Tag Archives: CBSA

Roundup: Airports and capacity issues

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As the country heads further toward some kind of state of lockdown – school closure announcements went out in Alberta (but not Saskatchewan) – there is a great deal of garment-rending over what is happening at airports in particular, especially since it appears that there were only a handful of CBSA officers staffing the Toronto airport on Saturday night for hundreds of arrivals. There isn’t a lot of visible screening at airports because that’s proven to be largely ineffective (and most places are screening people before they get on planes), and the bigger message is communication around self-isolation, and some of that may depend on where travellers are coming from – it’s being stated that people arriving from countries with few infections aren’t being given as strenuous of warnings. There are complaints that this wasn’t being effectively communicated by CBSA officials over the weekend, or that some of their pamphlets contained dated information, which is possible, especially given that more measures were announced late Friday afternoon, and weekend capacity for many of these agencies is reduced. (Also it’s been recorded that one CBSA officer from the Toronto airport has been diagnosed with COVID-19, and I’m sure this will be the first of many). A lot of this should be about local public health officials’ communications efforts, rather than expecting CBSA to simply do it all, but I’m not sure that everyone who is freaking out online about this is necessarily understanding areas of jurisdiction and responsibility.

Justin Trudeau is set to announce further measures this afternoon following a Cabinet meeting on Sunday evening, which unfortunately saw a group of Cabinet ministers leaving the meeting being fairly inept at communicating that decisions were taken and that they need time to prepare their implementation (as self-righteous journalists and pundits melted down over Twitter). Apparently nobody understands that these is such a thing as capacity issues and that not everything can happen immediately, even in an extraordinary crisis situation as we appear to find ourselves in.

Meanwhile, here’s another Q&A with infectious disease specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch on what people should and should not be doing for social distancing. As well, here’s a look through some of the pandemic preparedness guides to show what things could look like if we reach a crisis point. Two infectious disease specialists wonder about the efficacy of draconian measures, particularly if they will spark “containment fatigue.”

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Roundup: Urging calm, patience, and police action

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Yesterday was a long and very busy day, as everyone scrambled to get their say on the ongoing protest and blockade situation across the country, with a mounting economic cost to them. First thing in the morning, the AFN National Chief, Perry Bellegarde, and several First Nations leaders held a press conference to ask the Mohawk protesters to dismantle the barricades – not as surrender, but as compassion for those who would soon be affected by shortages – but one of those Mohawk leaders also noted that his band office has been locked out and protesters among his own people say they want him out. A short while later, Justin Trudeau gave a speech in the House of Commons to counsel patience and to reiterate that dialogue remained the best way to resolve the situation – something Andrew Scheer denounced as weak, and he continued to insist that the police end the protests, insisting that this was but a group of “professional protesters” and “radicals” and that the “real” position of the Wet’suwet’en people was for jobs and resource development (even though he later said he hadn’t actually spoken to any of them) – something that both Peter MacKay and Erin O’Toole also echoed, because police action has never gone badly before. Oh, wait. (Marilyn Gladu, for the record, wants the military to step in). Shortly after Trudeau’s speech, he had a meeting with Yves-François Blanchet, Jagmeet Singh, and Elizabeth May, and made a pointed remark that Scheer had not been invited because his remarks were “disqualifying” – which led to Scheer’s agitated breathy and high-pitched performance during QP. Oh, and while all of this was going on, some activists in Victoria tried to perform a “citizen’s arrest” on BC premier John Horgan (and they got arrested instead).

By the time the five o’clock politics shows rolled around, Carolyn Bennett had concluded a meeting with some of the hereditary chiefs – who stated on one of the shows that they wouldn’t actually negotiate until the RCMP were off of their territory – and Marc Miller refused to discuss whether that was on or off the table when asked, leading the pundits to make hay of that. (“He didn’t say no!” is the worst impulse in journalism, guys). Oh, and hilariously, Jody Wilson-Raybould offered her services as a mediator, as though anyone in the government would be willing to trust her. As the day wound down, Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe said he was holding a meeting of premiers today because Trudeau “refused to act” – though I’m not sure what exactly he proposes, unless it’s to try to direct provincial police forces to start cracking skulls, both violating the rule of law and making the situation worse. And that’s where we are.

Meanwhile, here is a good primer written by a lawyer and a law professor about what “rule of law” means and why it’s important – as Scheer and company keep misusing the term. Heather Scoffield sees the business impacts of the blockades and deduces that it will be impossible to resolve them both quickly and peacefully – it would have to be one or the other. Andrew Coyne counsels patience in threating the needle that the protests can both be illegal while still noting that using force will only create martyrs. Matt Gurney worries that if the blockades go on much longer, they could fuel populist anger and damage the cause of reconciliation. Paul Wells attempts to make sense of the day that was, and the Liberals’ high-wire act in the middle of it all.

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QP: Putting the heat on Blair

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While Justin Trudeau fled the capital to go sell auto workers the merits of the New NAFTA over in Brampton, Andrew Scheer was elsewhere. Candice Bergen led off with the story of the murder of a sex worker of a person on parole, and demanded a denunciation of the Board’s actions. Bill Blair reminded her that an investigation has been launched into the matter. Bergen asked about MasterCard getting $50 million from the government, to which Mélanie Joly said that the government was investing into a cyber-security centre. Bergen said that MasterCard can afford to pay for their own cyber-security, and bashed the investment again, and Joly responded about the importance of job creation. Luc Berthold was up next to ask about the Auditor General’s budget, to which Jean-Yves Duclos effused about the Middle Class before citing that they would work with the Auditor General. Berthold asked again in French, and Duclos responded with the record on growth and job creation. Yves-François Blanchet was up next to worry about Teck Frontier Mine destroying the Paris Agreement, and Jonathan Wilkinson responded that they were still making their determination on the environmental assessment. Blanchet also worried that said mine would require new pipelines and wondered if they were afraid of saying no to Jason Kenney, to which Wilkinson repeated that they were still considering it. Jagmeet Singh was up for the NDP, to once again demand limiting the tax break in order to fund dental care, and Bill Morneau reminded Singh that their tax cuts have benefited 20 million Canadians. Singh asked again in French, and got much the same response. 

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QP: What about infrastructure?

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Tuesday, and all of the leaders were back once again. Andrew Scheer was up first, and he claimed there were “sky high” deficits and taxes and no infrastructure spending to show for it — assertions that were all false. The deficits are actually tiny in comparison to the size of the federal budget, and the tax burden on Canadians is hovering near its lowest point in the post-war period, not to mention the fact that many of the promised infrastructure projects were held up by provinces trying to play politics in advance of the election, and that the hoped-for productivity gains were blunted when provinces didn’t keep up their planned infrastructure spending, and instead rolled it back as the federal government spent more. Justin Trudeau stood up and used a script to list projects that they were approving. Scheer then raised their Supply Day motion about calling in the Auditor General about the infrastructure programme. Trudeau reminded him that the Conservative record was spending on billboards, door knobs and gazebos, while their government was getting things done. Scheer asked again in French, got much the same answer, and Scheer raised the coronavirus and wanted support for Taiwan to get observer status at the WHO. Trudeau avoided the direct question and gave assurances about the coronavirus and collaboration with China. Scheer tried again, and Trudeau reminded them that they shouldn’t play politics with public health crises. Yves-François Blanchet was up for the Bloc, and he once again raised the possibility of aluminium impacting the Quebec market under the New NAFTA, to which Trudeau reminded him there were guarantees in the new agreement that do not exist currently. Blanchet tried again, and Trudeau quoted the aluminium producer association as saying it was a good deal. Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and he railed about the Volkswagen settlement agreement, calling it a “sweetheart deal.” Trudeau, without script, stated that they are paying a penalty and it was great for the fight against climate change. Singh then railed about a supposed tripling of outsourcing of public service functions, and Trudeau spoke to the balance around procurement. 

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Roundup: “True Blue” O’Toole

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Erin O’Toole made his official entry into the leadership race yesterday by way of a video that takes swipes at “cancel culture” and celebrity activists – the kinds of keyboard warrior buzzwords that are pretty much the domains of O’Toole’s new campaign staffer, Jeff Ballingall, of those “Canada Proud” etc. sites.

At a rally in Calgary later in the evening, O’Toole said that Peter MacKay would turn the party into Liberal-lite, which I have yet to see any actual evidence of (MacKay is not really a Red Tory, guys – he’s not. Stop pretending he is). It also struck me that he kept reiterating the kinds of comforting lies that the party likes to tell itself about issues like the plight of the energy sector, where the woes are blamed on the Trudeau government and not changing market forces (seriously, the shale revolution in the US is a pretty big driver of these changes). He did say that he would march in a Pride parade, and justified it with his military background, which is a bit funny given that he hasn’t marched in one to date, which makes his sudden conviction around it mighty suspect. His opposition to carbon pricing continues to dig the party into its current environmental rut, and his talk of deficits remains completely economically illiterate – all doubling down on the party’s current positions, because that’s apparently what will make him a “true blue” Conservative. I’m not sure how this grows the party’s base, but what do I know?

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Roundup: Flashbacks about prorogation

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It was a day of flashbacks to 2008, as Boris Johnson asked the Queen to prorogue the Parliament in Westminster, and social media had erupted with cries of “coups,” “dictatorships,” and wannabe constitutional scholars ignoring nearly two centuries of Responsible Government as they tried to implicate the Queen in granting Johnson’s request. Of course, there are some fundamental differences between now and the 2008 prorogation, such as the fact that there will still be a “washing up period” of a few days, as is traditional with UK prorogations, and time where the opposition can still try to move some kind of motion to try and stop a no-deal Brexit, though I’m not sure what mechanism they would use. A private member’s motion would be non-binding (and would carry only the symbolic weight of the Chamber), while a private members’ bill would try to impose some kind of negative obligation on the government – even if it could be sped through in those final days – and if there is no no-deal option on the table, it would then impose the necessity to have some kind of deal, which the Commons has already rejected. There is also the option of moving a non-confidence motion in those remaining days, which could topple Johnson’s government, ostensibly. The prorogation is also for a couple of weeks, and will return Parliament by October 14th, which still leaves it time to do something about Brexit before the October 31stdeadline. Johnson’s move may be dubious – and a dick move – but it could have been much worse. It’s not a coup. It’s not demolishing democracy. And it’s not eliminating parliament as an obstacle to Johnson – in fact, it may have only made it worse, as the move signals his desperation.

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All of this being said, we need to also remember that some of the received wisdom of the 2008 prorogation crisis needs to be challenged. For example, people keep insisting that Michaëlle Jean was wrong to grant Harper the prorogation (ignoring that if she refused the advice of her prime minister, he would have been obligated to resign, which would have created a whole other constitutional crisis), that an opposition coalition would have been able to take over. The problem is that said coalition was never really viable, and pretty much everyone knew it. And this was proven correct by the fact that it did not survive the prorogation period. Had it done so, had they banded together and moved a motion of non-confidence, then formed a coalition, then sure, it would have proven that it was viable, and it would have reinforced that the system was working (as it did in when Sir John A Macdonald did not survive a prorogation to avoid a confidence vote around the Pacific Scandal). But the coalition fell apart, proving that Jean was right to simply grant the prorogation – making Harper stew about it for a few hours – and doing her job in acting on the advice of a first minister. But you’re going to hear a rehash of the coalition fanfic of the day, and we need to remember that it was only that – fiction.

Meanwhile, Susan Delacourt offers her thoughts on the prorogation, the disconnect between parliaments and the outside world, and the idle speculation about whether Stephen Harper’s 2008 prorogation may have inspired Johnson.

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Roundup: On feeding the loons

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I try not to do that hackneyed “slow news day?” thing, however I am forced to question the editorial judgment at Global’s Calgary bureau after they reported on a supposed new “separatist” group meeting in Alberta, who are shaking their fist at clouds – err, I mean throwing a temper tantrum about some perceived slights. The apparent “newsworthiness” of this event is the fact that there was a bullshit poll out last week that said that as many as a quarter of Albertans could support separation, and Jay Hill, one-time Alberta separatist, says that Justin Trudeau being re-elected could make that fifty percent.

That sound was my eyes rolling so hard. And then again when John Ivison tweeted this gem.

What could possibly different about Scotland than Alberta? Could it be that Scotland once used to be its own country? Could it be that they have a distinct language and culture? That they already field their own sports teams in international competitions? That they’re not landlocked? Colby Cosh wrote about this not two weeks ago – there is no coherence in the argument for Alberta separatism, and they can’t even take their own argument seriously.

Let’s call this what it is – extortion, blackmail, and a campaign of lies fomented by the likes of Jason Kenney who is stoking it to keep his base angry, because the moment they realize that they’ve run out of external enemies to blame their problems on, the moment they’ll turn on him because he hasn’t been able to deliver on any of his snake oil promises. And Kenney is using these swivel-eyed loons as a straw man – the whole “I’m not a separatist, but Justin Trudeau is stoking the sentiment” defence. It’s just more lies, and We The Media don’t have to keep giving them oxygen. We don’t have to pay attention to these loons – especially if they’re going to call themselves moronic things like “Wexit Alberta.”

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Roundup: Dire warnings about MPs’ jobs

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Another day, another apocalyptic warning that the workload and schedules of MPs are going to wind up killing somebody someday, and I just cannot even. This isn’t even the first time this particular argument has been made by MPs, but it boggles me even more that journalists aren’t pushing back more, and at least giving an “Oh, come on,” and it leaves the impression that there is an expectation that parliamentarians go in thinking it’s a nine-to-five job. And it gets even more ludicrous when you realise that MPs are not only sitting fewer days than they used to, but we already eliminated evening sittings three days a week in order to make the days more “family friendly” (which, as it happens, made congeniality worse because they stopped eating dinner together three nights a week).

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Part of what has triggered this wave of pearl-clutching are the number of voting marathons that we saw in this current parliament, but we need to pour a bit of perspective sauce on the situation here. First of all, the opposition needs to have some tools to apply pressure to the government when they feel it’s necessary, and eliminating those tools would be a major problem. That said, I’m not sure that these particular marathons were appropriate uses for those tools, particularly as they were pegged to issues that were fairly minor on the scope of things, if not outright ridiculous, and yet the Conservatives made a big song and dance about these vote-a-thons, which wound up coming across as a temper tantrum. It became routine that estimates votes were coming up, so they were going to force a vote-a-thon to express their outrage of the day, and then blame the government for “forcing it” to happen. That’s…not how this works. And if MPs are opposed to those tactics, well, they can let their party leadership know that they’re opposed and do something about it internally. Otherwise, I’m not sure what their suggestions are for making life easier for MPs, because the alternatives – such as time allocating all business by means of programming motions and the like – is not healthy for democracy either. Perhaps they need to think about that as they complain about the jobs they chose.

Speaking of workloads, there was some angry debating over Twitter over the weekend about the Senate not sitting later to pass the bill that would add CBSA to the new civilian oversight body created for the RCMP (the accusation that they wanted to go on vacation). While I have my doubts about that bill (I think the earlier Senate bill to create an Inspector General for CBSA held a lot of promise, but the government refused to debate it), it’s pretty unfair to lay the blame on the Senate as a whole. Rather, it’s the government’s fault – both in introducing the bill so late, and sending it to the Senate at the very last minute, and in their Leader in the Senate, Senator Peter Harder, who controls the agenda. He could have ensured that the Senate sat long enough to pass it, but we’ve seen over the past three-and-a-half years that Harder has been absolutely allergic to staying later than the Commons does, even though the Senate is actually scheduled to sit for an extra week at the end of each sitting, like they always do. Harder, however, has steadfastly refused, and the Independent senators haven’t pushed back. If you want someone to blame, start there.

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Roundup: The premiers’ pre-meeting

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While a Council of the Federation meeting will be happening this week in Saskatoon, Jason Kenney has been planning a pre-meeting for several premiers at Stampede, last night and today. It’s an interesting bit of dynamic because while Kenney is one of the most junior members of the Council (with only PEI being more junior), he’s trying to act like a bit of a ringleader for the various conservative-led provinces as they wage war against Justin Trudeau and the federal government. We’ll see how well that goes over.

Meanwhile, John Horgan says he’s hoping that they can use this meeting to get something accomplished, and that it won’t be a number of premiers trying to have a stand-off against Trudeau in advance of the election. But given that several of those premiers have been having public tantrums over the carbon price, two of them now having lost their court challenges, I’m quite certain that they’re going to have some kind of theatrical blow-out for the sake of Andrew Scheer to come in and try and look statesmanlike. (Have I mentioned that fixed election dates are garbage?)

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Roundup: Solidifying the “new” Senate

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Another day, another badly executed wrap-up article on the Senate, this time courtesy of the CBC, which again, has a badly misleading lede in which it claims that “Legislative changes that would have made it harder for a future prime minister to reverse Senate reforms have fallen through.” This is wrong – any changes to the Parliament of Canada Act that the government was contemplating would have had zero effect on the selection process for future senators. Why? Because that’s not governed by that Act, or indeed any piece of legislation – it’s part of the constitution, and clearly spelled out as a prerogative of the Governor-in-Council, meaning the prime minister and Cabinet will advise the Governor General as to who gets appointed. There is nothing that Trudeau could do to bind that advice legislatively – recall the Senate reform reference to the Supreme Court of Canada – that would require a constitutional amendment requiring seven provinces with fifty percent of the population to do.

What would changes to the Parliament of Canada Act regarding the Senate do? The actual proposals were to ensure that leaders of any parliamentary group in the Senate would get commensurate salary increases and resources to put them on par with the what is nominally the government and official opposition in the Senate, and the ISG has been pushing for this pretty hard, but they also were demanding to be part of consideration for vote bells, though I’m not sure why it would matter (particularly given that they have demonstrated time and again that they’re not reliable negotiating partners). But I also suspect that part of the reason why these changes didn’t get proposed was because there is some legal opinion that it would require some kind of buy-in from provinces to make this kind of change, so there was likely little time for the government to add this ball to all of the other ones they were juggling that late in the parliamentary calendar (despite the cries of the ISG). Of course, this hasn’t stopped the media from falsely framing these changes as affecting the selection process, as this has been cited by more than one reporter from more than one outlet, and it’s false.

The rest of the story is again more of the same voices opining on how great the “new” Senate is working, but we fortunately got a bit of pushback from Liberal Senator Lillian Dyck, who did point out that the lack of organisation among the Independents has held up bills and slowed down the process – and she’s right. But nobody wants to talk about that as they’re busy patting themselves on the back for “not being whipped.” There’s more to the Senate than that, and they need to get off this self-congratulation because things aren’t working as well as they like to claim.

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