Tag Archives: Procurement

Roundup: Defunding the Police

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A lot of the discussion over the weekend has been taken up by the “defund/abolish” police narratives that have been part of the Black Lives Matter protests, both in the US and Canada, and while it’s not literally abolish or defunding police (thread here, also a good op-ed by Calumn Marsh here) – which doesn’t actually help their cause when it simply invites kneejerk reactions – I just wanted to offer a word of caution that a lot of these goals with this movement are things that cannot happen overnight. Building the kind of capacity for other social service agencies to take over the work that we have foisted upon police because we didn’t want to pay for them elsewhere will mean that it will take years before any kind of shift can possibly happen, it also makes other assumptions about the state of the current mental healthcare system (thread here), for example, that may not reflect reality. Another bit of context here is that American police are often poorly educated and trained, which is less often the case in Canada, so calls for reductions in salaries as part of this radically reformed force make me wonder if we may be doing more of a disservice to the ultimate goals, where you would want people more likely to have some critical thinking skills and able to better execute judgment. So while it’s a noble idea, we should be cautious about putting carts before horses.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1269643795286687744

Meanwhile, here’s a look at how the RCMP has not been responding to reports or investigations made by its Civilian Review and Complaints Commission, and how at least one has been waiting for responses since 2013. And yes, this is the same complaints commission that the government wants to add CBSA to its mandate (which I will remind you will only mean that CBSA will continue to investigate itself and simply report to this body).

With this in mind, here is Philippe Lagassé with some thoughts on what “civilian control” of the police could or possibly should look like.

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1269268004325507073

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1269289824869126147

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1269292825000148993

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Roundup: A horrific report

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The theme of the day was set from the start of prime minister Justin Trudeau’s daily presser – that the military deployed to long-term care in Ontario had found troubling cases of abuse and neglect, and that Trudeau immediately forwarded on those concerns to premier Doug Ford. Trudeau then went on to talk about their contract with GM in Oshawa for more face masks, and spoke about the other partnerships for things like more ventilators and other equipment. Trudeau also spoke about funding up to 700 youth jobs in the agriculture sector, and that he was convening a meeting with the UN Secretary General and the prime minister of Jamaica as part of an international push to ensure poverty reduction as a result of the pandemic. During the Q&A, Trudeau was asked repeatedly about the request to fast-track the claims of asylum seekers who were working in long-term care facilities, and he spoke about trying to find flexibility (but apparently not about the fact that it’s hugely problematic that facilities are hiring these extremely low-wage and largely untrained workers). When asked about the pending Meng Wanzhou extradition verdict, he said that the great thing about our justice system is that governments don’t have to apologise for it. And when asked further about the report on those long-term care facilities, Trudeau reiterated that this was a provincial matter, but that the federal government needed to be “part of the conversation” going forward.

A short while later, Doug Ford released the report, then wrung his hands about how terrible it was, and how he vowed he was going to take action – kind of like he promised that they would ensure there was an “iron ring” around these facilities, and well, that didn’t exactly happen either. And he talked tough, saying that the people who ran these facilities could face charges, but his government did cut back on inspections, so he has to wear that one too. And while he mouthed the words about taking responsibility for the situation, in the same breath Ford blamed his predecessors, and then said he was going to need “federal help,” which translates to “I don’t want to have to pay to fix this,” and he wants to put this on the federal books instead of his own. Because that’s what always happens. The NDP opposition in Ontario was also making itself useless by demanding a full public inquiry, which won’t tell us anything we don’t already know, especially as we’ve just had another public inquiry on long-term care home deaths in this province, and it will simply be a justification to delay action, possibly permanently.

Meanwhile, the NDP and Greens voted in the House of Commons to prop up the Liberals’ motion to carry on with the useless “special committee” hearings rather than proper sittings of the Commons, which also included provisions that means that they will rubber-stamp some $150 billion in spending on June 17th without a proper legislative or committee process, essentially abandoning their fundamental duties as MPs. Slow clap, guys. Slow clap.

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QP: Calling out a fake parliament

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It was a skeletal Chamber, as was to be expected during these pandemic times, not to mention a bit hot and stuffy. After some pent-up members’ statements, things got underway. Andrew Scheer led off, with his mini-lectern in front of him, and he immediately mocked the agriculture minister for saying that farmers don’t understand the programmes on offer to them. Trudeau responded by reading a list of actions that the government has taken. Scheer then shifted to the actions of the government of China toward Hong Kong, and demanded an unequivocal denouncement and a plan of action. Trudeau responded without notes that they support the people of Hong Kong, and that they would continue to work with allies to uphold human rights. Scheer suggested that wasn’t an unequivocal condemnation, and Trudeau responded that they have stated in no uncertain terms their “deep concern,” which got some chirping from the Conservative ranks. Scheer tried again, bringing up the plight of the two Michaels being held in China, and Trudeau repeated his response. Scheer again demanded action on China, and Trudeau reminded him of the statement with allies in defence of Hong Kong. Yves-François Blanchet was up next for the Bloc, and he gave a paean to Quebec’s “special” economy and praised its small businesses before condemning that political parties have received the wage subsidy. Trudeau reminded him that they need people to be taken care of so that the economy can come back strong after the pandemic. Blanchet demanded that money go to small businesses in Quebec, and Trudeau responded by listing measures available to small businesses. Jagmeet Singh then got his turn, demanding paid sick leave “immediately,” to which Trudeau read that they were continuing discussions with the provinces on the issue. Singh then demanded more help for people with disabilities, to which Trudeau said that they have set up an advisory committee to work on the ways to assist them.

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Roundup: A plea for better data

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Prime minister Justin Trudeau’s Saturday presser made no big announcements – a review of a couple of their emergency measures for small businesses in particular – and calling on the children of the nation to help out their mothers for Mother’s Day, but that was about it. During the Q&A, Trudeau stated that the government had no plans to pay for masks that were deemed unusable that came from a Montreal distributor, and made the case that the system was working because they identified these masks as being defective before they went out to front line workers. He was also goaded by reporters into saying that he was worried about the situation in Montreal, given that it’s where his riding is, as the province continues to move ahead with their plans to reopen their economy.

The more interesting piece of news came from the ministerial presser that followed Trudeau, wherein Indigenous services minister Marc Miller put out the call for provinces and local public health units to collect data on First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people affected by COVID-19, because that data wasn’t being collected off reserves or Inuit territories. The quality of data collection in this country is an issue because provinces are not consistent or timely about it, which is making us a laggard with comparator countries as we try to get good data on this pandemic. More to the point, not having this kind of data means that we’re not getting good information on how it’s spreading, particularly if you look at some of the communities affected, like La Loche in northern Saskatchewan.

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Roundup: Possibly a criminal leak

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The day got off to a very brow-raising start when someone – meaning almost certainly a minister’s office – leaked StatsCan jobs data ahead of its official release to soften the narrative around it, given that the predicted number of job losses were twice as many as what wound up being reported. This is a big deal – it’s market-moving information that should have criminal consequences for leaking, and yet here we are. And what is particularly galling about this is that I have my suspicions about which minister’s office leaked the information, and it’s one that has been showing a particular pattern of impunity, which is a very bad sign for how this government works – and not to mention how it communicates. Because they can’t communicate their way out of a wet paper bag, someone took it upon themselves to leak sacrosanct data (which, it needs to be reiterated, should not and cannot happen in a gods damned G7 country) in order to spin the narrative. Heads should roll for this.

And then prime minister Justin Trudeau had his daily presser, acknowledging the jobs numbers before he announced that the government would be extending the wage subsidy beyond June in order to keep the (eventual) economic recovery strong, while also announcing that Navdeep Bains would be leading a new industry strategy council. During the Q&A, Trudeau also had to face questions about why nobody can say “Taiwan” when it comes to thanking them for donations of personal protective equipment, so Trudeau did just that, so I guess certain MPs will need to find something else to have a meltdown over next week.

And for the 75th anniversary of VE Day yesterday, the Queen made a televised address in the footsteps of her father.

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Roundup: Eliminating the staffer excuse

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The day got off to a slightly different start – the prime minster didn’t have a daily presser because he was off to CFB Trenton for the repatriation ceremony for the crew of the downed Canadian Forces Cyclone helicopter (which is a whole issue I plan to write more on in another place), and there were no announcements in the ministerial presser before the special COVID-19 committee met in the House of Commons chamber for more ministerial questions, followed by a take-note debate.

While the “virtual” special committee reconvenes today, I wanted to draw attention to this piece in the Hill Timesthat shows the impact these meetings are having on the support staff, and in particular the interpreters, who are burning out and suffering cognitive injuries as a result because these meetings are harder on them, when they’re already at a reduced capacity because many are stuck at home without childcare. Why this is particularly important is because leading up to these meetings, we were inundated with a bunch of chuckleheads and tech bros with a superiority complex who were going around shouting “Teach MPs how to Zoom!” and “Okay, Boomer,” and so on. Turns out that it’s more complex than that, and the people we can’t see are paying the price for it.

It’s also a sign of just how disingenuous the government was when they kept insisting that in-person sittings were going to expose all of these staffers in the West Block to potential exposure to COVID-19. But the problem is that even when the MPs aren’t there to meet, these staffers still need to be there to run the daily press conferences, and to run the virtual meetings, and no, they can’t do it from home. And if the workload is more difficult for some of them, like the interpreters, if the MPs are doing this “virtually” instead of having a smaller number of MPs sitting on a regular basis, then their justification is completely blown out of the water. There is no reason why they shouldn’t have proper skeletal sittings three days a week, and we now see that it would be better for these staffers than these “virtual” meetings are.

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Roundup: Supply councils and stalled approvals

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After a very welcome day off from daily pressers, prime minister Justin Trudeau was back at it on Sunday, in his weekend uniform – jeans, white shirt unbuttoned at the collar, and a blazer – but no sweater because it was actually nice out in Ottawa for a change. And while some weekend pressers are merely greatest hits packages, this one had a few substantive announcements – $240 million for online health and mental health tools that people can access, $175 million for a Canadian company doing promising research using COVID-19 antibodies; and launching a “national supply council” for dealing with personal protective equipment – more of which was elaborated upon in the ministerial presser that followed – and a reminder that enhanced Canada Child Benefit payments were on the way. During the Q&A, Trudeau also reiterated that the promised legislation that would allow municipalities to further restrict handguns in their jurisdictions would be coming once Parliament returned to normal.

Something that Trudeau and Dr. Theresa Tam were asked about in their respective pressers were the news that Health Canada had ordered a pause on those Spartan Bioscience portable testing kits because while the tests themselves worked, it turns out that the swabs didn’t go deep enough into the nasal cavity to get good samples, so they risked giving false negatives. That becomes a setback that some provinces – and remote communities in particular – will definitely feel because they had already ordered thousands of those kits as part of their plans.

Meanwhile, I see that Jason Kenney is back making noises that the federal government isn’t doing enough for the oil and gas sector, and brings up the auto sector bailout of 2008-09 as a comparison of “unfair treatment.” He should be careful what he wishes for – I’m not sure he’s advocating for the same thing at all.

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Roundup: Commercial rent relief on the way

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For his Friday presser, prime minister Justin Trudeau at long last unveiled the details of the commercial rent relief programme, now that they have ironed out the details with the provinces (considering that it’s their jurisdiction), which is essentially that commercial landlords (for properties where the rent is below a certain threshold) need to offer 75 percent discounts on their rent from April to June, and the federal government would provide non-repayable loans of up to fifty percent of said rents. From there, he mentioned that they were deploying Canadian Armed Forces personnel to certain long-term care facilities in Ontario and Quebec, and that they were working to beef up the salaries of existing long-term care workers. He also said that they were working with provinces and territories to establish guidelines for when they re-open their economies, but that people need to pay attention to the local rules and not those in other jurisdictions, because the outbreaks are different in each region. (During the First Ministers’ weekly teleconference later in the day, there was some agreement to this, and apparently each province and territory will be submitting their plans to the federal government).

Of course, with the news that there was an agreement on commercial rents, we got some fairly usual voices caterwauling that all rents needed to be dealt with, not just commercial ones. The response to that, of course, is to talk to one’s premier, because that’s where the responsibility lies – Trudeau can’t just swoop in because landlord and tenant legislation is strictly provincial, and the mechanisms they employed for the commercial rent relief are not necessarily suited for residential properties. And there was word today that Doug Ford wants the federal government to step in on residential rents – after he has been spectacularly unwilling to do anything and tells people to work it out with their landlords – so if there is more uptake with his fellow premiers in the next few days, they may try to design something, though I’m not sure exactly what, because I worry that there may be a bigger domino effect throughout the banking sector, but there are no quick fixes. And no, the national housing strategy does not give federal jurisdiction over rents, nor does the Canada Health Act provide a template for rent either, because there are no funding agreements with the provinces, nor would the federal government simply be transferring a pot of money to the provinces for residential rents. It’s complex, there are big jurisdictional issues, and Trudeau can’t and shouldn’t do everything. The provinces have a role to play and they should play it.

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Roundup: Bullying through a motion on a false promise

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Prime minister Justin Trudeau once again began his daily presser talking about the tragedy in Nova Scotia, and recounted some of his conversations with RCMP members and Senator Stan Kutcher (who not only represents the province but has a background in mental health). He then turned back to the global pandemic, noting that it has made inequalities more pronounced, and with charities spread thin trying to provide support, he announced that $350 million was being set aside as part of an emergency community support fund. He then announced that the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy would be available as of Monday, and starting today, a calculator would be available on the CRA website for employers to calculate what they would be able to apply for. He also talked about the kinds of contributions that the innovation superclusters have been making to the current situation, for a bit of good news. During the Q&A, Trudeau had more information about the reports of the two planes that returned from China empty that he wasn’t able to answer during QP on Monday, this time noting that because of the severe restrictions in China as for how long they were able to remain on the ground, while supply lines to the airports have been frustrated with checkpoints and delays, it forced them to take off empty for the time being. Trudeau also said that the promised gun control bill was nearly ready to be tabled before Parliament was suspended for the pandemic, but wouldn’t promise that it would be tabled before regular sittings resumed. As well, regarding that meat plant shut down because of an outbreak, Trudeau said they were trying to ensure domestic supply though it could affect prices.

Meanwhile, the Procedure and House Affairs committee was meeting (remotely), and we found out that the Clerk of the House of Commons says that there’s no way they’ll be able to facilitate any kind of “remote” sittings until mid-May at the earliest, and that he told the Government House Leader this before the government bullied through their motion on Monday about one in-person sitting a week and two-virtual ones. In other words, they knew that the virtual ones couldn’t happen, but they acted as though they were, so they can say “Oh dear, looks like we can’t hold those sessions,” and stick to the one in-person sitting per week at a giant waste of resources to keep flying MPs in and out for a single day, rather than at least having the three in-person sittings per week which was perfectly reasonable. And no, this isn’t saving any of the staff exposure, because they would need to be in the West Block whether the MPs were there in person or “virtually” (which will include some MPs in the Chamber). Add to that, they only have the capacity to run at maximum ten “virtual” committee meetings between the Commons and Senate in a week, as the government also likes to pretend that they’ve been trying to ensure that as much of Parliament is functional under the circumstances. That’s not true, and even their planned “accountability sessions” for the next month are not actual sittings, but “special committee” sessions, even though some MPs have tried to paint them otherwise. It’s been one big exercise in preening that only makes the Conservatives look like they were right.

The Queen

Just a quick note to add that yesterday was the Queen’s birthday in her natural capacity. The Queen of Canada’s official birthday isn’t until Victoria Day, for the record. But the Queen and Prince Charles did send condolences to Canada for the tragic deaths in Nova Scotia.

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Roundup: Sorrow and motions

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As the various party leaders lined up, one after another, to give their positions before the microphones on yesterday’s return of the House of Commons, prime minister Justin Trudeau devoted his presser to the mass-shooting in Nova Scotia and the loss of an RCMP constable, including a direct address to children as part of his speech. More controversially, Trudeau made a plea to media not to name the killer and give him the “gift of infamy,” which became the subject of many a column the rest of the day. During the Q&A, he insisted he didn’t want to fight about the return of the Commons, while also saying that the government was not backing away from its plans to enact further gun control measures.

Not far away, the Commons resumed its sitting with a skeleton complement, kicking off with Green MP Paul Manly immediately launching a point of privilege to complain that their health and safety was being jeopardized by the sitting, and it impacted on the ability of MPs who faced travel restrictions to participate. (Manly’s point was later rejected by the Speaker). After a very surreal QP, and more speeches on the Nova Scotia shooting, the vote was held and it was decided that there would be in-person sittings on Wednesdays starting next week, with planned 90-minute “virtual” sittings on Tuesdays and Thursdays – you know, assuming that they can actually get them up and running. Also, those sessions would not be regular sittings of the Commons, but would qualify as “special committee” sessions that would be devoted to two-and-a-quarter-hour-long sessions to ask questions of the government.

Throughout this whole debate, I keep shaking my head at the fact that they insist that they don’t want MPs to keep travelling, or how MPs from regions with travel restrictions can’t participate, but nobody can apparently fathom that MPs could travel to Ottawa, and then *gasp* stay there! You know, like they have housing allowances and per diems that facilitate it. This insistence on once-per-week sittings means that there will be all kinds of unnecessary travel, travel that MPs from those regions can’t participate in (or at least not easily), and it needlessly complicates this whole affair when we could have more easily kept a skeleton parliament with these MPs who stay in Ottawa present, and just ensured that you had a representative sampling that includes MPs from those otherwise hard-to-travel-to-and-from regions so they don’t have to travel back-and-forth. It’s revolutionary, I know. None of this is rocket science, and yes, it involves some sacrifice on the part of these MPs, but no worse than some of our essential healthcare workers who also can’t see their families during this crisis.

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