Yesterday, the Conservatives had the gall and the cheek to put out a press release blaming the Liberals for the fact that none of their legislation is going through in a timely manner, never mind that it’s the opposition using procedural delay tactics to hold bills up. In particular, Conservative House Leader Gérard Deltell accuses the Liberals of not calling bills “in a logical order,” scheduling “insufficient time” (never mind that some bills recently have had more debate than budget bills), and then sounding wounded when the Conservatives are the ones being accused of playing games.

The Conservatives are using procedural tactics to deny or delay any debate on bills in the Commons, and are now blaming the Liberals for the problem. That takes some particular cheek. #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/vGYa5uuvoV

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) March 8, 2021

While most of this statement really reads like Detell holding the government’s arm while telling them to stop hitting themselves, while trying to craft the narrative that the Liberals are deliberately causing problems in order to engineer an election – err, except that it’s not the Liberals who are calling for concurrence motions and debates on committee reports rather than proceeding to government orders every day.

But hold up, you may say – surely the government could cut a deal with the Bloc or the NDP! What do you think those terms would be? The Bloc demand unconditional transfers to the provinces, which the federal government would be foolish to agree to, while the NDP want an intrusion in provincial areas of jurisdiction on things like rent, sick leave, pharmacare, dental care, and long-term care – things that the federal government cannot make unilateral change on, and are already negotiating with provinces on in most cases, and that is a time-consuming process. Nobody wants to play ball, even though nobody says they want an election (and really, the only people who do are bored pundits), but nobody wants to look like they are helping out the Liberals too much because they think it’ll cost them at the ballot box. Accusing one another of wanting an election while essentially engineering excuses to have one is making for a very irritating sitting, and I don’t imagine it will get any better the longer it lasts.

Good reads:

• Justin Trudeau appointed a Task Force on Women in the Economy yesterday, with some big names in economics, to tackle the “she-session.”
• Steven Guilbeault says that Heritage Canada is going to be reducing its ad buys when it comes to digital media outlets (and presumably in favour of print outlets).
• The Canadian Forces has its first woman vice-chief of defence staff, Lt-Gen. Frances Allen, which is a fast changeover once again in vice-chiefs.
• The House of Commons’ Abomination remote voting app had its first live trial yesterday, and it went off with only a couple of hitches.
• The head of Pfizer in Canada explained why Canada didn’t have the domestic capacity to manufacture its vaccines (and wants more favourable policies).
• The Ethics committee unanimous voted to summon the Kielburger brothers, and they now say they’ll show up – with a lawyer, and won’t talk about allegations.
• Here is a fact-check on some of the claims made by Harry and Megan in That Interview.
• The Conservatives plan to use their Supply Day motion today to call for sector-specific supports in the upcoming federal budget.
• Here’s a look at how Campaign Life Coalition plans to formally make the Conservatives an anti-abortion party at the upcoming policy convention.
• The Commons’ Board of Internal Economy ordered former Liberal MP Yasmin Ratansi to repay $9400 in severance for her illegally-hired sister.
• The grassroots of the UCP are considering a leadership review of Jason Kenney.
• Five separate police officers were found to have illegally monitored former Alberta environment minister Shannon Phillips.
• Colby Cosh notes that Canada is adopting the US policy of only allowing dogs as support animals in aircraft cabins (which is really for the best).

Odds and ends:

My latest Loonie Politics video looks into the procedural shenanigans that are slowing down the government’s legislative agenda.

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