Tag Archives: Childcare

Roundup: Asking for a “special monitor”

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As case numbers continue to rise alarmingly in most parts of the country, Ontario Premier Doug Ford tried to get into a pissing match with the federal government over vaccines, and the federal government wasn’t playing ball, simply tweeting vaccine delivery numbers in response. This on the same day that Ford insisted that schools were safe, and hours later, Toronto’s chief public health officer issued a Section 22 order and closed all Toronto area schools as of today, so that’s a good look. (In Alberta, Jason Kenney also had to issue new restrictions, while still trying to take swipes at the federal government for vaccines well – distraction from their own failure to contain the virus).

In the middle of this, Erin O’Toole decided that he was going to promise a public inquiry into the handling of the pandemic – which, to be fair, the government has also said they would be willing to hold once things were in the clear, because everyone wants lessons learned – but O’Toole loaded his particular desire for such an inquiry full of easily disproven allegations and conspiracy theories. Things like how there weren’t any vaccines even being considered last spring because everything was too new; or CanSino (which the government never “put all their eggs in one basket” with, and the vaccine task force didn’t give them any priority when they started compiling the vaccine portfolio), which he keeps referencing as though saying it often enough will make it true. That, and by focusing solely on vaccines, he is very conspicuously trying to avoid blaming his provincial brethren for their massive failures, for which a proper national public inquiry would probably be needed to enumerate (because I doubt that most of those provinces will call inquiries of their own).

More to the point, O’Toole’s demand for a “special monitor” to be appointed from the Auditor General’s office to examine decisions “in real time” is literal parliamentary insanity. What exactly an accountant knows about public health decisions I’m not entirely sure, but frankly, having them looking over the government’s shoulders is literally O’Toole abdicating his own responsibility for holding government to account for their decisions. Trying to pawn the job off to a non-partisan Officer of Parliament (or their proxy) as a way of using them as both a cudgel and a shield is the height of cowardice and a refusal to do his own bloody job. It’s also why I keep warning against the proliferation of these kinds of Officers – pretty soon, MPs won’t have a job left to do. This is a mess all around, and O’Toole continues to prove that his attempts at showing he is relevant only reiterate that he is trying to make himself obsolete.

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QP: Demanding a “data-driven” plan to re-open

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On a beautiful Tuesday in the Nation’s Capital, the prime minister was indeed in the Chamber for QP, along with fourth other Liberals, which was a very pleasant change of pace. Erin O’Toole led off in person, script on mini-lectern, and he raised the fatigue over lockdowns and the spectre of opioid overdoses, and true to his party’s Supply Day motion, demanded a “data-driven” federal plan for re-opening the economy. Justin Trudeau noted that the federal government has always been there for Canadians and would continue to listen to the recommendations of experts on re-opening. O’Toole tried to wedge a mental health angle, and Trudeau insisted that they stuck to the advice of science, and poked that some Conservatives didn’t even believe in masks. O’Toole then falsely accused the federal government of making a political decision around second doses, before accusing the federal government of being late on everything, to which Trudeau pushed back, citing that the provinces make the decision around spacing vaccine doses. O’Toole then repeated his first question in French, got much the same response in French, and for his final question, O’Toole accused the country of trailing behind. Trudeau took the opportunity to say that while O’Toole wanted a plan for the economy, he still doesn’t believe that the environment and the economy go hand in hand.

Yves-François Blanchet rose to for the Bloc, and after raising the announcement on high-speed internet yesterday, demanded higher health transfers. Trudeau reminded him that they have given higher transfers to the provinces in the pandemic and they would discuss future transfers after it was over. Blanchet then raised the panic over a certain obnoxious blow hard professor’s “Quebec-bashing,” but this time, Trudeau didn’t bite and returned to talk about federal supports for provinces. 

Jagmeet Singh then rose for the NDP, and in French, demanded an apology for General Vance getting a raise after allegations were raised against him, and Trudeau spoke about the importance of independent investigations. Singh switched to English to demand the government support their Supply Day motion on taking profit out of long-term care, to which Trudeau reminded him that under the constitution, this is a provincial responsibility. 

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Roundup: Some vaccine doses arriving soon

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The prime minister was out this morning with a significant announcement about the vaccine roll-out, in that Canada could see its first 249,000 doses being delivered within about a week, pending Health Canada approval. As well, the box from Pfizer that will serve as the “dry run” of the roll-out plans also left Belgium and was heading for Canada for the exercise. The whole vaccine roll-out is going to be taxing to supply chains for things like dry ice, and there is already talk about lowering some expectations for how soon some long-term care residents can receive doses, because the Pfizer vaccine loses effectiveness if it is jostled too much, as it is with transport, so that may mean trying to find ways of getting those residents to vaccination centres instead of the other way around. We’ll see how this goes.

There is an interesting story in the Globe about a private vaccine manufacturer in Montreal, which is right next door to the National Research Council facility that is currently under construction, which is believed to be capable of manufacturing at least one of the potential vaccine candidates, but they appear not to have been asked by the government, or engaged in any meaningful way. I have questions, however, because it doesn’t really specify which type of vaccines could be manufactured (and yes, this does matter), so it may be a case of waiting to see the viability of one of the later candidates for approval before they go too far with licensing or engaging.

Meanwhile, Conservative leader Erin O’Toole has the audacity to blame the Liberals for the anti-vaxx petition that his MP, Derek Sloan, has been sponsoring. O’Toole says that because the Liberals have been so lacking in transparency that these kinds of things are bound to happen – which is some grade-A horseshit if I ever heard it. This as O’Toole spent the morning shifting the goalposts on what he deems to be sufficient transparency from the government. Of course, O’Toole doing the bare minimum and saying he doesn’t support the petition Sloan is sponsoring, but doing little else to stop the misinformation that he has had an active hand in spreading is quite something. Then again, there does seem to be a tendency among many conservative leaders to shift blame and deny that they are responsible for anything, and we apparently are seeing that again here.

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Roundup: Moving on child care (again)

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The fiscal update and its feminist lens, as well was talk of the “she-cession” has given some people to look a bit more closely at the national early learning and child care proposal that the government is putting forward. And immediately you get those on the left chirping that the Liberals have been promising this for decades but never delivering (which is false – Paul Martin did deliver it, and had agreements signed with every province and money flowing, which Stephen Harper immediately killed thanks to the NDP helping him to bring down Martin’s government), and the Conservatives have resumed their 2004-2006 mantra that taxpayer dollars to child care spaces somehow robs stay-at-home mothers of their choice (also a verifiably bogus argument). Oh, and the Conservatives are also talking about refundable tax credits, which didn’t build a single child care space the last time they tried tax credits, nor will it build any should they form government again. Why? Because there is a supply-side problem, which is going to require federal and provincial investment. The first step of this is in the fiscal update – the immediate creation of a federal secretariat, which will do the work of developing policies for a national universal programme, as well as assisting with the federal-provincial negotiations, because child care is provincial jurisdiction, and the federal government can’t create these spaces without the provinces.

With this in mind, here is Lindsay Tedds and Jennifer Robson about the what is needed to make this a reality.

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Roundup: The greater danger of spending too little

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Chrystia Freeland unveiled her first economic update yesterday, and much of it was predictable, from the size of the deficit (which every single news source focused on immediately, as though it were still 1995), to the lack of a fiscal anchor while we remain in the pandemic, to the promises for how to build back in a more inclusive and greener manner. One of Freeland’s major points was that there is a greater danger in not spending enough than there is in spending too much – particularly at a time of record low interest rates – and we saw this borne out in the last recession, where the Harper government withdrew stimulus too soon, and the Bank of Canada was forced to keep rates lower for longer and we had a consumer debt crisis as a result. There were “down payments” for the work of getting to national childcare, long-term care and the meeting climate targets, but those are also all areas where they need provincial buy-in, so that’s going to get interesting very fast, especially given the number of hostile premiers that are currently in office. There were also new programmes rolled out for tourism and live events, and plans to extend GST/HST to web giants.

Predictably, the opposition parties were unimpressed. Erin O’Toole spent his response speech lying about what has been done to date, set up a completely false revisionist history of the pandemic, and went on TV to moan that the government “overspent” on CERB – apparently not grasping that the point was to keep people at home so as not to spread the virus (ergo, the Conservative plan is apparently to force people back to work in unsafe conditions so that they can facilitate the spread of said virus). The NDP were also predictable in their demands for wealth and “excess profit” taxes, never mind that they are inchoate concepts that largely don’t work out in practice. This means that we get to go through yet another round of election speculation as people wonder if the opposition will gang up to bring the government down over the inevitable implementing legislation.

Meanwhile, Heather Scoffield remarks on the ambition in the fiscal update, and whether or not the government will have the ability to deliver on any of it. Kevin Carmichael bemoans the lack of a fiscal anchor, but does admit that Freeland is right in that there is a danger of spending too little, or withdrawing stimulus too early (like Stephen Harper did). Paul Wells is disquieted by the lack of details on big items in the update, as well as this government’s propensity to farm out tough decisions to people not in government – which is a problem.

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QP: Deliberately mischaracterizing the vaccine plans

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While both the prime minister and finance minister were in town and preparing for the fiscal update, neither were present for QP. Gérard Deltell led off, noting that the fiscal update was coming, but that no economic plan would be worth anything without a vaccine plan. Patty Hajdu responded that they have the best vaccine portfolio and that a fourth candidate has begun its regulatory approval process. Deltell then insisted that the government was too invested in the CanSino candidate and was late in other vaccine candidates, to which Navdeep Bains insisted that they supported Canadian vaccine candidates as part of their plan. Deltell then mischaracterised international vaccine plans to insist that Canada was behind, which Hajdu disputed. Peter Kent took over in English and worried about the plan for economic recovery, to which Sean Fraser reminded him that the federal government made the choice to incur the costs of courses rather than putting it on the backs of people. Kent then worried about the deficit — because apparently it’s still 1995 — and Fraser directed him to the statements by the head of the IMF around what Canada has done. Alain Therrien led for the Bloc and he demanded the vaccine plan, to which Hajdu repeated her lines about the portfolio and the fourth candidate seeking approval. On the follow-up, Hajdu read a statement in French about the doses acquired and working with partners. Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and in French, he regaled the House with the tale of a woman in Gatineau who works three jobs and needs a vaccine, for which Hajdu repeated her usual lines about the portfolio and the regulatory process. Singh switched to English to make the same demand for the plan, and Hajdu reminded him that provinces have the expertise on this.

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Roundup: The necessary context on vaccines

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Vaccines was once again the talk of the day yesterday, and while there was a whole lot of caterwauling about demanding dates for vaccine arrivals and rollout specifics – something that is impossible to determine at this point considering that a) no vaccine has been approved in any country yet, and b) distribution is a provincial responsibility in Canada, and some of those provinces have not got their plans in place, such as Ontario, which just hired former Chief of Defence Staff, General Rick Hillier, to help them plan their logistics. So yeah – it’s pretty hard for Justin Trudeau to give any solid timelines with those particular factors in mind.

With this in mind, Maclean’s has a must-read interview with Dr. Supriya Sharma, Health Canada’s chief medical advisor, about the vaccine approval process – because a lot of people have been talking out of their asses about said approval process. And when you’ve finished reading that, here is a deeper dive into the vaccine manufacturing availability in this country – the delays at the planned National Research Council facility because they decided to upgrade it to be a fully-compliant Good Manufacturing Practice-compliant facility that will be more versatile and able to produce more vaccines once it’s up and running (probably later next year). As well, the two early promising vaccines, from Pfizer and Moderna, are both mRNA technology vaccines, and there are no facilities in this country that can produce them – because not all vaccine production is the same, and different vaccines require different technologies to produce them, and nobody seems to understand this basic fact as they demand to know why we’re not producing it here, or why we haven’t acquired the rights to produce it, given that we have nowhere that can produce it even if we did.

In other pandemic news across the country, Doug Ford’s government got raked over the coals by the province’s Auditor General when she examined the province’s early pandemic response (and while I have some issues with the fact that she seems to be straying outside of her lane, it is nevertheless reassuring to see that she has called out a lot of Ford’s lies about his actions or lack thereof). Ford also started the process of telling Ontarians that Christmas isn’t going to be one with large family gatherings, so at least he’s not trying for the same kind of “social contract” nonsense that Quebec is pushing in spite of the fact that it’s likely to cause more spread of the virus. (Then again, people seem to want to obstinately get together anyway, if Thanksgiving is any indication, so it may not matter). Meanwhile in Alberta, experts are calling out the half-measures of Jason Kenney’s “mockdown,” which is only going to lead to more deaths, and longer and deeper shutdowns to get the virus under control.

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https://twitter.com/LagassePhilippe/status/1331657172137238529

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QP: Magical vaccine production facilities

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Things got off to a slightly late start, as new MPs Marci Ien and Ya’sra Saks took their seats for the first time, led in by Justin Trudeau as their party leader. When QP got started, Erin O’Toole led off with his script on his mini-lectern, where he returned to yesterday’s same panic about vaccine delivery. Trudeau read some talking points about the vaccine portfolio, and stated that they were working with experts on the roll-out plan. O’Toole was not mollified and tried again, and got much the same response. O’Toole then worried that Trudeau wouldn’t ensure that a vaccine would be approved in short order, but Trudeau didn’t bite, and merely noted that three candidates were under review by Health Canada. O’Toole then switched to French to demand the vaccine plan be made public, to which Trudeau again praised the vaccine portfolio before noting that they are working with the provinces to deliver them. O’Toole then pivoted to official languages, to which Trudeau attacked him for not committing to only appointing bilingual Supreme Court judges. Yves-François Blanchet was up next for the Bloc, and he insisted that Quebec could have somehow produced the vaccine before we get doses from abroad, to which Trudeau returned to his points about the vaccine portfolio. Blanchet then demanded harmonised approval for the vaccine with other jurisdictions, to which Trudeau spoke about investing in science after years of neglect. Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and he asked why the National Research Council couldn’t make the vaccines, to which Trudeau reminded him that they won’t be able to get up and running until next summer. Singh started to repeat the question and then, knowing he got an answer, started to veer into demanding the plan, to which Trudeau thanked him for reading the press release but noted that he didn’t read the whole thing, and that the facility was still under construction.

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Roundup: Pretending there’s a shortcut

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The NDP spent the day yesterday trying to make hay of their private members’ bill, which purports to create a national pharmacare programme. Unless the party has been secretly negotiating with the provinces, it will do no such thing, and it’s pretty much guaranteed that the bill is unconstitutional, both on the grounds that it delves into areas of provincial jurisdiction and the fact that it is inherently a money bill, which would require a Royal Recommendation – which they’re not going to get. Beyond that, this is performative grandstanding that seeks to short-circuit the actual work of implementing a national pharmacare programme that the government is already doing.

Because seriously – I was inundated with replies over Twitter about how the Liberals also promised pharmacare, so how was this different? It’s different because the Liberals a) promised negotiations with the provinces, and b) already have a roadmap to implementation through the Hoskins report, whose steps they are following and have invested money toward. I was also reminded constantly that this bill was modelled after the Canada Health Act, so everything should be fine – err, except that the CHA was the end-product of federal-provincial negotiations, not the starting point to be lorded over the provinces, nor does this address the fact that it is inherently a money bill, which Private Members’ Bills are forbidden from being.

I am also somewhat tickled by the fact that the NDP are considering this bill to be some kind of fait accompli, and in a press release, they claimed that this bill would “guarantee” coverage for Canadians. But that’s a lie,  because none of it can happen if provinces don’t come to the table, and several of them are balking at it because it’s expensive (and the expected savings over the longer term won’t be realised right away), and we are already going through the usual hoops of Quebec saying their provincial plan is good enough and if the federal government wants to go ahead with a national plan then they should be able to opt out with full compensation – and you can bet that Alberta will make the same demand if Quebec is. This bill will not be a shortcut to those negotiations, as much as they might like it to be. The government is moving ahead with the Hoskins Report, which may be slower, but that’s how things get done. Trying to claim they’re not living up to their commitments is one more falsehood that the NDP have become adept in promulgating in order to score political points.

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QP: A flaming clown show where seriousness goes to die

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It being Wednesday, the prime minister was not only present, but ready to respond to all of the questions of the day — though the utility of those responses was the question. Erin O’Toole led off, scripts on mini-lectern, and he started in on the Baylis Medical story, asking the prime minister to ask Frank Baylis to change the name from the “Baylis Ventilator.” Justin Trudeau reminded him that people of all partisan stripes, including well known conservatives like a Rick Jamison also stepped up to partner with Baylis. In French, O’Toole tried to insist that the Baylis contract was padded, but Trudeau reiterated the response. O’Toole then lied about the story on judicial appointments, to which Trudeau insisted that they were chosen based on merit and diversity — including political diversity. O’Toole switched to English attempt being clever about judicial appointments, and Trudeau protested that it wasn’t true. O’Toole then demanded to know why Canadians would be at the “back of the line” on vaccine roll-outs, and again Trudeau stated that it simply wasn’t true, and listed their early actions on the pandemic. Yves-François Blanchet was up next, and demanded an official apology for the October Crisis in 1970, to which Trudeau reminded him of the Quebec politician who was assassinated by a terrorist cell. Blanchet insisted that raids were like those in the Soviet Union, but Trudeau reminded him that the premier of Quebec and the leader of the opposition in 1970 called on Ottawa go send in the troops. Jagmeet Singh was up next, and in French, stated that Stephen Harper cut healthcare funds which is why long-term care facilities were under-resourced — which is utterly false. Trudeau stated that the federal government worked with the provinces to help with their facilities when asked. Singh then blamed the government for deaths in care homes that he claims they own — another falsehood — and Trudeau gave a paean about propel deserving care in dignity.

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