Tag Archives: Chrystia Freeland

Roundup: O’Toole continues to sit on the vaccine fence with caucus

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Erin O’Toole continues to try and have his cake and eat it too when it comes to ensuring his MPs and senators are fully vaccinated in order to attend Parliamentary sittings. But in his desire to sit on the fence and play both sides, he may have inadvertently shown his hand. After the party’s big caucus meeting in Ottawa yesterday, O’Toole announced that caucus “agreed to respect and abide new rules which require Parliamentarians attending in the House of Commons and Senate to be vaccinated.” But he still planned to raise the point of privilege about the Board of Internal Economy decision, because of course.

But.

It seems that he tripped himself up in French, and spelled out that the plan was for those who “participate in person,” which is a pretty big loophole for the holdouts in the caucus. And yet, O’Toole and his caucus continue to oppose hybrid sittings (as well they should), so anyone who doesn’t show up shouldn’t be allowed to participate virtually either – unless this is yet another case of having his cake and eating it too. “They can’t show up, but they have the option of hybrid, so I guess we’ll allow them to participate that way!” with a show of feigned helplessness to the situation. And we still don’t know how many MPs or senators this affects (though the Senate has not yet issued its own vaccine mandate yet), so it could be three or four, or it could be twelve or fifteen, especially as there appear to be vaccinated MPs who refuse to disclose the fact because they don’t want to appear to their anti-vax constituents like they sold out. So this is where O’Toole finds himself. It’s still a losing battle because any privilege complaint will be voted down by everyone else in the Chamber, even if they try to drag it out until the New Year. And all the while, O’Toole continues to look like he’s pandering to the party’s worst elements rather than standing up to them and demonstrating actual leadership.

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Roundup: The $3.5 million witch hunt finds no witches

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In Alberta, the Committee on Un-Albertan Activities – err, Allan Inquiry – released its final report, a year late and millions of dollars over-budget, and it concluded that there was no illegality or nefarious activity with regard to environmental groups who may have received some funding from international donors when it comes to opposing the oil sands and other oil and gas activities. Dollars that went toward campaigns against the energy sector were fairly minor, and had little-to-no impact on projects not moving forward (because market forces did the job just fine, thank you very much). In other words, the province spent $3.5 million on this joke of an inquiry, and tried to claim it was money well spent, because the government is nothing more than a total clown show.

And then there were the lies – the minister insisted that the inquiry was never about finding illegality (untrue – there are receipts), and Jason Kenney outright lying about what the numbers in the report stated, because he needs to try and spin it in the worst possible light to both justify the exercise, and to continue trying to point the populists he stoked in a direction other than his.

https://twitter.com/charlesrusnell/status/1451353269708603397

https://twitter.com/charlesrusnell/status/1451353273781293094

Meanwhile, prime minister Justin Trudeau is pouring cold water on Kenney’s referendum rhetoric, reminding him that a provincial referendum is not an amending formula for the constitution – seven provinces representing fifty percent of the population is. More to the point, Kenney sat around the Cabinet table when the current equalisation formula was last amended, so he can’t claim it’s unfair as he’s the one who helped put it into place. Because seriously – claiming it’s unfair because Albertans pay the same federal taxes as everyone else is just political bullshit masquerading as a grievance, even though it’s a grievance that has largely been created for the sole purpose of driving populist anger.

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Roundup: No formal deal to be had

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While we’re still a month away from Parliament being summoned and the first major confidence vote – likely on the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne – there is going to be no end of talk of some kind of formal governing arrangement between the Liberals and either the Bloc or the NDP. Because that’s what always happens, and we’re predictable like that, but really, there isn’t going to be any arrangement, because nobody actually wants one.

As David Reevely has pointed out, the idea of any kind of supply or confidence agreement with the Bloc is political poison, and won’t happen. Period. And any kind of agreement with the NDP is not saleable politically on either side. And oh, you might say – didn’t they rely on the NDP last year during the pandemic? Well, not really. For the early months, they came to all-party agreements on emergency legislation in the backrooms, and all of it was done behind closed doors and we got next to no debate in the House of Commons over it – just a few speeches about the pandemic, and some back-patting about working together, but nobody was actually going to bring down the government over it. Later on, the NDP and the Bloc joined with the Conservatives in their procedural warfare that largely paralysed legislation for the better part of five months, because they love to embarrass the government, no matter the stripe, and it wasn’t until May when both the Bloc and NDP realized they had bills they wanted to get passed (C-10 for the Bloc, the UNDRIP, the conversion therapy ban, and the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation bills for the NDP) and they finally started to play ball. As for the confidence votes in the interim, the NDP pretended like they were forcing the government’s hand into extending benefits that were going to be extended regardless – this is not a government that is averse to spending money when need be – and they patted themselves on the back for doing such a good job of taking credit for work that happening anyway.

The other fact is that the seat math just isn’t there for a need for a formal agreement of any kind. It’s not marginal enough – as in BC and New Brunswick during their respective hung legislatures, where they had a mere seat or two leeway with the support of the minority partner – whereas that’s not the case here. And as much as everyone is going to handwave about “Canadians want a Parliament that works,” the truth is nobody is in the position to go to an election for at least another 18 months, if not longer. And yes, the Bloc and the NDP will huff and puff and performatively make demands, but in the end, the government will carry on with period bouts of empty drama that the press gallery will dutifully type up as though it did carry much weight, and things will carry on, without need for a formal arrangement once again.

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Roundup: Not pushing back on referendum disinfo

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Because this is occasionally a media criticism blog, I’m going to call out Power & Politics once again for completely dropping the ball, this time on the bullshit “referendum” happing in Alberta. They hosted Bill Bewick, who heads a group in favour of the referendum, and gave him a pretty uncritical interview, with only the barest hints of pushback. Because both-sidesing.

Host David Common pushed back on a mere couple of points – that the referendum won’t actually do anything because it doesn’t obligate the federal government to negotiate anything; and the fact that without equalisation, PEI would need a 30 percent HST to make up the same funding. He even went so far as to egg on Bewick about how much equalisation Ontario pays, as if it was relevant, because no province actually pays equalisation, which is a pretty big thing that Bewick and his bullshit ever got called on. Equalisation is simply federal taxes that come off everyone’s paycheque – that a fraction of those funds get redistributed to some provinces who need help in offering comparable levels of service when they don’t have adequate fiscal capacity. And the key thing to remember is that Alberta may pay more federal taxes because they have the highest salaries in the country – by far – even during the pandemic. Crying that the province has a deficit has nothing to do with equalisation and everything to do with the fact that the provincial government refuses to raise their own revenues by means of a modest sales tax like other provinces have, and the fact that they chose to rely on resource revenues instead. Their deficit is a choice.

I am forced to wonder whether Bewick didn’t get any pushback because the host and/or the producers simply don’t have a clue about the truth, or because they feel bound by the need to both-sides everything and plan to have someone credible on to refute the points in a separate interview later today – because heaven forbid that the host actually push back lest he or she be called out as being biased or partisan. But calling bullshit and pointing out fact shouldn’t be considered bias or partisanship – it should be simple fact-checking, which they can’t seem to be arsed to do at the best of times, let alone in a referendum that is fuelled by misinformation and disinformation coming from official sources trying to make a political wedge out of this. In a case like this, it’s especially incumbent upon the media to play their role in pushing back against a government that is lying to its citizens, but this timidity to do so is a very real problem for our media.

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Roundup: Freeland has a KGB file

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I think it goes a little unappreciated at times as to just what a force of nature Chrystia Freeland can be. This weekend, we learned about her KGB file – wherein she was code-named “Frida” – from the time she was a university student on an exchange programme in Soviet Ukraine. She was ostensibly there to learn the language, but she was already fluent (she spoke it at home growing up, and still speaks it at home with her children), and instead spent much of her time organising local dissidents, and acting as a fixer for foreign journalists (which set up her later career). And along the way, she knew how to evade Soviet surveillance and send letters through the Canadian embassy in Moscow where the diplomatic pouches couldn’t be searched. The KGB was apparently not only worried about her, but impressed by her talents and felt she could have made a great spy.

Having read this, I was reminded of a debate that took place in the House of Commons in the waning days of the Harper government, when then-parliamentary secretary James Bezan was trying to minimise Freeland’s connection with Ukraine, and tried to make it sound as though Freeland was inventing it. (Remember that the Conservatives very much try to play up their connections with the Ukrainian diaspora community across the prairies, because they have votes there). Never mind that Freeland’s mother helped write Ukraine’s first post-Soviet constitution, but we have learned more about Freeland’s own activities in organising movements that helped bring down the Soviet presence in that country.

The fact that our deputy prime minister has this history is pretty interesting stuff, and all the more interesting as she is very likely to be the next prime minister of this country. Add to that, the fact that she is currently a persona non grata in Russia and the subject of sanctions by that country makes it all the more fascinating that she could soon be in charge of this country.

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Roundup: Self-awareness and civilian control

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When it comes to the issue of sexual misconduct in the Canadian Forces, there seems to be an epidemic of a lack of self-awareness. This is demonstrated time and again within the ranks as officers are given inappropriate promotions (remember the head of personnel who had known sexual misconduct allegations), are protected by the top brass (General Jonathan Vance, the infamous golf game earlier in the year), and the issue with Major-General Peter Dawe being given the role of sorting through the various reports on reforming military culture after he was suspended for writing the glowing letter for someone under his command who had been convicted of sexual assault. Every time, this has to be pointed out to them and how inappropriate their actions continue to be.

But it’s not just the ranks that lack self-awareness – it’s also their political masters. During a media availability yesterday, both prime minister Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland also had harsh words for the military’s inability to exercise self-awareness on the sexual misconduct file – but they have a role to play there as well, because in a democracy like ours, the military answers to civilian control. In our particular system, that should be going through the Chief of Defence Staff to the Minister of National Defence – but the current minister, Harjit Sajjan, has made it clear that he is not exercising his responsibility for civilian control, and is not properly overseeing the CDS, or his top decisions. Part of this may be because he is former military (he was actually active when he was elected and needed to go through the discharge process so that the CDS could no longer outrank him), and is steeped in the culture and cannot adequately see the reality of what is going on, or why he needs to exercise civilian control. And no, I’m not sure it was any better under the previous government either, who also appointed a former general to Minister of Defence (Gordon O’Connor), and generally let the military run their own show – especially with procurement, which is why there were so many botched files, from the F-35 to joint supply ships.

We need to re-assert civilian control by means of a competent minister who doesn’t have a military background, and someone who can actually perform some managerial competence and keep the CDS on a tight leash. But that may depend on Trudeau having enough self-awareness of his own recognise that this is what needs to happen as he decides on how to shuffle his Cabinet, and I’m losing confidence that this could actually happen.

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Roundup: Alberta is broken, part eleventy-seven

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Things are increasingly broken in Alberta, and I’m not referring to the province’s horrific case rates, collapsing ICUs, and Jason Kenney’s continued refusal to take appropriate public health measures in the face of this. No, I’m referring to the fact that a group of MLAs including the gods damned Speaker and deputy Speaker came out as quasi-separatists yesterday with a looney-tunes “Free Alberta Strategy” which is 100 percent handwaving and pretending that they can simply opt-out of federally-imposed laws by sheer force of political will, and the mistaken notion that Quebec did it and they can too. (Spoiler: Quebec didn’t actually do it, and what few things it did do pretty much devastated their economy). This thread helps to clarify a lot of what they’re asking for and why it’s eye-rollingly ludicrous.

There are a few things to unpack here. Much of this stems from Kenney’s farcical referendums that will take place next month, the central of which is to demand a renegotiation of equalisation, which is where these quasi-separatist loons are drawing their inspiration from. It encouraged this kind of magical thinking that somehow Alberta could just stamp its feet and hold its breath and the federal government would somehow surrender its jurisdiction over things. That’s not how this works. But it’s also about Kenney’s entire attitude toward governing, and how he was building anger toward Trudeau in particular so that it would distract the population from his own failings. I have tended to liken Kenney to an arsonist who would set fires and get far enough ahead of them to put them out so that he can look like a hero – but he hasn’t put them out. He poured a glass of water on them and demanded a medal, while the very fires he set are spreading. Everything that is happening in this province all started with a match that has his name and fingerprints all over it. It’s not just trying to pretend that there’s a “good parts only” version of populism that he’s cherry-picking, or that he is somehow “tapping a relief well” to keep it from blowing up in his face. It blew up. The province is in a crisis, and he keeps lighting more fires because he can’t help himself. Things are going to get even worse in the coming weeks, and try as he might, Kenney has nobody to blame but himself.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1442925906679320582

And then there’s the whole issue with the Speaker and his deputy. This is the second time now that said Speaker has compromised the avowed neutrality of his position, and he needs to be removed by the Legislature at once, as well as his deputy. It is unacceptable that they remain in their positions any longer, as they cannot be trusted to be neutral presiding officers in the Legislature.

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Roundup: Considerations on the private delivery debate

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The accusations and sanctimony from that video continued to reverberate around the campaign yesterday, with the Liberals defending the video and its edits, while the Conservatives wrote to the Commissioner of Elections to have it taken down, and really, we’re all the dumber for it.

It did keep the debate on healthcare going throughout the day, and while I do have a column on this coming out later today, I’ll make a few additional observations, which is that there are nuances to the debate around private delivery, and one of them is how stringently the federal government enforces the Canada Health Act when it comes to that enforcement. There are concerns that the Conservatives’ pledge to increase health transfers with no strings attached is a signal that they are willing to allow more private delivery, whereas the Liberals are starting to resume clawbacks of health transfers in proportion to fees collected from private delivery, as they paused those clawbacks during the pandemic so as to give provinces as many resources as possible (though one could argue that the federal government could have played harder ball). An example is Clinic 554 in New Brunswick, which is a private abortion clinic as the province won’t pay for its services, citing that the province is already sufficiently covered with the three hospitals that provide the service (which is disputed as the Clinic is in Fredericton, where the service is not provided publicly). The federal government was clawing back health transfers related to fees that people paid to the clinic, but stopped when the pandemic hit. It looks like this is going to start in Saskatchewan and Manitoba with private delivery of services in those provinces.

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Roundup: Paul’s disqualifying blunder

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It was not a good day for civic literacy or basic constitutional knowledge on the campaign trail, as Green Party leader Annamie Paul suggested that the Governor General “reinvoke” Parliament to hold an emergency debate on the situation in Afghanistan, and worse, cited a section out of the Emergencies Act to make it happen, and my head nearly exploded from the sheer stupidity of it all.

First of all, and this is crucial – the Governor General does not have that power. She has already dissolved Parliament. She can’t un-dissolve it with the stroke of a pen, and there is no mechanism to “reinvoke” Parliament, not even under the Emergencies Act. Parliament has been dissolved. There is nothing to recall in order to hold a debate, which again, is a useless gesture in the current situation. The most that would happen is that MPs would read speeches into the record for about five hours, and that’s it. Paul is perfectly welcome to read a twenty-minute speech to the media if she so chooses, and it would have exactly the same effect as an “emergency debate” would in the House of Commons (and I do use the term loosely). More to the fact, this is not a situation for which the Emergencies Act could be invoked, because it is not a national emergency in any shape or form. Additionally, the section she cites says that Parliament needs to be recalled at its earliest opportunity, even if it’s been dissolved – in which case it means as soon as there’s a new parliament that can be convened.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1427347519751720965

The fact that we have another party leader who is just pulling this out of her ass is bad enough, but she’s also a lawyer and should know better (and this goes doubly for Jagmeet Singh, as he too is a lawyer, and has been inventing powers for the Governor General). The fact that you can’t recall a dissolved Parliament is basic civics – and the fact that she doesn’t know this and is trying to issue demands to the Governor General should be disqualifying. It’s a complete embarrassment – but you wouldn’t know it if you watched the CBC, who glossed over the whole incident and didn’t mention it during their roundup of the day’s speeches. (We had other reporters covering themselves in glory today by asking the prime minister who was in charge during the election. No, seriously). An utter farce all around. This is why we can’t have nice things.

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Roundup: Speculating about normal activities

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As there are only three narratives available to mainstream journalists in this country, and the first of those is speculating about an early election, that’s what we got a lot of over the weekend. Yes, it is looking more likely these days, but eventually this starts looking like a self-fulfilling prophecy more than anything else.

To that end, we got an examination of the electoral considerations that each of the main party leaders is hoping to access in BC, and why they have focused so much attention there over the past week. We got an examination of how pre-writ advertising limitations don’t apply to early elections under the current legislation – though nobody is pulling the trigger on early ads just yet anyway (especially not when TikToks and social media shitposts are free). And there was a state of play when it comes to conservative premiers around the country and how much of a fight they’ll manage to put up against Trudeau if and when an election comes, considering how badly wounded most of them are at this point.

Now, as for the summer tours and announcements that the leaders have been on, apparently much of the media either has amnesia, or they’re being wilfully blind to history because they have a narrative to maintain. While some of these tour activities may be electioneering, but this is also typical after the Commons rises for the summer – leaders always head out across the country, and there is a pent-up desire to do so after some sixteen months of public health restrictions related to the pandemic. Not to mention, the budget has just passed, and the government wants to spread the good news and largesse, which happens every year, election or not. So while I can understand why my fellows in the media want to put everything in the election speculation box, these are also the same things that happen every other normal year, so maybe – just maybe – we should cool it a little until we get some actual signs that Trudeau is going to march over to Rideau Hall to demand a dissolution. And maybe we should ban the phrase “campaign-style” for the time being (maybe permanently), because it’s starting to look embarrassing.

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