Tag Archives: Afghanistan

Roundup: Nova Scotia makes two for child care

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Prime minister Justin Trudeau and Iain Rankin, premier of Nova Scotia, announced yesterday that Nova Scotia was now the second province to sign a new childcare agreement with the federal government under the dollars allocated in Budget 2021, and that it would transition the province to halving current fees by next year, and reducing them to the goal of $10/day by 2026, with commitments along the way for those five years. And crucially, there are federal funds going toward training new early childhood educators, as well as to improve the post-secondary programming around ECE, which are important considerations for expanding the system, especially as one of the federal government’s criteria for that expansion is quality of care.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1414960548735721473

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1415130851755511808

This makes it two provinces down, both of them with non-conservative premiers, and it’s speculated that Newfoundland and Labrador will be next. Alberta claims to be “negotiating” around things like flexibility, but there is a bit of a red herring in there – nothing precludes the province from creating additional, more flexible spaces outside of the federal parameters if they feel they need it, but trying to insist this is about “choice” is a false dichotomy – there can be no actual choice if there is only constrained choice available. In other words, it’s not a real choice if there are no spaces available, and the federal government has long recognized that we have a supply-side problem, which is what they are trying to address. Opposing the federal plan because you claim it’s not flexible enough is, frankly, an abdication of responsibility.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, put out an extremely bizarre “backgrounder” yesterday to claim that the Liberals never meet their promises on childcare, and it was both strange and dishonest. Strange in that this is the kind of thing you’d expect to have an NDP header on it and not a Conservative one, but dishonest because they killed the gods damned system that was in place in 2006. Seriously – Paul Martin’s government had signed agreements with all of the provinces in 2006, and money for the first year was starting to flow when the NDP teamed up with the Conservatives and brought the government down, killing the childcare system that had just been established, because the Conservatives preferred to send $100/month to families instead – because “choice.” Oh, and they created tax credits for new childcare spaces, which created approximately zero of them. They vehemently opposed childcare, and still do, so for them to try and say the Liberals haven’t kept their promises when they actively worked against them and killed the programme that was created is just galling.

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Roundup: Speculating about normal activities

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As there are only three narratives available to mainstream journalists in this country, and the first of those is speculating about an early election, that’s what we got a lot of over the weekend. Yes, it is looking more likely these days, but eventually this starts looking like a self-fulfilling prophecy more than anything else.

To that end, we got an examination of the electoral considerations that each of the main party leaders is hoping to access in BC, and why they have focused so much attention there over the past week. We got an examination of how pre-writ advertising limitations don’t apply to early elections under the current legislation – though nobody is pulling the trigger on early ads just yet anyway (especially not when TikToks and social media shitposts are free). And there was a state of play when it comes to conservative premiers around the country and how much of a fight they’ll manage to put up against Trudeau if and when an election comes, considering how badly wounded most of them are at this point.

Now, as for the summer tours and announcements that the leaders have been on, apparently much of the media either has amnesia, or they’re being wilfully blind to history because they have a narrative to maintain. While some of these tour activities may be electioneering, but this is also typical after the Commons rises for the summer – leaders always head out across the country, and there is a pent-up desire to do so after some sixteen months of public health restrictions related to the pandemic. Not to mention, the budget has just passed, and the government wants to spread the good news and largesse, which happens every year, election or not. So while I can understand why my fellows in the media want to put everything in the election speculation box, these are also the same things that happen every other normal year, so maybe – just maybe – we should cool it a little until we get some actual signs that Trudeau is going to march over to Rideau Hall to demand a dissolution. And maybe we should ban the phrase “campaign-style” for the time being (maybe permanently), because it’s starting to look embarrassing.

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Roundup: Exit Jody Wilson-Raybould

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Jody Wilson-Raybould announced yesterday that she wasn’t going to be running again in the next election, but wasn’t leaving to “spend more time with family.” Rather, she planned to continue her work in other venues, but noticed that the House of Commons had become more toxic and ineffective, which is very true.

https://twitter.com/Puglaas/status/1413128438592933898

While I don’t think that Wilson-Raybould was a particularly great minister (and she has yet to answer for her pushing blatantly unconstitutional legislation through), she nevertheless had a particularly valuable viewpoint that made the House of Commons better for having her in it. Her singularly pushing back against the Bloc’s attempts to play politics around Quebec’s Bill 96 and the proposed constitutional changes and nationhood declarations was something we could certainly have used more of, not less.

This having been said, I think Wilson-Raybould, like Jane Philpott, were somewhat naïve about the nature of federal politics, and were sold some particularly bad advice about life as an independent MP, and more broadly about hung parliaments in general. There is a particular romance around them, particularly from a segment of the political science crowd, which has rosy visions of the 1960s and inter-party cooperation to get things done, when hung parliaments in recent decades have simply been nasty and highly partisan, and that contributed a lot to the toxicity and ineffectiveness of this parliamentary session. On top of that, Wilson-Raybould had broken the trust of her fellow MPs, and that no doubt further isolated her in an already fractious situation in the Chamber. It’s too bad that she couldn’t have contributed more, but her no longer being there is a diminution to the kinds of voices that we should be hearing more of.

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Roundup: Another 751 unmarked graves

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There was yet more sobering news yesterday, that as many as 751 unmarked graves were located near the former Marieval residential school in Saskatchewan. Aside from the sheer number, some ways in which this site differs from Kamloops is that not all of the graves will be of children, and that many had headstones, which the Catholic Church removed in the 1960s during a dispute – which is a criminal offence, and the local First Nations chief said that they are treating this like a crime scene. And non-Indigenous Canadians should brace themselves, because we’re going to hear about hundreds, perhaps thousands, more of these graves over the next few years as the work of locating them ramps up, making it impossible to ignore the true face of our country’s history.

In response to the announcement, prime minister Justin Trudeau stated that this is Canada’s responsibility to bear, which was met by the usual calls that this was not enough action. The government has already committed to funding these searches in accordance with the wishes of local First Nations communities, as not all of them want the same approach, and Marc Miller said that they are open to boosting the funding if the need is there. There are also calls for an independent inquiry into these sites, but that could be a complicated structure if it requires provinces to get involved (and it likely will), and we could find ourselves with a repeat of some of the problems faced by the MMIW inquiry if that is the case.

Of course, the government’s response was made all the more problematic because Carolyn Bennett sent a spiteful one-word text to Jody Wilson-Raybould, who then tweeted it out and declared it to be “racist and misogynistic,” listing the tropes that she felt it invoked. Bennett publicly apologised and stated that it was their “interpersonal dynamics” that got the better of her, by which she means that the pair pretty much cannot stand one another, which lines up with the stories of their fights in Cabinet. It doesn’t excuse it, and Bennett absolutely should know better (especially because Wilson-Raybould has demonstrated that she keeps receipts), but that hasn’t stopped this from eclipsing some of the coverage of the day, which should have focused on Marieval, and what the next steps need to be.

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Roundup: Scheer joins the sister-hiring brigade

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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).

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Roundup: Some real repercussions of the post-Trump era

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There was a Canadian Press piece over the weekend that took a cursory look at how the end of the Trump era may help Canadian conservatives, given that he can’t really be a bogeyman to beat them over the head with. The problem, however, is that this was just a cursory look, and didn’t get into any of the more profound cultural changes within politics that have come out of the Trump era, which the Conservatives in this country have taken full advantage of.

Some of this is the culture war stuff that the Conservatives have been very much keen to dive right in with, and you can see Erin O’Toole very much embracing that as he tweets about “cancel culture” (when it’s very much not about cancel culture), or his refusal to give a proper reckoning to historical injustices rather than complaining that this is about “erasing history” – mostly because it’s historical conservative figures who are the targets of such actions. Some of this has to do with ways in which he is trying to target working-class votes in a way that is essentially twisting himself into pretzels in order to reconcile with is past record and that of his party – populism doesn’t encourage ideological consistency after all.

More than anything, however, the piece doesn’t grapple with some of the broader legacy, which is that it made it permissible to lie constantly in politics – especially because they have learned that the media will only both-sides everything and not call them out on it. And more to the fact, they have learned that they can attack the media with impunity, and will face no rebuke or suffer no damage from doing so. They have learned that they can coarsen politics and crank up divisive rhetoric and that it will get a rise out of people more than civil dialogue and discourse will, and more than anything, they have learned that they can largely get away with it because the mainstream dialogue has shifted to make it acceptable. This is the real legacy of the Trump era that will be harder to dissipate once Trump is out of the picture, because the underlying sentiments remain, and here in Canada, while they may not be as pronounced as they are in the States, they are nevertheless still there, and they are festering because we broadly ignore them by assuring ourselves that we’re nothing like the Americans so we have nothing to worry about. But we should worry that the state of our discourse has moved, and we need to call it out for what it is, which few people seem to be willing to do.

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Roundup: Airports and capacity issues

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As the country heads further toward some kind of state of lockdown – school closure announcements went out in Alberta (but not Saskatchewan) – there is a great deal of garment-rending over what is happening at airports in particular, especially since it appears that there were only a handful of CBSA officers staffing the Toronto airport on Saturday night for hundreds of arrivals. There isn’t a lot of visible screening at airports because that’s proven to be largely ineffective (and most places are screening people before they get on planes), and the bigger message is communication around self-isolation, and some of that may depend on where travellers are coming from – it’s being stated that people arriving from countries with few infections aren’t being given as strenuous of warnings. There are complaints that this wasn’t being effectively communicated by CBSA officials over the weekend, or that some of their pamphlets contained dated information, which is possible, especially given that more measures were announced late Friday afternoon, and weekend capacity for many of these agencies is reduced. (Also it’s been recorded that one CBSA officer from the Toronto airport has been diagnosed with COVID-19, and I’m sure this will be the first of many). A lot of this should be about local public health officials’ communications efforts, rather than expecting CBSA to simply do it all, but I’m not sure that everyone who is freaking out online about this is necessarily understanding areas of jurisdiction and responsibility.

Justin Trudeau is set to announce further measures this afternoon following a Cabinet meeting on Sunday evening, which unfortunately saw a group of Cabinet ministers leaving the meeting being fairly inept at communicating that decisions were taken and that they need time to prepare their implementation (as self-righteous journalists and pundits melted down over Twitter). Apparently nobody understands that these is such a thing as capacity issues and that not everything can happen immediately, even in an extraordinary crisis situation as we appear to find ourselves in.

Meanwhile, here’s another Q&A with infectious disease specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch on what people should and should not be doing for social distancing. As well, here’s a look through some of the pandemic preparedness guides to show what things could look like if we reach a crisis point. Two infectious disease specialists wonder about the efficacy of draconian measures, particularly if they will spark “containment fatigue.”

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Roundup: Immutable committee math

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In a move that is possibly quite disappointing, the Liberals got unanimous consent yesterday to suspend the sections of the Standing Orders governing the powers of parliamentary secretaries – which could be an issue if they plan to put them back on committees with voting powers and the ability to move motions and so on. Some of you may recall that when this was the standard practice during the Conservative era, these committees simply became branch plants of the ministers’ offices, and everything was stage-managed within an inch of their lives.

However.

I also have it on good authority that this may not be exactly as it seems. Part of the problem is that there is a shortage of warm bodies in the Liberal ranks to fill the committees, particularly if you have a Cabinet of 37 out of 157 seats, and what looks to be a prospective parliamentary secretary list of at least 46 (given that Economic Development with have separate parliamentary secretaries for each regional economic development agency). Then, subtract the Speaker and the Assistant Deputy Speaker, who can’t sit on committees, and that leaves them with 72 MPs (maybe less – a couple may also remain assigned to NSICOP, which pulled them from other committees in the previous parliament) to distribute across 27 standing and joint committees, where the parliamentary math in the current hung parliament would see four Liberal MPs per committee. Quite simply, they don’t have enough.

What I’ve been told by my sources is that what they may wind up doing is allowing parliamentary secretaries to sit as regular committee members on committees that aren’t those aligned with their minister, so that they would essentially be pulling double (or possibly triple) duty, especially if they remain on the committees aligned with their minister in a non-voting capacity. It’s not pretty, but it may be what winds up being necessary if they intend to live up to their promise to keep parliamentary secretaries from being voting members of their interested committees. (Are we ready to start having a discussion about having a more reasonable number of MPs for a country of our size? Because seriously, not having enough bodies is an actual problem that has consequences for the efficacy of the institution).

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Roundup: A promise weaselled out on

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A very important bill has been introduced in the Senate, that has been attempted on more than a few occasions now, and it’s a sign of a promise that the Liberals weaselled out on in the past. The bill? To restore Parliament’s ability to control government borrowing by way of votes – you know, like Parliament is supposed to do as part of their job of holding government to account by means of controlling the public purse. You see, back in the Harper era, they hid the change in one of their massive omnibus budget bills that stripped Parliament of the ability to vote on new borrowing, and instead turned it over to Cabinet. Senators caught it too late, and the bill passed, and whoops, no more ability for Parliament to hold government to account for it any longer. Senator Wilfred Moore introduced a bill to revert this practice on a couple of occasions, and Senator Joseph Day carried on with it in the previous Parliament, and has just reintroduced it in this one.

https://twitter.com/SenDayNB/status/1204502292076154880

The Liberals were all in favour of this back when they were in opposition, and made a big show about promising to restore this to Parliament – and then they weaselled out on it. What they did instead was introduced a debt ceiling of $1.168 trillion, after which Parliament would need to vote to extend it, and said that Cabinet only needed to report to Parliament every three years about the money it has borrowed, starting in 2020. Let me reiterate – they weaselled out of this promise, and at least there are senators who are alive to why this is important for Parliament.

These are principles that go back to Runnymede, and the Magna Carta in 1215, and made more explicit in 1688 when the king wasn’t able to borrow money without Parliament’s consent. The Conservatives broke this important principle of Parliament for their convenience. That the Liberals have refused to act on their promise to restore it is a black mark against them.

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Roundup: Fair deal to direct anger

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Jason Kenney was determined to swallow much of the news cycle over the long-ish weekend (depending on where you were in the country), first by announcing on Friday that he had appointed a “fair deal” panel to look at ways in which Alberta can assert more independence – but many of those items don’t make any sense, especially as they will be more costly in the long run (or look particularly suspicious, like replacing the RCMP provincial policing contract with an Alberta Provincial Police when the RCMP is deep in investigating the UCP leadership contest corruption). In fact, the former chair of the province’s “Firewall” panel from 2003 says that this is just an exercise in blowing off steam that won’t amount to anything that they didn’t learn back then, which will be amplified over social media into promises that could never be fulfilled – which is a problem. Kenney then doubled down with a lengthy speech at the Manning Centre conference in Red Deer on Saturday, where most of these items were further listed.

This all having been said, I’m hearing from my friends and family in Alberta that Kenney’s cuts are already starting to affect them, and that anger may start to hurt him sooner than later. (Family examples: I have a nephew with special needs whose school aide’s hours are being slashed, and my brother-in-law is a volunteer firefighter, and their training budget has just been decimated). I fully expect that Kenney is going to go hard on trying to direct the anger to Justin Trudeau and Ottawa in order to deflect the anger from his cuts, and you can bet that he’s going to go to absurd lengths to stoke it.

Meanwhile, here are some reality checks into the kinds of things that Kenney is proposing for his “Fair Deal” nonsense, whether it’s for the creation of their own provincial pension plan, or to collect federal taxes on their own.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1193379952961277952

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1194018713629904897

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1194072739243446272

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1194075167506386945

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1194092599918944256

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