Tag Archives: Beverley McLachlin

Roundup: Temporarily abdicating responsibility to Justice Hogue

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The day in the House of Commons started off with the Bloc moving a Supply Day motion to call on the government to send the issue of the implicated parliamentarians from the NSICOP report to the Hogue Commission to have her deal with it, which the Conservatives also spent the weekend demanding, and the Liberals? Immediately rolled over and said sure, let’s do that. Which is stupid, because this is an abdication of responsibility, and it lets Pierre Poilievre off the hook for doing the grown-up, responsible work of getting the classified briefing so he knows what’s going on in his own party and so that he can take action. But he doesn’t want to do that, because knowing the truth could mean he might be forced to behave like a responsible adult rather than an ignorant critic who can lob wild accusations from the rooftops with reckless abandon, and that’s what he loves to do because he also knows that’s what’s going to get him media attention. The NDP, meanwhile, tried to amend the motion to get Justice Hogue to also probe the allegations around interference in Conservative leadership races, and Jagmeet Singh says that if he finds any member of his party is implicated after he reads the full report, he’ll kick them out. (With no due process? And remember, he’s a criminal defence lawyer, for whom due process is their livelihood). Elizabeth May is also going to get her briefing, and is trying to weigh what she can say publicly when she does. Nevertheless, dropping this in Hogue’s lap is not a solution, but Canadian political leaders love to foist their political problems onto judges to solve for them, which can’t work, and we’re just going to wind up where we are today, but several months later. Because certain leaders refuse to be an adult about it.

Philippe Lagassé and Stephanie Carvin lay out the case precisely why it’s a Very Bad Idea to publicly name names, and why party leaders need to get their classified briefings so that they can clean house in an appropriate manner, which is what they refuse to do.

Meanwhile, more people are latching onto the mention in the NSICOP report about compromised media outlets—those on the left are convinced this is talking about Postmedia being on the take, and now Conservative MPs are putting out shitpost videos trying to claim that mainstream media writ-large is on the take so they aren’t to be trusted. The report didn’t actually say anything about mainstream media, and if you have a grasp of the media landscape, the report is likely referring to ethno-cultural media outlets serving diaspora communities, as there is plenty of documented evidence of particularly Chinese interference in some of these outlets in Canada. But the Conservatives don’t care about the truth, or context—they want to flood the zone with bullshit in order to create this dystopian alternate reality for their followers with the explicit aim of reducing their trust in reality, and that’s exactly what they have weaponised the report to do. It’s amazing that nobody actually calls them out for doing so.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian guided bomb strike has hit houses in Kharkiv, injuring at least six. Russian forces have taken control of the village of Staromaiorske in the Donetsk region, but Ukraine denies that Chechen special forces have taken over a village near the northeast border. Ukraine is claiming responsibility for damaging three Russian air defence systems in occupied Crimea, as well as for a June 5th attack on an oil refinery that has cost half a billion dollars in lost production. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has arrived in Germany for a conference on post-war recovery.

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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

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Roundup: The July job numbers

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The Labour Force Survey results for July were released yesterday, and while there was positive job growth, it wasn’t quite as robust as had been expected. The recovery remains uneven, but some of the narratives and commentary aren’t really helping when it comes to adjusting to the reality of this stage of the pandemic (which isn’t even post- yet).

A lot of the narratives are still being driven by the likes of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, which continues to rail about CERB and its successor suite of benefits that they claim are providing a “perverse incentive” for people to stay home, but that doesn’t seem to fit the reality, which is that the market is shifting. A lot of people who were in these service-industry jobs either moved on during the pandemic because it (and the government benefits) afforded them the opportunity to do so – which is why you have people complaining that their favoured servers at their local watering holes didn’t come back, and you have nineteen-year-olds who just got their Smart Serve certification replacing them. But another narrative is also bubbling up, where we also have a cohort who aren’t willing to go back to what existed beforehand, with the low wages and mistreatment, and a lot of those business owners haven’t made the cognitive leap yet that they can’t keep operating the way they did before. Of course, this is one reason why the CFIB is so up in arms about these benefits – they have a vested interest in things returning to the old normal where labour can be exploitative without consequence, but the current reality is changing that. This could be change happening that will be better for us all overall, if it’s able to take hold – and chances are, this government more than others are more willing to let it happen.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, are insistent that the federal government is “killing job creation,” which is a novel argument considering that they’re not the level of government responsible for the maintenance of public health measures (which has been one of the biggest determinants of economic activity over the course of the pandemic). They’re also keeping up the fiction that a pre-third wave job recovery projection was a “promise” about job creation, again, which was derailed by more public health measures because provinces screwed up their own recoveries by re-opening too soon. All of which is to say that we don’t seem to be capable of having a reasonable conversation about what is happening in the labour market, to the detriment of all of us.

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Roundup: Turner and what has changed since

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Former prime minister John Turner passed away over the weekend at age 91, and while you can read about his life here and here, for example, there were a couple of things I wanted to mention about his time in office. Thanks to the problems with the leadership selection processes in this country, Turner didn’t have a seat when he won the Liberal leadership and was sworn in as prime minister. He was only in office for eleven weeks, never meeting the House of Commons, and was defeated in an election shortly thereafter, though he did win a seat and stayed on as leader of the opposition for six years. Most of the tributes to him this weekend have not talked about his reputation for being “handsy,” barring the famous bottom-patting incident with party president Iona Campagnolo, though Susan Delacourt says that he was respectful and wasn’t patronizing to women reporters, who were still rare in the day.

What I think is most interesting, however, was that Turner fought an election in 1988 on the question of free trade, and Turner was bitterly opposed, saying that this would turn Canada into a colony of the United States, and that there would only be doom ahead. The then-Progressive Conservatives were the pro-trade party, and won the day with a majority parliament. Here we are a little over thirty years later, and the situations have reversed themselves – now it’s the Liberals who are champions of free trade and open markets, while the modern iteration of the Conservatives are turning into protectionists who are pushing a “Canada First” plan. It’s amazing how things can change so much in that long (particularly when parties abandon ideology for the sake of populism).

I also am curious how they plan to conduct a state funeral for Turner given the current pandemic restrictions. One supposes that they could have him lie in state within a space like the Sir John A Macdonald building on Parliament Hill, and that the funeral will be televised with a lot of people in masks, but it will no doubt be a challenge for all involved.

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Roundup: Trying to draw in the Supreme Court

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If this election could get any stupider, it did yesterday. Justin Trudeau started the day off in Sudbury, and after arriving by canoe, he promised not only to further expand the areas of land and waters that are protected areas as part of ongoing roll-out of green policies in advance of today’s “climate strike” rally, Trudeau also promised an expansion of the “learn to camp” programme, including bursaries of up to $2000 for low-income families. As someone who hates camping, this is borderline offensive – but it’s also one of the whitest of white people policies in the book. (Seriously – ask a person of colour how they feel about camping). I get that the idea is that it promotes connecting people with nature and the importance of conservation, but this was probably one of the dumbest campaign promises to date.

Andrew Scheer was not much better. From Trudeau’s riding of Papineau in Montréal, Scheer tapped into the Trumpian “Lock Her Up!” mentality by promising not only a judicial inquiry into the Double-Hyphen Affair, but also to pass a cartoonishly named No More Cover-Ups Act, which would empower the RCMP to go directly to the Supreme Court of Canada for access to Cabinet documents – all of it predicated on the lie that the RCMP are investigating the PMO (they’re not) and that they can’t get access to documents (because the Clerk of the Privy Council said no to a fishing expedition). It’s all very gross and unseemly. Not only do we not demand that the police investigate our political rivals (this isn’t a banana republic, and if the Liberals lose, then they will have faced political consequences for the Affair), but politicising judicial inquiries is a Very Bad Thing. Dragging the Supreme Court into one’s political vendettas is even worse (and I have a column on that very topic coming out later today about that very issue).

As for Jagmeet Singh, he was in Campbell River, BC to reiterate his promise to build half a million housing units, but to also flesh out his promise for income supports of up to $5000 per year for low-income renters. But again, this is provincial jurisdiction so the rental income supports will have to be a carefully designed policy, while he has yet to explain how he’ll rapidly build all of this social housing when the cities where it’s most needed are very tight labour markets, which means there likely aren’t enough construction workers to do the job, and that will drive up the costs of building these units by a lot. (Singh also completely mischaracterised the output-based system on carbon pricing as part of his trying to downplay the current government’s record, because he’s doing politics differently).

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Roundup: Duelling policies degenerating to stupidity

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It was a day when the competing pledges went a bit…dumb, as the two main parties put out competing policies on the same issue, this time being energy efficiency home renovations. Andrew Scheer was out first in Jonquiere, Quebec, where he fleshed out the previously promised tax credit for said renovations. As a way of reducing GHGs, there is very little bang to be had for the bucks being expended on it, and when pressed by a CBC reporter, Scheer couldn’t give any answers in terms of megatonnes of carbon emissions reductions that need to happen for the Paris targets to be reached (which he still mouths that he’s interested in). Add in the fact that he’s promising to cut the HST on home heating is a signal for people to use more fuel (prices are incentives, remember), so the tax credit pays for people to cut back, which makes no economic sense. (But this is a right-flavoured populist party, so don’t expect market solutions any longer). Above all, the plan is simply to let people who are wealthy enough to own houses and pay for the renovations simply add value to said homes at the taxpayer’s expense, which puts a lie to the narratives about “affordability.”

Shortly thereafter, Justin Trudeau was in Port Coquitlam, BC, to showcase their green energy retrofit programme, which involves interest-free loans, free energy audits, cash incentives and grants, and would also be eligible for renters and landlords as opposed to just landlords. One of the more expensive elements of Trudeau’s pledge was for national flood insurance and enhanced EI benefits for natural disasters, which he says still need to be devised – but flood insurance is going to be costly. The Conservatives then attacked this plan by saying that people can’t necessarily afford the loans…but their plan requires people to pay for the renovations up front in order to get the tax credit, so it makes no sense. It’s starting to feel like we’re living through the stupidest election yet.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1177041128991932417

Jagmeet Singh was in Burnaby to promise that he would bolster the RCMP’s efforts to combat money laundering as a way to make housing more affordable, particularly in British Columbia, plus a 15 percent foreign buyer’s tax on properties.

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Roundup: Missing the mark on encouraging participation

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The House of Commons’ status of women committee tabled a report this week that is about getting more women into politics? The problem? That all of its recommendations are focused on what the government can do, when it’s not their job. Rather, it’s the job of political parties, and only some of them take it seriously. Add to that, the one recommendation that people tend to focus on — that the federal government give some manner of financial compensation to parties who recruit more women candidates — is bad policy because it simply rewards parties for putting women candidates in unwinnable ridings and lets them claim their percentages. The Conservatives had their own dissenting report as well, which focused on their notion of women running on “merit” rather than quotas (because there’s apparently no tokenism in their party), and wanted more focus on women who bully and discourage other women in politics. (The NDP’s own dissent focused on some of the language of the recommendations, and more funding for women’s groups, childcare, and so on).

And I have to stress that this is a party issue, not a government issue. Parties are the ones who set the rules for their nomination contests, and are responsible for recruiting their own candidates, and even more to the point, these should be grassroots efforts rather than coming on high from party headquarters. That means mobilising party members at the ground level to find and recruit more women, and to convince them to run. The Liberals have had success with this — they instituted a programme of getting people to find women in their communities and then asking them several times to run, because they know the research that shows that while a man would likely accept on the first request, women can take something like seven times being asked before they will accept to run. Overcoming that socialised reluctance is a big part of it, and where the focus needs to lie — on top of the parties making their nomination rules more clear (and less reliant on the “unwritten rules” as have been spoken of), and ensuring that things like childcare are being taken care of so that women can do things like door-knock and and canvas. None of this is something that the government can take care of, but the party grassroots needs to be aware of and work toward implementing.

It’s not just rules — it’s an ecosystem. Part of that is civics education, because we don’t teach students about things like nomination races and why they matter, and how to get involved. That’s one of the most fundamental parts of our system, and we don’t teach it. How do we expect more young women to get involved if we don’t tell them how? This is where the focus needs to lie if we’re to make any lasting change.

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Roundup: Trying to make a garbage bill relevant

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Over the past couple of weeks, Conservative MP Michael Chong has been trying to make “Fetch” happen – or rather, trying to make his Reform Act relevant again, first by taking to the Twitter Machine to outline the process outlined in the Act for ousting a party leader (as though the Liberals were seriously considering dumping Justin Trudeau), and later to insist that it laid out a process for expelling MPs from caucus. The problem? Well, there are several, but the most immediate one is that the Act requires each party to vote at the beginning of each parliament whether they will adhere to the provisions or not – and lo, none of the parties voted to. Not even Chong’s. It was always a garbage bill – I wrote a stack of columns on that very point at the time it was being debated – and it made things worse for parties, not better, and ironically would have made it even harder to remove a party leader by setting a public high bar that the pressure created by a handful of vocal dissidents or resignations would have done on its own. It also has no enforcement mechanisms, which the Speaker confirmed when Erin Weir tried to complain that it wasn’t being adhered to. But why did this garbage bill pass? Because it gave MPs a warm feeling that they were doing something to “fix” Parliament (and in the context of doing something about the “dictatorial” style of Stephen Harper under the mistaken belief that his caucus was searching for some way to get rid of him, which was never the case).  It had so neutered it in order to be palatable enough to vote on that it was a sham bill at best, but really it did actual harm to the system, but Chong was stubborn in determining that it should pass in its bastardized form rather than abandoning it for the steaming hot garbage bill that it was.

And now, with Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott’s ouster from caucus, Chong has been trying to make the rounds to claim that the move was illegal without a vote – err, except no party voted to adopt the provisions, which is pretty embarrassing. And yet he keeps trying to sell it to the public as though this were a done deal.

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Roundup: Wilson-Raybould’s recorded call

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Because we couldn’t go another weekend in the interminable Double-Hyphen Affair without another bombshell, we got one in the revelation that among the materials that Jody Wilson-Raybould turned over to the justice committee was a recording she made of a conversation she had with outgoing Clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Wernick, which was quickly pointed out was in violation of the ethical obligations of lawyers (and no, this isn’t a situation of whether you’re wearing your Attorney General or Minister of Justice hat – it’s whether you’re a lawyer, and if you are, you are forbidden from surreptitiously recording a conversation). ETA:  This may have been overstating it, but there is an argument that Wernick could have been a client receiving advice, which is where it would violate the rules.

I did listen to the recording, and I had a few observations, but there are a few things I noticed that weren’t being talked about in any of the rush to find a smoking gun. For starter, there is a very performative element to the recording – she’s asking very leading questions, and fishing for quotes. I know this because I make my living having conversations with people on tape in order to get quotes for stories. And some of the formality of the language with which she speaks – there is a lot of spelling out of acronyms and relationships that read like a literary device we call an “As you know, Bob,” where you explain things in dialogue to someone who should know what you’re talking about. This conversation was rife with this kind of phrasing, so it looked very much like she wanted this for a purpose. She stated that, while she knows it was unethical, she did it because she was afraid the conversation would “inappropriate” and she didn’t have staff around to take notes. But there is an intent here that I’m curious about.

As for the content of the conversation, a few things stood out for me, which I haven’t seen being written about in the media, because they are focusing on the quotes that she specifically set up for them. First of all, Wernick’s tone seemed to me to be more of a friendly warning – the PM was looking for answers, but I didn’t get the sense that there were threats, thinly veiled or otherwise. Wernick made the point several times in the conversation that “He wants to understand more why the DPA route isn’t being used.” Repeatedly, Wernick is trying to get information about why the Director of Public Prosecution has rejected it, and each time, Wilson-Raybould tried to bring it back to “I’m uncomfortable with this, but I’m happy to talk to you,” and threats that these conversations were bordering on inappropriate. Wernick keeps insisting that they are trying to keep these conversations above-board, and that they’re not actually asking her to do anything, but they’re looking for information because they want to ensure that they’ve done their due diligence with regard to those jobs.

Regarding outside legal advice, Wernick said that he was concerned the PM would seek it himself, or if Wilson-Raybould felt it more appropriate, have it go through her, and former Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin’s name is bandied about several times, which should make everyone feel a little gross, but we developed a political culture of “Mother, May I?” in this country when it comes to getting the blessing of the Supreme Court of Canada, either with its current or former members. Wilson-Raybould went on about public perceptions of interference if she overrode the DPP’s decision about granting the remediation agreement, which is fair (and she warned him that she was keeping receipts), and there was even an exchange where she’s talking about the prime minister and prosecutorial independence, and Wernick said “I don’t think he sees it like that,” to which Wilson-Raybould snapped back, “Then nobody’s explaining that to him, Michael.” (As an aside, one wonders if that was not her job). But again, Wernick kept circling back for an explanation – not direction – asking when the DPP related her decision to Wilson-Raybould, and specifically asking “Can they get her to explain?” Wilson-Raybould insisted that the Prime Minister’s office had the report since September, to which Wernick replied “That’s news to me.” And what I find fascinating is that Wernick keeps asking for explanations, and the media picked out the quotes about pressure. They were very much talking past one another,

There were the other documents she turned over, which included her reasons for resigning from Cabinet, and a couple of things leapt out at me from there – one being that with this release, she doesn’t think she has anything left to contribute to a formal process in looking into this. The other is that in her personal observations at the end, she goes on about looking forward “to a future where we truly do politics differently,” which could be hints about future political ambitions. (John Geddes has some more good parsing about parts of the Cabinet conversation around DPAs here).

In fallout from this, Justin Trudeau put out a statement saying that he hadn’t been briefed on this conversation, and that he wished that Wilson-Raybould had come to him directly, but he’s taken responsibility for the loss of trust, announced next steps, and he wants to move forward (as a team). This while more Liberals in the caucus are getting restive and want Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott to be ousted, and they’re signing their names to it rather than whispering anonymously. With Wernick already on his way out, and Wilson-Raybould saying that there’s no more for her to tell, one supposes that Trudeau hopes this will finally put an end to things and he can move forward without showing any further contrition that his taking responsibility for the breakdown in trust, and that he can leave it up to his pabulum talking points going forward. I guess we’ll see how much is left to litigate in Question Period, but I guess we’ll see if there are any additional rabbits to be pulled out of hats now.

And then come the hot takes, and hottest of all is Andrew Coyne, who takes this as a complete vindication for Wilson-Raybould. Susan Delacourt sees some poetic parallels between Trudeau fighting for his political life right now, with that boxing match with Senator Brazeau some seven years ago this weekend. Chris Selley notes that the tape really won’t change anyone’s mind, but does give Wilson-Raybould props for not bowing to the status quo.

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/1111738095018430465

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Roundup: All about Alleslev

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As the fallout from Leona Alleslev’s defection to the Conservatives continues, the comments from her former colleagues have remarkably tended not to be bitter or angry, but more bewilderment as she didn’t express any concerns to them beforehand, though there was understandably some shock from her riding association. That’s a bit shocking considering the pure vitriol that we’ve heard from Conservatives when they had defections in the past (particularly when women defected, if you recall the misogyny lobbed at Belinda Stronach after her floor-crossing). Of course, that also hasn’t stopped the Liberals from leaking effusive emails of praise that Alleslev sent them, and speeches she gave that completely contradict everything that she told the Commons on Monday when she made the decision. I remain struck by this insistence that the current government isn’t offering the “foundational change” she claims to be looking for, yet is aligning herself with a party whose recent policy convention was pretty much dominated with resolutions to simply turn back the clock to the Harper era, which was apparently a golden age. If she wanted “foundational change” from that, I’m not sure that going back to reinforce it is what she’s looking for.

Meanwhile, here’s a look at some of the history of floor-crossings in Canada, and the trends for when it goes well for those MPs, and when it all goes down in flames.

Bernier blindsided

Maxime Bernier’s team is finding it hard to keep up with online groups pretending to act on his behalf but have no actual associations with him, and which are posting offensive material and items that he says are contrary to his positions. I have two things to say about this: 1) It’s hard to believe that his team are such rank amateurs that they didn’t secure these domain names in the first place, which bodes ill for the kind of logistical knowledge they would need to run a national campaign; and 2) Bernier has brought much of this on himself. By winking to white nationalists, and by not even dog-whistling, but rather playing these tunes with a tuba, he’s invited the very xenophobes that he claims aren’t welcome in his party (as he keeps playing their tunes on his tuba while staring wide-eyed as they keep flocking, like he’s the Pied Piper of racists). This credulous, naïve act he’s putting on is getting a bit tiresome. If he doesn’t understand how his message plays out, that’s another strike against him being ready for the prime time of leading a credible political party.

Please note: I’ll be hosting a live chat today at 7 PM Eastern for $10 subscribers to my Patreon, to answer your questions about the return of Parliament. Subscribers have access to exclusive content not available elsewhere.

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