Roundup: A negotiated solution

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In the end, a compromise was reached – MPs shuffled back into the House of Commons by 3 AM, and had passed the bill by six, after grilling the ministers who were present. Parliament did its job, democracy was saved, and the Conservatives spent the day patting themselves on the back to let you know just how brave they were in saving it. As the bill was over in the Senate on schedule – and it had always been scheduled to reach there yesterday for debate and passage and not on Tuesday, as many hysterical media outlets failed to mention – Trudeau held his daily presser, outlining the measures that were passed within it, which included a streamlining of several of the earlier-announced benefits into a more catch-all $2000/month benefit over the course of four months for anyone who wasn’t working, whether they had been laid off or not. Trudeau also announced new support for journalism (mostly ad revenues) and an acceleration of their tax measures. During the ministerial briefing, more details on supports for Indigenous communities was outlined, and shortly thereafter, Patty Hajdu also announced that the Quarantine Act was being invoked to ensure travellers returning to Canada actually self-isolated, even if it meant the government putting them in a hotel room for two weeks and providing them food.

[Maclean’s has updated their information on symptoms and where to get tested].

The tales of the negotiations are fairly interesting to me, in part because there seem to be breakdowns across the board. The Conservatives went into this saying “no surprises” and were surprised by the outsized spending powers, which they say broke their trust. The Liberals were on the one hand apparently surprised to see them in there (and it’s a question of whether it was the drafters in the Department of Justice who are to blame, or perhaps some of the people in Bill Morneau’s office who seem to operate pretty independently of the minister, if testimony from the Double-Hyphen Affair is to be believed), while also justifying that they needed enhanced powers because of the shifting nature of the pandemic emergency, and how fast everything has been changing. Which mostly just reinforces my own previously published points that if we kept the Skeleton Parliament in place, the government could more easily pass new fiscal measures in short order rather than do the song and dance of recalling MPs while providing more constant oversight while still respecting physical distancing and other protective measures. But who listens to me?

Paul Wells gives his take on the whole affair here, which is well worth your time reading. (My own take on what brought us to this point, in the event that you missed it, is here).

Good reads:

  • Bill Morneau says that help for the oil and gas sector will be coming within days.
  • There are concerns the government may not be able to handle processing the new benefits, but CRA says they should be able to.
  • Not only is there a backlog in processing test results, it seems that a new backlog of notifying people who test positive has also crept in.
  • Here’s a look into the increasingly aggressive scams related to COVID-19.
  • Liberal MP Kamal Khera, who has re-registered as a nurse for the pandemic, has now tested positive for COVID-19.
  • There will be four candidates on the final Conservative leadership ballot – MacKay, O’Toole, Lewis, and Sloan; Jim Karahalios is challenging his disqualification in court.
  • Matt Gurney posits that we need an effective opposition in this time of crisis, and wonders if the Conservatives can’t speed up their leadership to ensure that.
  • Kevin Carmichael explains how preparations made by the Bank of Canada may ensure that the current downturn is only a recession and not a depression.
  • Robert Hiltz notes that some of the government’s supports are geared towards certain strata of society, and that may signal a greater shift during the recovery.
  • Jen Gerson ponders the current situation as wartime, and what kinds of reassuring messaging are necessary to ensure people can live through it.
  • Susan Delacourt wonders about the signals that Trudeau will send once his self-isolation period ends this week.
  • Colby Cosh examines the mask controversy, and the armchair epidemiology around their use in preventing pandemics (or perhaps making them worse).

Odds and ends:

Prince Charles has tested positive for COVID-19, but it looks like he hasn’t seen the Queen since before his likely infection, so she should be safe.

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7 thoughts on “Roundup: A negotiated solution”

  3. So obviously it wasn’t Trudeau’s “fault” after all, as he seems to have been completely kept out of the loop. It was some no-name staffer in Morneau’s office, and heads should roll if for no reason than PR. But all of this could have been checked or ironed out in private without running to tell tattle-tales to the complicit lying-press media for purposes of fundraising and smearing the prime minister, as though he *personally* wrote the draft — again, a *draft* — himself.

    If it were up to me, the media wouldn’t be bailed out at all for aiding the enemy in this shameless publicity stunt. They’d be left to fail if not shut down as non-essential. But that’s Trudeau, turning the other cheek and giving his firing squad the benefit of the doubt. Because he’s such a “dictator” right?

    This kind of exploitative, gaslighting Conservative grandstanding and backstabbing confidentiality breach is exactly why they deserve to be permanently kept on the sidelines if not disbanded as a fifth column within. I hope the Liberals get their majority back whenever the next election happens, so they can tell the CPC (and their desperate NDP enablers) once and for all who the adults in charge are, and why the screaming children need to be quarantined in their rooms. A literal pox on both their houses.

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