The Conservatives spent their allotted Supply Day yesterday debating a non-binding motion that would demand the government produce a “data-driven” plan to end all lockdowns permanently – something that should more generously be referred to as shenanigans, but is perhaps better described as an act of deep cynicism that is designed to create false expectations, and make it look like the government is guilty of inaction when the demands being placed on them are largely outside of their jurisdiction.

The federal government has no say on lockdowns — those are provincial decisions. And more to the point, if provinces outside of Atlantic Canada had properly locked down and crushed the curve in the first place, we would not be in the current situation. https://t.co/xSBTLlaRG0

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) March 23, 2021

https://twitter.com/kateheartfield/status/1374374821463687186

https://twitter.com/kateheartfield/status/1374375879959187459

Part of this cynicism is trying to blame the federal government for the lockdowns – or perhaps more appropriately mockdowns – that have occurred over the past year, when those are provincial decisions. Every few days in QP, we get a question prefaced with “lockdowns were supposed to be a temporary measure,” which then blames the federal government for something or other when it was the provinces who a) did not lock down properly, b) opened too early, and c) tried to play Goldilocks by thinking they could have a little bit of COVID in the community and everything would be fine, forgetting that it grows exponentially, and by not taking proper measures, things spiralled out of control. And it keeps happening – we never properly exited the second wave and we are already into the third because these premiers did not learn their lessons and were too concerned about letting people eat in restaurants and failing the marshmallow test rather than actually crushing the spread and allowing a more normal pace of business operations – much as Atlantic Canada managed to do.

Of course, it’s the Conservatives’ ideological brethren who are responsible for most of the disasters at the provincial level, meaning that they don’t want to criticize them. Rather, they are more invested in creating some kind of alternate reality where the federal government is making the calls (they’re not), and are dressing up their disregard for lives under the crocodile tears of “mental health,” when their loaded questions about re-opening the economy betray their true concerns. The realities of a pandemic, where people need to be paid to stay home in order to limit spread, have proven to be beyond their capacity to process, and they cannot deal with this reality – so they instead create an alternate one. Having the federal government produce a plan for re-opening at this point not only sets up false hope and unrealistic expectations, but it would simply allow people to feel like they have permission to start “cheating” on the rules the closer they get to any of the dates outlined in these plans, and it would set back progress even more than it’s been set back now by certain incompetent and immoral murderclowns who are running many of the provinces. With the new variants circulating in community spread, demanding a map for re-opening when we still don’t know what the landscape will look like is premature and frankly, foolhardy. But they don’t care – they’re just looking to score points by crying “The US and the UK have reopening plans but we don’t!” It makes it hard to treat them as a government-in-waiting if this is the casual disregard they have for human lives.

Good reads:

• Chrystia Freeland announced that the budget will be released on April 19th
• In light of concerns about the AstraZeneca data in the US, Health Canada officials insist that there are no problems with the safety of the vaccine.
• The government has decided they won’t appeal the Ontario court decision that struck down the Elections Actchanges around misinformation.
• The Acting Chief of Defence Staff has asked for a “playbook” to guide how to deal with allegations against senior officers, and is looking to replace Operation Honour.
• Our military allies are keeping a close eye on whether the current and former chiefs of defence staff will face charges for misconduct, given the rarity of the situation.
• An RCMP audit shows that the Force frequently flouted their own policies when it comes to the collection of “open source” information from the internet.
• The Lobbying Commissioner says that the former ambassador to the US, David MacNaughton, didn’t break lobbying rules – but she also wants tighter rules.
• Liberal MP John McKay went after Mary Ng in committee, saying that the Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise doesn’t a strong enough mandate.
• Erin O’Toole continues to insist that in spite of that grassroots vote on climate change, he’s the leader so what he says goes. (Is that the best look?)
• Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column tallies the Supply Day motions we’ve seen this parliament, and which opposition parties have been most successful with theirs.
• Kevin Carmichael suspects that CP Rail’s purchase of an American competitor, giving it access to Mexico, could be part of supply-chain tightening and localizing.
• Carmichael also looks at how the Bank of Canada is looking to start unwinding their quantitative easing programme, as the economic recovery starts to take shape.
• Heather Scoffield delves into some of the underlying weaknesses of our projected economic growth that the Liberals may want to address in their upcoming budget.
• Susan Delacourt muses about how demographic changes in the GTA brought about by pandemic-related migrations could impact on the next election.
• Chris Selley calls out the prime minister for joining in the condemnation of that obnoxious blowhard professor for his “Quebec bashing.”
• My column looks at whether what happened at the Conservative convention is a sign of weak leadership, or of the broader malaise in our political culture.

Odds and ends:

Excavations for the renovation of the Centre Block have found the foundations of the old Victoria Tower from the original building.

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