Tag Archives: Competition Bureau

Roundup: Turnabout is fair play in procedural warfare

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If you needed yet another example of how the state of the current parliament continues to degrade, yesterday was yet another example. It was the first of the allotted Supply Days (aka “opposition days”) that the Speaker had to intervene in order to schedule, and it barely happened at all. Why? The NDP used procedural shenanigans to delay the debate on the confidence motion that used Jagmeet Singh’s words as the fodder by calling for concurrence debate on a committee report that dealt with abortion access, and the Liberals played along, which meant that the Conservatives’ debate didn’t end up happening until after QP, meaning they only had a couple of hours’ worth of clip-gathering instead of a full day, and boy were they put out about it. But that’s the thing with procedural warfare—if you wage it against others, eventually they will wage it against you.

There were other shenanigans that happened after QP—Liberal MP Jaime Battiste tried to move a unanimous consent motion to get the First Nations water bill out of committee and over to the Senate, but the Conservatives refused. As they did, Battiste took his water glass and started shouting at the Conservatives, and went into the aisle, apparently planning to throw the glass at them before he thought better of it. And then Andrew Scheer tried to move a motion that would have had the same effect, but with language that denigrated the government, and of course that too was shut down, and Scheer had the audacity to play the victim after that stunt.

It’s good that there’s only one sitting week left, because my tolerance for this kind of bullshit is at its end.

Ukraine Dispatch

The Americans have been pressuring Ukraine to lower the conscription age to 18 in order to bolster their fighting force, which is creating dilemmas for those teenaged boys.

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Roundup: GST “holiday” bill passes

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The federal government got their wish, with the cooperation of the NDP, to get their GST “holiday” bill through the House of Commons thanks to a programming motion that paused the ongoing privilege filibuster for the sitting day. In spite of the Bloc and Conservatives slow-walking it with dilatory amendments, it did pass late at night, with the terms of the motion being that once it passed second reading vote, it would automatically be deemed to have been referred to committee of the whole and passed, and then passed at third reading. (The Senate won’t see it until Tuesday at the earliest). It’s the first opportunity the Commons has had to do real work in more than six weeks, for what it’s worth. The Liberals and NDP, however, think they’ve found a big gotcha, that by forcing the Conservatives to vote against this legitimately terrible policy will be the key to reversing their fortunes in the polls, and their attempts remain cringe-worthy.

Pierre Poilievre took to the microphones to denounce it as “inflationary,” which is actually nonsense because we’re no longer in an overheated economy. Nevertheless, he relies on the simplistic notion that any government spending or deficits are inflationary (and claims that Chrystia Freeland herself this, which isn’t really what she said—not that the truth has ever mattered to Poilievre). Then again, his entire understanding of economics comes from crypto bros on YouTube, so probably best not to take him seriously. It’s still a terrible policy, however, so their opposition to it somewhat accidentally puts them on the right side of the issue, even if the reasons are entirely false and misleading (but broken clocks being right twice a day, and all of that).

As for the implementation of this terrible policy, it just looks even worse as the details emerge. What counts and what doesn’t for the rebate are all over the map, and it’s so chaotic that businesses are, quite rightly, frustrated at just how much work it’s going to be to implement for those two months. None of this should have happened, and the Liberals should have come up with a better measure than this (and rubbed the NDP’s faces in their own ill-conceived GST cut plan), but here we are, and it just keeps getting worse by the day. Well done, guys. Slow clap.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia fired another nearly 200 missiles and drones, targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure to leave more than a million people without power. Fragments from downed drones hit two buildings in Kyiv, injuring one person.

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Roundup: Boissonnault out (for now?)

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Just before Question Period yesterday, a very brief press release was issued that prime minister Justin Trudeau and Randy Boissonnault “agreed” that Boissonnault would step away from Cabinet in order for Boissonnault to clear the allegations against him. The wording was a little curious, but at this point it was probably inevitable given the sheer volume of stories coming out, never mind that most of them involved coincidences, or unproven allegations about his former business partner and not him.

I’m not going to remark much about any of the allegations, including those of “race-shifting” because Boissonnault has been issuing corrections to media outlets for more than five years that he didn’t say he was Indigenous even if the party said he was (which seems to never get mentioned in these stories), and the Ethics Commissioner keeps looking at each new allegation and saying there’s nothing to investigate. However, what I will note is that we are back to the situation where there is no longer anyone around the Cabinet table from Alberta or Saskatchewan. Now, Freeland did grow up in Alberta and can claim some credibility there, and Jonathan Wilkinson used to work for the Saskatchewan government, so he has some credibility there too, but Trudeau doesn’t have many options when it comes to replacing an Alberta seat because his only other alternative is George Chahal, who pretty much burned his future prospects when he got caught removing a rivals flyers during the campaign, and he has recently been vocal about looking to see Trudeau resign as leader.

I will also note that it remains particularly curious that for as much as media outlets and the National Post most especially have been pouring time and resources into these Boissonnault allegations, and every time they call up another Indigenous leader to denounce Boissonnault and call for his resignation, there is a particular silence around Danielle Smith and previously claims she has made about Indigenous ancestry, which have definitively been proven false. If the Conservatives are so offended by claims Boissonnault may or may not have made, or have been made about him, I have yet to see a single Conservative or pundit in this country call Smith a “fake” or a “fraud,” or a “phoney,” and demand that she resigns for the very same offences they are accusing Boissonnault of having made, when Smith’s has been plainly on the record for a couple of years now. As far as I can determine, the Post ran a single story about it, and not three weeks of constant, breathless reporting about it. It’s incredibly funny how that happens, no?

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine has now fired UK-provided cruise missiles into Russian territory, striking targets in Kursk. Ukraine also says it successfully struck a command post in the Belgorod region, likely in a drone attack. Here is a look at the Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy system.

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QP: The worst Halloween-themed response imaginable

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Neither the PM nor his deputy were present today, which was probably just as well considering what an absolute pathetic mess yesterday’s QP turned out to be. Most of the other leaders were also absent, but Pierre Poilievre was present and started off in French, and he selectively quoted the GDP figures released this morning, and claimed this was the government “destroying” the economy. Jean-Yves Duclos noted that inflation, interest rates and unemployment are all down, but it being Halloween, children should be afraid that Poilievre refuses to get his security clearance. Poilievre countered that diminishing paycheques are what is scary, took credit for all housing starts when he was “minister,” and demanded the government accept his GST proposal. Duclos noted that children could count to six, which were the number of affordable housing units he built as “minister” (not really true), and repeated the security clearance point. Poilievre switched to English to repeat his selective economic doom and demanded an election, to which Randy Boissonnault recited the good economic news about inflation. Poilievre gave some specious comparisons to American economic data, and this time Boissonnault recited the security clearance talking points. Poilievre continued to make facile and false claims about the economy, and demanded the government cut taxes. Boissonnault recited a bunch of non sequitur talking points about foreign direct investment in return.

Claude DeBellefeuille led for the Bloc, and demanded the government enrich OAS for all seniors, to which Marc Miller noted that the Bloc has consistently all measures the government has put forward to help seniors, including dental care. DeBellefeuille took a swipe at Duclos before repeating the demand, and this time Duclos said that they are simply looking for problems before noting that they have reduced seniors’ poverty since they came to office, and offered a warning about cozying up to Conservatives.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP to worry about software used by landlords to raise rents, and demanded an inquiry be launched. François-Philippe Champagne said he would ask the Competition Bureau do just that with the new powers they have been given. Bonita Zarrillo demanded the same in English, and Champagne repeated that they are going to ask the Bureau to do so.

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Roundup: Emergency summer clip-harvesting

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In need of new video clips for their socials, the Conservatives have decided that they need to call an “emergency” committee meeting about the $9 million purchase of a new condo for the Canadian consul general in New York, because if anything is guaranteed gold for them on social media, it’s clips that will be edited in a way to drive anger and outrage, because that’s their whole game. And if you thought that either of the other two opposition parties were going to be grown-up enough to see through this ploy, well, you’d be wrong, because they also signed right up to put on this dog-and-pony show.

Because Parliament is no longer a place for serious discussions, the Bloc decided they needed to sign onto this farce because $9 million is more than some people earn in a lifetime, which I’m not sure how that’s relevant to the price of real estate in New York, but they apparently want to make a point. The NDP, quite predictably, wants to make this about affordability for all Canadians and not just some political appointees, which again, is irrelevant to the discussion because it’s an asset and not something that said consul general is keeping when his appointment comes to an end. Because nobody can grasp that this is both the going price of real estate in New York (which will increase in value), that the existing residence is being sold to cover these costs, that the new residence will be a net savings, but most importantly, that we need a place for the consul general to host politicians, diplomats, and business leaders, and that place needs to reflect well on Canada, which a bedsit in the outer Bronx is not going to do.

The other really stupid aspect of this is that they plan to call the consult general, former television journalist Tom Clark, to testify at the committee, even though this is not his decision, but one of the department, because it’s their asset. This is not accidental or because they don’t understand—it’s deliberate, because the Conservatives want to harvest clips of them calling him a “Liberal insider,” or a “media buddy,” trying to humiliate him by telling him to his face that Pierre Poilievre has promised to fire him as soon as he forms government, and generally denigrating him and his position—which is a tactic straight out of the authoritarian playbook, for the record. Clark, being in New York, is immune from a summons and should ignore it, because the only person the committee should hear from is the deputy minister, and possibly the minister, as she is politically accountable. But summoning Clark is beyond the pale, and they know it, but that doesn’t stop them from planning a social media campaign around it, because that’s what the House of Commons and its committees has become.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian missiles struck the headquarters of a Swiss mine-clearing NGO in Kharkiv, killing six. Russian drones also hit the Danube port of Izmail, wounding there others. Here’s a look at the people in Mykolaiv in the south, who have been under constant Russian attack.

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Roundup: It’s not logistically impossible

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For the past week-and-a-half, it has been nothing but handwringing over the Toronto—St. Paul’s by-election results, and the demands that Justin Trudeau either step aside, or to at least meet with his caucus. I took a full week for Trudeau to finally take questions from the media and said that he’s “committed” to staying on the job. And in response to the demands for an in-person caucus meeting now and not in September, Trudeau said he’s having one-on-one conversations with members of the caucus, and some of them are saying he needs to change “key players.”

And then comes along Liberal caucus chair Brenda Shanahan, who insists that it’s “logistically impossible” to have an in-person caucus meeting before September, to which I call bullshit. MPs can all get on a plane to Ottawa at any point, even if it means they have to cancel a barbeque appearance at some point. It’s not impossible, it’s a choice, and that choice is to not respect the members of the caucus, because frankly the leader doesn’t feel the need to be afraid of caucus because we have trained MPs to believe the falsehood that they are powerless and that the leader can push them around. That’s not actually true, and the caucus collectively has the power to vote non-confidence in the leader if they actually had the intestinal fortitude to do so. But therein lies the problem.

I’m also going to point out that all of the breathless reporting on Thursday about Chrystia Freeland saying that the Cabinet is fully behind Trudeau—of course they’re fully behind him. If they weren’t, they’d be out of a job. This isn’t rocket science, guys.

In case you missed them:

  • My weekend column where I talked to the author of the book Theatre of Lies about the situation we find ourselves in Canadian politics and what to do about it.
  • My column points out that one of the problems the Liberals face is how they choose their leaders, and that a proper Westminster system would have solved this by now.
  • My Loonie Politics Quick Take wonders just what Danielle Smith thinks she wants to “opt out” of around dental care.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukrainian forces shot down 21 out of 22 Russian drones overnight Thursday. Ukrainian troops were forced to retreat from one neighbourhood in Chasiv Yar after their defensive positions were destroyed, risking further casualties. A Russian missile strike in Odesa killed a woman, while a guided bomb in Kharkiv region killed a man. Russians have started targeting Ukrainian air bases in advance of the delivery of F-16 fighter jets. Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán went to Kyiv for a frosty meeting as Hungary assumes the rotating presidency of the EU. Orbán then headed to Moscow, no doubt to get fresh orders from Putin.

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Roundup: Electoral reform tries to take the spotlight

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In addition to the constant wanking of pollsters and polling analysts, while the Elder Pundits continue to pronounce the end of Justin Trudeau’s political career, there has been an entire sub-category of commentary that is trying to tie this by-election loss to the failure to enact some kind of electoral reform, even though Trudeau has won two elections since then. Justin Ling wrote up a whole op-ed about this for the Star yesterday, given that the 84 candidates on the by-election ballot were because of a tantrum by electoral reform group to use the stunt to call attention to Trudeau’s broken promise. And Ling makes some wild assertions along the way.

This notion that MPs are more beholden to the party than to their constituents would not be fixed by changing the electoral system. In fact, the current system is the one that most empowers MPs to be beholden to their constituents, as most PR systems rely on party votes, and party lists to fill “proportional” seats, and that makes those MPs even more beholden to the leader because they don’t have the connection to a riding as a result. That’s an even worse outcome, and hands even more power to the leader to centralise, worse than they already do. The ability to be independent under such a PR system is even less than under the current system, so I have a hard time fathoming why anyone thinks that this solves any of those problems.

The current dysfunction that Ling complains about in the piece is not a result of the electoral system—it’s because of the perverse incentives that have developed, compounded by the Trump Effect, that have made rational discourse impossible because everything is about driving engagement over social media, not in the Houses of Parliament. Changing the electoral system wouldn’t change that—in fact, it could make it worse as parties fragment and fragile coalitions emerge that rely on extremists to play kingmaker, forcing parties to behave in even more outrageous fashions. Electoral reform doesn’t solve problems—it takes an existing set of problems and replaces them with a new set of problems. Resurrecting this debate in order to once again flog this dead horse is not helping anyone, and if anything, is just distracting from the actual frank conversations that parties need to be having amongst themselves with their members about how to meet the moment to solving the problems this country faces. PR won’t make that happen, and we have to stop entertaining the notion that it somehow will.

Programming Note: I’m taking the long weekend fully off of blogging, as well as a few days next week in order to work on another project.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukrainian forces say that they have forced Russian troops out of part of Chasiv Yar. Some Ukrainian commanders are complaining that the Canadian-built Senator armoured vehicles aren’t built for off-road capability, break down too often, and aren’t well suited for the front lines. With the EU security pact now signed, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on European allies to fulfil their promises around arms and supports.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1806344642041917773

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1806321424446951489

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Roundup: Spooking the oil sands companies

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The “Pathways Alliance” consortium of oil sands companies scrubbed their website as the bill that expands the Competition Bureau’s powers around investigating greenwashing gets royal assent, which seems to be suspiciously like a tell. I’m aware that they have been subject to particular legal claims around greenwashing, and when you add to that the parts in that Deloitte report that Alberta commissioned around the emissions cap, there was some specific language in there around the fact that carbon capture and storage is likely just an expensive money pit that won’t do much to lower emissions, it feels like Pathways is feeling the pressure, and that perhaps the oil and gas industry has reached its put-up-or-shut-up moment, that they can’t keep pretending that they can carry on as usual with the promise that CCS will come sooner than later, and we’ll have no more emissions problems (while the industry also makes up specific “cleanest” claims around oil and gas production, which also doesn’t stand up to scrutiny).

This being said, I will acknowledge that Andrew Leach has some specific reservations around the legislation and the enforcement of all green claims, because some of the burden of proof, even with companies that are actually doing clean or green things. It’s an issue to keep in mind in any case.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian attack in Donetsk killed three and injured four, while overnight missile and drone attacks have damaged yet another thermal power plant. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced new plans to mitigate those attacks, and part of it is transitioning to greener sources of electricity .

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1803435004866826530

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Roundup: A possible reluctant partial briefing

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Because we’re stuck on this story, the Globe and Mail has heard that Pierre Poilievre has now said that he will accept a briefing if CSIS has any particular concerns about his caucus or party—but that’s it! Nothing more, because he keeps falsely insisting that his hands would be tied, when they actually wouldn’t be. Nevertheless, there is more to intelligence than just CSIS, and the NSICOP report is drawn from various sources, who sometimes disagreed with one another, and that matters in this kind of thing too, so it is baffling why Poilievre keeps insisting on tying his own hands.

Meanwhile, Jagmeet Singh was on Power & Politics to discuss his reading of the classified version of the report, and it was just more evasion and going around in circles rather than answering anything, and some of this was the continued attempt to take shots at the Liberals and Conservatives without actually spelling out what he thought should have done differently. He did say that the Liberals should keep Han Dong out of caucus, but that was as much as he would say, but kept insisting that the government has done nothing, but couldn’t say what they should do, or even acknowledged that there wasn’t really actionable intelligence that they could have acted upon, so again, what has really been the point? Incidentally, Elizabeth May does say that she is just as concerned about what is in the report as Singh, but her relief was that there were not current MPs implicated, which Singh won’t even say.

The only smart thing that Singh has said to date is that he isn’t going to pull the plug on the government over this because it would make no sense to go to an election if there are still questions about how it might be interfered with. To that end, they are in the process of passing the Elections Act updates, and the foreign interference bill, which should hopefully provide new tools to combat any attempted interference. Once those are passed and implemented it’ll probably get us closer to the fixed election date, so that may be the one thing that keeps the Supply and Confidence Agreement going until then.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukraine shot down seven of eleven Russian drones targeting critical infrastructure on Friday. Ukraine has been adopting an “elastic” defensive posture while they wait for the arrival of more western weapons to shrink the munitions gap between Russia and them. Vladimir Putin said he would call a ceasefire if Ukraine turned over the four regions his forces partly occupy plus forswear any NATO membership in the future, which Ukraine flatly rejected. The International Criminal Court is investigating Russian cyberattacks on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure as potential war crimes.

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Roundup: Ford’s $600 million choices

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You might be excused if you were given the impression that things are going so well in Ontario right now that the government is spending its precious time and resources on the pressing need of…getting beer and wine into corner stores. Well, Doug Ford has decided that, in any case, and that he’s willing to pay out hundreds of millions in order to compensate the Beer Store—a conglomerate owned by the major breweries—for breaking their monopoly even earlier than he had planned to, to the tune of $225 million, with a possible $375 million in additional fees being rebated, meaning that this move could cost the treasury as much as $600 million.

So, to recap—that’s $225 million, but probably really $600 million, that could have gone toward something like keeping rural emergency rooms from having to close on weekends because they lack sufficient staff; it could have gone toward reforming how primary-care physicians are compensated so that they aren’t fleeing the field; it could have gone toward fixing the shortfalls in the early learning and child care programme that this government has caused by under-investment; or shoring up shelters housing asylum seekers; or really, any number of things that will actually have a meaningful impact on the lives of people in this province. But no, it’s going to pay these conglomerates.

Priorities.

Ukraine Dispatch:

While visiting Kharkiv, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that Ukraine now has “combat control” over the region after nearly two weeks of Russians trying to make advances.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1793904060535636362

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