Roundup: Singh has a list of demands

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In the wake of his party’s post-election first caucus meeting, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh held a press conference yesterday to do a bit of chest-thumping and pretend that he holds some kind of balance of power in the forthcoming parliament, or that he can play kingmaker. If anything, he undermined his own position with his list of demands, because he doesn’t have any real leverage. His party is substantially weakened after the election, particularly given that they spent all kinds of money and gained a single seat out of it, and they are likely in debt once again and in no shape to go to another campaign anytime soon – especially if they want to figure out what they did wrong and have time to course-correct.

As for his list of demands, we are back to a lot of the usual nonsense where Singh doesn’t seem to grasp implementation – or jurisdiction. To wit:

  • Paid sick leave – that is being expanded to ten days for federally-regulated workers, but that’s only six percent of the workforce. The rest is provincial.
  • Halting clawbacks from GIS for seniors who accessed CERB – the GIS is means-tested and meant for the poorest of seniors, so it’s not surprising that CERB or other benefits could impact the means test.
  • Clean drinking water in Indigenous communities – this is in progress. Willpower won’t make it go faster.
  • A federal vaccine document for internal travel – this cannot happen unless provinces sign on, and until a couple of weeks ago, there were provinces still hostile to the very notion. The federal government cannot unilaterally create such a document because the provinces control vaccination data.
  • Dropping the appeal of the Human Rights Tribunal decision in the First Nations Child and Family Services case – this may yet happen given how completely the Federal Court decision against them last week was, but there were legitimate issues being litigated regardless that compensation is already being negotiated, irrespective of a further appeal.
  • Demanding higher health transfers – the federal government fully plans to negotiate those, but it won’t be without strings, especially as certain provinces sat on the pandemic-related transfers and put them towards their bottom lines rather than spending them on the pandemic.

As for Singh’s threat to “withhold votes” if he doesn’t get his way, it’s a bit curious what he means. Does he mean he would vote against bills including the budget implementation bill for the fall economic update, which would have plenty of additional pandemic supports or items he supports? Or does he mean he’d simply not vote, which would mean the Liberals wouldn’t need to get Bloc support to pass their measures (which they would likely get as the Bloc also are in no position to go to another election). Because if it’s the latter, then he’s basically made himself irrelevant for the foreseeable future.

Programming note: I am taking the full long weekend off from blogging. See you next week!

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau has agreed to travel to the grave site at the former Kamloops Residential School site this month, as the local chief demands institutional change.
  • CBSA is trying to deny US whistle-blower Chelsea Manning entry into the country based on her past convictions.
  • PHAC’s pandemic early warning system has only issued a handful of alerts since early 2020, as the agency has not fixed its reporting structure.
  • An external review found a toxic work environment at the Royal Canadian Mint.
  • A number of environmental groups are accusing Mark Carney of providing greenwashing for corporations making false promises on climate targets.
  • The Liberals held a hybrid send-off for defeated MPs, but haven’t yet held their first official caucus meeting post-election.
  • Erin O’Toole and Garnet Genuis appear to be at odds as to whether “conscience rights” includes making referrals (though O’Toole’s position shifted on this).
  • Kevin Carmichael parses yesterday’s comments by Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem on why inflation running high is likely a temporary phenomenon.
  • For The Line, Karamveer Lalh looks at the population data to disprove the notion that Beijing-led misinformation cost the Conservative seats in several ridings.
  • My (slightly delayed) column looks at the Reform Act and why it’s still garbage legislation that hurts democracy and insulates leaders from their backbenches.

Odds and ends:

Here is more on the Royal Regiment of the Canadian Artillery taking up the post of Queen’s Guard at Buckingham Palace.

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4 thoughts on “Roundup: Singh has a list of demands”

  1. Singh is slick. He well knows what jurisdictions are responsible. He uses his statements because he also recognizes that the majority of Canadians don’t.
    Now if my first statement is truly false, then he is a fool. Then again many Canadians are susceptible to fools.

  2. Newly Deranged Party has fully devolved into sore-loser embitterment and come full around the horseshoe to the orange party of Trump. The Davenport recount is a complete farce, based on conspiracy theories accusing Trudeau of “voter suppression” and inserting himself into Elections Canada’s arms-length procedures. Honestly surprised that Alejandra Bravo Cortez and the NDP’s hack lawyers didn’t include the words “Dominion Voting Systems” in their laundry list of Festivus grievances. I have friends in the States who LOLed in incredulity when I told them that the nominally progressive party in Canada wants an Arizona Audit on grounds that Hillary Trudeau rigged the election. Jagmeet Sanders indeed. Bernie Bros North. Dare we call them, well-hung Chads?

    There could have been better pandemic-election preparation, but they were the ones who aided and abetted the cons in stalling Bill C-19 at committee, because they spent months trying to get Mark and Donnie Wahlburger and Margaret Trudeau to testify about prorogation. Then gummed up the works again with another stupid motion on electoral reform. Dead horse beatings will continue until morale improves, comrade?

    Then Tom Parkin later came out with a rallying cry for Singh to make a formal coalition government one of his top-tier dealbreaker demands. This was followed by other NDP partisan publications and the orange Twitterati, desperate to change the system because they can’t win otherwise. That they can’t win because they suck doesn’t mean the elections are not “fair.” Honestly, I wish Trudeau was so devious as to take Singh up on this particular demand (but not go full PropRep). He’d laugh all the way to a majority next election once Singh and the NDP go the way of Nick Clegg and the LibDems.

    NDP cultists who’ve guzzled the orange kool-aid really hate it when you bring up that their favoured electoral system would have given as many seats to Mad Max as they have now, that it has normalized the AfD, and that it was at one point responsible for catapulting another toxic populist to the chancellory once upon a time. But hey, they can’t admit either that “Nach Harper, Uns” didn’t work out so well for Jack and Tom either. Their historical counterparts in East Berlin, meanwhile, got a revolution good and hard until 1989. Unfortunately history is lost on the NDP’s core voting demographic, who don’t seem to pay attention much in school, and probably weren’t born until after the bigly wall fell…

  3. The NDP will have no choice but to support the forward looking policies of the LIBS. They are completely broke. An election quickly would decimate them. Like the Cons, they picked the wrong leader. They have little future as a federal party. Provincially the NDP are a different beast. IN BC the Liberals are a fusion of liberals and conservatives, the NDP are wannabe Libs. The Greens are DONE as if they would have grown enough to threaten any of the other parties. That leaves the Bloc, an unfortunate reality for the ROC. The next election should see them reduced to a rump. The Cons who but for a small number runoff votes may have chosen a nazi as their leader instead of Scheer cannot appeal to vast urban voter. That leaves the Liberals, who would be best served by a more palatable leader than our increasingly feckless current one.

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