Roundup: Manufacturing allegations of inaction

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For his daily presser, prime minister Justin Trudeau led off with the fact that the Canadian Forces’ report on the conditions in Quebec long-term care facilities would be released later in the day (and it was), before moving onto the news that some 45,000 postings were up on the federal Job Bank for students, along with a renewed plea for employers to access the wage subsidy. During the Q&A, there were constant questions about what the federal government was going to do about long-term care, to which Trudeau kept reiterating that it was provincial jurisdiction but that the federal government was going to be at the table for the discussion on long-term solutions, which generally means the provinces will want federal dollars to pay for it. When asked about the upcoming G7 meeting and Donald Trump’s insistence it be held in-person, Trudeau said that in-person meetings are preferable to virtual ones, but it remained to be seen if this meeting would meet safety concerns – which is also a bit ironic considering that he insisted on carrying on fairly useless “virtual” committee meetings and pretending it’s parliamentary work, even though Parliament as a whole works best in-person.

As for the long-term care discussion, Jagmeet Singh started off the day by railing that Trudeau was using jurisdiction as an excuse for “not showing leadership,” which is either grossly ignorant for a someone with a law degree, or it’s a deeply cynical political tactic to mislead the public into believing that Trudeau is simply choosing not to act when in fact his hands are tied. Singh also went off on his spiel about how the federal government should shut down privatized long-term care delivery, which again ignores jurisdictional issues, and more to the point, conveniently ignores that many of these same problems are also found in the publicly run facilities, which belies that it’s a broader cultural problem than simply just cutting care for the sake of profit margins. And as for his reasons for going along with the government’s plans to keep the Commons in a neutered capacity, well, it seems he also doesn’t have any grasp about what his own job as an MP is.

Speaking of those neutered committee hearings, the first “hybrid” special meeting was held yesterday, where big video screens were installed in the Commons chamber so that MPs could participate there by Zoom while a handful of MPs were still in the Chamber. The problem with this is that it adds a gloss of “legitimacy” to the farcical nature of these committee meetings, and Trudeau will disingenuously talk about how they’re carrying on the “important work of Parliament” by letting MPs ask all these questions, while committing the lie of omission that the crucial work of studying the Estimates isn’t getting done. Oops. But everyone is instead wrapped up in the novelty of it all and the pretense that there is parliamentary business being done – which there really isn’t – and the Liberals have apparently judged correctly that only the appearance of accountability matters.

Good reads:

  • A BC Court ruled that Meng Wanzhou’s extradition process can continue, which is going to cause more repercussions for Canada from China.
  • Here is a look at the owners of the Ontario long-term care facilities the military was brought into, and how they have other facilities that are turning profits.
  • The majority of the wreckage of the Canadian Forces Cyclone that went down off the coast of Greece has been located, as have the remains of the crew.
  • The federal government is reviewing a proposed Chinese takeover of a Canadian gold mine in Nunavut.
  • The Canadian Centre for Cyber-Security has identified over 1500 malicious websites related to COVID-19 and government benefits like CERB.
  • Here is a tally of the federal supports available to the oil and gas sector to date (while certain MPs continue to moan that “nothing” has been done).
  • A trio of economists working on the Basic Income project for BC explain why it’s harder than it looks, and why most proponents oversimplify it.
  • James McLeod recounts his ordeal in trying to get test results back in Ontario, and it inspires zero confidence in this province’s ability to manage this pandemic.
  • John Michael McGrath walks through the past revelations about the state of long-term care in Ontario, and why the Ford government is lying about what they knew.
  • Paul Wells talks to an expert in long-term care, who lays out what some of the problems are that we knew about, and points out some of the complexity therein.

Odds and ends:

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One thought on “Roundup: Manufacturing allegations of inaction”

  1. Trump only wants an in-person G7 for three reasons: 1) so he can grandstand/grift at his golf course; 2) because he declared by delusional fiat that the virus is over, and anyone who says otherwise is a communist and a sissy nerd who believes in liberal hoaxes like science and hates freedom; and 3) because he now thinks he’s being “censored” on Twitter. Plus, Zoom is a Chinese tech startup and Microsoft Teams is, well, Bill Gates’ company, so it’s obvious as to where the conspiracy theorizing would lead to from there.

    If it’s anything like the chaotic, shambolic disaster of 2018 where the orange narcissist deliberately made an arse of himself in his “rival’s” backyard — and I have no reason to doubt that it’ll be Charlevoix cranked up to 11 — Trudeau and the other legitimate leaders really would be better off holding the “G6 minus one” in a chat room, blocking Trump’s account, and firewalling all IP ranges from hostile actors like Russia and its de facto colony of the United States. (Or maybe even call it a G5 until BoJo gets his problems sorted out. Hey, that fits — Trudeau has an iMac G5, doesn’t he?)

    Nobody needs to entertain Trump. He can screech into the void like a dial-up modem until Biden takes over and he is hauled off to a facility for the criminally insane. I say keep the virtual meeting and everyone click OK to delete the Mar-a-Lago virus.

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