Roundup: Civil liberties or delegated taxation authority

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Prime minister Justin Trudeau was in Prime Minister Dad mode during yesterday’s presser, telling people to stay home and that “enough is enough,” you’re not invincible, and you’re only putting others’ lives at risk. In terms of announcements, he talked about Parliament passing the emergency fiscal measures, that Farm Credit Canada was opening up funds, that flights were secured for a few countries that have secured their airspace, and that more funds were made available for vaccine and drug testing for COVID-19. He also spoke about his planned call with premiers to better coordinate emergency powers, and clarified that the Emergencies Act was largely about the federal government assuming the powers that provinces or municipalities haven’t enacted – in other words, it’s those levels of government that can suspend civil liberties in this time, and he’s trying to get premiers on the same page.

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/1242111081667080192

https://twitter.com/jm_mcgrath/status/1242115177702666242

For the bulk of the day, all anyone could talk about however was the Emergencies Act, and every journalist in town wanted to know why it hadn’t been invoked yet, and when they would do so. Trudeau, and later Freeland, kept making the point that it was a tool of last resort that would only be used when all other tools have been exhausted, but that doesn’t seem to have deterred anyone – lest of all New Brunswick premier Blaine Higgs, who said that he wanted the federal government to invoke it, either because he’s too reluctant to use the significant powers he has at his disposal provincially and would rather Ottawa do it for him, or because he can’t seem to deal with his fellow premiers to coordinate anything. And while everyone was practically begging the government to start taking away civil liberties, they also lost their minds when it was leaked that the government planned a significant overreach in their fiscal aid legislation that would have essentially given them delegated authority over taxation for up to December 2021 – which is clearly unconstitutional, but hey, they mean well, right? They backed down, but cripes the lack of competence in this government sometimes… (Look for more on this in my column, later today).

Meanwhile, here’s John Michael McGrath explaining why the federal government doesn’t need to invoke the Act, while Justin Ling notes that measures that trample civil liberties generally make problems worse instead of better. Adnan Khan ponders individual liberties versus authoritarianism in a time of crisis. In this thread, Philippe Lagassé explains more about the Act.

Good reads:

  • Nearly a million Canadians have heeded the call to return over the past week, and now we’ll see how well they adhere to self-isolation guidelines.
  • Here’s a look at Patty Hajdu’s work combatting homelessness before her jump to federal politics.
  • CSE has been working to take down scam sites trying to profit off of COVID-19 anxieties.
  • The Conservative Party has no plans to change their leadership process or dates. Peter MacKay, meanwhile, now thinks they should speed it up.
  • Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column previews how it will look when the House moves to Committee of the Whole to debate the financial aid bill.
  • Paul Wells talks to Jean-Yves Duclos about the situation that the government finds itself in, with multiple crises happening at once.
  • Dr. Jane Philpott recounts her experiences being back on the front lines of the pandemic.
  • Colby Cosh digs into how the UK got their initial pandemic strategy wrong, but how herd immunity may wind up being the only  real answer if social distancing fails.
  • Susan Delacourt enumerates the ways in which Trudeau and Trump are diverging in their handling of the pandemic.
  • Heather Scoffield suggests that the federal government take immediate action to help renters (though I believe this is actually provincial jurisdiction).

Odds and ends:

Parliament Hill’s carillon has been silenced by the pandemic, which is a national tragedy.

Here’s a look at how journalists in the Press Gallery are adapting to the pandemic situation.

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One thought on “Roundup: Civil liberties or delegated taxation authority”

  1. I am seething with outrage that the hypocritical Cons and their useless-idiot Dipper enablers would take advantage of a pandemic to breach parliamentary privilege and go wailing to their incestuous media sycophants over a DRAFT of PROPOSED legislation just to manufacture a fake scandal and undermine the government at the absolute worst time. They want “unity”? Unity starts at home! Who would trust them now? They deserve to be excluded from any further discussions and sidelined as a hostile enemy, because they’re bratty little tattle-tales telling lies to make themselves look good just like JWR was!

    They wanted Trudeau to send in the army to stop the railway blockades and have a “Just watch me” moment invoking the Emergencies Act when it comes to the selfish people ignoring social distancing orders, but when that iron fist extends to “OMG TAXES” it’s “OMG TRUDEAU CORRUPT DICTATOR” and democracy is dead. The Dippers want the Liberals to override provincial jurisdiction for their pie-in-the-sky Bernie Sanders North unicorn promises on free pharmacare, free college, free million-bucks to everyone and their brother, but oh nooo, now Trudeau is a corporate fascist crook who’s going to send Morneau to bail out his “rich friends” because reasons. No evidence, no proof, nothing in black and white. Just hair-on-fire speculation and derangement-syndrome spin.

    I hate these self-serving saboteurs with a passion, and have reached the point where I hope someone coughs on them and they’re forced to self-isolate in perpetuity. I dare them to call a non-confidence vote and face a human rights tribunal for getting people killed. They need to pick a damn lane and be part of the solution or STFU.

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