Tag Archives: Broadcasting

Roundup: It’s Speaker Election Day!

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Today is the day for the election of the new House of Commons Speaker, which begins with speeches at 10 AM, a thirty-minute pause so that the candidates can lobby MPs one last time and answer any questions they have, and then they begin voting. It’s a preferential ballot, so we don’t know how long it will take to count (which will depend if someone wins on the first ballot or not), and then they need to go through the protocol with the Senate before the Commons can return to business. Depending on how long this takes, we may or may not have Question Period today, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, here are some of the candidates for the position lamenting the current state of affairs in the Commons, but as I wrote in my weekend column, this is something that the Speaker alone cannot fix. He or she can help, particularly by applying the rules and not simply shrugging off when people break them (like Anthony Rota had a tendency to do), but real reform is going to require the cooperation of all MPs to change the Standing Orders to empower the Speaker to do more, and to give up the power of the party House Leaders to determine speaking lists (because they claim to need to have a “strategy,” which is both ridiculous and undermines the power of MPs). And more to the point, if a Speaker is too tough in enforcing the rules, then MPs may conspire to ensure they don’t win the Speaker election in the next Parliament (which is what happened to Geoff Regan, and why we wound up with the deeply unserious Rota).

This being said, it sounds like Chris d’Entrement may have soured his chances with the Liberals with his ruling last week in not admonishing Melissa Lantsman for her personal attack on Karina Gould during Question Period, and that may mean that Alexandra Mendès could win enough votes provided that enough Liberals rally around her as first choice, ensuring that we finally get our second female Speaker (finally), given that I really don’t think that Greg Fergus or Sean Casey are serious contenders for the job. Then again, ranked ballots are funny things, and sometimes crazy things happen as a result.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian forces shelled the southern city of Kherson, killing two and wounding ten. In the northern city of Kharkiv, officials are building a fully underground school so that children can learn safely as Russian attack continue. Meanwhile, as shenanigans are taking place in the US Congress around funding for Ukraine, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with EU ministers about continuing vital cooperation.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1708921746907111912

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Roundup: Empty threats to sit into the summer

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Because this whole thing is nothing but really bad theatre, Pierre Poilievre went back before the microphones yesterday morning, declared victory from his fauxlibuster that didn’t accomplish a single gods damned thing, and then said that he was prepared to sit through the summer to make sure that the he got his budget demands. But that was another empty threat, because he doesn’t have the votes to block anything.

And lo, after Question Period, the budget bill passed as it was expected to, and is off to the Senate. Poilievre says his senators will try to stall or stop the bill there, but again, they don’t have anywhere near enough votes for that to make a difference, even if they do have a few more procedural opportunities to slow it down a little. Of course, this is a government bill so the Leader of the Government in the Senate can attempt time allocation if he thinks he has the votes to pull it off (and he probably does), so the delays will likely be fairly minimal.

This being said, the Government House Leader also said that he won’t let the House rise for the summer until they pass his motion to make hybrid sittings permanent, which is an abomination that is going to hasten the decline of our already weakened Parliament. (And yes, I have a full column on this coming out later today).

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1666830949420609537

Ukraine Dispatch:

While evacuations are taking place in Kherson as a result of the flood caused by the breached dam, Russians are shelling the area, including evacuation hotspots, because of course they are. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the area to see the flood devastation first-hand. Russians launched another overnight air attack, killing one person in Uman in the Cherkasy region.

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Roundup: Danielle Smith stays, Alberta still a one-party state

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Well, Alberta has decided that it remains a one-party state, no matter how corrupted that party is, or how completely awful the leader is, and just how utterly unsuited Danielle Smith is for office, and that she has embraced all manner of conspiracy theories, or behaved in ways that imperilled democracy. While I have a full column on this coming out later today, there are a couple of things not mentioned therein that I did still want to mention.

One is that I cannot fathom how the whole “Take Back Alberta” narrative persisted. Take it back from whom? From what? You’ve been a one-party state for nearly fifty years, minus the four-year NDP interregnum that came about as a result of a perfect storm that in no way could be replicated this time around.

The NDP ran a weak campaign, and they are now comforting themselves with the fact that they have the largest official opposition in the province’s history, for what little it matters because Smith still has a majority, and they have no actual leverage to make any particular difference in the legislature. I am feeling some flashbacks to 2011 when the federal NDP formed official opposition and felt like they won the election, when they also handed the Conservatives a majority and they had no actual ability to make change or have leverage.

There is also still a particular ugliness in this election, as exemplified by the fact that the UCP candidate who compared trans children to faeces in cookie batter won by a landslide. Smith claims that she’s out of caucus “for good,” but I don’t actually believe her, and I have no doubt that after a few months in that penalty box, she’ll be welcomed back into the party because Smith believes in forgiveness, or some bullshit like that. And not nearly enough people will do any soul-searching over this, and this ugliness will fester.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Another night, another massive air raid against Kyiv and other cities in Ukraine, with more than 20 drones shot down as of this writing, and at least one high rise is being evacuated as falling debris has caused a fire. The constant nightly air attacks against Kyiv are taking a toll on its citizens (which is of course why the Russians are doing it). Russians did also allegedly hit a Ukrainian air base, plus port infrastructure in Odessa. There was also a Russian attack on the city of Toretsk in the Donetsk region, which killed two and injured at least eight.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1663350609385254912

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1663176973793861633

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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: Andrew Scheer, media critic

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In the wake of Bill C-11 receiving royal assent, Conservatives have been doing a full court press on social media to denounce this supposed “censorship” bill (which is nothing of the sort—it obligates web giants and streaming services to report Canadian revenues and pay into media creation funds based on a percentage of those revenues). And because he’s a wannabe fourteen-year-old shitposting edgelord, Andrew Scheer is taking shots at the media about the reporting on this.

What you might notice is that Scheer is calling The Canadian Press newswire “CBC’s news service” because CBC is one of CP’s clients and the content they buy from the wire funds its operations. This, of course, taints CP in the Conservatives’ estimation, and Pierre Poilievre bullied a CP reporter about this at a press event a couple of weeks ago, and tried to insinuate that this means that they somehow fit stories to the government narrative in order to get that CBC money. It’s a complete fabrication, but it’s intended to be—this is all about flooding the field with bullshit.

Scheer goes on to complain about how the story is covered—because he’s a media critic, don’t you know. The story doesn’t quote a Conservative source, but it cites their (misleading) position that the bill is “censorship” (again, this is a lie), but because it’s CP, it rather obsequiously both-sides everything. It doesn’t actually call out the Conservative position as the bullshit that it is, but because it’s not complete stenography of the Conservative line, it must be “bought media” and advances this farcical notion that the government is “shutting down dissent.” Hardly.

But truth doesn’t matter to Scheer. He’s been trying to delegitimise mainstream media for years now (recall that he called True North (aka Rebel Lite™) and Post Millennial “credible” sources, which should tell you everything you need to know about Scheer’s media literacy skills and judgment). Even though the Conservatives have learned how to manipulate mainstream outlets with their persistent both-sidesing, and knowing that it lets them get away with lying, it’s not enough, because occasionally, that both-sidesing can showcase how much the Conservative narrative is full of falsehoods, and they couldn’t possibly have that. Best to have their own stenographers and ensure that only their narratives get out.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians made an overnight attack against civilian targets in a variety of cities, leaving at least five dead. Russian forces are also trying to cut off supply lines to Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut, but the Ukrainian forces have managed to resist these attacks, and take back some other sections of the city that Russians have been occupying. Ahead of the spring counteroffensive, some 98 percent of promised NATO aid has arrived in Ukraine, amounting to over 1550 armoured vehicles, 230 tanks, and “vast amounts” of ammunition. Here’s a look at mental health supports available for Ukrainian soldiers.

https://twitter.com/gerashchenko_en/status/1651785146142453765

https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/1651456287408832512

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Roundup: No authority to examine

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It was not unexpected, but the Auditor General did confirm yesterday that she wasn’t going to be looking into the Trudeau Foundation’s private donations because it’s not within her wheelhouse. Which is what I’ve been saying for over a week now—the Foundation isn’t a Crown corporation, its only reporting relationship to the Industry Minister is around the status of the initial endowment, and the Conservatives put them under the Access to Information and Privacy regime in 2007 because they put all kinds of organisation with a tangential relationship to government under the regime during their performative toughness. It doesn’t fall under the Financial Administration Act, so there is no basis for the AG to examine their books.

This news of course has the Bloc somewhat apoplectic, and they insist that if she doesn’t have the authority to look into their books, then Parliament should give her that authority. Which is, frankly, boneheaded. She already has more than enough work to do. The very last thing we need to do is turn her into some kind of roving commission of inquiry for MPs to sic her upon anyone who turns their ire (through a motion in the House of Commons that she would “consider”), especially because she’s already unaccountable for her parliamentary audits. Extending those into past Parliament or Crown corporations would be a disaster.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives have bene trying to weaponise the Public Accounts Committee into looking into the Foundation, which again, is beyond their ambit. It’s especially beyond their ambit because the Auditor General hasn’t produced a report on them, and she won’t—because she has no authority to—so that particular committee has no authority to look into it. And yet, they voted on doing just so, but with the caveat of not calling any elected officials or members of the Trudeau family to testify. I can’t believe that the committee clerk didn’t warn the Chair this is out of bounds, but this is an opposition-chaired committee—in this case, Conservative John Williamson—and it sounds like he opted to ignore that warning and proceed anyway, which is incredibly poor form, especially since this whole exercise is about little more than letting Garnett Genuis perform for the cameras. And once again, we prove that ours is not a serious Parliament.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Estonia’s prime minister met with president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the northwestern city of Zhytomyr, and said that she supports Ukraine’s accession to NATO “as soon as conditions allow” (which means the war has to be over and Russian forces no longer occupying territory).

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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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QP: Useless responses to bad faith questions on carbon prices

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While the prime minster was in town earlier in the morning, he headed off to Montreal for private business instead of attending QP, while his deputy continued her weeks-long absence from QP. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and accused Trudeau’s brother of accepting the dubious Chinese-funded donation to the Trudeau Foundation, and wanted him summoned to committee. Mark Holland insisted the prime minister had no relationship with the Foundation. Poilievre repeated the same in English with some added flourish, and Holland repeated his same response. Poilievre then moved onto the GHG emissions inventory, noted that it did increase in 2021—without noting that the curve has been bent and emissions are falling overall, to which Terry Duguid recited a script about the rebates. Poilievre cherry-picked figures from the PBO’s report that distorted what it claims, insisting the carbon price was useless and costly, and Duguid proved his own uselessness in repeating another good news talking point. Poilievre then demanded the government cut taxes and their “inflationary deficits,” to which François-Philippe Champagne listed priorities that Canadians told them they held, and that the government was acting on them.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and spun a narrative about David Johnston and the Trudeau Foundation, and demanded a public inquiry at once. Dominic LeBlanc disputed that the government has done nothing, and listed some of their actions. Therrien then raised Katie Telford’s testimony at committee and complained about it, to which LeBlanc praised the work that Johnston is undertaking.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and demanded the government “get serious” in negotiating a “fair contract” with public sector workers. Mona Fortier read a script about a good offer on the table and that they expect both parties to act in good faith. Singh repeated the question in French, and got the same scripted response.

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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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