Roundup: Walking out on Wallonia

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Talks to save the Canada-EU trade agreement broke down yesterday, and after more than two days of direct talks, trade minister Chrystia Freeland walked out of the meeting and basically declared that it was now impossible for the EU to come to an international trade deal. And really, this was about the Walloons in Belgium who weren’t letting this go through. Wallonia’s president tried to sound an optimistic tone, and said that “difficulties remain” around largely the investor-state dispute resolution mechanism and wanted Justin Trudeau to hold off on his planned trip to Europe next week to finalize the deal so that the Walloons could have more time.

While Freeland said she was ready to get back on a plane and go home to see her kids, it looks like the EU president managed to keep her around for more talks, which may have been the whole point of Freeland’s exit – so that the rest of the EU could pressure Wallonia to come to their senses. While Belgium’s ambassador to Canada also said that the deal wasn’t dead, we did see some of the usual suspects line up to applaud the potential demise of the agreement, like Elizabeth May, the NDP, and the Council of Canadians.

Throughout this, however, I will admit to more than a little distaste at the snide tone of the Conservatives throughout all of this. In QP yesterday, Candice Bergen laid this at the feet of Freeland personally and declared that she would have to “wear it.” Gerry Ritz said that Freeland should have “rolled up her sleeves” and stayed at the table (which she had already been doing), and Rona Ambrose demanded that Justin Trudeau get on a plane and smooth this over himself. And there is this overall tone that the deal had been “gift wrapped” for the Liberals (after Harper had already done two symbolic signings of the agreement before it had been ratified), which is specious and facile. The Liberals have countered that the deal was essentially dead before Freeland resurrected it, largely through reopening some of the negotiations and through declaratory statements to clarify the language in the provisions of the deal, so it’s not like they didn’t do nothing. Quite the opposite, in fact. And one fails to see how it’s Freeland’s fault when pretty much everyone agrees that this is now an internal EU matter that Canada really can’t do anything about. Then again, the Conservative message around other trade deals like softwood lumber are equally fantastical (how they could have forced the Americans to come to an agreement when they clearly aren’t interested is beyond me, and there was a lot of unhappiness with the deal they signed when they first got into office that gave the Americans a victory). Sure, they signed a bunch of deals with small countries with small economies. Sure, they got CETA and TPP off the ground, but they still protected a lot of industries that didn’t necessarily deserve it, nor did they seal those deals either. Trade is a difficult business, and I’m not sure they have the moral authority to be as frankly abusive as they have been on the file.

Good reads:

  • Two of the 24 new judicial appointments were Indigenous, but only one was identified publicly as such, while the government won’t say who the other is.
  • The government has tabled their bill on restoring judicial discretion when it comes to victims’ surcharges for those with no hope of paying them.
  • Jim Carr says we shouldn’t leave our resource wealth all in the ground, and should use the old economy to fund the new one.
  • Mélanie Joly says the government hasn’t ruled out helping the newspaper industry (as they cut their newspaper ad spending drastically).
  • The Information Commissioner isn’t too thrilled that the government is putting off major reform of Access to Information until 2018.
  • A shortage of citizenship judges is leading to delays in citizenship ceremonies.
  • Here’s an exploration of everything Justin Trudeau has previously said about electoral reform (including his apt observations about the problems with PR).
  • On the two-year anniversary of the parliament Hill shooting, we have Andrew MacDougall about not overreacting on the day, Scott Reid on overreaction afterward, and Andrew Potter cautioning against smugness.
  • John Ivison uncovers which RCMP constable shot the Hill shooter, two years later.
  • Andrew Coyne cautions against putting pension funds into infrastructure projects.
  • Kady O’Malley looks at the procedural and house management record of the government over its first year, and how changes happened after The Elbowing.
  • Susan Delacourt looks at Samara’s report on youth engagement in politics, and how parties will have to adapt to that.
  • Paul Wells writes about the gamble to government is taking with going back on some of their election promises.

Odds and ends:

Senator Serge Joyal says that provinces should get involved in the issue of faith-based hospitals refusing doctor-assisted dying so that families don’t have to.

Here’s a look at the renovations to the Government Conference Centre, soon to be the temporary Senate during Centre Block renovations.

 

One thought on “Roundup: Walking out on Wallonia”

  1. I find a strange disconnect between your love of the Westminster system of parliament, and your criticism of anything that threatens to change it, and your tacit support of agreements that hand the governance of our country over to corporations that seek only to enrich themselves. There are far more than the “usual suspects” opposed to these agreements, including some very prominent economists, the trade unions, and just about anybody else that has taken the time to research the long term effects these contracts will have on the Canadian economy and our environment.
    Hats off to Wallonia for stepping out from under the influence of corporate lobbyists and voting for the welfare of their ordinary people.

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