The prime minister was finally present for the second day of the mid-July sitting, after his inexplicable absence the day before. Andrew Scheer led off, mini-lectern on desk, where he insisted that Canadians had enough of his scandals, and demanded he appear before committee. Trudeau stated that he was considering the invitation, that he was happy to be here today and tomorrow, and that he should have recused himself when the suggestion was made by the public service. Scheer spun a tale of WE’s alleged schemes, and again demanded that Trudeau appear at committee. Trudeau responded by listing the aid they have given students. Scheer then ranted about his disgust with the Liberals and didn’t have a question, to which Trudeau chided him about the things that he should be asking about, like the aid package under debate. Scheer got increasingly breathy as he again spun out a conspiracy theory around WE, wondering on what basis the civil service could have recommended WE, to which Trudeau stated that the civil service looked at the government’s plans and decided WE was best placed to fulfil it. Scheer quoted a charity watchdog on WE’s ability to fulfil the programme, and the asked Chrystia Freeland what it would take for her to lose faith in the prime minister, but Trudeau rose once more to praise the efforts they have made to engage students and support them. Yves-François Blanchet was up next for the Bloc, and he meandered around the problems Trudeau is facing, to which Trudeau insisted that they were focused on helping Canadians through the pandemic. Blanchet quipped that Trudeau couldn’t buy his way out of a crisis, and a suggested that Trudeau temporarily step aside and let Freeland replace him, and Trudeau praised the Safe Restart agreement with the provinces. Up next was Jagmeet Singh for the NDP, and he wondered why Trudeau didn’t recuse himself when the WE contract came up, and Trudeau stated that he followed the recommendation of the civil service. Singh insisted that apologies mean nothing if the Liberals help their “wealthy friends,” and worried why they didn’t just use another program instead, to which Trudeau said it was a shame that the NDP was so cynical about measures for students.
Tag Archives: Veterans
QP: Chagger for the defence
The ranks were thin, as was to be expected as it was both the middle of July and the middle of a global pandemic. The prime minister was mysteriously absent, the only major leader not present for the day. Andrew Scheer led off by concern trolling that the PM listed that today was a personal day on his website, which should have been against the rules being as you’re not allowed to mention if a member is present or not, and additionally you can’t do through the back door what you can’t through the front, which Scheer did here. Chrystia Freeland responded that she was happy to take their questions. Scheer then moved onto the WE Imbroligo and how WE was chosen as the partner, to which Freeland recited the non-partisan public service gave the advice to go with WE, and they followed it. Scheer demanded that the PM show up at committee to answer questions, to which Freeland repeated her same points. Scheer listed more problems with WE, and Freeland repeated the same points again. Scheer then attempted to shame the Liberals on the Ethics committee for filibustering the questions, and tried to accuse the Liberals or corruption or incompetence, and Freeland responded that was neither, before she recited the prepared lines one last time. Yves-François Blanchet was up next for the Bloc, and he raised the concerns of someone who met with the prime minister recently and demanded fifty weeks for some unspecified programme, to which Freeland assured him that they were helping Canadians. Blanchet made reference to people with serious illnesses on EI, and Freeland again returned with bland assurances. Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and insinuated that the student grant programme was about helping Liberal friends and not students. Freeland explained that youth were particularly threatened by current circumstances which was why they tried to help. Singh switched to English to rail about a “billion-dollar bail-out,” to which Freeland reiterated her assurances.
Singh calls the student grant a “billion dollar bail-out.” It’s an alliterative line, but WE was going to only get about $20 million. #QP
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) July 20, 2020
Roundup: Trudeau slows to a summer pace
Prime minister Justin Trudeau was back at Rideau Cottage yesterday morning, for what he promised would be the last “daily” briefing, though they haven’t been daily for a few weeks now. And there really wasn’t anything new to announce – yet another reminder that the Canadian Emergency Business Account and commercial rent subsidies were good things, that there were still hotspots of pandemic around the country, but that we are making progress – but are not out of the woods yet – and oh, yeah, the New NAFTA comes into force on Wednesday. During the Q&A, Trudeau stated that American chest-thumping over tariffs only hurts them because they need Canadian aluminium as they can’t produce enough of their own. When asked about the Human Rights Watch report on Canadian foreign fighters being held prisoner in Syria, Trudeau insisted that they are preoccupied with the safety of diplomatic personnel in the region, and we don’t have any in Syria, which makes the complicated situation even more complex because most of these prisoners are facing charges. (Not everyone buys this argument). And when asked yet again about We Charities being given that contract, Trudeau again insisted that the advice of the public service was that only they could deliver on the scale that was required, and that some 25,000 students hand applied over the past few days, to prove the point.
A short while later, Dr. Theresa Tam gave her last regular update as well, as those pressers also take on a less daily pace, as well as unveiled new federal modelling numbers, which show that the pandemic is largely under control, but with the warning that people need to keep up good habits around distancing and hygiene, lest flare-ups start happening.
Dr. Tam says she’s been working 20 hours a day since the start of covid, so over the summer she’s planning on taking her own advice and trying to work a little less to balancing her mental and physical health. Dr. Njoo adds that he’s trying to convince to take some vacation!
— Mackenzie Gray (@Gray_Mackenzie) June 29, 2020
Meanwhile, in Alberta, Jason Kenney and his finance minister unveiled their economic recovery plan, and it was complete with mistruths, and tired magical thinking that tax cuts will automatically create jobs (when these rapid cuts will only benefit existing players rather than attract future ones), or that hectoring tech firms for not upping sticks to relocate to the “cheap rents” of Calgary and lower taxes as being “irresponsible.” So yeah, good luck with that. Meanwhile, here’s Andrew Leach with a bit of a fact check.
Alberta actually fell into recession in 2019, but yes go on. https://t.co/aVoQf7xsPH https://t.co/90gWYSvkwK
— Jason Markusoff (@markusoff) June 29, 2020
The Finance Minister is wrong. His own ministry's economic index says so. No, 2020 was not looking good. In fact, almost every major economic forecast had downgraded their AB 2020 outlook over the last half of 2019. #ableg pic.twitter.com/OyvZtCTvU0
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) June 29, 2020
Flash back to late 2018, even before the UCP government were elected: the outlook was pretty solid and things were looking up. RBC, for example, was predicting AB real GDP growth of 1.5% and 2.7% for 2019 and 2020 respectively:https://t.co/TmXMPpDahehttps://t.co/svcTpockvp
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) June 29, 2020
In that June 2019 report, the second bullet read: "Alberta’s economy facing challenges: Mandated oil production cuts by the government have been scaled back but effects
of last fall’s oil price tumble will continue to impact the economy negatively in 2019."— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) June 29, 2020
By December of 2019, we see another downgrade of the long term outlook for economic growth, holding the 2019 estimate at 0.6% and lowering 2020 again, to 1.7% growth. That's a full percentage point deduction in the 2020 outlook from Dec 2018 to Dec 2019.https://t.co/VuPjPdNBsc
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) June 29, 2020
For 2019, Alberta had the worst performance of all the Canadian provinces in terms of nominal or real GDP growth or employment growth. Not below average. Not just worse than forecast. The worst. In Canada. pic.twitter.com/ZW1mfrkDo7
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) June 29, 2020
Demand better.
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) June 29, 2020
Roundup: A bridge loan, not a bailout
It was a bit of a staggered rollout of the message of the day, starting with Bill Morneau and Navdeep Bains in Toronto to announce the creation of the Large Employer Emergency Financing Facility (LEEFF), which is designed to give large employers temporary bridge financing if they can’t get it by other means, but that comes with a great many strings attached, such as ensuring that jobs and collective agreements are maintained, that climate change plans are not affected, and that there are limits to executive compensation, share buybacks, dividends, and on top of that, these companies will need to disclose their financial structures to ensure that they’re not avoiding taxes with offshore banks or shelters.
Justin Trudeau was up shortly thereafter for his daily presser, noting the start of National Nursing Week, before he spoke about enhanced measures for medium-sized businesses, and then reiterated the messages around the LEEFF, citing that these were bridge loans and not bail-outs, and that the government was only to be a lender of last resort. When asked whether this was some kind of attack on oil companies with the focus on environmental plans, Trudeau insisted that many of them had net-zero-by-2050 plans, so this condition should not have been more onerous on them – but that didn’t stop the usual suspects from complaining that this wasn’t the kind of help that the energy sector was looking for.
During the ministerial presser, Chrystia Freeland said that they working with the US to deal with the inevitable increase in cross-border traffic as economies started re-opening, as premiers express reservations around the possibility of visitors once again coming to Canada.
Meanwhile, here’s economist Kevin Milligan on the path of the labour market and the economy, that’s worth thinking about.
https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1259641163989970945
https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1259641908436930560
https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1259642852260278272
https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1259644740460404736
QP: A day late to the concerns of the nation
After news that the prime minister was in self-isolation after his wife was sick, and Jagmeet Singh also stated that he was self-isolating after feeling “unwell,” the business of parliament carried on. Andrew Scheer led off, mini-lectern on desk, and he gave his best wishes to the PM — for which he got applause — and then demanded more “decisive action” and claimed that passengers arriving from Italy were not screened, ignoring the pertinent information that everyone was screened before they were allowed to board. Chrystia Freeland addressed all Canadians to trust in the advice of medical experts, that things will get worse for it gets better, and that we are well prepared. Scheer raised potential shortages around equipment like ventilators, to which Freeland stated that the federal government was leading a bulk national procurement effort and they were working together with provinces and territories. Scheer lamented the lack of mandatory screening, quarantines or travel restrictions and demanded the evidence for those decisions. Freeland gave a bromide about our public health system, and assured him that enhanced measures were in place, and that they were following the advice of science. Alain Rayes demanded a plan to prevent large public gatherings, and Freeland repeated her first assurance for all Canadians in French. Rayes then demanded more “concrete measures” for workers who lose their jobs as a result of the outbreak, and Freeland read the changes to EI and promise for new measures as necessary. Christine Normandin led off for the Bloc, and after wishing the PM well, she demanded more resources for border screenings, for which Freeland addressed the PM’s situation, that he wasn’t sick but waiting for his wife’s results. Normandin again demanded “real” screening measures, and Freeland again read that they were following all public health advice. Peter Julian led off for the NDP, and again demanded that every worker who has to self-quarantine gets financial resort, to which Freeland reiterated the $1 billion COVID-19 package and that they were rolling out new measures. Rachel Blaney repeated the question with added condescension, to which Freeland calmly repeated the same response.
https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1238169023449268224
Roundup: Self-isolating MPs
Yesterday evening, Seamus O’Regan tweeted that after a persistent head cold, he went to his doctor and was self-isolating until he got the results of the COVID-19 test that he got. Around the same time, former Conservative Cabinet minister (and sexting blackmail victim) Tony Clement was on Power & Politics saying that it may be time to think about taking Parliament “digital,” and holding debates and votes remotely for the duration. Yeah, that’s a big nope.
I get that being a politician is a tactile business, and there are concerns that the House of Commons is essentially one big cruise ship, however Parliament needs to happen face-to-face. It’s inconceivable that it could be done remotely because so many of the needed conversations happen off-camera and on the sidelines. That can’t be replicated by everyone working remotely. Should they take additional precautions? Sure – additional hand-washing, practicing social distancing when they take meetings, and so on, but that’s not exactly a big hardship. And it’s not like there aren’t a number of constituency weeks coming up for MPs to hunker down if they need to, and even though it may be a hung parliament, there are more than enough provisions for members from different parties to “pair” absences so that there are no accidental losses of confidence in the meantime (because as much as the Conservatives claim they want an early election, this is largely bravado as their party organization is in chaos and they are in no shape for it, not to mention that neither the Bloc nor the NDP want one either, and they have the votes that count).
The bigger danger, however is contagion – not of the virus, but of the notion that MPs can “work remotely,” which many have been pushing for in the ongoing effort to make Parliament more “family friendly.” But that way lies madness – MPs won’t bother to leave their constituencies, believing they can do more good there (even though constituency work is actually not part of their job description), and without those sideline conversations, it will polarize the environment even more than it already is. Recall how collegiality was shattered after evening sittings were ended and MPs no longer ate dinner together – this would make it that much worse, if they no longer have to look one another in the eye or cross paths. This nonsense needs to be quashed here and now. You can’t Skype Parliament.
QP: Keeping some fiscal room
Tuesday, and while Justin Trudeau was present today, both Andrew Scheer and Jagmeet Singh were away for whatever the reason. Gérard Deltell led off in French, worrying about the deficit and the loss of jobs in the energy sector, and the general direction of the economy. Trudeau started that they did the work of things like poverty reduction, but they knew to leave room for situations like COVID-19. Deltell worried that they spent the cupboard bare, to which Trudeau reminded him that the Conservatives cut services to veterans and other vulnerable groups while his government has room to manoeuvre. Pierre Poilievre took over in English and listed a number of false metrics around our economy and the state of the deficit, to which Trudeau repeated his answer. Poilievre listed some cherry-picked facts about Conservative budgets, and Trudeau noted that the Conservatives neglected to invest in Canadians. Poilievre then listed a number of disingenuously framed investments by the current government, and Trudeau listed the ways in which Conservatives cut services for Canadians. Yves-François Blanchet was up for the Bloc, and he worried about poor seniors, to which Trudeau listed the measures that his government has taken to date. Blanchet repeated his demand to increase seniors’ purchasing power, and Trudeau reiterated that they have taken plenty of measures. Peter Julian led for the NDP, and he worried about measures for vulnerable workers in the gig economy, to which Trudeau assured him that they would be announcing new measures. Jenny Kwan forcefully read a demand to delay cruise season, to which Trudeau stated that they were working with provinces and sectors to support them in difficult times.
Comparing unemployment metrics to other countries is not an apples-to-apples comparison. #QP
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) March 10, 2020
Roundup: Putting Freeland on the case (again)
With more attention turning to what’s happening around COVID-19, prime minister Justin Trudeau has created a new Cabinet committee to handle the situation, and he’s put Chrystia Freeland in charge of it. An important addition to the committee is Kirsty Duncan, who may no longer be in Cabinet but is nevertheless sworn in as a privy councillor, and the fact that she has expertise in pandemics and once studied the Spanish Flu epidemic, so chalk one up for bench strength there. Freeland says the response has to be both “whole of government” and “whole of country,” and her role as intergovernmental affairs minister is certainly part of that – given that provinces deliver healthcare for the bulk of the country – but one suspects this is also about having a reassuring communicator on the issue (because as we all know, this government can’t communicate its way out of a wet paper bag).
To that end, while certain opposition voices are demanding travel restrictions (which are proven not to work) or enhanced screening measures at airports, what we’re hearing from the health minister and the Chief Public Health Officer is largely that containment can only delay an outbreak – which is not a bad thing, because if it can be delayed by six weeks or so, that would get our healthcare system past peak flu season, which frees up beds and resources. And thus far, we have been lucky that all of the cases in this country can be traced to travel-related causes and not community transmission, which means that the measures taken to date have been working, but again, delay is the watchword. It should also be noted that we have largely avoided panic, which is pretty good (torqued headlines about demanding people start stockpiling notwithstanding).
With that in mind, the military has been ordered to being pre-pandemic planning out of an abundance of caution, given that they need to be able to continue to operate in the case of a crisis.
People should listen carefully to what the CDS said:
This is an anticipatory activity to ensure the CAF is ready BUT NOT an indicator of what "will" happen let alone "is happening"
This is what great militaries do: Plan and Prepare absent an actual demand signal https://t.co/aXct2PpDnd
— D. Michael Day (@DMike_Day) March 5, 2020
Roundup: Kenney looking to weaponize populist anger
It was Throne Speech day in Alberta yesterday, and while Kenney temporarily toned down his bellicosity for the sake of decorum, the speech was still full of strange promises. While Kenney promised to reduce unemployment, he nevertheless cited the report he devised to show that spending was too high while ignoring the province’s revenue problem, meaning more cuts are still likely. He also hinted at government investment in resource projects, which is mighty odd for someone who claims to support the free market (and this thread shows some of the context of Peter Lougheed’s investments in the sector which Kenney invoked). He also tabled the first bill, which promises fine for interrupting “critical infrastructure” – such as the rail blockades – because that’ll help.
The one thing that caught my attention most of all, however, was a proposal for recall petitions that would not only target MLAs, but also municipal councillors, mayors, and even school board trustees. I cannot stress enough how boneheaded an idea this is, because it will do absolutely nothing to enhance the practice of democracy, and will in fact weaken the representative democracy – along with their plans to allow citizens to petition referendums on whatever they want. Why they are even more concerning in the current context is because I am certain that this is about Kenney looking to weaponize populist anger against anyone who stands in his way. He has a cadre of paid shitposters, both in his office and in his $30 million a year “war room” that he can deploy against anyone in the province who stands up to Kenney – most especially the mayors of Edmonton and Calgary. Even if there is a high enough bar set to trigger these, as in BC, it nevertheless undermines the practice of Responsible Government and the confidence conventions inherent in our system. We already have accountability mechanisms – they’re called elections. Recall is not only an Americanism that does not fit with our system, I have no doubt that this is about portraying dissent as illegitimate, and using recall legislation as a threat. This will only increase the ugliness that is creeping into our politics, and that Kenney is gleefully throwing these things out there is a very big problem.
Meanwhile, to top it all off, Teck Resources appears to be trolling some particular voices like Kenney who have been caterwauling the past few days, as they announced they are investing in a solar facility at a reclaimed coal mine in BC. Oh, the delicious, delicious irony of it all.
Roundup: Teck withdraws
As the countdown to potential police enforcement at the Tyendinaga blockade were taking place, a bombshell hit – Teck Resources were “temporarily” withdrawing their application for the proposed Frontier oilsands mine, sparing the Liberal Cabinet of what was essentially an impossible decision, but also spurring the disingenuous cries from Jason Kenney and the federal Conservatives as to what this move represents. A big part of the decision was of course the fact that the price of oil is far too low to make the project viable, and global investment markets are making it clear that they are looking to invest in more sustainable projects, but we know that isn’t going to be the narrative that is being used to howl about it.
Teck has withdrawn its application for the Frontier oil sands mine. First reported by @MariekeWalsh – here is the letter from the CEO of the company to Fed Env Minister Wilkinson: pic.twitter.com/5zl1LkMtuQ
— Vassy Kapelos (@VassyKapelos) February 24, 2020
There is going to be so much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the next few days that the Liberals “politicized” the approval (which is funny considering it was the Conservatives that wrote in said politicization into the legislation in 2012, which was the process by which this project was being assessed), and that this will somehow be a loss of $70 billion in revenues (never mind that said figure comes from estimates that oil was somewhere around $95/barrel, when it’s currently hovering around $50 and is likely to remain so in the near term). Remember that there are about 20 other approved oilsands projects in Alberta that aren’t getting built because oil prices are too low to make them viable, and Teck has been saying for weeks if not longer that this was going to be the case as well – and yet Kenney, Scheer, and company have been making this approval into some kind of symbol or totem about the supposed health of foreign investment in Canada. It was only ever bullshit designed to make people angry for their political gain, but that’s what political discourse has devolved into these days.
https://twitter.com/Lazin_Ryder/status/1231794973776863232
https://twitter.com/Lazin_Ryder/status/1231797606335991810