Tag Archives: Access to Information

Roundup: A refusal to admit failure in the face of the third wave

Posted on by

Ontario is once again going back into a four-week mockdown because the province walked right into the third wave of the pandemic, despite being warned repeatedly that they were headed for disaster, but they barrelled ahead anyway. And because the murderclowns who run this province want to keep things as confusing as possible for everyone, decided to brand this one a “shutdown” instead of a “lockdown” or a “stay at home” order.

But what remains galling is the fact that nobody wants to take responsibility for the current state of affairs. Most concerning is that the province’s chief medical officer of health insists that it hasn’t been a failure, because hey, the modelling said we’d be at five or six thousand cases a day if they didn’t make any interventions, and we’re only at 2000, so mission accomplished. No, seriously – that’s his argument. It’s utterly bonkers, and they’re getting away with it because all of Doug Ford’s folksy sing-song pronouncements keep blinding people to what is going on, and the bulk of the media in Queen’s Park is not going hard enough on him for it.

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1377376033729511425

Of course, this isn’t simply confined to Ontario either. Alberta is seeing some its highest case numbers, and the variants are in full-blown community spread, and what does Jason Kenney do? Refuse to impose tougher measures, trot out his failed “personal responsibility” schtick, and blame the federal government for not making enough vaccines appear from thin air by way of magic. No, seriously. How people stand for it, I just don’t understand.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Demanding a de facto death penalty

Posted on by

It shouldn’t surprise me that Erin O’Toole would stoop to some pretty low places in order to score points with his base, and yet here we are, as he declares that the federal government’s plan to start vaccinating prisoners in federal institutions to be unpalatable.

There is so much wrong with this particular shitpost that one barely knows where to start, but let’s begin with simple logistics. The federal government has their own allocations of vaccine for people under their healthcare delivery jurisdiction, and that includes prisoners in federal penitentiaries. While O’Toole objects to them getting vaccines head of “any vulnerable Canadian,” he is ignoring that prisoners are absolutely a vulnerable population in a congregate living situation where there are currently outbreaks that are ongoing. Withholding vaccines from them is cruel, unusual, and unconstitutional. The Correctional Service of Canada has not handled the pandemic well. They’ve lied about the “extra sanitation” they’re doing, they have not provided adequate PPE for inmates or staff, and people who are exposed to the virus tend to be sent to solitary confinement, which we know has been declared a form of torture and a human rights violation. Not to mention, none of these prisoners were given a death sentence, which is what leaving them exposed in an outbreak could amount to.

This is the part where the usual right-wing commentariat starts trying to distill this into a false binary, that if you think prisoners should start getting vaccines right away, you “hate healthcare workers” and support “rapists, murderers, and paedophiles.” Never mind that for the vast majority of prisoners, their only real crime was being born poor, Black, or Indigenous, or some combination thereof. We know about over-policing and systemic racism, and that’s why a lot of them are in the system. Don’t fall for this kind of inflammatory rhetoric, because it’s designed to provoke – much like O’Toole’s shitpost.

And that’s the other part – vaccinating prisoners helps prevent community spread, from the guards, to the staff, and the surrounding communities. It’s a prison, but nothing is actually contained to the building. I would say it’s unbelievable that O’Toole doesn’t get it, but I’m sure he does – he’d rather provoke and throw some red meat to his “law and order,” “tough on crime” base who will reduce this to a simple binary and call it a day. But who needs facts, context, or nuance when you can shitpost your way to angry voters, right?

Continue reading →

Roundup: More year-enders, more bland assurances

Posted on by

The year-ender interviews with the prime minster continue to roll out, so we’ll see how much in there is actually newsworthy. Still from The Canadian Press’ year-ender, Trudeau said that the government is trying to find “balance” with its ability to be transparent while still able to have no-holds-barred closed-door discussions like they do in Cabinet, all in response to questions about why the government is so slow at its promised reforms to the Access to Information system.

From the CBC, Trudeau said that the 500,000 Canadians who got “educational” letters from the CRA about their CERB payments won’t need to repay by the end of the year, as some had feared – never mind that the government created this problem when they weren’t clear about what the eligibility criteria were.

To CTV, Trudeau said that the target date of having Canadians vaccinated by September is something of a conservative estimate – it could happen faster, but it could also happen more slowly, depending on supply chain issues like those that have hit Pfizer already. He also said that he’s less concerned about the comparisons with the US as having plans to inoculate people at a faster per-capita rate, noting that they have much bigger challenges in their healthcare system, hinting that their estimates may be overly optimistic.

Monetary policy

Andrew Scheer is back at shitposting, this time spreading lies about the Bank of Canada and their use of quantitative easing during the pandemic recession. Quantitative easing is not actually just “printing money,” and it’s not going to cause runaway inflation. In fact, we’re running so far below our inflationary targets that the Bank should be running expansionary monetary policy – and yes, the Bank has a helpful primer on quantitative easing for people like Scheer and Pierre Poilievre if they cared to learn. But they don’t, and are jeopardizing the independence of the central bank by keeping up this particular policy of lies and shitposting to try and score points.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1339640374751596544

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1339643586204348418

Continue reading →

Roundup: A reasoned amendment

Posted on by

Something very usual happened in the Senate yesterday, in that Independent Senator Kim Pate decided to move a reasoned amendment to the government’s supply bill. A reasoned amendment is basically a procedural move to decline to give a bill second reading, meaning you don’t even agree with the bill in principle. This is a very rare move, and the fact that this is being used on a supply bill is a sign that this is a senator who is playing with fire.

You don’t mess around with supply bills. This is about money the government needs to operate, and if it fails, they can’t just keep funding government operations with special warrants. It’s going to be a giant headache of having to recreate the bill in a way that isn’t identical to the one that just passed (because you can’t pass two identical bills in the same session), go through the process again as the House is set to rise for the holidays (the Senate usually lags a few days later) is going to be a giant headache that is going to lose this senator any of the support she’s hoping to gain. Now, because the Senate isn’t a confidence chamber, defeating a money bill won’t make the government fall, but this is still a very bad precedent to try and set, or worse, given other newer senators ideas about how they should start operating.

There are plenty of objectionable aspects of this stunt of Pate’s – and yes, it is a stunt – but part of it is misunderstanding what that the supply bill is not about new pandemic aid programmes – it’s about keeping the civil service functioning. Her particular concern that 3.5 million people remain the poverty line is commendable, but Pate has been advocating for the government to implement a basic income for a while now, and a lot of people have been misled by the way in which the CERB was rolled out into thinking that this is a template for a basic income, which it’s not. And implementing a basic income – of which certain designs can be useful, but plenty which are not – is a complex affair if you talk to economists who have been working on the issue for years, not the least of which is that it’s going to require (wait for it…) negotiation with the provinces, because they deliver welfare programmes. And if Pate thinks that this kind of a stunt is going to force the government to suddenly implement one, she’s quite mistaken. I am forced to wonder who is giving her this kind of procedural advice, because she’s operating out of bounds, and asking for a world of procedural trouble. It’s fortunate that the Senate adjourned debate for the day shortly after she moved this motion so that others can regroup, but this is a worrying development for the “new” Senate.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Scheer joins the sister-hiring brigade

Posted on by

The saga of MPs hiring siblings exploded yesterday as several revelations came to light – that Andrew Scheer not only hired his sister-in-law, but that he also hired his sister to work in his office when he was both Deputy Speaker and Speaker. Granted, this was within the rules at the time, and those rules were changed at the end of the time Scheer was Speaker (and his sister was let go then – and then moved over to a Conservative senator’s office), but for someone who liked to give lectures to the prime minister on the optics and the appearance of ethical conduct, it does seem like a bit of the pot calling the kettle black. Erin O’Toole, meanwhile, said that while these hirings were within the rules, he wants to set a higher ethical bar, so he would have a talk with Scheer about it, though he apparently let his sister-in-law go around the same time. No word yet on whether the Conservatives will call for his resignation.

Meanwhile, in the other sibling hiring drama, it turns out that now-former Liberal MP Yasmin Ratansi’s hiring her sister was actually flagged to the Ethics Commissioner two years ago, and his office decided to take a pass on it, figuring that it was better dealt with by the Board of Internal Economy. Now he’s saying that maybe he should have taken a look then. Of course, this sounds to be about par for the course for Mario Dion, whose approach to interpreting his enabling legislation is…creative to say the least, from inventing new definitions under the Act, stretching the credulity of what it covers in some reports, and even confusing his Act with the MP Code – which are completely different – in another case. So, that’s going well. Incidentally, the Board of Internal Economy will be meeting later this week and will address the Ratansi complaints at that time about whether or not this hiring violated the rules, and they will determine the next course of action at that point. (And yes, this is an example of parliamentary privilege, where parliament makes and enforces its own rules, because it’s a self-governing institution, which is the way it should be).

Continue reading →

Roundup: Pushing back against the committee order

Posted on by

The credulous takes on the Conservatives’ health committee motion continue, and now industry is also starting to push back, concerned that commercially sensitive information is going to be released publicly which will affect them and the ability to produce PPE for the country. Of course, Michelle Rempel Garner is dismissing these concerns as “Liberal spin” and offering the assurance that the Commons Law Clerk will redact any sensitive information – except that there are no assurances that he knows what is and is not commercially sensitive information. (And this recent trend of making the Law Clerk redact documents under the howls that anything else amounts to a cover-up is worrying, because it’s once again piling work into independent servants of the House that is beyond the scope of their duties, which will soon become a permanent duty). Other manufacturers are saying it’s not about the information, but about the fact that they’re going to become political footballs for stepping up in the early days of the pandemic – and they’re right. Given how many falsehoods are being repeated about the Baylis Medical contract – which media continues to both-sides rather than call out – is going to keep happening, and we’ll see these company owners be grilled for any remote Liberal connections, because this is an exercise in the Conservatives fishing to “prove” that this was about the Liberals trying to pad the pockets of their “friends,” because they are determined to try and recreate a new Sponsorship Scandal. And I’m surprised that there aren’t more voices in the media who can’t see this, or the shenanigans in Rempel Garner’s motion.

Meanwhile, Patty Hajdu hasn’t exactly covered herself in glory over the past few days with her dismissive comments about Access to Information requests – comments that got the attention of the Information Commissioner, who sounded the alarm over them. I will note that having once worked as a contractor in Health Canada’s records department (I had to pay the bills while building up my pre-political freelance career), that they had one of the worst-kept systems across the federal government, and I have no reason to believe that things are much different now than they were then. This gets compounded by the fact that ATIPs are being slowed by the fact that government offices are closed because of the pandemic, and people aren’t being able to access the files necessary, which is making the situation worse. It would be great if Hajdu could actually say something other than the dismissive comment (which I’m fairly certain was off the cuff when caught flat-footed by the issue), and her haughty defence of civil servants, but as we all know, this government can’t communicate their way out of a wet paper bag, and she proved it once again, in spades.

Continue reading →

QP: A hand extended to work together?

Posted on by

While the prime minister was busy doing virtual business tours, his deputy was present. Erin O’Toole led off, with his scripts and mini-lectern, accusing the government of allowing Canadians to be at the “back of the line” for rapid testing. Chrystia Freeland listed the rapid tests that have been approved to date with an assurance that they were available to Canadians. O’Toole then engaged in some revisionist history around the early days of the pandemic, to which Freeland listed a timeline of events. O’Toole raised the false story about Baylis Medical before demanding the government support their Supply Day motion on the health committee, to which Freeland stated with in no uncertain terms that insinuating the government was not looking out for Canadians would not be tolerated. O’Toole tried again, and Freeland again took umbrage with the insinuations. O’Toole switched to French to return to the Baylis Medical false story, to which Freeland clearly annunciated that there was no contract with Baylis. Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he concern trolled about the use of the n-word by a university professor — in support of the professor. Freeland picked up a script to denounce anti-Black racism. Kristina Michaud got up to demand the government defend academic freedom, and Freeland insisted that they do support academic freedom but they need to be aware of systemic racism and take action to fight it. Jagmeet Singh was up next, and in French, raised a particular First Nation that hasn’t had drinking water for 25 years, to which a Freeland reminded him that drinking water on First Nations was a priority, and that they still have work to do, and they are working on it. Singh repeated the question in English, to which Freeland reiterated some of the same points, but stated that they were recommitting to the promise that all communities will have water to drink.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Bill Morneau makes himself a bigger target

Posted on by

As if the WE Imbroglio couldn’t get any more ridiculous, Bill Morneau stepped up to the plate yesterday and drove it to an all new level of lunacy by declaring that he had just repaid some $40,100 in travel costs to WE after they sent him and his wife on tours of some of their operations, and he didn’t realize that they hadn’t been billed for the full costs. WE later said that they were ostensibly free trips because the pair are well-known philanthropists, and these kinds of trips help showcase their work to potential donors. It would also appear that these weren’t reported to the Ethics Commissioner, if I’m reading it correctly, so that means even more problems for Morneau coming at him. (And before you make the joke, no, Morneau did not previously “forget” about his French villa – he incorrectly reported its ownership structure).

Morneau was, of course, appearing at the Finance committee to answer questions on the WE Imbroglio, and this sent Pierre Poilievre and Charlie Angus in particular over the edge. Already there were more questions raised about the contract with WE over the student grant programme because they had signed it with one of the charity’s holding companies, but that may have been about limiting liabilities, so it could be explained away, but it has all become byzantine both from a lack of government candour (shocking, I know), and because the opposition has constructed conspiratorial narratives that have taken any facts and shaped them in the darkest way possible, so as to make it difficult to figure out what is going on.

And this is only going to spiral from here on out. While the Conservatives and Bloc are now howling for Bill Morneau to resign, both Justin Trudeau and his chief of staff, Katie Telford, have agreed to appear at committee at a future date to be negotiated, so that is going to be nothing shy of a circus. And because the circus did not have enough monkeys, conspiracy theorist Vivian Krause also appeared at committee yesterday, for some unknown reason, to assert – with no evidence – that WE was passing along information to the Liberal Party for their voter identification database (which was denied by both WE and the Liberals), and yet this was being brought up in the Commons, and in some irresponsible reporting.

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1286029728982478848

Meanwhile, Justin Ling has a broad exploration of the bigger picture of what the whole Imbroglio says about this government and WE, particularly when it comes to the power of branding. Heather Scoffield lists the ways in which Bill Morneau has managed to be off-side because he’s blind to the ethics implications of his decisions. And to remind everyone about this column I wrote a couple of weeks ago about why it was time for Morneau to be shuffled from Cabinet before all of this WE business started up, which really starts to look like it’s untenable that he remain in the position much longer, not only because he can’t communicate, can’t deal with the business community, and now because it’s unavoidable that he is completely blind to his ethical obligations.

Continue reading →

Roundup: An unequivocal no to interfering in an extradition

Posted on by

For his daily presser, prime minister Justin Trudeau once again praised the wage subsidy, and highlighted yet another business who had used it to great effect – part of his ongoing campaign to convince more businesses to take it up and re-hire their employees as the economic restart continues to ramp up. By way of announcements, he spoke of new resources being made available for people and businesses who had questions about the re-opening, and then spoke about a $100 million investment in the Merit Functional Foods plant in Winnipeg as part of the “Protein Supercluster,” and creating more plant-based foods in Canada. Trudeau also spoke about a $94 million investment that Minister Karina Gould would be announcing at the SheDecides Conference, which would go toward the health, and sexual and reproductive rights of vulnerable women around the world.

During the Q&A, he was asked about the situation of temporary foreign workers from Mexico, to which he said that they were working with source countries and business owners to ensure that there were proper protections in place, and warned that there would be consequences for those employers that failed their workers, as three have now died in Canada. On the subject of airlines’ pleas to reopen international travel, Trudeau said that they needed to be very careful about reopening it, otherwise we would see a new spike in cases as they are experiencing in some other countries who opened sooner and not as carefully as most of Canada has. And then there were a raft of questions on the fraught questions of the arbitrary detentions of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, the extradition of Meng Wanzhou, and Chinese officials sniping at Trudeau to stop making “irresponsible” comments that link the case, even though they themselves have done so.

If there was anything newsworthy out of that was the fact that when asked if Trudeau would consider making a deal to halt the extradition in exchange for releasing the Two Michaels, Trudeau gave an unequivocal no, that he would not make any deal that would undermine our judicial system. When presented with the notion that Kovrig’s family sought a legal opinion to say that the minister could indeed interfere, Trudeau again poured cold water on that suggestion, again citing the need to keep our judicial independence in place. It’s worth remembering that Trudeau was part of a G7 announcement about governments making a commitment not to pay ransoms in order to protect their citizens from being the targets of kidnappings around the world, and hostage diplomacy is just that. (And for all of the smartasses over social media who said “He already interfered with the judiciary with SNC-Lavalin,” he did not interfere with the judiciary – the charge was that he tried to interfere with the prosecution, which was not the same thing, and I remain unconvinced that it was what actually happened, no matter some of the unsavoury things that did happen with the deferred prosecution agreement legislation).

Continue reading →

Roundup: Questions on a dubious nomination

Posted on by

For the second time in what could very well be the start of a series of media events that look suspiciously like campaign stops, prime minister Justin Trudeau was at a café and bistro in Chelsea, Quebec, near Ottawa, to tout the wage subsidy – a programme whose uptake has been hampered by the poor timing of its rollout by the government. He made a minor announcement about $15.8 million for youth green jobs in the natural resources sector, recounted his call with the premiers the night before during which his offer of $14 billion remained on the table for their safe reopening plans, and then capped it off with a plea for people to follow public health guidelines for Father’s Day.

It was during the Q&A that he expressed his “disappointment” with China over the decision to lay espionage charges against the Two Michaels being held as virtual hostages in retaliation for the arrest of Meng Wanzhou on an extradition warrant. Trudeau insisted that he continued to advocate for their release and that stuff was happening behind the scenes, but he didn’t elaborate further. He also was badgered repeatedly about the revelation that his former MP, Marwan Tabbara, was the subject of at least one sexual harassment investigation where claims were substantiated. Trudeau would only say that he was aware of the investigations and that they have a rigorous process in place where outside professionals are brought in to deal with situations when they arise, but that he couldn’t say anything more because said process was also deeply confidential by nature.

While everyone one social media spent the whole day going “I guess zero tolerance doesn’t mean zero tolerance,” ignoring the fact that it’s actually a poor idea to turf everyone at the first sign of trouble (seriously – this recent practice of kicking people out of caucus is inherently destructive and also prevents future use of social controls to keep these MPs and senators in line). I suspect that Trudeau realized that a performative “zero tolerance” policy was more trouble than it was worth and he ensured there was some nuance in how the policy was applied, and this was a case thereof, but now he also has to endure the taunts of “hypocrite!” as his explanations for the apparent change of position remain non-existent in the face of repeated questions. That said, the fact that it appears that Tabbara’s nomination took some six months to be decided upon by the green-light committee is pretty suspicious, and I would suspect they were weighing considerations, such as how much of a fundraiser he is for the party in addition to his being an incumbent. (Remember that protected nominations are antithetical to how our system is supposed to work, and that it’s proven that parties have been manipulating their nomination processes to the detriment of democracy). It would be great if Trudeau could be more frank or candid about things like Tabbara’s nomination and why he was green-lit again when the party clearly had no problem ousting other sitting MPs with little explanation (though in the case of Eva Nassif, it sounds like she was trying to meddle in other nominations for her own ends, if The Hill Times’ sources were to be believed). Then again, the party also somehow managed to be behind on getting all of their nominations in place in advance of the election when they had four gods damned years to do so, so I’m not sure what to suggest other than perhaps Trudeau’s decision to centralize yet more of his party’s power in his office as leader is going to come around bite him in the ass.

Continue reading →