Tag Archives: Steven Guilbeault

Roundup: The wrong people taking credit for disinflation

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Statistics Canada released the January Consumer Price Index data yesterday, and lo, it shows that inflation is dipping back into the control range at 2.9% annualized, which was lower than anticipated, and fairly broad-based including food prices decelerating to just above the headline number, meaning prices are stabilising finally, and yet somehow, with carbon prices still in place, and the grocery oligopolies not having been subjected to punitive windfall taxes. Imagine that!

In all seriousness, because there were month-over-month price drops in fuel prices in Manitoba thanks to Wab Kinew’s decision to pause gas taxes, and Saskatchewan not collecting the carbon levy, we got a bunch of people who should know better saying stupid things about carbon prices and inflation. Kinew, who has economics training, should especially know better.

Inflation is a year-over-year measure. Carbon prices have a negligible impact on it because it rises at the same level every year, so it’s not inflationary. A one-time drop in prices is also not deflationary or disinflationary because it’s a one-time drop, not sustained or pervasive. If you need a further explainer, economist Stephen Gordon has resurrected this thread to walk you through it.

On the subject of things that are unfathomably dumb, it looks like the CRA has decided to buy Saskatchewan’s transparent legal fiction that the provincial government is the natural gas distributor for the province, in spite of it being against the clear letter of the federal and provincial law, which means that consequences for the province not remitting the carbon levy on heating will be borne by Cabinet and not the board of SaskEnergy. What the hell?

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian attacks on the northern part of Ukraine killed seven on Tuesday, while Ukraine’s forces say they destroyed 13 out of 19 drones launched by Russia on Wednesday. Ukrainian officials are investigating the Russians shooting three soldiers captured on Sunday. Here is a look at the shattered ruins of Avdiivka. Ukraine’s state arms producer has signed an agreement with a German arms manufacturer to help produce more air defences domestically.

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Roundup: Another day of Guilbeault-baiting

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It’s becoming a little too predictable, and yet here we are again. Steven Guilbeault said something not even that controversial—that we have enough roads to suit our needs so the government isn’t going to spend more infrastructure dollars on major projects to grow them, while they focus on other things like transit and active transport. He’s not even terribly wrong for the most part—there is reams of evidence to show that expanding roads and highways doesn’t cure congestion but merely causes more, so the focus should be on other priorities.

Predictably, everyone freaked out—Conservatives went into full meltdown, and the premiers all lined up to howl about this, when again, they know he’s not wrong, and oh, by the way, there isn’t any money left in the infrastructure fund anyway, so why does it matter? Guilbeault was trotted out to say that he should have been more specific in his comments, and he was mostly referring to the Third Link proposal in Quebec City, which they have no intention of funding, but of course, by that point, the narrative is set as chuds across the Internet have been memeing this for all it’s worth.

Dunking on Guilbeault has become something of a national preoccupation, and news media likes nothing more than to both-sides this sort of thing, taking the bait to continue to give uncharitable readings and framing this as he and the government being “out of touch.” If there’s one thing that makes everyone angry, it’s the whole “war on the car” bullshit that keeps incredibly bad city councillors and mayors in power across this country. And we wonder why we are incapable of serious discourse in this country?

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces say that they used naval drones to sink a Russian landing ship in the Black Sea. Here is an explainer of the security assurances that Ukraine is signing with a number of countries including Canada.

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Roundup: The disinfo is coming from inside the house

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Happy New Year!

I’m going to ease us back in with a reminder that yes, the far-right extremists, grifters, conspiracy theorists and grievance tourists who occupied Ottawa last winter were not an imported phenomenon, but have firm roots in Canada and the discourse here. Yes, some of it does get imported, where it finds fertile soil, but we do export our share of it too, which is one of those fundamental things that our policy-makers are going to have to grapple with in the coming year.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1609902285156646913

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1609902289443229698

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In case you missed it:

  • My column on the problems with the federal ethics regime and why the Liberals have such a problem with it.
  • My column on the government being very slow to pass bills over the past session, as their ambitious agenda stalls.
  • My column on why decades of austerity is one of the reasons for why people are complaining that Canada is supposedly “broken.”
  • My Loonie Politics Quick Take on why Bill C-22 is one to watch over the New Year.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 314:

Russian forces did not slow their attacks on Ukraine over the Christmas and New Year period, and president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that Russia is planning a protracted drone strike campaign to “exhaust” Ukraine. Ukrainian forces struck Russian positions in Donetsk, which Russians claim killed 63 soldiers, one of the deadliest attacks since the invasion began, as ammunition stored at the area of the strike exploded.

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Roundup: 100 basis points, because the Bank of Canada is serious

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It’s day one-hundred-and-forty-one of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and with Russian forces trying to turn the entire Donbas region to ashes with continued shelling, Ukrainian forces have been trying to reclaim some ground in the south, hitting another ammunition depot in Nova Kakhovka. Russian missiles struck the southern cities of Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia, as a show of their determination to hang onto their gains in the south.

Closer to home, the Bank of Canada raised their key overnight rate by 100 basis points, so that interest rates are now sitting at 2.5 percent, which is in the middle of their estimated “neutral” range of two and three percent. This means that the rate is not supposed to be either stimulative or contractionary. The hike was so high in large part because of the shock value—the Bank wants to break any psychological expectation that can lead to an inflationary spiral, where people keep expecting inflation to keep rising, and behave in ways that reinforce it. This goes for wages as well, and the Bank is trying hard to send signals that will hopefully keep a wage spiral from happening, where wages rise to meet inflation, which just increases demand and stokes inflation, and the cycle becomes self-reinforcing. The Monetary Policy Report also included an interesting section where the Bank examined why their previous estimates went wrong, and while they didn’t conclude that it’s because they don’t have a division of precognitive psychics guiding policy, they did find that a lot of the global shocks didn’t factor into their calculations. One such example was oil prices—their modelling used oil prices as being stable, but when they jumped, that threw off their modelling. And the invasion of Ukraine really did a number on everyone’s models, so the Bank of Canada wasn’t unique there.

When it comes to political reaction, both the Conservatives and the NDP sent out press releases freaking out. The Conservatives blame government spending for inflation, instead of its actual causes, and freak out that the cure is high interest rates, as though one can have it both ways in perpetuity. (This is the alleged “party of sound economic management,” who continually prove they are fiscally illiterate). The NDP think the cause of inflation is price gouging, instead of the actual causes (which isn’t to say that there hasn’t been some, but it’s not the cause), and therefore interest rates going up punishes people. Which is also missing the point. And it would be nice if we had opposition parties that were economically literate and capable of challenging the government on its bullshit rather than on largely imaginary problems.

https://twitter.com/mattgurney/status/1547403312378650627

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Roundup: Undermining the central bank to score points

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It is now approximately day sixty-one of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and after saying that they would blockade the remaining Ukrainians trapped in Mariupol, the Russians have instead tried to storm the steel plant where they are holed up. As well, over Orthodox Easter weekend, they have shelled residential areas of Kharkiv, and fired missiles at Odessa, so that’s concerning. As well, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had a meeting with two US cabinet members, where Zelenskyy is expecting more arms and security guarantees.

Closer to home, as the narratives around inflation get more ridiculous the longer they go unchallenged, remember that this both undermines the ability of the Central Bank to do its work, and ultimately it undermines its independence because they have to fight political narratives about them without actually fighting them, which is a hell of a thing to try to do.

And the longer the nonsense goes unchallenged, and my media colleagues try to be cute about “heehee, everyone is a little bit right!” as they both-sides the nonsense, the closer I’m getting to this particular Effin’ bird:

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Roundup: Lower-tier leadership candidates

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It is now on or about day fifty-five of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and it looks like the fighting in the eastern part of the country, around the Donbas region, has intensified as has been signalled for a couple of weeks now. At the same time, more missile attacks have hit western cities in the country like Lviv, which has mostly been out of the fighting, so that is keeping everyone on edge, particularly given that Lviv is hosting a lot of the people who have fled from other parts of the country.

Other news from Ukraine over the long weekend:

  • Thus far, the invasion has damaged about 30 percent of the country’s infrastructure, at a cost of about $100 billion.
  • There were further attacks on Kyiv over the weekend, possibly in retaliation for the sinking of the Moskva
  • Ukrainian fighters in Mariupol are defying Russia’s surrender-or-die orders
  • Here is a look at the situation LGBTQ+ Ukrainians find themselves in during the war.

Closer to home, Power & Politics interviewed Conservative leadership candidate Roman Baber yesterday, and it was…painful. He is not a serious person. At all. He kept speaking in facile talking points about “restoring democracy,” as though we didn’t just have free and fair elections, based on his nonsense reading of public health restrictions and what happened during the Ottawa occupation, with a dose of facile catch-phrases about “cancel culture.” And, bless her, Vassy Kapelos did gently try to push back against some of what he said, but wow. I would be very surprised if he manages to get his $300,000 in fundraising and all of his signatures to become a verified contestant because he offers nothing original, and even if this about trying to rebuild his profile after being booted from the caucus provincially, it’s a very difficult way to go about it, with not much in the way of reward.

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Roundup: Breakaway caucuses are more headaches for O’Toole

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Things in the Conservative caucus seem to be getting increasingly precarious, as a “small number” of MPs continue to remain unvaccinated, and others refuse to disclose even if they are vaccinated, which is going to be a problem for Erin O’Toole in two weeks when they need to show proof of vaccination to enter the parliamentary precinct, their offices, or reach the House of Commons.

As if this weren’t enough, you have more unofficial “breakaway” caucus groups forming – one of them calling themselves the “civil liberties caucus,” apparently headed by Marilyn Gladu, who are concerned with the loss of “medical privacy” over vaccine status; the other is allegedly rallying around fiscal and deficit issues (and I would be tremendously surprised if this isn’t a faction led by Pierre Poilievre). And for context, particular “caucus” groups are fairly normal, but they tend to be around things like friendship groups with other countries, or other soft parliamentary diplomacy. This is not it, and while Gladu insists that this isn’t about O’Toole’s leadership, but it’s hard not to see it that way – especially as he should have been clamping down on the anti-vax contingent in his caucus and party more broadly because there is still a pandemic going on, and pandering to a group that is heavily influenced by conspiracy theories is frankly insane.

Nevertheless, this is where we find ourselves. O’Toole continues to try and play both sides of the fence, saying he’s encouraging vaccination but won’t enforce it when people refuse for no good reason at all. The fact that the party has made itself beholden to its social conservative and more fringe base because they’re the ones who both fundraise and volunteer is a problem for the party over the long term, as the need to keep appeasing this base isn’t going away. That makes it harder for the rational, moderate Conservatives from having influence (witness the savaging they gave to Michael Chong in 2017, and Peter MacKay last year, even though MacKay wasn’t even a real Red Tory). So long as O’Toole refuses to put his foot down in the face of a global pandemic, he’s enabling more of the decline and that bodes very poorly for the future of the party, and Canadian political discourse.

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Roundup: Enter the new Whip

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Newly-appointed Chief Government Whip Steve MacKinnon had a conversation with CBC over the weekend, and there are a few interesting bits in there. For one, I didn’t actually realise that the term came from 18th-century hunting slang for “whipper-in, as the rider who keeps hounds from straying from the pack. So it’s not about any kind of literal or metaphorical whipping of MPs to vote a certain way, and now we’ve both learned something new today.

What I did know before is that there is more to the whip’s job than just ensuring MPs vote in certain ways, particularly if there’s a confidence vote upcoming. Rather, the whip and his or her office has a lot of work in juggling assignments – who is on what committee, who can stand in for that MP if they are away, and to an extent, who has House duty. And because the whip is largely the person in charge of MPs’ attendance (even if said attendance is not made public), I have it on very good authority that the Whip spends a lot of time listening to MPs as they unburden themselves, and talk about what is going on in their lives as to why they can’t attend a committee meeting or vote. The whip also becomes responsible for the staff in a riding office if that MP resigns or dies in office. And then comes the discipline part, which is different between each party. Some parties are very strict about it, some have unofficial ways of enforcing discipline – largely through in-group bullying – and some are fairly relaxed over the issue provided it’s not a matter of confidence.

The other thing I would add is that at the advent of the era of “Senate independence,” as Justin Trudeau and others would have you believe, the whip in the Senate was equivalent to in the House of Commons, and they instructed senators how to vote – or else. This was simply not true – the whip in the Senate was always rather illusory, and the Whip’s office was more about doing things like committee assignments, finding alternates for those who were absent, and assigning things like office space or parking to incoming senators who joined the caucus. They had little to no leverage of senators and their voting patterns because of institutional independence, and I heard a former Liberal senate leader once remark that on one occasion when the leader’s office on the Commons side called them up and said they’d really like it if senators could vote for a certain bill, that these senators turned around and voted the other way, just to prove a point around their independence. So there is a lot more to the role than people may expect from the outside, and best of luck to Steve MacKinnon as he takes on this new role.

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Roundup: A refreshed Cabinet for a new parliament

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So, that was the big Cabinet shuffle. It was extensive, and we saw three ministers dropped entirely (not the first time), a few promotions, a few demotions, and a lot more hybrid and chimeric ministries which will make governance a challenge to say the least. Nevertheless, here we are. Some observations:

  • This was not a new Cabinet or ministry – this was just a shuffle. It’s also not a third term or mandate, because we don’t have those in Canada – it’s the third parliament that the current ministry has spanned.
  • Marc Garneau’s exclusion from Cabinet has fuelled rumours he’s about to become ambassador to France. My presumption is that Bardish Chagger’s exclusion is because she is going to be the new Whip, as the old Whip and his deputy are now in Cabinet. Jim Carr’s departure may be health-related.
  • After Trudeau had rather bravely centralized all of the economic development agencies under one roof and didn’t have them beholden to local ministers and the corrupting influence that offers, he has relented and re-established the practice of regional economic development ministers again, and undone the work of trying to clean up the mess they create.
  • The most important portfolios – finance, defence, foreign affairs – are now all held by women. Anita Anand is the second woman defence minister in Canadian history (the first being Kim Campbell), and her background as a law professor specializing in governance can only help in a role where there has been a crisis in civilian oversight. As foreign affairs minister, Mélanie Joly will have to deal with the tensions between the US and China (and our general lack of a coherent foreign policy).
  • Splitting up Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness was a good and necessary thing; giving Bill Blair emergency preparedness and not public safety is an even better thing because Blair was essentially at risk of capture in the role as a former police chief (with a questionable record around actions of the Toronto Police during the G20 to boot).
  • There are nine new faces in this configuration of Cabinet, and more diversity – the first Black woman since Jean Augustine, the first out lesbian minister, and the queerest Cabinet in Canadian history.
  • Putting Steven Guilbeault in environment may yet be a huge disaster given how badly he mismanaged Bill C-10, but Jonathan Wilkinson in natural resources will likely mean a steadier hand on some of those files where the two overlap.
  • Carving off an associate health minister portfolio for Carolyn Bennett to deal with addictions and mental health is a bit of a throwback to when she was the first minister of state for the newly-created Public Health Agency of Canada, back in the Paul Martin era. Jean-Yves Duclos in health – an economist who did a lot of work on poverty reduction – means he’s not going to be fooled by provinces trying to get more money out of the federal government that they plan to spend elsewhere.
  • Trudeau says he plans to lead the Liberals in the next election, but I’m not sure I believe him, and of course he’d say that now. He wouldn’t actually say he plans to leave until it comes time to do so, lest he turn himself into a lame duck without any moral authority to get anything done.

And now, the talking heads. Aaron Wherry hears from a Senior Liberal Source™ that the message of this Cabinet is the need for urgent delivery of promises. Heather Scoffield makes note of the activists leading the environment and housing files. Jason Markusoff highlights the squirming that Jason Kenney and others are doing now that Steven Guilbeault is the environment minister. Althia Raj sees some attempted legacy-building in Trudeau’s choices.

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QP: Freeland vows to protect free expression

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The Commons was a little emptier than the new normal of late, but as our rock of stability, Mark Gerretsen was again the only Liberal on the Chamber. Again. Candice Bergen led off in person, with a script in front of her, and she complained that Americans were getting together and attending packed sports stadiums while most Canadians were still “locked down,” and blamed the federal government’s inability to procure vaccines out of thin air. Chrystia Freeland reminded her that over twenty million doses have already arrived, and more were on the way. Bergen then read a bunch of blatant falsehoods about Bill C-10, for which Freeland assured her that as a former journalist, she understands the importance of freedom of expression and they would never endanger it, which this bill does not do. Bergen then raised Guilbeault’s blunder about “Net Neutrality,” and accused the government of trying to control speech, and Freeland repeated her response. Gérard Deltell carried on raising Guilbeault’s many blunders, and Freeland reassured him that everyone was against censorship, but they were concerned with the cultural sector. Deltell raised that Guilbeault keeps needing to correct himself, and Freeland repeated that as a former journalist, she would never limit freedom of expression, which the bill does not do.

Yves-François Blanchet rose for the Bloc, and he crowed about the Quebec government tabling a bill on protecting French, and Freeland read that the federal government recognises that the situation of French in Quebec is unique, and that they would study the bill in depth. Blanchet was disappointed that Freeland was insufficiently thrilled with the bill, and demanded a promise that the federal government would not challenge that bill in court. Freeland would not give him such an assurance.

Jagmeet Singh raised the blood deferral for men who have sex with men, and demanded to know why the prime minister would promise to overturn the ban and then not do it. Freeland assured him they support overturning the deferral, but they respect the authority of independent decision-makers and science. Singh complained in French that this didn’t make sense, but Freeland repeated her answer.

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