Roundup: Dairy commissions and questions of jurisdiction

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There were a couple of announcements for prime minister Justin Trudeau’s daily presser yesterday – that Health Canada had approved a serological test that was critical to the work of the immunity task force; that some $1 billion in additional funds was being allocated to regional development agencies to help struggling businesses; and that the student benefits would be open for applications as of Friday. There were a lot of things that came up during the Q&A – demands from reporters for a budget or a fiscal update, for which Trudeau said that they couldn’t predict what was going to happen in a few weeks, so it didn’t make much sense to try to lay out a plan for the next twelve months. On the Canada-US border, it was strongly hinted that the current closure would continue for another month, but he wasn’t going to speculate past then. He talked about the need to work with provinces and municipalities as transit operators face a huge revenue shortfall. Regarding Norway’s sovereign wealth fund pulling its investments out of the oilsands, he remarked that it was clear that climate considerations were becoming a bigger feature in the investment landscape. He also promised to look into the issue of health researchers in the country facing layoffs because funding sources evaporated and they aren’t eligible for the federal wage subsidy because of a technicality.

And then it was off to the House of Commons, first for the in-person meeting of the Special Committee, which descended into farce fairly quickly and stayed there – Andrew Scheer railing about the revelations that potential fraud of the CERB isn’t being caught up-front, while his MPs both demand easier access to small business supports while clutching their pearls about the potential size of the deficit, apparently blind to the contradiction in their position. Meanwhile, Jagmeet Singh was demanding that the federal government swoop in and offer some kind of national guarantee around long-term care, giving Trudeau the chance to chide him about his disregard for provincial jurisdiction (and Trudeau was a little sharper on this than he often is).

The special committee eventually gave way to a proper emergency sitting of the Commons to pass the latest emergency bill, this time on increasing the borrowing limit of the dairy commission, while many a journalist mischaracterized this as “debating” said bill. There was no debate – it was pre-agreed to, and each party would give a couple of speeches that may or may not be related to the bill before they passed it at all stages for the Senate to adopt on Friday. At the beginning of this, however, Singh was back up with yet another motion, this time to call on the government to ensure that there was universal two-week paid sick leave – which is, once again, provincial jurisdiction. (The motion did not pass). I’m torn between trying to decide if Singh is genuinely clueless about what is and is not federal jurisdiction (a position bolstered by his promises in the election around things like local hospital decisions), or if he’s cynically trying to make it look like the federal government doesn’t care about these issues when they have no actual levers at their disposal to make any of these demands happen. Either way, federalism is a real thing, and trying to play it like it’s not is a real problem for the leader of a federal party.

Good reads:

  • Prime minister Justin Trudeau has tapped assistant auditor general Karen Hogan to be the new permanent Auditor General (which only took fourteen months).
  • Statistics Canada has stopped giving previews of data to ministers’ offices after last weeks’ leak of jobs data, while that leak is being investigated.
  • Early figures show that the Canadian Emergency Wage Subsidy has not has as much of an uptake as expected, but it could be bigger companies are taking longer.
  • The government has been investing in boosting vaccine production capacity, for when one is approved for COVID-19.
  • It seems that the Canadian Forces’ Cyclones helicopters had a flaw in their flight control software during testing, which could be a clue as to why there was a crash.
  • Some 39 CFIA employees, including several inspectors, have been infected with COVID-19 (in case you were wondering why some are refusing to work).
  • A First Nations community in Saskatchewan is defying public health orders and going ahead with a sun-dance ceremony because an Elder had a vision.
  • The Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, which represents urban Indigenous groups, is suing the government for unequal pandemic funding.
  • The two giant pandas on loan to Canada are being sent back to China early because of problems getting their bamboo food to Canada.
  • Here’s a look at what the relatively low leadership donation figures in Quebec could mean to the leadership contest.
  • Susan Delacourt contrasts Stephen Harper’s Wall Street Journal op-ed on the current fiscal crisis with what Chrystia Freeland wrote after the previous one.

Odds and ends:

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2 thoughts on “Roundup: Dairy commissions and questions of jurisdiction”

  1. Politicians at every level have problems with jurisdictions. This particularly galling when leaders are ignorant. Canadians should be very concerned about this. Maybe we should all attend online courses on jurisdiction. Politicians first then journalists. How many times during this crisis have we heard questions from the press to the PM when the premiers should be asked?
    Answer…all the time!

  2. Rebel fake-news has been doing an asinine fundraiser — more asinine than their usual meme attempts — “offering” to give China the Toronto pandas as a “prisoner exchange” for Kovrig and Spavor. Since the CPC get almost all their stable-genius ideas from Ezra’s, um, brain trust, I wonder how long it will take for Scheer or any of the top-notch contenders to replace him to demand that “Manchurian candidate” Trudeau show his loyalty to Canadian patriots and follow in lockstep, or else “a Conservative government that Makes Canada Great Again” will do it if he won’t.

    Either that, or they’ll take some trash pandas “hostage” in the parking lot of a Giant Tiger and brand Trudeau as weak and a traitor. Out of all the bright lights of the “leadership” race, it’s MacKay I could see being the one who gets baited by the Kenney/O’Toole camp into pulling such a Pythonesque publicity stunt, out of desperation to play to the base and “prove his Conservative bona fides.” Perhaps the CPC and their Rebel alliance of scum and villainy could benefit from the Canada Health Act taking over the administration of asylums for the mentally deranged.

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