Roundup: It’s “grocery rebate” day

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Today is the day that the federal government’s so-called “grocery rebate” gets deposited in Canadians’ accounts, but it’s not really a grocery rebate, and once again, a defensible policy gets given a dumb and confusing label for marketing purposes, because that’s what this government does. This is just another GST rebate top-up like the one that happened last year to help deal with the rising cost of living for those who are on the lower-end of the income scale, but of course the government gave it a new name this year just to try and be cute about it.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1676243078833926145

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1676243669685506048

You may also have heard complaints that this particular rebate is going to fuel inflation (which is coming down! It’s nearly at the outside band of where the central bank wants it to be!). This is also nonsense, because of how the programme is targeted, and Jennifer Robson has all of the receipts and data to prove it in the thread below.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians attacked a military funeral in Pervomaiskyi in the Kharkiv region, wounding 38 including twelve children.  Ukrainian forces targeted a Russian military formation in occupied Makiivka, which Russian officials say killed a civilian and injured others. Previously over the weekend, Russia launched its first overnight drone strike against Kyiv in twelve days, while a drone attack on the city of Sumy killed two and injured 19. Elsewhere, the reports from the counter-offensive are that it has been “particularly fruitful” over the past several days, with yet more gains around Bakhmut. There have been yet more warnings that the Ukrainians believe that the Russians will detonate something at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, while the Russians are also claiming the Ukrainians will do so in order to blame them (as though that makes any sense whatsoever).

https://twitter.com/kyivpost/status/1676258705422053378

Good reads:

  • Prime minister Justin Trudeau will stop by our forces in Latvia while on his way to the NATO summit in Lithuania.
  • Negotiations have stalled at the strikes at BC ports, but the government remains committed to a solution from the bargaining table.
  • Mélanie Joly says she is very concerned about the safety of India’s diplomats as posters are circulating accusing them of orchestrating a murder at a Sikh temple.
  • The emails around informing Marco Mendicino’s office about Paul Bernardo’s transfer have been revealed, and show his office was clearly informed several times.
  • Pablo Rodriguez says that the forthcoming online harms bill is unlikely to deal with the problems of disinformation, even though it can be a driver of those harms.
  • Despite warnings, including from NSICOP, more than half of Crown corporations and small departments and agencies are not protecting themselves from cyber-attacks.
  • The RCMP’s Independent Centre for Harassment Resolution is two years old but already plagued with backlogs and delays, rendering it fairly useless.
  • Ousted AFN national chief RoseAnne Archibald is calling on grassroots First Nations members to call for her reinstatement ahead of the annual general meeting.
  • Indian newspapers have been reporting on Canadian fake news sites’ posts as if they were real, raising questions about India’s foreign interference in Canada.
  • The Hong Kong police issuing bounties on democracy advocates in exile has led to more calls for Beverley McLachlin to step down from Hong Kong’s top court.
  • The House of Commons reports an increasing number of harassment complaints (mostly against outside consultants, with one complaint against an MP).
  • Here is a look at MPs increasingly wearing sneakers on the job (which is not a good thing with the exception of Fridays, guys).
  • The premier of the Northwest Territories says the federal government is ignoring their needs; the minister of northern affairs say the solutions take a long time.
  • The Ontario government has revived the granting of King’s Council designations to deserving lawyers, but found their own MPPs and ministers most deserving.
  • Paul McLeod explains the internet back-end that Google and Facebook now control and why that matters for an issue around Bill C-18.
  • Susan Delacourt wonders why the foreign interference file is focused on China and Russian when the American far-right is also at play (but it is also homegrown).
  • Part two of Paul Well’s The End of Media series looks at how governments started going around the established press using social media because of the incentives.
  • My column looks at the growing frustration in the Senate as they realize that they are missing out on pre-drafting consultations and trying to find a replacement.

Odds and ends:

My Loonie Politics Quick Take talks about Trudeau’s desire for “full buy-in” from the opposition on a possible public inquiry, and what that would look like.

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3 thoughts on “Roundup: It’s “grocery rebate” day”

  1. In the item about cyber-attacks you have “less than half of Crown corporations…are not protecting themselves”. Should that be “are protecting”?

    And thanks for the link to Paul McLeod’s article. Very interesting and helpful.

  2. I don’t care what MP’s wear on their feet. What concerns me is what resides under their hats.

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