Tag Archives: RCMP

QP: Imagining a diplomatic snub

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It being Wednesday, the prime minister was present and ready to respond to all of the questions being posed. Erin O’Toole led off, and lied about what David Lametti said about judicial appointments, and Trudeau said he would answer in a moment, but wanted to first assure Canadians that they were monitoring what is happening in the United States. O’Toole accused him of a cover-up and of politicising appointments, to which Trudeau read a script about major reforms to the process to make it independent after Conservative mismanagement. O’Toole tried in French, and got the same answer. O’Toole then worried that federal guidance on masks was stricter than in Quebec, and wondered who Quebeckers should listen to, and Trudeau said that they respect the advice of local public health authorities but they are trying to provide guidance. O’Toole tried again in English, and got much the same response. Yves-François Legault got up for the Bloc and accused the prime minister of preferring Biden and weakening the relationship with Americans, then wondered if he had spoke to the president of France. Trudeau reminded him that regardless of the outcome of the election, they would stand up for Canadian interests and those of allies including France. Blanchet tried to pivot this to freedom of expression, and Trudeau listed things that Canada stands with France on, and that he would be speaking with Macron in the near future. Jagmeet Singh was up for the NDP, and in French, demanded to know when the federal standards on long-term care was coming — because you can wrangle the provinces overnight. Trudeau reminded him that they are working with the provinces. Singh then lied about federal ownership over certain long-term care homes and demanded an end to for-profit care, to which Trudeau reminded him that they respect provincial jurisdiction on long-term care but are there to support provinces.

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Roundup: Preparations at the border?

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Everyone is going to spend the day obsessing about the US election, and while I just can’t, I figured that I should at least make the point that I’m hoping that in this government’s preparations, there includes some for the border because if there is a Trump victory (or violence that breaks out if the result is unclear or a narrow enough Trump defeat), I would expect a rush of would-be asylum seekers heading for our borders, particularly vulnerable minorities who are already in precarious situations in the US and are likely to become targets of violence if things degenerate. That means that this government is going to need to have proper quarantine protocols in place, as well as hopefully a plan that involves more than simply turning them back as they have been since the border closure in March, because a deteriorating situation in the US would mean that sending them back would almost certainly be unconstitutional – this as the government is already fighting with a Federal Court decision that says that the US is not a safe third country and that the agreement to turn these claimants back violates the constitution. This may all be for naught, but the US is on the verge of becoming a failed state, and we need to be ready for how that will affect us, in the short and long term.

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Roundup: O’Toole’s conversion to the labour movement

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Conservative leader Erin O’Toole addressed the Canadian Club of Toronto yesterday, and the more I read of his speech, the more curious I become of just what it is he’s trying to say. For example, he spent part of the speech bemoaning the collapse of private sector union membership in the country, talking about how it was part of the balance between what was good for the economy and what was good for workers. That’s surprising considering that when he was in Cabinet, O’Toole supported anti-union legislation that the party put forward (under the guise of private members’ bills, naturally), and the party was having a field day before the last election trying to accuse the government of stacking their media bailout fund by allowing Unifor – the country’s largest private sector union – to have a seat at the table (given that Unifor also represents a lot of journalists). I’m sure the labour movement in this country has whiplash from this sudden reversal – though I would note that in his mouthing about the importance of unions the past couple of months, he is careful to distinguish between private and public sector unions, the latter he still continues to be evil. (And before anyone says those two anti-union bills were “about transparency,” you all know that’s a lie and can stop insulting our intelligence).

O’Toole argued that we have somehow completely de-industrialized as a country, which is news to the rest of us, and then went on an extended tirade about China, because he’s trying to frame this as a national security argument and not just populism hollowing out his party’s political ideology. He claimed that the Liberals were using the pandemic to launch a “risky experiment with our economy” around green energy, which is…not really true, and ignores how markets have moved to green tech with better economic outcomes for doing so. He also continued his protectionist bent, and made a few deeply curious statements like “Free markets alone won’t solve all our problems” (erm, his party is the one that rails about the evils of socialism, no? Is he proposing nationalizing industries? Or does he simply mean global trade when he talks about “free markets”?), and adding that that GDP growth is not the “be-all and end-all of politics” – which is odd because nobody has actually suggested that it is (but his predecessor was fond of attacking straw men as well). I’m also a bit puzzled by what exactly he’s getting at when he says “We need policies to shore up the core units of society — family, neighbourhood, nation. We need policies that build solidarity, not just wealth.” Some of this is thinly-veiled Thatcherism, but where it’s building in terms of his populist rhetoric I am a bit troubled.

And make no mistake – this is full-throated populism, particularly when he starts railing about political and business elites selling out the country (with mention about political correctness in there) – which he’s oddly making to an audience that is thought of as Canada’s business elites. But it’s also deeply hypocritical because of just who O’Toole is. He is the son of a GM executive (which he tries to obscure when he says his father “worked for GM” as though he were blue-collar), who went on to be an MPP. In fact, earlier in the week, O’Toole was tweeting about how he built himself up to leadership, conveniently omitting the huge leg-up he was given along the way. It’s like the “self-made” tech millionaires who got their start with loans from their millionaire fathers, and getting those fathers to buy their tech at their companies. More to the point, after O’Toole left the military, he was a Bay Street corporate lawyer, which is not exactly the image of the middle-class guy he’s painting himself as. When he rails about “elites,” he needs to look in the mirror because that’s exactly what he is. Of course, we’ve seen this story so many times in populist politics, where rich white guys turn themselves into the heroes for the “oppressed underclass” (of mostly straight white guys) who somehow believe that said rich white guy is a “man of the people.” And no doubt O’Toole is hoping he’ll dine out on this as well, but make no mistake, this speech was hypocrisy of the highest order.

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QP: A flaming clown show where seriousness goes to die

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It being Wednesday, the prime minister was not only present, but ready to respond to all of the questions of the day — though the utility of those responses was the question. Erin O’Toole led off, scripts on mini-lectern, and he started in on the Baylis Medical story, asking the prime minister to ask Frank Baylis to change the name from the “Baylis Ventilator.” Justin Trudeau reminded him that people of all partisan stripes, including well known conservatives like a Rick Jamison also stepped up to partner with Baylis. In French, O’Toole tried to insist that the Baylis contract was padded, but Trudeau reiterated the response. O’Toole then lied about the story on judicial appointments, to which Trudeau insisted that they were chosen based on merit and diversity — including political diversity. O’Toole switched to English attempt being clever about judicial appointments, and Trudeau protested that it wasn’t true. O’Toole then demanded to know why Canadians would be at the “back of the line” on vaccine roll-outs, and again Trudeau stated that it simply wasn’t true, and listed their early actions on the pandemic. Yves-François Blanchet was up next, and demanded an official apology for the October Crisis in 1970, to which Trudeau reminded him of the Quebec politician who was assassinated by a terrorist cell. Blanchet insisted that raids were like those in the Soviet Union, but Trudeau reminded him that the premier of Quebec and the leader of the opposition in 1970 called on Ottawa go send in the troops. Jagmeet Singh was up next, and in French, stated that Stephen Harper cut healthcare funds which is why long-term care facilities were under-resourced — which is utterly false. Trudeau stated that the federal government worked with the provinces to help with their facilities when asked. Singh then blamed the government for deaths in care homes that he claims they own — another falsehood — and Trudeau gave a paean about propel deserving care in dignity.

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QP: Reaching on a false premise

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The prime minister was in attendance today, though his deputy wasn’t. Alas. Erin O’Toole led off, script on his mini-lectern, and he noted the two American CEOs who crossed the border without quarantines, and that if the public safety minister didn’t have the power to approve them, it must have been the PMO — a blatant reach based on a false premise. Justin Trudeau reminded him that these were decisions made by CBSA officers at the border in error — then congratulated the victors of last night’s by-elections. O’Toole then asked about the public inquiry into the Nova Scotia mass shooting, and Trudeau gave a somewhat platitudinous response about moving ahead with the inquiry at the behest of the families. O’Toole wondered just who was in charge of the RCMP if there were differing opinions in Cabinet about calls for her to resign, and Trudeau read a script about acknowledging systemic racism in the Force. O’Toole switched to French to lament rapid tests and the early numbers that came from China, and Trudeau explained everything they did to help families, which was what mattered. O’Toole then worried that the prime minister was blaming provinces for inaction and demanded they get to work, to which Trudeau reminded him there are areas of provincial jurisdiction and that he working with provinces to ensure that all Canadians were taken care of. Yves-François Blanchet was up next and raised blackface and the Indian Act as racist, while trying to defend that University of Ottawa professor. Trudeau reminded him that they were working with the First Nations to get past the Indian Act, but it can’t be done by decree. Blanchet went on a meandering path about what was nation-to-nation relations, to which Trudeau reminded him that there is a diversity of opinion among First Nations, which is why they were talking at the nation’s pace. Jagmeet Singh was up next that for the NDP, and in French, he demanded universal pharmacare, to which Trudeau recited his practiced lines about how nobody should be forced to choose between food and medicine, and that they were working with the provinces. Singh then raised that the federal government as a landlord raised the rent on a daycare facility forcing it to close, to which Trudeau said they would be looking into what happened.

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Roundup: Nail-biter by-elections

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The Liberals won the two Toronto-area by-elections last night, but with far less comfortable margins than before. While Marci Ien won Toronto Centre, Green Party leader Annamie Paul came in a not-too-distant second place, which was a surprise showing for her considering she was a far-distant fourth in the previous election. In York Centre, Liberal Ya’ara Saks pulled ahead at the very end, but it was a constant dance with the Conservatives most of the evening, and very close (and close enough there may yet be a recount). While it’s not good to read too much into by-elections, one supposes that this should be a bit of a warning to Justin Trudeau about going to a snap election, given how close it was. There should also be a warning for Trudeau in here about engaging his own party membership – one suspects that there are a lot of angry Liberals who are incredibly unhappy about the way that Trudeau short-circuited the nomination process and simply appointed candidates in both ridings, cutting out the grassroots membership to the detriment of democracy as a whole. Erin O’Toole will crow that he made progress in the GTA with nearly winning York Centre (though the Conservative candidate was almost a non-entity in Toronto Centre), though Maxime Bernier’s entry into the race in that riding ostensibly took enough votes away from O’Toole to lose the race. Hopefully O’Toole won’t take that as a cue to go even more extreme to try to attract those voters.

Fiscal anchor

At a talk for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, prime minister Justin Trudeau said that the government wouldn’t be setting a new fiscal anchor while the pandemic was still ongoing – but that there would soon be a “robust” fiscal update presented. This immediately gave the whole it’s-1995-and-will-always-be-1995 crowd the vapours, but there is credible economic thought that this isn’t the time for a fiscal anchor because it would simply be a signal to cut spending at a time when that spending is building resilience into the economy and is giving us a leg-up on recovery over other countries. Erin O’Toole followed up and handwaved that if his party was in charge, they would have done everything better, offering no evidence to that end.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1320794340747194369

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QP: Demanding an answer on provincial measures

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With the prime minister in town but not in the Chamber, his deputy was, which tends to be better in any case. Erin O’Toole led off, script on mini-lectern, and he decried that the government announced the appointment of a special representative for the fisheries dispute in Nova Scotia. Chrystia Freeland assured him that they want a peaceful, constructive solution, and that everyone wants to assure the rights of First Nations people as well as conservation, O’Toole then pivoted to boil water advisories on First Nations and Neskatanga in particular, to which Freeland noted that they are working hard to solve the advisories, but there was shared responsibility as the Conservatives didn’t solve the issues either – but she didn’t offer anything in the way of candour about the particularities of the situation. O’Toole then decided to thump his chest on China and their dubious numbers early in the pandemic, to which Freeland reminded him not to lecture her on authoritarian regimes because she lived in one and reported on them extensively, and she listed concerns Canada has with China’s actions and human rights abuses. O’Toole went again in French, got the same answer, and for his final question, he went on a paean about democracy and transparency versus Chinese dictatorship, and in a very slow and calm tone, Freeland cautioned O’Toole that they draw very careful lines about what is permissible in democracies, and that he is engaging in the most base partisanship. Alain Therrien got up for the Bloc to decry businesses suffering in “red zones” in Quebec, to which Freeland assured him a bill was coming in days. Therrien stated this was too little too late, to which Freeland listed measures they have provided to businesses so far. Jagmeet Singh was up next by video, and in French, decried the Neskatanga situation, and insisted that Trudeau had no intention of keeping his promise on boil-water advisories. Freeland disagreed, and stated they we working to address it and had made progress. Singh switched to English to repeat the question, and got much the same answer. 

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Roundup: Pushing back against the committee order

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The credulous takes on the Conservatives’ health committee motion continue, and now industry is also starting to push back, concerned that commercially sensitive information is going to be released publicly which will affect them and the ability to produce PPE for the country. Of course, Michelle Rempel Garner is dismissing these concerns as “Liberal spin” and offering the assurance that the Commons Law Clerk will redact any sensitive information – except that there are no assurances that he knows what is and is not commercially sensitive information. (And this recent trend of making the Law Clerk redact documents under the howls that anything else amounts to a cover-up is worrying, because it’s once again piling work into independent servants of the House that is beyond the scope of their duties, which will soon become a permanent duty). Other manufacturers are saying it’s not about the information, but about the fact that they’re going to become political footballs for stepping up in the early days of the pandemic – and they’re right. Given how many falsehoods are being repeated about the Baylis Medical contract – which media continues to both-sides rather than call out – is going to keep happening, and we’ll see these company owners be grilled for any remote Liberal connections, because this is an exercise in the Conservatives fishing to “prove” that this was about the Liberals trying to pad the pockets of their “friends,” because they are determined to try and recreate a new Sponsorship Scandal. And I’m surprised that there aren’t more voices in the media who can’t see this, or the shenanigans in Rempel Garner’s motion.

Meanwhile, Patty Hajdu hasn’t exactly covered herself in glory over the past few days with her dismissive comments about Access to Information requests – comments that got the attention of the Information Commissioner, who sounded the alarm over them. I will note that having once worked as a contractor in Health Canada’s records department (I had to pay the bills while building up my pre-political freelance career), that they had one of the worst-kept systems across the federal government, and I have no reason to believe that things are much different now than they were then. This gets compounded by the fact that ATIPs are being slowed by the fact that government offices are closed because of the pandemic, and people aren’t being able to access the files necessary, which is making the situation worse. It would be great if Hajdu could actually say something other than the dismissive comment (which I’m fairly certain was off the cuff when caught flat-footed by the issue), and her haughty defence of civil servants, but as we all know, this government can’t communicate their way out of a wet paper bag, and she proved it once again, in spades.

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QP: A hand extended to work together?

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While the prime minister was busy doing virtual business tours, his deputy was present. Erin O’Toole led off, with his scripts and mini-lectern, accusing the government of allowing Canadians to be at the “back of the line” for rapid testing. Chrystia Freeland listed the rapid tests that have been approved to date with an assurance that they were available to Canadians. O’Toole then engaged in some revisionist history around the early days of the pandemic, to which Freeland listed a timeline of events. O’Toole raised the false story about Baylis Medical before demanding the government support their Supply Day motion on the health committee, to which Freeland stated with in no uncertain terms that insinuating the government was not looking out for Canadians would not be tolerated. O’Toole tried again, and Freeland again took umbrage with the insinuations. O’Toole switched to French to return to the Baylis Medical false story, to which Freeland clearly annunciated that there was no contract with Baylis. Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he concern trolled about the use of the n-word by a university professor — in support of the professor. Freeland picked up a script to denounce anti-Black racism. Kristina Michaud got up to demand the government defend academic freedom, and Freeland insisted that they do support academic freedom but they need to be aware of systemic racism and take action to fight it. Jagmeet Singh was up next, and in French, raised a particular First Nation that hasn’t had drinking water for 25 years, to which a Freeland reminded him that drinking water on First Nations was a priority, and that they still have work to do, and they are working on it. Singh repeated the question in English, to which Freeland reiterated some of the same points, but stated that they were recommitting to the promise that all communities will have water to drink.

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Roundup: Confidence maintained, control wrested

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It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that the government survived the confidence vote – it was very much an example of Wells’ First Rule – and the NDP and Greens voted to keep parliament going. Of course, the narrative that both the Conservatives and NDP adopted was that the Liberals were pushing for an election – the Conservatives (and Bloc) claiming it was because the Liberals really wanted to cover something up, and the NDP self-righteously declared that they weren’t going to give Trudeau the election that he wanted, but would keep parliament going to get things done for Canadians. Of course, if Trudeau really wanted an election (which he doesn’t), he could just head next door to Rideau Hall on any given morning and ask Julie Payette to dissolve Parliament, but he won’t, because that’s not what today was about.

Part of what has irked me in this is the way in which the Conservatives’ motion was being described, which is innocuously. One writer went so far as to call it a “pedestrian motion,” which it was anything but, and I highly suspect that nobody actually read through it except for the two other procedural wonks in the Gallery. Aside from the inflammatory title of “anti-corruption,” or the proposed alternative whose four-letter abbreviation would have been SCAM (both instances that demonstrate that it’s a group of juvenile shitposters running O’Toole’s office who are treating the Order Paper as a game of who can be the most outrageous), the proposed committee’s terms of reference would have put the government at a structural disadvantage with three fewer members (generally committees in the current parliamentary composition are split, and on committees where the government chairs it, the opposition has the votes to outweigh the government), but it would have given the committee first priority for all parliamentary resources, and compelled production of all documents they wanted and witnesses to appear, no matter who. This essentially means that both ministers and the civil service would be at the committee’s beck and call, and that they would have to drop everything to attend it – which is what Pablo Rodriguez meant by the committee being meant to “paralyze” government. They could go on unlimited fishing expeditions with little to no ability to push back, and given the fact that there aren’t any smoking guns here, it would be constant wild goose chases while Parliament was unable to get anything else accomplished. More than that, it would also have enshrined that the prime minister’s extended family – meaning his mother and brother – would be considered legitimate targets, and have their financial information put into the open for no good reason. And funnily enough, not one story from yesterday mentioned these facts – not the Star, not the National Post, not CBC, nor The Canadian Press. Yet this seems like some pretty vital context for why the government would so strenuously object to this “pedestrian” motion.

There was another consideration, that former Paul Martin-era staffer Scott Reid expounded upon, which is control of the agenda. That’s a pretty important thing in a hung parliament, and under the current circumstances. Trudeau hasn’t been able to make much progress on any file (admittedly, much of this is his own fault for refusing to bring parliament back in a sensible way, followed by his decision to prorogue), but being hamstrung by that motion was going to make things moving forward near impossible. Now that he’s stared down O’Toole, I suspect he has some breathing room again.

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