Tag Archives: CRTC

Roundup: Putting words in the Auditor General’s mouth

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It was an Auditor General’s Report Day in the Nation’s Capital, and these reports were far more salacious than many in the past, which is in part why they dominated Question Period. The AG looked at three issues—contracts awarded to McKinsey and Company, the allegations around governance at Sustainable Development Technology Canada, and combatting cybercrime, and each report has a lot of things to say.

  1. Many of the contracts awarded to McKinsey were done sole-source with poor justification, going all the way back to 2011. And for context, these are contracts sought and awarded by the civil service, and not the political direction of the government; also, while there was a huge focus on McKinsey, they are less than one percent of these kinds of external contracts.
  2. There were governance problems at SDTC, including conflicts of interest in awarding funds, but there has been a lot of reporting in The Logic that suggests that some of this has been overblown, such as the fact that everyone on SDTC’s roster was given funds during the pandemic including operations that directors had ties to, so there couldn’t have been preferential treatment. Nevertheless, the government announced today that they are essentially pulling the plug on the organisation and folding it into the National Research Council.
  3. Cybercrime incidents have a poor record of being followed up on when reported to the wrong agency, and that many were dropped and the complainants were not told they reported to the wrong agency, meaning that a lot of files got lost along the way. The government is working on a single-window solution for reporting cyber-incidents, but that hasn’t happened yet.

On the first two, the Conservatives made up a huge fiction about these being contracts to “Liberal insiders,” or “friends of the government,” or “cronies,” or the like, when the reports said absolutely nothing of the sort. In fact, the reports quite clearly state that there was no political direction or involvement in these contracts, which means that these allegations by the Conservatives are not only false, but potentially libellous, but they want to create an air of corruption around the government. In addition, they seem desperate to avoid any scent of involvement themselves, when the McKinsey contract problems date back to when Harper was in government, and SDTC was set up by the Conservatives, including its governance structure, which proved problematic. In either case, the cries of corruption and trying to invoke the ghost of Sponsorship are little more than cheap lies, but that’s what the Conservatives do best these days, it seems, so none of it is surprising.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A pair of Russian missiles struck civilian infrastructure in Dnipro, injuring eight including two children. Ukrainian officials say that the decision to allow Ukraine to strike into Russian territory will disrupt their advances and help defend the Kharkiv region.

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Roundup: A choice of passive voice

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The reported death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny triggered reactions around the globe, and especially at the security conference underway in Munich, where Navalny’s wife spoke shortly after the news. Reaction from Canadian figures was pretty swift. Justin Trudeau was on CBC radio and was quite blunt: “It’s something that has the entire world being reminded of exactly what a monster Putin is.”

And then there was Pierre Poilievre, who passive-voiced the whole thing.

Between this and his votes regarding the Ukraine trade agreement, it’s not unreasonable to conclude that he is winking and nodding to a certain online audience. And while certain pundits have been “We think the initial vote was a mistake and he can’t take the L so he doubles down,” I suspect it’s more like “Sure, some Ukrainian diaspora communities are going to be pissed off, but what are they going to do? Vote Liberal? Hahaha.” They have hitched their wagon to the far-right PPC-voting crowd because they think that’ll get them the votes they need to win, and this is a crowd, that is mainlining Russian disinformation online, and believe that Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a money-launderer buying yachts, that Putin is just trying to shut down “biolabs,” and throw in some antisemitic conspiracy theories about “globalists,” and it’s all stuff that Poilievre is willing to wink and nod to. Passive-voicing this statement was a choice.

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1758543572578484364

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Roundup: The AG’s report into ArriveCan

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The Auditor General released her report into ArriveCan yesterday, and it was suitably scathing, but in spite of Pierre Poilievre throwing arounds words like “corruption” and blaming the prime minister directly, the AG’s criticisms were squarely directed to the CBSA. It bears mentioning that CBSA is a federal agency, not a department, which means that it operates at arm’s length of government. Unlike a department, they don’t have direct political oversight, and while the president of CBSA reports to the public safety minister, and will accept broad political direction, the government does not direct operations (much like the CRA or RCMP).

So just what did she find? A complete lack of paperwork, of checks and balances, or of proper management or contracting practices, right up to the point of the outside contractor taking senior CBSA officials out to dinners and helping write the terms for when the contract would be put out to tender in a way that benefitted them. Once again, it’s hard to pin this on the government or Cabinet because they’re not involved in this level of decision-making. The Conservatives like to characterise this as “Liberal insiders” or “cronies” getting rich, but again, the report draws none of these conclusions. Meanwhile, those senor officials are now suspended, and there is an ongoing RCMP investigation, which is appropriate, while CBSA’s internal audit is ongoing.

There is an open question as to the reliance on outside contractors, which may be appropriate considering that CBSA wouldn’t have required the presence of app developers on their IT staff as a matter of course, and I’m not sure if this could have been contracted out to Shared Services Canada either (though given SSC’s history, I’m not sure I’d be confident in the quality of that product). And that’s fair enough. The problem becomes that they cut every corner and disregarded the rules in the process, whereas transparent contracting and proper paper trails and records of approval processes could have shown this to be a viable exercise, but we can’t know that because of how they ultimately behaved. So, while Poilievre and Jagmeet Singh insist that civil servants could have done the work, I’m not convinced, but that doesn’t mean that this still wasn’t handled in the worst way possible.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian forces attacked a power plant in Dnipro with missiles and drones, cutting off power and water supplies to some residents. Analysis shows that Russia used Zircon hypersonic missiles against targets in Kyiv on February 7th. Ukraine is looking to produce thousands of long-range drones this year. Ukrainian military intelligence suggests that Russia has been obtaining Starlink terminals through third countries.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1757040939929944128

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Roundup: Google signs a deal to avoid transparency

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With days to go before the Online News Act would start applying, Google has come to an agreement that sees it pay $100 million per year into a fund, rather than to have individual deals with news outlets. This is one of the things that seems to escape most of the critics of the Act—this was about ensuring that the deals that Google and Facebook were already signing with news outlets were subject to transparency and had an arbitrator—the CRTC—at the ready in the case of disputes. This was never a “link tax” or some such nonsense, it was about putting structure into the same deals that were already being made, and it was the transparency that they objected to. This deal ensures that they are not subjected to that transparency, because it’s one lump sum, which is the real takeaway from this deal.

Of course, none of this fixes the underlying problem with is the domination of the ad tech space where Google and Facebook control all aspects of it and are siphoning money at each stage, which is why they have starved news outlets of advertising revenues. Of course, nobody wants to talk about that aspect. To deal with this, there still needs to be stronger anti-trust action, particularly in the US, but this deal is a start, nevertheless.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians claimed that they launched missiles from their Black Sea fleet against “military targets,” but nothing has been verified. Ukraine’s foreign minister says that the EU has delivered about 300,000 of its promised munitions shells so far.

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Roundup: The premier has no clothes

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Alberta premier Danielle Smith is threatening to invoke her so-called “Sovereignty Act” next week to shield power companies from federal clean energy regulations—but that will do absolutely nothing. The province doesn’t enforce federal environmental regulations, so it can’t shield the power companies from said regulations. Smith might as well get up in the legislature and perform some kind of magical incantation, because it’ll have pretty much the exact same effect.

This being said, a lot of journalists seem to either believe that the Act is going to somehow do what she’s claiming, or they’re just both-sidesing it, because guess what—this is all performance. Smith has woven you the most extravagant outfit that is so magnificent that you can’t even see it. Right? “The Emperor Has No Clothes”? Or in this case, the premier has no clothes. Don’t take this invocation at face value. Point out that it does nothing, and that she is trying to pull a fast one to keep rage-farming.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukraine launched one of its biggest drone attacks on Russian positions in occupied Crimea, while Russians made a renewed push to take Avdiivka. Russians also launched a massive drone attack on Kyiv, where debris has caused injuries. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has ordered reform proposals to the country’s troop mobilisation programme as the war drags on.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1728127516299481335

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Roundup: A failed vote, a policy pretzel

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It was not unexpected that the Conservatives’ non-binding Supply Day motion on removing the carbon price from all forms of home heating failed, because the Bloc had no interest in supporting it, and lo, none of the Liberals broke ranks and voted for it either. (Liberal MP Ken McDonald, who had voted for such motions previously, “scratched his head” with two fingers as he voted, which the Conservatives took to be giving them the finger, and lo, cried victim about it). And once the vote was over, Conservatives took to social media to call out all of those Liberal MPs they had been targeting in advance of it, because this is the bullshit state of where Canadian politics have degenerated to.

In advance of the vote, Jagmeet Singh was in the Foyer, twisting himself into a pretzel to say that he didn’t really agree with the Conservative motion, but he was going to vote for it anyway to send a message to the Liberals that he disagrees with them, but he also wants to push his boneheaded “cut GST on all home heating” policy, which is as dumb as a bag of hammers. (No, seriously—it would be impossible to disentangle the heating portion of certain sources of heating, such as electric heating, or what natural gas goes to heating and what goes to hot water tanks, or natural gas barbecues; plus, the policy disproportionately benefits the wealthy, who have bigger houses). There is no policy coherence, because this is all about posturing and performance, and Canadians are ill-served as a result.

While this was going on, the premiers met in Halifax, ostensibly to talk healthcare but it would up being another gang-up session where they all demanded that the federal government remove the carbon price on all home heating out of “fairness” (never mind the problems of energy poverty, that heating oil is four times as expensive as natural gas, and that some of those premiers should have been doing more about this problem years ago). They also groused that the federal Housing Accelerator Fund was being negotiated directly with municipalities and not them, which, again, forgets that they have studiously ignored the housing problem in their own provinces for decades and now they’re getting put out that the federal government has had to step up after they refused to. But that’s the state of our federation, and it’s a

https://twitter.com/aballinga/status/1721622048345149688

https://twitter.com/aballinga/status/1721628581921509676

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian air strikes on Odessa late Sunday night struck the city’s principal art gallery and wounded eight. A criminal investigation has been launched into the decision to hold a troop-honouring ceremony in Zaporizhzhia which was easily detected by surveillance drones, allowing the Russians to target it; around the same time, the top aid to Ukraine’s commander-in-chief was killed when a grenade was hidden inside a birthday present.

https://twitter.com/kyivindependent/status/1721649238642245908

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Roundup: More both-sidesing Smith’s mendacity

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Because this is occasionally a media criticism blog, I found myself somewhat gobsmacked by the way in which The Canadian Press has written up the pushback against some of Danielle Smith’s ridiculous accusations against the federal clean electricity regulations. She has been panned by experts for weeks, but how does CP frame this? With statements by a Liberal MP in Calgary, George Chahal.

“The fuse is lit for fireworks in Ottawa after a Liberal member of Parliament accused Alberta Premier Danielle Smith of making false claims days before Smith is slated to appear before a federal environmental committee,” is the lead, and the piece proceeds to methodically both-sides this to death. It’s Chahal-said about Smith’s batshit crazy things she’s claiming about these regulations, like how this is going to mean blackouts and energy company executives being hauled off to jail, versus statements from Alberta’s energy minister, who in turn accuses the federal government of misinformation. There is no third-party expert weighing in, it’s simply the two sides, and the reader is supposed to determine whom they feel is more credible based on a handful of quotes. Come on.

We are in the middle of a misinformation and disinformation crisis in the Western world, and legacy media—of which a wire service like CP is a foundational element of—cannot arse themselves to do some basic gods damned due diligence and provide evidence that Smith and her ludicrous allegations are nothing more than mendacity for the sole purpose of rage-farming and stoking anger against the federal government (because that works so well in Alberta). There are ways to call out lies in a fair and transparent manner, but there was absolutely zero attempt her, and that just lets lies fester in the open, which is why leaders like Smith and Pierre Poilievre (as Andrew Scheer and Erin O’Toole before him) have all learned from, that it means they suffer no consequences for their lies, because nobody calls them out—just other partisan actors who can be dismissed as such. We’re playing with fire when it comes to the health of our democracy, but nobody seems to care, and that’s a very big problem.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian drones have attacked Danube port infrastructure in the Odesa region once again. Ukraine’s intelligence service has accused two villagers who fled to Russia of helping guide the missile strike on the village of Hroza that killed 55 people last week. Ukraine’s prime minister says they need $42 billion in budget support this year and next to help aid reconstruction. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in Brussels to meet with military leaders and to impress upon them the importance of keeping up aid to Ukraine, and not to get distracted by the outbreak of hostilities in Israel—NATO leaders have pledged ongoing support.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1712119948749717958

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QP: Champagne, turkeys, and the worst themed questions imaginable

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The prime minister was off in Vaughan, Ontario, a housing announcement, while his deputy was on her way to Kingston for a separate event, while some of the other leaders were present in the Chamber. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, reciting talking points and misleading about the promise around food prices, demanded they be reduced immediately. François-Philippe Champagne said that first Poilievre was trying to tell people to buy crypto and now he wanted them to buy $120 turkeys, but they needed to support their legislation on competition. Poilievre called Champagne the “turkey in this joke,” and decried that the price of turkey had gone up 67 percent in eight years. Speaker Fergus warned about comparing members to animals, before Champagne listed the ways in which they are trying to rein in grocery prices. Poilievre switched to English to repeat his demand to bring down prices in the next four days. Champagne loudly declared that he would take no lessons from the Conservatives, and said that he found a Butterball for Poilievre for $30. He got warned about using props, and Poilievre made a little pun about people not wanting Champagne for Thanksgiving, and complained that turkeys these days are skimpy and looked like they have been “taxed to death.” Champagne tried to come back with people not having fun these days, and got applauded by the Conservative benches, before he pitched support for their competition bill. Poilievre gave a few more of his slogans, and Champagne said that the best way to help Canadians was to support their bill.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he railed that Marc Miller not admitting that French is in decline in Quebec. Pablo Rodriguez cautioned that they need to be careful with statistics, because more people are speaking French than ever before, and stated that he was living proof because he grew up speaking Spanish and is now a francophone. Therrien railed that it meant the government could not understand about settlement capacity, and this time Miller got up to point that the statistics the Bloc are citing are about “mother tongue” which is not the same thing as people not speaking French, and that they shouldn’t misrepresent the situation.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he railed that the government is not helping with the price of food by not stamping down on corporate greed. Anita Anand took this one, and patted herself on the back for the government’s programmes to help Canadians. Singh worried that Shopper’s Drug Mart is rolling out American-style healthcare, to which Mark Holland patted himself of the back for reducing drug costs through bulk purchasing and working on pharmacare legislation.

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Roundup: It’s Speaker Election Day!

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Today is the day for the election of the new House of Commons Speaker, which begins with speeches at 10 AM, a thirty-minute pause so that the candidates can lobby MPs one last time and answer any questions they have, and then they begin voting. It’s a preferential ballot, so we don’t know how long it will take to count (which will depend if someone wins on the first ballot or not), and then they need to go through the protocol with the Senate before the Commons can return to business. Depending on how long this takes, we may or may not have Question Period today, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, here are some of the candidates for the position lamenting the current state of affairs in the Commons, but as I wrote in my weekend column, this is something that the Speaker alone cannot fix. He or she can help, particularly by applying the rules and not simply shrugging off when people break them (like Anthony Rota had a tendency to do), but real reform is going to require the cooperation of all MPs to change the Standing Orders to empower the Speaker to do more, and to give up the power of the party House Leaders to determine speaking lists (because they claim to need to have a “strategy,” which is both ridiculous and undermines the power of MPs). And more to the point, if a Speaker is too tough in enforcing the rules, then MPs may conspire to ensure they don’t win the Speaker election in the next Parliament (which is what happened to Geoff Regan, and why we wound up with the deeply unserious Rota).

This being said, it sounds like Chris d’Entrement may have soured his chances with the Liberals with his ruling last week in not admonishing Melissa Lantsman for her personal attack on Karina Gould during Question Period, and that may mean that Alexandra Mendès could win enough votes provided that enough Liberals rally around her as first choice, ensuring that we finally get our second female Speaker (finally), given that I really don’t think that Greg Fergus or Sean Casey are serious contenders for the job. Then again, ranked ballots are funny things, and sometimes crazy things happen as a result.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian forces shelled the southern city of Kherson, killing two and wounding ten. In the northern city of Kharkiv, officials are building a fully underground school so that children can learn safely as Russian attack continue. Meanwhile, as shenanigans are taking place in the US Congress around funding for Ukraine, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with EU ministers about continuing vital cooperation.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1708921746907111912

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Roundup: A cut or not a cut of the defence budget?

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Yesterday morning, the CBC had a story about the department of national defence looking to cut $1 billion from its books as part of the government’s ongoing spending review, and people lost their gods damned minds, both in Canada and in some international venues. The story was based on comments that were made at committee by the chief of defence staff and the deputy minister, and they talked about how it was going to be challenging to meet these reductions while worrying about capabilities. This was a bit of a surprise, because Anita Anand had previous said that defence was going to be exempt from her cost-cutting demands, but the comments from General Eyre and the deputy minister sounded like DND volunteered to do their share (which I always treat with suspicion—the previous Auditor General made his own pledge to do his part to make cuts as part of the Deficit Reduction Action Plan™, and lo, wound up delaying badly overdue IT upgrades that his successor needed to beg Parliament for more resources to deal with). And because this is not my first rodeo, I immediately presumed that what this likely means is the accounting game of shifting certain spending into future years or re-profiling some committed dollars that they can’t spend (because they simply don’t have the capacity to spend their current allocation), but a whole lot of people who should know better freaked all the way out.

This came up in Question Period, and Bill Blair was present, but he didn’t really answer the question—he took a swipe at the Conservatives for their record of cutting defence spending to below 1 percent of GDP (indeed, here’s a look back in history of Harper complaining to Peter MacKay that he didn’t cut the military enough) and then read some bland pabulum that didn’t even approach answering the question—because that’s what this government does. It wasn’t until nearly 4 PM that Blair posted a thread to Twitter about how they were still increasing the defence budget, and these $1 billion in savings were internal measures like cutting back on travel and consultants, but noted the spending commitments they’ve made like NORAD modernisation, and ships and planes, and so on.

It absolutely mystifies me as to how this message-obsessed government took almost eight hours to craft a response to this news story that when they could have shut down the hysterical reaction to it in mere minutes had they simply sent out a similar tweet first thing in the morning. There is nothing in there to demonstrate why it took eight hours. They could also have had Blair give a reasonable response during QP that would have simply said “This reporting is exaggerated, we are looking for some efficiencies, but overall defence spending is still increasing,” and it would have defused everything. But they didn’t, either because they’re inept, or it takes them that many hours to get sign-off from Katie Telford’s office, which is a sad sign about where this government is at. But nearly eight hours for this kind of response to the story is unacceptable, and it’s a real-time demonstration in why things need to change at the top with this government.

Ukraine Dispatch:

The first American Abrams tanks are being delivered in the eastern front, in the hopes they will make a difference. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy marked the 82nd anniversary of the Babyn Yar massacre by Nazi forces.

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