Tag Archives: Blaine Higgs

Roundup: Johnston’s classified last word

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In what appears to be a growing habit of waiting until the prime minister is out of the country, His Excellency David Johnston turned in the final version of his report last night, stating that this was all classified material added to the confidential annex to his previous report, and that the public title page was updated, and with that, he’s not answering any more questions as he is no longer Special Rapporteur. You can pretty much imagine him giving the finger as he did so, considering what he was subjected to for stepping up (though I will reiterate the point that Philippe Lagassé correctly makes in saying that former Governors General should not be seen or heard). The Privy Council Office responded publicly that they received it, and thanked him for his service.

https://twitter.com/SusanDelacourt/status/1673445165191643137

As this was happening, NSIRA put out a public statement saying that they’re going through Johnston’s findings in the confidential version of his report, but said that certain Cabinet confidences were not being disclosed to them, and that only a limited number of documents were handed over, and if they are to examine things, they and NSICOP need to see everything, which is fair enough. Given that Trudeau had waived Cabinet confidences for Johnston, I suspect this is more the work of the civil servants and their obsessive desire for secrecy, but it is a bit curious that NSIRA did call the government out so publicly like that, and once again, Trudeau pretty much needs to be shamed into doing something that should have been a matter of course.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Despite reclaiming another village in the southeast, Ukraine admits that not a lot has changed along the southern front just yet. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did visit with troops along the eastern front, and presented medals to those on the front lines. Meanwhile, the Russia/Wagner Group infighting has improved Ukrainian morale along the front lines.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1673301190753550341

As for the aborted mutiny/attempted coup, here are four things we do know about the outcome, and four things we don’t. In the meantime, the memes are just getting started, and there are some pretty good ones.

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Roundup: Bell Media’s plea to the CRTC

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We’ve been talking a lot about the state of media in Canada lately, and the awfulness hasn’t stopped as Bell Media is now asking the CRTC to let it get out of its local news requirements citing that they are losing money. But this isn’t a surprise—news is generally money-losing for broadcasters, but it’s content with a lot of eyeballs that they can charge a lot of advertising dollars for.

But let’s also be up front—Bell is making money hand over fist because they are part of the telecom oligopoly in this country, and are an extremely profitable company. Their local news obligations are part of the price of admission, and the CRTC is not being shy about this. With the Rogers-Shaw merger, one of the conditions they imposed was the creation of a certain number of hours of new information programming from their stations, which basically amounts to a new one-hour documentary per week, for nearly every week of the year. And this is a condition of their broadcast licence, so they can’t get out of it.

With this in mind, I’m pretty confident that the CRTC is going to tell Bell Media to get stuffed, and possibly even impose more news obligations as part of their licencing requirements because they’re aware of the state of news media. And the fact that the new CRTC Commissioner was a competition lawyer gives me some added confidence in this because she gets the problems associated with centralized news production and how local markets suffer as a result.

Ukraine Dispatch:

At least three people in Ukraine were killed by Russian attacks, two of them on a trolleybus that came under fire in Kherson. There were also reports of heavy Russian missile attacks overnight. Ukraine has also signalled that the main thrust of its counteroffensive has yet to happen, which is obvious from the fact that they haven’t yet committed the bulk of their forces. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has also ordered an audit of the heads of military draft offices after allegations of corruption.

https://twitter.com/kyivpost/status/1672148522488016897

Meanwhile, things are blowing up in Russia, quite literally, as the head of the Wagner mercenary group has turned on the Russian military, and has so far seized the military command in Rostov, and allegedly plans to head to Moscow in order to confront the military leadership there. Thus far, it’s hard to say if this is a mutiny or a military coup, and it’s hard to get any accurate information without an independent press in Russia, so everything should be taken with a shaker full of salt, but it’s going to be an interesting few days.

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Roundup: One last beclowning before summer

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On the final sitting day before summer break, our deeply unserious MPs decided to beclown themselves once again. No, I’m not talking about the absolutely shameful display after Question Period with the litany of points order and unanimous consent motions, but rather the decision by Conservative MP Matt Jeneroux to write to the Speaker to file an “official grievance” that Taylor Swift didn’t announce any Canadian dates on her Eras Tour, and that two other MPs, one Liberal, one Conservative, seconded it.

I wish that this was Beaverton-level satire, but no, it happened—hours after the Beaverton joked about it.

As has been pointed out, this isn’t even original beclownery, because it’s just copying something an Australian MP did. I’m also not sure what they think they’re going to accomplish, other than making themselves look like absolute fools. Do they want the Speaker to write a strongly-worded letter to Swift? Summon her to the bar of the Chamber to explain herself? I’m sure if they had planned a little further in advance, they could have arranged for a unanimous consent motion to express their “profound sadness” in her decision. This used to be a serious institution populated mostly by serious people. It is no longer that, and the denizens of the Chamber should reflect on this over the next couple of months. What a gods damned embarrassment.

Ukraine Dispatch:

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is admitting that the counter-offensive is happening slower than anyone would like, but reminds everyone that this is not a Hollywood movie, and that it takes as long as it does because there are lives on the line. Russia is claiming they shot down two drones near Moscow and are blaming the Ukrainians for it.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1671589133003759628

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Roundup: Poilievre tries out new tough-on-crime disinformation

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As evidenced in Question Period yesterday, the Conservatives have found a new lie to suit their narrative around the transfer of Paul Bernardo, and it’s citing the former Bill C-83, which allegedly eliminated solitary confinement in Canadian prisons on favour of “structured intervention units.” We can pretty much be assured that the legislation did not do what it said it would, and “structured intervention” is largely still solitary confinement, and the actual problems haven’t been solved, but the underlying notion here was that this bill was in response to the finding of the courts and international human rights bodies that solitary confinement is a violation of human rights. Nevertheless, this is being blamed for the conditions that allowed for Bernardo’s transfer, which again, is not true. It’s not the first time they’ve done this tactic—they also did it with the former Bill C-75 on bail reform, which was about codifying Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence around bail, and actually created several more categories where a reverse onus was needed, which made bail tougher to get. That didn’t stop the lies then, and it isn’t around C-83 now.

In the meantime, here is the Alberta Prison Justice Society with some important context around prison transfers and security classifications, which a lot of people should know (and in some cases, do know but are lying about it in order to drum up outrage, because politics is all about rage-farming and shitposting these days).

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians struck the settlement of Novoberyslav in the Kherson region, killing a married couple when their house was bombed. The Ukrainian advance continues in the south, while Russians are trying to trying to dislodge Ukrainian positions in the east. Meanwhile, a group of African leaders are visiting Kyiv to discuss Ukraine’s “peace formula” to end the war.

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Roundup: O’Toole’s farewell hypocrisy

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Former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole gave his farewell speech to the House of Commons yesterday, and it’s been a while since I’ve heard something as grossly hypocritical as that. Using his sombre voice (which has the benefit of completely beguiling the pundit class), he decried “performance politics,” where they chase social media algorithms, using the Chamber to generate clips, and fuelling polarisation, and replacing discussion with “virtue signalling”—which is his way of whataboutery to insist that the Liberals and NDP are just as bad. He also decried the use of conspiracy theories around things like the United Nations.

The problem? He hired a professional shitposter, Jeff Ballingall, to chase those very social media algorithms he is decrying. He fully used the Chamber to generate clips, he fully endorsed a number of conspiracy theories, whether it was about the firing of the scientists at the Winnipeg Lab, or around the United Nations when he was pretending to be a “true blue conservative” during the leadership. And while this has been seen by some as a rebuke of Poilievre, there was absolutely no contrition about any of what he did, from the serial lying, to his autocratic power games at the end of his leadership. The most he said was “too many members on all sides of this Chamber, and from time to time I have been guilty of it myself, are becoming followers of our followers when we should be leaders.” That was it. That was his contrition to how much he has done all of the things he is decrying as he exits, the bravery of someone who no longer has to live with the consequences of his actions.

https://twitter.com/dwjudson/status/1668484357089099777

It amazes me that the pundit classes, who have been falling all over O’Toole’s speech, keep memory-holing the entire tenure of his leadership and what an absolute lying, tyrannical disaster that he was throughout. Ignoring who he proved himself to be in favour of the image that pundits so desperately want him to be is a choice. And as he heads off to spend more time in his basement podcast studio, it would be great if we could be clear-eyed about just who O’Toole is, instead of just falling for his sombre-voice trick.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukraine says it has liberated seven villages in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia provinces, as the counter-offensive gets underway. Russians, meanwhile, have been shelling Kharkiv, as well as nine towns and villages in Donetsk. They also launched an overnight attack against the central city of Kryvyi Rih, and there are reports of dead and wounded.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1668246754540630017

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Roundup: Play stupid procedural games, win stupid procedural consequences

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My patience for the stupid procedural games being played in the House of Commons is wearing incredibly thin as Liberal House Leader Mark Holland is moving a motion to extend sitting hours to midnight. Now, this would be fairly normal for the last four sitting weeks of the year, but Holland is moving the motion to extend until June. *sighs, pinches bridge of nose* Holland claims it’s because the Conservatives are being obstructionist, and putting up long speaking lists for every bill, so he’s going to accommodate them, and the Conservatives are saying that it’s their job to have vigorous debate on every bill, but this is beyond excessive. (The NDP are also in favour of this, because they too have essentially had a policy of talking every bill to death for the past decade or so). But that should make everyone happy, no?

Of course not. Andrew Scheer is, not incorrectly, pointing out that midnight sittings take resources (read: interpreters) away from committees, and calls this the Liberals trying to kill accountability by stealth. That’s one interpretation, but one could also say that it’s the consequences of the Conservatives decision to fill up the speaking lists like they are. And it’s all so unnecessary. This insistence of filling up speaking lists and having MPs read canned speeches into the record for hours on end is a particularly Canadian phenomenon, and it’s a symptom of our politics being treated un-seriously. It’s stupid gamesmanship that started years ago, and it gets worse with each passing parliament, and we need to stop it. The fact that Holland and Scheer are now exacerbating it even more as a kind of brinksmanship is killing our democracy, and MPs need to grow the hell up, on all sides of the Chamber.

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Roundup: Giving Legault the farm

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Erin O’Toole paid a visit to Quebec premier François Legault yesterday, and immediately promised to give away the farm to Legault if he were to become prime minister – capitulating on Bill 21 and letting Legault expand it (in spite of the Conservatives insisting that they are all about religious freedom), signing over the language rights of federal industries in the province, and promising more provincial transfers with no strings attached, all in the name of “provincial autonomy.” At the same time, O’Toole danced around the question of pipelines, which Legault opposes and O’Toole is in favour of shoving down the throat of a province in spite of his talk of “autonomy,” so his record of policy incoherence continues unabated. (As an aside, it seems to me that giving Quebec everything it demands wouldn’t actually win O’Toole Bloc votes, but rather empower the Bloc to say that they were so effective that they got everything the demanded).

This exchange with Legault made some waves in Alberta, where the visions of Energy East continue to evade reality. So while Rachel Notley tries to score points against O’Toole, and her UCP opponents try to score their own points, here’s energy economist Andrew Leach calling out both sides on how wrong they are.

On the subject of Alberta’s oil patch, here is Leach laying out why the province over its past six premiers have engaged in a $26.4 billion boondoggle around building a refinery in the province and assuming all of the risk from their private sector partner, and will almost certainly wind up losing a hell of a lot of taxpayers’ money in the process. For everyone who insists that the province doesn’t subsidize the oil and gas sector, this is proof enough that such a claim is false, and it should enrage everyone in the province that their trust has been betrayed in such a 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: Independence and intense discussions

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As we’re still discussing the SNC-Lavalin/Jody Wilson-Raybould issue, we’ll start off with an interview with the Director of Public Prosecutions on her independence from political pressure, and why she opted not to enter into a deferred prosecution agreement with SNC-Lavalin, as well as why their quest for judicial review is foolhardy. Elsewhere, “senior officials” say that intense discussions with Wilson-Raybould on the SNC-Lavalin issue did take place, but that there’s nothing wrong with that. David Lametti took to television to say that he doesn’t see any evidence to warrant the justice committee’s investigation, but it’s up to them to decide. It also sounds like the Liberals on the justice committee are going to turn down the motion to launch an investigation, so expect more howling about this over the week to come.

While we wait for the committee, Andrew Scheer has written to the PM to demand that he waive solicitor-client privilege with Wilson-Raybould, under the ham-handed threat that failure to do so means that he has something to hide. Scheer, it has also been noted, also met with SNC-Lavalin lobbyists on their criminal charge issues and deferred prosecution agreements, but Scheer won’t say what his positions on them are.

Amidst this, there are a few more anonymous Liberal voices grousing about Wilson-Raybould in the media now, saying that she was more about herself than the team, and that she only ever showed up to Indigenous caucus once.

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1094736733609095168

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1094738844275097600

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1094750943793442816

Meanwhile, University of Ottawa law professor Craig Forcese walks through the public law principles at stake, and the fact that we don’t really know just what is being implied because the terms used interchangeably in the original Globe story all mean different things, which makes the nuance of this situation inherently tricky. Keeping Forcese’s analysis in mind, Susan Delacourt hears from her “senior officials” that the PM still has confidence in Wilson-Raybould and that he plans to meet with her before the next Cabinet meeting, and they continue to dispute the account in the Globe and Mail, citing that if they had attempted undue influence that she would have resigned out of principle, and she did not.

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Roundup: Polling on magical parties

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I am not a big fan about reporting on polls, which makes me particularly aggrieved that we saw a few stories today about the latest Angus Reid poll that postulated a hypothetical “Western Canada Party” and how that would skew the vote for the established parties. Why a poll like this is especially irksome is because when you invite people to vote for a hypothetical that has no leader, or policies, or structure, or even raison d’être, then it simply becomes a repository for unicorns and pixie dust. You’re inviting people from four fairly disparate provinces to join forces, when you have separate grievances with the federal government, and you think you’d make a coherent political force out of it? Really? What exactly is anyone supposed to take from this message, other than people have vivid imaginations?

Of course, the idea is pretty ludicrous on its face – it could never be anything other than a protest party that couldn’t aspire to power by sheer mathematics – and it builds on some particular mythology around the Reform Party that I’m not sure necessarily reflects history. You have people like Deborah Grey who hears this and just sighs about the notion about splitting the Conservative party again (though there is plenty to debate about how we qualify the “reunification”). Should Andrew Scheer read this poll and take it as a warning that his Western base thinks he’s pandering too much to Quebec? We’ve already seen him embrace some outright tinfoil hattery because he’s been spooked by Maxime Bernier and losing those votes – will he crank up his faux-Saskatchewan credentials to eleven for the rest of the election to keep pretending that he’s one of them to bash away at the federal government? Will we hear big and small-c conservatives double down on the faux mythology of Alberta’s conservativism (and if you haven’t yet, please do read Jen Gerson’s exploration of that mythology here). “Ooh, but protest vote!” people will handwave. But BC and Alberta would be protesting against different things – and different parts of BC would have different protests at that. Grievance-mongering is not a path to sustainable politics. Polls like this just confuse issues and make people think that there are magic wands – or in this case, magical political parties that could somehow cure all of their woes by forcing Ottawa to take them seriously, somehow. But that’s not real life, and politics is hard work, which is not something that this kind of polling reflects.

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