Tag Archives: The Senate

Roundup: Misreading Friday’s decision

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In light of Friday’s Supreme Court of Canada decision on the Impact Assessment Act, Conservatives are already making some pretty stupid demands, like this one from MP Shannon Stubbs, who wants to move a motion at the Natural Resources Committee to repeal the old Bill C-69—except that it’s not what the Supreme Court ruled on, it’s a complete misreading of what the ruling was, and more to the point, would try to repeal the parts that are constitutional, and create even more uncertainty in the market. If people think that the system that the Harper government put into place was somehow better, all it did was ensure that project approvals wound up in litigation because there was too much uncertainty and ambiguity in the rules, and it didn’t do anything to speed approvals like they claimed it would.

For those of you who aren’t quite following, the thrust of the Court’s ruling was not that the whole scheme is unconstitutional, but rather that the list of things the federal government put into the Act in order to trigger a federal environmental assessment was overbroad, particularly around the issue of treating greenhouse gas emissions as an automatic federal issue because it’s a cross-boundary effect. That was too broad for the Court’s liking, so they’re essentially telling the government to narrow the scope of what triggers an assessment—that’s it. As previously stated, the Court explicitly rejected the notion that a “provincial” project is immune from federal assessment, so any talking points related to “exclusive jurisdiction” are also bogus, but so many people are proving that they either didn’t bother to read the decision, or if they did, certainly didn’t understand it.

Meanwhile, here’s another explanation of Friday’s ruling, this time from Martin Olszynski, Nigel Banks and David Wright.

Ukraine Dispatch:

On the 600th day of Russia’s illegal and unjustified invasion of Ukraine, their assault on the city of Avdiivka appears to be losing steam, after Ukrainian forces repelled 15 attacks from four directions over the previous 24 hours. Russians are also apparently looking to pierce the front lines in the Kupiansk-Lyman area on the country’s northeast. Elsewhere, Russia launched another overnight attack, with five missiles and twelve drones, focused on the western part of Ukraine.

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Roundup: Zelenskyy’s trip to Canada

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It was Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s big day in Ottawa, his first since the war began, and he began the day paying a visit to Governor General Mary May Simon. She taught him the Inuktitut word “Ajuinnata,” meaning perseverance in the face of adversity, and it’s a message Zelenskyy took with him. (Simon also taught that word to the Queen when she was first appointed, and has been something of a calling card that she leaves with those she interacts with).

From there, Zelenskyy arrived on Parliament Hill and did the official greetings within the West Block before having an extended bilateral meeting that included signing new economic agreements and pledges of another round of economic and military support from Canada. And from there, to the House of Commons to address a joint session of Parliament, giving an excellent speech (that was far better than the one Joe Biden delivered a few months ago).

From there, Zelenskyy was off to Toronto to meet more business groups and supporters in Canada. The CBC has photos from the day here, and here is a summary of what was agreed to between the leaders.

Ukraine Dispatch:

While the cat’s away… Ukrainian forces launched a missile strike against Russian forces in occupied Crimea, and destroyed the headquarters of Russia’s navy in the region. On the eastern front, Ukrainian troops are vowing to fully re-take Bakhmut, but know that it’s going to be a challenge.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1705219158013522222

https://twitter.com/rustem_umerov/status/1705273496157192520

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Roundup: The failed “1 Million March”

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The supposed “1 Million March 4 Children” took place yesterday in cities across Canada, and in most instances, were drowned out by counter-protesters—a welcome sign to be sure. And to be clear, these protests have nothing to do with children, or “parental rights,” but is focused largely on the moral panic around trans rights (and the falsehood that they are mutilating and sterilising children), pronoun policies in schools, and the libel that this is somehow about gays “grooming” children, or indoctrinating them to be gay. The attendees are pretty much a toxic brew of leftover “Freedom Convoy” enthusiasts, grievance tourists, far-right nationals, and some Muslim parents whom they have temporary found common cause with (and don’t expect this to last, given that much of the far-right agitation in Canada has its roots in Islamophobia, but they’re happy to let the Muslims agitate against LGBTQ+ people on their behalf). A few arrests were made at some of the demonstrations, but they were largely peaceful in that regard. (Write-up of the Ottawa event here, with photos here).

In terms of political reaction, the marchers didn’t get much support, outside of New Brunswick premier Blaine Higgs who greeted them and made common cause with them, because of course he did. In Ottawa, Jagmeet Singh led a counter-protest march, while the Conservatives were instructed to steer clear and say nothing, not even when it was raised in Question Period, as they sat stone-faced when others clapped about the denunciation of anti-trans hate. This silence is of course deliberate—it’s not because of a lack of conviction, but because they don’t want to jeopardise any ability to try and eat into the PPC’s far-right voter base, because that’s how they think they’ll edge out the Liberals in the next election. And I really have to question how MPs like Melissa Lantsman and Eric Duncan can sit there through this as though this doesn’t affect them (because remember, there is not “good parts only” version of right-wing populism. You can’t try and dog-whistle about “gender theory” and think that it’ll stop there, because it won’t).

The thing that gets me through all of this so-called movement to “protect children” is this insistence that LGBTQ+ people must be “grooming” children or indoctrinating them because there’s this belief that they’re too young to know if they’re gay or lesbian, or even trans. In most cases, that’s not true—most kids know who they are, and most of us older LGBTQ+ people have been through miserable and unsupportive youth and adolescence, and want to ensure that the next generation doesn’t have to go through what we did. That these people are masking their homophobia and transphobia as concern is one thing, but it’s the complete lack of empathy on their part that really gets me.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians conducted strikes in at least six cities, including Kyiv, Kherson, Kharkiv, Cherkasy, and Lviv. AP has a look inside a Ukrainian platoon that freed Andriivka. At the UN, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the Security Council about Russia breaking the UN Charter.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1704473607273881853

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau told a climate event at the UN General Assembly that Canada is on track to exceed its methane reduction targets (but we did expand our fossil fuels).
  • As Trudeau has been having pull-aside meetings at the UN, Australia’s foreign minister calls the allegations about Indian agents “credible.”
  • Mélanie Joly relayed Canada’s “grave concerns” about Azerbaijan escalating military action in the Nagorno-Karabakh region involving Armenians.
  • Canada will pull some of its diplomatic staff from India following recent threats.
  • The Privacy Commissioner says Canada Post broke the law by harvesting information from envelopes and packages.
  • The Ombudsman for Responsible Enterprise is investigating Levi Strauss for possible forced labour in their supply chain.
  • Indian officials have suddenly started claiming students in Canada face risks to their personal safety, undermining their own High Commissioner’s comments.
  • American politicians are warning Canada against implementing a possible digital services tax on web giants (which we won’t do if the OECD gets its act together).
  • A group of senators are calling on the government to institute stricter criteria for schools that host international students.
  • Senator Jim Quinn introduced a bill to make the isthmus between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia federal jurisdiction (but that is a money bill and illegitimate).
  • Here is a look at Senator Marilou McPhedran’s outsized Senate expenses (which includes some journalistic malpractice, like getting quotes from the CTF).
  • Liberals from Atlantic Canada are calling out Conservative opposition to a bill that would extend the Atlantic Accords to include renewable energy such as wind farms.
  • Pierre Poilievre tabled his housing bill, which I’m dubious will even be voteable.
  • The Centre Ice Conservatives/Canadians group is calling their new political party “Canadian Future” (which is almost certainly a doomed venture).
  • A second Doug Ford minister, Kaleed Rasheed, resigned from Cabinet and stepped away from caucus over a trip to Vegas with Greenbelt Developers and lying about it.
  • Paul Wells pays a visit to Hamilton East Stoney Creek after the poll numbers look to be shifting there, and talks to the putative Conservative candidate about the mood.

Odds and ends:

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Roundup: Inflation falling into the control range

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The inflation numbers were out yesterday, and headline inflation dropped to 2.8 percent annualized, which is the lowest in the G7, and back within the Bank of Canada’s control range of 1 to 3 percent (though they have stated they are going to keep measures in place it reaches two percent). There are still hot spots—food price inflation is still fairly high, and shelter costs are also running high, but that’s not unexpected given where things are at right now.

Chrystia Freeland called this news a “milestone moment” that Canadians should feel some relief in, while the Conservatives repeated some of their usual talking points. The NDP, naturally, are keeping up with their attempt to blame high inflation on corporate greed, particularly food price inflation, even though the data doesn’t really bear that out, as I pointed out in this thread:

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian forces struck the southern port city of Odessa, and while most of the missiles and drones were intercepted, there were hits and there was damage from debris. This was considered to be retaliation for the explosion on the bridge linking Russia to occupied Crimea. More strikes are aimed at Odessa in the early morning hours. Meanwhile, with the Black Sea grain deal ended by Russia, the EU is looking to transport more Ukrainian grain by rail and road, while the UN says they are floating “a number of ideas” around how to get that grain flowing again.

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Roundup: Whitewashing Orbán

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The thing that had Twitter all abuzz yesterday (aside from the launch of Threads) was a meeting between former prime minister Stephen Harper and Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán. Harper was tweeting about “centre right parties strengthening their collaboration” through his IDU club, and lo, people were losing their minds. Harper also mentioned “the IDU’s strong support for Ukraine,” so one could be extremely charitable in suggesting that perhaps Harper was trying to get Orbán on-side with supporting Ukraine where he has not been so far, but one doubts that it had any particular effect.

First of all, the IDU is not some fascist plot. Stephen Harper is not a Bond villain, pulling the strings of these strongman leaders. He’s a political has-been, a middling economist whose only lasting legacy in Canadian politics was the GST cut. Viktor Orbán and Narendra Modi are not looking to Harper for advice, and they most certainly are not taking orders from him. The IDU is a social club for awful people, but that’s as much as it is. And no, because they share tactics, it doesn’t mean it’s a plot. Parties across the globe do that regardless of where they are on the political spectrum. The Americans have made a whole cottage industry of their “political strategists” making coin by speaking to political parties around the world. There is no plot.

This being said, Orbán is a really, really awful person, running a racist, homophobic and Islamophobic government that is cracking down on civil liberties and democracy in his country. That Harper is trying to whitewash this as “centre right” politics is gross, and gives permission to people like Pierre Poilievre to engage in more authoritarian tactics in the name of the kind of legitimising that Harper has been doing around Orbán as well as Italy’s Giorgia Meloni (again, who has been particularly homophobic). But again, he’s not pulling strings. He’s trying to pretend he has power and influence that he never actually had, and too many people are willing to give him that credit because they have an image of Harper as being something he never was.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Lviv continues to dig out from the overnight missile attack, as Russia continues to insist it “doesn’t target civilians.” (Sure, Jan). It sounds like the US is preparing to give cluster munitions to Ukraine, despite the protests of human rights groups. Ukraine’s military intelligence chief says the threat of an attack on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant is receding, but the threat remains so long as the plant is occupied by Russians. Meanwhile, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the capitals of Bulgaria and the Czech Republic to drum up support for Ukraine’s entry into NATO at the end of the war. Zelenskyy will head to Turkey today for grain talks relating to the Black Sea deal. Ukraine’s prime minister says that once the war is over, they will abandon conscription and maintain a professional army, akin to NATO standards.

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Roundup: It’s “grocery rebate” day

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Today is the day that the federal government’s so-called “grocery rebate” gets deposited in Canadians’ accounts, but it’s not really a grocery rebate, and once again, a defensible policy gets given a dumb and confusing label for marketing purposes, because that’s what this government does. This is just another GST rebate top-up like the one that happened last year to help deal with the rising cost of living for those who are on the lower-end of the income scale, but of course the government gave it a new name this year just to try and be cute about it.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1676243078833926145

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1676243669685506048

You may also have heard complaints that this particular rebate is going to fuel inflation (which is coming down! It’s nearly at the outside band of where the central bank wants it to be!). This is also nonsense, because of how the programme is targeted, and Jennifer Robson has all of the receipts and data to prove it in the thread below.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians attacked a military funeral in Pervomaiskyi in the Kharkiv region, wounding 38 including twelve children.  Ukrainian forces targeted a Russian military formation in occupied Makiivka, which Russian officials say killed a civilian and injured others. Previously over the weekend, Russia launched its first overnight drone strike against Kyiv in twelve days, while a drone attack on the city of Sumy killed two and injured 19. Elsewhere, the reports from the counter-offensive are that it has been “particularly fruitful” over the past several days, with yet more gains around Bakhmut. There have been yet more warnings that the Ukrainians believe that the Russians will detonate something at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, while the Russians are also claiming the Ukrainians will do so in order to blame them (as though that makes any sense whatsoever).

https://twitter.com/kyivpost/status/1676258705422053378

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Roundup: May inflation shows it’s cooling faster

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Statistics Canada released the May inflation numbers yesterday, and they were well down from the month previous, the headline number now down to 3.4 percent, which is in line what the Bank of Canada is predicting about it returning to about three percent by the end of the year. Part of this is because year-over-year gasoline prices fell, meaning that there is a base-year effect in play, but food inflation remains high (in large part because of climate change affecting food-growing regions and the difficulty in getting Ukrainian grain to market continues to keep those prices high), and mortgage interest rates are one of the factors fuelling this. Unfortunately, you have certain economists like Jim Stanford who think that this is the Bank causing this inflation, when in fact if they hadn’t raised rates when they did, higher inflation would still be ripping through the economy. (Seriously, stop listening to Jim Stanford).

Additionally, these numbers continue to prove that Pierre Poilievre’s narratives about inflation are specious at best, but are pretty much bullshit he is squeezing into whatever the headline seems to be. Last month, when there was a 0.1% uptick in inflation, Poilievre blamed it on the news of the budget deficit, and that this was proof that the deficit was “pouring gasoline on the inflationary fire.” That was wrong, and the Bank of Canada said that the trend was that inflation was still decreasing (and that the government’s fiscal policy was not having an effect on that decelerating inflation). And lo, inflation is still decelerating, in spite of the budget deficit. It’s like Poilievre has no idea what he’s talking about.

Meanwhile, economist Stephen Gordon has a few thoughts the numbers.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Two Russian missiles hit the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, killing four and destroying a cafe that was fairly well known. Meanwhile, a UN human rights report shows that Russian forces carried out widespread and systematic torture of civilians they detained before executing them, but also found that Russians troops detained by Ukrainians also alleged torture and mistreatment.

https://twitter.com/united24media/status/1673784944798191617

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1673769121450696724

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Roundup: Another missed opportunity for the Senate

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A mere day after the House of Commons rose for the summer, the Senate did the same after a marathon day of passing most of the bills on its Order Paper, but leaving several key pieces of legislation to languish over the summer. As I do every summer, I remind readers that it used to be normal for senators to sit for at least an extra week in the summer to clear their Order Paper, and at this particular juncture, it would make even more sense for them to do so because they no longer have to compete with the House of Commons for resources, and most especially interpreters.

The biggest bill in question is the gun control bill, which they sent to committee, where it will sit over the summer. What they should have done was use the time and resources that they have now in order to hold a week’s worth of committee hearings, and do the job of scrutinizing the bill. And sure, you’ll get a certain cohort of senators insisting that it “doesn’t make sense” for them to sit when the Commons isn’t, in case they need to make amendments, to which I will remind them that it doesn’t matter if the Commons has risen. If the Senate wants to propose amendments, they can do the study now, propose them, and send it to the House for when they get back in September. If the Government House Leader on the Commons side wants to bellyache and moan that the Senate wants the House to recall at so many tens of thousands of dollars a day, well, too bad. They don’t have to recall. They can deal with the Senate amendments in September. And I will reiterate—it would make much more sense for the Senate to deal with a bill this big and contentious now, when they’re not competing for resources, rather than letting it drag out for months in the fall like they did with a couple of other big and contentious bills.

This is a better use of the time and resources available, and it shows that the Senate isn’t afraid to work hard when the MPs have gone home. It’s too bad nobody can see this plain and obvious PR win for the Senate that’s staring them in the face.

Ukraine Dispatch:

There were overnight missile and drone attacks, largely targeted to Odesa and Kryvy Rih, hitting homes in the latter. Ukrainian forces are reporting “partial success” in their southeast and east operations, as fighting continues. An explosion has damaged the bridge between occupied Crimea and Kherson province, which is partially occupied. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that their intelligence services have information that Russia is planning a “terrorist” attack at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and that it will involve the release of radiation, and that Russia is hiding the bodies of those killed by the breach of the Kakhovka dam. Meanwhile, the EU says that Ukraine has completed two of the seven steps necessary for membership, with progress made on other reforms, but tackling corruption remains a concern for Europe.

https://twitter.com/rubrykaeng/status/1671855902830329857

https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/1671756814814265344

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Roundup: A game of chicken over a public inquiry

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A game of chicken is shaping up around the demands for a public inquiry into allegations of foreign interference, that started with Dominic LeBlanc throwing it into the opposition’s lap to come up with a name they could agree to that could head it, along with terms of reference, knowing full well that it is going to be incredibly difficult to do, particularly because they all have competing goals, and some their demands are literally impossible, such as having an incredibly wide-ranging inquiry that could somehow complete its work in but a few months. Not going to happen.

Pierre Poilievre has decided to try and turn the tables and says that he wants the government to commit to said inquiry before he starts sharing names, which risks letting the government sit back and say that they already stated their terms. Committing to a public inquiry is one thing, but drawing up the Order in Council for it is quite another, and that requires having the commissioner(s) and terms of reference already decided.

This being said, the deadline of having this declared before Friday is wholly artificial. The government doesn’t need to table this in the House, and they can draw up the Order in Council at any time. If the aim is for the House of Commons to vote on the proposal, that’s a bad idea because then it launders the accountability for what happens, and lets the government off the hook if things go sideways, and MPs should know this because it’s fundamental to their very jobs, but they have become completely blinkered in this. At this point, I’m not expecting an announcement before Friday, and for this to drag on for several more weeks because there won’t be any agreement on names or the scope of the inquiry. That said, I do fully expect that we’ll have a summer full of “emergency” committee meetings on this and other topics, so I doubt the story will go away—just the daily demands in Question Period.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians fired another 35 Iranian-made drones into Ukraine, with some 32 being shot down, but a “critically important facility” in Lviv was struck, with no further clues as to what it was. There are also competing narratives at play—president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that they are destroying Russian forces in both the east and south, while the Russians claim that they are repelling the offences. Here is a look at some of the Canadian soldiers training Ukrainian troops at Camp Sapper in Poland.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1671118296374976513

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Roundup: O’Toole’s farewell hypocrisy

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Former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole gave his farewell speech to the House of Commons yesterday, and it’s been a while since I’ve heard something as grossly hypocritical as that. Using his sombre voice (which has the benefit of completely beguiling the pundit class), he decried “performance politics,” where they chase social media algorithms, using the Chamber to generate clips, and fuelling polarisation, and replacing discussion with “virtue signalling”—which is his way of whataboutery to insist that the Liberals and NDP are just as bad. He also decried the use of conspiracy theories around things like the United Nations.

The problem? He hired a professional shitposter, Jeff Ballingall, to chase those very social media algorithms he is decrying. He fully used the Chamber to generate clips, he fully endorsed a number of conspiracy theories, whether it was about the firing of the scientists at the Winnipeg Lab, or around the United Nations when he was pretending to be a “true blue conservative” during the leadership. And while this has been seen by some as a rebuke of Poilievre, there was absolutely no contrition about any of what he did, from the serial lying, to his autocratic power games at the end of his leadership. The most he said was “too many members on all sides of this Chamber, and from time to time I have been guilty of it myself, are becoming followers of our followers when we should be leaders.” That was it. That was his contrition to how much he has done all of the things he is decrying as he exits, the bravery of someone who no longer has to live with the consequences of his actions.

https://twitter.com/dwjudson/status/1668484357089099777

It amazes me that the pundit classes, who have been falling all over O’Toole’s speech, keep memory-holing the entire tenure of his leadership and what an absolute lying, tyrannical disaster that he was throughout. Ignoring who he proved himself to be in favour of the image that pundits so desperately want him to be is a choice. And as he heads off to spend more time in his basement podcast studio, it would be great if we could be clear-eyed about just who O’Toole is, instead of just falling for his sombre-voice trick.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukraine says it has liberated seven villages in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia provinces, as the counter-offensive gets underway. Russians, meanwhile, have been shelling Kharkiv, as well as nine towns and villages in Donetsk. They also launched an overnight attack against the central city of Kryvyi Rih, and there are reports of dead and wounded.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1668246754540630017

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