Roundup: Covering up non-existent data

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With the Conservatives still railing about the supposed Carbon Tax Cover-Up™ (yes, Pierre Poilievre is still trying to make fetch happen), their allies are trying to get in on the action. Jason Kenney tried, and Andrew Leach took him to task for it – and it’s some pretty crucial context because pretty much everything he and the Conservatives are saying is utter bunk. But they’ve set up the narrative that this document they’re demanding is some kind of smoking gun, because they’re building the narrative that this is all some cash grab by a government dire to pay for its spending (never mind that the revenues are going back to the province from which it was collected and not federal coffers, but the truth has never mattered here).

Later in the day, Lisa Raitt tweeted about how one gas station in her riding lowered its prices and there were line-ups around the block! People are struggling! Carbon taxes will devastate families! Again, Leach took her to task, especially the point that this is the whole point about carbon taxes – to change behaviours through price signals. You know, something a free market conservative should espouse (but Raitt is not a free market conservative, but a right-flavoured populist, and said as much during her leadership campaign).

Meanwhile, Andrew Coyne points out the fact that what the Conservatives are demanding is a mix of publicly available data combined with provincial implementation and offsets that nobody has yet, so the government can’t actually provide the data (as some of us have been saying for weeks now), while adding that there is more than a little hypocrisy for a party that keeps demanding disclosure but won’t offer any of their own when it comes to their own supposed plan. But hey, this is about politics and coming up with a scary number that won’t have any proper context or that makes assumptions that no behaviours will change, which misses the point. But, as I’ve said time and again, this isn’t about the truth. This is about the Conservatives building a scary straw man to go to war against, because that’s how they think they’ll win in 2019. And maybe it’ll work. Time will tell.

Good reads:

  • The Conservatives won the Chicoutimi–Le Fjord by-election last night, not because the Liberals lost votes, but because the NDP and Bloc did.
  • While Justin Trudeau says he won’t “play politics” on the US policy of detaining child migrants, the minister says they’re monitoring the situation.
  • The cannabis legalisation bill as amended is now back in the Senate, where they are deciding whether to insist on some of their other amendments.
  • The Ethics Commissioner has cleared Bill Morneau of any conflict of interest when tabling pension legislation (because the complaint was utterly ridiculous).
  • Anti-poverty groups are sounding the alarm about child poverty. The government says the numbers are from 2015, before the Canada Child Benefit was introduced.
  • Navdeep Bains is launching consultations for a national strategy around Big Data.
  • François-Philippe Champagne has been working the phones with the EU to assure them that the discovery of GMO wheat in Alberta is an isolated incident.
  • The Commons defence committee is rushing a report to call on the government to support Moldovia against Russian interference in their upcoming election.
  • The Federal Court has agreed to settlement terms in the class action lawsuit by LGBT civil service and military victims of government persecution.
  • Some legal analysis suggests that the Canadian government will have a better time challenging US tariffs at the WTO rather than in US courts.
  • Apparently Liberal MPs Mark Holland and Adam Vaughan are considering runs for the Ontario Liberal leadership.
  • Trevor Tombe looks at rising economic uncertainty, and how political bluster and announcements without plans that helps to fuel it.
  • Peter Shawn Taylor looks at the history of government investing in major infrastructure in this country as a guide to the Trans Mountain situation.
  • Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column looks at what happens to bills on the Order Paper over the summer, particularly if the PM decides to prorogue in the fall.
  • Chantal Hébert lays the scene for the upcoming Quebec election.

Odds and ends:

In this week’s Law Times, I look at the report by an Ottawa judge about jury selection in Ontario, which reflects the biased composition of jury pools.

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One thought on “Roundup: Covering up non-existent data”

  1. I really like your statement about the truth. The Conservatives never found a lie that that they couldn’t use to slam the government.

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