Tag Archives: Budget 2023

QP: Questions about French castles

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While the prime minister was entertaining Caribbean leaders for the CARICOM summit, his deputy was on her way to Washington for other meetings, and only a couple of the other leaders were present in the Chamber for QP. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and recounted the story of a couple from Ontario who wold their home and bought a castle in France, and wouldn’t be able to afford to move back to Ontario and buy a new home there. François-Philippe Champagne took this up and launched into a demand that the Conservatives support their bill on affordability. Poilievre pivoted and said that they warned the government that the clean fuel regulations would impose higher costs on lower income Canadians and wanted it cancelled, and Steven Guilbeault noted that the Conservatives campaigned on the same standards, but the difference is that the Liberals actually did it. Poilievre switched to English to repeat the story of a couple with the castle in France. Champagne got back up to deploy the “take no lessons” line and exhorted the Conservatives support their bill. Poilievre claimed this was Champagne saying “let them eat cake,” and this time Karina Gould got up to point out that Poilievre won’t explain why he won’t support a bill to increase affordability measures. Poilievre returned to the question on the clean fuel regulations, and this time Guilbeault read a survey of small businesses owners impacted by weather events and pilloried the Conservatives for ignoring climate change. 

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and decried that only 20 trucks of humanitarian aid have been allowed into Gaza, and wanted to know if the government has been on the case. Mélanie Joly says that they have been constantly asking to deliver humanitarian aid, and that they are engaging with the different countries in the region. Therrien insisted that Canada needed to show humanitarian leadership, to which Ahmed Hussen red a script about their commitment to getting humanitarian aid to civilians. 

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he railed that Toronto hasn’t received the promised $97 million in aid for housing, particularly around asylum seekers. Mark Miller said that they are engaging with the city and the province, and that they have been asking the city for the receipts which they will pay for once they receive them. Singh switched to French to recount a story of someone who was evicted and needed to find a smaller, less adapted home. Champagne exhorted him and all of the opposition to vote for their affordability measure.

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QP: Dangerous questions on the independence of media

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The prime minister was present today, which was nice to see, as were all of the other party leaders, and it wasn’t even a Wednesday to get everyone together, so that was great. The prime minister’s deputy, however, was absent, as is so often the case these days. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he decried that the government’s deficit is driving up inflation and interest rates, which means people can’t get homes. (Erm…) Justin Trudeau responded that the austerity preached by the opposition wouldn’t help anyone get housing, before praising his government’s programmes. Poilievre insisted that people were living austerity while the government lived in largesse, and repeated his anecdote yesterday about the shipyard worker who couldn’t afford a house in Vancouver. Trudeau repeated that the Conservative’s austerity wouldn’t help people, and wondered what programmes the Conservatives would cut. Poilievre switched to English to repeat his anecdote about the shipyard worker with some added affected gravitas, and Trudeau repeated that the Conservative austerity won’t help anyone. Poilievre repeated his talking point about people living austerity amidst government largesse. Trudeau reminded him that Canada already has the lowest deficit and debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7, and wondered again what programmes Poilievre proposes to cut. Poilievre insisted he would cut the ArriveCan app, the Infrastructure Bank and McKinsey contracts and wondered if he would cooperate with the RCMP investigation into the ArriveCan contract. Trudeau noted that the government invests in people, and suggests that Poilievre ride the new transit line in Montreal that the Infrastructure Bank helped fund.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he returned to his concern trolling about Canada not being part of the Quint group (never mind that we are not a nuclear power), to which Trudeau insisted that Canada is already working closely with the US and other countries. Blanchet repeated his question, and wondered if party leaders could get more comprehensive briefings, and Trudeau said his officials were working on it.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he wanted assurances that all Canadians could safely get out of Gaza. Trudeau said that they have been concerned for all of the innocents in the region and praised their airlifts, before saying he was working to get the humanitarian corridor so Canadians could get out. Singh switched to French to raise the possibility that a hospital in Gaza may have been hit, and demanded that Trudeau call for a ceasefire. Trudeau insisted that he has been calling for hostages to be freed and to call for international law be respected.

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QP: Concerns about the situation in Israel

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While the prime minister was in down, he was not in QP today, though his deputy was for a change. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and in a somber tone, asked for an update on those Canadians looking to get out of Israel and Gaza, as well as those in Lebanon looking to get out. Chrystia Freeland noted that this was the first time they were in the Chamber since the Hamas attacks, and she declared that Canada is supporting Israel and demands the release of hostages and unequivocally condemned Hamas’ attacks. Poilievre switched to English to decry the Hamas attacks, and demanded that the government criminaise the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Freeland repeated her previous statement in English instead of answering the demand. Poilievre pivoted and raised the PBO’s recent projection about the deficit and that it was higher than projected, and demanded to know how this would affect inflation and interest rates. Freeland said that a fiscal update would be coming in due course, and that they should pay attention to the independent ratings agencies who keep affirming our Aaa rating. Poilievre cited former finance minister John Manley’s concerns, and insisted this was the government ruining our fiscal position. Freeland repeated the point about ratings agencies and that our deficit and debt-to-GDP ratio is the lowest in the G7. Poilievre raised the plight of a shipyard worker he met who worries about his mortgages, and blamed the deficit. Freeland scoffed that talk is cheap, and said that if the Conservatives cared about the housing crisis, they would support their bill.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and worried that we weren’t included in the Quint statement on the situation in Isreal—ignoring that the Quint is about nuclear powers, which we are not. Freeland spoke about being at an IMF finance meeting in Morocco last week and that they all put out a statement in support of Israel. Blanchet kept insisting that Canada was not being included, and Freeland spoke about Israel not being a partisan issue but a Canadian issue.

Heather McPherson rose for the NDP, and she also raised concerns about the hostages in Gaza, including several Canadians. Freeland praised the clarity on condemnation for the terror attacks, and that that the government calls for the release of those hostages. McPherson accused the government of not standing up for innocent Palestinians and demanded the government call for a ceasefire. Freeland raised that the government supports Israel’s right to defend itself and they have sent $10 million in humanitarian aid to “trusted partners.”

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Roundup: A cut or not a cut of the defence budget?

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Yesterday morning, the CBC had a story about the department of national defence looking to cut $1 billion from its books as part of the government’s ongoing spending review, and people lost their gods damned minds, both in Canada and in some international venues. The story was based on comments that were made at committee by the chief of defence staff and the deputy minister, and they talked about how it was going to be challenging to meet these reductions while worrying about capabilities. This was a bit of a surprise, because Anita Anand had previous said that defence was going to be exempt from her cost-cutting demands, but the comments from General Eyre and the deputy minister sounded like DND volunteered to do their share (which I always treat with suspicion—the previous Auditor General made his own pledge to do his part to make cuts as part of the Deficit Reduction Action Plan™, and lo, wound up delaying badly overdue IT upgrades that his successor needed to beg Parliament for more resources to deal with). And because this is not my first rodeo, I immediately presumed that what this likely means is the accounting game of shifting certain spending into future years or re-profiling some committed dollars that they can’t spend (because they simply don’t have the capacity to spend their current allocation), but a whole lot of people who should know better freaked all the way out.

This came up in Question Period, and Bill Blair was present, but he didn’t really answer the question—he took a swipe at the Conservatives for their record of cutting defence spending to below 1 percent of GDP (indeed, here’s a look back in history of Harper complaining to Peter MacKay that he didn’t cut the military enough) and then read some bland pabulum that didn’t even approach answering the question—because that’s what this government does. It wasn’t until nearly 4 PM that Blair posted a thread to Twitter about how they were still increasing the defence budget, and these $1 billion in savings were internal measures like cutting back on travel and consultants, but noted the spending commitments they’ve made like NORAD modernisation, and ships and planes, and so on.

It absolutely mystifies me as to how this message-obsessed government took almost eight hours to craft a response to this news story that when they could have shut down the hysterical reaction to it in mere minutes had they simply sent out a similar tweet first thing in the morning. There is nothing in there to demonstrate why it took eight hours. They could also have had Blair give a reasonable response during QP that would have simply said “This reporting is exaggerated, we are looking for some efficiencies, but overall defence spending is still increasing,” and it would have defused everything. But they didn’t, either because they’re inept, or it takes them that many hours to get sign-off from Katie Telford’s office, which is a sad sign about where this government is at. But nearly eight hours for this kind of response to the story is unacceptable, and it’s a real-time demonstration in why things need to change at the top with this government.

Ukraine Dispatch:

The first American Abrams tanks are being delivered in the eastern front, in the hopes they will make a difference. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy marked the 82nd anniversary of the Babyn Yar massacre by Nazi forces.

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Roundup: The sound and fury of a special committee

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NDP MP Niki Ashton sent out a press release yesterday calling on the minister of national revenue to create a special committee to crack down on tax avoidance by billionaires. I have my doubts about just what a parliamentary committee could do on its own. Asking them to recommend solutions seems like a fairly inefficient way to go about it because there are changes put forward every year to close loopholes, and the tax avoidance experts find new ones. 🎶It’s the circle of life! 🎶

My deeper suspicion is that this is mostly just about performing for the cameras, which MPs are increasingly using committees to do rather than doing serious work, and Jagmeet Singh was trying to get in on that in a big way over the past few months, such as his little dog and pony show with the stack of papers that were supposedly all questions he was going to ask Galen Weston, and then promptly did not. Additionally, however, parliamentary resources are constrained because of hybrid sittings, and the injury and burnout rate for interpretation staff, and in the most bitter of ironies, Ashton is one of the worst offenders for abusing hybrid rules, and has pretty much opted to almost never show up in Ottawa. (She may deign to visit once every six to eight weeks, and only if she is required for some kind of media event).

Because economist Lindsay Tedds is one of the foremost tax policy experts in the country, I pointed this out to her, and well, she had thoughts.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1695109929902993636

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1695104974353842372

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian officials say that Russian forces are regrouping in occupied territories in the country’s east, and will likely try another offensive push. Ukraine is also saying they hit a Russian military base deep in occupied Crimea as part of their operation earlier in the week. The Ukrainian government has also dismissed the head of its State Emergency Service after an inspection, but haven’t said what the reason was.

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Roundup: Promising a spending cut—for real this time!

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It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who has paid attention, but word has come down that new Treasury Board president Anita Anand will be tasking other ministers to find $15.4 billion in spending cuts with a deadline of October 2nd, and they really mean it this time. For realsies. The Liberals have been promising programme spending reviews for years now, but haven’t seemed to show any progress on them, or at least not in any public or transparent way, and that’s generally a problem for any government, and particularly one who has been in power for as long as this one has. Anand’s expertise is in governance, so she might have a chance to pull this off, but the civil service has fought back against Treasury Board presidents trying to make reforms—Scott Brison tried to reform the Estimates process and bring it back into line with the budget cycle, and he lost that battle, and it doesn’t look like any of his successors have even tried since. The other thing here is that $15.2 billion is going to be hard to justify if the military is excluded, but can they actually make cuts (setting aside the lapsed funding they can’t spend because of capacity issues)?

The reaction has pretty much been predictable—public sector unions freaking out, Jagmeet Singh concern trolling that this means “essential services” will be cut, and Pierre Poilievre says the Liberals can’t be trusted to make cuts. (Erm, you remember the Chrétien-Martin era, right?) But for some more practical thinking, here’s Jennifer Robson, who teaches public administration:

https://twitter.com/JenniferRobson8/status/1691613225677144349

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian missiles have struck Lviv and other parts of western Ukraine, which is far from the fighting, including a factory in Lutsk. In the early hours of Wednesday, Russian drones have been spotted heading for the Izmail port on the Danube River, which threatens more grain shipments. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was on the front lines in Zaporizhzhia to meet troops there. Meanwhile, farmers in Ukraine are facing the prospect of rock-bottom grain prices if they can’t ship it, which means it’s worth more to store than to sell.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1691510365304102915

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1691366868760829953

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Roundup: It’s “grocery rebate” day

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Today is the day that the federal government’s so-called “grocery rebate” gets deposited in Canadians’ accounts, but it’s not really a grocery rebate, and once again, a defensible policy gets given a dumb and confusing label for marketing purposes, because that’s what this government does. This is just another GST rebate top-up like the one that happened last year to help deal with the rising cost of living for those who are on the lower-end of the income scale, but of course the government gave it a new name this year just to try and be cute about it.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1676243078833926145

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1676243669685506048

You may also have heard complaints that this particular rebate is going to fuel inflation (which is coming down! It’s nearly at the outside band of where the central bank wants it to be!). This is also nonsense, because of how the programme is targeted, and Jennifer Robson has all of the receipts and data to prove it in the thread below.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians attacked a military funeral in Pervomaiskyi in the Kharkiv region, wounding 38 including twelve children.  Ukrainian forces targeted a Russian military formation in occupied Makiivka, which Russian officials say killed a civilian and injured others. Previously over the weekend, Russia launched its first overnight drone strike against Kyiv in twelve days, while a drone attack on the city of Sumy killed two and injured 19. Elsewhere, the reports from the counter-offensive are that it has been “particularly fruitful” over the past several days, with yet more gains around Bakhmut. There have been yet more warnings that the Ukrainians believe that the Russians will detonate something at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, while the Russians are also claiming the Ukrainians will do so in order to blame them (as though that makes any sense whatsoever).

https://twitter.com/kyivpost/status/1676258705422053378

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QP: The last big Poilievre/Trudeau show of the spring sitting

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The prime minister was present for what we all hoped was the final QP of the sitting. Hopefully. Some of the other leaders were present, but not others, which was very unusual for a Wednesday where they would normally use as many spots as possible for themselves.

Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and worried that some housing costs have doubled in Quebec, and blamed the prime minister and inflation (which is risible). Justin Trudeau said that if Poilievre was serious, he would support their policies like the housing accelerator fund, and working with municipalities to build more. Poilievre switched to English to worry that it would take twenty-years to save up for a down payment in Toronto, and again blamed deficits for this. Trudeau praised their job creation record and investments in growing the economy, before talking about his work with municipalities to build housing. Poilievre trotted out his “he’s telling people they’ve never had it so good” line and railed about housing costs, and again blamed the prime minister. Trudeau worried the Conservatives would cut the programmes that are helping Canadians. Poilievre insisted that the programmes were not working and blamed them for doubling housing prices, which again is laughable. Trudeau said that picking fights with mayors, like Poilievre is trying to do, would not solve the housing crisis. Poilievre worried that Trudeau says all the right things but doesn’t do them, and Trudeau insisted that he would take saying the right things as a vote of confidence.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he worried about small companies suffering from the wildfires, and wanted to meet about implementing solutions, and Trudeau read a script about standing in solidarity with them, and promised to work with provinces through the summer. Blanchet insisted that they needed an immediate answer, and Trudeau insisted that they are working with the affected provinces.

Lori Idlout rose for the NDP, and she blamed the government’s inaction on intergenerational trauma with Indigenous people. Trudeau noted that today was a celebration of Indigneous languages and cultures while also recognise the sins of past and continuing the path of reconciliation. Idlout demanded action and not empathy, particularly with Grassy Narrows, and Trudeau insisted that they are working on that solution. 

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QP: Some half-hearted swipes around the by-election results

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The prime minister was present for one of the final Question Periods of the sitting, but his deputy was away in Toronto, and only a few of the other leaders were present. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, claiming that trust in democracy has been “shattered” and that he has been working with opposition parties about a public inquiry, but demanded the inquiry be declared before he shared names for who to lead it. Justin Trudeau read a script about working with stakeholders and opposition leaders about next steps in this issue. Poilievre then pivoted and cited a letter to the Journal de Montreal about someone losing their house, and demanded a balanced budget, as though there were a correlation. Trudeau patted himself on the back for the “tangible investments for families” with things like dental care. Poilievre switched to English to worry about household debt and again demanded a balanced budget. Trudeau acknowledged that Canadians are struggling which was why they have supports for them, while the Conservatives only promise cuts. Poilievre reiterated the story of the woman losing her house, trying to tie this to the deficit, which is false, and demanded a balanced budget yet again. Trudeau again reiterated that the Conservatives only proposed cuts while Canada has the lowest deficit and debt-to-GDP in the G7, and then took a swipe at Poilievre’s underwhelming by-election results. Poilievre again tried to tie housing and rental price increase to deficits, which is specious, and Trudeau again took a swipe at the by-election results before patting himself on the back for his positive vision.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and as expected, he demanded a public inquiry immediately. Trudeau insisted that the opposition turned this into a partisan issue rather than taking this seriously. Therrien repeated his demands, and Trudeau repeated his same points about working to establish the next steps.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he worried about the rental prices in Toronto and blamed corporate landlords—never mind that this is an issue of provincial jurisdiction. Trudeau recited the housing measures that they have taken or are planning to take. Singh insisted that they were not acting with urgency and in French, noted that July 1st is Moving Day in Quebec and that families were under stress. Trudeau reiterated that they are there with projects and plans to help people.

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QP: Countdown to whether a public inquiry will happen before summer

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The prime minister was away in Halifax, while his deputy was present today, though most of the other leaders weren’t.

Things got off to a late start, but when they did, Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he worried about increasing payments for housing and mortgages, and got onto his bullshit about deficits causing inflation (they’re not). Chrystia Freeland asserted that they found the right balance between fiscal responsibility and compassion, and listed measures like child care and dental care while ensuring the lowest deficit in the G7. Poilievre insisted the government raised taxes on food (false) and decried the clean fuel standard as a second carbon price (it’s not), to which Steven Guilbeault raised the fires and floods we are facing but the Conservatives have no climate plan. Poilievre switched to English to ridicule the notion that carbon prices will stop forest fires (absolutely nobody has said this), and Guilbeault tried to ridicule the Conservatives’ plan for technology and that the minister of national resources does more for climate change before his first coffee any day than the Conservatives did in ten years. Poilievre quoted the Liberal premier of Newfoundland and Labrador on carbon prices, and this time Gudie Hutchings stood up to praise the government for making rural economic development a full department. Poilievre cited the false figures around the clean fuel standard and demanded it be axed, and this time Guilbeault said that they listed to the Atlantic premiers and delayed implementation of that standard by two years, two years ago, and that time is now up.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and demanded a public inquiry before Friday. Marco Mendicino said that Dominic LeBlanc was on the case. Therrien demanded the inquiry be announced immediately, and Mendicino reiterate that LeBlanc was engaging with them.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and he decried that the government did nothing about forest fires by not spending enough on climate action. Steven Guilbeault went on a tangent about the pandemic, and that they managed to do more in spite of it. Taylor Bachrach repeated the accusation in English, and Guilbeault recited praise for the national adaptation strategy.

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