Tag Archives: Veterans

Roundup: Offering justifications for the indefensible

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The attempts by conservatives, both provincial and federal, to justify the use of the Notwithstanding Clause is in full swing, and it’s a bit fascinating to watch the intellectual contortions that they will go through in order to justify a) the abuse of process for Bill 5 in the first place, b) the need to ram it through during the middle of the election itself in order to interfere, and c) why they need to go to the mat and use the nuclear option in order to help Ford enact petty revenge. One of Ford’s MPPs wrote up her legal analysis, which is more than Ford or his attorney general have bothered to do, but it still didn’t explain the need for haste when an appeal of the lower court decision would have been the proper way to go about disputing its reasoning. Ford’s MPPs would go on TV and throw around the word “elites” as though that justifies the nuclear option, which, again, doesn’t actually constitute a proper reason for employing said nuclear option. Andrew Scheer, meanwhile, is falling back on the technicality that Ford’s using the Clause is “within the law” because municipalities are under provincial jurisdiction, which is beside the point – the point being that Ford is violating the norms of our democratic system for his own personal ends, and not calling out that violation of norms is troubling.

Even more troubling was that during yesterday’s raucous Question Period in Queen’s Park, Ford stated that we don’t need the Charter because people elected him – all of which just continues his particular inability to discern between popular rule and democracy. Popular rule is justifying breaking rules and norms because you got elected – democracy is those rules and norms that keeps power in check. That he can’t grasp the difference should be alarming.

The LeBlanc Report

The Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner issued his report yesterday on whether Dominic LeBlanc violated ethics rules regarding the awarding of the Arctic surf clam fishery to a company that was headed (on an interim basis) by his wife’s cousin – the context is that he’s one of sixty first cousins, and his relationship with LeBlanc is at best described as an acquaintance. Reading through the report, it hinges upon the Commissioner reading the definition of family much more expansively than it is interpreted elsewhere in the very same regime, which is how LeBlanc interpreted it. LeBlanc took responsibility, vowed to do better in the future, but that hasn’t stopped the opposition from taking the usual route of wailing and gnashing of teeth to decry just how unethical this government is.

In the demonstrable instances, however, the ethics violations have been pretty small ball (i.e. Bill Morneau not properly reporting the ownership structure of the French villa he disclosed), or legitimate differences of opinion on relationships (whether the Aga Khan was a family friend in Trudeau’s case, or the closeness of the relationship between LeBlanc and his wife’s cousin in this case). These are not instances of influence being peddled, people being unjustly enriched (and I know people will quibble about the Bell Island vacation, but the Aga Khan is not some tycoon looking to increase his corporate holdings by way of government connections), so perhaps a bit of perspective is warranted. Should Trudeau and LeBlanc have cleared things with the Commissioner beforehand? Absolutely. But this performative outrage we’re seeing will only get you so far, and railing that there have been no consequences beyond naming-and-shaming means little considering that it was the Conservatives and NDP who designed this ethics regime back in 2006, and they could have designed a more robust system them – or at any point that it’s come up for statutory review – and they haven’t.

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Roundup: Negotiations and narratives

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It was another day of NAFTA developments, or rather the hints thereof, since Chrystia Freeland repeatedly said that they weren’t going to negotiate in public – just that they were making progress, and that they would go all night if they had to. Justin Trudeau said that they could reach a deal by Friday, but kept insisting that Supply Management would not be given up, and on the campaign trail in Quebec, Premier Philippe Couillard warned of “serious political consequences” if it was touched. Trudeau, meanwhile, will have a call with all of the premiers today in order to discuss what’s going down with the deal, so it may actually be getting close. Maybe. Of course, the Friday deadline appears to be more bluster, so we’ll see how it all plays out.

Meanwhile, closer to home, the Conservatives have tried to ramp up their narrative, and are insisting that all of the talk about the Canadians having been “sidelined” in NAFTA talks, and that we were now cornered into accepting a bad deal was indicative that Trudeau had “failed” – somehow, based on no information on mostly Trump talking points that don’t match reality.

You’ll notice a couple of things – one is that the “Trudeau” + “failed” in every tweet is part of their overall ham-fisted narrative-building strategy, and I’d imagine that every time they deploy it, campaign director Hamish Marshall gives them a cookie. Scheer is also going to town on this line from his convention speech about needing to be the “grown-ups in charge” again, which is tough to swallow given how little foreign policy depth their bench actually has, or even had in the previous government. And while there is room for the opposition to critique a government’s performance and holding them to account, coming up with false narratives, snide commentary, and shitposts in the middle of trade negotiations don’t exactly scream “grown-ups in charge.” And speaking of false narratives, the data show that the Conservative doomsaying about investment fleeing the Canadian economy isn’t holding water. Shocking, I know.

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Roundup: Bernier’s dog whistles

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While we’re on the topic of bozo eruptions, we got another one from Maxime Bernier over Twitter on Sunday evening, railing about Justin Trudeau’s declaration that diversity is our strength. While I won’t reproduce all of Bernier’s feed, some of the commentary around it has been interesting, and in particular, just what kinds of dog whistles and language that Bernier employs in his language – and likely not a coincidence that this happened on a day of counter-protests to white supremacists in the United States. Also worth noting that his tweets were in rapid succession and in both official languages, which indicates that they were premeditated and not spur of the moment, and that does mean something as well.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1028812175673094146

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1028834166849368064

I might be willing to suspend enough disbelief around Bernier to suppose that he’s really not all that bright and that he really doesn’t know what he’s doing when he tweets stuff like this, but the people who surrounded him in his leadership campaign absolutely knew what they were doing when they tweeted things like red pill memes, and one presumes that they’re still in Bernier’s orbit. But Bernier has consistently demonstrated that he doesn’t have particularly adept political sensibilities (witness his ejection from shadow cabinet), and the fact that he went from going to Pride parades during his leadership campaign to insist that his libertarian values meant that he valued freedom over social conservatism, to becoming a Jordan Peterson convert who was paranoid about “enforced speech” and the bogus fears about being jailed for mis-gendering someone. But as is pointed out below, we are two weeks away from the Conservative policy convention, and it’s possible that this dog whistling is also about Bernier trying to gather support to oppose Scheer in some capacity or other.

Michelle Rempel also put out a tweet thread in response (which again, I’m not going to repeat), and some of the points she made seemed to be refuting Bernier, but at the same time, she makes her own coded appeals about planned migration and the language of pitting groups of newcomers against each other, in very Jason Kenney-esque ways.

Ultimately, however, we are back to the notion of where the adult supervision is with this party, and we recall the reasons why Harper put the party into communications lockdown – before they won in 2006, they went into lockdown because the 2004 election saw them lose because of precisely these kinds of bozo eruptions from the likes of Cheryl Gallant and others. And the strict message discipline seemed to work, but it causes as many problems as it solves (not to mention it’s terrible for democracy). But with this kind of tire fire over the past couple of weeks, you have to imagine that Scheer, whose own Twitter strategy is a lot of lies, obfuscation, narrative building and populist memes, is all for this kind of air war that he thinks will rile the base in ways that appear to have worked for both Trump and Ford. Maybe this kind of “shitposting” (as it is colloquially known) is the message discipline, in which case, we’re probably all doomed.

https://twitter.com/aradwanski/status/1028816033610575872

https://twitter.com/aradwanski/status/1028816045262307328

https://twitter.com/InklessPW/status/1028416748331126785

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Roundup: Moe’s carbon bafflegab

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Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe (or his staff) penned an op-ed in the National Post yesterday, to explain why he thinks Canadians are opposed to the federal government’s planned carbon tax. The reasons, however, are…not convincing. Nor are his counter-claims about what the alternatives are. And to be fair, almost nobody likes taxes, which is why leaders like Moe have been casting any kind of carbon price in as negative a light as possible in order to turn public sentiment against them. And we can’t ignore that most Canadians want to fight climate change like they want a pony – they say they want to do it, but don’t actually want to undertake any of the responsibility that goes with it.

As for Moe’s arguments, he decries the carbon price as a “one-size-fits-all” approach, which is bogus off the start. The price does not indicate the mechanism by which it’s implemented, whether that’s cap-and-trade or a tax, and how those systems are set up and administered can vary greatly, particularly in how the revenues are recycled. That’s why the federal government gave provinces the space to design a system that fits their particular circumstances best. So right off the start, Moe is being intellectually dishonest in his argument. And as for the stated goal of reducing emissions, a carbon price is not only about reducing emissions – it’s about giving a market signal so that major emitters can drive innovation to reduce their emissions and avoid paying it (you know, something a fiscal conservative would recognise, were Moe actually one and not a populist goof), and it ensures that everyday consumers make choices to reduce their emissions. If you see people lining up at gas stations when the price drops a few cents, imagine what price indicators mean when it comes to other behaviours.

Moe keeps pointing to his province’s investment in carbon capture and storage, which has not yet proven itself cost-effective as a technology, but ironically would be more cost-effective if there was a carbon price that would help to better monetize its value. He talks about designing an offset system that would recognise carbon sinks in agriculture, but again, having a price allows this recognition to be better tracked and monetized, which again, provides incentives. You’d think this would be elementary stuff to someone who purports to be a fiscal conservative that believes in the free market. But that’s not what Moe is (nor is Doug Ford or Andrew Scheer for that matter), and they need to justify how they’re rejecting actual fiscal conservative measures.

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Roundup: Curiously speedy swearing-in

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With the final vote in the Senate today on the cannabis bill, there have been a few interesting developments, starting with the fact that the government has been making appointments – there was one on Friday, and two more were announced yesterday, and what’s even more curious is how fast they are being sworn in. The two named yesterday will be sworn in today, while the one named Friday was sworn in Monday is already voting on amendments to C-45 despite not having been there for any of the debate or committee testimony. Normally when senators are named, there are a few weeks between their being named and being sworn-in so that they can get all of their affairs in order, which makes this curious, and like it’s looking like Trudeau has been making panicked appointments with the fate of C-45 in the air. And what’s even more curious is the fact that it’s not the Conservatives who are the problem, since they don’t have the numbers to defeat it, but it’s the independent senators who are no longer voting as a bloc but have swung different amendment votes in different ways.

https://twitter.com/JacquiDelaney/status/1004520578919817216

Of course, Conservatives are already promulgating the conspiracy theory that because the provincial nomination committees are largely vacant that these are all hand-picked by the PMO, but in truth, the PMO is sitting on over a hundred vetted names on the short-lists, and these new appointments are all coming off of those lists, where they’ve been languishing for months. So not a conspiracy – just poor management to the point of incompetence.

Meanwhile, some 40 amendments have been passed, with several more defeated, and the government engaged in a bit of deal-making to assuage the concerns of Indigenous senators who wanted to put in an amendment to delay implementation until more consultation with Indigenous communities had been done. The health and Indigenous services ministers instead offered a number of measures and funds to ensure there was access to production, and culturally-appropriate addictions treatment services. One Conservative senator accused those Indigenous senators of capitulation, before she was slapped back by Senator Murray Sinclair for her patronising tone. One could argue that this means that the government is listening to the concerns that are raised, so we’ll see how much follow-through there is.

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QP: Bothered by bonuses

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While a torrential downpour descended on the nation’s capital, he third-last week of the spring sitting got underway. Andrew Scheer led off in French, mini-lectern on desk, decrying the “failure” of the government to buy the Trans Mountain pipeline and the revelation that executives were getting million-dollar bonuses. Justin Trudeau took up a script to read about their decision to stand up for workers, but would not comment on the internal workings of a company. Scheer switched to English to repeat the question, with added verbosity. Trudeau had no script this time to reiterate the same thing, and adding that public investment has long been necessary to develop resources in Canada. Scheer switched topics, offering some revisionist history in saying that they immediately supported the government in retaliating against the imposition of US tariffs, but worried that our measures wouldn’t come into effect until July 1st. Trudeau reminded him that they wanted to consult to ensure that no Canadians would be inadvertently hurt by these measures. They went another round of the same, and Scheer switched topics again to Iran, and the recent tweets by the Supreme Leader, to which Trudeau took up a script to read some pro forma condemnation of Iran’s actions. Ruth Ellen Brosseau led for the NDP, reading some condemnation about those Kinder Morgan bonuses, and Trudeau, sans script, gave the response about the $15 billion Canada loses annually by not getting a world price for oil. Brosseau worried that the pipeline trampled on the rights of First Nations, to which Trudeau suggested that they did a lot of consulting on the issue. Georgina Jolibois reiterated the question in English, and Trudeau said that they listened to all First Nations, including those who disagreed with them, and they tried to do what they to allay concerns. Nathan Cullen got up to reiterate the question of Kinder Morgan bonuses with added sanctimony, to which Trudeau repeated the $15 billion talking point and the fact that it fit within their climate plan.

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Senate QP: O’Regan talks veterans issues

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The topic was veterans affairs, the special guest star was minister Seamus O’Regan, his first time at the Senate since taking over the portfolio. Senator Larry Smith led off, asking about a court challenge related to cuts on the medical marijuana programme for veterans, and in particular the minister’s comments on the need for research around the benefits for veterans with PTSD. O’Regan, after noting his last visit to the chamber being in 1990, said that they were deferring to the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and as such, they did not prescribe or authorise medical cannabis, but will only reimburse for up to three grams a day. When Smith asked if cost was a factor in reducing the reimbursement from ten to three, O’Regan said that it was not a cost issue, but they were trying to strike a balance.

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Roundup: Woe be the social conservatives

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Oh, the poor social conservatives, always being played by mainstream conservative parties, both federal and provincial, for the sake of their votes at leadership conventions only to be dumped when the going gets tough. We have two provincial examples to now add to the list, for what it’s worth. In Ontario last weekend, Progressive Conservative leader dumped former leadership rival Tanya Granic Allen as a candidate after comments she made about same-sex marriage came to light, and everyone was shocked! Shocked!That the woman whose entire leadership campaign was the disingenuous fear that Ontario’s new sex-ed curriculum was going to indoctrinate children to anal sex was going to be a problematic homophobic candidate. But hey, Ford used her second-choice votes to get himself over the top for the leadership and let her run for a nomination and win, despite everyone knowing that she not only made homophobic comments, but also disparaging comments about Muslims, and it was okay until the weekend before the writ-drop. How terribly cynical. Chris Selley walks us through that particular bit of theatre that abuses social conservatives’ trust, while Martin Patriquin notes that while her ouster makes Ford look more centrist, Granic Allen’s replacement is far more of a credible threat to Liberals, for what it’s worth.

Meanwhile in Alberta, Jason Kenney is now twisting himself in a pretzel to defend the social conservative policies adopted at the UCP convention over the weekend, coming up with bogus equivocations about the anti-GSA resolution being “poorly worded,” or how the policy around “invasive medical procedures” had its roots in a minor getting a “controversial vaccine” and totally has nothing to do with abortion, no sir. Jen Gerson notes that this is the chickens coming home to roost after Kenney so deliberately courted these social conservatives and made this “grassroots guarantee” about them making the policies – only for that pledge to vanish down the memory hole, and him insisting that platforms aren’t made by committees and how it’s his pen that will translate it all, and you can take his assurances that they won’t out LGBT kids “to the bank.” (I personally wouldn’t cash that cheque, but I may be biased, being gay and all).

The common lesson here? That conservatives both federally and provincially are quick to insist “big blue tent” to draw in the social conservatives and the Red Tories but are quick to disappoint both in pursuit of populist measures that they hope will get them votes. It’s not about being centrist, because if that were the goal, you’d see way more Red Tory appeals than we do (and in fact, if the last federal leadership convention was any indication, Red Tories like Michael Chong were often derided as Liberals and traitors to the cause). It’s more about the cult of personality around the chosen leader, and policy is almost an afterthought, and those identifiable groups within the big tent are just fodder to get that leader into place. It’s a sad state of affairs for political parties, and these latest examples are just more proof of that.

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Roundup: Erin Weir’s apostasy

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First thing Thursday morning, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh took to the microphone in the Foyer, caucus behind him, to announce that he had expelled Erin Weir from caucus following the conclusion of the investigation into harassment allegations. And to be clear, he wasn’t kicked out because of the conclusions, given that Weir agreed to anti-harassment training and conciliation with his accusers – rather, it was because he had the temerity to go to the media to respond to the leaked allegations made to him without getting the permission of the leader’s office. And then the other MPs told reporters that Weir “expelled himself” by doing so, because it meant there was no trust in that relationship. So…wow.

To be clear, we don’t have much in the way of details about the allegations that were sustained in the report, but we have Weir’s word for them, and the clues that Singh dropped. That the former senior staffer in Mulcair’s office leaked to the CBC forced Weir’s hand in responding (which he says he asked Singh’s office, and they never responded to him), and this was the basis of the policy dispute on the floor of the Saskatchewan NDP convention where that staffer threw her weight around, and then accused him of harassment. As for the three “sustained” incidents of sexual harassment, Singh said it was because Weir failed to read “non-verbal cues” but that when he was told his advances were unwarranted, he ceased. Weir says that he was told over the course of the investigation that it was essentially because he’s a “close talker” and failed to realize that it made some people uncomfortable, but he has no idea who his accusers were, and says that after the initial complaint about him that the party essentially put out a “call for proposals” from staff to see if there were any complaints, which does seem a bit suspicious. It also seems like there is a giant inflation in terms of what constitutes harassment and sexual harassment, particularly coming from an MP who is a bit socially awkward.

https://twitter.com/moebius_strip/status/992068538142605312

https://twitter.com/moebius_strip/status/992071432912781312

Weir contends that he will sit as an independent for now, hoping that Singh will see reason, but given how the ranks have closed around him in a way they didn’t when David Christopherson got punished for breaking ranks on a vote suggests that Weir is now guilty of some form of apostasy, particularly that he had the temerity to defend himself in public when his accuser apparently leaked to the media to get ahead of the report when the leader’s office would have had him be humiliated publicly while he waited for permission to respond, which reinforces this notion that there can be cult-like behaviour in the party. Meanwhile, Don Martin suggests that the outcome of this mess suggests that this became a witch hunt, while John Ivison contends that this whole affair is not reflecting well on Singh, who continues to flounder as party leader. At Issue also took a look, and notes the rumours circulating that the party was looking for an excuse to boot Weir for whatever the reason.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau says they will not delay implementing legal cannabis, but that will still likely mean a September rollout, and that legalization is a “process.”
  • Scandal! The Trudeau family’s meals are prepared at 24 Sussex and then sent to Rideau Cottage by messenger! (Seriously? This is what we’re worrying about?)
  • The federal government will intervene in the BC Court of Appeal reference on pipelines. This is standard since their jurisdiction is up for question.
  • Bill Morneau says they’ll have a better handle on the costs to households from carbon pricing in September when all provinces have submitted their plans.
  • An audit shows that the programme to help veterans transition to civilian jobs was next to useless. The government has since switched to a different system.
  • Scott Brison isn’t looking to budge from his $7 billion fund in the Estimates to get programmes moving, while the real problem remains the sclerotic bureaucracy.
  • The government used their majority to reject nine of nineteen Senate amendments to the transport bill. Now we’ll watch senators huff and puff before passing it.
  • The Commons privacy committee is ordering Cambridge Analytica to preserve vital data in advance of investigation, given news of their bankruptcy proceedings.
  • The military is being accused of “brass bulge” as upper ranks are growing faster than the regular forces are.
  • In case you were curious, it turns out that part of why the parliamentary lawn is being dug up is because they have to replace the drainage pipes below it.
  • While the Supreme Court of Canada upheld his influence peddling conviction, Bruce Carson is likely to avoid jail time.
  • NDP MP Kennedy Stewart is considering a run for Vancouver mayor.
  • Here’s a good profile of Doug Ford, and what the experience of working with him on Toronto City Council was like.
  • The Canadian Press’ Baloney Meter™ tests the Conservative claim that they cut emissions without cutting taxes. (Ron Howard’s voice: “They didn’t.”)
  • Colby Cosh contends that our system worked in keeping outsider Kevin O’Leary away from political leadership (but that Doug Ford was a perfect storm).

Odds and ends:

A documentary crew is looking to film the Senate’s third reading speeches and vote on the bill to end whale and dolphin captivity.

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QP: Portents of economic doom

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 As Justin Trudeau met with Commonwealth Heads of Government in London, and Andrew Scheer spent the day in Quebec, which left Shannon Stubbs to lead off, and she read some declinist fan fiction about the collapse of the Canadian economy because the prime minister allegedly wants to phase out the oil sector. Jim Carr responded by listing some good economic news, including how Alberta is set to lead the country in growth, which the other party apparently couldn’t support. Stubbs read more doom, and Carr responded with the number of approved pipelines that were coupled with their oceans protection plan. Stubbs demanded championing of the sector, but Carr listed that the previous government didn’t get pipelines to tidewater, and that they ignored their constitutional obligations toward Indigenous Canadians. Gérard Deltell took over in French, lamenting IMF forecasts, to which Kirsty Duncan stood up to read some statistics about job growth and economic growth leading the G7. Deltell repeated the demand to champion investment in energy, to which Carr reiterated his lines about the Conservative record in French. Guy Caron was up next for the NDP, accusing the government of kowtowing to Texas oil giants, to which Carr reminded him that they took the lessons of the previous government’s failures and engaged in new consultations, which they felt covered off their Section 35 obligations. Caron reiterated the question in French, and Carr reiterated that their process was different than the Harper government’s, because that one had failed. Nathan Cullen was up next, to repeat the same question in English, with some added sanctimony, and Carr’s repeated response had a bit of exasperation creeping into it, and then they went yet another round of the same.

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