Tag Archives: Transfer Payments

QP: Won’t somebody do the Ottawa Police’s job for them?

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As the occupation outside was quieter today the prime minister was absent, as were most other leaders, save Candice Bergen. Bergen led off, with her script in front of her, and she blamed the various demonstrations around the country on the “division” caused by the prime minster, and she demanded “leadership” in fixing a mess that she blamed on him. Mark Holland rose in reply, and he recited that the best way to end the pandemic was to get vaccinated. Bergen selectively quoted Dr. Theresa Tam musing about lifting restrictions, and Bergen demanded they all be lifted—never mind that most of those are provincial in nature. Holland reminded her of such, and even the trucker mandate existed on the other side of the border so it wouldn’t matter. Bergen accused Holland of mansplaining to her, and Holland insisted that they try not to inflame the situation. Luc Berthold took over in French and demanded that the restrictions on truckers be removed because science, to which Dominic LeBlanc reminded him that they already follow the science, and that they opposition should not put words in Dr. Tam’s mouth. Berthold then demanded more unconditional healthcare transfers to the provinces, and LeBlanc stated that they have been in constant discussion to find the best way to support the system.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he repeated the Bloc’s demand for a “crisis unit” to deal with the occupation outside, and Marco Mendicino reminded him that operational decisions are made by police independent of government. Therrien complained that they were unable to be proactive, and Mendicino repeated his answer.

Alexandre Boulerice appeared by video for the NDP, demanded “leadership” on clearing the occupation, and Mendicino repeated yet again that the RCMP provided additional resources, but they don’t direct police. Rachel Blaney took over in English to repeat the same question, and Mendicino repeated his response a fourth time.

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QP: Bergen a measured apologist for grifters

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While Justin Trudeau remains in isolation, and doing virtual meetings that were not QP, his deputy was in attendance. It was also Candice Bergen’s first day as interim Conservative leader, so we would see what the tone would be like. Bergen led off, to much applause, and with her script in front of her, she demanded that the government present a plan to “work with” the grifter occupation outside, and worried that vaccine mandates for interprovincial travel was “not helpful.” Chrystia Freeland first congratulated Bergen on her appointment, and thanked O’Toole for his public service, and then condemned the desecration and hate symbols on display by the protesters. Bergen said she wanted to see an olive branch to the grifters, and Freeland reminded her about Greg Fergus’ speech about how Black people feel when they see Confederate flags outside, and why all members have an obligation to speak put against a movement that tolerates it. Bergen accused Freeland of gaslighting, and demanded that olive branch, and Freeland repeated the obligation to speak out, even if these people are friends. Bergen then switched to an overwrought question on inflation, and Freeland recited that the government is standing up for Canadians. Gérard Deltell took over to demand spending be reigned in to control inflation, and Freeland reminded him that this is a global issue.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1489327027341733896

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he demanded higher health transfers to the provinces, to which Freeland reminded him that the federal government provided eight out of every ten pandemic aid dollars, and pitched for support for Bill C-8 on additional aid measures. Therrien repeated the demand for increased transfers, and Freeland repeated her response. 

Jagmeet Singh appeared by video, and asked why Black and Indigenous people are treated differently when they protest—which is not really the responsibility of the federal government. Freeland solemnly repeated the the plea to pay attention to Fergus’ speech. Singh repeated the question in French, and got the same answer. 

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QP: In the shadow of O’Toole’s demise

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In the wake of the vote ousting Erin O’Toole as Conservative leader, he was absent from the Chamber, as one would very well expect. As well, because Justin Trudeau was still in COVID isolation, he would be answering everything by video. Candice Bergen led off, with her script in front of her, and she demanded that the prime minister bring resolution with the grifter occupation and let them know that they are being heard. Trudeau, by video, first thanked O’Toole for his service, before reminding them that there was an election where vaccine mandates were an issue. Bergen repeated that these grifters need to feel like they’re being heard (you do know that their demand is to overturn democracy, right?), and Trudeau recited that they are engaged in encouraging people to get vaccinated. Bergen worried about the supply chains as a result of this vaccine mandate, and Trudeau reminded her that the mandates have not impacted the supply chain, but COVID has, which is why they need to be vaccinated. Gérard Deltell took over in French and said a bunch of nonsense about the PBO blaming government spending on inflation, which Trudeau disputed given that COVID has ultimately been the cause. Deltell gave a somber recitation about food inflation and insisted that this was not a global problem but because of government spending—a complete falsehood—and Trudeau reiterated that this is a global issue, while they are there to help families.

Yves-François Blanchet, the only leader in person today, rose for the Bloc, and he too paid brief tribute to O’Toole, before worrying about the grifter occupation and wanted concrete action to end it. Trudeau reminded him that politicians do not direct police forces, but they would provide all resources necessary for law enforcement. Blanchet that Trudeau wasn’t taking action and wanted a timeline, and Trudeau noted that he did tell them that they had been heard and that it was time to leave, and that they would continue to work with law enforcement agencies.

Jagmeet Singh appeared by video, and he wondered why the laws to protect healthcare workers are not being enforced—because he just heard that governments don’t direct police, right? Trudeau recited about how they passed that law and that healthcare workers deserve a safe workplace. Singh then made a brief thanks to O’Toole for his service before repeating his question in French, and Trudeau repeated his response.

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Roundup: Unpacking the rate decision

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The Bank of Canada released their interest rate decision yesterday morning, and held firm…mostly. More significantly, they removed their extraordinary forward guidance, meaning that they have sent the warning that rates are going to rise. Why they didn’t raise them this time is because they had that guidance in place, which essentially said that they weren’t going to raise rates until later in 2022 as a way to help the economy recover from the pandemic—but it has largely recovered, albeit unevenly. With omicron still having an effect, there is still an abundance of caution being exercised—not to mention the fact that raising interest rates won’t actually have an effect on what is currently driving inflation, so it has the potential to do more harm than good right now.

The Monetary Policy Report was also released yesterday, which highlighted how transportation bottlenecks, labour shortages and the difficulty in sourcing key inputs are having an impact on the Canadian economy. More to the point, there has been good economic momentum heading into 2022, and the “slack” in the economy has been absorbed, meaning that the extraordinary measures that were brought in to stimulate the economy at the start of the pandemic can more readily be wound down now, which is another key indicator of why rates are going to start rising again. They also see inflation winding down later over this year, providing that supply bottlenecks and cost pressures don’t carry on for longer than anticipated.

Meanwhile, here’s Kevin Carmichael with his read of the rate decision, the MPR, and what signals the Bank of Canada is sending.

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Roundup: Recalling a committee for a dog and pony show

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The House of Commons’ access to information, privacy and ethics committee will be recalled for emergency meetings after the Conservatives were “alarmed” to hear that the Public Health Agency used anonymised mobile data to see how Canadians were responding to public health measures. The point of the data collection is to get a sense of travel patterns during these kinds of measures, and to see whether people stay at home, or how far they go, and because its anonymised, nobody can see who is doing what individually—they’re looking at patterns.

But this kind of wailing and gnashing of teeth over anonymised data is nothing new for Conservatives, who have sounded this particular alarm before when Statistics Canada was hoping to use anonymised bank data to track Canadians’ purchasing habits in a more robust and accurate way than shopping diary surveys can, and lo, that project got iced. Of course, because irony is dead, the Conservatives’ election platform had their “carbon points” plan, which would require so much itemised consumer data that it puts this kind of anonymised data to shame, but why worry about consistency or logic?

Because this is a House of Commons committee, we are guaranteed that this is going to be nothing more than a dog and pony show. If they agree to hold a study on this—which it’s not yet guaranteed—it’s going to be hauling public health officials before committee and subjecting them to ridiculous questions that have little to do with this particular issue, in the hopes of catching them out on something, and attempts to build some kind of conspiracy theory that the government was trying to play Big Brother during the pandemic, and it will balloon from there until the point where the government has had enough and starts filibustering the increasingly unreasonable demands by opposition members, and the committee will grind to a halt. Because that’s how this kind of thing happens every time, because our MPs are more concerned with being partisan dicks on committees than actually doing their jobs of accountability. But maybe I’m just getting cynical about the current state of affairs in federal politics.

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Roundup: Badmouthing the CBC for grift

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Because this is occasionally a media criticism blog, I will mention that piece circulating from former CBC producer Tara Henley, who made a splash by quitting her job and starting a Substack blog (with paid subscriptions!) by badmouthing the CBC on her way out the door. While I was initially planning on not mentioning this, because the complaints she makes in the piece merely reflect poorly on her rather than the CBC, but it attracted some bizarre traction yesterday, from the likes of Jody Wilson-Raybould, and Erin O’Toole, who invited her to call him about plans to reform the CBC (as he promised to slash its budget).

But the piece itself (which I’m not going to link to, but I did read when the National Post reprinted it) was not the stunning indictment she claimed it to be, or the usual cadre of CBC-haters have been touting it as. When you get through all of her prose, it seems that her biggest complaint is that the CBC asked her, as a producer, to ensure there were more diverse guests on panels or interview segments. In Henley’s recounting, this was the booming klaxon of “The Wokes are coming!” and how this is some kind of Ivy League American brain worm/neural parasite import that has destroyed the CBC’s reporting over the past 18 months. Reality is most likely that what she considered “compromising” to the reporting was being asked not to use the same six sources on all of the panels or packages she was responsible for—because that is a very real problem with a lot of Canadian news outlets, where they have a Rolodex of usual suspects who have a media profile because they answer phone calls and make themselves available. There are a number of people, whose credentials are actually terrible and who have zero actual credibility or legitimacy, but because they are easy gets for reporters or producers, and they say provocative things, they are go-to sources time and again. That the vast majority of them are heterosexual white men is problem when a news outlet has had it pointed out to them repeatedly that they need more diverse sources. Henley appears to have balked at that.

There are a lot of problems with CBC’s reporting these days—much of it is either reductive both-sidesing, or its credulous stenography that doesn’t challenge what is being said, even if what is being said is wrong or problematic but has a sympathetic person saying it. There are a lot of questionable editorial choices being made in terms of who they are granting anonymity to and who they are not, particularly if it counters the narrative they are trying to set with the particular story (and there was a lot of this in their reporting on the allegations around House of Commons Clerk Charles Robert). There are problems with its mandate creep around their web presence, and yes, they have made very questionable decisions around some of their editorial pieces—and attempts to alter them once published. None of its problems have to do with the fact that Henley was asked to get more diverse voices. But Henley also knew that there is an audience for her recitation of the “anti-woke” platitudes, and she has a book she wants to sell, and figured that a paid Substack was more lucrative than the Mother Corp. And the fact that O’Toole and others are reaching out seems to indicate that she gambled on media illiteracy for this particular grift, in the hopes it might pay off.

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QP: Deception about deflation

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For the final Question Period of 2021—which was still undetermined as things got underway, as the House Leaders were engaged in a game of chicken—neither the prime minister nor his deputy were present, but the latter would appear virtually. Erin O’Toole led off, script in front of him, and he immediately started off with a lie about deflation, which did happen, and he was presuming it to be a good thing because it would lower prices, when in fact it would have led to a spiral that turned into a depression as businesses couldn’t service their debts. Chrystia Freeland, by video, called this out as misinformation, and noted that Stephen Poloz cited that the government’s actions averted a second Great Depression. O’Toole railed about Freeland’s alleged misinformation during the election campaign and compared her to Donald Trump, and Freeland called O’Toole the leader of flip-flops, and noted that in the election the Conservatives promised even more spending while they were currently railing against it, and that a consistent position might be nice. O’Toole repeated his first question in French, and Freeland repeated the Poloz comments in French. John Barlow got up and railed about the export ban on PEI potatoes and wondered why the agriculture minister was not currently in Washington resolving the situation. Freeland assured him the federal government was working to resolve if and noted she was next to the prime minister when he raised it with Biden, while Conservatives advocate capitulation. Barlow insisted that this has basically destroyed PEI, and Freeland dismissed this as scaremongering, and reassured farmers they were working on it like they did with previous disputes they won on.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and blamed the Quebec teacher who was reassigned for wearing a hijab, railing that she knowingly broke the law and saying otherwise was Quebec bashing. Freeland calmly recited that they stand with Quebeckers who stand up for individual rights and freedoms. Therrien railed that mayors are funding court challenges, accusing them of not understanding secularism or democracy, and Freeland gave some fairly disarming reassurances that the federal government works well with Quebec and the Bloc shouldn’t pick fights.

Peter Julian rose for the Bloc, and in French, he worried that omicron could lead to lockdowns with no supports, to which Freeland made a pitch for MPs to pass Bill C-2 to provide necessary supports. Julian shouted the same question again in English, and Freeland repeated her response in the other official language. 

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Roundup: Setting more dangerous precedents to justify hybrid sittings

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With a vote of 180 to 140, hybrid sittings will be returning to the House of Commons, which is bullshit and absolutely unconscionable, but the Liberals and NDP have managed to convince themselves of a lot of nonsense in order to justify this. For the Liberals, it was weaponizing a lot of nonsense about MPs feeling “unsafe” in the House of Commons with potentially unvaccinated Conservatives in their midst, which may be a theoretical danger at this point, but it’s not outside of what everyone else has to contend with – and in fact, we expect a lot of essential workers to put themselves in a lot more danger on a daily basis than MPs have to by being in the Chamber with nearly everyone double-vaxxed and everyone wearing masks. For the NDP, it was a lot of the usual handwaving about “work-life balance” and parents of small children, but they already have a lot of accommodations being made for them, and that excuse is getting thin.

What is especially egregious is that this debate over hybrid sittings and remote voting has created an artificial standard of perfect attendance which has never existed, and there is no reason why it needs to exist now. One or two votes won’t bring the government down, and being dramatic about it isn’t helping matters. If anything, creating this impossible standard of perfect attendance in order to justify hybrid sittings is irresponsible and downright dangerous, and sets a way worse example to the rest of the country. Allowing this standard to flourish will mean that MPs will never be allowed sick days or necessary leaves of absence in the future because they will be expected to attend virtually or to continue voting remotely, and it will be used as justification to keep hybrid formats going in perpetuity (which is very, very bad for the health of our Parliament). Perpetuating it will encourage MPs to remain in partisan silos because they don’t have to attend in person and interact face-to-face, and the toxic atmosphere of the last session will become the new norm.

There is also the accountability problem, which the Conservatives and Bloc have been absolutely right to highlight. Allowing attendance by Zoom allows ministers to escape accountability, and it allows all ministers and MPs to escape the accountability of the media because they will simply absent themselves from Parliament Hill, where they cannot be button-holed on their way in and out. Accountability is already suffering in this country, and the government has given themselves a free pass to let it slide even further, and their apologists are clutching their pearls about the pandemic still being on. This is no way to run a country.

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QP: Insufficiently tough about softwood lumber

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A single day after the prime minister took all of the questions, he was too busy with “private meetings” to return for a second day in a row, but his deputy was present, so hopefully it would be okay after all. Erin O’Toole led off, script on his mini-lectern, and he moaned about the higher softwood lumber tariffs and called the prime ministers a “pushover.” Chrystia a Freeland read that she was extremely disappointed by the unfair and unwarranted decision by the US, that Trudeau did raise it in Washington last week, as did she, and that it was fuelling America’s inflation. O’Toole accused the Liberals of selling out workers, for which Freeland reminded the Commons that O’Toole publicly called on the government to drop retaliatory measures against other American tariffs, which Canada won. O’Toole then raised the threats over PEI potato exports, and Freeland said she would leave it up to Canadians to judge their successes with the New NAFTA and the 232 tariffs, before she pivoted to addressing PEI farmers, reminding them that she grew up on a farm too, and she was working to resolve the situation. O’Toole then switched to French, and said the government was racking up failures, for which Freeland reiterated that they have been trying to resolve the softwood lumber situation. O’Toole raised the issue of inflation, and Freeland reminded him that this is a global phenomenon as a result of economies restarting, and the government was working to help Canadians.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and demanded that all health transfers be given to provinces without strings, and Freeland assured him that they wanted to work with Quebec. Therrien demanded a public summit with premiers, for which Freeland reminded him of the support they sent to Quebec during the pandemic.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he demanded immediate action on the climate crisis and an end to fossil fuel subsidies, and Freeland stated that she agreed that climate action as urgent and essential and that those subsidies would be phased out next year, and that a raft of independent experts judged the Liberal plan the best. Singh repeated the question in French, and got much the same response. 

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QP: Inflation vs child care, ad nauseam

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And we’re back, after some nearly five months away, and to a full Chamber at that. Let’s hope it stays that way. Erin O’Toole led off, mini-lectern in front of him, and he raised the floods in BC, recognising that the minster has been in contact with province, and asked for an update on the situation. Justin Trudeau read a statement about what the Canadian Forces members on the ground have been up to. O’Toole then moved to the Coastal GasLink situation, raising concerns about the “dog whistling” about blowing up pipelines and insisting that this project was somehow about “economic reconciliation.” Trudeau insisted that they are working toward economic reconciliation, but it needs to be done in partnership with the communities. O’Toole shifted to the issue of inflation and noted that it only got a single mention in the Speech from the Throne, and Trudeau said it was being driven by supply chain challenges, before touting how their child care plans will help families. O’Toole repeated the same question in French and got the same answer, with a bit more punch that the Conservatives promised to tear up those agreements. O’Toole raised the labour shortage in Quebec, saying the PM has not acknowledged it, but a Trudeau disputed this, insisting that building back better includes new jobs, raising immigration levels and training, as that shortage existed before the pandemic.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and true to form, demanded more health transfers and a “public summit” on health funding that he has been pushing for. Trudeau read that the government has a plan to eliminate delays, build better long-term care and hire more doctors in partnership with the provinces, and that they would continue to invest while respecting jurisdictions. Blanchet dismissed the idea that the federal government could have done better than provinces during the pandemic, and Trudeau said he wasn’t interested in finger-pointing, and wanted to partner with provinces in the best interests of seniors.

Jagmeet Singh then rose for the NDP, and after declaring a climate crisis, claimed there was no plan for workers in the Speech from the Throne. Trudeau reminded him that all experts gave the Liberal plan top marks in the election. In French, Singh groused about fossil fuel subsidies, and Trudeau, without script, reminded him that they are phasing them out ahead of schedule, along with their emissions cap for the oil and gas sector.

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