Tag Archives: Brian Jean

Roundup: A more modest budget than feared

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We are now somewhere around day forty-four of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russia’s retreat from Chernihiv has shown much more destruction in its wake. Given that Russia is re-positioning to the Donbas region, Ukraine is trying to maintain humanitarian corridors from the area, while pleading with NATO and other countries for yet more weapons to fight the Russian invaders. Meanwhile, RCMP officers in Canada are reaching out to Ukrainians who have made it here to gather evidence of Russian war crimes, so that it can be forwarded to The Hauge.

As for the budget, it was not the orgy of NDP-led spending that Candice Bergen and others had been hinting at, though it did increase spending somewhat, but that was largely offset by higher revenues thanks to the booming economy. The deficit is reducing rapidly, as is the debt-to-GDP ratio, which is the “fiscal anchor.” In fact, Bergen’s reaction speech was pretty much drafted with a very different budget in mind, and when called on this, she prevaricated. Jagmeet Singh, predictably, said there was enough in there for him to support (checklist here), but he still put on a show about criticising things he didn’t like, and the environmental provisions in particular.

Some specifics:

  • Here are the $10 billion in housing measures the government is proposing, though some of those measures will do nothing for affordability.
  • The corporate tax rate is going up, and there is a special surcharge being levied against banks and insurance companies, as promised.
  • There is money allocated for dental care, but no details on the implementation mechanism, which is very important to have.
  • The $8 billion over five years in new defence spending won’t get us to the NATO two-percent goal, but a needed defence review is included.
  • There is some $500 million earmarked for more military aid for Ukraine, plus another $1 billion in loans to prop up their economy.
  • There is new money for cyber-security, much of it going to CSE.
  • Some $15 billion is earmarked for the creation of two new arms-length bodies to help with medium-and-long term growth.
  • There is $4.3 billion over seven years for Indigenous housing.
  • As expected, the tax credit for carbon capture and storage projects is drawing heat from environmental groups.
  • There is $3.7 million being earmarked for mental health services for Black civil servants (as they have a class action lawsuit underway).
  • There is some more money for arts organizations including the National Arts Centre.
  • Both the National Post and The Canadian Press have lists of smaller items in the budget that may have escape notice.

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Roundup: A middle power and a convenor

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We are on day twenty-two of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the shelling and air strikes against civilian targets continue—an apartment building in Kyiv, a theatre where children were sheltering in Mariupol. Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the US Congress yesterday, invoking Pearl Harbour and 9/11 as part of his demand to close the sky” (which isn’t going to happen), and added that if America can’t do that, then to at least give Ukraine the planes so they can do it themselves. That was obviously a demand he couldn’t make of Canada (no, seriously—third-hand CF-18s would not be of much use to them), so we’ll see if that gets him any further aid from the US—hours after his address, Joe Biden signed an order authorising another $800 million worth of lethal aid, including anti-aircraft systems, so that presentation may have done its job.

https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1504186533791870984

Meanwhile, closer to home, Mélanie Joly’s comments that Canada isn’t a military power, but a middle power whose strength is convening to make sure diplomacy happens and convincing other countries to do more is rubbing a bunch of former military leaders the wrong way. We do contribute militarily, oftentimes more so than other allies who meet the stated NATO spending targets (which is one more reason why those targets are not a great measurement of anything), though our ability to do more is being constrained. That’s one reason why I’m getting mighty tired of the number of articles and op-eds over the last few days calling for more spending, while none of them address the current capacity constraints, particularly around recruiting.

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Roundup: Musings from a non-committee member

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It was another day of clutched pearls as Liberal MP Francis Drouin, who moved the motion at the stunt committee meeting on Wednesday to adjourn until the planned meeting next week, spoke to CBC about the fact that he thinks that they’ve heard enough and it’s time to move to the next phase of the committee. The problem? That Drouin isn’t actually a member of said committee, so his opinion doesn’t really matter. That he was at the committee on Wednesday is largely because his riding is not far from Ottawa, and that tends to be what happens when emergency meetings get called – most of the regular members don’t end up showing up because of travel times and commitments (or in this case, it’s the middle of March Break, and some of them have families with kids that they don’t see nearly enough). Now, if the Liberals meet on Tuesday, and put a bunch of ringers on the committee when they decide to go in camera to talk next steps for witnesses and timetables, and they decide they’ve had enough, well then, yes, we will have something to complain about. But that hasn’t happened yet, there isn’t any indication about that happening, so let’s all just calm down. Drouin is entitled to his own opinions, but he won’t be making any decisions here.

Should the justice committee opt to end the investigation, here are options that Jody Wilson-Raybould could use to “speak her truth” some more (though given how tactical her silence has been, I wouldn’t hold my breath). I also suspect that after their dire warnings yesterday, the opposition are going to start procedural shenanigans in order to try and force the government to carry on the hearings, but we’ll see how that unfolds.

In related news, it turns out that SNC-Lavalin also tried to recruit the Quebec justice minister to lobby for a DPA on their behalf. As well, a luxury condo in Toronto owned by the Gaddafi family, redecorated at SNC-Lavalin’s expense, has been sitting empty since 2009.

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Roundup: Decrying unfairness while ignoring logic

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As the countdown to Kinder Morgan’s deadline for some kind of reassurance around the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion draws near, we’re starting to see a lot of angry commentary from Western conservatives, and not all of it is very well thought out. Yesterday, former Wildrose leader Brian Jean took to the Financial Postto say that Alberta needs to demand a “fairer deal” from Canada…but made a litany of errors and misrepresentations, and gaps in the logic of his own conclusions. Andrew Leach laid out many of them here:

I would add that Jean also disingenuously ignored the fact that the Federal Court of Appeal ruled that the Northern Gateway process didn’t adequately consult the First Nations to a constitutional standard, which was entirely the fault of the Harper government and not Trudeau. And for his complaints around Energy East, he also ignored the fact that while the NEB said that they would look at downstream emissions as part of their analysis, Cabinet broadcast that their criteria for approval had not changed, and it did not include those emissions profiles. It also ignores the economics of the situation, that Energy East was the most expensive option now that Trans Mountain and Keystone XL had been approved. It also gives the false notion that it would allow Alberta oil to flow to Eastern refineries for the sake of “energy security” when those refineries are not built to handle the kind of heavy crude that Alberta exports, and thus the majority of it would not wind up in Canadian gas tanks. But hey, why do facts matter when you’re trying to stir up anger?

And anger over equalization is so easy to stir up when you constantly misrepresent the issue. It’s not a cheque that the province hands over – it comes mostly out of personal income taxes. It’s a federal programme, and the reason Alberta pays more into it and doesn’t get it is because Albertans have the highest incomes in the country, and the fiscal capacity that their government can offer the same level of services as other provinces without crippling taxes. And when Premier Moe starts tweeting about “shipping out” equalization dollars, I think it’s fair to ask if he thinks that his province wants either the lower incomes or the reduced fiscal capacity that it would take for them to be a net receiver of equalization. (Note: He does have a point about the rail backlogs, and the federal government could have taken measures to deal with that months ago if they so chose). But seriously – these equalization/fair deal gripes are not grounded in fact or logic, and we need to remind people of that.

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Roundup: Fun with populist proposals

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As the new United Conservative Party in Alberta starts to take shape, some familiar populist tropes have been tossed around, which the leadership candidates – Brian Jean especially – don’t seem to actually think through before proposing it. Colby Cosh, on the other hand, did think through some of those proposals and the problems that they would cause, particularly when it comes to thinks like local referendums on photo radar (which I will remind you is ridiculous – if you don’t want to get a ticket, then don’t speed. It’s your own damn fault if you get one), but the big one is promised recall legislation. People keep bringing this particular idea up time and again, enamoured with American examples thereof, without actually thinking through the consequences of how it would work in our particular system, especially when there are more than two parties on the ballot, making thresholds an important consideration. In BC, the one province where recall legislation exists, it’s set at 40 percent of eligible voters, making it high enough to never actually be used, but the Wildrose had previously proposed a twenty percent threshold, which would set up a constant flow of recall initiatives, at which point it becomes comical. Suffice to say, populism is not democracy, and people who treat them as interchangeable are asking for trouble.

Meanwhile, as could be expected, old Wildrose holdouts are looking to revive their now moribund party in one form or another, likely with a new name but the same policies and party constitution, given that they resolutely remain opposed to uniting. At the same time, former PC operatives and the provinces’ hipster centrists, the Alberta Party, are holding “Alberta Together” meetings, to apparently try and solidify the centrist vote in the province, for what it’s worth.

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Roundup: Disingenuous leadership promises

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In the wake of the unity vote in Alberta on the weekend, there were a number of developments around the United Conservative Party yesterday morning, starting with the fact that one of the other PC leadership candidates who lost to Jason Kenney left the party, citing that it wasn’t going to be centrist enough. Meanwhile, the Wildrose house leader, Nathan Cooper, was named interim leader of the united party, while they get their Elections Alberta paperwork sorted. (Incidentally, the leadership is supposed to be decided by October 28th and the legislature not recalled until October 30th).

https://twitter.com/MBellefontaine/status/889585274837098496

Brian Jean also tendered his resignation as Wildrose party leader, and made a bid for UCP leader by mid-afternoon. And that’s where some of the fun/frustration sets in.

https://twitter.com/mbellefontaine/status/889620613958184961

https://twitter.com/mbellefontaine/status/889622291591684097

These were two statements that Jean made, but they’re among the most problematic.  For starters, his promise on the carbon tax should be taken with a giant shaker of salt because by the time there’s an election in Alberta, there will be a federally mandated carbon price, and it would make absolutely no sense for a hypothetical Jean-led UCP government to withdraw the provincial tax only to be hit with a federal one that is designed roughly the same way – especially when the oil industry in Alberta has largely been behind the tax process because it offers them predictability and price measures that they can work with. And if Jean thinks that there will be a Scheer-led Conservative government federally who will cut the federal carbon tax, well, that sound a lot like counting chickens before they’re hatched.

The promise around equalization is even more nonsensical because there’s nothing that a referendum would actually accomplish. Equalization is a federal programme that comes out of the consolidated revenue fund. Alberta doesn’t write a cheque to Ottawa, who then turns it over to Quebec. Equalization comes out of the income taxes that everyone pays to the federal government, and is used to ensure that all provinces – especially those who don’t have a lot of revenue-generating potential – can offer roughly equal levels of services for things like healthcare. Alberta is a rich province. Its incomes are well above those in the rest of the country, and hence, they pay more income tax. That’s it. That’s how equalization works. If he thinks that he can somehow hold is breath and withhold paying, well, he’s utterly mistaken, and to promise otherwise is disingenuous, populist bilge. He can’t change the constitution either, so good luck with that. Sadly, because nobody actually explains to people how equalization works, people end up believing Jean’s nonsense.

Incidentally, Jason Kenney is expected to announce his UCP leadership bid this Saturday. Colby Cosh takes on the coming leadership contest here (and it’s a pretty cracking read).

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Roundup: The great Alberta merger

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Following 95 percent results on both Progressive Conservative and Wildrose Alliance party referendums, it looks like the new United Conservative Party in Alberta is a go, with the big question being who will be the interim leader while they formalize the process and start an actual leadership selection process. And hey, that could mean some internecine warfare right off the start. The death of the PC party in that province is a bit of an odd thing, but not entirely out of keeping with Alberta’s political history of single-party dynasties for long runs that eventually peter out and die, but what is left in the wake will be the big question.

Where the more centrist voters will go is the big question, because I’m not entirely certain that they’ll all migrate to the UCP, especially with the Wildrose component playing such a big role in it. While Jason Kenney spent the last year trying to convince people that a PC and a Wildrose vote would equal two against the NDP, I’m not sure the math is actually that solid. Why? Aside from the fact that it glosses over some of the history of the last provincial election, what the merger papers over in particular is the growing gap between rural and urban voters in the province, where riding redistribution has meant that the gerrymandered rural ridings no longer hold the weight that they once did. Make no mistake, there was a very big urban/rural divide between the PC and Wildrose parties, and much of that is along the social conservatism issue. Wildrose voters weren’t only outraged about the fiscal profligacy of later PC governments as they were about the fact that they capitulated on social issues, particularly around LGBT rights that they remain firmly opposed to. It’s why they pushed Danielle Smith out of the party (leading her to cross the floor to Prentice’s PCs at the time), and Jason Kenney and Brian Jean are going to have a hell of a time trying to square this particular circle when they try to build their “free enterprise coalition” as though the social conservative issues won’t rear their heads. What this merger may end up doing is regenerating the centrist parties in the province (take your pick between the Alberta Liberals, who have a new, credible leader, and the Alberta Party) now that the amorphous, centrist PC party is no more.

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Roundup: Kenney’s fading credibility

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It was no surprised that the motion to support the Iraq mission passed, but what was perhaps unexpected was the bit of verbal sparring between Jason Kenney and Justin Trudeau, and the issue of Kenney’s credibility came up. It has come up several times, having been called out repeatedly by journalists for posting misleading photos on his Twitter account, or his statements that were not true about things like Russian planes buzzing our frigate in the Black Sea, but this weekend, things got even more escalated when the Chief of Defence Staff had to come out and make a statement to both back up and correct the record with regards to Kenney’s statements about how Canada and the US were the only countries engaged in Syria and Iraq using precision bombs. That’s blatantly not true, and General Lawson had to use some careful language to not embarrass his minister but at the same time correct the record, and Kenney treated it as though Lawson backed up his statement – which he didn’t. And Trudeau used that during the question-and-answer portion of his speech on the Iraq motion, that the minister doesn’t have the credibility behind his words when it comes to the motion to extend the mission and the Liberals can’t trust him as a result. Will that be enough political cover for Trudeau given the disgruntled members of his own party who would see us join the mission? I guess we’ll wait and see. Meanwhile, the government’s fudging on the reality of our combat operations is a sign that Canadians really don’t have the stomach for another war.

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Roundup: It’s not an authorisation

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Today is the day that the Commons will be holding their non-binding vote on the motion to support the government’s decision to extend the military mission in Iraq and into Syria, but you wouldn’t know it based on the headlines out there right now. “Tories to push through authorization of Syria air mission,” says the Globe and Mail. Nope. It’s not an authorisation, and the Conservatives aren’t pushing it through because they have a majority and it was a foregone conclusion. “Avoiding Syrian air defences a concern as Commons set to approve war expansion,” says The Canadian Press. Still nope – it’s not an approval. It’s an expression of support. It’s right there in the text of the motion. Granted, the government is courting this kind of false interpretation by forcing an unnecessary vote in the first place, and no matter how correctly the motion is worded, they are presenting it as an authorisation or an approval when it’s not, precisely because politically it will help to launder the decision, and make it look like the Commons approved it when they didn’t. That way, when things to wrong – and they inevitably do – and the opposition does its job in holding the government to account, the government could say “the Commons voted on it,” and try to wash their hands of it. Except it’s not an approval, the motion states that, and We The Media need to stop playing the government’s game for them. So repeat after me – it’s an expression of support. That’s all.

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