Tag Archives: Trade

QP: Rigging a dangerous game

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Justin Trudeau was away for Monday, but Andrew Scheer was present. Before things got underway, Elizabeth May led her new MP, Paul Manly, into the Chamber in order to take his seat. Scheer led off, demanding to know why Unifor was on the panel to help determine who gets funding for the media bailout and called it the Liberals stacking of the deck. Pablo Rodriguez said that Scheer was playing a dangerous game, and that any suggestion that journalists could be bought was insulting while the government was supporting the industry as a number of daily newspapers had closed in recent years. Scheer tried again, and got the same response, and then Scheer railed that government had not limited their own spending on ads in advance of an election, to which Karina Gould read a statement about how the government has focused their advertising and cut it in half. Steven Blaney stood up to repeat the question on Unifor being on the panel in French, and Rodriguez gave him much the same response, and they went another round of the same. Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and he demanded the government adopt their Pharmacare plan, to which Ginette Petitpas Taylor insisted that she listens to all sides and they have a national plan in the works while they have taken other measures. Singh tried again in French, got much the same response, before Singh lauded US Democrats’ attempts to change the New NAFTA, to which Chrystia Freeland insisted that they held out for a good deal. Singh tried again in English, and Freeland urged Singh to talk to some actual Canadian workers. 

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Roundup: A six-point sham

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Over the weekend, Andrew Scheer went to Calgary to further outline his “economic vision,” which included a short-term six-party plan which…does nothing about the economy. Those six parts are to scrap the federal carbon price, repeal Bill C-69, repeal Bill C-48 and end any tanker ban in northern BC, establish timelines for project approvals, end the “foreign interference” in project approvals, and invoke the constitutional authority to build major projects. Do you see a pattern here?

To be clear, these six proposals are all, well, hot air. Ending the federal carbon price won’t get energy projects built – most oil and gas companies are in favour of it. Repealing Bill C-69 won’t help because the 2012 environmental assessment legislation the Conservatives put into place just wound up in litigation, and that will continue if he reverts to it. Ending the tanker ban won’t have any measurable impact because there are no pipelines in the area, no plans for any, and if he thinks he can revive Northern Gateway then he didn’t pay attention to the reasons why the Federal Court revoked its approval. Establishing timelines for approvals? Again, nice in theory, but without a framework behind it (like Bill C-69 would ostensibly provide), it will likely mean yet more litigation. That “foreign interference” in project approvals is largely the conspiracy theories that the conservative movement is clinging to (ignoring the foreign funds that go into their own thinktanks like the Fraser Institute). And that “constitutional authority” is not a magic wand, and would only sow confusion because any project that crosses a provincial boundary is already a federally regulated project, so there’s nothing to invoke. So Scheer’s “six point plan” should perhaps better be called a “six point sham.”

Meanwhile, here’s some further analysis of Scheer’s decision to back away from his pledge to eliminate the deficit in two years, whether it’s because of Liberal warnings of austerity, the unpopularity of Doug Ford’s cuts playing out in Ontario, or the desire to try and deprive the Liberals of their talking points. But it does also take the wind out of Scheer’s own rhetoric about the evils of deficits, particularly those that are small and sustainable like the ones we’re seeing right now.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1131728209018380288

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Roundup: Harder tries to play hero again

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After hosting most of the Alberta senators to a lunch in Edmonton, Alberta premier Jason Kenney has written a letter to Senator Peter Harder, Leader of the Government in the Senate – err, “government representative,” to say that he and the leaders of the other two main parties in Alberta are willing to accept Bill C-69 if they keep it as amended by the committee. Those amendments, mind you, were largely all written by industry lobbyists, and gut much of what the bill was trying to accomplish, which was an overhaul of the environmental assessment process, because what’s on the books now (which is the process that Harper gutted in 2012) isn’t working and is only resulting in court challenges.

And Harder? Well, after his whip – err, “government liaison,” Senator Grant Mitchell, has been pushing for the bills to pass largely unamended, Harder says that he now wants to send this bill as amended back to the Commons, as well as the recommendation that Bill C-48 (the tanker ban) – though I’m not sure how that would happen given the de facto committee recommendation is that it not proceed – and let them decide whether or not to keep the amendments. Let the government deal with it – or rather, wear the decision for not accepting the amendments so that Kenney will turn his ire to Trudeau, and not the Senate. Because Harder is such a hero like that (while making up parts of his job description that don’t actually exist).

Meanwhile, former Senator Hugh Segal is taking to the pages of the Globe and Mail to warn the Senate against defeating C-48 because he says it would contradict the Salisbury Convention. *sigh* No. The Salisbury Convention doesn’t exist in Canada, no matter how many times Harder of luminaries like Segal bring it up. It’s contrary to the Constitution, we don’t have the same historical reasons for why Salisbury was adopted in the House of Lords, and it also goes against the whole notion of a more “independent” Senate. Nor is C-48 an election promise so far as anyone can gather, which is a trigger for Salisbury – if it existed (which it doesn’t in Canada). There are plenty of reasons why the Senate shouldn’t defeat C-48, but making up that it’s contrary to Salisbury isn’t one of them.

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Roundup: Rationalizing a deciding vote

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Yesterday, Independent Senator Paula Simons wrote a piece for Maclean’s to explain her vote last week that essentially ensured that the Senate’s transport committee would not vote to report Bill C-48 (the west coast tanker ban) back to the Senate without amendments. It’s a mere delay to the bill, ultimately, and it’s likely that the full Senate will vote to reject the committee report and may entertain another amendment or two at Third Reading, but I would be mighty surprised if this bill didn’t get pass largely unmolested. But as much as I do respect the good Senator, I will take exception to a few of the things she wrote in her piece.

The biggest thing I will always, always object to is when senators say that it’s not their job to defeat bills passed by the democratically elected House of Commons. That’s false – it’s absolutely their job under the Constitution – that’s why it has an unlimited veto. The question is when they should use it, and I’m not sure that this is a good example of a bill, because it doesn’t fail any particular constitutional tests (Jason Kenney’s nonsense rhetoric aside). But for as much as Simons prevaricates on the question of how appropriate it is to block bills in the newly empowered “independent” mindset of the Senate (insert more back-patting about the lack of whips here), she then says that the other tradition is to defend her region, which she did. I have reservations about this line of thinking, because it gives rise to parochialism and some of the flawed thinking that gave rise to a bogus school of thought that believed that a “Triple-E” Senate could somehow force the hand of a government with a majority in the Commons (rather than just become a repository for 105 new backbenchers). If she really were defending her region, she should remember that her region includes BC, whose northern coast the bill is intended to defend. As well, her concerns ignore the process that Trans Mountain has been undergoing for the past year – just because it hasn’t started construction doesn’t mean it won’t, and trying to provide an alternate route that was proved far more problematic in the past – witness the Federal Court of Appeal decision regarding Northern Gateway – I’m now sure that she’s doing anyone any favours by letting the rhetoric of Kenney and the oil industry dominate her thinking.

In the meantime, we should brace ourselves for another round of obnoxious talk about the “Salisbury Convention” (which doesn’t apply to Canada and never has), and about the original intent of the Senate. It won’t be edifying.

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1130956002029916162

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Roundup: A weekend of Norman

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Over the course of the long weekend, there was another push about the Vice Admiral Mark Norman story, but there were some problems in how this has all been unfolding. The National Post had a longread that was the first to interview Norman and his family about the ordeal, but in the process, in focusing on making Norman a martyr to his cause, I’m not sure that they did him any favours because it did seem to make it look like he did what he was accused of doing – this, while everyone kept tweeting about how enraging this story was on Norman’s behalf.

There were other threads – General Jonathan Vance, the Chief of Defence Staff, gave a somewhat exasperated sounding interview to state that the decision to suspend Norman was his and his alone, while the Globe and Mail reported that it was the former National Security advisor to the prime minister and the former Clerk of the Privy Council – both Harper appointees, it should be noted – that called in the RCMP to investigate the leak after their own internal investigation was inclusive. This blows up the narrative of the Conservatives that it was somehow a personal vendetta to destroy Norman’s career, or that the prime minister was personally directing this – though that narrative is also about trying to match up Trudeau’s stupid misspeaking about the Norman case likely winding up in court before charges were even laid that had them trying to spin a narrative about interference. (The Conservatives, meanwhile, keep hoping that there will be more embarrassing revelations, but they don’t seem to be coming). Likewise, the attempts to insist that the government was orchestrating the withholding of documents hasn’t actually matched up with the realities of the processes involved.

But while the Post story was curious enough, I found this analysis piece by the CBC’s Murray Brewster to have its share of framing problems, in saying that the allocation of responsibility was throwing people under the bus – like Vance (never mind that he admitted it was his decision). Brewster also seems to confuse the arguments that Crown prosecutors were making with those of “senior government officials” framing the prosecution, because I have never read anything about senior officials framing the prosecution – nor have I read anything coming from government or officials framing the allegations against Norman as an issue of civilian control, which is why I always found it odd because that’s at the heart of what was being alleged. Beyond that, Brewster wonders why the Liberals aren’t asking questions of the Conservatives about how they rewrote the rules on that procurement in the first place, or why the former Conservative ministers didn’t speak to the RMCP after the charges were laid, or why Norman would stake his career on this procurement – all questions that I don’t know why the Liberals would ask. They’re a little past holding the Conservatives to account because the Conservatives aren’t in power any longer, and it would seem to me that it would be more the role of journalists asking these kinds of questions of the Conservatives, as opposed to the government – perhaps more than trying to curry sympathy for Norman.

https://twitter.com/btaplatt/status/1128335527785193472

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QP: The ascribing of dubious motives

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With Justin Trudeau in Paris, and Andrew Scheer outlining his “vision” for the economy, it was up to Candice Bergen to lead off today, and she led off with the news of the formal arrests of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, and called the prime minister a coward — and got censured for it — and demanded he do something for it. Mélanie Joly told her not to play games with their lives, and said that the minister was in touch with her counterparts and Canada’s international allies to secure their release. Bergen then pivoted to the Mark Norman case, compared his treatment to that of Omar Khadr, and demanded a personal apology by the prime minister. Diane Lebouthillier replied in French about the independence of the investigation and prosecution. Bergen said that Norman can’t tell his story because of military guidelines and demanded the government give him an exception, to which Lebouthillier responded that committees are independent, as were the others involved in the case. Pierre Paul-Hus accused Justin Trudeau of not respecting Quebec which was why they didn’t want that contract to go to the Davie Shipyard as it relates to the Norman case. Lebouthillier reminded him of the contracts that Davie has received. Paul-Hus accused the government of wanting to “destroy” Norman, and Lebouthillier reminded him again of the independence of the RCMP and public prosecutor. Peter Julian led off for the NDP, and demanded a public inquiry into money laundering, and Bill Blair noted that there were measures in the budget to combat it that the NDP voted against. Alexandre Boulerice tried again in French, got the same answer from Blair in English, before he railed about the climate emergency. Catherine McKenna stated that the government has a plan which protects jobs. Julian repeated the question in English, and got much the same response from McKenna.

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Roundup: A blow to the tanker ban bill

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The Senate’s transport committee voted last night to not proceed with Bill C-48, which bans tankers on BC’s northwest coast, but before anyone gets too excited, I would caution that it’s not the bill’s end. We just saw the Senate’s national security committee recommend changes to the gun control bill that would gut it, and those got overturned by the Senate as a whole, and I suspect we’ll see a repeat performance of that with this bill – but the Conservatives will put up a fight, and because this was one of the bills that they did not offer a final vote timeline in their agreement with the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Peter Harder, they will dare him to invoke time allocation on this. (I plan to write more about this in column form later).

In the meantime, Independent Senator Paula Simons was one of the deciding votes on this, and she explains it all over Twitter.

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Roundup: Fighting on the economy

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There are a couple of interesting threads out on the wires right now about the direction that the government is headed in as we head toward an election, and one of them is that Liberals in Ontario would rather their party fight the election based on the economy rather than the environment – this as the Liberals and NDP are trying to compete as to who can talk a better game on climate in order to head off the surge in Green Party support in the polls, and the recent Green by-election win. I’m sure this is going to be a very lively discussion behind the caucus room doors, and in the party’s election planning meetings, but that sentiment is clearly there.

At the same time, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the Business Council of Canada are expressing some displeasure with the government, but as Paul Wells notes here, some of it is a bit…dubious, such as demanding balanced budgets and lower taxes while the Americans are fuelling their tax cuts with trillion-dollar deficits. Wells also noted that both of these lobby groups aren’t really acknowledging that much of the drag on our economy is caused by outside forces – namely the brewing trade war between the US and China, and before that, Donald Trump’s threats to tear up NAFTA – and that these groups have studiously avoided talking about climate and the need to deal with our emissions. Nevertheless, there is a malaise between Corporate Canada and the Liberals possibly because the party seems to be setting their Blue Liberal base loose as they try to move further to the left in order to claim the space the NDP usually occupies, and that may wind up costing them in the longer term, if history is any guide.

Kevin Milligan, meanwhile, finds himself a bit puzzled at how little these same Corporate Canada voices have acknowledged the very significant changes that the government made in the fall economic update to deal with the US tax changes.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1127275895859716096

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1127278184821444608

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Roundup: Mark Norman and the culture of leaks

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As the Conservatives try to keep the Mark Norman affair in the news – currently demanding committee hearings with a laundry list of witnesses, as though that had any chance of happening this close to an election when Parliament is seized with trying to get as many bills through the process as they can – there are a couple of new bits of information that I have a hard time fitting into the established factual matrix. The one that the CBC published yesterday was that it was revealed that Norman was authorized by the Harper Cabinet to communicate with Davie Shipyard – because they were using Norman to doing an end-run around the then-Chief of Defence Staff, who was opposed to the lease and refit of the supply ship. I’m not sure entirely how this would be the piece of information to exonerate him, given that he’s alleged to have leaked the news of the pause on the process to a lobbyist and a reporter as a way of pressuring the government to restarting it (which they did in short order). You also have to wonder why Peter MacKay would have sat on this bit of information for all of these months only to pull it out now rather than defend Norman in public with it. None of it makes any actual sense, but that’s where we are.

In light of the case, the National Post has a piece about the use of leaks in Ottawa, and the currency around them – how governments use them to manipulate journalists, how bureaucrats use them to even scores, and very occasionally they’re used to hold people to account. The question the piece asks is why, in a city of leaks, Norman was being made an example of, but I’m not sure it’s a question we’ll get an answer to anytime soon. While it’s a good overview, I keep going back to The Thick of It, and the discussion around leaks during the Goolding Inquiry, when Malcolm Tucker described leaks as essential to release the pressure going on in government, lest things get dark if they didn’t. And I do think there’s an element of that, but given the exercise we just went through during the Double-Hyphen Affair, and the competing leaks and denials, I find myself wondering if We The Media need to exercise a bit more self-reflection in our use of them, rather than simply allowing ourselves to be manipulated because we think it’ll be good for our careers. (Or maybe I’m just being naïve).

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QP: Protesters and protestations

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While the prime minister was off meeting the president of Croatia, and Andrew Scheer was elsewhere, Candice Bergen led off QP, and she started off with more angry rhetoric about the Mark Norman case. David Lametti responded with his bland assurances that the RCMP and the Public Prosecution Service were independent, and that all stated there was no interference or contact. Bergen stated that she wasn’t disputing their independence but that the decision to stay the charges was in spite of government interference. Diane Lebouthillier, bizarrely, repeated Lametti’s response in French. Bergen demanded that the government allow the Defence Committee to investigate the matter, and Lebouthillier repeated her response. Alain Rayes got up next to decry that an infrastructure announcement was made in Quebec with no member of the provincial government present. Jean-Yves Duclos got up to recite how their infrastructure programme was making a difference. Rayes accused Duclos of attacking the government of Quebec, and Duclos repeated his praise for the government’s investments in Quebec. Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and he read some platitudes about the NDP environment plan and wanted a declaration of a climate emergency. Oddly, Ginette Petitpas Taylor read some praise for the 50 measures that the government was taking to reduce pollution. Singh switched to French to repeat the demand, and Petitpas Taylor read the French version of the script. Singh then raised the report on money laundering in BC, and Lebouthillier noted that CRA is ramping up their audits to combat this. Singh repeated the question in English, and Bill Blair directed Singh to read Budget 2019, which gave greater police funding and new regulations to help investigations and prosecutions. 

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