Tag Archives: Temporary Foreign Workers

Roundup: An apology on the second attempt

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It was prime minister Justin Trudeau’s first presser since the WE Imbroglio blew up over the revelations of his family being paid speakers for the charity, and there was a definite note of contrition this time. After hinting that the government would extend the wage subsidy until December with details coming later in the week, a mention of his call earlier in the morning with Donald Trump that touched on tariffs, Black Lives Matter, and China, and a promise on further updates on the Safe Restart Plan with the provinces to come later in the week, Trudeau turned to his mea culpa on the Imbroglio. “I made a mistake in not recusing myself from discussions, and I’m sincerely sorry about not having done that,” Trudeau said. He praised how the government got creative with designing programmes during the pandemic, and how they had worked with a range of partners to make it happen, but he was sorry that he didn’t remove himself from the discussions with WE, and that he was frustrated that youth would have to wait longer to do their party to serve because of the mistakes he made. (I would argue that WE’s plans raised a lot of red flags too, for what it’s worth). When asked if he would appear before committee to discuss what happened, Trudeau was non-committal, but in a hung parliament, he doesn’t have the votes to shield himself this time.

During the Q&A, he said that he pointed out to Trump about the disruptions to the aluminium supply chains and hoped that they wouldn’t see tariffs that would only slow down the economic recovery; he also mentioned that there were ongoing discussions around the border, but the rest of the time was spent reiterating, over and over, that he didn’t have the details on what his family members had been paid by WE and that he should have, and that he did seem to have some reflection that he needed to be careful on this file because of his past activity with the charity but that he didn’t go far enough and should have removed himself entirely from the conversation. Later in the day, Bill Morneau sent out his own apology for his own failure to recuse himself given his daughters’ activities with WE.

For what it’s worth, there seems to be some kind of learning curve because it only took the second try for Trudeau to give an apology rather than stick to talking points aimed at deflection until the conclusion of the Ethics Commissioner’s report, at which point there would be either an apology or admission of some kind of wrongdoing and a promise to do better next time. This time, we managed to skip weeks of such failed damage control, so that’s something, I guess.

Meanwhile, Susan Delacourt finds herself wanting when it comes to Trudeau’s explanation for how the whole thing went down, and hopes that he’s saving it for his discussion with the Ethics Commissioner. Matt Gurney gives credit where credit is due for Trudeau learning enough to make a rapid admission and apology rather than dragging things out for months. Paul Wells is unimpressed with the apology and wants a full accounting of what happened, particularly as it is increasingly evident that things were wrong with the WE contract outside of the apparent conflict of interest, and how those decisions were made need to be aired.

Good reads:

  • Ruh-roh! It looks like the federal government wasn’t enforcing the rules around temporary foreign workers, which allowed outbreaks to occur on farms.
  • Here is some number-crunching on the PM’s daily pressers in the first phase of the pandemic and lockdown, including on his choice of verbs and phrases.
  • The RCMP have charged a Quebec man with calling for Justin Trudeau’s death and the eradication of Muslims.
  • Former Liberal MPs who lost their seats in the last election are waiting to hear about nomination contests so they can be ready to run again.
  • Leona Alleslev has resigned as deputy leader of the Conservatives to more vocally back Peter MacKay, who says that no promises were made for her support.
  • Maclean’s has a profile of Conservative leadership candidate Leslyn Lewis.
  • Jason Kenney is accusing the federal government of preventing Apple from fixing the province’s contact tracing app, which requires iPhones to be unlocked to work.
  • Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column looks at the options for calling prime minister Trudeau to committee to testify on the WE Imbroglio.
  • Heather Scoffield is frustrated by the vague answers being given on the extension and amendments to the wage subsidy programme.
  • Colby Cosh recounts how Alberta has abolished its last vestiges of prohibition, by allowing liquor sales in Mormon-centric towns that were still “dry.”

Odds and ends:

For the CBA’s National Magazine, I wrote about Friday’s Supreme Court decision on genetic privacy, and what the broader implications of the ruling are.

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Roundup: Armed intruder at Rideau Hall

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The big excitement for the day was that there was an Incident at Rideau Hall first thing in the morning, as a Canadian Forces member, who was armed, crashed his truck through the gates of the compound and headed over to Rideau Hall on foot, where he was then apprehended by RCMP in what sounds like a two-hour “dialogue.” Apparently he wanted to “send a message” to the prime minister – who wasn’t at home at nearby Rideau Cottage at the time, nor was the Governor General in Rideau Hall (but if you recall, she has consistently refused to move into the residence there, preferring to stay at Rideau Gate). He was arrested without incident, and has apparently made online posts about a supposed COVID-19 conspiracy theory – and it comes just a day after anti-lockdown protests were happening on Parliament Hill, featuring a former has-been wannabe party leader who shall not be named, and some of the images seen on the Hill included those of Trudeau being hanged, while others touted these kinds of COVID conspiracies. So that’s fun.

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1278788951885721602

Meanwhile, over in Alberta, the rhetoric about the plan to hold a referendum on equalization rolls along, so here is political scientist Melanee Thomas to spill some tea about just exactly what they are talking about, and why the arguments aren’t as clever as they think they are.

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Roundup: An unequivocal no to interfering in an extradition

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For his daily presser, prime minister Justin Trudeau once again praised the wage subsidy, and highlighted yet another business who had used it to great effect – part of his ongoing campaign to convince more businesses to take it up and re-hire their employees as the economic restart continues to ramp up. By way of announcements, he spoke of new resources being made available for people and businesses who had questions about the re-opening, and then spoke about a $100 million investment in the Merit Functional Foods plant in Winnipeg as part of the “Protein Supercluster,” and creating more plant-based foods in Canada. Trudeau also spoke about a $94 million investment that Minister Karina Gould would be announcing at the SheDecides Conference, which would go toward the health, and sexual and reproductive rights of vulnerable women around the world.

During the Q&A, he was asked about the situation of temporary foreign workers from Mexico, to which he said that they were working with source countries and business owners to ensure that there were proper protections in place, and warned that there would be consequences for those employers that failed their workers, as three have now died in Canada. On the subject of airlines’ pleas to reopen international travel, Trudeau said that they needed to be very careful about reopening it, otherwise we would see a new spike in cases as they are experiencing in some other countries who opened sooner and not as carefully as most of Canada has. And then there were a raft of questions on the fraught questions of the arbitrary detentions of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, the extradition of Meng Wanzhou, and Chinese officials sniping at Trudeau to stop making “irresponsible” comments that link the case, even though they themselves have done so.

If there was anything newsworthy out of that was the fact that when asked if Trudeau would consider making a deal to halt the extradition in exchange for releasing the Two Michaels, Trudeau gave an unequivocal no, that he would not make any deal that would undermine our judicial system. When presented with the notion that Kovrig’s family sought a legal opinion to say that the minister could indeed interfere, Trudeau again poured cold water on that suggestion, again citing the need to keep our judicial independence in place. It’s worth remembering that Trudeau was part of a G7 announcement about governments making a commitment not to pay ransoms in order to protect their citizens from being the targets of kidnappings around the world, and hostage diplomacy is just that. (And for all of the smartasses over social media who said “He already interfered with the judiciary with SNC-Lavalin,” he did not interfere with the judiciary – the charge was that he tried to interfere with the prosecution, which was not the same thing, and I remain unconvinced that it was what actually happened, no matter some of the unsavoury things that did happen with the deferred prosecution agreement legislation).

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Roundup: Wilson-Raybould tries to rehabilitate her image

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There were a couple items of note that came up over the weekend, and the first was an op-ed penned by Jody Wilson-Raybould, which called for action in reforming the criminal justice system as a way of addressing systemic racism, but more curiously, offered an insistence that she tried to, but was blocked by “the centre” from doing so. I have questions. The notion that she was prevented from fulfilling one of the tasks assigned to her in her mandate letter by the PMO makes no sense whatsoever, which makes me wonder if the real issue here isn’t one of process.

Why I raise this question was the fact that there was a bunch of reporting about behind-the-scenes clashes between Wilson-Raybould and Carolyn Bennett on Indigenous self-government legislation, and Wilson-Raybould was insistent that they bulldoze ahead using criteria that she insisted on, as she felt that she was the expert in these matters, while Bennett was instead insistent that they continue to consult with Indigenous communities (because let’s face it – every time the government tries any kind of reform of existing laws concerning Indigenous people, it is immediately met with unhappy voices who tell the government to start over with consultations). It seems plausible to me that Wilson-Raybould was attempting to pursue criminal justice reforms in a manner that PMO or PCO raised concerns about. Backing up this theory are the fact that she was unable to manage her own bills as she presented them – for example, there was much fanfare over a bill to fully repeal laws that targeted gay men, but that bill was abandoned and folded into a larger bill, and that larger bill was also abandoned and folded into yet another larger bill before it was passed. She also insisted on specific provisions in the Medical Assistance in Dying legislation which everyone warned her the courts would strike down, and lo and behold, they did, and yet she was insistent. She was insistent upon random alcohol screening legislation that was almost certainly unconstitutional, and would actually make it more likely that police would use it to target Black, Indigenous or other visible minority drivers, and yet she stuck firm. She also convinced the prime minister to have Cabinet vote against the genetic discrimination legislation that came from the Senate, and went so far as to call up provinces that previously had no problem with the bill and beg them to oppose it, even after every single MP in the Chamber outside of Cabinet voted for it. After that passed, said she was going to immediately refer it to the Supreme Court of Canada (and then didn’t, but the Quebec government challenged it after she prompted them to, and that is now before the Supreme Court). So weighing all of these things, I’m sure you can understand why I might be dubious about her claims.

The other item of interest was a revisiting of Jagmeet Singh calling the Bloc House Leader a racist, and beyond people like Gilles Duceppe accusing Singh of “cheap politics,” looking at what happened through a procedural lens, you’ll find that what the Bloc objected to was introducing the motion – not the motion itself. Why? Because the usual practice is to give 48 hours’ notice for any motion so that the Commons isn’t blindsided, hence why introducing a motion without that notice period requires unanimous consent. Singh, as has become usual, introduced the motion as a performative gesture without going through the usual motions, and it’s more than plausible that the Bloc objected on procedural grounds than substantive ones, only to be rewarded by being labelled racists (never mind the fact that their support for Quebec’s Bill 21 on face-coverings may lend more substance to the charge than against it). Nevertheless, had Singh followed proper procedure, which exists for a reason, he may have had better success. Even more to the point, if he hadn’t been so quick to sign away resuming regular sittings, he could have used one of his allotted Supply Days to bring forward such a motion and have a full, formal vote on it after a full day’s debate on the subject. But he gave away that opportunity for the sake of a promise by the prime minister to talk to the premiers about sick leave rather than getting any substantive measure out of it, so he had only himself to blame ultimately.

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Roundup: Developing an app

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The day’s presser began with prime minister Justin Trudeau congratulating the winners of the UN Security Council seats, and gave an articulation of why it was important to Canada to try, and a promise that he would keep working to these laudable foreign development goals, even if we weren’t at the table. From there, he announced that the Canadian Digital Service, in cooperation with BlackBerry and Shopify, had been creating a mobile app to assist with contact tracing that was soon to be tested in Ontario, and this was a system that would collect no personal or location data – that it had a database of anonymized identifier numbers that could be triggered if someone tests positive – and that unlike other contact tracing apps, this one simply needed to be installed on the phone and it would run in the background, and not need to be open, which would drain the battery. (And Trudeau got really into it, because he is a geek about these kinds of things). Closing off, he spoke about new applications for the cultural industry and funds for national museums.

During the Q&A, Trudeau said that the late start to the Security Council race hurt us (and he’s not wrong there – many countries need the full eight to ten years to make a successful bid), for what it’s worth. He also made some fairly vague promises around trying to rein in the RCMP when it comes to their use of force, particularly against Black and Indigenous people. He also refused to condemn Jagmeet Singh’s outburst on Wednesday, saying it wasn’t for him to judge how a racialised leader perceived what happened.

On a completely different note, I was pleased to hear that the MPs in charge of the Centre Block renovations have decided to keep the existing footprint of the original Commons chamber, and didn’t take up the options to either expand into the lobbies behind or completely move the West wall and expand outward from there. They also say that the renovated Chamber could accommodate up to 420 MPs, but it also sounds like they may be leaning toward using benches, which would be terrific because desks are an Americanism, and simply encourage MPs to be doing work other than paying attention to the debates (and we’ve all seen the piles of Xmas cards that start showing up in the fall). I am less keen on the talk about physical distancing as part of the renovations, because they won’t be done for a decade, and we are likely to be over this pandemic by then, and we can work with the existing chamber and set-up perfectly well if we really wanted to.

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Roundup: Bad-faith grievance narratives and faux confusion

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The day started off on something of a petulant tone, as Andrew Scheer complained that people were “upset and confused” by prime minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to attend the Black Lives Matter protest in spite of the pandemic, and furthered the bad faith grievance narrative by pointing to the Ottawa restaurant that was fined $880 for opening its patio. Scheer, and other Conservatives, spent the day obscuring the difference between what the federal government is in charge of and what falls under local public health guidelines, and deliberately playing up this “confusion” where none should actually exist – there were public health guidelines that said that if people were going to protest that they should wear masks and social distance, and then self-isolate afterward, if anyone bothered to pay attention.

Trudeau was up shortly thereafter for his daily presser, and he talked at length about those protesting, and people being afraid of the police, and that he promised to deal with systemic racism and listed actions that his government has taken to thus far to deal with it, including mental health resources for the Black community, an anti-racism secretariat and strategy under the Minister of Diversity, and agreed that it’s not enough. He also said that he has been in discussions with Cabinet, as well as the RCMP commissioner, and that he was also raising the issue of body cameras with premiers this week. Trudeau also mentioned that Bill Blair was following through on their commitment to Indigenous policing, and that this week the government would be undergoing a stock-taking on their reconciliation efforts with Indigenous people. He then pivoted to the wage subsidy and other measures being taken to help people, the $14 billion being offered to help provinces with their economic restarts, and finally announced that they had introduced a number of limited exemptions at the border for immediate family members of Canadians to cross – spouses, children, parents of minor children in Canada – but that they must still self-isolate for 14 days upon arrival. During the Q&A, he defended his attending the protests as balancing competing interests.

On body cameras, it looks like the RCMP has agreed to outfit some members with them, but it remains a controversial move, that may be seen as a band-aid solution to deeper problems. (Here’s a good thread by lawyer Michael Spratt to that effect). It’s also pointed out that if we want to shift resources away from the current model of policing, this is a big expense that makes it even harder to do so.

As the talk of the defunding/abolishing police gains momentum, here is a look at how Camden, New Jersey, has been doing an experiment in scrapping their police force and starting over, and some of the more important things to realize in his are that the incentives changed – not judging performance by the number of arrests or tickets issued, and a focus on making connections in communities. Of course, it also says that they haven’t made enough investments in the other community supports that are supposed to underpin this model, so that’s something to think about.

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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.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1259819355866632192

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: Commercial rent relief on the way

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For his Friday presser, prime minister Justin Trudeau at long last unveiled the details of the commercial rent relief programme, now that they have ironed out the details with the provinces (considering that it’s their jurisdiction), which is essentially that commercial landlords (for properties where the rent is below a certain threshold) need to offer 75 percent discounts on their rent from April to June, and the federal government would provide non-repayable loans of up to fifty percent of said rents. From there, he mentioned that they were deploying Canadian Armed Forces personnel to certain long-term care facilities in Ontario and Quebec, and that they were working to beef up the salaries of existing long-term care workers. He also said that they were working with provinces and territories to establish guidelines for when they re-open their economies, but that people need to pay attention to the local rules and not those in other jurisdictions, because the outbreaks are different in each region. (During the First Ministers’ weekly teleconference later in the day, there was some agreement to this, and apparently each province and territory will be submitting their plans to the federal government).

Of course, with the news that there was an agreement on commercial rents, we got some fairly usual voices caterwauling that all rents needed to be dealt with, not just commercial ones. The response to that, of course, is to talk to one’s premier, because that’s where the responsibility lies – Trudeau can’t just swoop in because landlord and tenant legislation is strictly provincial, and the mechanisms they employed for the commercial rent relief are not necessarily suited for residential properties. And there was word today that Doug Ford wants the federal government to step in on residential rents – after he has been spectacularly unwilling to do anything and tells people to work it out with their landlords – so if there is more uptake with his fellow premiers in the next few days, they may try to design something, though I’m not sure exactly what, because I worry that there may be a bigger domino effect throughout the banking sector, but there are no quick fixes. And no, the national housing strategy does not give federal jurisdiction over rents, nor does the Canada Health Act provide a template for rent either, because there are no funding agreements with the provinces, nor would the federal government simply be transferring a pot of money to the provinces for residential rents. It’s complex, there are big jurisdictional issues, and Trudeau can’t and shouldn’t do everything. The provinces have a role to play and they should play it.

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Roundup: Long-term care and quarantine

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Andrew Scheer was out first this morning, saying that he was trying to get some kind of a deal with the government on how to bring parliament back next week as they are scheduled to, and that he wants in-person sittings of some variety to ensure ongoing accountability (and he’s right). But when asked about bringing his family on that flight when they weren’t planning on them being there (and apparently Senator Don Plett had to get a different flight because it was suddenly full with Scheer’s family), he brushed off said questions. He then spent the rest of the day raising “serious concerns” about the WHO and its recommendations (recall that Jason Kenney on Monday accused Dr. Theresa Tam of repeating talking points from the People’s Republic of China), because what the world needs right now is to hew to the Trumpian instincts to undermine international institutions.

Next up was prime minister Justin Trudeau for his daily presser, in which he announced that four planes full of N95 masks have arrived and are in the process of being validated and distributed, before he brought up $130 million of new funding for the northern territories, including more money for healthcare, for Nutrition North, for northern air carriers, and money for the CanNor development agency. He also noted that they were working to enhance the Canada Emergency Business Account programme and were looking into something about commercial rent (though that’s provincial jurisdiction, so not sure what the federal government could do). As if that weren’t enough, he also raised that they were strengthening some of the measures under the Quarantine Act, as well as boosting the capacity of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, particularly when it comes to ensuring there are more inspectors on the line. Oh, and he didn’t offer any apologies for his trip to Harrington Lake on the weekend, so there was also that. When asked about the issue of long-term care facilities (which is provincial jurisdiction), Trudeau did say they were working with the provinces to see about sending some additional funds to bolster salaries, so there’s also that.

Meanwhile, Vancouver’s city council tried to meet “virtually,” and here’s how that went down, in case anyone thinks it would actually go any better with 338 MPs in parliament.

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Roundup: Disconnected speeches before swift passage

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The daily routine of our pandemic times got a bit of a shake-up this morning as the ministerial presser took place at 11:15 instead of the prime minister’s, and topics included questions on temporary foreign workers being quarantined (or not), and discussions with the provinces about taking action on long-term care facilities, which have been hit hardest by this pandemic.

Shortly thereafter, the skeleton parliament met for its emergency legislation deliberations, if we can call it that. Justin Trudeau led off, raising the history of Vimy Ridge, his own grandfather’s service of going to war while still serving as an MP, and talking about how we needed to protect the Greatest Generation who are now in these long-term care facilities, vulnerable to the pandemic. Andrew Scheer followed with his own address, raising the spectre of the size of the deficit before patting himself on the back for all of the suggestions he’s offered the government this package. The other leaders followed in turn, before the Commons resolved itself to committee of the whole to question ministers in a quasi-Question Period for a lengthy period (the only real news being that Carla Qualtrough stated that they were looking at how to ensure that seasonal workers would also be able to benefit from the CERB), followed by speeches which seemed terribly disconnected from the substance of the bill. In fact, when the speeches ended, and they passed the bill at all stages by unanimous consent, it could be quite noticeable that they didn’t actually debate the bill itself – merely the current pandemic situation.

https://twitter.com/AdamScotti/status/1249050364864856065

The bill then headed to the Senate, where the only minister that Senators grilled for a couple of solid hours was Bill Morneau and his senior associate deputy minister, again largely on the generalities and not the specifics of the bill. Once Morneau left, they adopted the bill at Second Reading and then moved to the speeches during Third Reading, and it seems to me that pretty much every senator present got their own turn, some of them more disconnected from the bill than others. Eventually it too passed, and went on for a swift royal assent. The Senate did come to an agreement on two committees to meet virtually to provide some oversight – now that they allow non-affiliated senators to sit on them – as well as agreed to strike a special committee later on to provide a definitive post mortem on the pandemic.

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