The pandemic continues to accelerate in certain parts of the country, because that’s what exponential growth is – exponential. To that end, Dr. Theresa Tam is calling for stricter lockdowns, because the longer you delay, the worse it gets. So what is Doug Ford doing? Delaying until Monday to decide on extending lockdown measures in some regions of the province, and signalling that tougher measures won’t go into effect until Boxing Day – you know, so that there can be more holiday super-spreader events and the situation will spiral out of control that much faster. Good job! And no, there haven’t been actual lockdowns, which is why the measures that have been put into place so far haven’t been effective (and there is talk emerging that some of the hot spots are in large industrial workplaces, that the government is insistent on remaining open).
I like the idea that you’ve got here. I added the quotes directly to the timeline for a little more gravitas. pic.twitter.com/4L611pMP5a
— Jake Kaupp (@jakekaupp) December 17, 2020
There is some more promising vaccine news, in that it looks like there will be scheduled 125,000 doses of the Pfizer delivered per week in January, while more freezers are being delivered to provinces to store the doses. As well, the Moderna vaccine is nearly ready for approval (apparently Health Canada is waiting on some more manufacturing data), and new guidance is suggesting that it won’t need to be frozen as initially indicated, which makes it even more versatile for delivery in rural and remote communities.
Good reads:
- Justin Trudeau says the government will look into the companies who gave dividends while on the wage subsidy, but didn’t say they would have to repay.
- Trudeau also admitted his blind spot is not always thinking of the political consequences of his actions, and pledges to keep the Senate at gender parity.
- The government has fully admitted to giving “unclear information” to CRA employees on CERB eligibility, which they then passed onto the public. Of course.
- Seamus O’Regan released an “action plan” for the development of small modular reactors as part of the government’s net-zero climate plan.
- The government has put forward their draft regulations for the Clean Fuel Standard, and stakeholders have 75 days to respond before the final version is adopted.
- Because Health Canada has nothing better to do in a pandemic, they are putting forward new regulations that nicotine content in vaping products be lowered.
- Jason Kenney’s government claims they’re going to use data to fight addictions in the province – while they funnel funds to private abstinence-only recovery centres.
- Jen Gerson sees problems with the way the bill to ban conversion therapy appears to conflate sexual orientation and gender identity in what is being banned.
- Kevin Carmichael speaks with the Governor of the Bank of Canada, and talks about near-zero rates and the housing market, as well as the state of the Canadian dollar.
- Susan Delacourt recounts the prime minister’s annual interview with Terry DiMonte, and what it signals about his year in pandemic lockdown.
- Colby Cosh delves into new research about anarchism and the relationship between the Acadians and the Mi’kmaq people, and it’s quite fascinating.
- My weekend column looks at the government’s communications screw-up around CERB eligibility, and why that will end up costing them in one way or another.
Odds and ends:
https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1340008571719864325
Want more Routine Proceedings? Become a patron and get exclusive new content.
I think the govt will probably bite the bullet and eat whatever $ were awarded in good faith, and try to recover revenue elsewhere. I also have a feeling there may be some disagreement (or discussions at least) between Trudeau/Freeland and either Qualtrough or Lebouthlier (sp?) over the issue of amnesty for some recipients, that the media in their usual sensationalistic gotcha stupidity is waiting to turn into another Multi-Hyphenate Affair and frame as “strong women standing up to the big bad boss who sympathizes with ‘benefit fraudsters’.” I doubt any “discussions” (if they are happening) would blow up that big, though. None of the other ministers seems to be as self-centred as JWR and her duped pal. Which doesn’t stop the rumor mill from churning, because that’s what the tabloid punditocracy loves to do.
But on the other side of this, pay close attention to who has been amplifying the CERB anecdotes and trying to portray Trudeau and his government as Scrooge with a smile. They started spreading on a Facebook group called “UBI Works”. There is some degree of astroturfing going on here. What Singh is doing is a duplicitous move to advance the UBI agenda by force (CERB minus means-testing), completely disregarding the advice and expertise of numerous economists who have all said it’s not as simple as just giving 38 million people a “free” paycheck of $2K/month (and could actually end up harming some of the vulnerable people the policy portends to help).
The right-wing papers are using this to promote their own agenda that CERB itself was a bad program, while Singh is seizing upon an irrational populist emotional pitch to push a vague hand-wavey “eat the rich” platform that isn’t constitutionally feasible or economically viable. The Liberals will fix the bureaucratic glitch (which is really all this was), but unfortunately Singh and his horseshoe counterparts like O’Toole and Poilievre will jump on it to advance their own causes of demanding blood one way or another. Revolutions rarely end well. It really makes me sad to read Trudeau’s statement that “all I wanted to do was help the most amount of people as quickly as possible,” because the perfection they’re demanding, in a rapid and unprecedented situation at that, doesn’t do anybody any good. Singh and O’Toole playing politics with desperate people to “dunk” on a man they despise for no good reason is the worst humbug of all.
Also, I think if Jagmeet fumbles the Stanfield football (which appears likely), then Matthew Green is waiting in the wings to succeed him. He’s dangerous. He makes Layton the pied piper look like a clumsy hybrid of Iggy and Scheer. He’s a more articulate and determined rabble-rouser than Jagmeet the joker, and he clearly has no qualms about burning everything down. I’ve said on a number of occasions that the Liberals want Canada to be like France and Germany now; the CPC want Canada to be like France and Germany in 1940; and the NDP want Canada to be like France in 1789 and… *East* Germany in 1949. Converting CERB to UBI seems to be a dealbreaker for the NDP, and if Jagmeet isn’t able to “muscle” Trudeau, there’ll be someone else hell-bent on setting a blow torch to Parliament if “the people” don’t get everything they want and the kitchen sink.
This thread contains a number of intentionally radical suggestions for a (possible leadership) platform that Green is soliciting from his followers. “Abolish companies”. “Annex Michigan”. Nationalize everything. “Cancel capitalism”. Defund the police, yet bring the Ethics Commissioner’s mandate under the Criminal Code? How is that any different from the CPC’s Trumpisms of “Crooked Hillary/Crooked Justin, drain the swamp, lock him up”? As stated above, revolutions rarely end well…
https://twitter.com/MatthewGreenNDP/status/1339984392937234433