Tag Archives: Public Health

Roundup: Bloc motion denied by Wilson-Raybould

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The Bloc tried very hard yesterday to push a motion in the House of Commons that would essentially declare that the Commons agreed with Quebec’s Bill 96, thus trying to politically disarm any of the objections to the plans to unilaterally amend the constitution to insert clauses on Quebec being a “nation” and that its only language was French. They were thwarted by Jody Wilson-Raybould, who was the only one to deny them unanimous consent – as well she should, because everyone is trying to be too-clever-by-half on this whole thing, and that’s bound to wind up in tears at some point down the road.

Paul Wells explained some of this earlier in the week in his lengthy column on Trudeau’s quest for Quebec votes, and essentially Trudeau was saying that sure, Quebec could move this unilateral move to the constitution if it didn’t impact on other rights, which is the real trick – the whole point of Bill 96 is to weaken the rights of anglophones in the province, up to and including taking away their constitutional guarantee to be able to hear a trial in English. Jagmeet Singh similarly tried the same tactic in saying that the proposed constitutional changes are “symbolic,” and won’t impact anyone outside of Quebec (never mind that they will impact anglophones in the province). Everyone seems to think they’re clever and that there will be no long-term repercussions from this, because they all want to get on François Legault’s good side before the next election, whenever that happens, because he’s still wildly popular in the province (almost disconcertingly so). This is hardly a serious way to run a country.

Meanwhile, here’s Thomas Mulcair, a veteran of the linguistic wars in Quebec, explaining why Bill 96 is really a sneak attack on the linguistic rights that he spent his career fighting for, and it’s well worth your time to read, because it has some additional context on what the current provincial government has been up to leading up to this point.

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QP: Promulgating microbiology lab conspiracy theories

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The prime minister was indeed present for his Wednesday proto-PMQs, in spite of it feeling kind of like a Tuesday because of the holiday Monday. Of course, the only other Liberal present was once again Mark Gerretsen. (We really, really need this pandemic to be over). Erin O’Toole led off with his script on mini-lectern, and he asked how a person with “deep connection” to China were able to get high-level security clearance to work in the National Microbiology Lab, and Justin Trudeau simply stated that the scientists were no longer employed by the government. O’Toole went on a tangent about the government’s “failure” in granting them clearance and demanded and end to all partnerships with China, and Trudeau read a statement about the research security working group. O’Toole kept insinuating that the two scientists in question were Chinese when they were in fact Canadian citizens, and Trudeau read more statement about national security agencies reaching out to research organisations to ensure that security was being taken seriously. O’Toole raised the supposed “cash for access” fundraisers Trudeau had with supposed Chinese agents early in his time in office, threw a bunch of non sequiturs against the wall, and then again demanded an end to all partnerships with China’s military medical institute. Trudeau read yet more talking points about the development of guidelines that take into account national security issues with research projects. O’Toole then repeated his first question in French, and got another scripted response about how the government takes espionage seriously and that Public Safety and CSIS were working with universities.

Yves-François led for the Bloc, and he wanted support for a motion coming to the House around support for Quebec’s bill 96, and Trudeau stated that he looked forward to it, reminding him of the 2006 Harper motion. Blanchet waxed poetic about the motion, and Trudeau stated that he will work to protect French and that they already declare Quebec to be a nation in a untied Canada.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and decried that cuts to the Canada Recovery Benefit were on the way, and demanded the decision be reversed, and Trudeau reminded him that they would be there for Canadians, and that would not change. Singh then railed about banks raising fees, and Trudeau noted that they have been clear in discussions with these institutions that Canadians are going through a tough time which is why it’s important that everyone have their backs.

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Roundup: Getting called out by your deputy minister

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This government’s problems with cleaning up the culture of sexual misconduct in the military continues to roll along, and the calls are definitely coming from inside the house. In the latest installment, the deputy minister of National Defence has taken to the radio waves to point out that the government didn’t make an effort to push the military on implementing the Deschamps Report, who wound up treating it like a kind of checklist that they could do the bare minimum with rather than actually implementing the systemic changes that it called for. This shouldn’t be a surprise, given everything we know, but the fact that the deputy minister is saying this is damning.

We also got another harrowing tale of harassment, and retribution when the civilian employee who was subjected to it complained. This isn’t a surprise given the culture, and as the piece points out, one of the reasons she was targeted is because she upset the status quo – which is part of why the military made a conscious effort not to really implement the Deschamps Report, because it called for systemic changes, and that is a definite upset of the status quo. That the government didn’t really recognize this or push back against it is an indictment.

Which brings me back to the key point – that the government, and in particular the minister, needs to wear this. The deputy minister called him out. That’s not good. And part of the problem is also that Sajjan was part of that culture, which is may explain why he was either blind to the problems, or was fine with not actually bothered that they weren’t upsetting the status quo. It’s one of the reasons why actual civilian control of the military is so important, and we haven’t had that under Sajjan. Regardless, this is his problem to wear, and he needs to take actual ministerial responsibility, and offer his resignation. There is no other option.

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QP: Unchallenged misinformation around inflation

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For the first day back after a week away and the Victoria Day long weekend, the prime minister was present, along with Liberal placeholder Mark Gerretsen as the only other MP present on the government benches. Erin O’Toole led off, script on his mini-lectern, and Erin O’Toole led off citing misleading statistics about inflation, for which Justin Trudeau recited some platitudes about having people’s backs. O’Toole complained that housing was becoming unaffordable, and Trudeau listed actions they took, like raising taxes on the top one percent and the Canada Child Benefit as ways they are making life more affordable. O’Toole then raised the American tactic to raise softwood lumber tariffs, which doesn’t really affect the Canadian market (as it will only make it more expensive for Americans as there is a lack of supply in the market), and Trudeau wondered where O’Toole had been the last five years as the government stood up against American trade measures. O’Toole repeated his misleading inflation question in French, fo the same platitudes in French, and the repeated the softwood lumber tariff question in French. Trudeau repeated that they have delivered for the past five years.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he raised Quebec’s Bill 96, and wanted Trudeau to praise it. Trudeau reminded him that they want to protect French while also protecting linguistic minorities and that he looked forward to working with the government of Quebec on it. Blanchet took this as a yes, and wanted a more positive explicit endorsement. Trudeau reminded him that he works with the premiers, and he would meet them again later this week.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and in French, he accused the banks of “stealing” from people by raising fees and that the federal government could stop them but haven’t. Trudeau listed the measures they are taking to make the wealthy pay their fair share. Singh switched to English to quote the deputy minister of National Defence on the lack of progress on the Deschamps Report, for which Trudeau recited that the institution isn’t living up to its goals, and listed the actions they have taken, calling them “first steps.”

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Roundup: Taking a “pause” when it comes to China

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In what appears to have been done by email over the long weekend, Alberta’s provincial government has asked its universities to pause any relationships with China, and wants a report on current activities, citing theft of intellectual property. And it’s a real problem, but this may not have been the best way to deal with it. With that in mind here is Stephanie Carvin with more:

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1396811435066417156

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https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1396825026037485568

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Roundup: Justice Abella’s farewell to the Court

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Yesterday was a bit of a sad day at the Supreme Court of Canada, as Justice Rosalie Ahella, the senior puisne justice on the court and the longest serving judge in Canada, heard her last case before her mandatory retirement date on July 1st. She will have another six months to finish writing up any judgments that she sat on before the retirement date.

As her final speech, she spoke of being born a refugee, her parents Holocaust survivors, and they moved to Canada, in order to give their children a better life. Abella went to law school, was the youngest judge appointed to the provincial bench at age 29, and went on to have a very influential career chairing commissions and a royal commission, before she was appointed to the Supreme Court – the first Jewish woman appointed, and the first refugee – where she has been for 17 years. And it was a lovely speech. (You can see the video here).

It’ll be interesting to see who the government chooses as her replacement. Because it’s an Ontario seat, there will be an increased focus on finding a more diverse candidate, given that we have yet to have a person of colour on the Supreme Court, and there is more likelihood to find one who can also meet the bilingualism requirement that this government has deemed so important.

Victoria Day

As a reminder, Victoria Day is the official birthday of the Queen of Canada, so be sure to raise a glass in her honour (gin and Dubonnet being Her Majesty’s favoured tipple).

https://twitter.com/Canadian_Crown/status/1395810388319539200

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Roundup: Not taking constitutional amendments seriously

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During his press conference yesterday, prime minister Justin Trudeau said that according to his legal advice, Quebec can unilaterally modify part of the federal Constitution that applies specifically to them – which is either untrue, or appeasement to the Legault government, because every party is trying to suck up to Legault and his overwhelming popularity.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1394692157001412612

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1394692818644393991

A plain reading of Section 43 of the Constitution states that where language rights are involved, the federal Parliament needs to have a say in the constitutional amendment, and it’s very much invoked in these proposals from Quebec. That Trudeau – or apparently the lawyers in the Justice Department – can’t see this is a problem, and raises some real questions as to the quality of advice the government is receiving from the department. (Hell, even other Liberal MPs are questioning it).

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1394762687410753539

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But what were people riled up over instead of an egregious violation of our constitutional norms? A photo of Trudeau at a laptop which was clearly an HP machine, with the logo covered over with an Apple sticker. The scandal!

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Roundup: Quitting over a municipal issue

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News came down yesterday that Liberal MP Bob Bratina announced, in a bit of a huff, that he wasn’t going to run again in the next election because the government decided to fund an LRT project in Hamilton – where his riding is, and where he used to be mayor – because he’s personally opposed to the project. A certain Postmedia columnist picked up on this and insisted this was dire news for the Liberals, because they’re not even listening to their own MPs. There are counterpoints to this argument.

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1394439822748659719

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1394441891937140741

This having been said, yes, we know that sometimes Trudeau and Cabinet can be deaf to caucus concerns, but in this case, Bratina is throwing a tantrum, insisting that they didn’t consult “the Hamilton guy” when the Labour minister’s riding is also in Hamilton, and the infrastructure minister, Catherine McKenna, grew up there. In other words, the voices at the Cabinet table are just as qualified to talk about Hamilton issues than the “Hamilton guy,” especially because he’s personally opposed to a project that is basically what his own party is standing up for right now – mass transit options as part of the oncoming rapid decarbonization we need to engage in if we’re going to get our GHG emissions below catastrophic levels. He should be well aware of this given it’s the party he ran for two elections in a row. If he wants to run for mayor again to oppose the project, he’s within his rights to do so.

As for said the aforementioned columnist’s coded language around “common sense” and “silent majorities,” it’s hard to square that with the current incarnation of the Liberals. In other words, it’s probably pretty safe to consider his dire warning about this as an example of concern trolling, for what it’s worth.

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Roundup: On not electing first ministers

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There was something going around the Twitter Machine yesterday regarding past prime ministers, and Kim Campbell in particular, and it appealed to my sense of pedantry/exactness in our civic discourse – no, Kim Campbell was not “elected” as prime minister, but no prime minister is actually elected in the Westminster System.

She was not the first prime minister not to have been appointed to the position without leading their party to victory in a general election. We had two early prime ministers who were sitting senators and not MPs. John Turner didn’t have a seat in either Chamber when he was sworn in as prime minister. At least Campbell had a seat and had led several high-profile Cabinet portfolios (first female justice minister and defence minister), and she made significant reforms to the structure of Cabinet upon her appointment as PM, many of which have been lasting. She did not have to face Parliament as prime minister, but neither did Sir Charles Tupper, not John Turner. Trying to somehow insist that because her appointment did not follow a general election victory as somehow denigrating or making her lesser-than as a prime minister is ahistorical and ignorant of how Westminster parliaments work.

Part of this, however, is tied up with narratives that our pundit class keeps importing from the US, and which our media stokes out a sense of general ignorance of civics. We recently saw in places like Nova Scotia, where they just appointed a new premier, that the media are jumping up and down for him to get “his own mandate” – meaning going to a general election – which goes against how our system works. In Newfoundland and Labrador, their premier was appointed without a seat, which he promptly won in a by-election, and then called an election “to get a mandate” and lo, it turned into a gong show because they had a sudden outbreak of COVID. But this false notion about “mandates” keep cropping up, because media and pundits keep feeding it. It’s not how our system works, and it places false expectations on new first ministers, and creates unreal expectations for those, like Campbell, who did everything according to our system’s actual tenets. It would be great if we had a better sense of civics in this country to counter this ongoing nonsense.

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Roundup: Blanchet thinks he knows when an election will be called

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The constant assertion that we are just around the corner from another election is tiresome, and yet it keeps rearing its head, sometimes in very novel ways. Yesterday, it was Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet telling a virtual meeting of Quebec municipalities that he believes an election is going to be called on August 16th, in order to avoid a federal election interfering with municipal elections in Quebec this fall – assuming, of course, that the pandemic is largely under control by then.

No, seriously.

The logic of this assertion, however, does not hold. First of all, there would be no reason for the prime minister to go to the Governor General (assuming we have a new one installed by that point – otherwise, it would be to the Chief Justice in his role as Administrator, for which the optics are very bad), and request dissolution in the middle of August. Remember that we still have fixed election date legislation, and while it’s largely useless, it does create a situation of poor optics for prime ministers or premiers who pull the trigger early. Yes, we are in a hung parliament, so a confidence vote could be lost at any point, but the Commons won’t be sitting in August. In fact, it is not scheduled to be back until September 20th, and I doubt we’re going to be having the same kinds of summer sittings like we did last year, where there was a sense of urgency, particularly around rapidly passing new pandemic spending measures. That is unlikely to be the case this summer given the place that we’re in with the pandemic. This means the government couldn’t even engineer its own defeat over the summer without a hell of a lot of effort, which seems tremendously unlikely given the circumstances. Given the poor optics of just requesting dissolution, this seems highly unlikely.

To add to this, Bill C-19 – which would allow Elections Canada to hold a safer election in the pandemic setting – only just got sent to committee this week in the Commons. Next week is a constituency week, so even if it did pass both committee and third reading the following week (unlikely), and passed the Senate the week after that (a better possibility given the speed at which they seem to be operating these days – not that it’s necessarily a good thing) then it still has a 90-day implementation period for those changes to take effect, so it wouldn’t reach that threshold until mid-September at the earliest. Again, this makes a call for an August 16th dissolution unlikely, because Elections Canada couldn’t be prepared, and even if most of the country gets their second dose by the end of September, that both cuts it uncomfortably close for when an election would be held following an August 16thdissolution, if at all given the need for more advanced voting days and so on.

Simply put, C-19 should have passed months ago in order to ensure there were proper safeguards in case something happens in this hung parliament, and a confidence vote didn’t go quite the right way. But nobody is suicidal enough to want an election right now, and that will continue to be case for much of the fall, until we can be sure that we’re out of the grip of the pandemic. Blanchet is spouting nonsense and should be called out as such.

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