Tag Archives: Procurement

Roundup: The leader and the grassroots disagree on climate change

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After Erin O’Toole’s big speech at the Conservative Party’s “virtual” convention, where he said that the party needed to change if they hoped to win enough seats to form government in the future, the party apparently felt otherwise on a number of policy resolutions. The big one that will be cited for weeks to come is the fact that on a resolution to declare that climate change is real that the party needs to act on it, the grassroots voted this down – predominantly with votes from Alberta and Saskatchewan, but also from the social conservatives. It seems that Campaign Life Coalition distributed a guide to delegates, wherein they equated “climate alarmism” as a tool to justify population control and abortion, so good luck having that rational debate.

But it almost doesn’t matter because O’Toole says climate change is real, and he’s going to do something about it. What exactly is unspecified, and he also intimated that the economy comes first, so that could mean doing as little as possible using the economic recovery as cover – but it won’t be a carbon price (which is ridiculous for a supposed fiscal conservative given that it’s a transparent market-based system that allows consumers to make better choices). But this has become what happens with our political parties now that we have made them solely leader-centric thanks to our presidential primary-style leadership contests. What the leader says goes in terms of policy and election platforms, so these grassroots policy conventions have largely become theatre with little resonance to how said leader operates because his or her word is what goes. The system shouldn’t work like this, but all parties now operate in this mode, but nobody wants to address the cause of it.

To that end, Chantal Hébert weaves together O’Toole’s weakness on promising a climate plan without a carbon price, and the upcoming Supreme Court decision on it, and how those two dynamics play together. Susan Delacourt takes the “virtual” convention to heart and posits that the Conservatives have created a virtual reality for themselves if they believe that denying climate change is what will set the tone for a campaign while their leader tries to shake them out of their complacency.

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Roundup: Agitating for a political document

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Unable to score points on the vaccine procurement in a meaningful way, now that sufficient quantities have arrived, Erin O’Toole has recently tried pivoting to the federal budget, or the fact that there hasn’t been one in some 700 days. Given that the party is losing its lustre in public opinion polls as being “good fiscal managers” – a bit of branding that rarely, if ever, actually proved itself to be true, O’Toole is trying to bolster their street cred. The problem, of course, is that many of his arguments are, well, not actually sound ones.

For starters, no federal budget is like a household – not even close. It’s a bogus populist argument that just refuses to die, but everyone keeps repeating it and buying into it. More to the point, O’Toole is trying to claim that nobody knows how government money is being spent, which is a falsehood. Any money that the government spends has to come through the Estimates process, which gets voted on in Parliament after going through committee study. Afterward, how that those appropriations wound up being allocated get reported in the Public Accounts, which are released every year. All of this spending is being accounted for.

What O’Toole is looking for is a political document that lays out spending plans in broad strokes. It does not on its own showcase how that money gets allocated and spent. In fact, there has been a disconnect between the budget and the Estimates going back a few decades now, because governments and civil servants preferred it that way, and when the Liberals tried to better re-align those processes in the last parliament, it did not go very well thanks in part to institutional inertia pushing back. Suffice to say, it is not true that money is being spent blindly. MPs have ostensibly been in control of the process the whole time – but whether they have paid attention to what they were voting on is another matter entirely.

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Roundup: Support on a closure motion

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There appears to be some marginal progress with the government attempting to move legislation in the House of Commons, now that the NDP and the Bloc are starting to realise that something needs to be done. To that end, the Bloc have agreed to support a motion on closure for Bill C-7 on assisted dying – as there is a court deadline and only eight more sitting days between now and then – with tentative NDP support. And the NDP are also starting to realise that the current impasse could give the government ammunition to call an election (even though the only people who want said election are bored pundits), and want other bills to move.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, did pass a motion yesterday to fast-track debate on the Canada-UK trade agreement implementation legislation and MPs sat until midnight as a result, but there will be a battle over the assisted dying bill. From there, it becomes a contest of wills as to which bills are getting prioritised. The government has been trying to pass Bill C-14, which implements measures from the fiscal update back in December, before the budget is brought down (likely next month). And there is another bill to close loopholes in pandemic supports, which the Conservatives have refused to fast-track, while complaining about said loopholes. But the NDP want other bills fast-tracked instead – the creation of a Day of Reconciliation with Indigenous people, the UNDRIP bill, and finally passing the conversion therapy ban bill, which is at third reading whenever it can be brought forward. The government is also trying to get some bills past second reading so that they can get them off to committee, which you’d think opposition parties would relish.

I do find the Conservatives’ complaint that the government keeps introducing bills to be somewhat ludicrous, as though the government doesn’t have a legislative agenda that they laid out, and that they can’t try and walk and chew gum at the same time. The parliamentary calendar is finite, and there are a lot of things that this government needs to be able to do, and the Conservatives have been putting a damper on much of that for weeks now. Now that the Bloc and NDP are looking more willing to play ball with the government, one presumes that we’ll see some time allocation motions upcoming to prioritise more bills, and get them through the process, rather than give the government “more ammunition” for the election nobody actually wants.

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QP: Demanding a “real plan” for small business

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There were three Liberals in the Chamber today, including Catherine McKenna once again as the designated front-bench babysitter, but the opposition benches were sparser and more male today than on Monday. Erin O’Toole led off in person, script on his mini-lectern, and he worried that the government wasn’t doing anything to save Line 5. Chrystia Freeland replied by video, stating that they are fighting for this just as they did with the New NAFTA. O’Toole gave an impassioned plea about the jobs tied to this pipeline, Freeland somewhat patronisingly replied that they are well aware of the jobs and they won’t forget those people. O’Toole then pivoted to small businesses that are suffering from the pandemic, demanding a “real plan” to save them. Freeland told him to pick a lane, between demanding government assistance or complaining about those very spending programmes. O’Toole switched to French to reference their Supply Day motion about specific budget measures for certain sectors, for which Freeland repeated her pick-a-lane line in French. O’Toole then repeated his demand for a plan for small businesses in French, for which Freeland called out the Conservative hypocrisy after they voted against a bill to provide more supports yesterday.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he worried that people were bypassing hotel quarantine rules by landing in the US and crossing at the land border, to which Freeland recited that we have some of the strongest border measures in the world, while they have to protect essential trade. Therrien was not impressed that his question was not answered and he tried a second time, and Freeland repeated her assurances about the strength of the border measures.

For the NDP, Jagmeet Singh appeared by video, and in French, he complained that government gave support for corporations instead of small businesses — a dubious claim at best — for which Freeland agreed that it was important to help small businesses, which is why it was urgent to pass Bill C-14. Singh repeated in English to demand a limit on credit card fees to help small businesses, and Freeland repeated her plea to pass C-14.

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Roundup: Stop hitting yourself!

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Yesterday, the Conservatives had the gall and the cheek to put out a press release blaming the Liberals for the fact that none of their legislation is going through in a timely manner, never mind that it’s the opposition using procedural delay tactics to hold bills up. In particular, Conservative House Leader Gérard Deltell accuses the Liberals of not calling bills “in a logical order,” scheduling “insufficient time” (never mind that some bills recently have had more debate than budget bills), and then sounding wounded when the Conservatives are the ones being accused of playing games.

While most of this statement really reads like Detell holding the government’s arm while telling them to stop hitting themselves, while trying to craft the narrative that the Liberals are deliberately causing problems in order to engineer an election – err, except that it’s not the Liberals who are calling for concurrence motions and debates on committee reports rather than proceeding to government orders every day.

But hold up, you may say – surely the government could cut a deal with the Bloc or the NDP! What do you think those terms would be? The Bloc demand unconditional transfers to the provinces, which the federal government would be foolish to agree to, while the NDP want an intrusion in provincial areas of jurisdiction on things like rent, sick leave, pharmacare, dental care, and long-term care – things that the federal government cannot make unilateral change on, and are already negotiating with provinces on in most cases, and that is a time-consuming process. Nobody wants to play ball, even though nobody says they want an election (and really, the only people who do are bored pundits), but nobody wants to look like they are helping out the Liberals too much because they think it’ll cost them at the ballot box. Accusing one another of wanting an election while essentially engineering excuses to have one is making for a very irritating sitting, and I don’t imagine it will get any better the longer it lasts.

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QP: Weaponizing International Women’s Day

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For International Women’s Day, it was mostly women in the Chamber, except for the Liberals, though Catherine McKenna was present as a designated front-bench babysitter. Candice Bergen led off for the Conservatives by video, and she accused the government of covering up when they knew about the General Vance allegations, to which Harjit Sajjan stated that he disagreed with the statement, and he looks forward to setting the record straight when he has the right opportunity. Bergen stated that if Sajjan wasn’t part of the investigation, he was part of the cover-up, to which Sajjan repeated that he directed the allegations to the Privy Council Office, and they followed up. Bergen tried to make this an International Women’s Day issue, to which Sajjan started that no politician should be part of the investigation process but that they should be done independently. Gérard Deltell took over in French and asked the same thing, and Sajjan repeated that politicians should not be part of investigations and he looked forward to setting the record straight at committee. Deltell accused the government of lacking courage, for which Sajjan hit back by saying he wouldn’t take lessons from the Conservatives on gender rights.

Christine Normdin led off for the Bloc, and demanded increased health transfers for the provinces, to which Patty Hajdu reminded her of all the money that the government already transferred to the provinces for the pandemic. Normandin the claimed the government was abandoning the women in the healthcare system by not increasing transfers — another ham-fisted way of trying to wedge into International Women’s Day — and Hajdu countered with actions the government took including topping up the wages of essential workers, most of whom are women.

For the NDP, Jagmeet Singh led off by video, and in French, he demanded a plan to protect women in the Canadian Forces, for which Sajjan reminded him of the actions they have taken to reform the military justice system and victims rights. Singh repeated the question in English, and Sajjan reiterated that there should be an independent investigation process to ensure it has credibility.

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Roundup: A $28 billion demand

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It was with a certain amount of chutzpah that the premiers assembled virtually yesterday, and demanded that the federal government turn over an additional $28 billion a year to them in Canada Health Transfers – or else they’ll ask the opposition to demand it for them. And yes, all three opposition parties are happy to demand that unconditional transfers be increased for the provinces (the NDP, at the same time, also saying that they can offer more federal money with strings attached for things like pharmacare, under the false assumption that the premiers wouldn’t dare turn it down).

Of course, this is a completely laughable proposition, because without strings, there is no guarantee that premiers will actually spend this money on healthcare, or that they won’t reduce their own spending. It’s almost like we’ve seen variations of this roadshow before – under the older health transfer escalator, health transfers were rising at a much higher rate than healthcare spending growth was, meaning that the additional dollars were not being spent on healthcare by the provinces (in spite of all protests to the contrary – math is math). When the current federal government boosted infrastructure spending with the hopes that it would help boost productivity, the provinces retreated in their spending and lo, those productivity gains didn’t happen. When Stephen Harper agreed to Jean Charest that the fictional “fiscal imbalance” with Quebec existed and decided to placate him with those billions of dollars, what did Charest do? Turn it into a tax cut. Justin Trudeau isn’t an idiot – not to mention, he’s got pharmacare on his agenda to implement, and he wants national standards for long-term care if he’s going to turn over more money for it. Of course, he’s going to put all kinds of strings on this money, and the provinces are going to have to either take it to get the money they claim they are so desperately in need of, or they can throw a tantrum and hope that they can get votes by claiming Ottawa is being mean to them (which, to be fair, will work in some provinces). Either way, their request is laughable, and Trudeau would be a fool to give in to it as is.

Oh, and as a reminder, every time you read a premier saying that healthcare spending used to be 50-50 and now it’s not, that would be true except that Ottawa and the provinces long ago agreed to change the formula in exchange for giving the provinces tax points instead, which they happily accepted at the time, and trying to make the 50-50 claim without mentioning the tax points is revisionist history that should be called out for what it is. You have been warned.

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Roundup: Misinformation in service of the Narrative

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Every now and again, coverage of a story gets me so riled up that I absolutely cannot even, and this happened last night on Power & Politics where once again, former Conservative interim leader Rona Ambrose was trotted out to complain that her bill on training judges in sexual assault law hasn’t passed. This is the fourth or fifth time that the show has had her on to complain, and every single time, they mischaracterise the legislative process, and absolutely ignore that her original bill was blatantly unconstitutional and was completely unworkable in a real-world scenario, and it needed to be rewritten entirely.

Every. Single. Time.

Part of the framing last night was that the bill is “stalled” in the Senate – except that isn’t true at all. It was sent to the Senate at the beginning of December, at a time when they were preoccupied with the assisted dying bill (which is under a court deadline), and it just got sent to committee now that the Senate is back from the winter break (which was longer than the Commons’ because they have so few bills on their Order Paper). In no way is the bill “stalled,” but this is the narrative that the show chose to run with, and facts be damned, that was how they were going to play it. The CBC’s flagship politics show was actively misinforming its viewers as to what was going on with this bill, which makes me really question its ethics, and those of the producers.

Aside from the misinformation about the process, over subsequent appearances, Ambrose has repeatedly maligned the Senate as holding up the bill because of the “old boys club,” which is patently absurd because the Senate is at essentially gender parity (unlike the Commons), she has also dismissed the concerns of judges as “arrogance.” But that’s in contrast to the concerns that judges themselves actually raised (and lo, I actually spoke to them in this piece I wrote about the original version of her bill). And yet there was zero pushback to these assertions, nor was there any mention of the first bill – or even mention that this version of the bill is basically just for show because it’s now useless (because that was the only way to actually make it constitutional).

There has been so much journalistic malpractice on this particular bill over the past several years, and it very much seems that there is a consensus Narrative about this bill that every media outlet has decided to service rather than actually challenge, and that’s a problem. The way this has been handled has been a complete disservice to Canadians, and I wish there was far more critical thinking among the media about this, rather than simply blindly servicing the Narrative.

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Roundup: Lying with statistics, quarterly GDP edition

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Statistics Canada released their fourth quarter GDP data yesterday, and it was surprisingly not bad – it far exceeded expectations for growth, with an annualized increase of 9.6 percent, and the estimates of January’s GDP numbers are that they will grow, in spite of renewed lockdowns/mockdowns across much of the country, which is good economic news. Comparatively, OECD data shows that Canada ranked second out of G7 countries in terms of GDP growth over the quarter – only Japan beat us. This should give rise to some cautious optimism about the direction of our economic recovery.

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Erin O’Toole, however, declared that these figures just will not do, and that the country needs “economic leadership.” As proof, he cited that the country’s annual GDP fell a record 5.4 percent – the most since comparable data began being kept in 1961 – never mind that the economic shock was brought on by the global pandemic, plus the false notion that we have the “highest unemployment in the G7,” as well as high pandemic spending levels. The Conservatives keep trotting out these unemployment figures, but every country measures unemployment differently, so they are effectively lying with statistics. Even if we measured our unemployment by the same way the Americans do, the gap is consistent with the gap in figures that always exists between our countries. Meanwhile, we still have the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7, and our pandemic spending has insulated the economy so that it will be more resilient once we’re able to open – and hey, we also managed to have a much lower death count than most other G7 countries because we paid people to stay home. But part of the problem is that O’Toole (and most especially Pierre Poilievre) never gets called out for essentially lying with statistics, because the CBC has essentially given up on economics reporting, and the Financial Post largely sticks to getting their commentary from Jack Mintz and the Fraser Institute (with one or two exceptions). So O’Toole can stand at the lectern in the current ad hoc press theatre in the West Block and lie with statistics unchallenged, and media won’t call out the misinformation because they will either both-sides it, or just report it verbatim because they don’t know enough about the numbers to challenge it. It’s a sad state of affairs.

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Meanwhile, in more news that O’Toole is unwilling to have an honest discourse, his staff penned an op-ed in his name in the National Post calling on the government to turn to India instead of China for future economic growth – but the piece was deafeningly silent on Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalism, which has turned into pogroms against Muslims and mistreatment of Sikhs in the country. It’s a lie of omission to simply call India the world’s largest democracy and ignore the flagrant human rights violations going on there as well – but this is pretty much what we’ve come to expect from O’Toole and company, because We The Media have enabled them the whole way.

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Roundup: Too-generous benefits?

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I find myself a bit troubled by this notion that pandemic benefits have been “too generous,” even when people trot out statistics that show that some households got as much as $3000 more in supports like CERB over reported lost income in a three-month period, and some $2500 more in lower-income households. Partially why this rankles is because this is a gods damned global pandemic and we needed people to stay home rather than try to recklessly go to potentially unsafe workplaces where they could spread the virus. This notion that people needed to get back to work is one of the reasons why COVID infections and deaths were at much higher rates in other countries who had less generous supports, and I don’t think we should necessarily be apologising for this.

The other aspect of this that is unsettling is this notion that if these benefits continue that there will be a disincentive to work as the economy recovers, but again, if the economy is recovering and we are reaching a point of mass vaccination sufficient to actually have a re-opened economy, then these pandemic-specific programmes would be wound down, so it shouldn’t be a long-term consideration. More to the point, however, is that these pandemic supports were not really all that generous, and if people think it’s a disincentive to work, then maybe they should re-examine the wages that people are being paid – if they’re so low that CERB-level payments are a disincentive, then perhaps the job is the wage rate and not the benefits themselves. Businesses have continually lobbied to keep minimum wages artificially low, in spite of an increasing volume of evidence that higher minimum wage don’t actually cause businesses to close (and in fact, have the opposite effect). Perhaps governments should take that into account as we look to “build back better,” with more inclusive growth that should include higher wages for these workers, rather than returning to the failed “old normal” of grinding poverty.

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