Roundup: Trudeau slows to a summer pace

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Prime minister Justin Trudeau was back at Rideau Cottage yesterday morning, for what he promised would be the last “daily” briefing, though they haven’t been daily for a few weeks now. And there really wasn’t anything new to announce – yet another reminder that the Canadian Emergency Business Account and commercial rent subsidies were good things, that there were still hotspots of pandemic around the country, but that we are making progress – but are not out of the woods yet – and oh, yeah, the New NAFTA comes into force on Wednesday. During the Q&A, Trudeau stated that American chest-thumping over tariffs only hurts them because they need Canadian aluminium as they can’t produce enough of their own. When asked about the Human Rights Watch report on Canadian foreign fighters being held prisoner in Syria, Trudeau insisted that they are preoccupied with the safety of diplomatic personnel in the region, and we don’t have any in Syria, which makes the complicated situation even more complex because most of these prisoners are facing charges. (Not everyone buys this argument). And when asked yet again about We Charities being given that contract, Trudeau again insisted that the advice of the public service was that only they could deliver on the scale that was required, and that some 25,000 students hand applied over the past few days, to prove the point.

A short while later, Dr. Theresa Tam gave her last regular update as well, as those pressers also take on a less daily pace, as well as unveiled new federal modelling numbers, which show that the pandemic is largely under control, but with the warning that people need to keep up good habits around distancing and hygiene, lest flare-ups start happening.

Meanwhile, in Alberta, Jason Kenney and his finance minister unveiled their economic recovery plan, and it was complete with mistruths, and tired magical thinking that tax cuts will automatically create jobs (when these rapid cuts will only benefit existing players rather than attract future ones), or that hectoring tech firms for not upping sticks to relocate to the “cheap rents” of Calgary and lower taxes as being “irresponsible.” So yeah, good luck with that. Meanwhile, here’s Andrew Leach with a bit of a fact check.

Good reads:

  • The government is extending its orders under the Quarantine Act around face-masks for travellers and enforcing quarantine.
  • It turns out that the government has given a number of sole-sourced contracts to WE Charity over the past three years.
  • Dominic LeBlanc told an American audience that democratic countries need to unite and share intelligence in order to fight online disinformation.
  • Veterans Affairs plans to hire 300 more people over the next to years to deal with their backlog of case files.
  • The military investigation into the Snowbird crash suggests that the ejection seat tangled with the parachute of the officer who died, as happened in a previous crash.
  • The National Post crunches some numbers on border-crossings that are still taking place. CBSA has turned back 21 asylum-seekers who crossed from the US in May.
  • The Federal, Quebec, Alberta and BC privacy commissioners are banding together for a joint investigation of the Tim Hortons app and its privacy violations.
  • Conservatives supporting Erin O’Toole are grousing that Peter MacKay will threaten party unity, and others are worried about the aftermath. So it’s going well.
  • Susan Delacourt remarks on the scaling back of daily pressers by Trudeau and Dr. Theresa Tam, as the pace of the pandemic changes gear.
  • Colby Cosh dissects the latest missive from the Chinese Embassy on the Meng Wanzhou/Two Michaels situation, and what it’s really saying.

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One thought on “Roundup: Trudeau slows to a summer pace”

  1. “Dominic LeBlanc told an American audience that democratic countries need to unite and share intelligence in order to fight online disinformation.”

    Poor Dom says this in good faith to a country where the natural governing party is itself a purveyor of conspiracy theories, gaslighting, “alternative facts,” historical revisionism, Orwellian cognitive dissonance, and out-and-out delusional BS. If it weren’t for flooding the zone with “reality distortion field” propaganda, the Republicans wouldn’t exist (and for that matter, neither would its branch plant in Canada). They plan to sue or otherwise wage a backlash against Twitter for labeling the president’s nonsense as nonsense, so Facebook takes a side, licks the orange boot, and fully embraces the big lie. But LeBlanc can’t say so outright, lest he be condemned as biased, and worse, a “smug Canadian.”

    How are democratic countries supposed to unite to fight disinformation online and off, when objective truth becomes an issue of partisan fealty? Vaccines don’t cause autism; Covid-19 is not a hoax; wearing a mask is not a “gateway to creeping tyranny”; Justin Trudeau is not Fidel Castro’s son; climate change is real, and human-caused; having public healthcare does not mean Canada is a communist country; and bears defecate in the woods. These used to be called facts. Now they’re liberal talking points from the Soros deep state, the Hillary fan club, Trudeau’s groupies, or campus SJWs. As Chrétien used to say, a proof is a proof, and when you have a good proof, that means it’s proven. But when you have no proof to prove your proof… you’re a “patriot” owning the libs?

    The elephant has completely sh@t the bed and needs a psychiatric intervention.

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