Tag Archives: Pierre Poilievre

Roundup: GST “holiday” bill passes

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The federal government got their wish, with the cooperation of the NDP, to get their GST “holiday” bill through the House of Commons thanks to a programming motion that paused the ongoing privilege filibuster for the sitting day. In spite of the Bloc and Conservatives slow-walking it with dilatory amendments, it did pass late at night, with the terms of the motion being that once it passed second reading vote, it would automatically be deemed to have been referred to committee of the whole and passed, and then passed at third reading. (The Senate won’t see it until Tuesday at the earliest). It’s the first opportunity the Commons has had to do real work in more than six weeks, for what it’s worth. The Liberals and NDP, however, think they’ve found a big gotcha, that by forcing the Conservatives to vote against this legitimately terrible policy will be the key to reversing their fortunes in the polls, and their attempts remain cringe-worthy.

Pierre Poilievre took to the microphones to denounce it as “inflationary,” which is actually nonsense because we’re no longer in an overheated economy. Nevertheless, he relies on the simplistic notion that any government spending or deficits are inflationary (and claims that Chrystia Freeland herself this, which isn’t really what she said—not that the truth has ever mattered to Poilievre). Then again, his entire understanding of economics comes from crypto bros on YouTube, so probably best not to take him seriously. It’s still a terrible policy, however, so their opposition to it somewhat accidentally puts them on the right side of the issue, even if the reasons are entirely false and misleading (but broken clocks being right twice a day, and all of that).

As for the implementation of this terrible policy, it just looks even worse as the details emerge. What counts and what doesn’t for the rebate are all over the map, and it’s so chaotic that businesses are, quite rightly, frustrated at just how much work it’s going to be to implement for those two months. None of this should have happened, and the Liberals should have come up with a better measure than this (and rubbed the NDP’s faces in their own ill-conceived GST cut plan), but here we are, and it just keeps getting worse by the day. Well done, guys. Slow clap.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia fired another nearly 200 missiles and drones, targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure to leave more than a million people without power. Fragments from downed drones hit two buildings in Kyiv, injuring one person.

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Roundup: Falling over each other to defend Trump’s position

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The first day of fallout from Trump’s tariff threats was full of more panicked flailing, and performative attempts at toughness. Danielle Smith, Scott Moe, and BC’s opposition leader John Rustad fell all over themselves to demand Trudeau address Trump’s border concerns (because boot-licking is how you really own the Libs, apparently). Pierre Poilievre took to the microphone to debut his latest slogan of demanding a Canada First™ plan, which basically involved all of the things that he’s already been calling for—most especially cutting taxes, killing the carbon levy and eliminating environmental regulations—plus more handwavey demands to increase defence spending (which he’s never committed to), and an even more authoritarian crackdown on drugs than he had previously been planning under the guise that Trump was somehow right about fentanyl coming over the border. He also full-on invented the claim that this announcement caught Trudeau’s government off-guard (never mind that they’ve been spending the past year re-engaging with American lawmakers at all levels for this very contingency). Best of all was that he insisted that the prime minister needs to put partisanship aside, and then launched into a screed of partisan invective, and said that putting partisanship aside means doing what he wants. If this was an attempt to show that he’s an adult in the face of trouble and that he has the ability to be a statesman, well, this was not it—just more of the same peevishness that he always displays.

Meanwhile, Justin Trudeau will be holding a virtual meeting with the premiers later today. One of the Bank of Canada’s deputy governors made the unsurprising observation that those tariffs would have economic repercussion on both sides of the border. The Logic has a look at the impact on Canadian business, plus a reality check on fentanyl seizures going into the US and irregular border crossings, and the legalities of Trump’s declaration.

https://twitter.com/tylermeredith/status/1861533934724563237

I probably shouldn’t be surprised at the number of people with a platform in this country who insisted that Trump must be right, and it must be our fault that he’s doing this, but seriously? Capitulate and boot-lick at the first opportunity? He doesn’t have a point. If anything, there is a bigger problem with American drugs, guns, and migrants coming into our borders, and we aren’t threatening massive tariffs until the Americans secure their border, because that would be insane, and yet, supposedly intelligent and successful people in this country suddenly think the reverse must be true. We live in the stupidest of times.

https://twitter.com/JosephPolitano/status/1861207325651943487

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Roundup: Pants-wetting about a marching song

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News stories yesterday that the Royal Canadian Navy was, of their own initiative, exploring changing their marching song from “Heart of Oak” caused an inordinate amount of absolute pants-wetting from not only the usual suspects, but even some other otherwise rational voices who insisted this was all Justin Trudeau’s fault. When pointed out that the government had nothing to do with this, that the military brass was doing this on their own, they replied with things like “A military leadership shaped by, and following the direction of, the government. This horseshit is absolutely on the prime minister.”

I find it borderline incomprehensible that people cannot accept that the military itself has recognised that they need to change their own culture. They are in a recruitment and retention crisis because they can no longer count on straight white men from economically-depressed regions to fill their ranks in perpetuity. The country has changed, and they need to change with it—to say nothing of the fact that the former culture was rife with racism, misogyny, homophobia, sexual violence, and abuse of power in the top ranks. That kind of toxic environment wasn’t good for anyone, but it is being mythologised as “warrior culture.”

Even more to the point, this is being dismissed as “DEI” or “woke,” even from people who should know better. Trudeau is not sitting there forcing them to adopt “quotas” or so-called “DEI” or he’ll take away their lolly. But this goes back to my column last week about how a lot of these voices are pretty unconsciously privileging anything from straight white men as the “norm” and as the default “neutral,” and everything else is “woke,” and if you point out that privilege, you’re “divisive.” People need to grow the hell up and realise it’s 2024, and that means recognizing that the world has moved on from treating straight white men as the only “normal” that matters, and that includes the military.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian drone attack on residential buildings in Sumy killed two and injured more than twelve. Russians also claim to have overtaken the village of Novodmytrivka in the Donetsk region. There are more details about the hypersonic missile attack on Dnipro earlier in the week, to which president Zelenskyy says that Ukraine is developing new types of air defence to counter “new risks.”

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Roundup: Clapping back at the provinces and their JPs

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Justice Minister Arif Virani has been honing his responses to the cries for bail reform lately, both in pointing out that the provinces are not living up to their responsibilities—whether that’s with properly resourcing the court system so that trials are conducted in a timely manner, or in dealing with overcrowded remand centres where people are locked up awaiting trial, and because of the overcrowding and poor conditions, many accused are being given bail rather than subjected to those conditions. Even more recently, he has started pointing to how certain provinces, and Ontario especially, have been appointing Justices of the Peace, to decide on most bail hearings.

Ontario in particular had this whole song and dance about how great it was that they were appointing JPs who weren’t all lawyers, because it gave them greater breadth of experience or whatever, but if it’s true that they’re not actually applying the law of bail properly, that’s a problem. It could simply be that their training is inadequate, which again is a provincial responsibility, because if they are being expected to read, understand and apply case law that the Supreme Court of Canada has laid out when it comes to the law of bail, then again, that is a problem that the provinces need to solve.

And yes, there are going to continue to be voices chirping that the law is the problem, and that the Liberals created an “open door” through two pieces of legislation, but this has been an orchestrated disinformation campaign. The one law that the Conservatives refer to codified Supreme Court jurisprudence, and actually toughened bail in certain respects, especially around domestic violence; the other law they refer to had to do with doing away with solitary confinement in federal penitentiaries, which has nothing to do with bail in the slightest, but repeated lying that has not been pushed back against by both-sidesing media has led a whole lot of credulous people to believe the bullshit. The law of bail is not the problem—it’s everything else that is, and the provinces are once again being allowed to get away with not doing their jobs.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukrainian security services have detained a special forces unit commander accused of being Russian mole. Russian air defences claim to have downed a series of Ukrainian drones in a number of different regions. There could be another mass displacement of Ukrainians if energy systems continue to be damaged over the winter. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had a call with Putin, asking him to withdraw his troops and negotiate, which of course Putin won’t, and now Zelenskyy is angry with Scholz because these kinds of calls decrease Putin’s isolation.

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Roundup: Promising populist GST cuts

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In a speech to the Canadian Club in Toronto, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh laid out a pre-election campaign pledge of removing the GST on certain “essential” items like ready-made food, diapers, home heating, and mobile phone and internet bills—all of which he would finance through an “excess profit tax” on large corporations. It is possibly the dumbest economic policy possible, but our politics are moving into an absolutely brainless phase of populism.

Removing the GST on these items will have a negligible impact, particularly for those in low-income brackets. If anything, most of those reductions will benefit higher-income households, such as the GST cut on home heating (because wealthier households have bigger houses that take more fuel), and it when it comes to apartment buildings, the cut has little impact, or for places with electric heat, how exactly do you disentangle how much of the hydro bill is heat versus other electricity usage? I know that the NDP have been pushing this policy for years now, long before Singh was leader, but has anyone thought about it for more than five seconds?

In addition, making more exceptions to the GST are hard to administer, and it will reduce the GST rebates that lower-income households rely on. And promising the “excess profits” tax is basically an arbitrary exercise in determining what they consider “excess,” and that will basically be how much they think they can soak out of these companies, who will inevitably engage in creative accounting to suddenly lower profit margins or incur paper losses to avoid paying said tax, and all of the things the NDP had hoped to spend that windfall on will blow away like ashes in the wind. This isn’t progressive policy, but the NDP are going to pursue it anyway because they think that they can get the populist win here, when it’s almost certainly going to fail.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2024-11-15T01:27:01.865Z

Ukraine Dispatch

A combined Russian strike hit a residential building and energy installations in Odesa, killing one on Thursday evening. As well, the Russian assault on Kupiansk in the northeast broke through the outskirts of the city, but were eventually repelled.

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Roundup: Reheating old rage-bait

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If the rage-bait works, then why not try again? This is apparently the thinking of the Conservatives, who are once again falsely claiming that the federal government has “banned prayer” by military chaplains at Remembrance Day ceremonies, after claiming this last year and it’s no more true now than it was then. Nevertheless, this is exactly the sort of thing that gets their base all hot and bothered, and who will open their wallets over it.

There has been a policy decision made by the Chaplain General, independent of government, that encourages more inclusive language by chaplains in order to respect the greater diversity within the Forces, but again, not a prayer ban, and not ordered by the government. But for Andrew Scheer to claim that it’s the government that’s lying about it and not him, serial liar who lies about everything under the sun, and to then try and clap back at Marc Miller was…something. I can’t even.

Ukraine Dispatch

Overnight attacks by Russian drones killed one civilian and injured more than thirty in Odesa, with other attacks on the Kyiv region. Military bloggers say that Russian forces are closing in on Kurakhove and Pokrovsk in the east. Ukrainian drones hit an oil refinery in Saratov in Russia, but damage was said to be insignificant.

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Roundup: Emissions cap unveiled

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At long last, the federal government unveiled their long-awaited oil and gas emissions cap draft regulations, mandating that they reduce emissions by 35 percent by 2032, with the expectation that much of these reductions are going to come in the form of reducing methane emissions—much of which is already underway—and that production is still expected to rise by 16 percent over those eight years. (Five things to know about the proposal here). For an industry that insists that it’s going to be “Net Zero” by 2050, this would seem like an achievable milestone to get there along the way, but apparently not.

Danielle Smith had a meltdown and started threatening legal action, but can’t exactly articulate on what basis that would be. Certain newspaper columnists posited that she could somehow invoke the Notwithstanding Clause, which doesn’t apply to this sort of situation in any way, shape or form (and should be disqualifying for someone writing in a newspaper with a six-figure salary).

Industry insists this is going to kill them, but they’ve been promising reductions for decades and have taken plenty of government money to help them fulfil those promises that they are now insisting are impossible. So…at what point do we start calling them on their own bullshit? If their plan is to hope that there will be magical technology by 2050 that will painlessly reduce their emission for them, well, that’s their problem. They made these promises, and it’s time they show how they’re going to live up to them.

Ukraine Dispatch

There was another Russian air attack made against Kyiv overnight, but it’s too early to tell how much damage was caused. South Korea’s defence ministry now estimates more than 10,000 North Korean troops are in Russia, but the Pentagon cannot confirm if they are currently fighting in the Kursk region.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1853389611604615191

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Roundup: Toxifying a committee

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The ongoing denigration of this Parliament continues, as the toxic swamp that committees have devolved into has claimed another victim. Liberal MP Anita Vandenbeld, who has a resumé full of doing work with women and civil society engagement in other countries, removed herself from the Status of Women committee after relentless harassment from Conservative members of the committee, in particular Michelle Ferreri, plus the actions of the Chair, Shelby Kramp-Neuman, in facilitating it, all of it stemming from the set-up that the Conservatives engineered over that so-called “emergency meeting” in the summer where the Chair abused her authority to summon witnesses with no agreement for a study that had not been agreed to, which was being used to try and embarrass the government.

The Status of Women committee used to be one of the most functional and non-partisan committees in the House of Commons, but Poilievre and the Conservatives couldn’t have that. They insisted on replacing the previous committee chair for Kramp-Neuman, who has been doing their bidding, and have made it toxic and dysfunctional, like everything else in this current parliament, because that is part of their overall plan. They need to break everything in order to blame the government, justify an election and to tell people who don’t follow politics and don’t understand what’s going on here that they need to come to power so that they can fix things, when really, the plan is that once they are in power, they will start dismantling the guardrails of the state. None of this is subtle, or novel, and it’s been done in plenty of other countries where their democracies have been dismantled by far-right parties, and it’s happening here while our media stands idly by because both-sides and “We don’t care about process stories,” while the Elder Pundits keep tut-tutting and insisting that it won’t be that bad. We’re getting into some seriously dangerous territory, and nobody wants to sound the alarm.

Big #cdnpoli energy.We are headed in a very bad direction.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2024-10-29T14:16:59.724Z

Speaking of committees, the public safety committee heard from top national security officials, who were there to talk about the foreign interference including violence and homicide commissioned by the Indian government, and they made some pretty important revelations, but MPs didn’t really want to hear it, because once again, they were too busy grinding partisan axes. The Conservatives only asked about the embargoed briefing to the Washington Post, which has been falsely termed a “leak,” when it was confirmed that they were contacted by writers from the Post to confirm certain details from their reporting, which they agreed to under the embargo, in part because it was seen as a credible newspaper that could counter the coming disinformation from Indian sources (and we know that certain newspapers in Canada had swallowed Indian disinformation whole on previous occasions). And the Liberals? They were too busy gathering clips of these officials explaining why Pierre Poilievre should get his security clearance. Honest to Zeus, this shouldn’t be this difficult, especially for such a sensitive topic, but nope. MPs have once again beclowned themselves.

Ukraine Dispatch

At least nine people were injured and several apartments set on fire by a drone attack on Kyiv. Russians claim they have seized control of Selydove and are moving to encircle the town of Kurakhove in the east. Also facing imminent Russian threat is Pokrovsk, where the coal mines that fuel the steel mills are still operating as Russians close in.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1851276298242466109

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Roundup: So he is hiding something?

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Over the past couple of days, Justin Trudeau and Karina Gould have been intimating that Pierre Poilievre has “something to hide” by not seeking his security clearance. It’s a stupid talking point, it trivialises the seriousness of the issue, and it descends to the same childish accusations that the Conservatives are lobbing at the government over the refusal to turn over certain unredacted documents related to SDTC as part of a banana republic production order (as the subject of the current privilege filibuster). It’s not cute, and it doesn’t make them look like the adults in the room.

And then along comes Michael Chong, who gave this cockamamie story to the Globe and Mail that because security clearances can involve invasive questions like sexual partners or past drug use, and that Trudeau is “so desperate” that he would use that information to publicly undermine Poilievre. But, and former CSIS director Ward Elcock made the point in the same piece, CSIS would never turn that information over to the PM, no matter the political pressure, so not only is Chong just making up conspiracy bullshit (as he has been wont to do increasingly of late), he is actually adding fuel fire by making it look like Poilievre does indeed have something to hide. Like, my dude, did you even think about your stupid conspiracy for five whole seconds before you blurted it out to Bob Fife? Honestly.

Remember when Michael Chong was a man of principle and didn't just constantly make up shitty conspiracy theories to suck up to his leader? #cdnpoli www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/art…

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2024-10-24T17:20:23.744Z

We all know that the reasons Poilievre won’t get the clearance is because it would require him to lie slightly less than he does currently. Poilievre even tacitly admitted this when he declared in QP “This prime minister will not gag me!” (Phrasing!) But by trying to take this “hiding something” schtick across the board is just tiresome when everyone should be striving to be grown-ups about this.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russians launched a thermobaric ammunition attack on Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region, while Ukrainian forces shot down 40 out of 50 drones overnight. Russian forces have been making a fast advance into the town of Selydove, which they have been trying to take control of. Ukrainian intelligence suggests that North Korean troops are already in the Kursk region.

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Roundup: Senators won’t be pushed around

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The Bloc Québécois are trying to sweeten their demand for their two private members’ bills to pass before October 29th, saying they will help end the current filibuster in the House of Commons if the government does. Couple of small problems there—one is that the Senate can’t speed passage of any private members’ bills, no matter how much MPs or even the government strongly encourages them to; and the second is that the government isn’t going to give a royal recommendation to their OAS bill, because they absolutely don’t want to set a precedent there.

Nevertheless, Mary Ng wrote a letter to Senator Peter Boehm, who chairs the committee studying the Supply Management bill, urging him to speed it along, and it was co-signed by a few MPs from different parties, no doubt to try and demonstrate that they all care about this. Boehm, rightly, responded by telling them to go pound sand. The committee estimates it’ll get to clause-by-clause of the bill in the first week of November, because that’s how long it’ll take, end of story. And let me reiterate once again—there is no mechanism in the Senate to fast-track private members’ bills, and that’s for very good reason. In fact, during the Harper years, they tried to rewrite the Senate rules to allow for it to happen—in part because they were moving some odious legislation through as private members’ bills instead of government bills for various reasons (including the fact that PMBs get very little study and are automatically time-allocated so they can’t really be filibustered), and enough senators pushed back on that attempt that it didn’t happen. Again, for good reason.

As for the Bloc’s frankly boneheaded suggestion that the prime minister needs to get on the phone to order senators “that he appointed” around undermines the entire institutional independence of the Upper Chamber. They are appointed in such a way as to make them largely immune to this kind of political pressure for very good reason, and this is proving that very point. By that logic, should the prime minister be phoning up judges that they appointed in order to pressure them to deciding cases in a particular way? How about the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court? This extended tantrum they’re throwing is embarrassing for them, particularly when it began as a ham-fisted attempt at blackmail that it turns out they weren’t very good at.

Ukraine Dispatch

Three people, including a child, were killed in a Russian drone strike in Sumy. The UN estimates that the Ukrainian population has declined by ten million since the start of the invasion, a combination of people being displaced and war deaths. Ukraine has been targeting alcohol plants in Russia over the past several days. With news that North Korea is sending troops to fight with Russians, South Korea is now considering sending weapons to Ukraine.

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