Tag Archives: China

QP: All sound and fury

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Caucus day, and all of the leaders were present, and just a few minutes before things got underway, Andrew Scheer went to the microphones in the Foyer to demand Bill Morneau’s resignation. So there’s that. Scheer led off, mini-lectern on desk, and he read some condemnation about Bill Morneau’s numeracy and economic prowess. Justin Trudeau offered a correction in return — lowered taxes, economic growth, more money for the vulnerable, and so on. Scheer switched to English to repeat the accusations, wondering why Morneau was still in cabinet, while Trudeau reminded him that the point of Prime Minister’s Questions was supposed to be about backbenchers asking the PM questions. Scheer the went into the disingenuous questions about the supposed ethical lapses, including the insinuation of insider trading, and Morneau got up to say that everything has been reported in the press, and if the opposition wants to make any clear accusations, they should do so in the House, and in the Foyer. Scheer tried twice more, and Morneau reiterated his counter demand. Guy Caron was up next, repeating the same insinuations and wondering why the PM wasn’t demanding a clear answer. Trudeau said that Caron obviously wasn’t listening, as he just answered. Caron tried again in English, with an added dollop of sanctimony, and Trudeau assured him that everyone was answering questions and then praised their economic growth record. Alexandre Boulerice listed all of the supposed ethical lapses, only louder and angrier, and Trudeau invited them to make their clear allegations outside of the Chamber. Nathan Cullen said that they had repeated the questions outside, and repeated the allegations, and Trudeau mocked the response with some added jabs at how badly they lost in the last election.

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Senate QP: Chagger skirts some issues

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While the official apology to LGBT Canadians carried on in the House of Commons, the Senate moved onto its regularly scheduled ministerial Question Period, with special guest star Bardish Chagger in her role as minister of small business and tourism. That didn’t quite matter to the Conservative leader, Senator Smith, who led off on the ongoing issue of the process to name a new Ethics Commissioner, which Chagger is in charge of, and his concerns with news that four members of the PMO had recused themselves from the process because they were on the PM’s vacation to the Bahamas over Christmas. Chagger noted that she was supposed to be here in her role as minister of small business and tourism, but that being said, she responded that the was an open, transparent, merit-based process in place. When Smith pressed, noting that Chagger had defended the PM on his vacation while she was in charge of this process, Chagger reiterated that there was an open, transparent, merit-based process.

Senator McIntyre asked about the PBO report on the proposed tax changes, and whether she knew in advance what it said. Chagger noted that she read the report at the same time as others, and that the intent of the changes was to close loopholes on places where they are used for high-earners evading taxes but not to punish small businesses, which are the backbone of the economy.

Senator Day asked a question in relation to Chagger’s role as House Leader, and raised the omnibus motion that Chagger moved in June that in part rejected Senate amendments to the budget bill. Day demanded to know what “rights and privileges” the amendments would have violated, and why they would have been passed without debate. Chagger said that they have the utmost respect for the Senate, but didn’t really defend her motion or her actions. Day pressed on the rights and privileges, given there was no debate that spelled out what they were, but Chagger merely said that she would ensure that the Senate’s views were heard.

Senator Cormier asked about the Business Development Bank of Canada, and the needs of the arts and culture sector. Chagger said that she has been working with BDC on several initiatives, and that a whole-of-government approach was being taken, but she was pushing for more recognition of the arts sector.

Senator Lankin asked about taxes on campgrounds and the lack of sufficient answers on the matter to date. Chagger said that CRA was dealing with those cases on a case-by-case basis, and she had asked to be kept informed on the progress.

Senator Batters asked about the lack of details on retroactive tax changes to passive investments (which is not actually right — passive income changes were to be grandfather existing investments). Chagger respectfully disagreed with Batters on her characterization, noted the 73 percent tax rate referred to was not common, and then quoted the PBO report that said that 97 percent of businesses would not be affected.

Senator Greene Raine asked about a programme for tourism packages, which was had their GST rebate application later than expected and less than expected. Chagger said that she would follow up with her on the issue.

Senator Omidvar talked about entrepreneurship among immigrants, and some of the difficulty that they have with navigating the system. Chagger highlighted the accelerated growth service that caters to the needs of entrepreneurs that provides help to get through the hurdles.

Senator McPhedran asked about a fund for women entrepreneurs in the tech sector, particularly for Indigenous women. Chagger agreed that were not doing enough in that sector and they were trying to do better, and they were seeing returns on that fund, and curiously, tied it into the apology to persecuted LGBT Canadians taking place in the Commons, and the loss of potential that took place then and that she doesn’t want to keep taking place now.

Senator Oh asked about Canada-China tourism, and the ability to quickly process visa applications. Chagger said that she was happy to see the numbers from China grow, and gave some praise for the tourism industry before getting around to the visas, and noted the seven new visa centres which were opened and are “working well.”

Overall, it was a fairly mixed bag. On the one hand, Chagger could absolutely give good answers to some questions, and without the same 35-second constraints in the Commons, was able to actually give reasonable answers instead of sound-bites. This having been said, she did have a tendency to dissemble at times, but not quite as much as some of her colleagues, and generally, she would return to the question being posed. But when pressed on one of the most fundamental issues, being Senator Day’s inquiry into just what happened in June with the amendments to the budget bill (during which, I will remind you, Senator Harder compromised his own position in his leading the response from the Senate), and the somewhat alarming manner in which Chagger made her response in the Commons at the time, she remained mute. While it wasn’t too surprising, it was certainly disappointing, especially as it points to the ways in which this government continues to handle the independent Senate that they have promoted.

Sartorially speaking, style citations go out to Senator Lillian Eva Dyck for a black leather jacket with embroidery, a white blouse with a lace collar and a black skirt with a Indigenous floral pattern, as well as to Senator René Cormier for a tailored dark grey suit with a white shirt and patterned tie. Style citations go out to Senator David Richards for a baggy black jacket, taupe slacks, white shirt and black striped tie, and to Senator Pierrette Ringuette for a tan long sweater over a black, white and red patterned dress, with red tights.

Roundup: Foreign fighters and the fear industry

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As the issue of returning jihadis continues to ramp up, with some frankly irresponsible journalistic stirring of pots along the way, it’s important that we take a breath and listen to some of the experts who study this kind of thing for a living.

To that end, Ralph Goodale was on CTV’s Question Period yesterday, talking about how it’s unlikely that most of those who return could be rehabilitated (which is assuming that those who return are hard-core jihadis and are not likely women and the children they had while over in there), which is again countered by yet other experts who say that it is possible to rehabilitate them, but it requires careful effort.

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But the thing that we should be most aware of is the fact that there is an industry dedicated to fear in Canada, and we should be very cautious of feeding into it – especially if it’s simply for partisan point-scoring, or even for the sake of a sensational headline. And we are seeing a lot of this partisan point-scoring right now, with the Conservatives insisting that the government is being “soft on terror” by welcoming the worst murders back with hugs and government dollars for said rehabilitation, which is completely not the case – but hey, we’re in an era right now where the truth is hardly anywhere to be seen in the opposition benches as everything needs to be wrapped in a disingenuous and mendacious frame in order to amp up the drama, for the sake of sharing it on their social media channels, damn the consequences. And there are consequences, such as the reports of people trying to confront Trudeau about those returning jihadis during that swarming at the mall in Scarborough, no doubt whipped up by the fear industry. We should have a sense of responsibility around a serious topic like this, but I’m not seeing much of one.

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QP: No one is above the law

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With the PM off in PEI to deliver a speech and then off to Newfoundland to do a bit of by-election campaigning, Andrew Scheer opted not to show up either. That meant that it was up to Lisa Raitt to lead off, raising the new headlines around Stephen Bronfman, and demanded to know what assurances the PM had received from him. In response, Diane Lebouthillier gave her usual assurances that they are investigating tax evasion and charges were upcoming. When Raitt demanded to know if Bronfman was under investigation — as though the minister could actually answer that — and Lebouthillier reminded her that the previous government, of which Raitt was a member, cut investigations. Raitt then disingenuously suggested that the PM interfered in an investigation — wholly falsely — and Lebouthillier reiterated her assurances. Gérard Deltell got up to repeat the questions in French, to which Lebouthillier reminded him that she can’t comment on any investigation under the law and that they knew that. After another round of the same, Guy Caron got up to also carry on the Bronfman questions, and Lebouthillier dutifully repeated her points about investigations. Caron repeated in English, and Lebouthillier sharply noted that no one was above the law, and nobody was interfering with any investigation. Matthew Dubé was up next to ask about SS7 vulnerabilities with Canadian mobile phones, to which Ralph Goodale said that this was a CSE responsibility, that they work with telecom companies, and if they needed more of a push, they would get it. Dubé demanded legislative updates to protect Canadians’ privacy, and Goodale assured him that a cyber-review was underway and at least three initiatives would be tabled in the coming weeks.

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Roundup: Artificial deadline drama

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It’s one of these kinds of stories that I’m already suspicious of – the kind that presuppose that the Senate is going to delay the course of legislation. And lo, the fact that there is a story with Bill Blair out there, shaking his finger at the Senate and warning them not to delay the marijuana legislation, is one that makes me roll my eyes because 1) the Bill still hasn’t passed the Commons, and may not yet for another week; and 2) I have heard zero plans from any senators that this is something that they intend to sit on until any deadlines pass or expire. In fact, I’ve heard pretty much the opposite – that to date, there is an extreme reluctance on the part of those making up the Independent Senators Group to delaying or being perceived to be delaying government bills, and they will provide the statistics to show that they pass bills faster than the House of Commons does as a way to prove that they don’t delay bills.

Oh, but what about the national anthem bill, which Conservative senators are sitting on and deliberately delaying? Well, that’s a private member’s bill, so it is at the mercy of Senate procedure, unlike a government bill – as the marijuana legislation is – which not only takes precedence over other business in the Senate, and which Senator Peter Harder, the Government Leader in the Senate – err, “government representative” could invoke time allocation on, and I’m sure that he would be able to get enough votes for it to pass (grumbling of Conservative senators aside). This having been said, I think that perhaps it may be pushing it for the government to insist that a major piece of legislation like the marijuana bill be passed by the Senate within three weeks given that they took much longer on it, and given that provincial governments have a lot to say on the matter – though I’m hearing that the Senate will likely sit a full week longer than the Commons will before they rise for the Christmas break, meaning that if the Commons passes it by this Friday, it would be four weeks for the Senate to pass it before the break, which is a long time for a bill in the Senate, but not unreasonable. And if the Commons was so concerned about how long it was taking, they would have picked up their own pace on the bill beforehand. They didn’t, and didn’t invoke time allocation on it thus far, meaning that this concern of Blair’s is artificial and used to create some faux drama. People aren’t stupid – creating a problem where one doesn’t exist is just as likely to backfire than it is to try and shame the Senate into doing your bidding.

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Roundup: Provocation theatre

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I have been giving a good deal of thought to this whole situation with Rachael Harder and the Status of Women committee, and it wasn’t until Andrew Scheer went on CTV’s Your Morning yesterday to decry the “intolerance” of Liberal MPs for a “strong, competent, dynamic young woman” that it started to click. “The Liberals are trying to politicize this. I actually find it disgusting that the Liberals would treat a young, female Member of Parliament in this way, and it just shows the intolerance of the Liberal party,” Scheer went on to say, which is hilarious because he’s the one who made the very political move of putting his critic into the role of committee chair, which is supposed to be a neutral arbiter of the rules and to facilitate discussion, and who isn’t supposed to vote other than to break a tie.

It was then that I finally understood what was going on. Andrew Scheer is trying to be a Dollarama knock-off Ann Coulter/Milo Yiannopoulos provocateur.

The signs were all there, from his preoccupation with free speech on campus, to his appropriation of the kinds of alt-right language being used to weaponize free speech across North America, and this move with Harder fits that bill entirely. I’m pretty sure that Scheer knew exactly what he was doing when he put someone who was avowedly pro-life into the Status of Women portfolio as a poke in the eye to the Liberals (for whom there are still some unhealed wounds over Trudeau’s dictate that the party is a pro-choice, full-stop), and it was an even bigger deliberate provocation to try and put her into the chair position of that committee, no matter how inappropriate it was to put a critic into that role. Of course, this is Scheer, so his timing has been inept enough that he created his own distraction from the tax proposal issue that he has been all sound and fury over (then tried to blame the Liberals for creating the distraction). It was also his way of provoking another round of discussion about the abortion issue without his having to deliberately raise it – he just ensured that the Liberals and NDP would do it for him, and he could stand back and accuse them of “politicizing” the issue, and then getting Harder to play victim.

Of course, some of the pundit class is trying to brand this as the Liberals being “in contempt of Parliament” (which is a specific Thing, and this is not it – and when you point that out, the correction is “having contempt for Parliament.”) Which is ridiculous. Walking out on votes is as much a parliamentary tradition as filibusters and any other procedural protest. And when it’s being done because someone wants to play provocateur in order to virtue signal to a portion of their base that they want to solidify, it’s all the more eye-roll inducing.

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Roundup: Exit the GG

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With this being Governor General David Johnston’s last week on the job, and before we see the installation of Julie Payette as his successor next week, I thought I’d share this thread from Philippe Lagassé from the weekend on the job of being GG.

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Meanwhile, that interview with Maclean’s that Johnston did last week also sparked a few thoughts from Lagassé as well.

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While I think that Johnston was an okay GG, I do recall there being a few…brow-raising incidents early in his tenure, which most people seem to have glossed over. One was during a cabinet swearing-in shortly after one of the Harper-era elections, where reporters at Rideau Hall noted that he was doing a lot of high-fiving with newly sworn-in cabinet ministers, and while those on the scene tried to raise the issue over Twitter, it got swallowed by the news cycle shortly. (Remember that Johnston was appointed not long after he drafted very narrow terms of reference for the Oliphant Inquiry into Brian Mulroney’s dealings with Karlheinz Schriber, which again were curious at the time). The other incident for me that I found a bit curious was during an interview that Johnston had with George Stroumoublopoulos, in which Strombo raised the promotion of family as one of the things that Johnston was keen to promote during his time in office, and when he asked what that meant, Johnston replied that it started with the nuclear family. As someone for whom the nuclear family was never going to be an option, I found the response curious but it wasn’t really delved into. Nevertheless, Johnston’s tenure has been largely unremarkable, which was probably what those who appointed him were looking for after two previous Governors General that were media darlings and in danger of being a bit self-aggrandizing at times. We’ll see what Julie Payette brings to the role, and I look forward to her installation.

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Roundup: Fun with populist proposals

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As the new United Conservative Party in Alberta starts to take shape, some familiar populist tropes have been tossed around, which the leadership candidates – Brian Jean especially – don’t seem to actually think through before proposing it. Colby Cosh, on the other hand, did think through some of those proposals and the problems that they would cause, particularly when it comes to thinks like local referendums on photo radar (which I will remind you is ridiculous – if you don’t want to get a ticket, then don’t speed. It’s your own damn fault if you get one), but the big one is promised recall legislation. People keep bringing this particular idea up time and again, enamoured with American examples thereof, without actually thinking through the consequences of how it would work in our particular system, especially when there are more than two parties on the ballot, making thresholds an important consideration. In BC, the one province where recall legislation exists, it’s set at 40 percent of eligible voters, making it high enough to never actually be used, but the Wildrose had previously proposed a twenty percent threshold, which would set up a constant flow of recall initiatives, at which point it becomes comical. Suffice to say, populism is not democracy, and people who treat them as interchangeable are asking for trouble.

Meanwhile, as could be expected, old Wildrose holdouts are looking to revive their now moribund party in one form or another, likely with a new name but the same policies and party constitution, given that they resolutely remain opposed to uniting. At the same time, former PC operatives and the provinces’ hipster centrists, the Alberta Party, are holding “Alberta Together” meetings, to apparently try and solidify the centrist vote in the province, for what it’s worth.

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Roundup: Virtue signalling over Khadr

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It’s official – Omar Khadr got his apology and settlement, but the terms of which are confidential (as is par for the course in most settlement offers), and now the Conservatives are really steaming mad. For his part, Khadr says that he hopes the apology and settlement will restore a bit of his reputation and help people take a second look at his case to see that there was more going on, but also notes that he is not really profiting from his past. While the ministers where quite neutral in their tone, when the parliamentary secretary accompanying them translated in French, he took the partisan shots that the government didn’t, which was odd. Later in the evening, the government put out further clarifications, no doubt bombarded with accusations of bad faith.

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Later in the afternoon, Andrew Scheer took to the microphones to offer a take so utterly disingenuous that it borders on gob-smacking. Essentially, he argued that a) they should have spared no expense in fighting Khadr’s suit, and b) that the remedy for the Supreme Court of Canada decisions around Khadr was his repatriation, which is a complete and utter fabrication. And there’s a part of me that would have like to see them argue that case before the Supreme Court, if only to watch the justices there flay them before laughing them out of the room.

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And then the rest of the weighing in, including Stephen Harper, who wanted to pin the blame on the current government, while Conservatives continued to virtue signal that no expense should be spared to give the appearance of fighting terrorists, never mind that this decision is about Khadr’s Charter rights being violated. For a law-and-order party to decide they want to cherry pick which Charter rights don’t apply to people they consider icky, well, that’s a pretty big problem right there.

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Here are some further legal opinions on the settlement, while Craig Forcese offers a reminder of some of the legal points at play, including where successive governments screwed up and made this settlement necessary where they could have repatriated him earlier and put him on trial here, an opportunity now lost. There is also a reminder that the government didn’t disclose the details of earlier settlements with former terror suspects who were cleared of wrongdoing. Terry Glavin has little patience for how this was handled on all sides, while Susan Delcarourt sees signs that people are still open to being convinced about Khadr.

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Roundup: The Khadr settlement

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News that Omar Khadr’s lawyers have reached a settlement with the government for some $10 million over his mistreatment and violation of his rights set off a firestorm, particularly among Conservatives, who took to the Twitter Machine to perform some outrage and to virtue signal, ignoring all of the relevant facts about the case, like the fact that he was a child soldier, that he was tortured, subjected to an illegal court process, confessed under duress to a made-up offence and pled guilty under similar duress, and the fact that thrice the Supreme Court of Canada found that we violated his Charter rights. (The government, incidentally, will only confirm that there is a judicial process underway, nor have any Liberal MPs joined in the online fray). And before you ask, no, this isn’t just something to be worn by the Harper government, but goes back to the Chrétien and Martin governments.

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And it cannot be understated, no matter what Khadr is accused of having done (and there is much disputed evidence that he could have thrown that grenade), the reason he would be getting compensation is because Canada violated his rights. And while Andrew MacDougall may explore the partisan point-scoring on Khadr, we cannot escape the simple fact that, as Stephanie Carvin drives home, that we are now paying the financial price for violating his rights for no tangible benefit. I would add that this financial penalty should also serve as a deterrent to future governments who think that they can get away with violating a Canadian’s rights and there not be any consequences. Amidst this, that a party that purports to be concerned with “law and order” to have trouble grasping with the basics of the rule of law, and coming up with a myriad of disingenuous justifications for ignoring said rule of law, is troubling. Oh, and the widow of the soldier that Khadr is alleged to have killed, and the other he is alleged to have blinded, are applying to the Canadian courts to claim his settlement (but I would be curious to see, if it makes it to trial, if their claims would hold up in court considering that they are based on charges and evidence that would not have stood up to Canadian law).

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Meanwhile, while all of this outrage is being performed, remember that these same conservatives who insist that he was fully capable of having the mens rea to commit war crimes (which there are no legal basis for) who also insist that fifteen-year-olds can’t consent to sex, or that they need parental consent to attend gay-straight alliance clubs at their schools. Because there’s so much logical consistency there.

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