Tag Archives: Andrew Scheer

Roundup: Intelligence and context

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There was a lot of flurry yesterday about supposed revelations made in Federal Court that CSIS has been spying on peaceful environmental groups. Except, people who used to be at CSIS, will tell you that’s exactly not the case. And the reporting on this hasn’t exactly helped either because it’s in a very defined frame with tropes that somewhat credulously take what these groups are saying and putting it with the redacted documents and drawing conclusions, that again, people who used to work there, will dispute, and those voices aren’t in the reporting. So here’s Stephanie Carvin and Jessica Davis, both of who used to work at CSIS, offering some proper context for what those documents say.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1148217645986131969

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1148217647852642304

https://twitter.com/JessMarinDavis/status/1148233105825812480

https://twitter.com/JessMarinDavis/status/1148235622529818625

https://twitter.com/JessMarinDavis/status/1148235624580833283

https://twitter.com/JessMarinDavis/status/1148235626380181505

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1148301752770408448

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1148222236832215040

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1148230145968418817

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Roundup: The premiers’ pre-meeting

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While a Council of the Federation meeting will be happening this week in Saskatoon, Jason Kenney has been planning a pre-meeting for several premiers at Stampede, last night and today. It’s an interesting bit of dynamic because while Kenney is one of the most junior members of the Council (with only PEI being more junior), he’s trying to act like a bit of a ringleader for the various conservative-led provinces as they wage war against Justin Trudeau and the federal government. We’ll see how well that goes over.

Meanwhile, John Horgan says he’s hoping that they can use this meeting to get something accomplished, and that it won’t be a number of premiers trying to have a stand-off against Trudeau in advance of the election. But given that several of those premiers have been having public tantrums over the carbon price, two of them now having lost their court challenges, I’m quite certain that they’re going to have some kind of theatrical blow-out for the sake of Andrew Scheer to come in and try and look statesmanlike. (Have I mentioned that fixed election dates are garbage?)

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Roundup: Ending a sitting on a witch hunt

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Alberta’s legislature wrapped up its session last night, and it saw the passage of bills that included rolling back protections of LGBT students in schools, changing overtime rules and cutting wages for students, not to mention Jason Kenney spending millions of taxpayer dollars to promote conspiracy theories and to conduct a witch-hunt against people who say mean things about the oil industry. So much of it would be cartoonish if there wasn’t such a worrying trend of Kenney simply lying to keep his population angry. And if you pay close attention to this Postmedia wrap-up of the sitting, it doesn’t call out the moments when Kenney egregiously lied (especially around the stunt with the ear plugs) and the story just both-sidesed the whole thing. We’ve taught them that they can get away with lying, so they’re doing it with impunity.

Meanwhile, here’s Stephen Maher on the witch hunt public inquiry, and Andrew Leach has been throwing shade at the whole thing, which is always worth a read.

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Roundup: More trouble in Rideau Hall

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The news out of Rideau Hall is rarely good these days, and yesterday, it was about high levels of harassment and job dissatisfaction being reported by the staff there. I’m not entirely surprised by this, given that most of the established and long-time staff abandoned it shortly after Julie Payette was named governor general, because she and her hand-picked secretary (who had no government or Crown-related experience) essentially made everyone’s lives miserable. This after it was revealed that Payette still refuses to move into Rideau Hall because she’s unhappy with the lack of privacy there, while she has decided to decamp to the Citadelle in Québec City – her other official residence – for the summer. (On that note, it’s probably the most use the Citadelle has had continuously in quite a while). All of this makes one wonder if she wasn’t told when she was offered the position that it’s a very public role and that living in an official residence would come with issues like staff being in the building at all hours. It seems odd that she wouldn’t have known this going into the job (and possibly a sign that Justin Trudeau and his office did a terrible job in either selecting her or preparing her).

Meanwhile, I remain concerned that we’ve heard nothing from the PMO about how they’re planning to replace the lieutenant governor of Saskatchewan following his untimely death this week, because the provincial government will be paralyzed until that is filled. If we had a functioning vice-regal appointments commission, there would have been more names from a short-list on record that could be drawn from fairly easily for a replacement, but now it’s an opaque box, and if there is another Judy Foote-like appointment in the works, that could be yet another self-inflicted wound for this government.

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Roundup: The menace of ignorant premiers

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Occasionally a politician will say something so blindingly wrong and stupid that it makes me incandescent with rage, and yesterday the honour went to PEI’s new premier, Dennis King, who believes that because he’s in a hung parliament that he’s “not the government,” but that “we’re all the government.”

And then my head exploded.

King is the premier, which means he’s the government. And for him to try and abrogate his responsibilities in the face of questions from the opposition is a sickening lack of civic literacy and frankly spine. Trying to shame the opposition into “collaborative government” is frankly trying to avoid accountability. After all, when everyone is accountable, then no one is accountable, and that’s not how our system works. He’s the premier. He is responsible to the legislature for the decisions that the government makes, and while he’s trying to launder them through the opposition in the name of “collaboration,” that’s not how the system works. It doesn’t matter if it’s a hung parliament – that only means that he needs to work harder to secure the support of the opposition, not that they are in government with him. And yes, I’m enraged by this because he and everybody else should know better.

Alberta extremism

On another topic, this story out of Edmonton about extremist billboards calling for civil war against the rest of Canada, and promoting conspiracy theorism and outright lies about Justin Trudeau is extremely concerning because this is how illiberal populism happens. And Jason Kenney has a direct hand of responsibility in this, both by selling lies about the province’s situation and about what Trudeau is and is not doing, and by selling them snake oil in a bid to keep them angry because that’s how he gets votes. But as the anger won’t dissipate now that he’s in charge, he’s forced to try and keep the anger going in one way or another and hope that it doesn’t blow up in his face – hence why he’s inventing new grievances by things like his sham Senate “elections” – because unless he keeps trying to point that anger to new enemies, it will turn on him. I really don’t think he appreciates the monster he’s created, and these billboards are a warning sign that needs to be heeded.

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Roundup: A queen and her prime minister

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It was Pride weekend in Toronto, and Justin Trudeau was in attendance once again this year, with several Cabinet ministers and his Toronto-area MPs. The only Conservative MP in attendance appears to have been Lisa Raitt, while Jagemeet Singh and Elizabeth May were also present.

But most importantly? This years RuPaul’s Drag Race runner-up from Toronto, the Queen of the North, Brooke Lynn Hytes was also in attendance, and got to meet her prime minister, as any good queen would.

https://twitter.com/AdamScotti/status/1142852635780927488

https://twitter.com/Bhytes1/status/1142870645673484294

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Roundup: A real climate sham

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Andrew Scheer unveiled his long-awaited environmental plan yesterday, citing that it was a “real plan” because it was longer than the other parties’…but that was about it. After he listed a bunch of lies about the current Liberal plan, Scheer kept saying that carbon pricing didn’t do anything, which is both factually incorrect (as proven by peer-reviewed work), but it also completely ignores that the current plan hasn’t had a chance to sufficiently bend the curve. By removing carbon pricing from the market and instead forcing companies who exceed their emissions to caps, it is actually even less of a market-based plan than the Liberals’ plan, and there are no specifics in how any of it would work. Promising technological solutions without price signals to spur their development is just like counting on magic to lower emissions. It’s also like Scheer’s complete lie that this plan won’t cost Canadians – it will cost them, but those costs will be passed onto them and hidden, whereas the carbon price is transparent so that people can make better choices. Scheer also claims that his plan would have the best chance of meeting the Paris targets – without actually having targets, or articulating how they would be achieved. It’s replete with a bunch of boutique tax credits that are inefficient, and is generally a bunch of language that does very little. How he claims this is a “real plan” is somewhat of a farce.

And then there’s the global component, where Scheer says that Canada should be lowering global emissions by exporting “cleaner” Canadian energy like LNG – err, except that would grow Canadian emissions, and yet he wants us to get credits for those exports. And he says that China should use Canadian carbon capture and storage technology – except it’s hugely expensive, and is not really feasible unless you’re pricing carbon (not to mention that if the storage is not done properly, it can simply all be for naught). And Canada still has some of the highest per-capita emissions, which Scheer conveniently ignores in his arguments.

Amidst this, Scheer’s apologists are saying “it’s good that they’re admitting that climate change is real!” or “Look at how far the Conservatives have come since 2008!” Except that’s all spin. They can say they believe in climate change, but they also say that Canada’s contribution is so small that we shouldn’t do anything about it. Scheer and others tried to burnish themselves with the environmental reputations of previous conservative governments, except the old Conservative party is dead, and the current one is engaging in some egregious political necrophilia to cover for their own weakness. That those apologists could say these things with a straight face on television is astounding.

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1141470545130729473

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Roundup: TMX is go

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It wasn’t unexpected that the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion was given the green-light by the government, with assurances that there would be construction this season – but there are still details to come. More accommodations were made as part of their Indigenous consultations, and it sounds like there may be more details to be ironed out, particularly around one First Nation who is concerned about the pipeline traversing their aquifer. More than anything, however, Trudeau made it clear that any profits from this pipeline – which could be $500 million per year – would go toward clean energy projects. (It also needs to be said that Trudeau came and faced the media for this announcement – something Harper never did with Northern Gateway).

https://twitter.com/andrew_leach/status/1141060718743048192

None of this was good enough for Trudeau’s critics, however – Andrew Scheer made up a bunch of nonsense about how the government failed to get the project moving until now, Jagmeet Singh flailed about how this was contrary to climate goals, and Elizabeth May was in high dudgeon about how this made a mockery of all other climate actions (never mind the fact that oil would flow by rail without this pipeline, and this actually reduces emissions overall – crazy, but true). John Horgan promised to keep fighting the pipeline, while Jason Kenney promised to keep fighting every other environmental measure.

And then the hot takes – Aaron Wherry enumerates why this pipeline is the compromise that it is. Chantal Hébert doesn’t think that this approval will be the political problem that some think it will be. Jody Wilson-Raybould isn’t a fan of the approval, for what it’s worth. Don Braid waxes about how this entrenches the view of Alberta as a “resource bucket to pay for national dreams.” (Erm, isn’t that exactly what Kenney and company keep selling?)

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Roundup: Credulous takes on the “new” Senate

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Over in the Globe and Mail, John Ibbitson has declared that Justin Trudeau’s reforms to the Senate “worked,” and that Andrew Scheer should continue to appoint independents instead of partisans, and I just. Cannot Even. Reading the piece, it’s clear that Ibbitson has no real grounding in what the Senate is supposed to do on an actual basis, the various roles it plays aside from its legislative duties, and he has absolutely no conception of the broader scope of the problem that Justin Trudeau has unleashed on future parliaments – and how he has hobbled his own party in the future, while further centralizing his own power. But Ibbitson seems to have taken the word of Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Peter Harder, that this is how Parliament is “supposed” to work – Harder not exactly being a credible source – as well as an emeritus professor who has been a booster not only for these reforms, but who thinks it would be great to go even further and institute a business committee (which would be an even bigger problem going forward). So no, I’m not going to take Ibbitson’s word that this has “worked.”

While I’m not going to pretend that the Senate didn’t have its problems beforehand, a good many of the problems in recent years can be traced to the fact that Stephen Harper made some spectacularly poor appointments in his rush to populate the Chamber during the prorogation crisis of 2008, after he neglected to fill its seats for long enough that what Conservative senators there were in the Chamber at the time were clamouring for more members because there weren’t enough of them to adequately spread around the workload. And rather than make thoughtful appointments, Harper panic appointed a number of partisans who had no suitability to the role, and lo, problems and scandal ensued.

There is absolutely a partisan role for senators because they’re the institutional memory of parliament, and that especially includes inside the caucus room, and that also keeps a check on the leader because they don’t have to worry about their nomination papers being signed. And the Liberals are going to find out just how necessary those roles are when they’re no longer in power and have few people with the knowledge to help them rebuild. And yes, it will happen eventually. And as for the “new” system “working,” they can’t manage the Order Paper, and they have a crisis in front of them with the election looming. But hey, Peter Harder says it’s going swimmingly, so he’s the person we should believe. Okay then.

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Roundup: Amendments and dysfunction

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There is some movement on legislation in the Senate, with the amended fisheries bill heading back to the Commons, as is Bill C-69 on environmental assessments. This bill was passed on division (meaning no standing vote) and will let the government reject all of those amendments made at committee that were essentially written by oil and gas lobbyists, which nobody had the intestinal fortitude to want to actually debate, preferring the tactic championed by the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Peter Harder, to let someone else do the heavy lifting. That way the government can defeat the bulk of those amendments in the Commons on a whipped vote, and then Harder can say “the elected Chamber has spoken” while patting himself on the back for the amendments that did pass – likely only the ones the government itself proposed.

The bigger drama is being reserved for C-48, the tanker ban bill, as the whole Senate voted to overturn the committee report that recommended it not go forward, which was pretty much how I expected it to go. Given the torqued, partisan report that emerged, the talk about the committee being dysfunctional are ringing pretty true, but I’m not going to blame the Conservatives for that because the Independents aren’t stepping up. The likely next steps for this bill are for amendments to be debated at third reading, the bulk of which are likely to be defeated, and then the Conservatives will play procedural games with the debate so that Harder is forced to invoke time allocation on a final vote for it, because the Conservatives have set up that situation for him.

Meanwhile, there has been a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth about the UNDRIP bill, particularly that the Senate didn’t vote to give the Aboriginal People’s committee permission to meet while the Chamber was sitting in order to discuss it – which isn’t actually a sinister plot. The Senate is set up so that the Chamber meets for only a few hours in the day and that committees don’t meet then, which also has major logistical considerations – they don’t have enough staff or interpreters to cover both, unlike the House of Commons. And to illustrate that, this thread by Chris Reed explains some of the procedural considerations of what happened. But also remember that in the midst of the Senate’s Order Paper crisis, nobody wants to take any responsibility and are content to blame the Conservatives for being “partisan.” They’re not the problem here.

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