Tag Archives: China

Roundup: Calling for price caps

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The NDP are at it again, and by “it,” I mean making stupid demands that should get them laughed out of any room they’re in. To wit, yesterday they demanded price caps on certain grocery items, claiming that the Loblaws settlement over the class action for the bread price-fixing scheme as “proof” that government needs to take action. I can’t think of a more economically illiterate argument that is trying to simply base itself on “vibes” that will only do far more harm than it will do good.

The high price of certain grocery items is rarely an issue of grocery chains hiking prices. It does happen, but there has been little evidence of it when margins have been stable. If you bother to actually pay attention to agricultural news or Statistics Canada data, it’s pretty clear that much of those price increases are a result of climate change-related droughts in food-producing regions, with the odd flash flood or hurricane also ruining crops, and driving up prices. The invasion of Ukraine exacerbated issues by throwing world markets for wheats and cooking oils out of whack, driving up prices as exports couldn’t get to market. And even if you have growing conditions that rebound, often price are locked into contracts with producers or processors for several years at a time, which can delay prices returning to lower levels as supply rebounds. But the point here is that most of this is explainable if you actually bother to look, rather than just screaming “corporate greed!” because you are ideologically predisposed to doing so.

More to the point, this just strikes me as a little bit of history repeating the demands for price controls in the mid-seventies as inflation was reaching double-digits, which then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau mocked with the phrase “Zap, you’re frozen!” We’re not there, and frankly the demand for price caps is frankly ridiculous, and if they persist, we should resurrect “Zap, you’re frozen” to mock them as relentlessly.

Programming Note: I am taking the next week or so off. Columns will continue on schedule but blogs and videos will be taking a bit of a break.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched drone attacks against power facilities in two regions, prompting more power grid disruptions. Another drone attack appears to have overshot and struck down in Romania, but NATO doesn’t believe that this was an intentional attack. A leaked UN report is pointing to Russia as the culprit of an explosion at barracks housing Ukrainian POWs two years ago that killed fifty.

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Roundup: Elections Canada’s helpful suggestions

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Amidst the (possibly overblown) hysteria that party nomination contests are a possible vector for foreign interference, Elections Canada has come along with a series of “helpful” proposals to parties in order to reduce the vulnerabilities. They insist they don’t want to actually manage these contests (which is good, because that would be an enormous expansion of the organisation, which I’m not sure we really want), but nevertheless they could play some kind of role around financial oversight of these contests, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Their suggestions include limiting votes to Canadian citizens, or at least permanent residents, which I think is reasonable, because much like I think it’s good that parties let people join by age 14 so that they can learn about and participate in grassroots organisation before they’re able to vote, bringing in permanent residents before they can also vote could help foster better civic engagement (well, if parties hadn’t decimated their grassroots as they centralised power in their leaders’ offices). Other suggestions include published nomination rules and processes (which parties will hate because they have become used to the ability to tip the scales at the behest of the leader and his or her cult of personality), publishing fuller results such as number of ballots cast and vote distribution, requiring all contestants file a financial return, and banning the sale of party memberships in bulk (the Liberals no longer have paid memberships, while the Conservatives are more expansive rules around this, for the better).

Some of these are quite reasonable, but I have my doubts that parties will do more than theatrically take them under advisement, because they simply don’t want to. They’ve spent so much time and energy in order to minimise their grassroots in favour of the leader and his or her office that they have eliminated most of the checks and balances that are supposed to keep them from getting too big for their own britches (and the Liberals have been the absolutely worst with this, with the 2016 changes to their party constitution). Will they start to re-impose these minor changes in order to hold themselves accountable? I’m not going to hold my breath.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian missile struck a playground in the southern city of Mykolaiv, killing three. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was invited to attend Cabinet in Westminster, where he reiterated the need reduce restrictions on long-range missiles so that they can strike sites in Russia where they are being attacked from.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1814328171543580848

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Roundup: A new Chief of Defence Staff

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The change of command ceremony went ahead yesterday, and General Jennie Carignan became not only the first female four-maple leaf general in Canadian history, but the first female Chief of Defence Staff—also the first in the G7 and G20, but not NATO (where Slovenia beat us to the punch on that). And yes, she has served in combat as a combat engineer (because women were allowed to serve in combat positions in Canada long before the Americans allowed women to serve in combat roles in their military), which is important to note for someone who has reached her position.

In her speech, Carignan pointed to the fact that she is proof that anything is possible, that culture change remains at the heart of what everything the Forces are doing (at a time when the Conservatives are pushing to return to some nonsense “warrior culture”), and that she believes there is a five-year window for us to prepare for emerging threats like Russia and China. It has also been pointed out that she is in the enviable position to be the head of a military with money to spend rather than dealing with cuts (but that could change if Poilievre gets in power), though as a woman, we all know that she’s going to be in for some absolutely rank misogyny, particularly from the right and far-right who will insist that she’s a “diversity hire” or some other such bullshit.

Meanwhile, the Star has an exit interview with General Wayne Eyre, who was essentially Chief of Defence Staff entirely by accident after his two predecessors were both removed for abuse of office and an investigation for sexual misconduct (and when acquitted, claimed he was “exonerated” when he wasn’t, and wrote to every member of the military brass to demand his old job back, demonstrating his unfitness for the job).

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine shot down sixteen drones and three missiles from Russia, but attacks on the Donetsk region have killed five. The Ukrainian army has been forced to pull out of the village of Urozhaine in the Donestk region after their defensive positions were all destroyed as the village was reduced to rubble. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in the UK for European political community meetings.

https://twitter.com/RoyalFamily/status/1813977906089173311

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Roundup: The aftermath and the rhetoric

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In the wake of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in the United States, there has been no shortage of reaction in this country, including Justin Trudeau actually calling Trump to send his regards, but the reaction that should raise the most eyebrows was from Pierre Poilievre, who says that he’s happy that the alleged shooter was killed. No call for justice, nothing about the rule of law or due process, just summary execution without a trial. That shouldn’t be a surprise considering he says that he wants to use the Notwithstanding Clause to take away the civil rights of the accused before they have even had a trial, but this is where this kind of rhetoric goes, and we need to be aware of that.

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1812525573954064727

While we’re being reassured in Canada that our security services are on the case, the debate over the rhetoric of political violence is ramping up even further in the US, given that they are a country where assassinations and attempted assassinations are far more common, as is gun culture (and a whole pop culture mythology that you solve your problems with guns). Of course, you have the far-right in that country insisting that this is Biden and the Democrats’ fault by pointing out (correctly!) that Trump is a threat to democracy (which he has himself stated that he’s going to be a “dictator on day one”), and so this is his fault. Never mind the normalized rhetoric on their side, where your candidates pose with automatic rifles and post ads of them firing at targets that they label with things like “socialism”—no, it’s only the Democrats’ rhetoric that is at stake, and there are going to be media outlets who will credulously play along with this, and treat normalized violent rhetoric from the right as a non-issue.

This all having been said, we don’t have enough conversations in this country about how much that violent rhetoric is seeping into this country unchallenged, where you have the so-called “convoy crowd” walking around with signs and t-shirts about Trudeau and a hangman’s noose, under the false (and frankly stupid) notion that he’s somehow a “traitor” to this country (or worse, that he’s some kind of communist dictator, as though he has nationalised the means of production in this country and abolished private property), but do we see the Conservatives condemn that rhetoric when they embrace that crowd? Nope. Harassment and attacks against MPs have increased dramatically over the past four years, but nobody wants to talk about it or draw attention to it, and that’s as much of a problem. We’re not as far removed from the violent strain on democracy as we’d like to think we are in this country, which is why we need to remain vigilant, and not pretend like we’re immune.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian forces claim to have taken control of the village of Urozhaine in the Donetsk region, while Ukraine says they are still fighting in the area. Two people are dead in a “double-tap” attack in the Kharkiv region, where the second missile hit after emergency crews responded to the first hit, which is a tactic Russia is increasingly employing.

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Roundup: The PBO immolates what little credibility he had left

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It looks like the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Yves Giroux, decided to extend his “winning” streak and cover himself in glory at the Commons’ finance committee yesterday, and once again immolated what credibility he has left. Defending his report, claiming he had access to a confidential report from Environment Canada that he was “gagged” from releasing (which the Conservatives jumped on and launched a thousand shitposts about, because committees are now only about content generation), lamented that the government doesn’t publish more climate modelling of their own, and how he hates how his reports are politicised, even though he’s been at this job for years and knows full well that PBO reports are always politicised, because that’s why MPs like them—so that they can both wield those reports as a cudgel, while hiding behind the shield of the PBO’s non-partisan “credibility” to keep the government from attacking it.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1797780078203671008

https://twitter.com/prairiecentrist/status/1797691621708054916

While this Tony Keller column lays out four major problems with the original carbon price report that the PBO produced—which again, Giroux continues to not really apologise for—energy economist Andrew Leach has some additional comments, driving home both how shallow the analysis is, and the fact that it’s not replicable because the PBO studiously refuses to explain his methodology, relying on “trust us, that’s our job.” But as we saw on P&P and again at finance committee, he complained that the government should be doing this kind of modelling work when it’s literally his one statutorily legislated job to do.

And to be helpful, Jennifer Robson provides some unsolicited advice on how the PBO could make his methodologies more transparent, if he actually wanted to do that (which I doubt, because so many of his reports rely on his pulling a novel methodology out of his ass, according to the many economists I’ve interviewed in the past). But that’s also part of the point about why he has no credibility left, and why he should start drafting that resignation letter.

https://twitter.com/lindsaytedds/status/1797817128483254759

Ukraine Dispatch:

A civilian was killed in a Russian strike on a recreation facility in Kharkiv. Here’s a look at what to expect from Ukraine’s peace summit to be held in Switzerland next week.

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Roundup: Stop talking about what they’re talking about

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The one thing everyone was talking about this weekend was Conservative MP Arnold Viersen going on Nate Erskine-Smith’s podcast and just blatantly laying out his anti-abortion (and anti-gay) agenda, and then a) claiming he was ambushed, and b) putting out the vaguest statement ever to walk back his comments and defend The Leader’s position (which is less clear than he likes to pretend).

But as this is happening, we see the country’s Elder Pundits sighing and saying “There the Liberals go again, always talking about abortion,” and “wow, they’re really desperate to pull this card again, especially so early,” when the Conservatives are the ones who keep bringing it up, time after time, but the Elder Pundits keep telling everyone to just ignore it, because that will apparently make it go away. It’s not going away, and they are increasingly emboldened about these kinds of issues because the authoritarians and wannabe-authoritarians are using these very issues to oppress, and to create wedges that they can leverage, but calling that out is a little uncouth. While yes, I do think that backbench suck-up questions on abortion every day in Question Period for a week is overkill, but again, the Conservatives are the ones who keep bringing it up and who keep insisting that they’re going to re-open these issues, and if the leader says they won’t, I don’t feel inclined to believe him because he has lied about every single issue under the sun (which again, the Elder Pundits of this land continue to studiously ignore). Maybe we need to stop ignoring what is right in front of us, Elder Pundits be damned.

As a bonus, here’s a story about Viersen and what a homophobic/transphobic person he really is (on top of his continued bullshit about trying to block porn). He’s not alone in the party on this front. We should be paying attention but the Elder Pundits keep telling us not to. It’s really tiresome.

https://twitter.com/HannahHodson28/status/1796928863265521767

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian missile hit residences in Balakliia near Kharkiv, injuring 13. Russians have also continued pounding energy facilities across Ukraine, prompting a fresh plea for more air defences. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy headed to the Asia security summit in Singapore to drum up support for the upcoming peace conference, and to call out China for pressuring countries not to attend.

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Roundup: A genteel time that never was

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I saw a post yesterday that took a page from Hansard on that day in 1978, and well, it was full of the first prime minister Trudeau and several honourable members accusing one another of being animals, or parts thereof. And while hilarious, I think it’s a bit of a corrective when people keep insisting that Parliament used to be a much more genteel place (and we got a lot of that during the Ed Broadbent and Brian Mulroney memorials).

It really wasn’t that genteel. It never has been—there are infamous reports in Hansard about early debates in the 1860s where MPs were setting off firecrackers in the Chamber and playing musical instruments to disrupt people speaking. And I can also say that Question Period was a hell of a lot more raucous when I started covering it fifteen years ago compared to what it is today, which has a lot to do with the Liberals clamping down on applause (for the most part) for their members, which has led to there being less heckling from the Liberal benches (not saying it doesn’t happen—it absolutely does—just not as much, and certainly not in the quantities it used to be).

Question Period is worse in other ways, however—nowadays it’s all reciting slogans and everyone on the same script so that they can each get a clip for their socials, while the government gives increasingly disconnected talking points in lieu of responses, and there’s almost no actual debate (though every now and again, Justin Trudeau and Pierre Poilievre will get into an actual exchange with one another). And the repetition of slogans or the reading of canned lines each give rise to heckling because of its ridiculousness, and yes, there is louder heckling when women ministers are answering questions (but this is not a recent phenomenon either). But there was never a golden age of gentility in our Parliament, and we need to stop pretending there was as we lament the state of things. Instead, we should be lamenting the quality of the debate, which has been dead and buried since about the time that Bob Rae retired from politics.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian missile struck an educational facility in Odesa, killing four. Russian forces are advancing in the eastern Donetsk region after the withdrawal from Avdiivka, while Ukraine waits for new arms from the west. UN experts say that a missile that landed in Kharkiv on January 2nd was indeed of North Korean manufacture. Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, visited Kyiv—the first member of the royal family to do so since the war began—and continued her work championing those affected by conflict-related sexual violence.

https://twitter.com/RoyalFamily/status/1785060798890459222

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Roundup: An investment in more artillery

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Bill Blair made an announcement yesterday related to Canada’s ability to produce more artillery, both for our domestic stockpiles and to be able to send more to Ukraine, to the tune of $4.4 million to go to two defence contractors to come up with plans to increase their production. Our inability to produce enough artillery domestically at a fast enough pace has been a problem for a while, but there has been this resistance within those same contractors to scaling up production without guaranteed, long-term plans signed with governments (as though the need and market for said artillery wasn’t obvious enough).

There are problems with some of this, however—a new production facility would need to be built, to the tune of $400 million, and you can bet that they’re going to demand that the government subsidise invest in such a facility, and it could take as long as three years to come online, which means it won’t be much help to Ukraine in the meantime. But it also makes one wonder why the company didn’t start investing on its own two years ago when the writing was on the wall, and why they have been so insistent on needing deals and funding from the government when there has clearly been a demonstrated need that they should be addressing.

It’s great that Bill Blair finally announced this kind of investment, but it feels too little and too late, but also like he’s caving into industry pressure to have the government pick up costs that they should be absorbing for their own growth and future profits, because they’re pretty much guaranteed.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian attack in Kharkiv region killed two civilians, and another in the Chernihiv region. There seems to be consensus that the Russian strike on Odesa on Wednesday was aimed at port infrastructure and not president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but it reiterates how very real the stakes are. Zelenskyy has named the former top general, whom he recently dismissed, to be the next ambassador to the UK. Zelenskyy also issued a decree allowing for conscripts currently fighting to be discharged into the reserves in the next two months, in order to give them some respite. The Czech president says that their multilateral plan to buy 800,000 rounds of ammunition for Ukraine has secured enough funding.

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Roundup: Danielle Smith goes draconian on LGBTQ+ youth

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Alberta premier Danielle Smith unveiled her province’s “parental rights” plan in a seven-minute social media video with no written materials, no legislation, and the press conference won’t be until almost 24 hours later, because that’s a responsible way to run a government. And that plan is the most draconian plan this country has seen yet to restrict the rights of trans and queer youth, all done as Smith coos about having empathy and being supportive when the plan is de facto conversion therapy for a generation of youth.

I’ll likely be writing about this more elsewhere in the next day or two, but reaction has been pretty swift, and a couple of notable ones I wanted to highlight, one being Hannah Hodson, who is a former Conservative candidate whom I believe has left the party over this kind of thing. As for federal justice minister Arif Virani, I’m at a loss as to just what levers he thinks he can use to stand up for the rights of these youth, but I guess we’ll see if they announce anything in the next few days.

It is curious just how much the “freedom” and “bodily autonomy!” crowd seems to want to restrict the freedoms and bodily autonomy of people they don’t like and how Smith is going along with it because she doesn’t want the leopards to eat her face like they did Jason Kenney.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukraine shot down 14 out of 20 drones launched by Russia, but a hospital in Kharkiv was struck. There was a large prisoner exchange, in spite of Russia’s unconfirmed claims that POWs were aboard a downed aircraft. There rumours that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy could sack the country’s top military chief because of disagreements over the handling of the war.

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Roundup: Debunking Singh’s dunks

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NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s political comms lately have been a little bit…cringey. Not like that TikTok in the shower staring blankly cringey, but saying ridiculous things that he should have thought about for thirty seconds before posting cringey. Like this housing development in Edmonton, that he’s denouncing as “luxury condos.” Except they’re not, that whole concept is dated, any market housing that increases supply helps push down prices, and oh yeah, it’s a Métis-led development that is geared largely for affordable housing, and most of them are to be pegged at below-market. Yikes.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1748311506620428422

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1748313113206636842

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1748314188756251009

As if that wasn’t bad enough, he’s pretending that Poilievre will cancel rent control, which, erm, doesn’t exist federally, and then goes on a conspiracy theory about being beholden to developers who contributed to his campaign, in the low thousands of dollars, because remember, this is Canada and we have campaign contribution limits. If you think you’re buying a politician for $1200/year, you’re out to lunch.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1749125638961652148

Of course, this is what happens when as a party, you crib all of your ideas from the “justice Democrats” in Washington, and ignore that we’re two separate countries with different laws, demographics, and circumstances. Unfortunately, this keeps happening, and it makes our politics in this country dumber as a result.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russia had to suspend operations at a Baltic Sea fuel terminal after what appeared to be a Ukrainian drone strike caused a major fire. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is concerned by Trump’s rhetoric of unilateral action and claiming he could end the conflict in 24 hours, and wants Trump to visit Ukraine so he can see the situation for himself.

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