Tag Archives: Ukraine

Roundup: Some long-awaited policy announcements

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The Liberals finally came out yesterday with a suite of policy announcements at the end of their caucus retreat, with a bunch of measures that some have been calling on for a while. Removing the GST on purpose-built rentals was actually an idea they ran on in 2015 then didn’t implement after further study (credit to Rachel Aiello for finding that), but have now gone ahead with in light of all of the calls to do so. As well, a number of people were treating the warnings to municipalities about not getting Housing Accelerator Fund dollars if they continued exclusionary zoning as though it were new, when it was part of the policy design in the 2021 platform all along.

One of the more interesting announcements was around upcoming changes to the Competition Act, but while Jagmeet Singh will take credit for it, the government has been consulting on this for over a year. The big news is the proposed elimination of the “efficiencies defence,” which would be a sea change in Canadian competition law.

There were also warnings to the grocery oligopolies that they have until Thanksgiving to stabilise prices (meaning return them to the headline rate of inflation), but I have a hard time seeing how this is going to work considering that the bulk of price increases are because of supply issue, such as yields being reduced for climate-related droughts or floods. Margins have been consistent throughout, so this policy is going to need a lot more finessing, and the price issues related to a lack of competition in the sector is going to be as difficult to fix as the supply issues. They also said they would extend the loan repayment period for CEBA loans after an outcry, btu extending the deadline for most means forgoing the partial forgiveness portion, meaning they will have more to repay.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian shelling killed a six-year-old boy in the village of Novodmytrivka in the southern Kherson region. Ukrainian forces have retaken the village of Andriivka in the east, as they continue to press on toward Bakhmut.

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Roundup: Stupid polls about the monarchy

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It appears to be the season for reporting on really stupid polls, because there was yet another one yesterday, saying that an increasing number of Canadians want to “reconsider” our ties to the monarchy, which is already a misleading turn of phrase because we have a domestic monarchy, and have since 1931. Yes, we time-share their natural persons with the UK and thirteen other realms, but the Canadian monarchy is a Thing, and it’s not a gods damned foreign imposition.

What makes this kind of polling even more irresponsible is the fact that there is simply nothing in there about what they expect to replace it with, because there are myriad options, and absolutely no exploration of any of them. It’s also extremely relevant because that’s how Australia’s republican movement faltered—voters were not in favour of the appointed head of state option presented in the referendum, and since its failure, support for the monarchy in that country has increased. (Better the devil you know, and all of that. On top of that, getting rid of the monarchy would require a wholesale rewrite of our constitution (because it’s the central organizing principle), and would abrogate all of the treaties with First Nations, because they are all with the Crown, which would add a whole other layer of complexity for our relationship and reconciliation. (In fact, there is a compelling argument that ending the monarchy would simply mean completing the colonial project).

There is no simple yes/no choice for the future of the monarchy in Canada—it’s yes/which model to replace it with (because you can’t not have an organizing principle for executive power, and you really want to have some kind of a constitutional fire extinguisher available), and how to go about doing it, and stupid poll questions like this just elide over that reality in a completely misleading way.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Ukrainian attack on a shipyard in occupied Crimea has damaged two Russian ships undergoing repairs at the facility and caused a fire. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has vetoed an anti-corruption bill that contained a loophole that allowed people to forgo disclosing assets for another year. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen also praised Ukraine’s progress toward EU membership, but said that they still have more work to do.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1701984458960765381

https://twitter.com/rustem_umerov/status/1702012801131102435

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Roundup: Credulously repeating the 20-year line

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The big story that everyone was credulously repeating yesterday was the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s report on the Stellantis-LG Energy Solutions electric vehicle battery plant, and what he termed to be the “break-even” for the subsidies provided by the federal government and Ontario. To hear the two governments tell the tale, it would have earned back the subsidies within about five years, provided you factor in all of the indirect benefits from it. The PBO says that break-even would take twenty-years, but that didn’t take into account indirect benefits, just the revenues from the plant’s output. While I don’t trust the government’s five-year figure because it’s based on a lot of optimism and fuzzy math, I also don’t trust the PBO’s figures, because he and his office have a demonstrated history of just pulling methodologies out of their collective asses, and calling it a day, no matter how puzzling the results or the presentation.

Legacy media, however, takes the PBO at face-value, every time. “Oh, but he’s politically neutral so he’s credible!” is usually the cry, even though credible economists will tell you that his numbers don’t make sense much of the time (to say nothing of the fact that many of his reports are well outside of his legislated mandate). And if you look at the reporting, The Canadian Press, The Star, and the National Post all just quote from the report in full credulity, with some quotes from MPs or the minister in reaction. Not one of them appeared to try to get a second opinion. The CBC, however, decided to take things one step further and engage in actual journalistic malpractice by getting a quote from Ian Lee—a business studies professor with no expertise or credibility other than the fact that he answers his phone and provides bullshit answers about every topic under the sun—and the gods damned Canadian Taxpayers Federation, an Astroturf organization that exists solely to provide outraged quotes to the media. That’s what passes for getting a second opinion at the national public broadcaster.

Officers of Parliament are not infallible, and this PBO is especially a problem. In fact, one economist I was chatting with yesterday referred to him as the “Ian Lee of PBOs,” which pretty much says it all. It would be great if legacy media would actually take his utterances with a grain of salt, but they won’t, because nobody dares to challenge Officers of Parliament, and that is a problem that has a corrosive effect on our democratic institutions.

Ukraine Dispatch:

No news on the wires about any Russian strikes or the progress of the counter-offensive, but there was talk of Sweden considering donating some of its Gripen fighters to Ukraine. As well, Ukraine’s Antonov, which primarily has been in the business of building cargo planes, has been shifting their focus to building drones as the war carries on.

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Roundup: Losing faith in the justice system because of provincial choices

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The CBC has a story out about how a retired corporal from the military has lost faith in the justice system because court delays stayed the trial of her alleged attacker, and you can bet that pretty much everyone is going to take absolutely the wrong lessons from this, most especially legacy media.

The administration of justice—courts, Crown prosecutors, support staff—are all firmly within provincial jurisdiction. And for decades, provinces have been under-funding their systems while whinging that the federal government isn’t doing things like making bail harder to get (which is, frankly, unconstitutional). There is a story out of Toronto on the very same day about how staffing shortages—because of the province—have caused closures in courtrooms which led to a different sexual assault trial being tossed because they can’t get a trial within a reasonable time for the rights of the accused. And in the case of the corporal, it was because the Crown prosecutors (again, provincial responsibility) couldn’t get their shit together to push the case forward. And no, this has nothing to do with the federal government not filling judicial vacancies fast enough (which I have condemned this government for). These are all problems that are squarely within the provinces’ responsibilities.

And you can bet that people are going to try to both-sides this military issue because the provinces have been whinging that the military turning over cases to the civilian system is leaving them under-resources, even though it’s a handful of cases and the provinces have consistently made the policy choice over decades to under-fund their system. Trying to shift the blame to the federal government or whine that they’re not getting enough money is a well-worn pattern that we shouldn’t let them get away with. Unfortunately, that’s not in legacy media’s playbook, and you can bet that we’ll get more rounds of angry accusations that the federal government “let this happen” when clearly the failure was provincial the whole time.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces say they have reclaimed even more territory in the east and south parts of the country, as well as off-shore drilling platforms near occupied Crimea. Ukrainian forces have also been collecting Russian bodies along the “road of death” that they retook in June, so that they can exchange them for their own comrades, living and dead. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is calling on his country to remain focused on the war, with warnings that a “wartime budget” is coming, meaning this could go on for longer than many have hoped.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1701223223440928994

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Roundup: Long on speeches and imported culture wars

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The Conservative convention this weekend was long on speeches—Poilievre’s speech very much needing an editor as it went on for well over an hour—and was full of praise for the so-called convoy occupiers (from Poilievre’s wife as well as the wife of the “anti-woke general”). Said “anti-woke general” proved himself to be so fragile that he thinks that things like racial equality and gender equality are “destroying” Canada. There was also the Brexiteer from the House of Lords who also showered Poilievre with praise, so some real talent on display there.

Policy resolutions were not focused on things like housing or affordability, but instead prioritised things like vaccines, and culture war bullshit that extended to two separate resolutions attacking trans people (which the party could have used mechanisms to de-prioritise but didn’t, meaning they wanted them to come up for a vote). The Canadian Press has compiled five take-aways from the convention.

https://twitter.com/dalybeauty/status/1700974631468052754

In pundit reaction, Althia Raj looks at how the Conservatives used their convention to woo Quebeckers, and how they are going after the Bloc along the way. Aaron Wherry notes that claims of “common sense” are easier said than done, particularly as Poilievre painted an idyllic 1950s picture of the future he wants. Shannon Proudfoot hones in on the feeling of “enough” that permeated the convention, and the swinging of the pendulum, but also cautioned about who limiting that can be.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian forces staged early-morning drone attacks against Kyiv on Sunday. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that the counter-offensive has made more advances along the southern front, as well as near Bakhmut in the east.

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Roundup: A foreign interference inquiry after all

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The announcement finally came down yesterday that the government will be launching a public inquiry into foreign interference, with terms of reference that include China, Russia, and any other state or non-state actors whom they see fit, and that this will be expected to have an interim report by the end of February next year, with a final report at the end of the year. Leading the inquiry will be Quebec Court of Appeal justice Marie-Josée Hogue, who has no national security experience, but says she is “honoured” to lead the exercise (though that is not what I would be feeling). The choice of judge and the terms of reference are apparently all unanimously agreed to by the government as well as the three main opposition parties, which is in part why it took so long, but there are still a few red flags, particularly around the timeline. It doesn’t seem either remotely possible or even plausible that the bulk of the work can be completed in five months (Hogue doesn’t start until the 18th), considering how much time it will take to stand up the inquiry’s infrastructure, and for her and her staff to be properly briefed on how to read top secret information and how to contextualise intelligence. This having been said, Dominic LeBlanc says the government will turn over any Cabinet documents she needs, and Justin Trudeau says he’ll willingly testify before said inquiry when asked to, so they’re certainly making a big show about cooperation.

As expected, the opposition parties fell all over themselves to take credit for this, and chided the government for why this took so long to get to this point, as though they weren’t a big part of the problem, most especially in trying to find someone to lead this process who was willing to do the job and subject themselves to the likelihood of daily character assassination in the process (because as much as they say they’re all in favour of this, the moment they think they can score points off of what is happening, they will have zero hesitation in being ruthless in doing so). Already Twitter was abuzz with her political donation history (Conservative), who appointed her to the bench (Peter MacKay), and her previous law firm (which has Liberal and China connections), so you can bet that there will be those who won’t hesitate to move into character assassination at a moment’s notice.

In related news, LeBlanc says he’ll be meeting with MP Han Dong in the near future to discuss his future and whether he’ll be able to re-join the party given the allegations against him, which David Johnston found to lack credibility in his report. It sounds like LeBlanc hasn’t had the time to deal with this with everything else going on over the summer, so we’ll see where that leads.

Programming note: It’s my birthday this weekend, so I’m going to make it a long-ish weekend on the blog. See you next week!

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians attacked the Danube port of Izmail for the fourth time in five days, damaging more grain silos and critical infrastructure. Ukrainian forces are gearing up air defences in preparation for another winter of attacks on their energy systems and power grid. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has tasked his new defence minister with rebuilding trust after a series of corruption allegations in the defence forces, particularly around procurement. Ukraine is also calling for more international pressure on Russia to return the children they have taken from Ukraine over the course of the invasion.

https://twitter.com/billblair/status/1699740567435915664

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Roundup: A rate hold and inappropriate reactions

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The big news of the day was that the Bank of Canada opted to maintain their headline rate at five percent, but warned that future rate hikes are still possible, depending on how the data look with future decision dates. This was a decision based entirely on the data—and the very mild contraction in the second quarter are certainly pointing to the fact that the economy is finally starting to slow so that maybe it can start to take the air out of excess demand. Nevertheless, I’m still expecting those three premiers who sent open letters to do a victory lap as though they had any say in the matter.

The bigger problem was Chrystia Freeland putting out an official statement saying that she was pleased with the decision, and while she respects the Bank’s independence, the government will use all of its tools to help bring inflation down (though one is a bit more dubious about that part). Why Freeland’s statement is a bigger problem is because she has a much bigger stick to wield with the Bank, and she has the tools that could force the governor to resign, which we haven’t seen since the Coyne Affair in the fifties, which led to the Bank shoring up its institutional independence. Freeland should know better, but I suspect that with all of the attention being paid to those premiers and their boneheaded open letters that she felt she needed to say something, and to offer some kind of reassurance to the public about the slowly improving state—because this government loves nothing more than reassuring pabulum. To compound that, every gods damned talking head over the past few days has been saying how great it was that the premiers were grandstanding like they way they are, because messaging politics just corrodes and rots our system.

Meanwhile, Jagmeet Singh decided he wasn’t getting enough attention, so he decided to embarrass himself and insist that the federal government can order the Bank to stop raising rates, because he thinks that interfering with an independent institution and forcing the resignation of the governor (which would be the outcome of such a move) are somehow winners for the economy. Singh would also apparently rather see inflation continuing to rip through our economy rather than the short-term pain in wresting it back down, because that is the counterfactual here. His “greedflation” insistence doesn’t bear out in the data, and a windfall tax won’t solve inflation. His suggestion here is beyond amateur hour, and shows that he remains unprepared for prime time.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians attacked a market in the eastern city of Kostiantynika yesterday, killing at least 17 people. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has recorded 26,717 civilian casualties in Ukraine so far, including 9,511 deaths. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Kyiv, and praised the progress in the counteroffensive to date.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1699405764983415077

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Roundup: A resignation that won’t solve the problem

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A couple of days after everyone declared ministerial responsibility dead for Ontario housing minister Steve Clark’s refusal to resign over the Integrity Commissioner’s report and his own gross negligence and dereliction of his duties, Clark did resign, at 9 AM on Labour Day, pointing to an attempt to take the sting out of the messaging. Ford later announced changes to his Cabinet which would put Paul Calandra in the housing file, in addition to Calandra’s existing role as House Leader.

Ford, however, insists that the tainted process for those Greenbelt lands will carry on, and while he is promising a “review” of the process, he won’t do the one thing the Auditor General and Integrity Commissioner have said, which was to cancel this process and start over. In fact, yesterday morning, Ford left open the possibility of reviewing all Greenbelt land and opening it up for development, which is unnecessary for housing needs—he hasn’t even implemented the recommendations of his government’s own housing task force, which explicitly stated they don’t need to develop those lands because there are fifty other things they should be doing instead.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1699015630316360078

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1699103206893056279

And that hasn’t been all. As this sordid affair continues to drip out, the identity “Mr. X” from the reports has been identified as a former mayor and developer who Ford has ties with, and his operation is practically stuffed with Batman villains. The jokes write themselves, but just make the corruption all the more hard to take.

My latest:

  • My weekend column looks at how ministerial responsibility changed in the age of message discipline, but how Doug Ford and Steve Clark can’t do the bare minimum.
  • At National Magazine, I look at the number of “secret trials” that we have seen come to light recently, and what could be behind them.
  • Also at National Magazine, I get some reaction to the Competition Tribunal’s cost award to the Bureau and the signals that they are sending by it.
  • My column points out just how inappropriate it is for premiers to write open letters to Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem, and how it corrodes our system.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian strikes damaged more grain warehouses at the Danube port of Izmail. Ukrainian forces say that they have taken more ground in both the eastern and southern fronts, as president Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited two front-line areas. Ukraine’s defence minister is being replaced by Rustem Umerov, a Crimean Tatar, who headed a privatization fund. Ukraine’s parliament passed an anti-graft law that contains a loophole, and many are urging Zelenskyy to veto it as a result. A parts shortage and a dispute over intellectual property rights is hobbling the ability to repair the Leopard 2 tanks we sent to Ukraine. And Ukrainian intercepts show Russian soldiers complaining about poor equipment and heavy losses.

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Roundup: Open Letters to Tiff Macklem

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BC premier David Eby decided he needed to be extra performative yesterday, and wrote an open letter to Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem, urging him not to raise interest rates next month because of the “human cost” of these interest rate hikes—ignoring of course the counterfactual of the effects of unchecked high inflation and the “human cost” that it has over the short and medium term.

What is pretty galling in all of this is that Eby knows better. He was once a pretty good civil liberties lawyer, and he fully knows that the Bank is independent, and that they have a legal mandate that they need to fulfil when it comes to keeping inflation at two percent, and that their main policy tool is the blunt instrument of interest rates. His “I know the Bank is independent but…” spiel was frankly embarrassing, and should not have merited the attention it got from the media, but here we are.

Speaking of, Power & Politics was not only true to form in giving him a soapbox to make his point, and rather than doing their jobs of pointing to the irresponsibility of this kind of move, particularly at a time when you also have Pierre Poilievre warning that he’s going to fire the Governor (with what power?) and threatening the Bank’s independence. It would be great if CBC could do a single economics story properly and not just treat it like an issue to be both-sidesed, but they apparently have zero willingness to do so, and the fact that this Eby interview was that ignorant is a sign that they cannot be bothered to care about economics stories for anything than just trying to plug them into their established narratives, and it’s doing the country an extreme disservice.

Programming Note: I’m taking the full long weekend off, so I’ll see you early next week.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces have reported some success in the south and east, but I am also tickled by their latest video offering, telling all of those armchair generals to basically shut up because they’ve been doing the heavy lifting on their own. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that Ukraine has developed its own long-range weapons that can strike 700 kilometres away, which may have been a sly nod to the attack on Russian airbases that destroyed a number of fighters. The mayor of Kyiv wants to build more fortifications, because there always remains the threat from Russia.

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Roundup: Singh’s curious housing assertions

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It looks like Jagmeet Singh is going to make another attempt at overplaying his hand, as he promises to use his “leverage” to try and squeeze more concessions from the government, particularly around housing. And sure, he can try, but part of this is going to go back to his absolute inability—or unwillingness—to understand how process works, and that’s kind of a big deal when you’re trying to demand the federal government do things.

For example, Singh was on Power & Politics the other day and insisted that the federal government can “rapidly” build new affordable houses, because they have “the land, the money, and the power” to do so. But I’m not sure this has entirely been thought through. Yes, the government has been going through their property portfolio to identify lands that can be sold for housing purposes, but that’s been ongoing for a couple of years and there hasn’t been a lot of traction because I suspect there isn’t a lot that’s available that is suitable for housing, and even if there was a glut that could be released, could they get it re-zoned for housing in short order by municipalities? I have my doubts. Yes, they have money, but that’s not infinite, and spending too much can have impacts on inflation, which they are trying to bring down (which is not helped by Singh’s stubborn insistence that only corporate greed is fuelling inflation, which is not true, and that a windfall tax will fix it, which is also not true). I’m also not sure what he means by the “power” to build homes—housing is primarily a provincial and municipal jurisdiction, where the federal contribution is mostly financial. Does he envision that they tender the construction of these houses? Because if that’s the case, a federal procurement process is neither simple nor quick (and just wait for the losing companies to sue the government, like what happens with defence procurement). Do they hire site planners, architects, and construction workers directly? Again, do you know what a federal hiring process looks like? And more to the point, there is a very tight labour market, which means that this will increases costs (and money is not infinite).

So, again, what process does he envision that the federal government can use to “rapidly” build these houses? Because remember, the timelines that the NDP are insisting on with their supply-and-confidence agreement have created their own problems, such as with the construction of the dental care programme, which has relied on a very poor kludge to get out the door within the deadline, and bad programme design just creates headaches, especially if it’s to meet an arbitrary deadline. Pharmacare is going to be similar—they’re insisting on particular timelines, but even if enabling legislation is passed this year, it’s not really going to matter unless nine other premiers sign on (and I haven’t seen Singh publicly haranguing NDP premier David Eby to do so). Process matters, and Singh pretending it doesn’t is a sign he’s not a serious person.

(As an aside, could every gods damned person who interviews Singh please stop asking why he hasn’t taken the nuclear option of tearing up the agreement as their first question? Seriously).

Ukraine Dispatch:

A combined overnight drone and missile attack on Kyiv killed two people, while an overnight drone attack, purportedly from Ukraine, struck military targets inside Russia and allegedly damaged four transport planes. Even more curious is that some of these Ukrainian drones appear to be made out of cardboard—for real!

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