from those strikes on Kharkiv and elsewhere early Monday have climbed to at least ten dead and 23 wounded. A Russian general was seriously wounded on the front lines.

At the conclusion of the meeting at the White House, Trump has agreed to European security guarantees (for now, anyway) after Ukraine offered to buy $100 billion in weapons from the US, and  now Trump wants to set up a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy (not that it will change anything as Putin doesn’t want to end the war). AP has a timeline of the changes in the front lines from February 2022 until now.

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Roundup: Stop saying “woke”

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The first Monday after the Conservative leadership contest, and already shots are being fired between Poilievre and Trudeau. Poilievre kicked off the day, first by meeting with his Quebec caucus alone to reassure them and ask them to rally around him in unity, and then addressed the caucus at large with a public speech in which he decried Trudeau’s “radical woke coalition,” and then spouted a bunch of nonsense about inflation.

From his caucus retreat, Trudeau responded with a quick congratulation to Poilievre for his victory, before calling out his reliance on “buzzwords, dog whistles and careless attacks,” as well as his “highly questionable, reckless economic ideas.” While this is happening, it sounds like a few Quebec MPs told Radio-Canada that they want the party to move more toward the “Centre” (which is odd, because they never really left it, and no, they have not actually taken a sharp leftward turn), and wants them to be “less woke,” which again, is a strange turn of phrase because I’m not sure what it’s supposed to mean. Should they be openly racists or homophobic? Is that what they think will win them votes? Is attempting to be inclusive so terrible? Really?

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 201:

The Ukrainian counter-offensive carried on in the country’s northeast, clearing out much of the Russian occupiers that have been in place since February, and it was done with such speed in part because Russians were simply surrendering in large numbers. Many of these prisoners are intended to be swapped with Russia for captured Ukrainian troops, so we’ll see how that progresses in the near term.

https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1569393669484036096

https://twitter.com/cmhwee/status/1569324523891363840

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Roundup: Self-harm by way of platitude

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I try not to make a habit of re-litigating my Twitter disputes in this space, but in this particular case, I find it’s a perfect illustration of how this government’s inability to communicate its way out of a wet paper bag, and why that harms them. To wit: A Global News piece declares that Trudeau won’t commit to ending boil-water advisories on First Nations by 2021 as is the current promise. It uses the recent evacuation at Neskatanga First Nation as an illustration of problems with boil-water advisories. It quotes Trudeau giving a bland talking point about “more work to do,” and way down at the bottom of the story is reference to the fact that in Neskatanga, not only has money been approved and delivered, but the new water treatment facility is nearly completed construction.

So why is this a problem for the government? Because if they had the slightest bit of candour, they could have explained that capital projects like these take time, particularly in the kinds of remote and fly-in communities like these particular First Nations. Twitter is filled with people who are seriously asking why the government hasn’t solved these issues if they’re showering money around, without having the slightest clue about what he actual problems with these boil water advisories are, and accustomed to situations where they can simply throw money at a problem and it will go away. That’s not the case, and not understanding the logistical and capacity issues at play means that we get this ongoing confusion. For example, many of these reserves are only accessible to bring equipment up with ice roads for a couple of months of the year, which slows the ability to make timely solutions. (This is also an issue with housing on many reserves – small windows by which to bring in building supplies, and those windows are getting ever shorter because of climate change). This has been made even worse in the pandemic, because many communities won’t let the people who are building these new facilities into the community in an attempt to keep COVID out (which Trudeau made vague reference to, but folded it into his platitude so it gets lost). In some communities, it’s not a question of the equipment but of maintenance – as soon as they find and train someone local to do the work, they get headhunted and given a better offer, and the community has to start over again, as the equipment once again breaks down. And it would be great if Trudeau or one of his ministers could actually articulate these challenges, but they won’t. Instead, they fall back on their platitudes about “doing better,” and not giving people a clue about what the actual challenges are.

The government also assumes that these reporters will do the work to find out what the challenges are, but they won’t. Pressed for time, and under the constant pressure to produce, most of them will only both-sides the quotes and move on (as happened in this particular case). Most don’t understand the background or the actual challenges, so it doesn’t get reported – only the platitudes in face of the complaints. Actual candour from Trudeau and the Cabinet would fix this – easily! But they won’t do it. It’s maddening, and they’re just shooting themselves in the foot, over, and over, and over again.

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Roundup: Pushing back against the committee order

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The credulous takes on the Conservatives’ health committee motion continue, and now industry is also starting to push back, concerned that commercially sensitive information is going to be released publicly which will affect them and the ability to produce PPE for the country. Of course, Michelle Rempel Garner is dismissing these concerns as “Liberal spin” and offering the assurance that the Commons Law Clerk will redact any sensitive information – except that there are no assurances that he knows what is and is not commercially sensitive information. (And this recent trend of making the Law Clerk redact documents under the howls that anything else amounts to a cover-up is worrying, because it’s once again piling work into independent servants of the House that is beyond the scope of their duties, which will soon become a permanent duty). Other manufacturers are saying it’s not about the information, but about the fact that they’re going to become political footballs for stepping up in the early days of the pandemic – and they’re right. Given how many falsehoods are being repeated about the Baylis Medical contract – which media continues to both-sides rather than call out – is going to keep happening, and we’ll see these company owners be grilled for any remote Liberal connections, because this is an exercise in the Conservatives fishing to “prove” that this was about the Liberals trying to pad the pockets of their “friends,” because they are determined to try and recreate a new Sponsorship Scandal. And I’m surprised that there aren’t more voices in the media who can’t see this, or the shenanigans in Rempel Garner’s motion.

Meanwhile, Patty Hajdu hasn’t exactly covered herself in glory over the past few days with her dismissive comments about Access to Information requests – comments that got the attention of the Information Commissioner, who sounded the alarm over them. I will note that having once worked as a contractor in Health Canada’s records department (I had to pay the bills while building up my pre-political freelance career), that they had one of the worst-kept systems across the federal government, and I have no reason to believe that things are much different now than they were then. This gets compounded by the fact that ATIPs are being slowed by the fact that government offices are closed because of the pandemic, and people aren’t being able to access the files necessary, which is making the situation worse. It would be great if Hajdu could actually say something other than the dismissive comment (which I’m fairly certain was off the cuff when caught flat-footed by the issue), and her haughty defence of civil servants, but as we all know, this government can’t communicate their way out of a wet paper bag, and she proved it once again, in spades.

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Roundup: More questions about the WE contract

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It was another campaign stop – err, media availability field trip for prime minister Justin Trudeau, where he headed to a local brewery that has converted part of their production line to produce hand sanitizer to both highlight that the country is now nearly self-sufficient in the production of personal protective equipment, but also to once again highlight how great the wage subsidy is, and please, for the love of the gods, would employers take advantage of it (and get people off of CERB). He mentioned Thursday’s teleconference with the premiers and the $14 billion that the federal government has put on the table, but the fact that they haven’t apparently taken him up on it would seem to me that this is a bit of public diplomacy on Trudeau’s part to try to get the premiers to take it with the strings attached. From there, he said that the Canadian Forces personnel would start withdrawing from some of the long-term care facilities in Quebec where the Red Cross could step in, but also that the Forces were going to stabilize four more residences. And finally, he gave a shout out to Pride, which is no longer happening in Toronto this weekend because of the pandemic, but it is still nice to have a prime minister that acknowledges it.

During the Q&A, Trudeau said that changes to the wage subsidy were on the way so as not to be a disincentive for companies growing beyond the qualifying criteria – but we’ll see what “soon” means. He stated that they did have a plan in the works to help the Royal Canadian Legion branches that are in danger of closing because of the pandemic, and when asked about the anti-racism statement that all of the First Ministers put out earlier in the week, Trudeau said that they didn’t come to an agreement on systemic racism, but that reporters would have to ask the premiers which ones they were. (Spoiler: It’s Quebec). And then there were the questions about the service grant contract being given to WE Charities. Trudeau said that it was about creating opportunities, and that they needed to have a partner with established networks, and very clearly annunciated that it was the civil service that recommended WE as the only organization capable of delivering those networks on the scale being asked. He also said that while they were covering WE’s costs, the organization wouldn’t be profiting. It’s still pretty dubious, and here’s Alex Usher laying out some of the questions that remain outstanding on this whole affair.

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Roundup: An admission of systemic racism in Canada

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Prime minister Justin Trudeau’s daily presser was held away from Rideau Cottage yesterday, at a local business that benefitted from the wage subsidy, and it was remarked that it looked to be suspiciously like a campaign stop. Trudeau did his best to try and deflect blame for losing at political chicken – err, Wednesday’s inability to get the government’s latest emergency omnibus bill passed, outlining all of the places where items in the bill matched the demands of opposition parties, while dismissing some of the criticisms – primarily that of the Conservatives in their insistence on having full parliamentary sittings restored. The more memorable moment, however, was when he was asked about RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki’s comments that seem to dismiss systemic racism in the RCMP (though she did cop to unconscious bias), where Trudeau said that of course there is systemic racism in the RCMP, just like there is in all of our institutions, and that systems are not broken, but were in fact built that way. He went on to say that part of why it’s difficult to address is because it’s in the building blocks of these institutions, which should serve as a reminder to everyone that there are no quick fixes to any of this. He also went on to say that Canadian exceptionalism isn’t just that we do well, but that we know we need to do better and are willing to address it. This is probably the first time that a head of government has made this kind of an admission, and an acknowledgment of concepts that many Canadians are still coming to terms with – but he also did say that he had faith in Lucki to do the job of reforming the RCMP, so there’s that.

On the subject of the RCMP, Indigenous services minister Marc Miller is not having any of Commissioner Lucki’s excuses about not understanding systemic racism, and is critical that not enough has been done to combat it over the past two years. AFN National Chief Perry Bellegarde says that the federal government’s complacency allows police violence against Black and Indigenous people, and he’s right. And lo and behold, the dashcam footage of Chief Allan Adam’s arrest has been made public, and it is hard to see how senior RCMP officials could have concluded that the actions were “appropriate,” which is a big flashing indicator of a problem in the ranks.

Meanwhile, as the debate on bringing back Parliament properly progresses with Trudeau’s disingenuous excuses, Conservative House leader Candice Bergen has put forward a number of suggestions for how MPs could safely vote in-person in a returned Parliament – some of which I’m not in favour of, but at least it’s a better solution than the Pandora’s Box of remote or electronic votes, which the government favours – and make no mistake, they are an evil that will be unleashed and there will be no going back. (I have more on this in my weekend column, out later today).

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Roundup: Civil liberties or delegated taxation authority

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Prime minister Justin Trudeau was in Prime Minister Dad mode during yesterday’s presser, telling people to stay home and that “enough is enough,” you’re not invincible, and you’re only putting others’ lives at risk. In terms of announcements, he talked about Parliament passing the emergency fiscal measures, that Farm Credit Canada was opening up funds, that flights were secured for a few countries that have secured their airspace, and that more funds were made available for vaccine and drug testing for COVID-19. He also spoke about his planned call with premiers to better coordinate emergency powers, and clarified that the Emergencies Act was largely about the federal government assuming the powers that provinces or municipalities haven’t enacted – in other words, it’s those levels of government that can suspend civil liberties in this time, and he’s trying to get premiers on the same page.

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/1242111081667080192

https://twitter.com/jm_mcgrath/status/1242115177702666242

For the bulk of the day, all anyone could talk about however was the Emergencies Act, and every journalist in town wanted to know why it hadn’t been invoked yet, and when they would do so. Trudeau, and later Freeland, kept making the point that it was a tool of last resort that would only be used when all other tools have been exhausted, but that doesn’t seem to have deterred anyone – lest of all New Brunswick premier Blaine Higgs, who said that he wanted the federal government to invoke it, either because he’s too reluctant to use the significant powers he has at his disposal provincially and would rather Ottawa do it for him, or because he can’t seem to deal with his fellow premiers to coordinate anything. And while everyone was practically begging the government to start taking away civil liberties, they also lost their minds when it was leaked that the government planned a significant overreach in their fiscal aid legislation that would have essentially given them delegated authority over taxation for up to December 2021 – which is clearly unconstitutional, but hey, they mean well, right? They backed down, but cripes the lack of competence in this government sometimes… (Look for more on this in my column, later today).

Meanwhile, here’s John Michael McGrath explaining why the federal government doesn’t need to invoke the Act, while Justin Ling notes that measures that trample civil liberties generally make problems worse instead of better. Adnan Khan ponders individual liberties versus authoritarianism in a time of crisis. In this thread, Philippe Lagassé explains more about the Act.

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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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Senate QP: Hajdu ducks a request

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Following weeks of condemnation around the government’s insistence on the “Charter rights” attestation for Canada Summer Jobs Grant applications, it was time for the minister of labour, Patty Hajdu, to appear before the Senate to answer questions. Senator Larry Smith led off, as is customary, and he asked about the fact that no new federal drug testing regulations would be in place before marijuana was legalised. Hajdu noted that in her previous job, she dealt a lot with substance use issues with clients adn employees, and she was passionate about the topic. She noted that they are working with federally-regulated employers and labour groups, but also called out that this debate was a red herring because cannabis is not new, nor is use at work. Smith wanted some degree of certainty for employers, and Hajdu said they are already having those conversations, and most workplaces already have robust policies.

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