Tag Archives: Statistics Canada

Roundup: Trying to make an election happen

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I find myself growing increasingly tired of the media’s singular focus on a snap election, wedging every possible story they can into this narrative. And every time I see it, I keep thinking “Gretchen, stop trying to make an election happen. It’s not going to happen.” Honestly, no party is suicidal enough to pull the plug with the third wave raging across the country, and the legislation to make safer elections happen still stuck at second reading and has been for months because the Conservatives have been playing procedural games in the Commons (though the government is hoping to finally get it to committee this week). And given next week is a constituency week, the soonest it might pass at this point is maybe – maybe – the first week of June. Maybe. And then it has a 90-day implementation period, so Elections Canada could not safely hold an election until maybe mid-September. Maybe. Yeah, it’s not going to happen.

Undaunted, The Canadian Press’ big story this weekend is about how parties are gearing up for a potential election, and how to do everything virtually if they can’t go door-knocking and so on. And I get that they are probably in the midst of doing some rudimentary preparations because this is a hung parliament and anything can happen, but honestly? It’s not going to happen until later in the fall at the very earliest. But this constant obsession with pumping out election stories is starting to look both desperate and tacky, especially because it’s not going to happen.

With that in mind, I found Chantal Hébert weekend column to be lacking, where she questions the need for the Liberals to have a majority if legislation is finding “dance partners” in the Commons. The problem there is that it’s a fairly facile measure of things, given that there are bigger problems than the few bills getting passed with a sufficient “dance partner” available – there have been so few bills passed this session because the Conservatives in particular are slow-walking every bill they can, and only recently did the Bloc and NDP wake up to that fact when they have bills they want to see advanced as well. Add to that, most of the committees are now in a state of dysfunction because of partisan dickishness, and most of them are in endless cycles of witch hunts on would-be “scandals” that have long-since played themselves out. I’m not sure how she sees this as being remotely productive, but that’s me.

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Roundup: Lying with statistics, quarterly GDP edition

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Statistics Canada released their fourth quarter GDP data yesterday, and it was surprisingly not bad – it far exceeded expectations for growth, with an annualized increase of 9.6 percent, and the estimates of January’s GDP numbers are that they will grow, in spite of renewed lockdowns/mockdowns across much of the country, which is good economic news. Comparatively, OECD data shows that Canada ranked second out of G7 countries in terms of GDP growth over the quarter – only Japan beat us. This should give rise to some cautious optimism about the direction of our economic recovery.

https://twitter.com/PhilSmith26/status/1366746936825548801

Erin O’Toole, however, declared that these figures just will not do, and that the country needs “economic leadership.” As proof, he cited that the country’s annual GDP fell a record 5.4 percent – the most since comparable data began being kept in 1961 – never mind that the economic shock was brought on by the global pandemic, plus the false notion that we have the “highest unemployment in the G7,” as well as high pandemic spending levels. The Conservatives keep trotting out these unemployment figures, but every country measures unemployment differently, so they are effectively lying with statistics. Even if we measured our unemployment by the same way the Americans do, the gap is consistent with the gap in figures that always exists between our countries. Meanwhile, we still have the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7, and our pandemic spending has insulated the economy so that it will be more resilient once we’re able to open – and hey, we also managed to have a much lower death count than most other G7 countries because we paid people to stay home. But part of the problem is that O’Toole (and most especially Pierre Poilievre) never gets called out for essentially lying with statistics, because the CBC has essentially given up on economics reporting, and the Financial Post largely sticks to getting their commentary from Jack Mintz and the Fraser Institute (with one or two exceptions). So O’Toole can stand at the lectern in the current ad hoc press theatre in the West Block and lie with statistics unchallenged, and media won’t call out the misinformation because they will either both-sides it, or just report it verbatim because they don’t know enough about the numbers to challenge it. It’s a sad state of affairs.

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Meanwhile, in more news that O’Toole is unwilling to have an honest discourse, his staff penned an op-ed in his name in the National Post calling on the government to turn to India instead of China for future economic growth – but the piece was deafeningly silent on Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalism, which has turned into pogroms against Muslims and mistreatment of Sikhs in the country. It’s a lie of omission to simply call India the world’s largest democracy and ignore the flagrant human rights violations going on there as well – but this is pretty much what we’ve come to expect from O’Toole and company, because We The Media have enabled them the whole way.

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Roundup: Consulting the caucus

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Yesterday the Star reported that Justin Trudeau has been so weakened by the WE Imbroglio that he is *gasp!* asking his Cabinet ministers and caucus for ideas about the upcoming Speech from the Throne. I find the fact that this is a news story to be pretty distressing because this is supposed to be how governments work in this country – it’s not supposed to be a one-man-show with the leader and his or her office running the whole party’s platform and policies.

This criticism certainly extends to what we just saw out of the Conservative leadership race, where each candidate had a policy book that they were running on – something that should never happen because it’s not leaders who are supposed to come up with policy, but the party’s grassroots members, and the Conservatives especially like to crow that they are a “grassroots party” that respects its members, and so on. If that was the case, why would your leadership candidates be trying to run on different policy platforms? And you can’t say that this is about what the leader believes in – policy platforms are not beliefs, and the party shouldn’t be contorting itself to fit the leader because it’s not supposed to be a personality cult, but sadly we’ve missed that boat, and that’s exactly what parties have become in this country.

As for the notion that Trudeau should be consulting with the Conservatives on his Throne Speech, as raised in the Star piece, he really has no obligation to – it’s not O’Toole’s job to prop up the government, even if Trudeau wants to project some kind of “all in this together” message about the economic recovery. That’s not how our system works – we need opposition to hold the government to account, and trying to co-opt the opposition with promises in exchange for co-operation weakens that accountability. There are two other dance partners that the government can tap to maintain confidence, but subverting the official opposition is not a viable course of action.

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Roundup: Feigned confusion and a filibuster

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As anticipated, the government unveiled their reforms to the wage subsidy programme yesterday, which included more of a sliding scale for revenue drops and how much support businesses could get before the subsidy phases out, which helps ensure that businesses don’t reach a “cliff” in terms of restart growth only to have that support ripped away at an arbitrary level. This has the business community both applauding the government for responding to concerns, while also moaning that it’s so complicated now, which has some economists rolling their eyes. It also looks like the government that insisted they don’t like abusive omnibus bills is rolling the legislation for these changes in with the new-and-improved disability payments, as well as the justice timelines legislation, so that’s something to look forward to when the House comes back next week for a single day.

Meanwhile, the Ethics committee met yesterday to start their own look into the WE Imbroglio (conveniently with many of the same faces who subbed in at the Finance Committee during its hearing), to which the Liberals on the committee, knowing that they don’t have sufficient votes, decided instead to filibuster things, which is not a good look. Their arguments that this undermines the work of the Ethics Commissioner ignores that his role is supposed to support them, not the other way around; the fact that they were blocking a motion to demand the receipts from Margaret and Alexandre Trudeau’s public speaking events from their Speaker’s Bureau going back to 2008 is a little more suspect, and I haven’t heard a reasonable rationale for it or how it relates to the proposed study on how well the conflict-of-interest regime is working. Suffice to say, this isn’t a good look for the Liberals, and there are better ways of beating the Conservatives at their own game than playing into their hands. It’s too bad that they can’t seem to grasp that.

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Roundup: A curious case for declaratory legislation

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A curious story showed up on the CBC website yesterday, wherein justice minister David Lametti stated that if it looked like pandemic delays were going to cause criminal trials to essentially “age out” of the court system as a result of the Jordan decision – meaning that once they reach a certain point, they are deemed to be stayed because they took too long and have become unconstitutional – that he would introduce legislation to “clarify” how the Supreme Court’s Jordan decision was to be clarified. It’s curious because it seems to be a bit of a made-up issue – the Jordan decision already stated that the 30-month timeline allowed for exceptional circumstances, and we can all agree that a global pandemic is by definition an exceptional circumstance. This isn’t to say that declaratory legislation isn’t a valid exercise, because it can be – but it just seems wholly unnecessary in this case, when there are other ways that the government could be better dealing with the criminal justice system and juries than worrying about the Jordan timelines.

In any event, here is defence lawyer Michael Spratt with some thoughts on the story:

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Roundup: An admission of systemic racism in Canada

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Prime minister Justin Trudeau’s daily presser was held away from Rideau Cottage yesterday, at a local business that benefitted from the wage subsidy, and it was remarked that it looked to be suspiciously like a campaign stop. Trudeau did his best to try and deflect blame for losing at political chicken – err, Wednesday’s inability to get the government’s latest emergency omnibus bill passed, outlining all of the places where items in the bill matched the demands of opposition parties, while dismissing some of the criticisms – primarily that of the Conservatives in their insistence on having full parliamentary sittings restored. The more memorable moment, however, was when he was asked about RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki’s comments that seem to dismiss systemic racism in the RCMP (though she did cop to unconscious bias), where Trudeau said that of course there is systemic racism in the RCMP, just like there is in all of our institutions, and that systems are not broken, but were in fact built that way. He went on to say that part of why it’s difficult to address is because it’s in the building blocks of these institutions, which should serve as a reminder to everyone that there are no quick fixes to any of this. He also went on to say that Canadian exceptionalism isn’t just that we do well, but that we know we need to do better and are willing to address it. This is probably the first time that a head of government has made this kind of an admission, and an acknowledgment of concepts that many Canadians are still coming to terms with – but he also did say that he had faith in Lucki to do the job of reforming the RCMP, so there’s that.

On the subject of the RCMP, Indigenous services minister Marc Miller is not having any of Commissioner Lucki’s excuses about not understanding systemic racism, and is critical that not enough has been done to combat it over the past two years. AFN National Chief Perry Bellegarde says that the federal government’s complacency allows police violence against Black and Indigenous people, and he’s right. And lo and behold, the dashcam footage of Chief Allan Adam’s arrest has been made public, and it is hard to see how senior RCMP officials could have concluded that the actions were “appropriate,” which is a big flashing indicator of a problem in the ranks.

Meanwhile, as the debate on bringing back Parliament properly progresses with Trudeau’s disingenuous excuses, Conservative House leader Candice Bergen has put forward a number of suggestions for how MPs could safely vote in-person in a returned Parliament – some of which I’m not in favour of, but at least it’s a better solution than the Pandora’s Box of remote or electronic votes, which the government favours – and make no mistake, they are an evil that will be unleashed and there will be no going back. (I have more on this in my weekend column, out later today).

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Roundup: Selling out parliament for a press release

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If there was any more sign of crass politicking than Jagmeet Singh starting the day by declaring that he would only agree to the government’s plans regarding continued special committee hearings in lieu of actual parliamentary sittings if the government ensured there was access to two weeks of paid sick leave available to Canadians, I’m not sure what else it could be. To predicate kneecapping the House of Commons in exchange for something you can count as a win is…quite something. Not quite the petulance of Andrew Scheer’s short-lived declaration that he would only wear a non-medical mask if regular House of Commons sittings resumed, but certainly brash.

To that end, Justin Trudeau held his daily presser and, in reference to the hipster jamboree at Toronto’s Trinity Bellwoods park on Saturday that social media spent the rest of the weekend litigating, said that the variety of local rules can be confusing but people should pay attention to what their jurisdiction’s rules are, and to keep physical distancing. Then then announced that the commercial rent assistance programme was now accepting applications, and outlined that half of the provinces would accept applications on that day, listed the provinces that would accept applications Tuesday instead, and that those with ten or more tenants were to apply Wednesday. Trudeau then said that he had spoken to Singh, and assured him that he was in discussions with the provinces to ensure that people got access to those ten paid sick days per year, but in the Q&A, gave the credit to BC premier John Horgan. That didn’t stop Singh from putting out a self-congratulatory press release immediately, as though this were a done deal and not negotiations that were ongoing because it’s mostly provincial jurisdiction. Trudeau also defended his party’s use of the wage subsidy, but because he can’t answer these questions like a real human being, it was mostly a lot of platitudes and verbal pabulum.

In the wake of this, a bunch of my Twitter critics felt like Trudeau’s discussions with the province on this sick day policy was some kind of an own to my constant reminders that this is provincial jurisdiction, which is bizarre because nothing has been agreed to. Trudeau can’t force the provinces to do anything, and even pointed out that the mechanism to make this happen is complicated – particularly if the provinces are going to expect the federal government to pony up for those paid days instead of forcing employers to pay for it themselves. But again, this isn’t something Trudeau himself can do on his own – he can try to get the provinces on board, but that’s not always a winning proposition. Look at the dog’s breakfast that the commercial rent subsidy managed to be, which is because it’s what the provinces could agree to, while Trudeau takes the blame. And even if the provinces get on board with this paid sick leave, it’ll still be months before that comes to fruition, but hey, Singh got a press release out of it, so he can declare victory to his base.

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Roundup: Dairy commissions and questions of jurisdiction

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There were a couple of announcements for prime minister Justin Trudeau’s daily presser yesterday – that Health Canada had approved a serological test that was critical to the work of the immunity task force; that some $1 billion in additional funds was being allocated to regional development agencies to help struggling businesses; and that the student benefits would be open for applications as of Friday. There were a lot of things that came up during the Q&A – demands from reporters for a budget or a fiscal update, for which Trudeau said that they couldn’t predict what was going to happen in a few weeks, so it didn’t make much sense to try to lay out a plan for the next twelve months. On the Canada-US border, it was strongly hinted that the current closure would continue for another month, but he wasn’t going to speculate past then. He talked about the need to work with provinces and municipalities as transit operators face a huge revenue shortfall. Regarding Norway’s sovereign wealth fund pulling its investments out of the oilsands, he remarked that it was clear that climate considerations were becoming a bigger feature in the investment landscape. He also promised to look into the issue of health researchers in the country facing layoffs because funding sources evaporated and they aren’t eligible for the federal wage subsidy because of a technicality.

And then it was off to the House of Commons, first for the in-person meeting of the Special Committee, which descended into farce fairly quickly and stayed there – Andrew Scheer railing about the revelations that potential fraud of the CERB isn’t being caught up-front, while his MPs both demand easier access to small business supports while clutching their pearls about the potential size of the deficit, apparently blind to the contradiction in their position. Meanwhile, Jagmeet Singh was demanding that the federal government swoop in and offer some kind of national guarantee around long-term care, giving Trudeau the chance to chide him about his disregard for provincial jurisdiction (and Trudeau was a little sharper on this than he often is).

The special committee eventually gave way to a proper emergency sitting of the Commons to pass the latest emergency bill, this time on increasing the borrowing limit of the dairy commission, while many a journalist mischaracterized this as “debating” said bill. There was no debate – it was pre-agreed to, and each party would give a couple of speeches that may or may not be related to the bill before they passed it at all stages for the Senate to adopt on Friday. At the beginning of this, however, Singh was back up with yet another motion, this time to call on the government to ensure that there was universal two-week paid sick leave – which is, once again, provincial jurisdiction. (The motion did not pass). I’m torn between trying to decide if Singh is genuinely clueless about what is and is not federal jurisdiction (a position bolstered by his promises in the election around things like local hospital decisions), or if he’s cynically trying to make it look like the federal government doesn’t care about these issues when they have no actual levers at their disposal to make any of these demands happen. Either way, federalism is a real thing, and trying to play it like it’s not is a real problem for the leader of a federal party.

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Roundup: One-time benefits for seniors

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The day began much as Monday did, with a ministerial presser in Toronto, where Bill Morneau and Deb Schulte announced a one-time additional benefit for seniors who earn low-income supports. People may ask why this was necessary given that they haven’t lost incomes (like others have), and the theoretical justification is that they may be facing some increased costs around things like deliveries, taxis, or prescription fees. There is also a particular political justification in that this is a bit of a sop to the Bloc, who have been howling about this for weeks, and we all know that it’s because seniors vote.

Shortly thereafter, Justin Trudeau held his daily presser at a slightly earlier time because of the impending sitting of the Commons “virtual” special committee, and he reiterated much of what had been announced earlier, but somewhat more unusually, stated that this pandemic has revealed uncomfortable truths about how we treat seniors in this country, and that there are serious underlying challenges that they will help the provinces with in finding lasting solutions. This particular construction is pretty key, because this is explicitly a provincial issue, and the federal government can’t just write in long-term care to the Canada Health Act as certain people have been demanding. The Act doesn’t work like that, as they should very well know. During the Q&A, Trudeau stated that the government planned to be very careful when it comes to easing border restrictions, and that he wasn’t going to ask for Carolyn Bennett’s resignation over the dispute over the Wet’suwet’en MOU.

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During the special committee meeting that followed, the Conservatives were hung up on the reporting that civil servants were instructed to ignore any potential cheating on CERB applications and process them anyway, with the goal to investigate and pursue repayment after this is all over. We’ll see if this concern over the government “ignoring fraud” carries over the next few days, or if this is an instance of the opposition chasing headlines.

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Roundup: Possibly a criminal leak

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

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

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

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