Tag Archives: Refugees

Roundup: Being called to the bar of the Commons

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Following the motion in the House of Commons that the head of the Public Health Agency of Canada has been found in contempt of Parliament for refusing to turn over national security documents to a House of Commons committee, and is being summoned to the bar of the Chamber on Monday, said PHAC president is faced with a possibly impossible choice – if he turns over the documents, he is in breach of the Privacy Act and the Security of Information Act. If he doesn’t turn them over, he is in contempt of Parliament and its powers of production – and he has not been guaranteed immunity if he turns those documents over, not that the MPs who demand these documents care.

What is perhaps more worrying is the apparently cavalier way in which this is being dealt with, as there is very little security around this. The Canada-China committee, which wants these documents, has no security clearances, nor are their communications even secure – the “hybrid” sittings are done over Zoom, and while it’s a slightly more secure version than the commercial one, it’s still not actually secure. As well, I am not particularly moved by the fact that they say that any redactions will be done by the House of Commons’ law clerk, because I’m not sure that he has the necessary security clearance to view the documents unredacted, nor does he have the background and context to read those documents in and apply redactions properly. This is a pretty serious issue that these MPs are handwaving over, and frankly, the way that they have abused the Law Clerk and his office over the course of his parliament by demanding that he perform the redactions on millions of documents that could wind up leaking commercially sensitive information has been nothing short of shameful. It certainly hasn’t been filling me with any confidence that any of the information will be treated with proper seriousness considering that they aren’t promising actual safeguards – or immunity. It very much makes this look more like grandstanding over a proper exercise in accountability.

Meanwhile, here is a history of people who have been summoned to the bar in the Commons, the last time which was in 1913, where the person refused to testify, and spent four months in a local jail until the parliamentary session expired. It’s a power that has very much fallen into disuse, but interesting nevertheless.

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Roundup: The problem with pulling out of NSICOP

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The demand for documents related to the firing of two scientists from the National Microbiology Lab reached a boiling point yesterday, as the House of Commons voted to summon the president of the Public Health Agency of Canada to the bar in the Commons to face censure – and turn over the document – while Erin O’Toole also declared that he was pulling the Conservative members from NSICOP, alleging that there is some kind of cover-up happening.

For weeks, O’Toole and Michael Chong in particular, have been trying to paint a story that these two scientists caused a national security breach at the Lab, and that there have been a string of resignations over it. There’s no actual evidence for any of this – all signs point to the firing as being over a breach of intellectual property protocols, which was coupled with the fact that there used to be a permissive culture in the Lab where scientists (especially those deemed “favourites,” and one of the two fired scientists was indeed a favourite), did whatever they wanted and staff were instructed to make it happen – but that management changes started to end that culture, and it’s currently a fairly toxic workplace. (Check out my interview with the reporter who’s been on this story for two years here). The government has insisted they can’t turn over documents because of privacy laws, and the vague notions about national security because the two were marched out by federal RCMP, without any elaboration, and this opacity just made it easier to build up conspiracy theories – especially when they could tie them into the Wuhan lab in China, were samples of other viruses were sent to.

O’Toole withdrawing from NSICOP, a mere day after new members were appointed to the committee, damages the national security oversight in this country overall. Yes, there are legitimate criticisms about how NSICOP is structured – especially when it bumps up against the realities of a hung parliament – but it could also have been used to build trust between national security agencies and MPs, so that when it came up for review in five years, they may have been able to move toward a more UK-like model where it became a parliamentary committee. (More history in this thread). Some national security experts, like Stephanie Carvin, have argued that it should have been where initial determinations about those documents could be made, especially because they could be read in context – you can’t just read national security documents cold and make sense of them. But there is an additional, cultural problem for opposition MPs in this country (of all stripes) is that they prefer to remain ignorant in order to grandstand, and that’s exactly what O’Toole did yesterday – grandstand at the expense of the trust with national security agencies, and the cause of oversight of national security by parliamentarians. Short-term partisan considerations once again take the fore. What a way to run a democracy.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1405508435521806338

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QP: Leaning harder into the Winnipeg Lab conspiracy theory

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It was the prime minister’s first appearance in the Chamber since the discovery of the mass grave in Kamloops last week, and he was joined once again by Mark Gerretsen. Erin O’Toole led off, and with his script before him, he asked for swift action on the Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission around the residential schools. Justin Trudeau gave some platitudes about reconciliation and mentions their investments in those Calls to Action. O’Toole then moved onto the National Microbiology Lab, and deliberately conflated the issue around the two fired scientists with the global demand for answers around the origin of COVID, for which Trudeau reminded him that there are mechanisms to review national security matters. O’Toole dismissed NSICOP as the prime minister’s “secret committee” and tried to conflate the issue around those scientists, for which Trudeau hit back about the secrecy of the Harper government and their refusal to subject national security agencies to independent oversight. O’Toole switched to French to repeat his first question on the two scientists, for which Trudeau reminded him of the oversight mechanisms. O’Toole switched back to English to try and tie in this with approvals for foreign investment from China and Huawei, and Trudeau replied that the Conservatives never hesitate to play politics with national security, before he returned to his praise of the creation of NSICOP.

Yves-François Blanchet rose for the Bloc, and pressed for the swift passage of Bill C-10 in spite of Conservative opposition, for which Trudeau praised the cooperation of other parties in trying to pass the bill, and that they hoped to pass it before summer. Blanchet warned that if it did not pass by summer, there would be a heavy political price to pay in Quebec, and Trudeau reminded him that they have been there for artists since the beginning, starting with reversing the Harper-era cuts, and that it was the Conservatives blocking culture.

Jagmeet Singh led for the NDP, and he raised the court challenges around Indigenous children and residential school survivors (which are about narrow points of law and not compensation). Trudeau stated that every survivor deserves compensation and they are working on that, and they have also been guiding “transformative change” around Indigenous child and family services. Singh repeated the question in French, and got much the same answer.

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QP: Hypocrisy and expletives

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On a rainy Monday in the nation’s capital, and at the start of a fourth consecutive week of sittings where tempers were getting frayed, there as once again only a single Liberal MP in the Chamber — Mark Gerretsen, of course. Candice Bergen off by video, and she groused that the defence committee meeting was cancelled this morning, alleging a cover-up, then said that the prime minister wouldn’t answer if he would have dismissed General Vance if he knew the nature of the allegations facing him. Harjit Sajjan noted that he appeared at the committee for six hours, and that they also heard from Stephen Harper’s chief of staff about what happened in 2015 when they appointed Vance while he was still under active investigation. Bergen accused the prime minster of not taking the allegations against Vance seriously because of the groping allegations levelled against him around the same time, and Sajjan instead raised that when the investigation against Vance was dropped on 2015, it was because of “pressure” and we wondered who was applying it. Bergen then tried to bring in what the prime minister’s chief of staff knew, for which Sajjan repeated that they knew about rumours against Vance and still appointed him anyway. Gérard Deltell returned to the issue of the defence committee cancelling its meeting this morning, crying that there was a cover up, for which committee chair Karen McCrimmon stated that they were developing recommendations, and there would be another meeting later in the week. Deltell then asked if PMO emails raised the possibility it was an issue of sexual harassment, why they did nothing about it. Sajjan repeated that the leader of the opposition knew of a rumour of misconduct and the Conservatives still appointed Vance while he was under active investigation. 

Alain Therrien led off for the Bloc, staying on the topic of the Vance allegations and accused Sajjan of contributing to the culture of silence in the military, and Sajjan recited this lines about taking the proper steps and alerting PMO. Therrien raised the appointment of Louise Arbour, while Sajjan insisted that politicians should not involve themselves in investigations. 

Rachel Blaney led for the NDP, and she too demanded action on the Arbour appointment over action, to which Sajjan repeated again that they are taking actions, including the appointment of a new officer in charge of culture in the military. Lindsay Mathyssen demanded that the recommendations of the Deschamps Report be implemented immediately, and Sajjan said that changing institutional culture is complex.

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Roundup: Launching a laughable climate plan

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With much fanfare – and a moving backdrop that was dizzying to watch – Erin O’Toole rolled out his much-ballyhooed climate plan yesterday morning, and it was…underwhelming. And bizarre. Replacing climate rebates with a special “savings account” that can only be used to purchase “green” items like bicycles and high-efficiency furnaces? Yeah, that’s not an improvement, you guys. And lo, it’s not winning O’Toole any plaudits in his own party either, with caucus members telling media that they were essentially blindsided by this, and many feel it’s a betrayal, and a sign that he has no credibility because he’ll say anything to get elected. And they probably have a point.

Here is some reaction to the news, with additional threads from Nic Rivers and Jennifer Robson.

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1382694545398317066

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1382716424087605252

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1382722697159925764

Meanwhile, I have a beef with CBC’s coverage of the issue, because they insist on framing the existing Liberal carbon price as a tax – which it’s not because it doesn’t go into general revenue, and the Supreme Court of Canada said this – but they insisted on calling the Conservative plan a “levy,” when it’s the exact same gods damned mechanism as the existing Liberal plan that just recycles the revenues differently. You can’t call one a tax and the other a levy because that is massively misleading. It places a wholly negative frame around the Liberal plan and not the Conservative one when, again, it’s the same mechanism. “Taxes” come with particular preconceived notions around them, in particular the gem about “taxes are theft,” and so on. CBC’s editorial decision to use this framing device biases the conversation and perceptions around the programmes, which is a very big problem.

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Roundup: Cheering on an attack on institutional independence

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Yesterday, Senator Claude Carignan tabled a bill that seeks to strip Julie Payette of her pension, and would strip any former Governor General of a pension if they don’t serve at least five years (never mind that nine of our 29 past Governors General did not serve at least five years). It’s an attack on the institutional independence of an office that can serve as a check on government, and needs to be called out as such.

https://twitter.com/LagassePhilippe/status/1376970875031945217

https://twitter.com/LagassePhilippe/status/1376971807576711168

https://twitter.com/LagassePhilippe/status/1376998266282328065

But just how was it discussed on Power & Politics last night? Over several segments, each of them with different pundits, the common consensus that this was great populist politics to go after an unpopular figure like Payette, and digging into the issue of their other benefits – because nothing sells in Canadian media like cheap outrage and hairshirt parsimony. The most we got to the cautionary tale was to beware unintended consequences, and that a future GG may have to invent a medical reason for a resignation (which the bill states that Cabinet would have to approve, which is entirely bonkers). Not one person – not one – raised the issue of institutional independence, and why it’s a Very Bad Thing to open the door to governments being able to threaten their financial well-being as a way to hold power over them, most especially when the beneficiaries of this independence (not only the GG, but also senators and Supreme Court justices) provide a check on the power of government. This is the level of discourse in this country? Seriously? And even more to the point, the host of the show kept steering the topic to this kind of populist, vindictiveness rather than the actual consequences of making an action like this. It is absolutely boggling, but it gives you a sense as to why things have degenerated as they have. This bill represents an existential threat to our parliamentary system, and it’s being played for petty drama and populist cheap shots.

We need better pundits in this country, and better politics shows. This is horrifying.

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Roundup: Domestic vaccine production…eventually

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There was a sliver of positive news yesterday, when it was announced that the federal government had signed a deal with Novavax to produce their vaccine in the future National Research Council facility in Montreal. The catch? That facility won’t be completed construction until summer, and then it will require Health Canada approval, so it may not be able to produce new doses until the end of the year – at which point, most Canadians should already be vaccinated using the Pfizer and Moderna doses we’ve contracted for. That doesn’t mean this facility still won’t be for naught – it’s possible we will need booster shots for the other vaccines, possibly do deal with different variants (and Novavax has shown success with the B.1.1.7 variant first spotted in the UK), and it also means that we will be able to produce for export to other countries who will need it.

Of course, this started back in on the same questions about why we weren’t able to produce vaccines domestically earlier, and why this plant is taking so long. Of course, this plant is actually moving faster than is usual – Good Manufacturing Practices facilities to produce vaccines usually take two or three years to build, not a single year, and there are several other facilities under construction across the country for other vaccine candidates. As for the same questions about why we didn’t contract to produce other vaccines here, it was because there were no suitable facilities – particularly from the approved ones. (This NRC facility was in talks to produce the AstraZeneca vaccine, but there is also talk about why the PnuVax facility in Montreal has not yet been tapped – but it may yet be for a future candidate once approved). And for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, we simply didn’t have facilities in this country that could produce mRNA vaccines to scale (most existing mRNA production was on a single-dose system for tailored vaccines used for treating particular cancers). And these are things we a) can’t build overnight, and b) didn’t know were even viable because it’s a new technology that had not yet been approved for a vaccine, especially on the scale of the one we’re dealing with now. It would have been a hell of a gamble to build a facility to GMP standards for a vaccine technology that may not have panned out.

Why I’m particularly annoyed about the return of these questions – particularly from the likes of Jagmeet Singh as he appeared on platforms like Power & Politics – is that they pretend that any vaccine facility can produce any vaccine, ignoring that not all vaccines are created equally, or that the technology to produce vaccines isn’t different across platforms. Singh’s notion that a nationalised vaccine producer should have been able to handle this is also farcical because again, what platform would it have bet on? All of them? It’s ridiculous and dishonest – as have been the demands to make the vaccine procurement contracts public (which no other country has done), because all that would do is allow other countries to look at what we paid, and then offer the companies more money to break the contracts with us. (And FFS, both Singh and Erin O’Toole are lawyers and should know this). The kinds of point-scoring that is taking place right now is getting to be beyond the pale, and it’s obscuring the actual kinds of accountability we should be practicing.

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Roundup: Not fussed about Payette’s pension

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For the past week, in the wake of Julie Payette’s resignation, we have seen the various cheap outrage stories and QP attacks circling around. How dare she get her generous pension if she voluntarily resigned under a cloud of scandal? Why should Canadians have to pay for this? (Usually followed by the usual republican nonsense that falsely equates how much Canada’s contribution to the monarchy is and which grossly underestimates how much more an elected head of state would cost compared to the system we have in place now).

While Parliament could theoretically alter the laws that guarantee Payette her pension, trying to do so retroactively would invite a lawsuit that the government would be hard-pressed to win. Not to mention, the fact that she walked away without causing a constitutional crisis is probably worth the pension (because seriously, that could have been very ugly and messy). As for the additional annuity that former GGs are afforded to support any duties related to their time as GG that carry on afterward, be it speeches or answering letters, I’m less fussed about that because I think it’s healthy that we have people who are interested in keeping up civic duties once their term is over (especially as we don’t have ready-enough access to members of the royal family for that kind of thing), but would welcome additional transparency and reporting around that. It does, however, help make the somewhat ageist case that we shouldn’t appoint GGs that are too young because what do they then follow it up with after holding the second highest office in the country? (See: Michaëlle Jean’s time as head of the Francophonie). We also have to remember that things like a GG’s pension are made generous enough because it’s part of institutional independence – we don’t want a prime minister to threaten that pension if they aren’t going to get their way. It’s actually the same logic behind why you want a monarchy to be rich – so that they have independent wealth and that can’t be used as leverage by a government. Of course, Canadians have been conditioned to revel in hairshirt parsimony after the Reform Party years and media that delights in the response they get from cheap outrage stories, so we’re going to keep getting them, no matter how inappropriate and damaging to our institutions that they actually are.

Meanwhile, Erin O’Toole has been making the rounds claiming that Justin Trudeau would be in a “conflict of interest” if he chose the next GG on his own, and I just cannot with this completely illiterate nonsense. There would be no conflict because the GG acts on the advice of the prime minister – he or she is not going to say no if Trudeau decides to call an election, because there are no grounds for them to do so. The only time they have any kind of discretion around this is if the incumbent demands another election right after he or she ostensibly lost one, and if there is a viable alternative, the GG has every right to ask the incumbent to see if they can maintain confidence, and if not, another party can be invited to form government. There is this perception that the vice-regal has a truckload of discretion in these matters, and they simply don’t. More to the point, having the opposition sign-off on a new GG would then allow Trudeau to launder the prerogative and accountability for the decision to advise the Queen on that person, which we do not want. That’s not how Responsible Government works. Yes, there is merit to restoring the vice-regal appointments committee (but it’s too late for Payette’s replacement, because that process should have started months ago), but even then, the PM still has the final say from the names put to him on the short-list, as well he should. O’Toole is trying to sow confusion, and is giving further disinformation as to how our system works, which is very bad because it’s that kind of thing that undermines democratic norms. Knock it off!

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Roundup: Our loss of vaccine manufacturing capacity

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The talk of the day was vaccines, and when Canada might see them – which might be later than some other countries because we lack domestic manufacturing capacity in this country – and this made everyone go crazy. That, and the fact that they are howling that the Americans may start getting vaccinations immediately after the FDA is set to decide on vaccine trials on December 10th – which is a pretty big assumption that they will get approval on that day. (We’ll see about how much longer it takes Health Canada to complete their own authorisation process, though they are currently engaged in a “rolling authorisation” process on the three main candidates). And they are still negotiating final rollout with the provinces, who also don’t seem to have their distribution plans finalised either.

And to be a bit more clear, we have some vaccine manufacturing capability in this country, but not the kind for the kind of vaccines that Pfizer and Moderna are set to produce – and yes, this government has invested in boosting that capacity in Canada, including building a new facility at the University of Saskatchewan, but those take time to get built and up to speed. But as this was being discussed, I was reminded that well over a decade ago, Canada had proposed to build a new vaccine pilot lot production facility as part of the Canadian HIV Vaccine Initiative, in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And then there was political interference in the Harper Cabinet, in particular from Vic Toews, who wanted a Level-5 Lab built in Winnipeg instead, and then neither happened, and all of the Gates Foundation money got pissed away funding small projects here and there that didn’t amount to any meaningful contribution overall. (My reporting on Toews’ interference here, as well as the refusal by Toews and two other ministers to appear at committee to answer questions on what happened with the killing the CHVI, while officials gave contradictory evidence here). And this kind of facility would definitely have been of use for the kind of situation that we find ourselves in, but lo, the Conservatives killed it (and the Gates Foundation covered for them after they did). And here we are, building this capacity over a decade too late.

In other COVID news around the country, after sitting on their new rapid testing kits for weeks, the Ford government in Ontario has finally decided how they’re going to roll them out, which you would think they should have thought of beforehand. Over in Alberta, Jason Kenney announced – after a long preamble about how hard it was to make this decision – a state of public health emergency and some tougher restrictions in the province which are not a full lockdown, and which doctors are already saying won’t do enough to curb the exponential growth of new infections. In other words, Lockdown Lite™ or Mockdown (credit to Lindsay Tedds for that one). Because Kenney insists the consequences of a lockdown are worse than all of the deaths that are happening, and a bogus reading of the Charter implications (which clearly allow for these kinds of restrictions in a time like this). That means that Alberta’s infections will keep rising because Kenney refused to take appropriate action, and he’ll blame Ottawa, and everyone else for his inaction, because that’s what Jason Kenney does.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1331385270529269762

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QP: Shifting the goalposts on testing

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While the prime minister was in town, he was not at QP today, but his deputy was, which is normally a better show. Candice Bergen led off, and tried to insist that the prime minister was merely blaming the provinces for the pandemic rather than taking actions, to which Chrystia Freeland read some reassurances about the country’s vaccine portfolio. Bergen then started shifting the goal posts by complaining that rapid tests were rare and there were still no at-home tests, to which Freeland listed the six rapid tests that have been made available. Bergen insisted that the PM was trying to leave the heavy lifting to the provinces — which, let’s be clear, is actually their gods damned job — and Freeland read about the border measures that have been taken. Pierre Paul-Hus worried that they were only getting news about the vaccine rollout from the provinces, but Freeland returned to the list of vaccine contracts, but in French this time. Paul-Hus complained that other countries have a plan and Canada doesn’t — which ignores that there is guidance and that distribution is a provincial responsibility — to which Freeland said that they were working with the provinces and with experts to ensure that there was an “excellent” vaccine distribution plan. Alain Therrien was up next for the Bloc, and he immediately started howling about the hysteria about the supposed “decline” of French in Quebec, to which Freeland raised the Holodomor about an attempt to exterminate language and culture, which is why she takes French seriously in Canada and Quebec. Therrien demanded the extension of Bill 101 to federally-regulated spaces, and Freeland repeated her personal understanding about the importance of the issue and why they wanted to work with their colleagues about the issue. Jagmeet Singh was up for the NDP, and in French, he complained that small businesses weren’t getting enough help and wanted measures extended to the spring, to which Freeland stated that the new measures are now on line and rent would be paid out by December 4th. Singh switched to English demand that the measures be made retroactive to April, and Freeland said reiterated the praise for the bill that just passed.

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