Roundup: Inviting premiers to shift the blame

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It’s now day one-hundred-and-forty-seven of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and while Russian forces pound cities like Kramatorsk in the east, and targeted Odesa in the south, they are planning to begin annexing Ukrainian territory with installing proxy officials, false referenda, replacing the local currency and forcing people to apply for Russian citizenship. We know this because they did it in 2014 when they annexed Crimea, and they have a familiar MO.

Closer to home, there was a report out from Ontario’s Financial Accountability Officer yesterday that showed how Doug Ford and his merry band of incompetent murderclowns have been under-spending in a number of significant areas like healthcare, education, social supports that include things like autism therapy. Now, put this underspending into the same context of Ford crying poor and insisting that the federal government pony up more cash for healthcare, but he’s not even spending his own current budget allocation, he hasn’t reversed his cuts to nurses’ salaries, and he didn’t do enough when it comes to testing or tracing when it comes to the pandemic. The same report shows he only spent 58 percent of the pandemic funds the federal government sent over, putting the rest directly onto his bottom line to reduce the province’s deficit. And you wonder why the federal government wants strings attached to future funding, to ensure that it actually gets spent on the things it’s supposed to be spent on, and not being used to pad bottom lines.

On a related note, reporters were asking Justin Trudeau yesterday about the strain that emergency rooms are under, and when Trudeau noted the money they’ve sent to the provinces and that those dollars need to come with results, those same reporters frame this as “punting it” back to the provinces.

No.

It’s not punting—it’s the provinces’ gods damned jobs. And while this was justified as Trudeau campaigning on hiring more doctors and nurses, no—the campaign promise was to send $3.2 billion to the provinces to hire doctors and nurses, and it’s not rocket science to understand that this is the kind of thing he’s trying to attach strings to before he sends those cheques to the provinces, so that he knows that they’re going to actually spend it to hire doctors and nurses (and one presumes actually pay them properly) and that it won’t wind up padding their bottom lines like we just watched Doug Ford do. And I’m not trying to insinuate that the reporters are playing gotcha or that they’re being partisan, because they’re not—they’re trying to do their jobs, but they’re doing it with a grave misunderstanding about how jurisdiction works, and this nonsense belief that nobody cares about it. The problem is that they have to care, because that’s how we hold people to account for the work they’re supposed to be doing, which the premiers aren’t. Because media keeps giving them this out and trying to pin things on Trudeau “because nobody cares about jurisdiction,” and the only lever he has is to try and attach strings to funding and nothing else—the federal government cannot hire doctors and nurses because they have no authority to do so—it gives the provinces an out so that they can shift blame when it’s their gods damned responsibility. We need the media to understand this and hold the right people to account for their failures, and right now, that’s the gods damned premiers.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau was in BC on Monday and toured cherry farms and processing facilities, given how weather events have affected that crop.
  • While still in BC yesterday, Trudeau announced new details for the government’s oceans protection plan, which includes new Coast Guard stations.
  • Trudeau again defended the decision to return the gas turbine to Germany, and called out Russia’s attempt to divide the European alliance.
  • Trudeau also slammed Hockey Canada’s leadership after it was discovered they maintained a fund for things like out-of-court settlements.
  • A number of significant Indigenous treaty anniversaries are upcoming, and yet the federal government has no plans to commemorate them.
  • Canadian lakes are heating up faster than others, and as a result becoming more prone to toxic algae blooms. Climate change, everyone!
  • Her Excellency Mary May Simon has penned a letter to Canadians to mark her first year on the job as Governor General.
  • In order to keep hybrid sittings going in the wake of injuries facing interpreters, MPs have opted to hire non-accredited interpreters, and I just cannot even.
  • Leslyn Lewis says that the idea of an “ethic vote” that Patrick Brown was able to access is “colonial thinking” (and yet, Brown had success that way).
  • Doug Ford wants to give the mayors of Toronto and Ottawa more American-style “strong mayor” powers, giving more control over finances and appointments.
  • Ontario now has 230 cases of monkeypox (because it was just Pride in Toronto).
  • Heather Scoffield delves into the topic of gasoline prices and the fact that refineries have been increasing their profit margins significantly amid a shortage of capacity.
  • My column tears into that Geoff Norquay mea culpa about creating the one-member-one-vote leadership system, given that he showed no actual contrition.

Odds and ends:

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1549454022221905921

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3 thoughts on “Roundup: Inviting premiers to shift the blame”

  1. Reporters….grave misunderstanding about how jurisdiction works

    Maybe someone should explain jurisdiction issues to politicians as well. Sheer, O’Toole and Singh spent a lot of time showing that they managed to sleep through that 1 hour lecture in law school on the issue. [1]

    Still, no reporter should be covering provincial or federal politics with this level of ignorance.

    1. Is this a condemnation of our law schools too?

  2. Thank you for pointing out the Provincial responsibility re Health Care.
    I am not convinced that the ignorance concerning the journalists comments are not partisan driven.
    There has been enough concern expressed by the public on the “failed media”, topic, that there must be some pressure to do a fair reporting, by now. There are never corrections or apologies, when journalists fail, so you are asking a lot to suggest that the public give the journalists the benefit of the doubt.
    Mary Wright

  3. You mention Trudeau’s recent visit to the Okanagan where he was met by the faithful. The next day a poll by Castanet showed that nearly 80% of those responding were negative to him. When we complain that healthcare is a Provincial responsibly because Canadians are ignorant of what the levels of government must do, The press never attaches an explainer. The “news” just perpetuates the myth that the problem go back to Trudeau. He has become the victim in chief for every supposed political crime in Canada. It is his fault along with his wishy-washy ministers and back benchers who fail constantly by not loudly calling out the lies and non sequiturs the press feeds us along with the ignorant but clever Conservatives whose sole purpose is to promulgate the ignorance of the electorate for their gains. Trudeau may be finished before the next election. One can only hope that the Liberals find an attack dog to bite the “Pollynever” who is the most dangerous man in Canadian politics the master of misinformation. I don’t think I will hold my breath that Liberal champion will be found. Our Minister of Finance as brilliant as she is will just not fill the role.

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