Tag Archives: Statistics Canada

Roundup: Closure and privilege

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It was wholly depressing the way in which the whole matter was rushed through. After the imposition of closure – not time allocation but actual closure – the government rammed through their motion to put all Hill security under the auspices of the RCMP without any safeguards to protect parliamentary privilege. After all, the RCMP reports to the government, and Parliament is there to hold government to account and therefore has privileges to protect that – the ability to have their own security being a part of that. Liberal MP Mauril Bélanger tried to amend the government’s motion to make it explicit that the Speakers of both chambers were the ultimate authorities, and the government said good idea – and then voted against it. And so it got pushed through, privilege be damned, with minimal debate and no committee study or expert testimony. The Senate, however, is putting up more of a fight, and the Liberals in that chamber have raised the privilege issue, and the Speaker there thinks there is merit to their concerns, and has suspended debate until he can rule on it. And this Speaker, incidentally, is far more aware of the issues of privilege and the role of Parliament and the Senate than his Commons counterpart seems to be, and he could very well rule the proposal out of order. One hopes so, and once again it seems that our hopes rest on the Senate doing its job, because the Commons isn’t doing theirs.

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Roundup: A million imaginary vacant jobs

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The government’s new ads about their Apprenticeship Loan Programme claims that there will be a shortage of “one million skilled tradesmen and women” over the next decade. The problem? Well, there’s just no labour data to support that claim, whether you go simply with skilled workers period – not just the trades – or any other sector really. And once again we find ourselves in the position where the government’s advertising is completely out of tune with reality, from promoting programmes that haven’t had parliamentary approval, which offer benefits that most people won’t get because they’re specific or the thresholds are low, or the benefits of which are highly overblown. But hey, we remember the excuse that this was all about trying to instil confidence in the economy and so on, right? Even the government admits that they need better labour market data, and they’ve started two new surveys to help provide it, but this is also what their cuts to Statistics Canada has wrought. But incomplete data is one thing – complete fabrications are another.

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Roundup: Witnesses that don’t fit the narrative

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The Senate is conducting pre-study hearings on Bill C-36 this week – seeing as the government wants it passed quickly and are doing everything possible aside from imposing actual closure to ram it through – and among the witnesses they’ll be hearing from is a male escort who has exclusively female clientele. You know, someone who will completely mess with the narratives that the government has been pushing with this bill about “protecting vulnerable women,” since the Senate tends to be good about that. I can imagine that the other sex workers will probably get a better hearing at the Senate committee than they did at the Commons justice committee, seeing as there is less of a vested interest in pushing the government agenda.

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Roundup: Passing knowingly flawed bills

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The Senate, it turns out, passed a tough-on-crime private members’ bill that contained a gaping error in it, and they knew it had an error in it and passed it anyway – with observations attached about the errors. Why? Because said private member had become a parliamentary secretary, and sending it back to the House to fix the error would have basically killed it because its sponsor could no longer sponsor it. It seems to me that there should have been a fix for that – generally a unanimous vote in the Commons that someone else take it on, as has happened when an MP retires while their bill is in process – but more to the point, if the government was so enamoured with it, then they should have drawn up a government bill that fixed the errors and put it through the process, which likely would have been expedited since it had already had committee hearings in its previous form. But hey, let’s keep up this nonsense of backbenchers sucking up to the government with these nonsense bills, and let’s keep up this bawling that the Senate shouldn’t overturn flawed bills that passed the Commons because they’re not elected. It’s really helping our legislative process, clearly.

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Roundup: NATO spending commitments

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As that NATO summit gets set to get underway in Wales, it looks like the face-saving final communiqué will state that the 2 percent of GDP on defence spending that they hope members will achieve will simply be “aspirational,” since it’s not going to happen with some members like Canada (which would essentially doubling our current defence budget). Stephen Saideman explores why it’s wrong for NATO to focus solely on the spending levels of member countries than it is on capabilities. It also sounds like NATO members are going to discuss making cyberwarfare as much of a threat to member nations as bombs, which is quite true of the modern era. It also sounds like the attention will be split between the threats posed by Russia and ISIS. Michael Den Tandt notes that while Harper keeps sounding tough, there is no escaping that the Canadian Forces are badly under-resourced – possibly as bad as the “Decade of Darkness” – and we can’t have it both ways of doing good work on the cheap. Katie Englehart has more on the broader context of the situation here.

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Roundup: Everyone on board the energy strategy

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At the final (for real this time) press conference of the premiers in PEI, they announced that everyone was on board for a national energy strategy. What that all means is up in the air, but it’s nice to know that everyone’s aboard – especially Quebec, who is also joining in with the other province to start bulk-buying their prescription drugs. BC and Saskatchewan made a side deal about wine and spirits between their provinces, while Alberta and Nova Scotia signed a labour mobility agreement around apprenticeships and credentials recognition (giving rise to the question of whether they’re making it easier for Nova Scotia to lose its young workers). Paul Wells writes about the changed tone of the meeting now that the PQ presence was gone, and both Kathleen Wynne and Philippe Couillard both are secure in strong majority governments, while he also has conversations with four of those premiers. Andrew Coyne remains thoroughly unimpressed by the whole affair, and the inability of the premiers to make trade concessions while they demand money from Ottawa when they have the ability – and room – to raise their own taxes for what they need.

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Roundup: Return of the fiscal imbalance

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Well, the premiers have met and have spoken and they think the federal government should pony up some more money – try to act surprised, everyone! Not only that, but they’re trying to revive the term “fiscal imbalance,” because it seemed to work the last time. In particular, they want more money for health to deal with an aging population (despite being guaranteed increases for the next decade) and reliable infrastructure funding (which is a bit more of a legitimate gripe considering the way the government back-loaded the Building Canada Fund). There was some talk about trade and labour mobility agreements, but nothing earth shattering on the interprovincial trade barrier file. Christy Clark noted that the topic of the constitution was not up for discussion – not even to bring Quebec into the fold at long last. Getting in his two cents, New Brunswick premier David Alward (who may not be premier for much longer, as his province is in an election) took the opportunity to lash out at Justin Trudeau for his saying that they should put a hold on more fracking until more studies of its impacts can be done. Alward says that New Brunswick can’t wait because it needs the jobs now.

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Roundup: A threatening break-in

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Vandals broke into Justin Trudeau’s home in Ottawa on Friday night, while his family slept (he was in Winnipeg at the time). Said vandals also left a threatening note that warned them to keep their doors locked – sitting atop a pile of items including kitchen knives, with several other knives arranged around the house. Oh, and apparently the designation for a public figure to get RCMP protection is up to the minister of public safety, and he’s being a bit evasive on the topic. It’s not only worrying that somebody would take this step, but that there are a whole chattering class out there who is either mocking Trudeau because his family was in danger, or who believe that this is all staged. Michael Den Tandt calls out the social media reaction on both sides – those who mocked Trudeau, and those who pin the blame on Harper, and the fact that none of the opposition parties stop their own partisans from demonizing Harper over social media either. It’s all part of the same poisoned ecosystem.

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Roundup: Totally not a partisan ad campaign

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Remember those anti-pot ads that the government plans to run, which totally aren’t partisan and totally not about Justin Trudeau? Well, as it happens, they don’t show up in planning documents, and there’s no budget for new television advertising, especially for ones geared toward marijuana specifically. But remember – it’s totally not partisan. Really! And it looks like those doctors’ groups are starting to reconsider their participation, because they can see what’s going on.

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Roundup: A guilty verdict for Sona

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The verdict is in, and former Conservative staffer Michael Sona has been found guilty of aiding and abetting the fraudulent robocall scheme in Guelph in the last election – though the judge made it clear that Sona was not the only one involved, and cast a lot of doubt on the testimony of Andrew Prescott, who was given immunity in exchange for said testimony. All throughout the process, Sona had tweeted about the poor quality of the Elections Canada investigation, and the judge seemed to echo some of those sentiments, but nevertheless found Sona to bear some culpability. The Conservatives, meanwhile, insist that they ran a clean and ethical campaign, and that this is just a couple of bad apples – but as Michael Den Tandt notes, the number of bad apples are piling up on the watch of this prime minister, and that question of judgement which Harper claims to be an issue when it comes to Justin Trudeau can be laid as much at his feet as well. Sona won’t be sentenced until mid-October, and he sounds like he’s preparing for the worst – prison time. There remains the possibility for him to appeal, but the grounds for appeal are fairly narrow and they would have to prove that the judge erred, and they couldn’t introduce new evidence in the case, such as having Sona testify in his own defence, which he didn’t during the trial.

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