Tag Archives: Bill Morneau

Roundup: Outlining the transition steps

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The government unveiled their planned next steps in income supports for the economic recovery yesterday, starting with an additional month of CERB, after which they will start transitioning people to EI (with relaxed criteria) as well as a new system of support benefits for those who don’t normally qualify for EI, as well as sick benefits. I’m given to understand that part of why they are being transitioned away from CERB has to do with flexibility – the EI computers are more able to handle the ability to allow benefits to flow while a person is still getting incomes than the CRA’s system does, and that is one of the things that are being rolled out here, so that people don’t lose benefits the moment they reach an arbitrary threshold. (More from economist Jennifer Robson in this thread).

Something that came up repeatedly over the day (particularly on certain politics shows), however, was the notion that while the legislative portions of these changes would need to happen fast when Parliament is recalled, that nothing could happen until after a confidence vote on the Speech from the Throne. This is false. Once the Speech has been read by the Governor General, the government can start introducing and debating other bills. They don’t have to simply debate the Reply to the Speech, and they don’t have to have an immediate confidence vote. In fact, they don’t need to have one at all, given that there are other confidence votes coming up in the Supply Cycle. Yes, Trudeau did promise a confidence vote, in what appears to be a dare to the opposition, but that’s not the point here – the point is that they can introduce these measures in Bill C-2, and swiftly pass them before Trudeau has that confidence vote. All of the pearl-clutching that I’m seeing is completely for naught, because people don’t pay attention to process or procedure (and I’m sure a few of them are trying to create an artificial sense of drama).

https://twitter.com/SkinnerLyle/status/1296556887761129476

Meanwhile, a certain senator is grousing that transitioning people to EI is going to be too complicated, so he wants the provinces to start basic income pilots, and I can’t even. Economist Lindsay Tedds has been working on this issue for a long time and has stated that we don’t need more pilots – governments need to simply design programmes that meet their objectives, but it seems that said Senator hasn’t been listening when she’s told him that directly.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1296646779639746560

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Roundup: Combing the document dump

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The mass of WE-related documents were the subject of yesterday’s news fodder, and the fact that they largely corroborated the government’s assertion that the civil servants were the ones who suggested WE Charity be the vehicle to deliver the Canada Student Service Grant programme. They did, however, make a couple of notes that raised eyebrows – one was another communication between Bardish Chagger and the Kielbergers (though she has responded to dispel those concerns, saying it was a general comment she had made as the CSSG was not on her radar at the time), and the other were communications between Bill Morneau’s office and the finance department officials where Morneau’s office were described as “besties” with WE – which doesn’t necessarily prove that this was some orchestrated campaign to benefit WE. There were also documents wherein Jean-Yves Duclos was clearly not comfortable with WE being the only delivery vehicle for the programme because they don’t have sufficient depth in Quebec, though he was being assured otherwise.

To these revelations, and the fact that some of the pages had redactions on them (which is standard for both Cabinet confidences and instances where privacy is involved), the Conservatives and Pierre Poilievre in particular put on a melodramatic press conference full of air quotes and flung pages, and the howling accusation that there was a cover-up in the works. Because we all know that when you don’t find the answers you want, there must be a conspiracy at play. It’s not unexpected, and I’m not sure he won over any converts among the Canadian public, but hey, this is all theatre for him, like so many things in Canadian politics.

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Roundup: Freeland precedes a prorogation

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The fallout from Bill Morneau’s resignation yesterday culminated in a brief Cabinet shuffle that saw Chrystia Freeland appointed to replace him as finance minister, and Dominic LeBlanc taking over her intergovernmental affairs responsibilities. This makes Freeland the country’s first woman federal finance minister, and there was much back-patting over that particular glass ceiling being shattered. The bigger news, however, was the fact that prime minister Justin Trudeau decided to prorogue Parliament to return on September 23rd – the same week they were intended to return anyway – for a new Speech from the Throne that would outline a new set of priorities for the government in order to focus on rebuilding the economy. Trudeau said that it was the time to move forward rather than revert to the status quo, and that we need bold new solutions rather than being held back by old ways of thinking. He also said that the pandemic was an “unprecedented opportunity,” a chance to build a more resilient Canada, which is healthier, safer, more competitive, more welcoming, and fairer. “This is our moment to change the future for the better,” he declared, adding that the window of opportunity wouldn’t be open for long.

During the Q&A, Trudeau only had praise for Morneau and wouldn’t elaborate on the leaks that happened up to his resignation. Regarding the Governor General, he said that he had confidence in the third-party investigative process launched by PCO. On his children going back to school, he said that they were discussing the matter “actively.” Regarding Freeland’s previous writing on taxing the super-wealthy, Trudeau said that he has been having this conversation with Freeland since he recruited her to politics, which is why the first thing they did was raise taxes on the top one percent, and that they wouldn’t raise taxes at this time. Regarding prorogation, Trudeau tried to differentiate his move with Harper’s 2008 prorogation by saying that while Harper was trying to avoid a confidence vote, he was instead putting one on the table with the Speech (err, except the logic falls apart when you realize that Harper also had a confidence vote following that prorogation, which he survived). He said that they continue to cooperate on any WE investigations, and that they released those thousands of pages of documents to the committee so that they can study them over the next month of fallow period, and that the opposition can keep asking questions when Parliament resumes. And when asked if he would be on the ballot next election, Trudeau said he would be and that he was “excited about the opportunity and the responsibility.”

We also got an extended response from Freeland, beyond her praise for Morneau, both about breaking the glass ceiling around women in the finance portfolio, and the government’s feminist agenda, which was important because of how this crisis has disproportionately affected women. Regarding her own disagreements with Trudeau – because of the narrative being promulgated about Morneau’s ouster – Freeland said that she and the PM had recently reflected “with good humour” on times they disagreed, and that she felt that having those different points of view, with the ability to have open, respectful, candid conversation about them (behind closed doors) brought government to a better decision. So there’s that.

On the subject of prorogation, this is vastly different from 2008, and anyone who tries to compare the two is either being disingenuous or has a comprehension problem. The WE Imbroglio is hardly a scandal – yes, it highlights the PM’s poor judgment, and that should be the cue that it’s time for him to leave, but that’s about it. The attempts by the various committees to find a smoking gun haven’t been able to find one, and several of them are exceeding their mandates in trying to force more investigations. Prorogation won’t end any ongoing committees, but delay them, though I’m really not sure there’s much more to be gained by continuing them, for what it’s worth. This being said, Trudeau proroguing now instead of waiting until the eve of his scheduled Throne Speech is not exactly a smart move given the current pandemic context, because if there is a need for an emergency recall of Parliament for a new legislative measure as a result of said pandemic, they will need to have a Throne Speech before that can happen. While I’m sympathetic to those former staffers who said that the government needs to focus on their Throne Speech and budget, and that the WE stuff was a real distraction from that, I would say too bad – the government made its bed and needs to lay in it. It was unnecessarily provocative and only increases people’s cynicism about Trudeau breaking his promise not to use tactics like these for political gain.

Meanwhile, Heather Scoffield makes note of the juggling act that Freeland will need to employ in order to balance the goals she’s facing, but notes her experience as a working mother will help. Susan Delacourt points out that Freeland is the only “star candidate” of Trudeau’s that is still standing and hasn’t been tarnished along the way.

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Roundup: Exit Morneau

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After a week of leaks about clashes, finance Bill Morneau took to a lectern late in the day on Monday to announce that he had tendered his resignation, and would be resigning both as minister and as MP. Well, first he did some back-patting over his record and couched the decision by saying that he never planned to serve more than two election cycles, and since the economic recovery would take years, it was better for someone else to step in who could carry the work through. The bombshell out of this was the face-saving gesture that he had put his name forward to be the next secretary general of the OECD, and that he had the PM’s full support in doing so – which is either really cute that he thinks he actually has a chance, or a bit pathetic in that he offered up an excuse that beggared credulity. The Q&A portion had very few answers, but this kind of pabulum is what Morneau was so good at – lots of words, not a lot of substance. When asked about the difference that he was apparently clashing with Trudeau over, Morneau mouthed that there was “vigorous discussion and debate,” and that he hoped that work on the green economy could continue and that he would try to help with the OECD (which he won’t get). He denied that he was pressured to resign, said that when it came to WE, he has been involved in philanthropy for many years and that in hindsight he wished that he had one things differently and recused himself – and yet said nothing about the donor trip he didn’t disclose. He insisted that he still wanted to contribute, and said that at the OECD, he would deal with things like international taxation and digital transformation, and use the expertise he gained as the finance minister of a G7 country to help, but, well, that’s not going to happen and we all know it.

Liberal Sources™ are saying that there won’t be an interim finance minister, though the Orders in Council say that Mona Fortier is already the Acting Minister since Morneau is out of the picture. The leading contenders for the job appear to be Jean-Yves Duclos, Chrystia Freeland, and François-Philippe Champagne.

Meanwhile, Paul Wells describes the strange circumstances that surrounded Morneau’s departure – particularly the leaks to the media about fights that Morneau lost and was gracious about, with added snark about how the departure went down. Heather Scoffield notes the good work Morneau did before agreeing that it was time for him to go. (Look for my own column on Morneau’s departure later today on Loonie Politics).

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Roundup: An investigation into Rideau Hall

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It was announced at the end of the day yesterday that the Privy Council Office would be launching a “thorough, independent and impartial” investigation into the claims of harassment and verbal abuse at Rideau Hall, and that this would be done with the cooperation of the Secretary to the Governor General, Assunta Di Lorenzo – whom these same complainants say was Payette’s abusive tag-team partner. Payette later tweeted that she takes workplace harassment “very seriously,” for what that’s worth.

Meanwhile, Philippe Lagassé explains why Governors General need to be uncontroversial and above reproach – which extends to how they comport themselves in office, which this current situation is certainly an example of. He also makes the very salient point that the prime minister needs to be directly involved in fixing this situation one way or the other, which can mean encouraging Payette that it’s time to “spend more time with her family.” Chris Selley longs for the days of a boring GG in office, citing David Johnston as the ideal when compared to the current example (and there is a good chapter on the criteria for selecting a GG in Royal Progress, written by Senator Serge Joyal, with the observation that the women selected for the roles have largely had media presences as opposed to governance experience).

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Roundup: Bill Morneau makes himself a bigger target

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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.

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Roundup: Some strings attached

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Prime minister Justin Trudeau wound up holding an irregular presser yesterday, mid-afternoon instead of late morning, and with a specific purpose in mind – to announce that the federal government had finally come to an agreement with the provinces over the Safe Restart Plan, now pegged at $19 billion rather than the $14 billion initially put on the table. What is noteworthy is that there were still federal strings attached for this money, though some premiers noted that the strings were not as tight as before. The money is to go toward municipalities, transit, contact tracing, personal protective equipment, childcare, and ten days of paid sick leave (so now Jagmeet Singh can pat himself on the back, even though this was BC premier John Horgan’s initiative), and is to last for the next six to eight months, at which point there will be a re-evaluation of where everyone is at. Trudeau also made it official that the Canada-US border will remain closed to non-essential travel until August 21st.

During the Q&A that followed, Trudeau expressed optimism around the vaccine candidate being held up by Chinese customs, and said that in spite of the Russian hacking story, it was important to work with everyone to develop a vaccine and that they were working to get the balance right. When asked if he would appear before committee as invited around the WE Imbroglio, that his House leadership team was looking at the possibilities, but that he also looked forward to taking questions in the Commons next week during the scheduled special sitting day. Chrystia Freeland was asked about what she knew regarding the WE Imbroglio, and she gave a fairly lengthy response about how everyone accepts responsibility for what happened, and apologized, saying that “clearly we made a mistake and we’re going to learn from it,” adding that everyone knew that the PM was connected to WE but didn’t know of his family’s specific financial arrangements, and then added that she still supported the PM and that it was a privilege to serve in his Cabinet. When asked if Quebec had no problems with the strings attached to the billions on the table, Freeland said that they agreed to it like everyone else, and that it was actually a Really Big Deal to get all thirteen provinces and territories to sign onto a deal that includes the municipalities and covered several ministries, saying that it showed that Canadians have understood that we need to work together in this time of crisis.

Shortly after the presser ended, Bardish Chagger and her officials appeared before the Finance committee to discuss the WE Imbroglio. Chagger insisted that nobody in PMO directed her to make an arrangement with WE, but she kept deferring to her officials, which…isn’t really how ministerial responsibility works. There was also talk about how WE had sent an unsolicited proposal to several ministers about a youth programme before this was announced, which WE later came out and said was a youth entrepreneurship programme which had nothing to do with what became the Service Grant programme. This having been said, the senior bureaucrat on the file said that they had three weeks to come up with a programme, and that WE fit the bill for its requirements, which is why they were recommended – and pointed out that potential conflicts are for public office holders to deal with, not bureaucrats (which is true). Up today, the Ethics Committee will begin their own examination into the Imbroglio, so we’ll see if that goes any better.

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Roundup: An apology on the second attempt

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It was prime minister Justin Trudeau’s first presser since the WE Imbroglio blew up over the revelations of his family being paid speakers for the charity, and there was a definite note of contrition this time. After hinting that the government would extend the wage subsidy until December with details coming later in the week, a mention of his call earlier in the morning with Donald Trump that touched on tariffs, Black Lives Matter, and China, and a promise on further updates on the Safe Restart Plan with the provinces to come later in the week, Trudeau turned to his mea culpa on the Imbroglio. “I made a mistake in not recusing myself from discussions, and I’m sincerely sorry about not having done that,” Trudeau said. He praised how the government got creative with designing programmes during the pandemic, and how they had worked with a range of partners to make it happen, but he was sorry that he didn’t remove himself from the discussions with WE, and that he was frustrated that youth would have to wait longer to do their party to serve because of the mistakes he made. (I would argue that WE’s plans raised a lot of red flags too, for what it’s worth). When asked if he would appear before committee to discuss what happened, Trudeau was non-committal, but in a hung parliament, he doesn’t have the votes to shield himself this time.

During the Q&A, he said that he pointed out to Trump about the disruptions to the aluminium supply chains and hoped that they wouldn’t see tariffs that would only slow down the economic recovery; he also mentioned that there were ongoing discussions around the border, but the rest of the time was spent reiterating, over and over, that he didn’t have the details on what his family members had been paid by WE and that he should have, and that he did seem to have some reflection that he needed to be careful on this file because of his past activity with the charity but that he didn’t go far enough and should have removed himself entirely from the conversation. Later in the day, Bill Morneau sent out his own apology for his own failure to recuse himself given his daughters’ activities with WE.

For what it’s worth, there seems to be some kind of learning curve because it only took the second try for Trudeau to give an apology rather than stick to talking points aimed at deflection until the conclusion of the Ethics Commissioner’s report, at which point there would be either an apology or admission of some kind of wrongdoing and a promise to do better next time. This time, we managed to skip weeks of such failed damage control, so that’s something, I guess.

Meanwhile, Susan Delacourt finds herself wanting when it comes to Trudeau’s explanation for how the whole thing went down, and hopes that he’s saving it for his discussion with the Ethics Commissioner. Matt Gurney gives credit where credit is due for Trudeau learning enough to make a rapid admission and apology rather than dragging things out for months. Paul Wells is unimpressed with the apology and wants a full accounting of what happened, particularly as it is increasingly evident that things were wrong with the WE contract outside of the apparent conflict of interest, and how those decisions were made need to be aired.

Good reads:

  • Ruh-roh! It looks like the federal government wasn’t enforcing the rules around temporary foreign workers, which allowed outbreaks to occur on farms.
  • Here is some number-crunching on the PM’s daily pressers in the first phase of the pandemic and lockdown, including on his choice of verbs and phrases.
  • The RCMP have charged a Quebec man with calling for Justin Trudeau’s death and the eradication of Muslims.
  • Former Liberal MPs who lost their seats in the last election are waiting to hear about nomination contests so they can be ready to run again.
  • Leona Alleslev has resigned as deputy leader of the Conservatives to more vocally back Peter MacKay, who says that no promises were made for her support.
  • Maclean’s has a profile of Conservative leadership candidate Leslyn Lewis.
  • Jason Kenney is accusing the federal government of preventing Apple from fixing the province’s contact tracing app, which requires iPhones to be unlocked to work.
  • Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column looks at the options for calling prime minister Trudeau to committee to testify on the WE Imbroglio.
  • Heather Scoffield is frustrated by the vague answers being given on the extension and amendments to the wage subsidy programme.
  • Colby Cosh recounts how Alberta has abolished its last vestiges of prohibition, by allowing liquor sales in Mormon-centric towns that were still “dry.”

Odds and ends:

For the CBA’s National Magazine, I wrote about Friday’s Supreme Court decision on genetic privacy, and what the broader implications of the ruling are.

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Roundup: The WE Imbroglio worsens

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Because the Liberals’ capacity for self-harm wasn’t apparent enough already, it seems that they decided to find yet another rake to step on as the WE Imbroglio continues to unfold, and we learned that two of Bill Morneau’s children have done work for WE – one of them as a salaried employee, and no, Morneau also did not recuse himself from any Cabinet discussions or decisions when it came to awarding WE the student service grant contract. Because of course he didn’t.

Within the Liberal ranks, so far only Nathaniel Erskine-Smith – already considered a “maverick” – has come out to say that he’s not keen on what has transpired, which makes me wonder how many other Liberal MPs feel similarly but just aren’t saying out of a sense of loyalty or because they would rather close ranks at a time like this. Of course, if we had a properly functioning Westminster democracy in this country, the caucus could get together and say “You know what – the leader keeps hurting the party with these self-inflicted wounds, so maybe it’s time we find a new leader,” and within a few days, they could have voted out Trudeau and voted on a replacement from within the caucus ranks, and then it would be off to Rideau Hall to swear in a new prime minister, who hopefully wouldn’t be a prone to stepping on those rakes. But we don’t have a properly functioning system because the Liberals and the pundit class back in 1919 decided it was somehow “more democratic” to give the party membership the ability to decide on the leadership, and suddenly the accountability of that leader to his or her caucus was annihilated. Now we have leaders who have centralized all power and authority and who are accountable to no one, so that when they cause trouble for their parties, the caucus is now stuck. (It would also help in keeping the party from becoming a personality cult of the current leader because that leader is easily replaced, but again, that’s no where we’re at in this country, and we are paying the price for it.

As for the Conservatives, they decided that they needed to up the stakes and send a letter to the RCMP to demand a criminal investigation of this contract, under the flimsiest of pretences. It’s ludicrous, of course, but what it allows them to do is to insinuate that the RMCP are investigating when they likely aren’t because they’re not public about what they are and are not investigating, and they can spend the summer asking Trudeau “have the RCMP contacted you yet?” and posting those clips all over their social media channels. We’ve seen this particular play before, and it wasn’t great the first time, and this iteration won’t have improved either. I suspect there is also an element of “lock her up!” as part of their calculation for this, because they know that there is an element of their base that will respond to this bit of red meat, and they can’t help themselves, no matter how corrosive this is to our political discourse, or the long-term the damage that it causes.

Meanwhile, Susan Delacourt hears from Erskine-Smith and other unnamed Liberals who are balking at how closed-off to caucus Trudeau has been, and how that breeds these kinds of problems. Chris Selley marvels at Trudeau’s trilogy of scandals, and the ways in which they are continually minimized.

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Roundup: Trudeau steps on yet another rake

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The prime minister’s problems with the now-cancelled WE Charity contract blew up yesterday, as it was revealed that Justin Trudeau’s mother and brother have been paid by WE to speak at events, that his wife had once been paid by them in 2012, all of which contradicts their previous statements that they don’t pay speakers. (Trudeau maintains that he has never been paid). Suddenly this makes the fact that Trudeau didn’t recuse himself from any decisions around that contract at the Cabinet table look very bad, because his family does benefit from the organization, and they’re not just donating their time and profile as had been previously stated. And for WE’s part, they have done themselves no favours by saying that it was their social enterprise arm, ME to WE, which paid them, except for the times when there was a billing error and WE Charity paid them instead. This as more parliamentary committees are (finally) doing their jobs in calling ministers and bureaucrats before them to explain their decisions. And to cap it off, Yves-François Blanchet is now demanding that Trudeau step aside and let Chrystia Freeland run things until everything is cleared up. So that’s something.

It’s hard not to see that the Liberals’ capacity for self-harm knows no bounds, between these self-inflicted wounds and their inability to communicate their way out of a wet paper bag/manage an issue, means that they inevitably make it worse for themselves – which they did yet again today by essentially saying that the only thing that matters is that Trudeau was really concerned about the youth. Seriously? It is not only obvious that Trudeau seems to lack any sense of self-awareness, in part because he has grown up as a kind of celebrity, but it’s also combined by the fact that there clearly isn’t anyone in his office who will stand up to him and say that no, this maybe isn’t a good idea, and no, it’s going to come across well no matter how well-meaning it all is. I mean, the first couple of years in office, Trudeau dismantled any way for the party mechanism to push back against the leader and his office, and that was a fair bit more autonomous than what goes on in PMO. This being said, I will add that our ethics and conflict of interest regime in this country is ludicrous, and subject to the whims of successive Ethics Commissioners, who either read their mandates so narrowly that nothing was ever her problem, except when she took it upon herself to decide who is and is not a family friend of the Aga Khan (that being Mary Dawson), or her replacement, who has invented new statutory interpretation out of whole cloth on numerous occasions to baffling results. None of this excuses Trudeau’s constantly stepping on rakes – he should absolutely know better, but seems incapable of figuring that out.

Meanwhile, Susan Delacourt remarks on how repetitive Trudeau’s ethical lapses are getting, and how every time he promises that he’s learned his lesson – until he does makes yet another blunder. Matt Gurney is baffled at PMO’s tone-deafness on this whole affair. Chris Selley, while boggled at Trudeau’s constant blunders, is even more incredulous at how Andrew Scheer keeps being so bad at responding while creating his own distractions.

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