Tag Archives: Procurement

QP: Repeating the same questions about the AG’s report

Posted on by

Wednesday, and everyone in the Chamber was revved up from their morning caucus meetings. The prime minister was present, as were the other leaders, and Andrew Scheer led off, and boasted that the Conservatives would force a vote to get money that went to GC Strategies back (which I don’t think you can do legally). Mark Carney said that the government was focused on best-in-class procurement practices, which is why they changed the department. Scheer claimed that Carney must have somehow been involved because he was an economic advisor to the Liberal Party, along with other ministers still in the Cabinet, and Carney crowed about the new minister and that his deputy used to fly fighter jets. Mark Strahl repeated the same accusations and accused the government of making no effort to get wasted dollars back, and Carney said that the Conservatives are ignoring that there was just an election. Strahl tried again, and got much the same answer. Luc Berthold read the French version of Scheer’s script, and Carney repeated his best-in-class line in French. Berthold repeated the notion that the ministers involved got promoted, and Carney stated that he will be focused on best-in-class procurement.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he wondered if the carbon levy rebates that went out in April was paid for already through the levy collected, and Carney said that it was a transitional payment because they cancelled the levy and people still needed it for the transition. Blanchet Said that the government is refusing to pay back Quebeckers if others didn’t pay into it, and demanded they now be compensated. Carney reminded him that Quebec has their own carbon pricing system, and that he respects their jurisdiction. Blanchet reiterated that the rebate was not paid for, and called it an injustice against the people of Quebec. Carney repeated that there are different systems and different transitions, so the system is coherent. 

Continue reading →

Roundup: The Auditor General on F-35s and ArriveCan

Posted on by

Yesterday saw the release of the Auditor General and Environment Commissioner’s reports, and lo, these ones actually got a tonne of media attention and took centre stage in Question Period, which is a far cry from most of their recent reports. The reason, of course, is that the topics were sexy—F-35 fighter jets and the ArriveCan app gong show in particular, the latter of which the Conservatives have been salivating over for three years now, which made the day pretty much insufferable as a result. But there was more than just those.

  • The F-35 procurement costs have ballooned because of delays, pilot shortages, infrastructure, and inflation but acknowledged the Canadian government has little control over most of these factors.
  • CBSA failed to follow procurement and security rules when it used GC Strategies to contract out work on ArriveCan, and didn’t follow-up to ensure work had been done before more contracts were awarded.
  • Public Services and Procurement has been slow to modernise and downsize office space, and turn over surplus buildings for housing.
  • Indigenous Services has failed to process Indian Act status applications within the required six-month timeline, with a backlog having grown to over 12,000 applications.
  • The climate adaptation plan is falling short, with only one of its three pillars in place and little connection between spending and results.

I’m not sure that the F-35 news is all that surprising, but it does actually work to either justify a potential move away from the platform, or to reflect increases in defence spending calculations. The GC Strategies findings are also not unexpected, but one thing the Conservatives have been failing to mention is that CBSA is an arms’-length agency, so ministers had no real say over any of its contracting practices (as the Conservatives try to insist that any minister who had carriage on the file should be fired). Meanwhile, their narrative that this was somehow about “Liberal friends” was never mentioned in the report, nor was there any mention about partisan considerations, or indication that the firm had any connection to the government, so these are just rage-bait accusations used solely for the performance art, which is how most things go with these guys.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-06-10T21:22:14.366Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Tuesday’s attack from Russia was one of its largest strikes on Kyiv, which also hit civilian targets in Odesa, and Kharkiv was subjected to a nine-minute-long drone attack that killed at least two and injured 54. Another prisoner swap took place yesterday, this time for an undisclosed number of sick and wounded soldiers.

Continue reading →

QP: GC Strategies, over and over and over again…

Posted on by

Fresh from the Pride Flag raising on Parliament Hill, the prime minister was present for Question Period today, as were the other leaders. Andrew Scheer was present but did not lead off, leaving that up to Larry Brock, who put on his most serious tone to decry the Auditor General’s report on the “fraudsters” at GC Strategies and the dollars that they got from government, and demand taxpayers get their money back. Mark Carney thanked the Auditor General for her service and noted that the company has been prohibited from government contracts for seven years, and that “Canada’s New Government™” would uphold higher standards. Brock blustered that ministers responsible for those “fraudulent” payments are still in Cabinet, and demanded taxpayers get their money back. Carney instead praised them for supporting their legislation on tax cuts. James Bezan took over and thundered about the AG report on the F-35 procurement, and the increased cost projections and delays to necessary infrastructure for the planes, and demanded that the ministers responsible be held to account. Carney in turn wondered if Bezan held himself to account for military funding falling below one percent when he was in the government, before patting himself on the back for the military funding announcement. Bezan sputtered and insisted that the Conservatives “delivered” for the military, and demanded to know why Anita Anand was still in his Cabinet, as he blamed her for the findings in the report. Carney instead delivered an ode to the Canadian industry that they would be featuring in this military rebuilding. Pierre Paul-Hus asked the same condemnation about the report and Anand in French, to which Carney pointed to this first action he took was to review the F-35 contract. Paul-Hus then turned to the ArriveCan portion of the report and the GC Strategies condemnation. Carney noted that an independent process suspended their ability to bid for contracts already.

Yves-François Blanchet said that the final carbon levy rebate was paid out before the money was collected, then Quebeckers were also owed a payment. Carney responded that while he was “proud” to cancel the levy, Quebec and BC have their own systems and didn’t pay into it. Blanchet tried a second time, and Carney repeated that they didn’t pay into it. Blanchet put a price that of $814 million on that, and Carney noted that Blanchet himself created Quebec’s carbon pricing system, and that their not getting a rebate was coherent.

Continue reading →

Roundup: What transnational repression?

Posted on by

Prime minister Mark Carney had a big day planned with the tabling of his big “One Canada Economy” bill, and he managed to stomp all over his own message with news that he had a call with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and invited him to attend the G7 summit in Kananaskis in a couple of weeks. There was a bit of a collective WTF from around the country considering that we still have not resolved the issue with the Modi government being credibly accused of ordering the murder of Canadian citizens on Canadian soil, along with other extortion rackets. Not only was this upsetting to Sikhs in Canada, but it also came on the anniversary of the attack on the Golden Temple in India, showing once again that Carney has inadequate political sense and is being poorly advised by those who allegedly have more political experience than he does.

chat is it normal to invite the head of a govt alleged to have been involved in the extrajudicial killing a canadian citizen on canadian soil to canada asking for a diaspora

— Supriya Dwivedi (@supriya.bsky.social) 2025-06-06T14:11:12.637Z

honestly hard to see this as anything other than the Carney govt thinking some canadian lives matter more than others it will also be incredibly difficult to take anything this govt says on transnational repression and foreign interference seriously given this pivot

— Supriya Dwivedi (@supriya.bsky.social) 2025-06-06T14:12:22.745Z

Carney defended the move by insisting this was about economic ties, and that he had reassurances that the law-enforcement process was ongoing (which India has refused cooperation around, and instead chose to make up a bunch of absolute horseshit about drugs supposedly being found on Trudeau’s plane). Others insisted that this was a diplomatic necessity, because diplomacy is not a reward for good behaviour (true!) and also stated that the other six members of the G7 have no problem with India and that Canada is an outlier. I would caveat that, however—the US has had their problems with India around this very problem, because some of it was also happening on US soil, and many other G7 countries don’t have the same Indian diaspora as Canada, which doesn’t mean that they would be safe from these kinds of activities. I would also say that there is an added implicit message with this invitation that you can essentially get away with murder if you’re economically important enough, and that’s a really, really bad message to send in this era of increasing authoritarianism and the democratic backsliding happening in Western countries.

On that note, Carney also had a call with Chinese premier Li Qiang, at his behest, about regularising communications channels. No doubt Carney has motivations of trying to get China to lift their tariffs on our agricultural and seafood products, which were in retaliation for our EV tariffs (because China is trying to behave in a predatory manner by trying to build a tech monoculture to suffocate our own EV industry). Not to mention, China continues to be a bad actor with its own foreign interference and transnational repression, so again, it is looking a lot like Carney is behaving like it’s 1995 and just one more trade deal with China will make them more democratic and respect human rights. Really! We mean it this time!

The last word goes to The Beaverton, who got it just right.

Carney limits G7 guests to one assassination each

— The Beaverton (@thebeaverton.com) 2025-06-06T21:09:26.706Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched another missile and drone attack on Ukraine in the early hours of Friday, killing at least six people. They claim this these are “military targets” in retaliation for Ukrainian “terrorist acts” against Russia, when of course we know this is nothing but bullshit. Ukrainian drones hit an industrial enterprise in Russia’s southern city of Engels.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Back-channel tariff talks?

Posted on by

Ever since the latest round of steel and aluminium tariffs went into place, there have been questions as to when and how Canada will respond, and earlier in the week, prime minister Mark Carney counselled patience and that there were “intensive negotiations” happening, but retaliatory measures were also being prepared. We found out yesterday that Carney and Trump have been having back-channel conversations on the subject, so retaliation while this is happening may be counter-productive. But you also have industry worrying that the longer this goes without retaliation, the more they become vulnerable to other things like steel imports from other countries being diverted to Canada, which could make their situation even worse.

That being said, we may not be able to eliminate all tariffs, and some level could remain because Trump does love tariffs, and has a completely wrong-headed notion about them because of the people he has been surrounding himself with. Never mind that our auto sector can’t survive with tariffs, or that the Americans will simply pay through the nose for aluminium that they can’t smelt themselves.

Meanwhile, the Star has a really good five-point explainer about the counter-tariffs, and why the Conservatives’ claims that they were “secretly removed” is false, but rather a certain number of counter-tariffs were suspended for six months to give Canadian companies time to adjust supply chains, but there are still plenty of counter-tariffs in place.

Ukraine Dispatch

There was another missile and drone attack overnight which hit Kyiv, has killed at least four people.

Continue reading →

Roundup: The confidence vote that wasn’t

Posted on by

Debate on the Address in Reply to the Speech From the Throne was due to wrap up, meaning a final vote. Media outlets insisted that this would be the first major confidence vote of the new Parliament, and that if the Liberals lost it, we could go back to an election, and there was all this building drama because of how they lost the vote on the Conservatives’ amendment (to “urge” the government to table a spring budget). And my headache started.

The vote on the Address in Reply is not automatically a confidence vote. It is if the opposition amendments explicitly state that they have no confidence in the government, and sometimes that happens because this is the first opportunity to test the confidence of the Chamber, especially in a minority parliament or legislature, but again, that was not the case here. But along the way, the NDP decided that they were going to play tough and declare that they would vote against it for specious reasons (and because Don Davies is an idiot, and has a long track record of being an idiot and a blowhard), while the Government House Leader, Steve MacKinnon, told reporters that this would be a confidence vote. So, if the government says it’s a confidence vote, it’s a confidence vote, and it was likely intended to be something of a bit a put-up-or-shut-up dare, which can be risky in a minority parliament, but sometimes you also need to play hardball with the opposition. This was likely going to mean that the Bloc would either vote in support or abstain (because they did say they would give the government a year before they started to seriously oppose anything, given the Trump situation), but the government was never in any serious danger of falling. If, by some fluke, they did lose a vote they declared to be confidence, they could simply hold another vote and basically say “Did you mean it?” and chances are they would win that vote, and all would go back to normal.

And in the end, there wasn’t even a vote. News of Marc Garneau’s death reached the Chamber just before the vote was to be taken, and it seems like the appetite for drama was gone, and it passed on division, meaning that they agreed to disagree, that they were going to let it pass, but not bother with a recorded vote. And thus, the least exciting outcome happened.

I must advise the beings of Bluesky that, in a truly only-in-this-particular-Canadian-parliament twist, the much-anticipated will-they-or-won't-they-trigger-an-election over it motion on the Throne speech as amended — has been adopted on division.

— Kady O'Malley (@kadyo.bsky.social) 2025-06-04T22:25:39.121Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-06-04T22:02:26.904Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones struck an apartment building in Kharkiv, injuring at least seventeen. Russian forces have also pushed further into Sumy region. Here’s a look at how Operation Spiderweb was carried out.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Ontario MPPs get a raise

Posted on by

I don’t often write about Ontario politics, but I did want to make a couple of remarks on the fact that Doug Ford pushed through both pay raises for MPPs, as well as a restoration of their pensions, and this actually a Good Thing. MPPs have had their salaries frozen since 2009, when Dalton McGuinty froze them in response to the global financial crisis (which is always one of those dumb populist moves that astroturf groups like the so-called “Canadian Taxpayers Federation” demand, and it always ends up bad). Ford’s legislation will peg MPP salaries at 75 percent of those of MPs, who already have their own salaries adjusted automatically per a particular formula, and it pegs itself to something like judges’ salaries, all in an attempt to depoliticise the issue (and has largely been successful).

The thing about salaries for elected officials is that you want them to be high enough to discourage them from either freelancing on the job, or being susceptible to financial inducements (aka bribery) by keeping them at a reasonably comfortable level (without being obviously lavish or ostentatious). And frankly, the fact that anyone who is in a profession, like a doctor or lawyer, needing to take a pay cut to get into elected politics is usually a bad sign, because it discourages them from running or contributing in a meaningful way. And as for pensions, which Mike Harris killed in more populist excesses, it again helps to keep MPPs from pursuing other remuneration given the low salaries they’re already accepting, when they’re not earning pensionable income from their previous employers. Over time, there have been complaints that certain MPPs wouldn’t retire because they couldn’t afford to, and there was recently one story about a former Toronto MPP who wound up sleeping in a shelter after a financial collapse from a divorce. This was pretty sad indictment of how petty Ontario’s legislature had become on these questions.

This having been said, I’m still dubious about Ford’s motives, given that he has stuffed his Cabinet with MPPs in order to give them raises while going on about how hard they work. This feels a little bit like spoils of war as the province’s books get in worse and worse shape, but again, this is still the right thing to do. I know the books are a mess, and hospitals are crumbling, and they’re dismantling post-secondary education, but not giving these raises doesn’t fix any of that. Let’s hope that we’re not going to witness a bunch more hand-wringing about how nest-feathering, otherwise I can see the dumb populism making things even worse, as they force MPPs to start competing over who does sackcloth and ashes best.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-05-29T21:27:21.302Z

Ukraine Dispatch

President Zelenskyy says that Russia is engaging in yet another deception by not handing over its peace settlement proposal ahead of their planned talks.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Holding confederation hostage

Posted on by

Mid-afternoon Alberta time, premier Danielle Smith gave a live address which had all of the appearances of some kind of hostage video, where she is promising to kill confederation if her demands aren’t met. Those demands are largely outrageous in and of themselves—guaranteed pipeline access, killing all federal environmental protection laws that would affect Alberta, perverting equalisation to give them a “per capita share” (it doesn’t operate on a per capita basis), and taking any kind of export tax off the table that could be used as leverage against Trump if we needed it. It was grievance porn, and largely just riling up her base of lunatics—whom she also defended—as they gear up to force some kind of separatism referendum, even though that wouldn’t actually mean what they think it does.

Would like to hear more from the Alberta Premier about how the industrial carbon price is "crippling" in Alberta.A year ago, it was "working."www.theglobeandmail.com/business/art…

— Aaron Wherry (@aaronwherry.bsky.social) 2025-05-05T21:30:03.882Z

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3lohiwnqoyk2y

The whole issue of the separatism referendum is also predicated on her being too-clever-by-half, saying she doesn’t believe in separation and believes in “sovereignty within a united Canada” (which is mostly horseshit), but she’s still going to game the rules to make it easier for the loons to force a referendum. “Oh, there’s no blood on my hands!” she insists, while she bought the knife and handed it to the loons. Politicians who use referendums as diversions or as a clever way of trying to defuse a situation have often seen that situation blow up in their faces, whether it was the capital flight from Quebec in 1980 and again in 1995, or Brexit. And like Brexit, she is willing to tell a bunch of lies to support it, Naheed Nenshi is denouncing this move and correctly pointing out that she is taking Albertans for fools, but Smith is slippery, and that’s going to be a problem the longer this is allowed to continue.

David Cameron thought he was being clever too.

— Stephanie Carvin (@stephaniecarvin.bsky.social) 2025-05-05T22:23:27.486Z

Without popular support for separation, she has seriously limited options. But Moscrop is exactly right: this is live ammo-stuff now, the way Brexit was, the way Trump as a candidate was. She is reckless, and part of a political movement of delusion and dishonesty. Very dangerous

— Bruce Arthur (@brucearthur.bsky.social) 2025-05-05T22:19:08.305Z

Meanwhile, Alberta’s acting Chief Medical Officer of Health spent yesterday morning passive-voicing the decline in vaccination rates as he called for people to step up and get measles vaccinations. If only Danielle Smith and her hand of swivel-eyed loons didn’t boost vaccine hesitancy in order to “own the Libs.” Honestly…

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched 116 drones overnight, targeting mostly Sumy and Donetsk regions. President Zelenskyy visited the Czech Republic to get commitments on more artillery shells, and pilot training.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Letting a hockey game take precedence

Posted on by

Day twenty-four, and the announcements didn’t really matter because the only thing anyone was concerned about was the fact that tonight’s French debate was at the same time as a Montreal Canadiens hockey game, and the Bloc and NDP demanded the debate be rescheduled (but when exactly, given that it’s Easter weekend and that’s when the advance polls are open). So, the organizers and the networks agreed to change the time to 6 from 8, which means that it’ll be on at 3 for anyone out in BC. Yeah, that’s going to get viewership by francophones in the west. We are such a parochial country sometimes.

Mark Carney was in Saint-Eustache, Quebec, and announced a plan to provide more assistance for job training or retraining in certain priority areas, with some additional promises for those whose jobs are affected by the tariffs. Carney will have a photo op in Montreal around noon before the debate, now two hours earlier.

Pierre Poilievre was in Montreal, and he announced plans to crack down on people who scam seniors, which means forcing phone companies and banks to have mandatory “scam detection systems,” which sounds a bit like a magic wand given that the field is constantly changing to keep one step ahead. I also fail to see what tougher penalties will do given that the vast majority of these scams operate overseas. Poilievre will hold a press conference this morning, in advance of the debate.

Do we need to have a conversation about why those prices are up? -Beef continues to rise because drought has meant culling herds, which raises prices-Eggs are up because we have bird flu outbreaks, albeit not as bad as the US-That fruit figure is mostly oranges, because the FL crop was devastated

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-15T19:02:03.936Z

Are the Conservatives planning to do anything about climate change that has meant more droughts on the prairies? Nope. Part of what devastated the Floria orange crop were hurricanes, which are exacerbated by climate change. Again, do they want to do anything about that? Nope.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-15T19:02:03.937Z

Now, have the Liberals pointed any of this out? Of course not. They're too busy patting themselves on the back for killing the consumer carbon levy, and pretending that it was imposed by some mysterious force. We have real issues to discuss in this election, but they're not being discussed.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-15T19:02:03.938Z

Jagmeet Singh was also in Montreal, where he promised to restore the changes to the capital gains inclusion rate, under the rubric of making the ultra-wealthy pay the price, and promising to use these revenues to fund all of his promises (good luck with that magical money tree), but didn’t actually spell out the actual issue of tax arbitrage and fairness for all different types of capital gains to be taxed at the same rate. Singh’s only engagement today is the debate.

In other campaign news, Poilievre is now saying there’s no timeline for defunding CBC after previously saying he wants to do so as soon as possible. Carney says that he wants the F-35 review to go swiftly, but DND is still establishing the parameters of said exercise. And the White House confirmed that annexation talk is still on the president’s mind.

This election is *really* testing my limit.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-15T21:35:48.964Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones hit homes on Odesa overnight, injuring at least three. This after NATO secretary general Mark Rutte was in Odesa to reaffirm “unwavering” support for Ukraine. Meanwhile, life in Sumy is carrying on after Sunday’s deadly attacks.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1912116063560495426

Continue reading →

Roundup: Promising to invoke the Notwithstanding Clause

Posted on by

Day twenty-three, and the campaigns are starting to converge around Montreal as debate prep starts to take over, but they are still getting platform planks announced in the meantime. Mark Carney was in Dorval, Quebec, to announce his plan to overhaul defence procurement, including re-promising a centralized agency, to focus on Canadian defence industries and those of non-US allies, along with some other pledges around giving members of the armed forces another raise, and working to reform recruitment processes to speed up intake. Carney also offered an apology for the bad button scandal, and said that the culprits have been “reassigned” on the campaign, which doesn’t exactly make it sound like they have suffered much in the way of consequences. Carney will be in Saint-Eustache for his morning announcement before returning to debate prep.

Pierre Poilievre was in Montreal, and he repeated a two-year-old promise to invoke the Notwithstanding Clause to ensure that multiple murders get consecutive sentences instead of concurrent, in defiance of the Supreme Court of Canada, but totally swears he wouldn’t invoke it for anything else. Really! It’s all so stupid because a) no mass murders have ever been given parole; b) this would only apply to future mass murders, not those currently serving life sentences, and it’s not going to act as a deterrent; and c) the Notwithstanding Clause needs to be renewed every five years, so this is really nothing more than an exercise in optics so that he looks tough. Poilievre will again hold his announcement today in Montreal before returning to debate prep.

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3lmrn7ukzyk2m

Jagmeet Singh was in Toronto, where he made a whole bunch of promises around healthcare that no federal government could possibly deliver on, because it’s provincial jurisdiction, but hey, he plans to “incentivize provinces.” What in the names of Apollo and Asklepios do you think that federal governments have been trying to do for four decades? How is it possible for him to be that naïve? Singh then headed to Montreal for his debate prep, and he will hold his own announcement there this morning.

In other campaign news, Carney’s campaign says that he has formally renounced his UK and Irish citizenships, and that he does indeed pay his taxes in Canada (because the Conservatives were trying to make more hay over this). LGBTQ+ groups around the country are hoping to hear more from the parties about addressing their issues (though some of them are provincial I must point out). The Debates Commission is defending the decision to invite the Greens even though they no longer meet the criteria of running candidates in at least 90 percent of ridings (which they apparently planned to, but not enough of them registered with Elections Canada).

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia made a second attack on Sumy on Monday, btu this one struck the outskirts of the city and no one was injured. There was also an overnight attack on Zaporizhzhia which ignited a petrol station. The Ukrainian air force said that Russia used new types of missiles and cluster bombs on their attack on Sumy on Sunday, which Russia is falsely claiming was targeting a military gathering, which everyone knows is false (except maybe Trump).

Continue reading →