Tag Archives: Copyright

Roundup: Trudeau confirms that there are to be strings attached

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It’s around day forty-eight of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and it appeared to be a fairly quiet day. Well, as quiet as can be in a country where two-thirds of its children have been forced to flee their homes in the past six weeks, which creates plenty of problems for their safety and security as they may be exploited in the confusion. Meanwhile, Russia has tapped a new general to lead its forces in Ukraine, and he’s one with a reputation of particular brutality in leading the Russian troops that acted in support of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, leaving a trail of civilian deaths and human rights violations in his wake. As well, Austria’s chancellor met with Putin, the first European leader to do so since the invasion, and tried to convince him to end the invasion, but he walked away from the meeting without any optimism that the war will end anytime soon.

Closer to home, prime minister Justin Trudeau has confirmed that he’s looking to have strings attached to future health care funds from the federal government, because he’s well aware of the history of provinces that have taken more federal dollars and used them on other things, including tax cuts, and the healthcare system has been left to suffer. Which is the way it should be—if the federal government is giving you money for healthcare, it should be used for just that, and no, that doesn’t mean they’re micro-managing, it means they want accountability for the money they send.

We also got confirmation that provinces are dishonestly ignoring the fact that the agreement in the 1970s to transfer tax points to the provinces in lieu of health transfers. They continue to insist that the federal government only funds 22 percent of their health care systems, but with the tax points, it’s over 33 percent, which is not insignificant considering that provinces are demanding the federal government fund the systems to at least 35 percent—a 35 percent that they don’t count the tax points under. They need to count those tax points, and government and media need to make that clear, rather than media just repeating the premiers’ talking points and both-sidesing it.

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Roundup: The July job numbers

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The Labour Force Survey results for July were released yesterday, and while there was positive job growth, it wasn’t quite as robust as had been expected. The recovery remains uneven, but some of the narratives and commentary aren’t really helping when it comes to adjusting to the reality of this stage of the pandemic (which isn’t even post- yet).

A lot of the narratives are still being driven by the likes of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, which continues to rail about CERB and its successor suite of benefits that they claim are providing a “perverse incentive” for people to stay home, but that doesn’t seem to fit the reality, which is that the market is shifting. A lot of people who were in these service-industry jobs either moved on during the pandemic because it (and the government benefits) afforded them the opportunity to do so – which is why you have people complaining that their favoured servers at their local watering holes didn’t come back, and you have nineteen-year-olds who just got their Smart Serve certification replacing them. But another narrative is also bubbling up, where we also have a cohort who aren’t willing to go back to what existed beforehand, with the low wages and mistreatment, and a lot of those business owners haven’t made the cognitive leap yet that they can’t keep operating the way they did before. Of course, this is one reason why the CFIB is so up in arms about these benefits – they have a vested interest in things returning to the old normal where labour can be exploitative without consequence, but the current reality is changing that. This could be change happening that will be better for us all overall, if it’s able to take hold – and chances are, this government more than others are more willing to let it happen.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, are insistent that the federal government is “killing job creation,” which is a novel argument considering that they’re not the level of government responsible for the maintenance of public health measures (which has been one of the biggest determinants of economic activity over the course of the pandemic). They’re also keeping up the fiction that a pre-third wave job recovery projection was a “promise” about job creation, again, which was derailed by more public health measures because provinces screwed up their own recoveries by re-opening too soon. All of which is to say that we don’t seem to be capable of having a reasonable conversation about what is happening in the labour market, to the detriment of all of us.

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Roundup: Less helpful suggestions to fix QP

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At this time of year, we’re starting to see a number of reflective pieces about the state of our democracy, and over on The Agenda, they gave a thinkpiece about the state of Question Period in advance of an episode on the subject. While the piece is geared toward the state of things at Queen’s Park, there is applicability to Parliament, and the suggestions that the polisci prof that they cite in the piece makes don’t really offer anything constructive, in my opinion.

For example, he wants more questions from more members and no supplementals. I disagree, because if we were running things properly, supplementals offer decent back-and-forth exchanges where you can get better accountability by drilling into answers (or non-answers) provided. And as demonstrated in Parliament, especially on Fridays, just having more MPs asking questions doesn’t necessarily improve things because they’re all reading the same scripts, so you just get more MPs asking the same questions – which in turn becomes fodder for them gathering clips to be distributed over social media. He suggests that the parties determine who asks questions for the first two thirds and then the Speaker determine for the final third – well, that doesn’t actually help with the ability of the Speaker to “not see” frequent misbehaving MPs, as they will be the ones the party puts on their list. It needs to be all or nothing. Having the Speaker rule on the relevance of answers and to police friendly backbench suck-up questions? Nice in theory, and if we could get MPs to give the Speaker the power to the determination, all the better, but if we’re not careful, it just creates an opportunity for parties to whinge about the Speaker. (I’m kind of in favour of empowering the Speaker in this way, but it needs to be done very carefully). Banning applause? Yes, absolutely.

What’s missing in this is the reliance on scripts, which we need to do away with entirely. Parties argue that they need to come up with plans and narratives and tactics, but to be frank, that’s bullshit. Plans and tactics don’t enhance the accountability function of QP – it just ensures that it will be theatre, and not good theatre at that. Banning scripts plus empowering the Speaker to choose who asks questions for the whole of QP (and sure, he can continue to divvy them up according to a set formula in the interests of fairness) is going to be far more effective than most of these suggestions – but the trick is to convince MPs to move to that system, which would involve their leaders giving up their powers to direct the show, and that is part of where the bigger problem lies.

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Roundup: Refusing to learn their lessons

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A former PQ minister wants to run for leadership of the Bloc, and I just cannot. Can. Not. The challenger this time is Yves-François Blanchet, who served in Pauline Marois’ short-lived Cabinet, and has since taken on a political pundit career since being defeated in 2014. He apparently met with the caucus yesterday, and the majority of them – including their past and current interim leaders – all seem to like him, but I keep having to circle back to this simple question: did you learn nothing from your last disastrous leader?

I can’t emphasise this enough. Since their demise in 2011, the Bloc have had a succession of seatless leaders, including Mario Beaulieu (who now has a seat, incidentally, and is the current interim leader), and while he stepped aside so that Gilles Duceppe could return (unsuccessfully), they keep going for leaders who aren’t in caucus, and time after time, it goes poorly for them. Every single time, I have to wonder why they don’t simply do as our system was built to do, and select a member from caucus. Constantly bringing in an outsider does nothing for their profile (ask Jagmeet Singh how that’s going), and their leaders keep being divorced from the realities of parliament. And time and again, they keep choosing another outsider. Why do you keep doing this to yourselves? Why do you refuse to learn the lessons that experience has to teach you?

There is one current MP who is considering a run, Michel Boudrias, and if the Bloc was smart, they would choose him by virtue of the fact that he’s in the caucus, he’s in the Commons, and he knows how Parliament works. Of course, if they interested in ensuring he’s accountable (especially given just how big of a gong show their last leader was), then it would be the caucus that selects him so that the caucus can then fire him if he becomes a problem (again, if history is anything to go by). But that would take some actual political courage by the party, and given their apparent reluctance to learn the lessons from their mistakes, that may be too much to ask for.

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Roundup: All about Alleslev

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As the fallout from Leona Alleslev’s defection to the Conservatives continues, the comments from her former colleagues have remarkably tended not to be bitter or angry, but more bewilderment as she didn’t express any concerns to them beforehand, though there was understandably some shock from her riding association. That’s a bit shocking considering the pure vitriol that we’ve heard from Conservatives when they had defections in the past (particularly when women defected, if you recall the misogyny lobbed at Belinda Stronach after her floor-crossing). Of course, that also hasn’t stopped the Liberals from leaking effusive emails of praise that Alleslev sent them, and speeches she gave that completely contradict everything that she told the Commons on Monday when she made the decision. I remain struck by this insistence that the current government isn’t offering the “foundational change” she claims to be looking for, yet is aligning herself with a party whose recent policy convention was pretty much dominated with resolutions to simply turn back the clock to the Harper era, which was apparently a golden age. If she wanted “foundational change” from that, I’m not sure that going back to reinforce it is what she’s looking for.

Meanwhile, here’s a look at some of the history of floor-crossings in Canada, and the trends for when it goes well for those MPs, and when it all goes down in flames.

Bernier blindsided

Maxime Bernier’s team is finding it hard to keep up with online groups pretending to act on his behalf but have no actual associations with him, and which are posting offensive material and items that he says are contrary to his positions. I have two things to say about this: 1) It’s hard to believe that his team are such rank amateurs that they didn’t secure these domain names in the first place, which bodes ill for the kind of logistical knowledge they would need to run a national campaign; and 2) Bernier has brought much of this on himself. By winking to white nationalists, and by not even dog-whistling, but rather playing these tunes with a tuba, he’s invited the very xenophobes that he claims aren’t welcome in his party (as he keeps playing their tunes on his tuba while staring wide-eyed as they keep flocking, like he’s the Pied Piper of racists). This credulous, naïve act he’s putting on is getting a bit tiresome. If he doesn’t understand how his message plays out, that’s another strike against him being ready for the prime time of leading a credible political party.

Please note: I’ll be hosting a live chat today at 7 PM Eastern for $10 subscribers to my Patreon, to answer your questions about the return of Parliament. Subscribers have access to exclusive content not available elsewhere.

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Senate QP: Joly is consulting and making investments

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In a bit of procedural quirkiness, Senate QP interrupted a vote bell to go to ministerial Question Period with special guest star, heritage minister Mélanie Joly, with the intention that the bell resume afterward. Odd, but that’s what happens sometimes. Senator Boisvenu led off, for a change, railing about the cost of the Parliament Hill skating rink while the prime minister told veterans they were asking for too much (which isn’t quite true, but whatever). Joly first said that Canada 150 was a great success and said that the rink saw thousands of visitors.

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Roundup: Returning to normal, cautiously

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Things are slowly returning to normal here in the Nation’s Capital. After an impromptu ceremony with Harper and the Chief of Defence Staff at the War Memorial, ceremonial guards again keep vigil over the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. And later in the evening, the Hill once again opened to the public, with tours to resume on Monday. The police presence remains higher, but we are going about our business without hysteria. Corporal Cirillo’s body returned to Hamilton by way of the Highway of Heroes, where Canadians turned out in droves to line the overpasses to pay their respects as the convoy passed. Later in the evening, the RedBlacks game in Ottawa featured Harper and General Lawson in a ceremony to honour the two fallen soldiers this week. (And true to form, the RedBlacks lost again).

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Roundup: Warnings about changes to the CSIS Act

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Stephen Blaney has confirmed that the government will table a bill next week to enhance CSIS’ powers to better combat terrorism, in order to enhance cooperation with our Five Eyes allies, and to enhance the anonymity for CSIS informants. Never mind that the Supreme Court ruled that those sources already have adequate protections, and the fact that the lawyer for Mohamed Harkat warns that the inability to cross-examine this kind of testimony is dangerous. Former Privacy Commissioner Chantal Bernier also warns that rushing into these kinds of changes could have longer-term human rights consequences. But terrorists!

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Roundup: Mulcair offers $15/day childcare

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The NDP announced their national childcare plan, promising $15/day spaces across the country, with $5 billion over eight years intended to create 370,00 spaces by 2018-19, and one million spaces after the eight years, with the federal government paying 60 percent of the tab, the provinces 40 percent. The Liberals, of course, are pointing out that there would have been a similar programme a decade ago had the NDP not sided with the Conservatives to bring down the Martin government, as they had already done the hard part of negotiating deals with the provinces – something a hypothetical future NDP government would have to start over from scratch in a different fiscal reality. They also don’t think the maths work out in terms of per-space funds. The Conservatives are making doom sounds about the universal child benefit, which the NDP say they’re going to maintain, putting that much more of a hole in the fiscal picture. It’s not seen as a model that benefits all families, and there are better models of getting more women into the workforce using existing federal tax deductions that could be tweaked. Economist Stephen Gordon re-upped a previous post of his with regards to the problems with the Quebec model and how it tends to fail both vertical and horizontal equality tests, and also responds to some of the critics he’s heard from all yesterday.

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Roundup: 28 instances, fewer charges

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The RCMP say they have disrupted or intervened in 28 instances where people have been involved in high-risk travel, be it people returning after fighting with radicals abroad or when they plan on heading over. No word on how many people have had their passports revoked, and there have apparently been no new names added to the no-fly list, and there have been very few charges under anti-terror legislation. The government will likely try to use this low figure to say that we need even more anti-terror laws, and yet it makes one wonder about the actual scope of the problem. Andrew Coyne wonders about the threat that ISIS poses to Canada directly, and if people should be shrugging it all off. (Spoiler alert: no).

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