Tag Archives: Refugees

Roundup: Trying to draw in the Supreme Court

Posted on by

If this election could get any stupider, it did yesterday. Justin Trudeau started the day off in Sudbury, and after arriving by canoe, he promised not only to further expand the areas of land and waters that are protected areas as part of ongoing roll-out of green policies in advance of today’s “climate strike” rally, Trudeau also promised an expansion of the “learn to camp” programme, including bursaries of up to $2000 for low-income families. As someone who hates camping, this is borderline offensive – but it’s also one of the whitest of white people policies in the book. (Seriously – ask a person of colour how they feel about camping). I get that the idea is that it promotes connecting people with nature and the importance of conservation, but this was probably one of the dumbest campaign promises to date.

Andrew Scheer was not much better. From Trudeau’s riding of Papineau in Montréal, Scheer tapped into the Trumpian “Lock Her Up!” mentality by promising not only a judicial inquiry into the Double-Hyphen Affair, but also to pass a cartoonishly named No More Cover-Ups Act, which would empower the RCMP to go directly to the Supreme Court of Canada for access to Cabinet documents – all of it predicated on the lie that the RCMP are investigating the PMO (they’re not) and that they can’t get access to documents (because the Clerk of the Privy Council said no to a fishing expedition). It’s all very gross and unseemly. Not only do we not demand that the police investigate our political rivals (this isn’t a banana republic, and if the Liberals lose, then they will have faced political consequences for the Affair), but politicising judicial inquiries is a Very Bad Thing. Dragging the Supreme Court into one’s political vendettas is even worse (and I have a column on that very topic coming out later today about that very issue).

As for Jagmeet Singh, he was in Campbell River, BC to reiterate his promise to build half a million housing units, but to also flesh out his promise for income supports of up to $5000 per year for low-income renters. But again, this is provincial jurisdiction so the rental income supports will have to be a carefully designed policy, while he has yet to explain how he’ll rapidly build all of this social housing when the cities where it’s most needed are very tight labour markets, which means there likely aren’t enough construction workers to do the job, and that will drive up the costs of building these units by a lot. (Singh also completely mischaracterised the output-based system on carbon pricing as part of his trying to downplay the current government’s record, because he’s doing politics differently).

Continue reading →

Roundup: Reviving a failed tax credit

Posted on by

Day three of the campaign, and in the post-debate glow, there was some damage control on a part of a couple of leaders. Justin Trudeau was in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, to promise new measures to help small business, including the “swipe fees” that those businesses are charged for transactions.

Andrew Scheer was in the GTA, and he announced his plan to revive the Harper-era transit tax credit, but to rebrand it as “Green.” The problem, of course, was that it’s a nigh useless measure that disproportionately benefits the wealthy. (Fact check here to show that Scheer’s rhetoric is misleading, plus a thread from economist Lindsay Tedds). He also had to defend himself and do damage control over his meltdown during the debate on Indigenous issues and his contention that they hold major projects “hostage,” but he nevertheless refused to back down from the basic contention even if he tried to say that he didn’t mean to use those exact words. So that’s something.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1172519241918099459

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1172548996570734592

Jagmeet Singh was in downtown Toronto to promise to cap cellphone bills – a policy that has no actual specifics as to how he would do it and what the impacts would be – before giving a speech to the Canadian Club to tell them that if he forms government, it won’t be “business as usual” in Ottawa.

Continue reading →

Roundup: The bitumen-soaked petard

Posted on by

Probably the most important piece you could read from yesterday’s offerings was this analysis from energy economist Andrew Leach, who dismantled much of the logic behind the Conservative environmental “plan” that Andrew Scheer was so proud of. Aside from the fact that it lacks detail, it’s full of contradictions (such as eschewing carbon taxes, and yet does largely the same thing with large emitters), and a lot of things that don’t make sense. Leach not only calls out the fact that the “plan” is full of straw men and distractions (such as the focus on raw sewage), but probably most devastating is that he punches holes in the plan for the Canada Clean Brand™ that Scheer is trying to promote – the notion that Canadian products are “cleaner” and should displace those abroad, thus keeping Canadian jobs and still (ostensibly) lowering emissions. And while that may be true enough with aluminium, it’s certainly not for our oil exports, which kind of blows the whole thing out of the water. Oops.

Continue reading →

Roundup: On feeding the loons

Posted on by

I try not to do that hackneyed “slow news day?” thing, however I am forced to question the editorial judgment at Global’s Calgary bureau after they reported on a supposed new “separatist” group meeting in Alberta, who are shaking their fist at clouds – err, I mean throwing a temper tantrum about some perceived slights. The apparent “newsworthiness” of this event is the fact that there was a bullshit poll out last week that said that as many as a quarter of Albertans could support separation, and Jay Hill, one-time Alberta separatist, says that Justin Trudeau being re-elected could make that fifty percent.

That sound was my eyes rolling so hard. And then again when John Ivison tweeted this gem.

What could possibly different about Scotland than Alberta? Could it be that Scotland once used to be its own country? Could it be that they have a distinct language and culture? That they already field their own sports teams in international competitions? That they’re not landlocked? Colby Cosh wrote about this not two weeks ago – there is no coherence in the argument for Alberta separatism, and they can’t even take their own argument seriously.

Let’s call this what it is – extortion, blackmail, and a campaign of lies fomented by the likes of Jason Kenney who is stoking it to keep his base angry, because the moment they realize that they’ve run out of external enemies to blame their problems on, the moment they’ll turn on him because he hasn’t been able to deliver on any of his snake oil promises. And Kenney is using these swivel-eyed loons as a straw man – the whole “I’m not a separatist, but Justin Trudeau is stoking the sentiment” defence. It’s just more lies, and We The Media don’t have to keep giving them oxygen. We don’t have to pay attention to these loons – especially if they’re going to call themselves moronic things like “Wexit Alberta.”

Continue reading →

Roundup: Closing it all down for the summer (and the election)

Posted on by

The House of Commons rose yesterday, earlier than expected after news that Conservative MP Mark Warawa died of cancer. Business was truncated, all remaining bills passed swiftly, and a few tributes were made to Warawa before adjourning the House, ostensibly until September, but the writs would be drawn up for the election before then. There is a chance that Parliament will be called back in the summer to deal with the New NAFTA implementation bill, which was not passed, but apparently they’re waiting on the Americans before we go further.

Over on the Senate, side, a number of bills passed through swiftly, including the reforms to the Access to Information legislation, but the ones that caught the most attention were Bills C-48 and C-69, being the west coast oil tanker ban and the environmental assessment legislation. Immediately after those were passed, Alberta premier Jason Kenney thundered over Twitter about how he was going to challenge them in court – which you can expect the courts to tell him to go pound sand, just as they will with his challenge to the federal carbon price that will be imposed on his province come January. The Senate won’t be passing a number of private members’ bills, including some prominent ones like Rona Ambrose’s bill, but it was a bad bill anyway and deserved to die on the Order Paper. (The Liberals also promised to revive the bill in the next parliament, which…isn’t great, frankly, because it’s either unconstitutional in its original form, or largely symbolic in its amended form).

This means that all that’s left is a royal assent ceremony, which will happen this afternoon, and it’ll be the first time that they’re going to attempt a ceremony with the two chambers in separate buildings. It’s been suggested previously that the Usher of the Black Rod will take a limousine to West Block to knock on the Commons’ door to deliver the message that Her Excellency requests their presence in the Senate, at which point the Speaker and a token few MPs will head over – possibly in limos or little parliamentary busses – to the Senate for the ceremony. We’ll see how it all unfolds.

Continue reading →

Roundup: A real climate sham

Posted on by

Andrew Scheer unveiled his long-awaited environmental plan yesterday, citing that it was a “real plan” because it was longer than the other parties’…but that was about it. After he listed a bunch of lies about the current Liberal plan, Scheer kept saying that carbon pricing didn’t do anything, which is both factually incorrect (as proven by peer-reviewed work), but it also completely ignores that the current plan hasn’t had a chance to sufficiently bend the curve. By removing carbon pricing from the market and instead forcing companies who exceed their emissions to caps, it is actually even less of a market-based plan than the Liberals’ plan, and there are no specifics in how any of it would work. Promising technological solutions without price signals to spur their development is just like counting on magic to lower emissions. It’s also like Scheer’s complete lie that this plan won’t cost Canadians – it will cost them, but those costs will be passed onto them and hidden, whereas the carbon price is transparent so that people can make better choices. Scheer also claims that his plan would have the best chance of meeting the Paris targets – without actually having targets, or articulating how they would be achieved. It’s replete with a bunch of boutique tax credits that are inefficient, and is generally a bunch of language that does very little. How he claims this is a “real plan” is somewhat of a farce.

And then there’s the global component, where Scheer says that Canada should be lowering global emissions by exporting “cleaner” Canadian energy like LNG – err, except that would grow Canadian emissions, and yet he wants us to get credits for those exports. And he says that China should use Canadian carbon capture and storage technology – except it’s hugely expensive, and is not really feasible unless you’re pricing carbon (not to mention that if the storage is not done properly, it can simply all be for naught). And Canada still has some of the highest per-capita emissions, which Scheer conveniently ignores in his arguments.

Amidst this, Scheer’s apologists are saying “it’s good that they’re admitting that climate change is real!” or “Look at how far the Conservatives have come since 2008!” Except that’s all spin. They can say they believe in climate change, but they also say that Canada’s contribution is so small that we shouldn’t do anything about it. Scheer and others tried to burnish themselves with the environmental reputations of previous conservative governments, except the old Conservative party is dead, and the current one is engaging in some egregious political necrophilia to cover for their own weakness. That those apologists could say these things with a straight face on television is astounding.

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1141470545130729473

Continue reading →

QP: In the shadow of the Raptors parade

Posted on by

With all three main party leaders at the Raptors parade in Toronto, Trudeau eventually addressing that crowd, it was up to Candice Bergen to lead off today, and she complained that the government just didn’t want to build any pipelines, even though they are due to approve the Trans Mountain expansion in just days. Amarjeet Sohi responded that they have ensured that pipelines are being built, and that they have concluded their consultations on TMX. Bergen demanded a date for when the TMX would begin construction, and Sohi dodged with a reminder that the Conservatives didn’t get any pipelines built to non-US markets. Bergen gave it another go, and Sohi reminded her that they had undertaken meaningful consultation. Gérard Deltell took over in French, lamenting that the Liberals wanted to kill the energy sector, to which Sohi found it regrettable that the Conservatives didn’t have any confidence in the sector. Deltell demanded a start date for TMX construction, and Sohi replied that Conservative actions didn’t demonstrate their own support of the project. Peter Julian was up next for the NDP, and he railed that there was no business case for TMX, and Sohi replied that the NDP didn’t understand the economy or the environment. Pierre-Luc Dusseault repeated the question in French, to which Sohi reminded him there is a diversity of opinion among First Nations along the route. Dusseault then demanded a wealth tax, per the NDP’s new policy platform, to which Bill Morneau reminded him of their Middle Class™ tax cuts and how the average family is now $2000 per year better off than under the previous government. Julian repeated the demand in English, and got much the same response.

Continue reading →

Roundup: A line-by-line review

Posted on by

If the tweets of Cabinet ministers are to be believed, Cabinet is currently seized with doing a line-by-line review of the amended Bill C-69 that was sent back to them from the Senate earlier this week. By all accounts, the current form of the bill is a complete dog’s breakfast that includes a number if contradictory clauses, because the Chamber of Sober Second Thought didn’t bother to actually do the work of reconciling them because members of the environment and energy committee were keen to placate Jason Kenney and to credulously believe the oil and gas industry lobbyists who insisted that the bill’s original form, while not perfect, would somehow doom all future projects in this country. And you would think that actually getting a bill in reasonable condition back to the Commons would be kind of important to a body like the Senate, for whom this is their raison d’être as a legislative chamber who preoccupies itself with reviewing legislation, but no, they decided instead to sent it back to the Commons as is rather than to take the blame that Kenney and company will lay on them as he continues to lie about the bill and consider it a rallying cry for the implacable anger of Albertans that he sold a bunch of snake oil to during the last provincial election.

In the midst of this, you have senators like Conservative Senate Leader Larry Smith claiming that the Senate’s attempt to stop bills C-69 and C-48 are supposedly the last bastion of the provinces who are “under attack” by prime minister Justin Trudeau, which is hokum of the highest order. C-48 doesn’t landlock Alberta’s resources because the chances of a pipeline to the northern BC coast are virtually nonexistent given the Federal Court of Appeal decision on Northern Gateway’s failure, and the propaganda campaign against Bill C-69 is the completely divorced from reality, but hey – angry narratives to sustain. At the same time, Senator André Pratt is defending the Senate against accusations levelled from the likes of Andrew Coyne that they’re overreaching if they do kill C-48 (which they won’t), saying that they’re trying to do their job while being cognisant that they’re an appointed body. He’s not wrong, and it’s probably one of the better articulated pieces of late.

Meanwhile, the Conservative whip, Senator Don Plett, is denying that he’s stalling the UNDRIP bill, and he’s actually got procedure on his side for this one – the cancelled meeting would have been extraordinary, and there are reasons why the Senate doesn’t hold special committee meetings while the Chamber is sitting – which they are sitting later and later because they have so much business to get through because the Independent Senators can’t get their act together, and lo, we have the current Order Paper crisis that they are working their way through (though apparently not so urgently that they didn’t sit yesterday). Unfortunately, the media does love private members’ bills, and is focusing a lot of attention on them, no matter that most of them are actually bad bills that should probably die on the Order Paper (but people don’t like to hear that).

Continue reading →

QP: Calmly upset versus storming out

Posted on by

With Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh still at D-Day commemorations, and Andrew Scheer at a family event in Regina, there were no major leaders present. Lisa Raitt led off, and she made a statement about D-Day, and offered the government a chance to say how they are commemorating the event. Bill Blair read a statement about service and sacrifice in response. Raitt then moved onto affordability and a plea for a government to “stop the taxes” without specifying which ones, to which Ralph Goodale stood up and reminded her of the Middle Class™ tax cuts and the Canada Child Benefit. Raitt moaned about the loss of boutique tax credits, and Goodale noted that the net of the government’s changes mean that most families are $2000 better off than before. Alain Rayes then cited the false Fraser Institute figure that taxes were raised by $800 per year, to which Jean-Yves Duclos recited in French the same measures that Goodale listed. Rayes tried again, with added theatrics, and Duclos cited that he was upset that the opposition was painting a false picture (in his calm demeanour). Ruth Ellen Brosseau was up next for the NDP, and she read a lament about the settlement that CRA reached with KPMG clients, to which Diane Lebouthillier stated that she had asked the CRA for more transparency around settlements going forward. Daniel Blaikie repeated the question in English with added outrage, and Lebouthillier repeated her response. Blaikie then moved onto a demand for additional aid for homeless veterans, and Blair read that their whole of government approach was getting results with homeless veterans. Brosseau then read the French version of the same question, and Duclos repeated the same response in French.

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/1136701597906558977

Continue reading →

Roundup: Mild consequences for an outburst

Posted on by

It took several days, and the announcement happened fairly late on a Saturday night, but Andrew Scheer decided to strip Michael Cooper of his committee duty – but not deputy critic portfolio – after his committee outburst last week, when he lashed out at a Muslim witness who suggested that conservative commentary was in part responsible for radicalizing some white supremacists, including the shooter of the Quebec City mosque. Cooper’s outburst, you will recall, was to attack the witness and quote from the Christchurch shooter’s manifesto, not only naming him (as the New Zealand government has been reluctant to do) and reading part of that manifesto into the record, so that it will forever be part of the archives of the Parliament of Canada. Scheer said that he was satisfied with Cooper’s apology (which was tepid at best), and that he considered the matter closed now that he removed Cooper from the committee. Funnily enough, Cooper described it as “agreeing” with Scheer that he shouldn’t sit on that committee, which doesn’t sound like it was that punitive (and I’m not sure that removing someone from duties is really that punitive. Putting him on permanent Friday House duty would be more punitive than giving Cooper less work to do).

The witness at the receiving end of Cooper’s outburst, Faisal Khan Suri, says Scheer’s response is not good enough, and says that Cooper should be booted from the caucus. And to that end, Scheer made his big point about showing people the door if they don’t believe in equality (and Cooper reading from a white supremacist manifesto would seem to be a line that was crossed), but well, the matter is “closed.” Not that the Liberals will let them forget it, but this is politics these days.

Continue reading →