The inevitable has happened with this government’s too-clever-by-half branding of their associate finance minister, and she has essentially been caught out by the easiest trap imaginable. The Conservatives submitted an Order Paper question asking for a definition of “middle class” by which the government could measure the success of its efforts at ensuring their prosperity, and lo, they were told that there is no measure that the government uses. Which is kind of embarrassing for a government that prides itself on data and metrics – that’s one of the reasons why they actually bit the bullet and decided on the Market-Basket Measure of poverty as their official definition, because that allowed them to track the success of their programmes in alleviating it (and yes, programmes like the Canada Child Benefit have had a measurable impact using these kinds of data). But what they can do for poverty, they can’t do for the Middle Class™.

Of course, we all know that it’s because “middle class” isn’t an economic definition to this government, but a feel-good branding exercise. It’s the Middle Class™ And Those Working Hard To Join It, because we all know that everyone thinks they’re middle class (whether or not they have ponies), and most especially people on the wealthier end of the scale in this country. It’s all about a feeling, or a hand-wavey metric about having kids in hockey (an upper-class pursuit in this country). And this lack of a definition is exactly why this minister is the Minister of Middle Class™ Prosperity®, because it means nothing. It’s a trademarked slogan, transparently winking to Canadians about how this is how they plan to address the discontent underlying the populist movements taking place across the government – hoping that if they can reassure these voters that they’re being care of and not left behind, that they’re being heard, that somehow, it’ll keep the populist forces at bay. I’m not sure that it will work, but it’s blatantly happening, so we should all be aware that this is part of their plan.

Good reads:

• The government is looking at their options for evacuating Canadians locked down in the quarantined cities in China because of the coronavirus.
• BC has recorded their first presumptive case of coronavirus.
• Jonathan Wilkinson says that Alberta’s climate plans may factor into whether or not the Teck Frontier Mine gets approved at the end of February.
• Navdeep Bains and others are taking a very close look at the UK’s decision to allow some access by Huawei into their 5G network.
• Surprising nobody, there remains a backlog of Governor-in-Council appointments of about 220 bodies (because this government has been incompetent at it).
• The Parliamentary Budget Officer did the math on the income tax cut-off plan, and his figures show it may cost more than the government’s projections.
• Conservative braying about “cronyism” with the contract for Allan Rock to conduct UN Security Council training betrays a lack of understanding of what it entails.
• Pre-trial began for alleged RCMP spy Cameron Ortis yesterday, where we learned that his lawyer can’t even communicate with him about the charges currently.
• The Conservatives spent their Supply Day calling for the Auditor General to look into the government’s infrastructure programme (which politicizes him, no?)
• One of the Conservative leadership organizers says the rules aren’t meant to exclude anyone, as MPs like Michelle Rempel call for Richard Décarie to be red-lit.
• Peter MacKay and Marilyn Gladu say they’ll be at Toronto Pride; Erin O’Toole says he’ll be at a non-Toronto Pride parade because of their uniformed police issue.
• Chris Selley makes the very salient point that if we really are a bilingual country with the expectations that come with it, we do a poor job of French education.
• Susan Delacourt talks to former Harper loyalist Ben Perrin about his change of heart on safe injection sites, harm reduction, and the tough-on-crime agenda.
• Heather Scoffield warns of the economic implications of parties slow-walking the implementation of the New NAFTA for partisan point-scoring.
• My column looks at the dynamics in the Conservative leadership and wonders if there will soon be any Red Tories left for the party to “unify” with.

Odds and ends:

I appeared on the Open to Debate podcast to talk about the Canadian monarchy.

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