Tag Archives: Federalism

Roundup: Plans to half-ass maternity leave

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A piece that caught my eye over the weekend was an interview with new Government House Leader Karina Gould about how she plans to deal with her maternity leave on the second time around, and how it’ll be different from the first time (when she was the first Cabinet minister to give birth while in office). Significantly, she doesn’t want to come back as quickly as she did the last time, where she only took ten weeks off, and then returned with her husband in tow to help with child care duties while she did her job.

What Gould says she wants to do differently this time is to not travel to Ottawa, but attend virtually from her constituency office, while the government whip assumers her duties during her absence. But this gets back to what I have been repeatedly warning about when it comes to remote and hybrid sittings, which is that this is going to create an expectation of presenteeism that is unrealistic, particularly for new parents. And while they absolutely should take the time they need off, it should actually be time off in a proper leave of absence, rather than constantly hovering by their computers to follow proceedings along over Zoom, and being ready to vote using their remote app at a moment’s notice. That, frankly, not only doesn’t help anyone, but creates even more stress on the MP or minister while they’re on leave.

More to the point, it will be exceedingly difficult to do House Leader duties remotely, because part of the job is stage-managing answers in Question Period, and directing who should be responding (though not always effectively as we have seen). That can’t be done remotely, and indeed, Mark Holland got into trouble a couple of times for trying to do it over hybrid format at the height of the pandemic, because he was trying to do so with a phone, and that was forbidden. The best thing is for her to simply take the time she needs, and resume her duties from Ottawa when she’s ready, because she won’t be doing anyone any favours trying to half-ass it from her constituency office when she should be spending time with her newborn.

In case you missed them:

  • My column on the Conservatives preparing a “stolen election” narrative by deliberately confusing basic Westminster parliamentary dynamics
  • My Xtra column on why conservatives posing with “Straight Pride” and “Leave Our Kids Alone” t-shirts are no accident—and a sign of their moral cowardice.
  • My column on the signal that Chrystia Freeland has sent to premiers and mayors when it comes to their plans to beg Ottawa to bail them out.
  • My piece for National Magazine about how competition law has failed the media sector in Canada, and why Bill C-18 was a flawed attempt to deal with it.
  • My column on why a public inquiry into Canada’s COVID response may actually prove impossible, because federalism.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian missiles slammed into an apartment complex and a university building in the central city of Kryvyi Rih, killing six and wounding 75. Russian drones also hit Kharkiv, partially destroying a college dormitory. Ukrainian forces say they have reclaimed 15 square kilometres of occupied territory in the past week, while describing that the fight has been tougher than expected because the Russians have fortified themselves. Meanwhile, a drone struck an office building in Moscow’s financial centre, which Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for, and Russians claim that they destroyed three Ukrainian drones headed for their ships in the Black Sea.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1685580157254307840

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Roundup: Inflation falling into the control range

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The inflation numbers were out yesterday, and headline inflation dropped to 2.8 percent annualized, which is the lowest in the G7, and back within the Bank of Canada’s control range of 1 to 3 percent (though they have stated they are going to keep measures in place it reaches two percent). There are still hot spots—food price inflation is still fairly high, and shelter costs are also running high, but that’s not unexpected given where things are at right now.

Chrystia Freeland called this news a “milestone moment” that Canadians should feel some relief in, while the Conservatives repeated some of their usual talking points. The NDP, naturally, are keeping up with their attempt to blame high inflation on corporate greed, particularly food price inflation, even though the data doesn’t really bear that out, as I pointed out in this thread:

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian forces struck the southern port city of Odessa, and while most of the missiles and drones were intercepted, there were hits and there was damage from debris. This was considered to be retaliation for the explosion on the bridge linking Russia to occupied Crimea. More strikes are aimed at Odessa in the early morning hours. Meanwhile, with the Black Sea grain deal ended by Russia, the EU is looking to transport more Ukrainian grain by rail and road, while the UN says they are floating “a number of ideas” around how to get that grain flowing again.

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Roundup: The problem with feel-good legislation

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There was a story out over the weekend about a recently-passed private member’s bill about cancers being faced by firefighters, but how it’s, well, a little bit useless. As well-meaning as the bill is, and there are a lot of well-meaning private members’ bills, it’s also one of those terrible “national strategy” bills that plague our Parliament year-in and year-out.

The thing about “national strategy” bills are that they’re trying to legislate in areas of provincial jurisdiction, largely around healthcare, but sometimes around certain environmental concerns, and so on. Because MPs know that people are about these issues that aren’t in their areas of jurisdiction, they instead come up with these feel-good bills that call on the federal government to coordinate with provinces to create a “national strategy” about whatever the issue is, in the hopes that they’ll come to some common ground, or the like. But also remember that these bills are not only about an area of provincial jurisdiction, but they also can’t spend any money, so they don’t create any incentives that the federal government can use to bring provinces on-side. So about the most that these bills tend to do is raise some awareness about the issue in question in the media (as is demonstrated by the CBC piece over the weekend that I’m referencing here), but aside from that, it’s a lot of thoughts and prayers.

My point here is largely that we see these bills time and again, which largely raise a lot of false hopes, and which can be a bit of a waste of peoples’ time. MPs get one shot a private member’s bill in any given parliament, and a lot of them don’t even get that because of the fact that it’s a lottery system that determines the order in which they appear, and for them to waste that shot on a feel-good bill that doesn’t actually do anything just gets tiresome after a while, and it can be really hard on the people whose hopes have been raised for nothing to happen, because it’s just a feel-good bill.

Ukraine Dispatch:

One civilian was killed by Russian shelling on Kharkiv, and seven wounded in a Russian attack on Zaporizhzhia. Elsewhere, there appears to have been a blast on the Russian bridge connecting Russia to occupied Crimea.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1680525991418929156

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Roundup: The “Blue Seal” nobody else ever though of

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Pierre Poilievre held another Sunday press conference (which I fear is going to become a regular feature for the coming months, because the calculation is that it lets them set the agenda for the week), wherein he proposed a “blue seal” programme for doctors, nurses, and other medical practitioners, akin to the “Red Seal” programme for skilled trades, so that they can work anywhere in the country. Gosh, it’s as though nobody had ever thought of this before, and that these kinds of regulatory non-tariff barriers have been a bane on the country since literally Confederation. But hey, I’m sure because he’s demanding it, it’ll be different this time.

This being said, some provinces have been finally moving ahead on this kind of thing, with the Atlantic provinces loosening restrictions so that doctors can practice in any of those provinces, so there is progress. But it has taken a crisis for us to get to this point (because that is apparently how we overcome our pervasive normalcy bias in this country) and not because Poilievre goes around calling things “broken.”

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces destroyed five Russian ammunition depots near Bakhmut on Friday, and say that they are still able to supply their forces in the city and get wounded to safety, as they continue to cause massive damage and casualties to Russian invaders. Meanwhile, Russian president Vladimir Putin made a surprise visit to occupied Mariupol, which Ukrainian officials regarded as “the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime.”

https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/1637345862077513730

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Roundup: A failure to condemn Carlson

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The increasing unseriousness of our Parliament continues apace. After Question Period yesterday, NDP MP Matthew Green stood up to move a unanimous consent motion to condemn Fox “News” personality Tucker Carlson for his comments calling for an armed invasion of Canada in order to depose Justin Trudeau, apparently before we “become Cuba.” (Carlson also called for a “Bay of Pigs” invasion, apparently not understanding how badly that went for the Americans). And when the Speaker asked if there was consent to move the motion, a few Conservatives said nay (and no, I couldn’t tell which ones did).

A couple of points. Number one is that Green shouldn’t have bothered because this just gives Carlson the attention he craves, but we know what this is for—social media clips, so that he could plaster it over Twitter and whatever other socials he’s on that he got Parliament to condemn Carlson, and isn’t he a hero for doing so. It’s performative bullshit, and that’s what our Parliament runs on these days to our detriment. Point number two is that the Conservatives could have shut up and not shown support for foreign regime change, but they did not, meaning they a) agree with Carlson, b) want to appease the Carlson fans in their base, or c) didn’t want to give Green the clip he was fishing for. None of those three are good looks, and just shows the continued decline in the state of debate. Everyone should rethink some of their life choices here.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 343:

The villages of Klishchiivka and Kurdyumivka, which are on the southern approach to Bakhmut, came under renewed Russian fire. As well, a new assault against Vuhledar is unlikely to make gains. Meanwhile, a new US aid package to be announced later this week is said to include longer-range rockets, which Ukraine has been asking for.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1620441189710450690

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Roundup: Backseat driving healthcare talks

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I occasionally find myself amused by some of the backseat driving/armchair quarterbacking that happens in Canadian politics, and there was no more perfect example that Jagmeet Singh putting out a press release yesterday declaring that if he were prime minister, he would have sat down with the provinces and not left until he was satisfied that they have all the resources they need. On the one hand it’s kind of hilarious because most of the time, Singh can barely recognise that provincial jurisdiction actually exists, or he seems to think that a Green Lantern Ring and sufficient political will would actually solve federalism. On the other, I can’t decide if that means that he thinks he’s got amazing powers of negotiation, or if he’s declaring himself a chump who will fall for the provinces’ strong-arm tactics.

Imagine for just a moment what Singh means when he says he won’t leave the table until he gives the provinces what they need. It sounds an awful lot like he’s going to give them a blank cheque and then pat himself on the back for having fixed healthcare. Meanwhile, the provinces take that money, put a paltry amount back into the system, continue on with privatizing as much as they possibly can (look at what Danielle Smith is up to in Alberta now that she’s fired the entire board of Alberta Health Services), reduce their own share of the funding because of the increased federal dollars, and then give tax breaks in the hopes of getting re-elected. And we know this because all of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again if this funding doesn’t come with some pretty strict conditions and strings. And the sooner more people start calling the premiers on their bullshit, the faster we can get to a deal where they accept strings that will actually do something meaningful with those increased federal dollars.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 269:

Ukraine’s electricity grid operator is warning people that blackouts can last for several hours as Russians continue to pound the country’s electrical systems. Russians are also continuing their push toward Bakhmut with renewed intensity. Meanwhile, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy appeared at the Halifax Security Forum by video to ask NATO countries to assist with a ten-part peace plan, and that he hoped Canada would show leadership on one of those items.

https://twitter.com/kiraincongress/status/1593694607459717124

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QP: Getting shouty to build their narratives

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It being Wednesday, the benches were largely full, and the prime minister was present for his designated day to answer everything. Pierre Poilievre led off partly in French, and worried about the shortage of children’s Tylenol, and switched to English halfway through to reiterate. Justin Trudeau started talking about Health Canada taking action and there were challenges to supply chains around the world, but was shouted down and needed to reiterate his answer when it quieted down. Poilievre then moved onto his bog standard inflationary nonsense and “triple, triple, triple” ear worm, and demanded that tomorrow’s fiscal update have a spending freeze. Trudeau noted that they have supports for Canadians as the GST rebate comes out on days, and other supports are on the way. Poilievre repeated his question in French, and Trudeau noted that the Conservatives only want austerity and cuts. Poilievre returned to English to claim only he was protecting pensions from inflation, and repeated his demand to cap spending and taxes. Trudeau called Conservatives cold-hearted if they considered dental care for children to be pouring fuel on the inflationary fire. Poilievre tried to turn over the “cold-hearted” accusation with his tripling nonsense, to which Trudeau reiterated that in spite of Conservative misinformation and disinformation, the climate rebates give more back to most Canadians than they pay.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he accused the federal government of starving the healthcare system (which is utter bunkum), and wanted more funding without conditions. Trudeau reminded him that Quebeckers and Canadians expect results from the system, but if systems don’t work as expected, they want to work with provinces to ensure that more money gets better results. Blanchet accused the federal government of micromanaging, and Trudeau reiterate that the systems are not working, which is why they are trying to get provinces onside to improve things for that money.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he attacked Doug Ford’s preemptive use of the Notwithstanding Clause, and demanded the prime minster do something about it. Trudeau denounced Ford’s actions, and called out Poilievre for not denouncing it. Singh repeated the question in French, and got the same answer.

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Roundup: Lost faith in the Ottawa Police Service

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Once again, a lot of threads to disentangle as the OPP Commissioner, Thomas Carrique, was on the stand at the Emergencies Act public inquiry, and what a lot of the day seemed to focus on (at least, from what I could tell from afar) were the texts he was exchanging with RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki. So, what did we learn? That the federal government had pretty much lost all confidence in the Ottawa Police and were discussing taking over the response to the occupation, even though Lucki was particularly reluctant to do so (and worried that the Emergencies Act would be used to make that happen). There was discussion about the OPP in particular taking over, and the Commissioner was ready to have that call before the Ottawa chief resigned. Once Peter Sloly was out of the way, an integrated command was set up. Also interesting was the comment that the Act was used to compensate tow truck drivers more than it was to compel their services (which could be a signal to the provinces about how they may need to update their own emergency legistlation).

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1585629449038577664

Carrique defended his comments that the occupation was a threat to national security, and the way that the blockade of the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor was handled differently than the Ottawa occupation. Documents provided to the inquiry showed that the FBI provided some support to the Ottawa Police during the occupation, likely around US-based support for it, so that lends some credence to the national security threat analysis.

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1585720241979629569

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 246:

Ukrainian forces attacked Russian forces occupying the southern city of Kherson, while fighting also intensified in the country’s east as Russians bombarded the city of Bakhmut. While Putin is denying he plans to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine (isn’t that a sign he will?), another mass grave was discovered in the village of Kopanky.

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QP: Framing food bank stats for their own ends

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Neither the prime minister nor his deputy were present today, nor were most other leaders, save Pierre Poilievre, who is nearly always present. Poilievre led off in French, worrying that 1.5 million visits to food banks and that this was Canada, but he blamed taxes for this. Randy Boissonnault noted that people are having a tough time, but this government had supports available while the Conservatives would rather see them on their own. Poilievre repeated the statistic in English, adding in a “triple, triple, triple” talking point to that, and this time Karina Gould delivered the same response. Poilievre called the $6000 hotel room in London as a (tortured) analogy about this government and that the party was over, but Gould got back up to point out that the Conservatives would have abandoned Canadians in their darkest hour in the pandemic. Poilievre tried to bring in WE and ArriveCan as examples of waste, and Boissonnault repeated Gould’s point more excitedly. Poilievre raised a media story of a family who over-leveraged themselves on their mortgage and their payments have gone up $2000 and wonders what the hell they do now. (The Speaker cautioned him against this). Ahmed Hussen rose to accuse Poilievre of “gatekeeping” rental supports for those who need it and dental care.

Alain Therrien rose for the Bloc, railed that the dental support was not adequate for Quebec families and wondered why the government just didn’t approach the Quebec government (because federal-provincial agreements are that easy). Pablo Rodriguez chided the Bloc for not caring enough about children. Therrien got even more exercise about this, to which Adam van Koeverden read a statement about the benefit being available to those who need it.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and he too raised the food bank usage figure, but blamed the government for not tackling corporate greed. Gould reminded him that this government has raised more children out of poverty than ever before. Alastair MacGregor repeated the same question in English (Champagne: I called on grocery CEOs to task them with taking action, and I demanded the Competition Bureau investigate the sector).

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Roundup: Rage-farming for rural Alberta paranoia

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In Alberta, Danielle Smith has finally unveiled more details for her proposed “Sovereignty Act,” and as you might expect, they’re a lot of bullshit, and most of it predicated on situations that will never, ever actually come to pass, like the federal government invoking the Emergencies Act to impose mask mandates. Of course, that’s not how the Emergencies Actworks, and she’s just rage-farming, ensuring that the rural Alberta party membership that she’s targeting, who are twitchy to begin with and who are consuming vast amounts of American media and conspiracy theories, are just being fed more materials to make them even more paranoid. It’s not surprising, but it’s also alarming that this has somehow become acceptable political discourse. Smith also insists she’s just doing “nation within a nation” assertion, like Quebec, which is not true, and I’m genuinely not sure if she is simply that clueless about how federalism and the constitution works, or if this is pure disinformation for the purposes of rage-farming and motiving the party base through anger and paranoia. Either way, it’s not good, and is a very real problem for the province and the country, because this kind of bullshit is also contagious.

 

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 196:

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant went off the grid yesterday after more Russian shelling in the region, until a fire could be put out. That means that they were relying on backup power to keep cooling systems operational, which gets us closer to a more dangerous place in terms of a potential meltdown that could have catastrophic consequences for that part of the world. The International Atomic Energy Agency continues to call for a demilitarized zone around the plant, but good luck getting Russia to play by the rules. As for the Ukrainian counterattack in the southern part of the country, officials have now confirmed that they have retaken at least two villages, though information remains largely locked down. Apparently, the counterattack is happening slowly in order to save on ammunition and casualties.

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