While Justin Trudeau was off to Argentina for the G20, Andrew Scheer was elsewhr, as was Guy Caron, more unusually. Mark Strahl led off, worrying about new revelations about investigations that Raj Grewal may have been swept up into, to which Bardish Chagger responded that last week he made them aware of his serious challenges and treatment, and they hoped he got the help he needed. Strahl didn’t believe her, but Chagger reiterated the response. Strahl got even more incredulous, but Chagger’s response varied only by saying the RCMP operates independently. Luc Berthold tried again in French, and got the same answer in French, and then they went yet another round of the same. Ruth Ellen Brosseau led for the NDP, demanding that the government take action. Patty Hajdu said that it was troubling, but this was a global decision affecting plants in the US and elsewhere, so they were going to help workers where they could. Brosseau then demanded the government not sign the New NAFTA until an oversight clause around milk classes was removed, to which Lawrence MacAulay deployed his well-worn points about defending Supply Management. Tracey Ramsey was worried that we didn’t know what was in the deal and demanded that it not be signed, to which Mélanie Joly stood up to assure her it was a good deal for Canada. Brian Masse, whose rant about the auto sector didn’t reach the question before he got cut off, and Hajdu recited some talking points about their support for the industry through the auto innovation fund.
Tag Archives: Trade
Roundup: Island of Unintended Consequences
Over at Maclean’s, David Moscrop profiled the “new” Senate, and in it was probably the best description of the institution in its present state – the “Island of Unintended Consequences,” as penned by Greg MacEachern of Proof Strategies. And that’s very much true about the state of the Chamber, but unsurprisingly, almost none of those unintended consequences were explored. The bulk of the piece was devoted to the notion that we don’t know how senators will vote anymore and they say they don’t want to defeat bills but who knows *handwavey motion*.
The problem is that it’s not just the uncertainty over how senators will vote – it’s the fact that the people being put in charge in that Chamber don’t really know what they’re doing. The Order Paper is becoming hopelessly behind with bills piling up, and because nobody wants to negotiate and do any of the horse-trading that gets bills passed, it’s getting worse. This has serious implications for the government trying to get their agenda through, but too many senators are busy congratulating themselves on the fact that they’re not whipped that they fail to see the a) that horse-trading is not partisan but rather how things get done; and b) that the pile-up of legislation is going to become a serious problem unless they get their acts together and start getting bills through the system. If you want an unintended consequence, that’s certainly a huge one, and one that Senator Peter Harder seems willing to let happen so that he can get his way with the creation of a “business committee,” which will just fob yet more responsibility off of his desk and onto another small cliques’ plate (but he needs his $1.5 million budget!) and won’t do any of the things he promises when it comes to avoiding the end-of-session legislative pile-up. The fact that the Independents now make up the majority of the chamber, most of them too new to know what they’re doing (and lacking proper mentorship), the Order Paper crisis is happening and they don’t understand that it’s happening. This is a problem, and we need more senators to wake up to it.
Meanwhile, Senator Paula Simons talks about her live-tweeting in the Chamber as a way of de-mystifying its work, thanks to her career as a journalist, and I for one applaud her for it (though I will offer her corrections as she goes along).
Roundup: A noble bill with problems below the surface
It’s not often that I’ll go out of my way to comment on poor reporting (as opposed to columns), but in this particular case, I’m going to make an exception. The story is the fact that Rona Ambrose’s bill on mandatory sexual assault training for judges has been stalled in the Senate. Ambrose appeared on Power & Politics to express her shock and dismay, but there was very little research done in terms of the concerns that have been raised with the bill to date, and the fact that its passage through the House of Commons was problematic in and of itself (most especially the fact that it was referred to the Status of Women committee instead of the Justice Committee in order to ensure swift passage, with a committee that was sympathetic and didn’t have the expertise on the matter). The written story on the CBC website was simply a recap of Ambrose’s interview with no comment from anyone else, or recounting any of the concerns or pushback from the debates on the bill.
So I decided to take twenty minutes and skim over the Second Reading debates in the Senate on the bill, and lo, there are some pretty important concerns being raised. Senator Jaffer, who is a lawyer who has done judicial training, pointed to the fact that the bill mandating written rulings in all sexual assault cases not only takes away from the fact that there are procedures for clear oral rulings that can be appealed, but that it will cause other delays. The training also disadvantages rural lawyers, and can tip the hand of a lawyer in a firm that they are applying to be a judge.
Senator Joyal, a formidable constitutional lawyer who had a career fighting for minority rights (and who helped write the Charter of Rights and Freedoms) expressed some serious concerns about the powers given to a federal commissioner to determine what qualifies for training. He raised the very real point that the bill stipulates that training must be done by sexual assault survivors and organisations that support them, which automatically biases the training and the presumption of innocence (and others have raised the point that these trainers are often called as expert witnesses, which creates further biases). Joyal also noted the constitutional implications of the bill given that judicial independence includes the ability to maintain control over their education.
Senator Pratte, while not a lawyer, raised the salient logistical issue that for every 500 judicial applicants, maybe 50 make it through, meaning that if everyone needs training before they can be appointed, it delays assessment of applicants and has the potential to create problems with the quality if the training. He also raised the notion that if sexual assault survivors are needed for this training, how long will it be before other victims’ groups demand to be heard for other judicial training?
Senator Fraser, whose objections were briefly noted in the CBC piece, also made points about the inappropriateness of the bill mandating that reports on the number of judges who have taken the training be tabled in Parliament because judges report to Chief Justices in their regions, not to the minister. As well, because the majority of these cases are actually heard in provincial courts, this could qualify as interference in provincial jurisdiction.
The story also went onto state that Senator Joyal, who chairs the Legal and Constitutional Affairs committee, wouldn’t give a date for when the bill will be studied, but it didn’t mention that government bills always take precedence at committee, and as you can see from the committee’s schedule, they have a pretty full slate for the coming weeks, possibly months.
Frankly, I’m more than a little dismayed at the lazy reporting on this bill. While it may look like a slam-dunk issue on the surface, there’s a lot beneath the surface that’s not being reported on, which is actually fairly irresponsible. Would that political reporters at the CBC take twenty minutes to do some actual research on their stories than simply transcribe an interview.
QP: Fighting for Oshawa
While Justin Trudeau was in town but meeting with the head of Unifor, Andrew Scheer decided to show up for the first time in almost two weeks. Scheer led off, mini-lectern on desk, and he read that he met with workers at the GM plant in Oshawa earlier that morning, before he concern trolled around “massive deficits,” before wondering if the support for workers was factored into the fall economic update (obviously it wouldn’t have been), or if it meant higher deficits. Navdeep Bains responded by saying that they stand up for workers, and touted their innovation fund. Scheer demanded they cancel the carbon tax to protect jobs, to which Bains praised the business environment and the auto sector in Canada. Scheer demanded a second time, and Bains noted new investment in the sector. Gérard Deltell took over to reiterate the demand in French, to which Bains read his bland assurances in French. Deltell listed the various other job losses in other sectors, to which Bains retorted in English about the good economic news that countered those individual challenges. Guy Caron was up next for the NDP, and he worried about the Oshawa news, and got the usual reply from Bains. When Caron demanded that GM repay any funds that the government provided them, Bains assured him that all options were being explored to protect workers. Peter Julian was up next to reiterate the question in English, and Bains took exception to his characterisation of events before listing the economic figures. Julian insisted that the fall economic update was a giveaway to corporations, but Bains again pushed back against the rhetoric and proclaimed about their plans to invest created growth.
Because narrative.
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) November 27, 2018
Roundup: Refusing to learn their lessons
A former PQ minister wants to run for leadership of the Bloc, and I just cannot. Can. Not. The challenger this time is Yves-François Blanchet, who served in Pauline Marois’ short-lived Cabinet, and has since taken on a political pundit career since being defeated in 2014. He apparently met with the caucus yesterday, and the majority of them – including their past and current interim leaders – all seem to like him, but I keep having to circle back to this simple question: did you learn nothing from your last disastrous leader?
I can’t emphasise this enough. Since their demise in 2011, the Bloc have had a succession of seatless leaders, including Mario Beaulieu (who now has a seat, incidentally, and is the current interim leader), and while he stepped aside so that Gilles Duceppe could return (unsuccessfully), they keep going for leaders who aren’t in caucus, and time after time, it goes poorly for them. Every single time, I have to wonder why they don’t simply do as our system was built to do, and select a member from caucus. Constantly bringing in an outsider does nothing for their profile (ask Jagmeet Singh how that’s going), and their leaders keep being divorced from the realities of parliament. And time and again, they keep choosing another outsider. Why do you keep doing this to yourselves? Why do you refuse to learn the lessons that experience has to teach you?
There is one current MP who is considering a run, Michel Boudrias, and if the Bloc was smart, they would choose him by virtue of the fact that he’s in the caucus, he’s in the Commons, and he knows how Parliament works. Of course, if they interested in ensuring he’s accountable (especially given just how big of a gong show their last leader was), then it would be the caucus that selects him so that the caucus can then fire him if he becomes a problem (again, if history is anything to go by). But that would take some actual political courage by the party, and given their apparent reluctance to learn the lessons from their mistakes, that may be too much to ask for.
QP: Demanding action for Oshawa
While the prime minister was present, on a day of tough news for Oshawa, Andrew Scheer was absent yet again. Because why bother showing up to Parliament when you’re the leader of the opposition? Erin O’Toole led off, and said there was a future for manufacturing in Canada if they fought for it, and wanted to know what the government was doing. Justin Trudeau read a statement about their disappointment in the news, and how they would support the workers. O’Toole said that they needed to hear that the prime minister hasn’t given up on the sector, to which Trudeau said that they were working with other orders of government to support the workers. O’Toole asked if GM asked him about trade and tariff concerns that were impacting their competitiveness, to which Trudeau said that the auto companies worked with them as part of the new NAFTA talks, and there was more work to do in eliminating steel and aluminium tariffs. Luc Berthold took over in French to ask again about fighting for the jobs, and Trudeau picked his script back up to read the French version of his first answer. Berthold read some further concerns about the workers, and Trudeau read some further assurances about the industry being solid. Guy Caron was up next for the NDP, and he worried that GM was getting “tax giveaways” while cutting jobs, to which Trudeau read a script about support for the auto sector and how they worked to make it globally competitive and innovative. Caron switched to the Canada Post strike and worried that back to work legislation wouldn’t have resulted in the gains the union made, and Trudeau read a script about all of the measures they took to help get a deal. Karen Trudel asked the same question again, and Trudeau extemporaneously explained how they worked respectfully with unions but the time came to make difficult decisions. Irene Mathyssen read that Canada Post was a toxic environment, to which Trudeau read about his faith in the collective bargaining process.
QP: Concern trolling about the media
While the PM was off to Calgary to sell his fiscal update, Andrew Scheer was absent yet again. Alain Rayes led off, proclaiming that the government was racking up “record” deficits (not sure that’s correct), and demanded a plan for a balanced budget. Bill Morneau insisted that they did have a plan for growth and investment, and that the level of debt was the best in the G7. Rayes tried a second time, and got the same answer. Pierre Poilievre got up next, and said that the Morneau was trying to rewrite history from his deficit promises. Morneau got up and said that Poilievre was repeating buzz-words from first-year economic textbooks, while his government was getting results with growth. Poilievre then concern trolled that the government was buying off the press, to which Morneau said that journalism was vital democracy and they were trying to help the sector in a manner that was independent. Poilievre stated that the government thinks that journalists should shower then with praise, to which Morneau replied that it was insulting to think that journalists could be bought off. Guy Caron was up next for the NDP, decrying the tablet of back to work legislation for Canada Post, to which Morneau said that they tried to get a deal but the economy was starting to suffer. Caron railed that this was a gift not only to Canada Post but also EBay and Amazon, and Morneau responded with some pabulum about supporting small businesses. Karine Trudel and Irene Mathyssen further denounced the move on back-to-work legalisation, to which Patty Hajdu listed the ways they tried to get to a deal, and that the legislation may still give room for bargaining while getting the workers back to work.
Conservatives roar with laughter when Morneau said it’s insulting to think the press can be bought.
A couple looked up to the Gallery to see our response. I restrained myself from responding with an obscene gesture. #QP— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) November 22, 2018
Roundup: Not an election issue to fight over
The leader of the Independent Senators Group seems to have inserted himself into the political discussion by demanding to know where parties stand on the issue of Senate appointments in advance of the next election. Senator Woo’s concerns seem to be that he doesn’t want people to “unwittingly” vote for a party that doesn’t conform to their views on the Senate. I’m going to go ahead and say that this was probably a mistake because it’s very easy to construe that he’s looking to shill for the Liberals since they are the only ones to are half-arsing the issue of Senate modernization, at least in this particular bastardized vision of a completely “independent” Chamber that is more likely to be problematic than anything.
In case you were wondering, the Conservatives say they don’t have a firm position yet, but their democratic institutions critic says she prefers the Harper system of appointing candidates voted on in “consultative elections” – you know, the ones that the Supreme Court of Canada said were unconstitutional because they were attempting to do through the backdoor what they couldn’t to through the front door. Oh, and they support a partisan Senate because they have a “very strong Senate group.” And the NDP, well, they’re still insisting that they want to abolish the Senate, never mind that they will never, ever, get the unanimous support of the provinces to do so. That leaves Senator Woo holding the bag for the Liberals by default, which isn’t a good look if he wants to keep insisting that he’s independent from the Liberals.
And those of us who think that maybe the Senate is better off with Liberals, Conservatives and a group of crossbenchers in roughly equal numbers? Who are we supposed to vote for? I suspect we’re SOL, unless the Liberals decide to change their tune after their “experiment” in a totally independent Senate starts to blow up in their faces and they can’t get bills passed (in part because their Government Leader – err “representative” – doesn’t want to do his job), but yeah. I’m not sure this is an election issue to fight over because nobody knows what they’re doing and we’re going to find ourselves cleaning up the mess made in this institution for a generation to come.
Roundup: Fiscal update spin incoming
This week is the federal government’s autumn fiscal update, and we’ve already seen a pre-emptive push by the Conservatives to try and set a narrative about the government’s deficit. Andrew Scheer took time out yesterday to hold a press conference to say that he plans to force a vote that would demand that the government set a date for a balanced budget. And yes, the shitposts over social media have already begun.
Reminder: There was a $70 billion hole in GDP when the Liberals took over thanks in part to the brief recession and oil price crash. https://t.co/TkQF0frRoN
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) November 18, 2018
So, a few things to keep in mind this week about the narratives that will be spun:
- The Conservatives will insist that they left the Liberals with a surplus and a “strong economy.” That’s not entirely true – the “surplus” was on paper and it included a lot of “savings” that the Conservatives falsely booked that never came to pass (e.g. Shared Services Canada, Phoenix). The Liberals will also point to stagnant growth rates.
- There was a $70 billion hole between the fiscal situation that the Liberals found themselves in compared to the 2015 budget the Conservatives ran the election on. This would have been there regardless of who won the election. The Liberals had a choice to make – honour their spending promises, or honour their promise to balance the budget. They chose the former, and their spending has been largely in line with what was promised.
- There is no debt crisis looming. The debt-to-GDP ratio is declining, and is the best in the Western world. Government debt is not like credit card debt, so equating the two in shitposts like Scheer does only serves to sow confusion and is a dishonest attempt to look like the government is “bankrupt.” Also remember that much of the deficit spending under this government has been at a time when interest rates were at historic lows, which is not credit card interest rates.
https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1064271285511811072
1) A declining debt-to-GDP ratio doesn’t necessarily mean higher taxes tomorrow.
2) Government debt is not credit card debt. Trying to equate them is disingenuous.
3) He inherited books in $70 billion worse shape than advertised.Could we discuss finances using facts? https://t.co/txnFh53xcT
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) November 19, 2018
I am an economist and I know both that sovereign debt is nothing like an unpaid credit card bill and credit card debt doesn't pass through an estate to heirs in Canada. But, while we're on the subject, would you describe the debt increase of 2008-2014 as intergenerational theft? https://t.co/5utQ1ZJttz
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) November 19, 2018
You can also expect a bunch of calls this week to cut corporate taxes like they did in the US, citing competitiveness, but again, there are things to remember about those US tax cuts – namely that their deficit is currently around $1 trillion, that those cuts are the economic equivalent of a sugar rush for which there are few long-term gains being made, and most of those cuts resulted in larger corporate dividends and share buy-backs rather than re-investment in companies or workforces. There’s a reason why Bill Morneau hasn’t jumped on this, and we’ll see what his response will be.
Roundup: Endorsing the Brexitshambles
In case you haven’t been paying attention, Britain is currently in a state of utter omnishambles as they try to deal with Brexit. A potential deal that was reached resulted in Cabinet resignations, and some very real threats not only to Theresa May remaining as PM, but possibly toppling the government as a whole. It’s lunacy over there right now. Back here in Canada, Andrew Scheer has decided that this was the right time to reiterate his support for Brexit. Because “sovereignty.”
As much as I would like Iannucci to write a Brexit season of “The Thick of It,” I’m not sure anything could top what is going on currently. https://t.co/MPffCweFRH
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) November 15, 2018
While Scheer can bang on about how much control the UK gave up to the EU, and repeating falsehoods like the canard about the EU having regulations around the curvature of bananas, he both ignores that the EU has created a peace that has been unknown in Europe for centuries, and the fact that much of the Brexit campaign was fuelled by straight-up xenophobia. It’s this latter aspect that is particularly relevant because it’s part of a pattern we’re seeing with Conservatives, as John Geddes pointed out a couple of months ago – that they have this inability to orient themselves in a plausible way with the current nationalist populist trends in conservatism globally. Add to that, there is this naïve notion that they can somehow play with just enough extremism without it going into outright xenophobia or racism (and we’re especially seeing this playout with Maxime Bernier who blows the xenophobia tuba and then acts bewildered that white nationalists start showing up in his new party). But you can’t play with “just enough” extremism, because you can’t actually contain it. And when you wink about things enough times, you can’t act shocked and surprised when your adherents spell out what you were saying – like that post from a riding association Facebook account that posted Harjit Sajjan’s photo with the tagline “this is what happens when you have a Cabinet based on affirmative action.” They’ve only stated repeatedly that ministers in the Liberal cabinet are only there to fill quotas (whereas everyone in the Conservative Cabinet was there “on merit,”) but the moment someone puts Sajjan’s face next to that, well no, that’s totally not what they meant at all. Sure, Jan. And that’s why you can’t actually claim that Brexit is all about “sovereignty,” because it absolutely wasn’t. You can’t divorce the inflated sovereignty concern trolling from the xenophobia – it’s the same mentality as trying to assert that you can use “just enough” extremism for your political ends, but not go all the way.
Meanwhile, Andrew Coyne remains boggled by Scheer’s continued endorsement of Brexit, and wonders if he’s trying to appropriate some of its populist nationalism (the aforementioned “just enough” extremism).