Tag Archives: Budget 2024

QP: The Bloc have demands—or else!

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The prime minister was off at the UN in New York, leaving his deputy to attend QP in his stead, and only some of the other leaders were present as a result. Speaker Greg Fergus started off with a warning about behaviour and questions that relate to the administration of government, and said that he would have more to say on it later, but he hoped for better from MPs. Andrew Scheer led off by rattling off a list of slogans, before concern trolling about tent cities and food banks, and claimed that the government’s solution was for people to pay more taxes, which is juvenile in the extreme. Chrystia Freeland praised the fact that inflation is coming down, and interest rates along with it, which makes the Conservatives mad because they can’t use it as a wedge. Scheer insisted that it was cold comfort that prices weren’t coming down (which is generally how inflation works), and took a swipe at the NDP before demanding an election. Freeland noted that the Conservatives have a hidden austerity agenda, and wondered aloud what exactly they planned to cut. Scheer then raised the capital gains tax changes, and claimed this would affect housing (extremely unlikely), and Freeland took the opportunity to praise their mortgage rule changes from last week. Luc Berthold took over in French to decry students using food banks, and demanded the carbon levy be cut. Jean-Yves Duclos called this nonsense, and called out the belief that school food programmes are “bureaucratic.” Berthold took a swipe at the Bloc, and demanded an end to the government. Duclos kept on the points about the depiction of the school food programme.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and demanded an enrichment to OAS, or face an election. Steve MacKinnon pointed out the Bloc’s record  voting against returning the retirement age to 65 and enriching the GIS, as well as dental care. Therrien thundered that the government could afford this instead of funding oil companies, and made his threat again. MacKinnon reiterate that they have never cut help for seniors, only ever increased it even when the Bloc voted against it.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and complained that Loblaws wants to charge people $100 for a doctor’s appointment, which is provincial jurisdiction and he should take that up with Doug Ford. Mark Holland called him out for caving to a bully. Singh repeated the accusation in French, and Holland kept on his tear about the NDP caving not only on the agreement, but also on the carbon levy.

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Roundup: Singh’s unfinished business

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As you probably saw, the big news yesterday was Jagmeet Singh melodramatically ripping up the supply-and-confidence agreement with the Liberals—well, except he didn’t really, but he posted a social media video and hid from reporters the whole day, and locked down all of their MPs from speaking…but then put up the party president, who didn’t know what she was talking about, and basically humiliated herself on national television, so that was…something. I’ve already expounded upon the events in a column here, but I will reiterate that the procedural warfare we’re about to see is going to be absolutely ridiculous, and Singh not only doesn’t understand jurisdiction, but also how Parliament works. He’s doomed the very things he claims to care about for the sake of hollow performance.

https://twitter.com/journo_dale/status/1831387238279819412

Here’s a look at what was accomplished from the agreements in the deal and what wasn’t. Pharmacare hasn’t crossed the finish line, so I’m not sure why both the Liberal and NDP are talking like it has (especially because no province has signed on yet). There was also an unfinished commitment to a safe long-term care legislation, which has only completed consultations, but again, this is pretty much entirely within provincial jurisdiction, so I’m not sure how meaningful any federal legislation is going to really be on it. As well, the Elections Act changes promised in the agreement are still being debated. More than anything, the fact that the NDP pulled out of the deal nearly a year early when the Liberals were living up to their side of it looks an awful lot like Singh and the NDP are operating in bad faith, and it doesn’t speak highly for anyone trusting them in any future agreements.

In pundit reaction, Althia Raj defends Singh’s actions, saying it was necessary for the NDP to rebrand themselves as change candidates in the next election. The legendary Don Newman points out that Singh traded policy wins for political power, and that this move will actually cement Trudeau’s leadership since it will be deemed too risky to hold a leadership contest now. Paul Wells notes that Trudeau’s tactic appears to be just staying the course and saying or doing nothing as everything happens around him, so we’ll see how that works for him as the fall rolls along. And as always, the Beaverton got it right.

Ukraine Dispatch

The overnight missile and drone attack Wednesday killed four people in Lviv, while more energy facilities were targeted in nine regions. Here is a lengthy piece about the first F-16 pilot killed in the war. Ukraine’s foreign minister has also resigned in advance of an expected government shake-up.

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Roundup: Labour dispute over, now begin the court challenges

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The rail labour dispute and trains are expected to start rolling again today as the Canadian Industrial Relations Board issued their ruling after nearly two full days of deliberation, saying that they had agreed to impose binding arbitration in the situation, ending the CPKC lockout and the strike notice at CN. It may be a couple of weeks before things are fully up and running because of the phased shutdown over the past two weeks in preparation for the lockout (and yes, this began as a lockout by the duopoly that controls something like 80 percent of the rail in this country).

The Teamsters, predictably, are not happy with this outcome, accusing the government of breaking unions (which is not how I would describe this particular situation) and plan to take this to the Federal Court, where the Board said that particular complaints should be directed because they have the legislated authority to deal with certain issues that the Board does not, particularly when it comes to questions of the Board’s discretion around the minister’s directives. No doubt we’ll see that play out over the next year or two. But for now, the conflict is over, the arbitration process will begin, and we’ll see how the arbitrators feel about the particular complaints the union has made around fatigue management and forced relocation, which the rail companies dispute.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched a drone attack against Kyiv early Monday morning, but all ten were shot down. Overnight attacks on Saturday killed four and injured 37. A Russian missile hit a hotel in Kramatorsk, where a number of journalists were staying. Three Reuters journalists were injured, and their British security advisor was killed in the strike. Over 100 prisoners were swapped on Saturday, which was Ukraine’s independence day.

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Roundup: Hearings before the investigation concludes

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As we’ve been expecting the Commons public safety committee met yesterday, and held the usual performances about just how very seriously they take the situation of the two accused terror suspects, and the questions about how they made it to Canada and in one case was given Canadian citizenship. But rather than waiting for the internal investigation to complete so that they could scrutinize the results, they all decided to go ahead and start holding hearings before they have those answers, because what’s important is getting clips for their socials. To that end, they have agreed to hold six meetings starting in the last week of August, but there are competing agendas at play.

For the Conservatives, the agenda is pretty clear—outraged clips, and showcasing their MPs badgering and hectoring witnesses, most especially the ministers who will appear before them. For the Bloc and NDP, it’s quite obviously to embarrass the government at every opportunity, like they are keen to do with every single other issue that rears its head. For the Liberals, however, they believe they are being clever and want to make this into an exposé into the cost of Conservative austerity, because it would seem that the timeline would match up to a point where Conservatives had cut thousands of CBSA agents and civil servants in the immigration department, before the Liberals were able to really reinvest and reinvigorate the processes (if that ever did happen—remember, it’s incredibly difficult to recover capacity once you’ve lost it through cuts). They think they have some kind of gotcha here, but I suspect that they’re going to mishandle this so badly that it’ll blow up in their faces like it always does.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched 38 drones and two missiles overnight Monday, and while 30 of those drones were destroyed, one person was injured as a result. Russian shelling killed at least one civilian in the Sumy region, and the government has restricted civilian movement in that area. Russians have been increasing their assaults in the Pokrovsk area of Eastern Ukraine. Russians claim that they halted Ukraine’s advance in the Kursk region, while Ukraine says they actually have no interest in holding that territory (but their ultimate goals remain unclear).

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1823306864097988712

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Roundup post: No other orders of government

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The Conservatives put out a statement yesterday about a Statistics Canada report on dwelling units, and blamed the federal government for the lack of creation, never mind that the federal government isn’t actually responsible for housing, and has very few levers at their disposal, and the levers they do have they are pretty much maxed out in terms of what they’re able to do. But reading this particular statement, you wouldn’t know that we have provincial and municipal governments who are responsible for housing, and who have the policy levers to do something about it, whether it’s zoning, or density rules, or building codes, or direct financial levers. Thos are all at their disposal, but Pierre Poilievre would have you believe that none of those exist.

The sad irony of course is that the moment that the Conservatives next form government, they will immediately insist that these issues aren’t their problem, that the provinces should be dealing with this, and they will play stupid games with funding (which Paul Wells noted last week, Poilievre’s planned incentives are rounding errors for city budgets).

And yes, my reply column is full of chuds who insist that Trudeau created this situation with immigration, again ignoring the role that provinces played in demanding more arrivals to fill labour shortages while simultaneously doing nothing about housing or social services (their responsibilities), and that there is a counterfactual in terms of what would have happened to the economy in terms of inflation and controlling it if we hadn’t brought in as many new immigrants as we did. The answer is that things probably would have been a whole lot worse for us as a whole, and we can’t ignore that while trying to look for blame for the current situation.

Ukraine Dispatch

A top Ukrainian commander says that they now control as much as a thousand square kilometres of territory in Kursk, while Putin vows a “worthy response.” There are concerns by Ukraine’s state security service that Russia is trying to falsely accuse them of war crimes as part of the operation. Here is a good look at the Kursk operation, its goals and the future options that will need to be weighed in terms of what Ukraine does next.

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Roundup: Senate criticisms that miss the mark

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The Globe & Mail wrote an unnamed Editorial Board missive on Friday, about how the “Trudeau Senate” is not a better Senate overall. While long-time readers may not be surprised to know that I actually agree with this, I do not, however, endorse the thinking or methodology behind the Globe editorial, because it’s sloppy, lazy, and ultimately doesn’t understand the Senate and what it’s supposed to be, but that shouldn’t be a surprise given that the Elder Pundits have never actually understood the Senate or its function.

To wit: They start out with the concern trolling from that shoddy CBC article last week about how recent appointees to the Senate include former party donors, which I dismantled in my column last week, so I’m not going to repeat it here. Suffice to say, anyone who clutches their pearls at this misses the mark at the bigger danger of only appointing people completely divorced from politics. They misjudge what the rules changes recently passed mean (or that they were largely about changing the names of everything), and try to make them sound ominous when they don’t have a grasp on the internal dynamics. They raise the costs of the Senate, but compare it to a base year when the Senate was about twenty senators short, but they also seem to not understand that senators need to organise themselves internally, and that costs money for staff and infrastructure. And no, an “independent” senate should not be comprised of about 100 “loose fish” with a Speaker and a Government Leader, because that would be complete chaos.

The only genuine point they make is that the Senate is producing fewer substantive reports, which is true. And why? Because when there so many type-A people appointed who feel that they have earned this position because they applied for it (which again, is a Problem with how Trudeau’s process), the majority of them feel like they should be off doing their own projects, which has meant an absolute explosion in Senate public bills (which are their equivalent of private members’ bills), and you have a bunch of Senators doing things like commissioning polls, or trying to fly to international conferences and justifying it on their expenses (even when they were denied permission by Internal Economy) because they’re important Senators. Trudeau’s Senate is not a better Senate than the one he inherited—which had its problems!—but not for the reasons the Globe’s Elder Pundits imagine.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian missiles and drones struck the Kharkiv region, killing two and damaging energy facilities and rail infrastructure. Russia’s Black Sea Tuapse oil refinery was damaged by a Ukrainian drone attack. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is again calling for long-range weapons to protect the country after another drone attack on Kyiv, the fifth in two weeks.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1814560384864412036

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Roundup: Straying far out of their lane

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After their big song and dance about wanting the federal government to stay in their own lane, the premiers decided to start weighing in on defence spending—an explicitly federal jurisdiction—yesterday, trying to insist that Canada should meet its NATO spending target sooner than the outlined plan. I’m really not sure how this is exactly the premiers staying in their own lane if they expect the prime minister to stay in his, but they certainly made no shortage of ridiculous excuses for their demands, such as this being about trade with the Americans and so on, but come on. Justin Trudeau did write a letter in response to Tim Houston and Doug Ford, saying the federal government is only trying to help the provinces improve the lives of Canadians, and that maybe they should sign on rather than be obstructionist.

Also from the meeting, Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador expressed an interest in resettling some the asylum seekers who landed in Quebec, but that hasn’t stopped Doug Ford from demanding more money for resettlement, nor has it stopped David Eby and Danielle Smith from demanding money for “newcomers,” when the specific issue is just what obligation the federal government has for asylum seekers before their refugee claim is approved, at which point they genuinely become a federal responsibility. This isn’t about helping to settle economic migrants or other mainstream immigrants, which aren’t the federal government’s sole responsibility, but they want to pretend that it is because they want to whinge for more money when what they’re trying to conflate has nothing to do with the actual obligations of the federal government. Again, it’s not really that tough to understand, but these premiers are going to be obtuse and engage in sophistry along the way.

Meanwhile, because several of the premiers are talking equalisation again, I cannot stress enough how badly the CBC described the programme in their article today. Provinces do not write cheques for equalisation. Not province transfers money to another province. It is paid for out of the federal treasury from the income taxes collected from all Canadians, and distributed to those provinces who fall below the threshold of fiscal capacity to have equal programming. Even more to the point, while not raised in the CBC piece, fiscal capacity has nothing to do with whether or not a province is running a deficit, because that would be absolutely absurd and no province would run a surplus if they thought they could get equalisation dollars if they didn’t. Regardless, this was extremely sloppy journalism from the CBC and reads to me like the reporter just relayed how one of the premiers described how the programme works rather than actually looking it up or asking someone who has a clue (and that’s not any of the premiers). Hermes wept…

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia and Ukraine exchanged 95 prisoners of war each yesterday.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1813524697964823028

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Roundup: An incoherence of premiers

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The premiers have been meeting in Halifax, and they rode into town full of bluster and declaring that they had a message for Justin Trudeau, and that it was to stay in his lane (constitutionally speaking). But because these are provincial premiers in Canada, they couldn’t even keep a coherent agenda because even as they were arriving, Doug Ford had a grand idea about trying to focus on speeding up pharmaceutical drug approvals, which is explicitly a federal power. Meanwhile, Scott Moe is refusing to remit a perfectly legal federal levy, breaking federal law in the process, because that’s respecting jurisdictional boundaries. I mean, come on.

Possibly one of the most incoherent and possibly obtuse is BC Premier David Eby, trying to sound tough on the eve of an election, as he insists that he just wants the prime minister to sit down with the premiers and that it’s not about money—before complaining that BC isn’t getting their “fair share” of money, and that he wants to join Newfoundland and Labrador’s doomed court challenge around equalisation (because there’s nothing like pissing away millions of dollars to be performative rather than spending that money on fixing healthcare, starting with paying doctors and nurses better). Eby’s appearance on Power & Politics should have been embarrassing as he was being obtuse about his own positions, such as insisting the federal government is “imposing” programmes in their jurisdiction, using the school food programme as an example, and when it was pointed out that the programme is to literally give the province and existing programmes money, he prevaricated. Possibly the most telling was his exasperated “The federal government should just give us the money and not tell us how to spend it,” which is the real issue here. The federal government has been doing that for decades, and nothing is getting fixed while the federal government continues to get the blame. That’s why they’re putting strings on things, and having separate application processes for funding, because just giving money to the provinces isn’t working. When Eby says that working with Ottawa can feel like “beating our head against a wall,” how exactly does he think the federal government feels when the provinces keep saying they’ll spend the money to fix things and then don’t, putting it toward their bottom line or tax cuts instead while the initial problems persist? The absolute lack of any self-awareness on the part of the premiers is utterly infuriating if you’ve paid the slightest bit of attention. (Not to be outdone, Newfoundland and Labrador premier Andrew Furey came up with a cute slogan about how he wants to work with the feds, not for them, and kept repeating it on television while being specious in his complaints. Politics in 2024).

In other news out of Halifax, the premiers say they want to ensure they maintain trade ties with the US, regardless of who wins the next election (but good luck with that because one is a protectionist and the other is looking to apply tariffs to everyone). The northern territorial premiers say they want a greater focus on Arctic sovereignty, which has pretty much the government’s hook for their latest defence policy.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia and Ukraine are expected to exchange 90 prisoners of war today. Ukraine and a Czech ammunition maker signed an agreement to build a munitions factory in Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is proposing legislation to strip honours from those found to be “traitors,” like certain pro-Kremlin businessmen.

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Roundup: Pledging to do things differently—really!

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If by some chance you managed to survive the complete and utter wank-fest of pollsters, poll analysts and Elder Pundits doing the media rounds yesterday without straining your eyeballs as they rolled endlessly, well, good for you. Just don’t expect anything but this to dominate the media landscape for the next several weeks to come, because going into this, the Elder Pundits declared that this was a sign that Trudeau needs to go, and they feel themselves perfectly vindicated, and they want you to know it. (Such a healthy media ecosystem we have in this country). So, while the entrails of this by-election get picked over, expect nothing but demands for a leadership review (which the Liberal Party’s constitution only allows for after a general election loss), for Trudeau to step down, and for successor chatter to spin up, with Mark Carney’s name all over the place in spite of all evidence to the contrary. (Gretchen, stop trying to make Mark Carney happen. It’s not going to happen).

Of course, Trudeau isn’t going to step down. He has convinced himself that he’s the one who can stand up to Poilievre, and that he wants to keep doing the work. Justin Trudeau, Chrystia Freeland and Karina Gould were all making the point that they have to listen more and work harder to regain trust, but the one that stuck out for me the most was Gould telling Power & Politics that they need to “do things differently,” but therein lies the problem with Trudeau. They don’t do things differently, starting with the fact that Katie Telford is still on the job and hasn’t decided that she needs to do something more with her life that just this, and being the central person by which everything flows (becoming part of the bottleneck of files this government needs to address). They are still communicating the same way after having been told time and again that it’s hindering them, and the most they’ve done is get some Gen Z staffers to put them in cringey TikToks (from their personal phones!) in addition to the same pabulum that they keep feeding us. They continue to pat themselves on the back for declaration over actions to implement those declarations. I get that they are trying to say the right things right now, but I have yet to see any desire on the part of Trudeau to do things differently, and maybe that should be the lesson here.

And in reaction, we have Susan Delacourt pointing out why this becomes a problem for Poilievre’s expectations management. Jen Gerson mockingly declares Trudeau to be dead in the water, because of course she does. Paul Wells also makes the observation that Trudeau will espouse making changes but won’t, and will just keep doing what he’s been doing the whole time.

Ukraine Dispatch

The shells obtained by the Czech initiative are starting to arrive in Ukraine. Ukraine and Russia exchanged 90 prisoners of war. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed an International Criminal Court warrant for two more Russian military leaders.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1805173797705728292

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Roundup: Spooking the oil sands companies

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The “Pathways Alliance” consortium of oil sands companies scrubbed their website as the bill that expands the Competition Bureau’s powers around investigating greenwashing gets royal assent, which seems to be suspiciously like a tell. I’m aware that they have been subject to particular legal claims around greenwashing, and when you add to that the parts in that Deloitte report that Alberta commissioned around the emissions cap, there was some specific language in there around the fact that carbon capture and storage is likely just an expensive money pit that won’t do much to lower emissions, it feels like Pathways is feeling the pressure, and that perhaps the oil and gas industry has reached its put-up-or-shut-up moment, that they can’t keep pretending that they can carry on as usual with the promise that CCS will come sooner than later, and we’ll have no more emissions problems (while the industry also makes up specific “cleanest” claims around oil and gas production, which also doesn’t stand up to scrutiny).

This being said, I will acknowledge that Andrew Leach has some specific reservations around the legislation and the enforcement of all green claims, because some of the burden of proof, even with companies that are actually doing clean or green things. It’s an issue to keep in mind in any case.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian attack in Donetsk killed three and injured four, while overnight missile and drone attacks have damaged yet another thermal power plant. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced new plans to mitigate those attacks, and part of it is transitioning to greener sources of electricity .

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1803435004866826530

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