Roundup: Playing into Ford’s framing

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While Ontario Premier Doug Ford doubles down on his assertion that a carbon tax will drive the economy into recession, in the face of all evidence to the contrary. And it’s not just Ford’s doubling down on this assertion – the Saskatchewan government is also insisting that the report it commissioned on the effect of carbon taxes is correct, despite the fact that the other experts who’ve looked it over say that the report vastly overestimates the effect by orders of magnitude. But as with Ford (and Andrew Scheer), it’s not about truth – it’s about taking any crumb of data that they think will fit with their narrative and blowing it so far out of proportion that it becomes an outright lie.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1087768772436463617

But beyond that, the way in which this issue is being framed in the media should be questioned – something economist Mike Moffatt did over the Twitter Machine yesterday.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1087670357757227009

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1087673953819287552

And he’s got a point – the CBC’s own story to debunk Ford’s claims is headlined “Economists cool to Doug Ford’s warning of ‘carbon tax recession’,” which again frames this as Ford versus economists – something that plays directly into Ford’s hands because he can turn around and claim that this is just the out-of-touch elites in their ivory towers and not “real folks,” a populist construction that is again built on a foundation of lies. And yet we in the media can’t seem to help ourselves because we don’t want to be seen as being biased, even when we are subjected to bald-faced lies, and again, we need to look like we’re being fair to the liars who are lying to our faces, which they take full advantage of. We’re hurting ourselves, but we can’t seem to help ourselves.

Good reads:

  • The US justice department confirmed it will be formally be requesting the extradition of Meng Wanzhou.
  • The new Canada Food Guide was released, and naturally the beef and dairy lobbies are up in arms that they’re no longer privileged in it.
  • Ahmed Hussen called out the Conservatives’ border security plans as nonsensical, and “militarized.” The Conservatives lashed out in kind.
  • Hussen also noted that there were security costs for the young Saudi woman that Canada agreed to resettle (but wouldn’t give details).
  • Carolyn Bennett offered an official apology for forced relocations in Nunavut by the government in the 1950s.
  • DND is blaming a clerk for Access to Information failures, despite the fact that it was a senior officer who reported bragged about circumventing it with the Norman case.
  • DND is also moving ahead with life-extension upgrades for our submarines (which are no longer beleaguered, and are on active duty currently).
  • Our forces in Mali evacuated fifteen wounded peacekeepers on Saturday following a deadly attack.
  • The Indigenous Bar Association has criticised Trudeau for shuffling Jody Wilson-Raybould (never mind the criticisms of her from the rest of the legal community).
  • Here’s a longread about the culture of dysfunction in the RCMP and how much it’s cost the government so far, with little visible progress on reforming it.
  • Nathan Cullen says he hasn’t decided if he’s going to run again this fall.
  • The Alberta government says they’ll provide loan guarantees for a new upgrader facility (but I wouldn’t bet that the price tag won’t balloon).
  • Here are some of the allegedly misspent items from the BC legislature’s Clerk and Sergeant-at-Arms.
  • Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column looks at what happens when MPs leak to the media what happens in an in camera meeting.
  • Chris Selley cheekily points out that the new Food Guide shows that Health Canada took on the dairy cartel and won – and hopes they can pass along how they did it.
  • My column warns the Ontario Liberals against moving to one-member-one-vote in their next leadership contest, lest they further degrade the party.

Odds and ends:

Belinda Stronach is countersuing her father in their legal feud.

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