Tag Archives: Election 2015

Roundup: Ramping up the moral panics

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With the end finally nearing in sight with this interminable election, and the logjam still present in the polls, this nasty undercurrent of identity politics has been creeping in. What started out with the niqab ban issue has been growing, all of it with seeds laid in the last parliament. That niqab ban challenge has been inflaming passions, but when Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi called out the xenophobia behind it, Jason Kenney retorted that the mayor “and people like him” are politicizing it. While people could take this as a racist jab, knowing Kenney it is more likely this dismissal of Nenshi as some bleeding-hearted liberal who is too politically correct for his own good. Or as Nenshi responded, “thoughtful people.” Elsewhere, Pierre Poilievre wouldn’t rule out the idea of banning face coverings in the public service period, which start to sound a lot like the PQ “Charter of Quebec Values” proposal. But it’s more than the niqab issue – it’s also this citizenship-stripping process that they’re pushing, and trying to deport people despite the fact that in at least one case, it’s involving a person who was born in Canada and has lived their whole life here – deporting him to Pakistan, where he has never lived or visited but only has a connection there though his parents – it’s a perverse and hugely unconstitutional measure. It’s also a big problem because it no longer becomes a question of dual citizenship, but rather the presumption that this person can get it with another country, so we would insist that they do and then deport them there. Not only does it not make any sense – if you really think that rehabilitation isn’t possible, why does dumping these terrorists into another country that doesn’t have our security services or monitoring regime for recent parolees, then you’re asking for them to join a terror group in that other country. To make it worse, Harper was musing openly on a radio show about extending this to other heinous crimes. But when you boil it all down, this is more security theatre – it looks like it’s keeping us safe, while it’s really just putting on a show and likely making things worse in the long run. But it’s just about looking tough, right? Damn the consequences.

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Roundup: TPP a Caretaker conundrum

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The Trans-Pacific Partnership talks are taking place right now, with the possibility that a deal could be struck with Canada while we’re in a writ period. The optics of this are a bit fraught, because if the government gets the deal signed, then they can crow about their prowess on the campaign trail, and how they’re signing deals to boost our economy. But the flip side of that coin is that a really big deal may be a kind of violation of the Caretaker Conventions that govern how an incumbent government operates during a writ period. Remember that we can never be without a government even when Parliament is dissolved – they just need to exercise restraint, and can’t implement major policy changes or make appointments during that period. This time around, however, the government released the Convention guidelines publicly while adding specific exemptions about negotiating trade deals. On the one hand, there is a certain amount of sense – do we really want to hold up the eleven other countries while we are in an extra-long election period? (Note that there seems to be a desire to conclude the deal before the American election gears up to full-on insanity mode). One of the arguments is that there should at least be some kind of consultation with opposition leaders if the negotiations continue during the writ period, and there are complaints that the TPP negotiations are unprecedented in their secrecy. What is not mentioned is that secrecy is deliberate considering how game changing this pact could be, particularly when it comes to weakening some of the tough subsidized markets in several member countries. And if you look at the reactions that rumours of deals around weakening Supply Management or auto parts content rules, and promises by other party leaders to maintain those protectionist policies, it’s hard not to see why they want to keep a lid on things until they’re finalised – particularly if the goal is actual trade liberalisation rather than just lip-service. It’s a delicate balance, and arguments can be made on both sides of the propriety of the government’s negotiations under the Caretaker Conventions. For example, Susan Delacourt argues the government is going beyond the Conventions. I’m not sure I have any answers, but I guess we’ll see what gets decided, and let the chips fall where they may.

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Roundup: Munk debate a success

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The Munk Debate on foreign policy was actually really well done – probably the best and most substantive debate we’ve had so far during this election, with a good format, good moderation, and bilingualism that more or less worked out (though there could have been a bit more effort into the French). (Kady’s liveblog here). We also started to see a bit more of a change in the leaders. Harper was more or less his usual self, and in foreign policy, well, he’s got ten years of experience, but he also has a record to defence. Trudeau stepped up his game in this debate, and was the most confident and self-assured he’s been of any debate. The improvement was marked, and given the low expectations going in, where people figured that foreign policy was his weakest area (especially as it’s where most of his notable gaffes going into the election were), but those fears were largely put to rest. As for Mulcair, people expecting a statesmanlike performance were largely dashed as he tended to more personal attacks and swipes, while avoiding a number of answers – possibly because his party’s foreign policy platform is the thinnest of the three. Trudeau also defended his father’s record from attacks by Mulcair, and seemed to have a few of his best moments doing so, and it did get notice over the Twitter Machine. (It was also, he noted the fifteenth anniversary of his father’s death, so that certainly did weigh on his mind at the time). Here is some debate reaction from Michael Den Tandt, the Ottawa Citizen’s panel, and over Twitter, Bob Rae (who was subject of another of Mulcair’s swipes on stage). Oh, and audience polls seem to indicate that Trudeau was the big winner. Make of that what you will.

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Roundup: Let the equivocation begin

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With three weeks left in the race, we’ve started seeing Thomas Mulcair start equivocating – or clarifying in any case – some of the policy planks he’s been running on. In many of those cases, it’s starting to make his promises look far less impressive. Take childcare – he is now talking about sitting down with provinces and using some of their existing spaces toward his “one million spaces” goal. One example was with Ontario, and the two years of full-day kindergarten offered in this province, so how does that get counted into with is childcare pledge, and the funding questions that go along with it? Add to that, with some 900,000 spaces already in existence across the country, does that mean that his plan will simply be to add another 100,000 spaces over the next eight years and make sure that they simply cap the fees at $15/day? Or is it still supposed to be a million new spaces? With his cap-and-trade announcement, he says that provinces can opt-out so long as they meet or exceed the federal objectives. But does that not then become essentially the Liberal position, where the provinces take the lead while the federal government establishes the targets? And didn’t he denounce that very notion? Mulcair has even started back-pedalling a little on his criticism of “useless” senators, saying it was only the institution he was denouncing (which, I’m sorry, is absolutely not what he said at the time). As crunch time approaches I’ll be interested to see how much more “clarifying” happens between the different parties, and how much of that clarifying goes against what they were saying the whole time.

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Roundup: Ignoring legal advice

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Looking through the government documents made available to the public during the court challenge on the government’s niqab ban during citizenship ceremonies, a pattern emerges quickly – that the department knew this was a non-starter, and they tried to offer alternatives for accommodation. Jason Kenney, the minister at the time, would have none of it, and pressed ahead anyway. And lo and behold, he used an instrument to implement a ban that was out of order. The Federal Court has said so, and the Federal Court of Appeal upheld it in a ruling from the bench, and this didn’t even touch the Charter arguments. But it shouldn’t be a surprise given the frequency at which this government’s legal and constitutional positions keep getting struck down by the courts, whether it’s with certain mandatory minimum sentences, or the Senate reference. People wonder what kind of legal advice they’re being given, and as this particular case clearly demonstrates in the documents, they’re being told that their positions don’t hold water – and yet they push ahead anyway. As we saw in the Duffy trial that the government created their own legal advisor position within the PMO, never mind that they have the Department of Justice who should be providing them with legal advice. The plain reading of what this means of course is that they didn’t like what Justice had to tell them, so they found a workaround to give them legal advice they found was more palatable. It all seems like such a waste of time, energy and taxpayer’s money – this from a party who insisted that they were going to put an end to waste in government.

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Roundup: Aspirational job targets

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Stephen Harper’s election pledge du jour was a target of 1.3 million net new jobs by 2020, which sounds terribly impressive, but if you listen to the economists talk about it, there are a few caveats. Of course, we should note first that really, government’s don’t create jobs as such, but they can provide the environment that is conducive to investment and hiring. The question for Harper really is a) how many of these jobs would be created regardless of whatever you do, and b) what measures exactly are you proposing to create these jobs, considering that it’s becoming ever more clear that we’re moving into an era of really low growth. And no, just signing trade agreements isn’t enough, nor is just lowering taxes and calling it a day. The Conservatives asked Mike Moffatt and Kevin Milligan to check their figures, and both say that sure, it’s plausible – but it’s going to depend on strong global growth, immigration, and older workers staying in the workforce longer (as in not retiring). Mike Moffatt gives his analysis here, while Milligan (and others) have tweeted their comments.

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Roundup: F-35s flare up again

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Talk of the F-35 fighters dominated the discussion yesterday, with Harper going full-bore on trying to say that Trudeau was living on some other planet if he thought that pulling out of the F-35 programme wouldn’t “crater” the country’s aerospace industry, while Mulcair – a vocal critic of the F-35s for years – suddenly said they should stay in the competition process. Of course, it sounds increasingly like Harper is trying to indicate the F-35s are the government’s choice all along no matter the procurement process that they’re going through right now with great fanfare, while Mulcair sounds increasingly like Harper – something Trudeau probably doesn’t mind. As a reality check, there are no contracts to tear-up, because we haven’t signed or committed to anything. As well, there is no guarantee that Canada pulling out of the F-35s would damage our industry because those companies supplying parts for the aircraft were chosen for quality, and because we paid into the development process, but didn’t commit to buying the full craft itself. Not to mention, any other plane we would go with (say, the Super Hornets) would have the likelihood of as many if not more regional industrial benefits. (And while we’re on the subject of reality checks, the Liberals apparently really bungled their costing figures for the F-35s in their own backgrounders). As for how you can have an open competition but exclude the F-35s? I don’t think that’s rocket science – it seems pretty clear to me that you simply add the specification to the procurement process that it needs to have more than one engine. That would rule out the F-35 pretty effectively, no? Suffice to say, it’s a lot of sound and fury, and plenty of flashbacks to the last election where this was an issue. Paul Wells writes more about it, and how it positions the leaders.

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Roundup: Niqab politics taking over

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The politics of the niqab have slowly starting taking up a lot of oxygen on the election campaign, on a number of fronts. While people over the Twitter Machine tried to skew Harper’s “old stock Canadians” remark as some kind of racist or dog whistle politics (I’m not sure that interpretation makes sense given the context of what he was saying), the government has decided to crank their petulance around the attempted niqab ban up to eleven by declaring that they will ask the courts for a stay of the Federal Court of Appeal ruling on the niqab-at-citizenship-ceremonies case, essentially to deny the woman in question the right to vote. It’s going to be tough for them to convince the courts that there is some imminent danger if they allow her to take the oath before October 19th, much less convince the Supreme Court of Canada to hear the case (and they almost certainly won’t, seeing as this is a fairly open-and-shut case of administrative law, where the minister overreached is authority to implement the ban). But while this pettiness digs in, the panic over the niqab has already begun to spread, with the Bloc launching an attack ad to warn that the NDP will mean pipelines and niqabs in Quebec, while an NDP candidate has stated that while Thomas Mulcair reopens the constitution to try and abolish the Senate (never going to happen), that he deal with the menace of niqabs at the same time. No, seriously. He added that he’s sure the party supports him on that, and as of posting time, the party has not repudiated the statement (much as they did not really repudiate it when Alexandre Boulerice made similar statements about banning niqabs earlier). Justin Trudeau, for his part, said he wouldn’t try to appeal the ban to the Supreme Court. So there’s that. Meanwhile, Tabatha Southey takes on the government’s attempted niqab ban, with her usual acid wit.

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Roundup: Globe Debate debacle

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The big “economic debate” was last night, hosted by the Globe and Mail, and well, it wasn’t exactly edifying on any account. The moderator was also commenting, he rushed segments so the leaders were alternating between slow points and rushing through, and then there was the shouting and the non sequiturs. And what non sequiturs they were – I’m not sure what C-51 had to do with taxation, but Thomas Mulcair brought it up anyway. Truth be told, much of the “debate” was leaders trying to go down their talking point and catchphrase checklists. Alas. Kady O’Malley offers advice for future single-issue debates, while Drake Fenton gives an ode to the moderator’s bell/egg timer. Reaction from the Citizen’s pundit panel, Paul Wells, and Micheal Den Tandt.

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Roundup: About that “costed” plan

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The NDP released their “costed” fiscal plan yesterday, which was not in fact the full costing that they had promised, but rather a broad-strokes framework, full of vague line item names like “Helping Families Get Ahead” and “Help Where It’s Needed Most” rather than actually talking about their childcare plan, and their promises around the healthcare escalator. (That escalator, incidentally, has confused a lot of reporters in the room). It’s kind of ironic that after a week spent baiting the Liberals on releasing their costed platform, the NDP didn’t actually deliver theirs. Suffice to say, the analysis to date seems to be that the NDP platform relies on the Budget 2015 numbers – numbers which are no longer relevant as the price of oil has crashed even further, and GDP growth is nowhere near what was projected and likely won’t be anytime soon, which blows a hole of several billion dollars into the assumptions. It also relies on the same austerity that the Conservative budget is built upon, despite what the NDP insists. The Conservatives and Liberals immediately panned the document, but that’s not a surprise. Being as I’m not an economist, I’ll leave the comments for those who are, and they have plenty to say (with some background on how to read these kinds of documents from Kevin Milligan here):

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