Tag Archives: Euthanasia

QP: Call an election/Get your security clearance ad nauseam

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Wednesday, and what sounds like a less exciting caucus meeting for the Liberals, in spite of the talk going around. The PM was present and ready to take all of the questions today, while his deputy was absent. Not all of the other leaders were present, unusually, and Pierre Poilievre led off in French, recited his talking points about the supposed “promise” in Canada that was “broken,” and wanted the government to adopt his plan to cut the GST on new homes under $1million. Justin Trudeau noted that the problem with any of Poilievre’s proposals is that they come with cuts, and in this case, it would cut $9 billion in transfers to Quebec to build affordable housing. Poilievre insisted that the government only builds bureaucracy and not homes, and again wanted them to adopt his GST cut. Trudeau listed investments the government is making, while Poilievre only offers cuts. Poilievre switched to English to give a paean to a very white, middle-class “Canadian promise,” which he claims the government broke and demanded they adopt his GST cut plan. Trudeau gave a longer soliloquy about the Conservatives only offering cuts and not help for people. Poilievre insisted that the current plans only build bureaucracy and that his plan was “common sense.” Trudeau noted that one of the fundamental responsibilities of any prime minister is to keep Canadians safe, but since Poilievre refuses a security briefing to keep his own caucus safe, he instructed security services to find a way to offer himself a briefing. Poilievre accused this of being a “tin-pot conspiracy,” before returning to the insistence that his plan was just common sense. Trudeau again repeated that Poilievre only offers cuts, and that he asked security services to figure out a briefing. 

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and accused the government of abandoning seniors by turning down the Bloc’s OAS bill. Trudeau listed ways in which they are helping seniors, which the Bloc opposed. Therrien took some swipes at the NDP before repeating his demand, and Trudeau linked the Bloc to the Conservatives in voting against measures to help seniors.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, raised Alberta turning over the administration of some hospitals to Covenant who refuses to provide abortions, and wanted Trudeau to do something. Trudeau noted that they have clawed back transfers to provinces who don’t provide services, and raised their motion to penalise pregnancy support charities that don’t offer the full suite of supports or options. Singh flubbed his attempt at a clip of “It’s her body her choice, not her body Conservative Party’s choice,” before switching to French to complain about housing transfers. Trudeau focused on the abortion aspect, and failed about the anti-choice MPs in the Conservative ranks.

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QP: Poilievre vs Fraser on GST cuts

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Both the PM and his deputy were present today, and as a result, so were most of the other leaders. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he claimed the PM had “copied and pasting” his idea of cutting the GST on rentals, and then patted himself on the back and quoted Mike Moffatt in praising his current plan to cut GST on new houses under $1 million, and wanted the government to adopt it. Justin Trudeau recited the false talking point that Poilievre had only built six affordable units when he was “minister” before saying they wouldn’t sign onto a programme of cuts. Poilievre insisted his plan would build by cutting bureaucracy, and Trudeau pointed out that cutting the Accelerator Fund would mean cutting investment in social housing in Quebec. Poilievre repeated his first question in English, and Trudeau noted that the fine print of Poilievre’s plan is to cut affordable housing programmes. Poilievre then recited some particular misleading talking points another the two housing programmes he plans to cut, and Trudeau gave a half-hearted defence of those programmes, getting back to his “fine print” talking points. Poilievre repeated his policy pledge in order to get a clean clip, and Trudeau returned to his same “check the fine print” talking point.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1851331074929918416

Yves-François Blanchet led for the NDP, and in his most ominous tone, brought up that the government didn’t pass their two bills, and tried to sound as though those bills were the most common sense plan for Quebeckers. Trudeau said that they have supported Supply Management and they hoped the Senate would pass it, before listing measures they have taken to help seniors. Blanchet then threw some shade at the Conservatives for their privilege filibuster which prevented any confidence motions that could bring down the government, and Trudeau noted that they could all see who was in the Chamber to play petty politics versus those there to help Canadians.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he complained about Rogers rising fees and said that the Conservatives don’t care because their leader gets “big cheques” from Edward Rogers, before some disruption, before demanding the government force Rogers to lower fees or ban them from federal contracts. Trudeau gave some blame talking points about hold the telcos to account. Singh switched to French to raise the recent documentary that cited Alain Rayes’ comments on the anti-abortionists in the Conservatives before demanding the federal government increase access (which is provincial jurisdiction). Trudeau threw a verbal grenade across the aisle about Quebec Conservatives who are not saying anything about the anti-abortionists in their caucus.

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Roundup: The same government, not a new one

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The final results of the BC election started rolling in as the absentee ballots were counted, and lo, it looks like the NDP managed to flip one seat in the final tally, making it a 47-44-2 tally NDP/Conservative/Greens. And while that’s all well and good, the way in which major media outlets described this was a gods damned tragedy, and I was about to lose my mind.

No, the NDP are not going to “form government,” because they are already the government. Only the legislature changes. No, the Lieutenant-Governor didn’t ask Eby to form government, her statement explicitly said “David Evy advised me that he is prepared to continue as premier.” Because she doesn’t sit around waiting to make a decision—she acts on advice, and he never resigned, so he is not forming anything. He will be shuffling his Cabinet, but it’s the same government that carries over to another legislature. That’s it, and it’s a really big problem when neither the national wire service of the national public broadcaster couldn’t actually read what she wrote, and instead wrote their copy based on a falsehood and changed her words to suit their wrong meaning.

Additionally, because I am going to get pedantic here, there is also no such thing as a “majority government” or a “minority government.” Government—meaning Cabinet—is government. What changes is whether they control a majority or minority of the legislature. The legislature is not government. What matters is whether the same government is able to maintain the confidence of the chamber, which is much easier to do when you have a majority of the seats. The fact that Eby has managed to secure a razor-thin majority of those seats means that he has essentially ensured that he can maintain that confidence (though the Speaker issue could remain tricky). But my gods, could our media outlets have a modicum of civic literacy? It’s not only embarrassing that they don’t, but it’s outright dangerous for democracy going forward.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian air attacks killed four in Kyiv and four in Kharkiv, where they also shattered a historic building and celebrated landmark. Critical infrastructure was also damaged in two regions in the north of Ukraine, leading to more power outages.

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QP: Proud of their new housing policy

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The PM was ostensibly in town but not present for Question Period, though his deputy was in his stead. All of the other leaders were absent, including Pierre Poilievre, even though he had just launched another policy position on housing. That left Andrew Scheer to lead off, and he raised the plan from said press conference on cutting GST on new house under $1 million, and asked the government to adopt it. Sean Fraser said that it was great that they took inspiration from the policy to remove the GST on purpose-built rentals, but the Conservative plan to pay for this policy, buy cutting other programmes including to existing low-income housing, was irresponsible. Scheer insisted that the current plan was only paying for bureaucracy and photo ops, and demanded again the policy be adopted. Fraser scoffed that their plan was to do less for housing and spend money on a snitch-line for people who don’t like their neighbours’ housing plans. Scheer repeated his “bureaucracy and photo ops” talking points, and claimed housing starts were down. Fraser retorted that housing starts were in fact up, and tens of thousands over when the Conservatives were last in charge, before reiterating that the Conservative plan is to cut housing supports. Luc Berthold took over in French to demand the government match their pledge to cut GST, and this time, Chrystia Freeland responded that at Poilievre’s rare press conference, he accidentally told the truth and said that they would cut two programmes to pay for this, and listed what those might be. Berthold tried again, decrying how long it took people to afford a home, and this time, Soraya Martinez Ferrada gave her own version of the Conservatives will only cut, and that the programmes the would cut included social housing in Quebec.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and worried about an influx of migrants from the U.S. if Trump wins and asked if the government had a plan. Marc Miller repsonded with a single “oui.” Therrien gave another soliloquy that asked the very same thing. Miller repeated that they do have a plan, and that they have always managed the border with the U.S.

Jenny Kwan rose for the NDP, demanded federal action on abortion access, as though the federal government controlled it. Mark Holland got up and gave a rant about the conservatives and that no man should control a woman’s reproductive freedom. Rachel Blaney gave another round of the same, and Patty Hajdu gave her own rant about not standing for attacks on reproductive rights.

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Roundup: Calling for the moderates to re-engage

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Over in The Line, former provincial Progressive Conservative (and former federal Conservative) comms staffer Chisholm Pothier goes though Blaine Higgs’ downfall in New Brunswick, and in particular how his obsession with “parental rights” as a cover for oppressing trans youth was one of the main drivers of that collapse, particularly because the Liberals in that province were talking about the things people were worried about, like housing and healthcare. He eschewed the usual partisan nonsense and congratulated Suan Holt on a deserved win. But that wasn’t the important part.

The most important takeaway from the piece, however, is that Pothier calls on Tories in New Brunswick to get memberships and get engaged with the party if they want to take it back from what Higgs turned it into, which is a narrow little cult catering primarily to Christian nationalists. This is something I have written columns about in the past—that it’s extremely important for ordinary people and moderates within a party to take out a membership and get involved at the grassroots level, because if you don’t, the crazies absolutely will and they will take over your party. This is what happened with the UCP in Alberta—when Jason Kenney engineered the hostile takeover of the PC party there, and then its merger with the Wildrose to form the UCP, it was done very much by getting the swivel-eyed loons to engage with the process at the expense of the moderates, whom they didn’t want in the party. This was to be a small-c conservative party and not the amorphous centrist mass that the PC party in Alberta had become, constantly reshaping itself and its beliefs to follow those of each successive leader. And now, it’s a party of hardcore fanatics, who turned on Kenney, and whom Danielle Smith is terrified they will do the same to her, so she is becoming increasingly radical in how she is governing as a result.

I cannot stress enough that ordinary people need to be engaged with parties at the grassroots level, or things get really bad. A party that only consists of Kool-Aid drinkers, regardless of the party, becomes toxic pretty fast (especially if they start going on with the purity tests). While the PCs in New Brunswick have a chance to reclaim their party, which is probably too late in Alberta (and couldn’t happen at all with the sudden capitulation of BC United to the BC Conservatives). It also may not be possible for the federal Liberals, who did away with party memberships altogether in favour of sign-ups that will populate their voter database while all power centralized in the leader’s office. Pothier’s advice should carry for all parts of the country, not just New Brunswick—if you want to keep your party from falling prey to fanatics of any stripe, you need to get involved as a member to push back against them.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched two waves of drone attacks over Kyiv, and one of them struck an apartment building, killing one and injuring five. A missile attack struck residences and a medical facility in Dnipro, killing three. G7 leaders announced $50 billion in loans to Ukraine to be repaid with seized Russian assets.

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Roundup: Scott Moe’s genital inspectors

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While I haven’t been following the Saskatchewan election too closely, but while on the campaign trial, incumbent Scott Moe promised anti-trans change room policies if re-elected. And I just can’t even.

Set aside for the moment the fact that this is a) the kind of anti-LGBTQ+ scapegoating that comes out of the authoritarian playbook; and b) that Moe has already told on himself with his previous anti-trans legislation whereby he not only pre-emptively invoked the Notwithstanding Clause, but also inoculated himself and his government from being sued for any harm that comes to trans people as a result of these policies, this policy is unenforceable, just like Danielle Smith’s similar pledge to ban trans women from playing sports in women’s and girls’ leagues. Is the plan from either premier that they plan to hire government genital inspectors before someone can enter a change room or play on a sports team? Or do they plan to let vigilantes do it for them and expose already vulnerable trans people to more violence?

And this is the real kicker—this very quickly spirals out from anti-trans panic to all-out assault on women who don’t conform to a preconceived notion of femininity at the hands of these vigilantes. There was a case last summer in BC where someone demanded that a nine-year-old girl who had a short haircut prove that she was actually a girl at a school track meet. This is the kind of harassment that Moe and Smith are promoting—now every girl with short hair, or small breasts, or who is a called a “tomboy” will need to subject herself to ongoing genital inspections to ensure that she’s not trans. And heaven forfend if a child was born intersex and is not easily sorted into this particular system. Is this the world that they actually want? It’s insidious and it solves not a single problem other than the ones in their fevered imaginations. And the fact that Moe thinks this is his Hail Mary pass in an election where he can’t defend his own record speaks volumes about where this kind of anti-trans panic has taken hold among voters on the political right.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched 56 drones and a missile overnight against Mykolaiv in the south, attacking their energy infrastructure. Russia claims that they took the village of Maksymilianivka, but this has not been confirmed. President Zelenskyy told NATO members that their intelligence indicates that as many as 10,000 North Korean troops could be deployed on Russia’s side in the conflict, but no one else could corroborate this.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1846855444934852759

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Roundup: Filibustering their own motion

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The current privilege fight has ground business in the House of Commons to a complete halt, thanks to the tactics of the Conservatives, and they are trying to use this as some form of blackmail on the government, particularly as the government has been unable to move the legislation around the capital gains changes. Andrew Scheer even tried to be cute during the Thursday Question yesterday and said that if the government can’t conduct its own business, then they should call an election. Because of course he did.

While I won’t relitigate why this is an abuse of privilege that sets a terrifying precedent, it has been called out by the Government House Leader that the Conservatives are filibustering themselves because the whole point of this is that it’s supposed to go to the Procedure and House Affairs Committee so that it can be decided upon what should happen, but that’s inconvenient for the Conservatives. They would rather put up every single MP to speak to this issue to run out the clock, and so that they can all recite prepared scripts that scream “Liberal corruption!” even though that’s not what the Auditor General found. (Yes, there were conflicts of interest, but the government was not implicated in this at all). Gould asserts that the Conservatives are trying to keep it away from committee because the moment that committee starts calling witnesses, legal experts will point out the abuse of the parliamentary privilege powers and that this is banana republic behaviour, and she’s not wrong, but the bigger issue here is that the plan  of the Conservatives is to make the House of Commons as completely non-functional as possible through abuse of this privilege debate (which again, should have been over in a couple of hours at most with the matter sent to committee) so that they can claim further justification for an election.

If the other opposition parties wised up and stopped playing along with the Conservatives in their desire to embarrass the government for their own partisan aims, Parliament could be functioning a lot more smoothly and things they want to get passed could, but none of them seem to care much about the long-term implications of their actions (like the banana republic precedents) because scoring points is too much fun. There also remains that the government could prorogue Parliament for a day or two in order to kill the privilege motion, but that could set them up for bigger headaches, particularly as they want certain bills out of the Sente and prorogation would reset the clocks on them. In any case, the dysfunction is intentional, and the Conservatives need to be called out on the lies they are spreading to justify this behaviour.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched a major drone attack over Ukraine, targeting 15 regions; casualties included two adults and a child after a drone struck a fuel truck in Chernihiv. Ukraine did hit Russian radar stations inside the country with long-range missiles, while Ukraine’s top commander has ordered defences bolstered in the east after the loss of Vuhledar. New NATO secretary general Mark Rutte visited Kyiv as his first trip in his new role.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1841746253052321929

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QP: Slogans after the summer

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The first day back from summer break, and nearly all of the leaders were present and ready to perform for the cameras. After the newest Conservative MP was introduced to take his seat, Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he noted how many times the Bloc has voted in favour of the government, before reciting some slogans. Justin Trudeau said that if he had spent any time talking to Canadians over the summer, he would have seen a desire for solutions, not things in his own interests. Poilievre claimed that they had overseen the biggest expansion of the federal government in history (not even remotely true), and recited his slogans again. Trudeau praised the investments into Telesat and mocked the Conservatives trying to call up Elon Musk. Poilievre switched to English to recite come slogans that obliquely called for an election, and Trudeau repeated the line that Poilievre is only out for his own interests. Poilievre blamed the carbon price for child hunger, and demanded an election. Trudeau reminded him is that climate change costs money, and that Poilievre’s do-nothing plan would be even more expensive. Poilievre said that the carbon price hasn’t stopped any fires or floods, and took a swipe at Mark Carney before again calling for an election. Trudeau repeated that Poilievre’s do-nothing plan would help nobody and endanger the future.

Yves-François Blanchet rose for the Bloc, and raised the by-election in Montreal, and raised the “discrimination” that seniors over 75 get higher pension cheques. Trudeau noted that people over 75 have higher expenses and more depleted savings, and called out the Bloc for voting against dental care. Blanchet said that dental care encroaches upon provincial jurisdiction, and said that he misled people when he said that Anglophones in the province were getting poorer services. Trudeau said that the provincial government itself said that they were not clear but had not provided a clarification. 

Peter Julian rose for the NDP, and in French, named the two ridings with the by-elections, before reciting talking points about corporate landlords. Trudeau needled him for hiding once the Conservatives pressured them, while the government is doing the hard work of progressive policies. Julian switched to English to name the two ridings and accused the government of making people pay for healthcare. Trudeau needled them even more forcefully about how they turned tail when hard things got hard.

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Roundup: Both-sidesing the Russian jet footage

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Because this is sometimes a media criticism blog, I am going to call out The Canadian Press for their atrocious headline of “Tories delete Canadian dream video featuring what Liberals say are Russian jets.” *sigh* The Liberals didn’t say those were Russian jets—those were Russian jets. Anyone who knows about jets can tell what they are, and they certainly were not CF-18s or F-35s (as the new Canadian fighter jets will be). The problem of course is that CP feels the need to obsequiously both-sides absolutely gods-damned everything in the name of sounding neutral and balanced, rather than simply providing a proper fact-check like they should as the national wire service. It shouldn’t need to be framed as a partisan accusation that the video used stock footage of Russian jets because objectively that’s exactly what the video did—use stock footage of Russian jets when Poilievre’s speech was referencing new Canadian fighter jets (which again, are going to be F-35s).

I will note that CBC simply called out the fact with their own headline of “Conservative Party posts—then deletes—video showing Russian-made jets.” See—it’s accurate and fact-checks, and while the CBC is also just as obsequious as CP is with both-sidesing almost all of the time, they didn’t feel the need to couch this one in a partisan accusation in order to look like they weren’t the ones providing the factual correction. I wish I knew why CP is so gun-shy when it comes to actually calling out this kind of thing rather than always couching it in a partisan accusation (because again, this isn’t the first time this has happened), whether it’s because they’re afraid Poilievre will continue to harass their reporters at press conferences (which appeasing won’t actually help), or because they’re so afraid of being sued that they won’t dare call a spade a spade on their own. Either way, it’s not really serving Canadians to behave this way.

Meanwhile, the Liberals and NDP pounced on that video, including Bill Blair using that footage incident to accuse the Conservatives of being “soft on Russia.” And the Conservative Party’s spokesperson responded that “mistakes happen,” but then went on to excuse it by pointing out that the Liberals once used stock footage of a crowd rather than an image of real supporters at an event. Because apparently if it’s not both-sidesing, it’s whataboutism. (Could we all just be grown-ups in this country for a change?)

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine’s air defences downed all 11 drones launched overnight Sunday, targeting a number of cities including Kyiv. Civilians in Pokrovsk in Ukraine have been fleeing as Russians advance on their city, destroying outlying settlements as they approach, and the Ukrainian forces say they need to be out in a week or two. In Kursk, Ukrainian forces destroyed another bridge to slow Russian responses, while president Zelenskyy says that their incursion into Kurk shows that Russia’s alleged “red lines” are just a bluff, which they have now called.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1825645648697274715

Good reads:

  • Labour minister Steve MacKinnon is meeting with representatives of the two main railways and their unions ahead of the lockout deadline.
  • Mélanie Joly announced $1 million to help with the mpox outbreak in Africa, as she was visiting a vaccine coordination centre in Ivory Coast.
  • Northern Affairs minister Dan Vandal thinks there were better choices to appoint to the Senate than Charles Adler (which may be a breach of Cabinet solidarity).
  • The federal government is going to freeze approvals for temporary foreign workers in Montreal for the next six months per the province’s request.
  • The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs want the prime minister and Governor General to rescind Charles Adler’s Senate appointment. (No, the GG can’t do that).
  • A court challenge has been filed to force the government to enact its own legislation on making MAiD available for mental illness as the sole concern.
  • A recent report shows that the two business sectors responsible for the majority of capital gains earned didn’t create any jobs over the past five years. (You don’t say!)
  • The federal Liberals have pulled out of the Ottawa Pride parade because of the controversy over their pro-Palestinian statement.

Odds and ends:

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Roundup: The imagined need for Cardy

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I don’t really want to give the “Canadian Future Party” (formerly the “Centre Ice Conservatives”) too much air time and attention, but their interim leader, Dominic Cardy (formerly leader of the New Brunswick NDP who defected to that provinces’ Progressive Conservative Party but now sits as an independent after a falling out with Blaine Higgs) was making the media rounds yesterday, and he was mostly saying ridiculous things about the state of politics as they are today.

In order to try and claim the centrist high ground, Cardy rightly points to the fact that the Conservatives are moving to the far right in many areas (and many of his party’s organizers appear to be disaffected Conservatives), but he then tried to insist that they are going to be different from the Liberals by claiming that the Liberals are moving to the “extremes.” Reader, I howled with laughter. The Liberals have barely budged from their amorphous centrist position, moving ever-so-slightly to the left by actually implementing some of the programmes they’ve been trying to for a couple of decades, like child care, which has a hell of an economic case to recommend it when you look at the participation of women in the labour force and the economic returns that it brings. I’m not sure what “extremes” Cardy seems to be thinking of—the Liberals haven’t nationalized any industries; they haven’t abolished private property or beheaded any billionaires. Hell, they’ve barely raised the taxes on said billionaires, whose existence remains a policy failure in any just society. For all his talk about being an “economic disaster,” the country’s books are the strongest in the G7, the deficits that have been run outside of the height of COVID were rounding errors in the size of our economy, we had the lowest inflation spike of comparator economies, it returned to the control zone fastest, and we’ve achieved the soft landing of avoiding a recession after said inflationary spike. Cardy’s economic daydreams appear to be coming from some kind of fantasyland.

Selley is right—this isn’t an issue about ideologues, and Cardy’s going on about their policies being “evidence-based” is another one his weird fantasy daydreams. If we wanted a technocracy, we would install one, but governing is about making choices, and sometimes there are trade-offs to that policy. You can’t just keep shouting “evidence-based!” because sometimes the decisions you need to make will need some kind of an ideological grounding in order to weigh which trade-offs you’re willing to make. Nothing Cardy is offering here has even the hint of being serious, and people should recognize that fact.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian missile struck port infrastructure in Odesa on Wednesday night, while a drone attack killed two medics in Kharkiv region, and more energy infrastructure was hit in the Chernihiv region. Ukraine says they have pushed furtherinto the Kursk region, and are now claiming this is about creating a “buffer zone” to prevent shelling of Ukrainian territory from positions within Kursk. Here is a look at the use of drone warfare as part of the Kursk operation, such as using them to strike four airfields in surrounding regions.

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