Roundup: Kludging together dental care

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Parliament resumed sitting yesterday, and the first thing the government did was tabled two bills related to their recently announced affordability measures. While the GST rebate is a fairly straight-forward mechanism that mostly just needs a royal recommendation to ensure that funds are available for it, they also tabled their bill on dental care, or rather the funds to be used for dental care in lieu of a full-on programme because it’s going to take a while to figure out how best to do it. And thus far, it looks like the kludge is to use the CRA as the delivery mechanism and who would eventually follow-up to see that it was properly administered and not improperly claimed. But that’s going to be a problem. And the worst part of this is the reminder that the NDP want this to be a fully federally-administered programme, when it’s an issue within provincial jurisdiction, and there is no federal system they can realistically build off of. The CRA to transfer funds to families is a kludge, and not a great one, but the NDP have demands and an inane belief that the problem just requires enough political will. This can only end in tears.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 209:

While Ukrainian forces bolster their lines with captured Russian tanks, shelling around the Enerhodar nuclear plant has resulted in damage to the facility, as they target other power plants and dams as though that would make it easier for slaves to do the work.

On the Russian side, it looks like the regime is trying to speed ahead sham referendums to justify formally annex those territories, but nobody should be fooled. As well, the Duma is considering legislation that would crack down on soldiers who disobey orders, as well as deserters, which could be indicate a real problem for Russia when it comes to maintaining their military.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau is at the United Nations General Assembly, meeting with world leaders as the talk is about the war in Ukraine and a coming global food crisis.
  • Marco Mendicino defended the RMCP’s refusal to explain how the Saskatchewan mass-stabbing perpetrator died in custody.
  • Jean-Yves Duclos is indicating that some kind of broad-based review of government responses to COVID is in the works.
  • The Clerk of the Privy Council is encouraging federal departments to adopt flexible hybrid work arrangements for civil servants, preferring in-person two days a week.
  • Some observers are questioning Poilievre’s bench strength as he goes about picking critic roles for his caucus.
  • Heather Scoffield tries to declare a pox on all of their houses when it comes to inflation talking points, but winds up mostly just both-sidesing, because of course.
  • Paul Wells makes his return to the House of Commons for Question Period and makes a series of increasingly acerbic observations, which are all pretty true.
  • My column looks at the complaints of a democratic malaise we’re facing, and how the solution is not to create citizen assemblies, but to re-engage the grassroots.

Odds and ends:

I was quoted in this Hill Times piece on journalists still doing our jobs of accountability when politicians don’t want to talk to us.

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