Roundup: Expediting another bill

Posted on by

If you were to judge by the mainstream political shows in Canada, there wasn’t anything happening here – well, unless you count the budget in Ontario, which got a brief mention, but these are federal politics shows. But hey, it turns out there was something pretty major happening, which was an extended debate on the new pandemic relief bill.

In order to pass it by tomorrow, the parties agreed to skip committee hearings and have a four-hour Committee of the Whole session instead, where Chrystia Freeland got to field questions for the duration, and wouldn’t you know it, Pierre Poilievre was consumed with questions about the state of the deficit and how the government planned to repay it once the pandemic was over. Never mind that the point of this spending is to bridge businesses so that fewer of them fail, which will ensure that when the pandemic ends, we will have a faster and stronger recovery, and that economic growth will help deal with the deficit, but that’s not Poilievre’s schtick.

The Bloc, for their part, haven’t been without their own shenanigans, as they are proposing an amendment to the bill that would ban political parties from using the wage subsidy. (The Conservatives have pledged to repay what they used, for what it’s worth). I doubt it’ll pass, because the Liberals, NDP and Greens have also availed themselves of the subsidy, but the Bloc will make their point – and it likely means additional votes which will probably keep the Commons later than usual tomorrow as a result (as the agreement was to have it passed before end of day). Even though the point of this was for swift passage, neither Chamber is sitting next week because of Remembrance Day, but the Senate’s national finance committee has agreed to meet over the week to do what amounts to pre-study of the bill (even though pre-study is technically before the Commons passes it so that they can pass along amendments before it is agreed to), but that will expedite it somewhat so that it will almost certainly get royal assent before the 19th, and then we’ll see how long it takes to actually implement so businesses can get their rent subsidy in place.

Good reads:

  • After days of taunts by the Conservatives and Bloc, Justin Trudeau had a phone conversation with Emmanuel Macron.
  • The government has finalised methane reduction agreements with Alberta, BC and Saskatchewan, but environmental groups argue that they’re too lenient.
  • The Procurement Ombudsman caught an RCMP contract for nearly $20,000 that went to an employee who had inside knowledge and gamed her bid.
  • The Human Rights Museum in Winnipeg has come up with a new plan to deal with the racism, homophobia and censorship in the organisation.
  • Elections Canada is touting how much better they run elections than what is happening in the US with their decentralised gong show.
  • The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that corporations don’t benefit from Section 12 Charter rights, because those are related to human dignity.
  • The Government Operations committee grilled Jean-Yves Duclos about the lack of transparency on spending (some of which Duclos did explain).
  • Liberal MPs are bravely speaking anonymously about lessons to take about the US election, and one of them actually clicks that they have to be less preachy.
  • At BC’s money laundering inquiry, an RCMP officer testified that in 2009, a Cabinet minister told him they knew about the crime but the revenue was just too good.
  • Kevin Carmichael warns the that the permanent state of uncertainty that has emerged in the US is going to have business repercussions in Canada.
  • Robert Hiltz looks at the appetite for cruelty that Trumpism has engendered, and worries that it threatens to spill across the border.

Want more Routine Proceedings? Become a patron and get exclusive new content.

3 thoughts on “Roundup: Expediting another bill”

  1. How sad that Trumpism has changed things so much for the worse that not centering the sacrosanct White Working Class(tm) and addressing intersectional discrimination in the workforce now amounts to being “preachy”. The problem is any time those things get mentioned it’s talked down as being a “lecturing tone” anyway, because men, especially white men, don’t like to be lectured — that is, called out or surpassed by those they believe to be their lessers.

    Actual data shows that the higher one goes in formal education the more likely they are to support liberal/progressive policies. Response: Trump “loves the poorly educated,” but it’s taboo to call them stupid. Even though populism is the revenge of idiots, most of them lacking dermatological melanin, against “eggheads” striving to use facts, data and, yes, lived experience, to build a more humanistic and holistic world. Yet when the actual “left behind” start to move up, the ones who’ve had the world cater to them for hundreds of years start to whine that no one is paying attention to them, which prompts conservative parties to do just that. They want comfortable lies and for the world to stop, the DeLorean turned around and shifted in reverse to a halcyon time when they were on top and didn’t have to expend any effort to change gears or let someone else sit in the driver’s seat.

    So we’ll get next to no progress on the existential crisis facing all of humanity — the climate — years of foot dragging on issues facing marginalized peoples, and a watering down or bothsiding of science in favor of “folk wisdom,” conspiracy theories, and “a guy told me,” all because the Liberals and Democrats have to walk on eggshells so as not to offend the delicate white snowflakes who’ll never vote for them anyway because they won’t abide a multicolor big tent where they’re not the ringmasters. Back to the future, make North America 1984 again, those who control the past control the future. SMDH.

  2. One thing is certain, a house divided will fall. thanks to the pathetic moron the Americans voted into the White House nearly four years ago. They are now divided so much that these two factions will never find common ground. The myth of American superiority is just that. Oh! the rhetoric out of the Biden White House will be less vitriolic, however the fundamental truth will remain. The United States of America has had its day. Perhaps over time a new way will be found for the American people to prosper together. I for one don’t see one at this time. I harken back to George Carlin’s sage advice, the American dream has become one of the biggest bullshit stories of all time, ranked right there with religion. So, it is time for us to just sit back and watch the show.

Comments are closed.