The year-ender interviews with the prime minster continue to roll out, so we’ll see how much in there is actually newsworthy. Still from The Canadian Press’ year-ender, Trudeau said that the government is trying to find “balance” with its ability to be transparent while still able to have no-holds-barred closed-door discussions like they do in Cabinet, all in response to questions about why the government is so slow at its promised reforms to the Access to Information system.

From the CBC, Trudeau said that the 500,000 Canadians who got “educational” letters from the CRA about their CERB payments won’t need to repay by the end of the year, as some had feared – never mind that the government created this problem when they weren’t clear about what the eligibility criteria were.

To CTV, Trudeau said that the target date of having Canadians vaccinated by September is something of a conservative estimate – it could happen faster, but it could also happen more slowly, depending on supply chain issues like those that have hit Pfizer already. He also said that he’s less concerned about the comparisons with the US as having plans to inoculate people at a faster per-capita rate, noting that they have much bigger challenges in their healthcare system, hinting that their estimates may be overly optimistic.

Monetary policy

Andrew Scheer is back at shitposting, this time spreading lies about the Bank of Canada and their use of quantitative easing during the pandemic recession. Quantitative easing is not actually just “printing money,” and it’s not going to cause runaway inflation. In fact, we’re running so far below our inflationary targets that the Bank should be running expansionary monetary policy – and yes, the Bank has a helpful primer on quantitative easing for people like Scheer and Pierre Poilievre if they cared to learn. But they don’t, and are jeopardizing the independence of the central bank by keeping up this particular policy of lies and shitposting to try and score points.

Again, this is a lie.
The Bank of Canada has not “created money,” but use regular settlement balances to purchase bonds on the secondary market. You’d know this if you weren’t interested in shitposting a bunch of misinformation. https://t.co/pKPBJjqhUy

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) December 17, 2020

The Bank is not printing money to fuel the deficit: https://t.co/ml5nvTB10F pic.twitter.com/9Zfmh0tfUE

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) December 17, 2020

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1339640374751596544

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1339643586204348418

Good reads:

• It sounds like skilled users could get six doses out of each Pfizer vaccine vial instead of five, which could increase the number of immunizations happening.
• The Quebec Superior Court granted the government its extension on the assisted dying bill, as the Senate rose for the winter without passing it.
• Bill Blair and David Lametti met with their provincial counterparts, and said that police, prosecutors and judges need better anti-racism training.
• Harjit Sajjan says that military leaders need to be held to account if they don’t deal with the problem of extremists in their ranks.
• Maclean’s has an interview with Bardish Chagger about why the pandemic highlighted the need for a focus on diversity and inclusion.
• Jonathan Wilkinson says that he’s discussing a joint plan to ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles with the Biden administration.
• The government is finally going to start replacing its military transport and refuelling aircraft, including the executive jet used by the PM and GG.
• CSE is saying that Canadian government IT systems apparently avoided the SolarWinds hack that affected others.
• CSIS is warning that foreign actors may try to disrupt the vaccine supply and distribution chains, both for commercial gain and to undermine trust.
• The Trans Mountain expansion construction has been halted for two weeks because of workplace safety concerns.
• The Neskatanga First Nation is preparing to head home, as their new water plant is getting off the ground after a history of problems.
• Trying to score points in the assisted dying bill debate, a Conservative senator inappropriately linked one of the drugs used with lethal injections in the US.
• In a year-end interview, Erin O’Toole admits he was too flippant talking about residential schools, but still hasn’t offered an actual apology.
• The federal government waived some $844 million in payments for the Muskrat Falls project, so that Newfoundland and Labrador can stabilize their finances.
• Doug Ford claims he’ll spend $1.9 billion for better nursing home care, while François Legault is getting shirty about Trudeau’s ultimatum on national standards.
• Heather Scoffield talks with Carla Qualtrough about her job when it comes to dealing with job losses, and how the government tries to avoid “scarring.”

Odds and ends:

This week 86 people died in Ontario of Covid-19.

5 were at Michael Garron Hospital in Toronto.

And Dr. Michael Warner was with each of them when they died.

Scared. Finding it hard to breath. Without their families.

Please watch and understand the real toll of the pandemic. pic.twitter.com/kJStBR0Syr

— Natasha Fatah (@NatashaFatah) December 17, 2020

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