Tag Archives: Border

QP: Conspiracies and scrambling the speaking list

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The prime minister was off to Toronto to mark the first day of awareness of gun violence, and his deputy and at least one other leader was away as well. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, insisting that the House of Commons declared non-confidence in David Johnston, said that Johnston’s declaration that he works for the government and not Parliament was part of the problem—never mind that Johnston is not an officer of parliament, and any public inquiry would also report to the government and have its terms of reference set by government, so functionally it would be no different. Bill Blair responded that Johnston was doing the work asked of him. Poilievre switched to English and haltingly asked Blair about the wildfire situation in Nova Scotia, and Blair assured him that they responded immediately to the request for assistance. Poilievre then pivoted to the news that Bay du Nord was being postponed for three years, blaming government “gatekeepers” as he blamed the government for other projects that have not gone ahead (mostly because oil prices didn’t warrant them). Steven Guilbeault said that he did approve the project but they paused it because of market conditions. Poilievre scoffed at the notion of market conditions, and this time Julie Dabrusin said that they have tabled a bill to help Atlantic provinces diversity their economies with offshore energy projects. Poilievre insisted the government keeps suffocating projects, and Dabrusin disputed this, listing mining projects approved. 

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he decried that Johnston reports to the government and demanded a public inquiry. Pascale St-Onge said she was disappointed that the opposition parties were not being responsible about combatting foreign interference or strengthening democracy, and implied them to get the briefings. Therrien was not mollified and tried again, and got the same response. 

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and worried about the early and severe wildfire season. Blair got up to note the size of the fires but also the federal assistance. Singh switched to French to asked about the opioid crisis, which gave Carolyn Bennett an opportunity to denounce Poilievre’s retrograde beliefs on drug policy.

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Roundup: Arguing over an appearance already scheduled

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It’s not even a sitting week, and yet we were treated to another instalment of the parliamentary clown show that has infected our House of Commons. The Procedure and House Affairs committee held an emergency meeting to demand that David Johnston appear before them to explain his reasons for not recommending a public inquiry. But the moment they got there, the chair said that Johnston was already scheduled to appear at the committee on June 6th, and that this had been arranged previously, and it just confirmed that this insistence he appear right away was just really, really bad theatre.

And then it went downhill from there, as MPs spent the next four hours debating a motion for Johnston to appear even sooner than the 6th, for no less than three hours, alone, because remember, they need to put on a bit song and dance about how they’re so serious! about all of these allegations. As I said, bad theatre. And then, the Liberals and NDP decided to try and be clever about this, and include a recommendation in the motion that all party leaders go through the security clearance process in order to read the full report and all of its classified evidence used to compile it. Well, that didn’t go over very well, and in the end, the Conservatives voted against their own motion because they didn’t want to be called out for refusing to actually read the full documents.

Spending four hours to try and sound tougher about a pre-scheduled meeting, to give themselves the last word, is just one more reason why our Parliament is no longer a serious institution. It’s appalling that they have wasted everyone’s time and resource like this, because Michael Cooper needed to make himself look like a tough guy. Inexcusable.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Wagner Group mercenaries are preparing to turn over control of their positions in Bakhmut to Russian soldiers, while Ukraine says that Wagner is only turning over positions on the outskirts of the city, and that they have drawn Russian forces into the city, where they are inflicting high casualties and weakening Russian defensive lines elsewhere. A prisoner swap took place for 106 Ukrainian soldiers, some of them captured in the fighting in Bakhmut. Russian control of one of the dams along the Dnipro river is causing flooding because they haven’t been working to level the water flow with the other dams in the network.

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Roundup: Chong didn’t explain how his privileges were breached

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Conservative MP Michael Chong appeared at the Procedure and House Affairs committee yesterday to discuss the sense that his privileges as an MP—being able to do his job—were breached by Beijing’s threats to him and his family. And so, Chong gave a speech at the committee where he touched briefly on the privilege issue, saying that he wants a formal parliamentary censure of the Chinese diplomat named (and since expelled) in the situation, before going on to whole thing about the prime minister, national security, and what we should be doing in Canada. And he’s not wrong! But that’s not the point of this committee meeting. The point was to discuss his privileges being breached, and what MPs should do about said breach.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1658610455739346944

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1658615915540279297

As expected, the Conservatives on the committee mostly spent the time trying to get Chong to denounce the prime minister, and did they talk about his privileges being breached? Nope. The other thing that bothered me was that Chong kept bringing up the Winnipeg Lab issue, which is where I have lost a lot of respect for him because he has been building a bullshit conspiracy theory around it. What happened at that Lab has been extensively reported on by Dylan Robertson and others. There was no indication that there was a national security issue involving China at all, but rather a policy breach around intellectual property with the two fired scientists. Chong would know this if the Conservatives had allowed NSICOP to view the redacted documents that had been provided to them, but they have steadfastly refused to do so because it serves their narratives not to. Is NSICOP perfect? No, but it’s a very good start, and if we want to transition it to a parliamentary model, there need to be a whole lot more steps than just Parliament making a declaration (one of the most important considerations being the lack of secure meeting spaces and servers on the Hill).

So while there were interesting things raised, the point of the meeting was about privileges, and once again, a committee is being abused to go on a tangent or a fishing expedition. Committees have functions, and this one was supposed to be determining how his ability to do his job was impacted. I didn’t see really any of that in the testimony, which is all the more frustrating.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Overnight attacks against Kyiv saw 18 missiles launched, all of which were shot down—but Ukrainian forces are saying that six of those missiles were hypersonic, and that their new air defences brought them down too, which is proving the new Western systems against the supposed best of what Russia has to offer. One of the Patriot missile systems used by Ukraine may have been damaged in a strike, however. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces appear to be making more gains around Bakhmut, which they say is not connected to the upcoming counter-offensive. Elsewhere, Ukraine’s chief of the Supreme Court has been dismissed after being detained in a bribery case.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1658379904029736960

https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/1658351720232108034

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Roundup: Abusing a committee’s mandate

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Because our Parliament is made up of deeply unserious people, the Conservatives on the Procedure and House Affairs committee, led by Garnett Genuis, are trying to push investigations of the Trudeau Foundation. The problem? This is far beyond the remit of this committee, and they have absolutely no authority to do what they’re attempting to do. The opposition members of the committee have been blocking Genuis’ motions, but this is absolutely abusing the parliamentary process in order to pursue a bullshit vendetta and conspiracy theory.

For the record, the committee is charged with dealing with the reports of the Auditor General, and ensuring that the government is accountable for implementing them. It’s actually one of the low-key best committees in the House of Commons, which largely does serious and valuable work and has been known to put ministers and deputy ministers on the hot seat in a serious way.

But there is absolutely no connection between the reports of the Auditor General and the Trudeau Foundation. The only government connection that the Foundation has is the endowment, which they remain accountable to the industry minister for maintaining intact. That’s it. Their donations have nothing to do with the government’s business. The Auditor General has no authority to audit the Foundation, and the CRA operates at arm’s length from the government, so the government and certainly not this committee can’t bully them into auditing the Foundation beyond the compliance measures they are already subjected to in order to maintain their non-profit status.  This is simply an attempt to weaponise the committee for the Conservatives’ political gain, and it’s damaging one of the few good committees in the Commons for a bullshit purpose.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian forces launched an air raid of “exceptional intensity” on Kyiv in the early morning hours, but damage was limited, mostly because air defences have been working. Over near Bakhmut, Ukrainian forces continue to push Russians back. Meanwhile, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy stopped in London at the end of his brief European tour to get a pledge of more drones and missiles from the UK. Anti-corruption forces in Ukraine seem to have found evidence of bribery in the country’s Supreme Court.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1658033675072598017

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Roundup: The scope of the transition

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As Alberta heads into an election, one can be certain that Danielle Smith is going to wield the threat of the supposed “just transition” as a cudgel to attack Justin Trudeau and Rachel Notley. Nevertheless, there are issues around the future of work in the province as the oil and gas extraction industry changes—a process that began years ago, and is currently far more automated than it used to be.

As Andrew Leach points out, the scale of the issue is something that the province will need to grapple with.

Ukraine Dispatch:

The death toll from the overnight strike in Uman has risen to 23, with another two deaths from a separate strike in Dnipro. Ukrainian leadership say that they are “to a high percentage ready” to launch their spring counter-offensive, and that modern weapons will serve as an “iron first.” Meanwhile, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy hosted the presidents of Slovakia and the Czech Republic, while seven foreign ministers met with Ukraine’s foreign minister in Odessa, all of whom were expressing support for Ukraine as Ukraine pushes for more modern aircraft.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1651966751268278272

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Roundup: The optics ouroboros

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So, that big CBC/Radio-Canada “scoop” that dominated the news yesterday about Justin Trudeau’s Christmas vacation. Because this is sometimes a media criticism blog, I figured I would make a few remarks, because there were some very obvious things about it that were just being shrugged off, or actively ignored by some of my fellow journalists. To begin with, there is not a lot of substance to the story. It’s some typical cheap outrage—how dare the prime minister go on a luxury vacation on taxpayer dollars when there are people struggling in Canada—mixed with a specious connection that doesn’t mean anything in substance, but which looks bad when you make it sound sinister in order to fit it in with the current nonsense around the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. Fit those two in a particular frame that makes it sound salacious, and you have the makings of a story that dominates Question Period. Congratulations! You’ve set the agenda for the day, you can pat yourselves on the back to your heart’s content.

But the whole connection to the Foundation is a construction that implies a relationship that doesn’t exist. Yes, the Trudeau and Green families have been friends for 50 years, but the donation to the Foundation was a bequest after the death of one of the Green family members, and it was done two years ago, which was eight years after Trudeau stepped away from any involvement in the Foundation. Implying that there was something untoward about the donation and then vacationing with Trudeau—who has been family friends his entire life—is simply scandal-mongering. And this gets justified with the pearl-clutching about “optics!” But you’re the one creating the optics with the distorted framing of the situation, so you’re literally inventing a mess that doesn’t actually exist, so that you can report on the invented mess, and then report on the follow-up reactions from other political leaders who will tut about “optics.” Which you created in the first place with your framing, like some kind of ouroboros. Very convenient, that.

None of this is to say that Trudeau shouldn’t know better than to take these kinds of trips, because he knows full well that there is an intrinsic culture of petty and mean cheapness in Canadian media, and that his opponents will take full advantage of it. And lo, the story also quotes unnamed Liberal Sources™ who are once again shocked and dismayed that the prime minister once again did something with poor optics, because that’s who he is. And Trudeau then made it worse, as pointed out in my QP recap, by not answering about the gift of the accommodations, which just perpetuates the story rather than cutting it off at the start. “Yes, I accepted the gift of the accommodations. Yes, the Ethics Commissioner cleared it. Yes, I paid the equivalent commercial rate for the flight.” And it stops their ability to try and stretch this into a scandal. But Trudeau and the people who advise his communications are so tone-deaf that they keep doing this. They keep stepping on every rake in their path, every single gods damned time.

Ukraine Dispatch:

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited troops in the eastern city of Avdiivka, which is facing an advance like Bakhmut, which itself is facing an increase in Russian shelling and air strikes. Ukraine has reached a deal with Poland about grain and other food products transiting that country, but the future of the Black Sea deal remains in doubt.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1648431809200553985

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Roundup: No, David Lametti isn’t threatening to tear up the constitution

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You may have noticed that the Conservatives engaged in a lot of rage-farming over the long weekend, sometimes to the point of flailing and reaching. There was one particular bad-faith episode (well, they’re all bad faith episodes) that was particularly egregious, and roped in several premiers, who were also engaged in their own bad faith. Late last week, justice minister David Lametti attended a special chiefs’ assembly of the Assembly of First Nations, and was asked about the Natural Resources Transfer Act of 1930, and how these treaty nations were not benefitting from them, and Lametti said he’d look at it, but acknowledged this would be controversial.

And how! Immediately, Danielle Smith, followed by Scott Moe and later Heather Stefanson insisted this was a plan to “tear up the constitution” and nationalise the control over natural resources, and before long, Pierre Poilievre got in on it, along with a chunk of his caucus who insisted this was some sinister federal plan. It’s not, and this is more bad faith bullshit (which, of course, the gods damned CBC just both-sidesed, because they still think you can both-sides bad faith).

It’s actually in the legislation that the federal government can give back land to the First Nations to honour treaty obligations, and that’s at the heart of this. It’s their land. The treaties are to share the wealth, and, well, we haven’t been. They have a legitimate point here and the government has an obligation to at least hear them out on this. Is that going to cause a fuss? Yeah, probably, because settler governments, particularly in provinces, particularly those who are dependent on resource revenues, are not going to want to share that wealth. But the time is coming, sooner or later, when these conversations need to be had, because economic reconciliation means more than just dangling bribes to affected First Nations when resource extraction projects happen on their lands. Not that bad faith actors like Danielle Smith, Scott Moe or Pierre Poilievre will acknowledge this reality.

Ukraine Dispatch:

In what seems to be a repeating story, Russian Wagner group mercenaries claim—again—that they control most of Bakhmut, while Ukrainian forces claim, again, that they are holding firm. Not far away in Avdiivka, it is estimated that some 1800 people are still living in the city as Russian forces pound it. There was a prisoner swap of about 200 Russians and Ukrainian soldiers on Monday. Ukraine also resumed electricity exports to Europe now that they are able to meet their domestic demand after Russia targeted their energy infrastructure late last year.

https://twitter.com/denys_shmyhal/status/1645857297955192848

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Roundup: Climate policy gains

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How many times have we been told in Question Period that the Liberal haven’t met any of their climate targets, or that their carbon price hasn’t reduced any emissions, or the “it’s not an environment plan, it’s a tax plan!” bullshit? Setting aside the fact that the Liberals’ targets aren’t until 2030, and it’s Harper’s targets (that he had zero intention of actually meeting) that haven’t been met, it turns out that actually, the Liberals’ climate plans are having an effect, and it’s not just the economic slowdown and stay-at-home orders from the pandemic that are causing it. Imagine that!

Ukraine Dispatch:

During his visit to Krakow, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine is prepared to take “corresponding action” if their positions around Bakhmut are about to be encircled, but they are not at that point. He also said that Poland would help form a “warplane coalition” to help get planes to Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1643702530541486081

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1643639486205575169

Programming Note: I plan to take a full four-day weekend, so regular posts should resume on Wednesday morning.

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Roundup: Ford blames Trudeau for his failures (again)

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You’re seeing a lot of blame being placed at the federal government for the rising crime rates, and a tonne of disinformation about the so-called “catch and release” bail system, which is not catch-and-release, and in some cases is pure distraction. Case in point was around the murder of a teenager at a Toronto subway station. Doug Ford is making noises blaming the federal government for this incident, demanding immediate changes to the bail system—changes that would no doubt be unconstitutional, since the changes they have agreed to with provincial counterparts are very narrowly targeted.

But the real problem is in the provinces. It’s provinces under-resourcing courts, and mostly underfunding social programmes that would keep these kinds of people out of the criminal justice system. In this particular case, the accused has a long history of interactions with the justice system because he has been failed at every turn, and was in dire need of rehabilitation and mental health supports. And you know whose responsibility that is? The province. Ford has been under-funding the system for years, most especially healthcare, which he deliberately underfunds and then cries poor in demanding more federal money, with no strings attached (which he then puts on the province’s bottom line to reduce his deficit, like he did with pandemic spending). Locking these people up in jail doesn’t solve the problem, and only makes it worse in the long-run, and yes, Ford’s predecessors are also guilty of underfunding the system (though I don’t seem to recall them underspending their healthcare budget—merely cutting it to the bone in the name of “efficiencies.”)

The problems we’re seeing are broader, more systemic societal problems, and removing the presumption of innocence and the right to bail doesn’t change that. In fact, it just creates more problems, and political leaders need to start recognising this fact rather than just blaming the federal government for codifying a number of Supreme Court of Canada decisions.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces destroyed 14 out of 17 Iranian-made drones launched over Ukraine, mostly around Odessa. Over in Bakhmut, Ukrainian forces are mocking the Russian claims they captured the city, saying that the Russians raised their flag over “some kind of toilet.” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be visiting Warsaw this week to meet with leaders, as well as Ukrainians taking shelter in that country.

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Roundup: The thing about the interim ethics commissioner

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The issue with the appointment of Dominic LeBlanc’s sister-in-law as the interim ethics commissioner has been nearly inexplicable, until you actually look at the position itself. The optics are absolutely bad, and a very real problem because of the whole issue around perceived conflicts of interest. The problem, however, is that they may not have had much choice in the matter given how the role is structured legislatively. While LeBlanc had no role in the decision, the PMO told CBC that the Privy Council Office—meaning the non-partisan civil service—is responsible for the decision, which no member of the government has stated to date, and you think they would have, if they could communicate their way out of a wet paper bag.

The legislated criteria for who can be the ethics commissioner is very restrictive—you need to be either a former judge, the formal head of a quasi-judicial administrative tribunal, or the former Senate Ethics Officer. Unspoken qualification is that you would also have to be bilingual, which limits your field even further, particularly for former judges. And while the salary was commensurate of that of a federally-appointed judge, the posting for the new commissioner cuts that by a third to bring it in line with other officers of parliament, which is going to make it all the more unattractive, particularly to former judges who are going to take one look at it and decide that they don’t need the aggravation for the amount of money they’re being offered.

There’s a reason why Mary Dawson’s term needed to be extended two or three times while they looked for a replacement. There’s a reason why they pretty much had no choice but to go with Mario Dion when he applied, because there was nobody else (and Dion was not the best choice on offer). And when Dion resigned the post suddenly (two years early) for health reasons, they were pretty much screwed because they couldn’t extend him until a replacement could be found. The solution was the most senior person in the office—said sister-in-law of Dominic LeBlanc—who has been there for ten years. And there is already an ethics screen in place regarding LeBlanc, to keep her out of any conflicts. It’s likely that PCO’s determination was that this was the best of a bad situation, but it’s not good. The interim commissioner doesn’t qualify to become the permanent commissioner, so this situation is temporary. But ultimately, this is a failing of the legislation, because MPs were trying to play tough when they brought it in, and wound up shooting themselves in the foot over it. And now there is an untenable situation because they boxed themselves in. Good job, guys. Your posturing has really paid off.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces report that the Russian advance on the outskirts of Bakhmut has been “halted—or nearly halted.” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy marked the one-year anniversary of the liberation of Bucha, and the discovery of the horrors left in the Russians’ wake, making another call for justice for war crimes.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1641810694852026369

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