Roundup: Trudeau holding the line on health transfers

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While NDP leader Jagmeet Singh makes empty threats about ending their confidence agreement with the government if they don’t *handwave* do something about the current crisis in paediatric hospitals, prime minister Justin Trudeau seems to be staking a pretty firm position that he’s not giving the provinces a blank cheque and that he’s going to only give money when there is an agreement to reform the system, starting with data on outcomes so that they can measure what the new funding is doing. In his year-end interview with The Canadian Press, Trudeau elaborated on this particular position, with the backing of some national doctors and nurses groups, that just throwing money at a broken system won’t solve anything, so he’s going to just keep kicking this problem down the road.

Of course, the provinces think they have the upper hand here and have spent all kinds of money trying to convince Canadians that this is all the federal government’s fault, because they have been given a free hand with blame-shifting for decades now, because they could get away with it. There is ever-so-slowly a coming around to the fact that no, this is pretty much entirely the provinces’ mess, and the fact that they think we’re all idiots who can’t see that they’re crying poor while running surpluses, handing out vote-buying cheques and giving tax cuts to upper income brackets. They can’t keep up this act forever, and they are looking increasingly desperate in their attempts to keep shouting “look over there!”

Meanwhile, let me note that PEI remains the only province still moving ahead (slowly) with national pharmacare, as they are slowly identifying gaps and adding them to the formulary.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 294:

Ukrainians fleeing from Bakhmut describe constant shelling as Russians have pounded the city into nothing. In Kyiv, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy dissolved the District Administrative Court, which was rife with corruption and likened to a criminal organisation, saying that Ukraine can fight corruption and Russian invaders at the same time. The US has also been finalizing plans to send Patriot missile defence systems to Ukraine, which could help with the incoming Russian bombardment. Meanwhile, doctors and nurses from Mariupol have reassembled in Kyiv to help displaced Ukrainians in need of care. Elsewhere, here is the tale of Ukrainian women building drones in Latvia to send back to aid the war effort in Ukraine.

Good reads:

  • Also in his Canadian Press year-ender, Trudeau talked about society making a decision about assault weapons, and not repeating mistakes in Haiti.
  • In Paris, Chrystia Freeland pledged $115 million in tariff revenue from Russia and Belarus to assist in rebuilding Ukraine’s electricity grid.
  • “Resource mobilization” or financing remains the discussion at the COP15 biodiversity conference in Montreal.
  • Anita Anand unveiled her “roadmap” for implementing the Arbour Report, which includes a review of the two military colleges as breeding ground for toxic culture.
  • Here is a look at the enormous challenge of the government’s critical minerals strategy, which still doesn’t have many necessary details.
  • The Ethics Commissioner declared that Mary Ng did not appropriately recuse herself when her office gave a contract to a friend’s firm.
  • The federal Taxpayers’ Ombudsman says that the CRA needs to make it clear that benefit programmes people apply for could be subject to clawbacks.
  • The House of Commons’ Board of Internal Economy is looking to implement remote interpretation services to boost interpretation figures (seriously, guys?).
  • At committee, former Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour called out the military’s foot-dragging and lack of transparency on action to implement her report.
  • Mélanie July told the Procedure and House Affairs committee she has no information on the alleged 11 candidates being surreptitiously funded by China.
  • The Mississauga—Lakeshore by-election has pollsters talking about the collapse of the NDP vote, and Poilievre’s complete lack of effort in a riding he had a shot in.
  • Paul Wells delivers a big-picture view of Canada in the world at the end of 2022.
  • My column comes down on people who keep saying “we did it for CERB!” as a magical incantation to solve other policy problems, no matter how inappropriate.

Odds and ends:

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