Roundup: Kenney and Scheer vow to repeat mistakes

Posted on by

There was a conference in Calgary yesterday called “Energy Relaunch,” during which both Jason Kenney and Andrew Scheer laid out plans for how they propose to get the province’s oil and gas industry “back on track” if they were to form government. The problem is that they seemed to have learned absolutely no lessons from the past few years about where the problems and bottlenecks in the process lie, and what to do about them. Their solutions tended to be to use bigger bulldozers and to gut more legislation, and Kenney more specifically included funding the legal challenges of resource-friendly First Nations communities and targeting “foreign-funded” organisations that opposed development (because it’s all one big conspiracy by the Tides Foundation, and however else makes a convenient scapegoat). But if anyone has paid any attention to the court decisions over the past number of years, especially over Northern Gateway and Trans Mountain, the theme that emerges is that they have been slapped down because successive governments have attempted to cut corners and weasel out of their obligations rather than doing the hard work of proper assessments and consultation with Indigenous communities that would get them the approval they were looking for. The current Liberal government seems to get this fact and is proceeding accordingly when it comes to Trans Mountain, while Scheer and Kenney wail and gnash their teeth about how they didn’t appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of Canada (without articulating what the error in law was), or somehow legislating away the problems (never mind that retroactive legislation will lead to more litigation, and you can’t legislate away your Section 35 duty to consult obligations).

Kenney also promised that if made premier, he would launch a “war room” to counter any critics of the oil sands in real time. The problem is that hasn’t worked to day, and won’t work going forward, but Kenney refuses to grasp that reality.

Energy economist Andrew Leach was also presenting at the event, and has some thoughts as to what he heard as well:

Good reads:

  • The prime minister of the Netherlands addressed Parliament yesterday, which was the first time for a leader from that country.
  • Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland were defending the press in the wake of the attempted mail bombings in the US.
  • Trudeau has also said that cancelling the Saudi LAV contract could have penalties “in the billions,” which is a significant inflation from the $1 billion figure floating about.
  • Catherine McKenna argues that the carbon price isn’t a tax because it’s not designed to raise revenues.
  • Liberals on the justice committee have voted with the Conservatives to amend the Criminal Code reform bill to keep certain terrorism offences as indictable.
  • The government has moved time allocation on the remaining stages of the electoral reform bill, and the Conservatives (who want to kill it) are fuming.
  • The Senate passed the TPP enabling legislation, and the bill has already received royal assent, meaning Canada is the fifth signatory to ratify the agreement.
  • It looks like the government will offer some kind of apology for how it handled tuberculosis treatment for Inuit.
  • The WTO meeting ended with a statement that the system needs to be overhauled, and that eventually it will need the participation of China and the US going forward.
  • Here’s a look at the Bank of Canada’s exploration of “human stimulus” that Canada has been engaging in with regards to the economy by growing the labour market.
  • A group of families of those foreign fighters being held in Syria want the government to repatriate them, because they haven’t been charged with anything.
  • Here’s an exploration of the sausage-making of government communications around Catherine McKenna’s mistaken tweet praising Syria for climate action.
  • The Canadian Forces ombudsman says the military’s complaint system is too cozy with leadership to be effective in addressing problems.
  • The Supreme Court of Canada has declined to hear an appeal regarding the National Assembly in Quebec banning Sikh kirpans, citing parliamentary privilege.
  • The SCC also declined to hear an appeal on a case involving price-fixing by Air Canada, which clears the way for a class-action lawsuit.
  • It’s sad that we need to put out fact checks to counter Maxime Bernier and Jason Kenney saying that CO2isn’t pollution.
  • Chantal Hébert notes the fact that the Liberals are looking to fight an election on carbon pricing for the second time in a decade.
  • Kevin Carmichael looks at the progress made at that WTO meeting, and what it means for the bigger picture.

Odds and ends:

The government announced that the fall economic update will be released on November 21st, which is pretty late in the year.

Want more Routine Proceedings? Become a patron and get exclusive new content.