Tag Archives: Electoral Reform

QP: Pretending to care about history

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The prime minister was present today while his deputy was in Japan for G7 meetings. The other leaders were all present for another episode of the clown show. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and joked that the prime minister heard that there were problems with passports, but didn’t realise that it wasn’t the images but that people couldn’t get them, and then lamented that the image of Vimy Ridge was removed. Justin Trudeau said that the Conservatives used veterans as props when they need them while they cut their funding consistently. Poilievre went again in English, and Trudeau ramped up the dramatics for the same answer. Poilievre lamented other images removed, while Trudeau gave a paean about the measures in his budget. Poilievre pivoted to one of Trudeau’s favourite delis in Montreal closing and blaming food prices, before he railed about the carbon price, to which Trudeau recited his lines about fighting carbon change while sending rebates to Canadians. Poilievre blamed the prime minister for food prices increasing, used his “bring home” line, and railed about the carbon price, and Trudeau went on a tear about Poilievre’s social media and his uses of misogynistic hashtags on his YouTube channel, which was a completely bizarre non-sequitur to the question.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he once again railed about the so-called “century plan,” and the impact on Quebec. Trudeau said that while Quebec controls its own immigration levels, the federal government sets the levels nationally, and they are ensuring economic growth. Blanchet railed that nobody in Quebec wants these levels, to which Trudeau quipped that the levels were released in November, and it took Quebec media until now to create this firestorm.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and raised the number of times pharmaceutical lobbyists met with the government and blamed them for not making changes on PMPRB. Trudeau read a script about the actions they have taken to lower drug prices. Singh read his question again in French, and Trudeau read the French version of his same script.

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QP: The “courage” to manufacture misleading clips

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The prime minister was in town but elsewhere, while his deputy was present for a change. Most of the other leader were also absent, save the Leader of the Opposition. After the Speaker had to read a statement about decorum and calling one another liars, Pierre Poilievre led off, and stated—falsely—that the finance minister had said that the deficit was fuelling inflation, and raised the defeated policy motion at the Liberal convention on the weekend about balancing budgets. Chrystia Freeland said that what the party really said at the convention is that they’re the optimistic party, and the party that believes in Canada. Poilievre accused the prime minister of not having the courage to answer, when he’s not here, and praised the “courageous” Liberals who raised the policy proposal. Freeland said that Liberals were courageous for doing what needed to be done in the pandemic and raised the country’s Aaa credit rating. Poilievre insisted the prime minister stand up and be “courageous” in kicking out that Chinese diplomat who was involved in the Chong threats. Freeland insisted that it was beneath the dignity to say that nobody stands for threats against elected officials. Poilievre tried again, demanding to “bring home” security—because he has to get his new tag line in there—and demanded the diplomat be expelled. Marco Mendicino reminded him that the foreign minister summoned the ambassador last week and let it he know that interference will not be tolerated. Poilievre repeated the question in French, and got the same response from Mendicino.

Claude DeBellefeuille led for the Bloc, and raised the so-called “century initiative” to increase immigration by the end of the century, but didn’t have regard for Quebec or the status of French, and demanded to know if this is government policy. Sean Fraser said that they can bring in immigration and protect French, and noted the increased Francophone immigration last year. DeBellefeuille repeated her concerns, and Fraser said that the government makes policy, not Dominic Barton, before repeating his same points.

Peter Julian rose for the NDP, and demanded to know if any other MPs were being threatened like Michael Chong was. Marco Mendicino said that 49 parliamentarians had been briefed by CSIS. Alexandre Boulerice worried that big corporations want to introduce GMO foods into schools, and that voluntary compliance was not enough. Francis Drouin said that the government has been working with the organic food sector.

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Roundup: The Canadian coronation event

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As rain poured on the Coronation in London, where the prime minister and Governor General were in attendance, it was sunny and pleasant at the much, much smaller ceremony in Ottawa. The key feature of that event was four unveilings—new commemorative coins featuring the King’s cypher, the first stamp from Canada Post with King Charles III’s effigy, a new royal standard which was basically a more generic version of the old one, but which won’t be personalised for each monarch, and a new heraldic Canadian Crown, which will replace the current St. Edward’s Crown on things like coats of arms and military badges. We also finally got the news that the King will eventually replace his mother on coins and $20 banknotes, but the latter is likely years away.

https://twitter.com/TheCrownCa/status/1654883768522493954

https://twitter.com/TheCrownCa/status/1654912019798040579

https://twitter.com/Canadian_Crown/status/1654926551576608771

I did want to give a special shout out to Mary May Simon’s coronation dress, which was made by an Indigenous designer, and which featured her coat of arms embroidered along the front, which was amazing. (Thread below)

https://twitter.com/GGCanada/status/1654874274715279360

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian Forces have launched another massive wave of missiles against Ukraine, hitting Kyiv and Odessa, while they have intensified shelling in Bakhmut in the hopes of overtaking it ahead of Tuesday, which is Victory Day in Russia. To that end, Wagner Group mercenaries are now saying they won’t pull out of Bakhmut as they had threatened earlier (but that threat may well have been empty). Ukrainian forces have shot down a Russian hypersonic missile using an American Patriot defence system, proving the technology in the field. Russian occupiers in Zaporizhzhia have been “evacuating” civilians away from the expected front-lines of the counter-offensive. And a prisoner exchange was held over the weekend that included 45 soldiers from the Azov battalion captured at Mariupol.

https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/1654725483211239424

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1655150652522217473

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QP: Not one but two MPs being censured

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Both the prime minister and his deputy were away—Trudeau hobnobbing at the opening of the Liberal convention—while most of the other leaders were absent as well, and boy did the day start off in a raucous manner.

Michael Chong led off, and demanded the record be corrected that he had not been briefed about threats to him and his family two years ago, as two Liberal MPs had asserted in debate earlier in the day. Mendicino didn’t really correct the record, but praised the CSIS annual report being released. After an outburst from Chris Warkentin and an intervention from the Speaker, Chong said that he was informed from the National Security Advisor that the report about that Chinese diplomat who was involved in the threats against him did circulate to her two years ago in contradiction to what the prime minister said, and Mendicino thanked him for the update, but reiterated that they only found out on Monday, and took action then. Chong demanded to know why the government wasn’t following CSIS’ advice around the Chinese diplomat, and Mendicino recited that the ambassador had been summoned. Luc Berthold took over in French accused the government of spreading disinformation about their members, and Mendicino recited the lines about briefings being offered. Berthold called this disinformation, and repeated Chong’s update about the diplomat, and this time Mélanie Joly said that she empathises, and that they have summoned the Chinese ambassador.

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and quoted Richard Fadden’s belief that ministers did get the briefing about Chong, and Mendicino insisted that they only learned about it on Monday. Normandin accused the government of blaming CSIS for their failures, and raised the alleged warning ahead of the 2019 election about Han Dong. Mendicino called on all MPs to stand in solidarity against foreign interference. 

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, raised the fact that the prime minster has been Liberal leader for ten years, and blamed him for the housing crisis. Soraya Martinez Ferrada recited taking points about the their plans to help increase supply. Singh repeated the accusation in French, and got much the same reply.

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Roundup: Allegations of political interference amidst other errors and omissions

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It’s now around day one-hundred-and-nineteen of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and while the fighting continues at Severodonetsk, the people of Kharkiv are emerging from the subways and underground shelters they were in when Russian forces bombarded their city, and are finding so much of it shelled and burned. Meanwhile, we’re learning more about the Ukrainian helicopter pilots who were flying rescue missions from the steel plant in Mariupol, getting some of the wounded soldiers to safety.

Closer to home, allegations emerged from documents made public in the mass shooting inquiry in Nova Scotia that a superintendent’s notes said that RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki said she felt she had been disobeyed because he had not released any information about the weapons used, citing that she had promised PMO and Public Safety the information because it was tied to pending gun control legislation, while he said he didn’t want to release it because it would interfere in their investigation into how the weapons were acquired. In a separate interview, the director of communications for the Nova Scotia RCMP was expressing frustration that Lucki’s statements did not match what the department was putting out, and blamed that on political interference. The government immediately denied having made any orders or applied any pressure, and Lucki put out a statement a few hours later which she too denied interfering, but said she should have been more sensitive in her approach to the meeting.

This, of course, touched off a round of outrage and insistence that if the allegations of interference were true that there would need to be heads rolling, but I will confess to having a hard time sorting through this, because what I’ve read of these same documents shows a lot of errors and omissions in the statements the RCMP was putting out, and there is an imperative for RCMP brass and the government to have details and facts that the media are demanding from them. And the RCMP in the province seem to have been self-satisfied that they were putting out false or misleading information throughout the event, which is hard for the Commissioner or the government to deal with when they know there are other facts that aren’t being released. Was there an element of crassness in wanting to know what kinds of weapons were used? I mean, it sounds like it was a legitimate question that media would be asking, so it’s hard to say. I will say that the demands for an emergency committee meeting is unlikely to solve anything more than what we’ve already learned from all involved, and that this is just an excuse for more theatrics at the start of summer that Conservatives want to be able to fundraise off of, but they’ll probably get their wish because all MPs can’t resist putting on a show—especially if it gets unhinged as these meetings inevitably will.

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QP: Gathering outrage clips about gas prices

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The prime minister was away in meetings, but his deputy was present, so that was something, though no other leader was present either. Luc Berthold led off in French, and he proclaimed that masks came off in Quebec, but pivoted this toward a question on gas prices and inflation, demanding a break be given to people. Chrystia Freeland recited that they sympathised with the families, which was why they had measures in the budget like dental care. Berthold railed that the Liberals liked high prices, and invited Freeland to join him at a gas station. Freeland reminded him that Canadians are smart and know this is a global issue, caused by Putin’s war in Ukraine. Berthold then raised Friday’s Supreme Court of Canada ruling and the invitation to bring forward new legislation around extreme intoxication. David Lametti got up to read that they are closely studying the ruling, and specified that Friday’s ruling does not apply to most cases where intoxication is a factor. Karen Vecchio took over in English and read a hugely torqued reading of the decision and demanded action, and Lametti read the English version of the same response. Vecchio carried on building a moral panic around the ruling, and Lametti reiterated that the ruling came out on Friday, so they wanted to examine their options.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he complained that a number of Liberal MPs attended a protest in Quebec against the province’s proposed (draconian) language laws, to which Pablo Rodriguez said that Liberal MPs were not handcuffed, and the government had their own official languages legislation. Therrien was outraged by this, and Rodriguez continued to needle him that Liberal MPs were no less Quebeckers than Bloc MPs. 

Peter Julian rose for the NDP, and in French, he railed that gas prices were increasing while the government subsidised the fossil fuel sector, hitting Canadians twice. Freeland replied that they were phasing out those subsidies, and carbon capture was part of the way forward. Rachel Blaney appeared by video to repeat the question in English, and Freeland reiterated her points, with some added emphasis on the efficacy of carbon prices.

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Roundup: Feeling like March 2020 all over again

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It’s definitely starting to feel like March 2020, as provinces all started increasing restrictions in advance of Christmas—some of them insufficient, and too late, but they are taking some actions nevertheless. (That, and they’re not all honest about what has been happening with rapid tests—looking most especially at the incompetent murderclown Doug Ford). Federally, the border measures are getting even tougher with negative PCR tests being required even for trips that are less than 72 hours in duration (and those PRC tests need to have been done out-of-country), while the travel ban on those ten African countries is now lifted as omicron has already achieved community spread in Canada and such a ban is now useless.

Prime minister Justin Trudeau is trying to offer some reassurances that we have the benefit of knowledge that we didn’t have during the first wave, and that Canadians know enough to do what it takes to curb the spread of the virus. I suspect that may be a bit overly optimistic considering that too many people will do what the government allows them to, so don’t take all of the precautions necessary to actually curb the spread.

Meanwhile, here’s an exploration of some of the psychological reactions that are being seen and felt to the rapid onset of omicron, where fatigue of the “new normal” is starting to overtake compliance to health measures, and the need to start thinking about what the world looks like if we have COVID forever now.

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Roundup: Misleading to the point of misinformation

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As they tend to do after every election concludes, Power & Politics had David Meslin on to talk about electoral reform, because apparently, we are going to re-litigate it once again. (The saving grace is that this time they didn’t have Meslin using his LEGO to show different PR results). The problem? The graphic that the show produced as an example of how the results of this election would be under PR was essentially misinformation.

https://twitter.com/Catelli2Oh/status/1440818668217135110

The assumptions made to produce said chart is that Canada would employ a system of pure proportional representation, and then allocate seats in that regard. But this would be a PR system that nobody is actually asking for, and which would be unconstitutional because seats are allocated on a provincial basis, while such a system would be unable to take that into account under the current 338 seat model. That’s a pretty big deal. Most people advocate for some form of mixed-member proportional, where you vote for a local MP, and then vote a second time for a party, which will then allocate someone from a list into a number of seats designed as “top-ups” to make the seats more closely resemble the “popular vote” (even though such a thing is a logical fallacy under our current vote construction). Furthermore, it would assume that we’d have the same parties, which is unlikely (and Meslin went at great length about how great it would be for the big tent parties to break up), and even more to the point, under a different voting system, voting behaviours would be different. With all of this in mind, the fact that the gods damned CBC produced an infographic with a misleading characterisation of what Monday’s vote might have looked like under PR is not just irresponsible – it’s downright misinformation.

It’s also concerning that Meslin thinks that as many as 21 seats for the People’s Party under such a system is no big deal, and he thinks we should have more radical parties for the sake of “innovation.” The notion of a far-right party getting 21 seats and putting them in the potential position to be kingmakers in a coalition government is frightening to say the least, but we’ve also seen in other countries that use PR, such as Germany and the Netherlands, that when far-right parties breach the threshold to attain seats, they grow in popularity because they are given respectability and a platform to espouse their views. One of the great strengths of big-tent parties, that Meslin completely ignored, is that they moderate extremes, which is actually a good thing in politics. Big tent parties build coalitions of regions and factions within themselves, rather than having smaller parties building the coalitions externally post-election. It’s one reason why radical parties are short-lived, and why disruptive parties tend to “self-correct” within a couple of election cycles, because they can’t maintain the necessary organisation that Canada requires. These are features of our system – not bugs, and it would be great if CBC didn’t turn to the same guy every election to make the same misleading points, time and again.

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Roundup: Incendiary headlines and endorsements

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There were a couple of items on the campaign trail that I wanted to mention. One is that a reporter asked Justin Trudeau about electoral reform today, for the first time since the election began, apparently, and he said that if there was consensus he’d consider re-opening it, but he remained in favour of ranked ballots. This was put under a headline of “Trudeau says he remains ‘open’ to electoral reform if Liberals re-elected,” and Twitter had a gods damned field day over it, and lo, the issue was re-litigated yet again, even though that headline didn’t really reflect his comments. (The CBC headline for the same Canadian Press wire story was more reflective of his comments). But writing up what he said isn’t incendiary and won’t make it look like he made a promise that he really didn’t make wouldn’t drive clicks now, would it?

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/1439267428786221066

The other item of note was that two former military figures endorsed Erin O’Toole yesterday – retired Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, and retired General Rick Hillier. In both cases, it’s a bit icky because we generally don’t like to have the practice of military endorsements in Canada because our Forces are a far less partisan organisation, as well they should be. There are a couple of additional wrinkles here. With Norman, it has the ability of looking petty and score-settling because of the blame to go around the investigation that led to the charges of breach-of-trust with Norman (that were ultimately stayed). Hillier is also fairly dubious – not only because he is now tainted goods after the gong show of a vaccine rollout that he was in charge of in Ontario, but as a former Chief of Defence Staff, he should remain far more scrupulous in wading into partisan politics. This is not a trend that we want to encourage.

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Roundup: Evidence-based dumping a promise

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Because we’re going to re-litigate this issue yet again over the course of the campaign, I’m going to remind you all that Trudeau’s decision to abandon electoral reform was a result of evidence-based policy as opposed to a lie or false promise. The issue was studied. They engaged in polling that was output-based, meaning what people wanted for outcomes rather than simply asking them which system they preferred, because that conditions people who are rote in their responses about what system they think they prefer, without necessarily understanding their outcomes. And the outcomes they were looking for had a lot more to do with status quo than most people like to believe.

Beyond that, the special committee that studied the issue in the House of Commons returned a report that was hot garbage. Its conclusions were to call on the government to design a bespoke version of proportional representation that fell below a certain threshold of what they consider vote percentages to seat allocations which would require a massive number of new seats to be even remotely possible, that also had to have a simple ballot and retained the ability to elect individual MPs who had a connection to the riding as opposed to choosing MPs from party lists. Such a thing is a virtual impossibility. The common talking point is that Trudeau killed it because it didn’t advance ranked ballots, which he preferred (never mind that the Liberals on the committee didn’t advance study of this system in any meaningful way), and both the committee and the media were caught up in one bullshit analysis that relied on a single poll of second choices that declared that the Liberals would have won more seats under such a system, where there is actually no evidence of that. (Seriously, look at how politics works in Australia’s House of Representatives, which is elected by ranked ballot). That was the dominant narrative, which made it poisonous for Trudeau to advance.

But we’re going to get a bunch of people continue to moan about that in this election, including some ridiculous assertions that if the Conservatives form government that it’s because Trudeau didn’t implement proportional representation. (Seriously, if you favour a voting system because you think it’ll keep a certain party out, then you’re a sore loser, not actually interested in democratic outcomes). And no doubt, we’ll see some more garbage journalism like this CBC piece which is obtuse about things like the Conservative platform, and getting comment from a single political scientist who favours reform. Seriously? That’s not how you do your job.

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