Tag Archives: First Nations

Roundup: Getting Stuff Done?

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While everyone concerned themselves last night with the ice hockey and the by-election, I thought there was an interesting tweet out that deserved a bit more consideration.

Usher is not wrong here. The early focus on “deliverology” fell to the wayside and the Liberals stopped measuring the number of promises that they had fulfilled, and which ones they could not fulfil or which ones they were abandoning (such as the promise around electoral reform, which was a dumb promise to have made, and where the committee process around it resulted in a hot garbage report that was functionally useless other than to prove it was a dumb promise to have made in the first place). But it’s also cultural. Paul Wells has observed that the Liberals are increasingly made up of the kinds of people who go to leadership conferences, but who haven’t really accomplished much else. Once upon a time, they were people who had built things and a record of professional accomplishment, but now it’s mostly people who just talk about doing things without actually doing them. And it’s a fair observation, but also points to a broader malaise in Canadian culture, where as a country we’re building fewer things while MBAs manage what we have, and wealth funds acquire companies and then strip them for parts until they’re forced to declare bankruptcy. You can’t pin that entirely on the Liberals, but Getting Stuff Done is proving a challenge for this government, and they should put some energy on doing that rather than just churning out some more communications pabulum.

And to make the point about Pwning for Pwning’s Sake, here’s Andrew Scheer wishing the country had fallen into a full-blown recession, because reasons.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian missiles struck Pokrovsk in the eastern Donetsk region, killing at least five people and wounding at least 41 others. A Russian missile also struck a storage facility in Odesa, injuring three. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that Ukraine has hit over 30 Russian oil refineries and depots thus far. Zelenskyy also ordered a purge of the country’s state guard after an assassination plot was uncovered. And today is the day that the EU begins membership talks with Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1805173797705728292

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Roundup: A first step in breaking up the RCMP?

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RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme was making media rounds this weekend, and said something interesting about how the government is planning to make changes to the structure of the RCMP, and to separate out the federal policing role (which the RMCP has not been doing a very good job of) while leaving the contract policing with provinces intact (more or less). Having a separate and dedicated federal policing agency would be a good thing, because then maybe it can be properly resourced and staffed to do the work that they’re supposed to be doing, rather than the money and personnel all being sapped by the contract policing wings. This could mean a more specialised police force for those roles, which are different than front-line policing.

This being said, I’m not sure that this is a solution to much, because maintaining the RMCP for their contract policing duties is not going to solve many problems because the Force is toxic and broken, and needs a radical overhaul that I don’t think is going to be possible from within the organization. Part of the problems that it has are because of its centralised nature, and sending officers fresh from training at Depot to parts of the country they have absolutely no familiarity with, and that creating its own source of problems. I get why the federal government wants to keep it around (aside from the branding of the Red Serge), which is that they basically subsidise the police forces of those provinces that use them, but that’s part of the problem, and it’s part of a hard conversation that should be had federally.

Incidentally, Duheme also says he hopes that no MP releases any names of possibly compromised MPs from the NSICOP report under the cover of Parliamentary privilege, for what it’s worth.

Ukraine Dispatch

At least one person was killed and eleven wounded in a Russian aerial attack on Kharkiv, while Russian authorities are claiming dozens of wounded from debris from a Ukrainian missile shot down over occupied Crimea. Russians also attacked a residential area of Kyiv, and energy facilities in the country’s southeast and west. Here is a look at midsummer festivals in Ukraine, with their pagan roots, and how this is seen as resistance as Russians try to erase Ukrainian culture.

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Roundup: Provinces learned they can underfund disaster management

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The House of Commons’ national defence committee tabled their report on disaster management earlier this week, and one of its recommendations is for a permanent civilian federal disaster management force that can be deployed for wildfires, floods, hurricanes, or other natural disasters—but they stopped short of recommending a Canadian FEMA, which may not be possible given that this is constitutionally largely an area of provincial jurisdiction, and would require some kind of provincial agreement to operate, and because this is Canada, the provinces would want some kind of say in its operations but wouldn’t want to pay for it, because of course.

One of the problems we’re dealing with as a country is that we’re dealing with the Canadian Forces being at their capacity and they are constantly being asked to deal with disaster management across the country because provincial capacity maxes out too soon. But why does provincial capacity max out? Because they keep cutting funds or under-investing, and creating these situations because they know that regardless of what happens, they can simply call up the federal government to ask them deploy the Canadian Forces, and even more to the point, that they can do it for free because the federal government won’t ask for reimbursement even though they are entitled to. And this has wound up teaching the premiers that there are pretty much no consequences for their under-investing or even cutting the funding for this kind of emergency management, so they are incentivized to rely on the Canadian Forces to do the work for them for free, and now we have reached the end of that being possible.

So, what is the solution? I am wary of the notion of building up a federal force because even if they can manage to get provincial agreements, staff it up (because you would be drawing from the same pool as the Canadian Forces, which has a recruitment and retention crisis), and even if they paid for all of it (which they shouldn’t), this will exacerbate the existing problem of provinces not funding or bolstering their existing forces that are their constitutional responsibility because there will still be a federal backstop. And if the federal government starts asking for reimbursement, either for the use of the Canadian Forces or this hypothetical future force, then the media will be aghast that the federal government is making the province pay in their time of need, completely ignoring that the provincial under-funding created the situation in the first place. We’re at a bit of a rock and hard place, because we have let federalism break down like this, and that’s not good for the country.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian guided bombs struck the Eastern settlement of Selydove, killing two. Ukrainian forces captured a Russian “barn” tank that has been modified to protect against drone attacks. Ukraine launched a drone attack that struck three Russian oil refineries overnight.

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Roundup: Back to the constituencies

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At long last, the children—and by “children,” I mean MPs—have gone home for the summer. Finally. Not before there wasn’t another last-ditch effort by Conservatives to try and demand more committee hearings over the summer, because they need clips for their socials, after all. I also find it particularly strange that the Conservatives have been phrasing their condemnations that the other parties want to go back to their ridings to “vacation” for the summer, because normally MPs are extremely precious about the fact that this is not a break because they have sO mUcH wOrK tO dO in their constituencies and that if they had their druthers they’d do even more work in their constituencies and less in Ottawa, so this feels like the Conservatives making a tacit admission that they don’t do work in their constituencies. (I know they’re not, but this is what happens when you make dumb arguments to score points).

This being said, MPs are absolutely behaving like children over all of this, and they all need a gods damned time out, not that I expect things to get much better in the fall because the incentives for this kind of behaviour remain—it’s all about getting clicks and engagement on their socials, and acting like children gets them that, apparently. It’s too bad the incentives aren’t there for them to act like adults, but the world has gone stupid.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russians resumed air attacks on Ukrainian power facilities. (Timeline of such attacks here). The fire at the oil terminal in southern Rostov burned for a second day after Ukraine’s drone strike. Here’s a look at how Russian glide bombs have accelerated the time it takes for them to destroy front-line settlements in Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1803342727267885346

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QP: Last chance to get clips before the summer

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It’s a sweltering, muggy Wednesday, and everyone hopes the final day before the House rises for the summer. The prime minister was present, while his deputy was not, and the other leaders al deigned to attend for on last go-around to gather some clips for the summer break. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he lamented that the country is broken, and took a swipe at the Bloc, and demanded an election right now. Justin Trudeau said that if the leader opposite was really concerned about affordability, he would help pass their measures to help people rather than play petty partisan games. Poilievre worried that the government is threatening to “shut down” the Quebec forestry sector (not true), and Trudeau responded that unlike the Conservatives, Quebeckers know they need to protect the environment and the economy at the same time. Poilievre switched to English to repeat his assertion that everything  is broken and demanded an election, and Trudeau repeated his same assertion that the Conservatives should support their programmes. Poilievre expounded on just how much the country is a living hell thanks to his “whackonomics,” and Trudeau shot back that the Conservatives are only concerned with protecting the wealthiest, particularly over the capital gains changes. Poilievre claimed the Middle Class™ doesn’t exist anymore, and Trudeau reiterated that Poilievre only cares about himself. 

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and complained about anglophone mail carriers in Quebec, and Trudeau praised the government’s support for French, including in Quebec, and promised to follow up on it. Blanchet accused the government’s programmes of harming French, and Trudeau dismissed this as “identitarian” squabbling.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he accused the government of coddling CEOs, to which Trudeau patted himself on the back for raising taxes on the wealthiest, and took a shot at the Conservatives in the process. Singh tried again in French, and Trudeau listed the programmes they have delivered.

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Roundup: Clearing the decks before summer

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It’s the last Wednesday of the spring sitting, and the big question is whether they’re going to pull the plug today or not. The government says there is still work to do—in particular, they want to push the Miscarriage of Justice Review Commission bill (Bill C-40) and the budget bill over the finish line, but the budget bill is up for a vote after QP tomorrow, leaving only C-40 at third reading debate, which is what is on for government orders tomorrow, and that’s the only bill they’re planning to bring forward for debate. This would make it pretty easy for them to pass a motion at unanimous consent to say something to the effect of it’ll pass on division or deemed pass at the collapse of debate at the end of the day, or some such if they really wanted, or to simply hold a vote at that point, and rise for the summer after that.

Of course, the Conservatives have been putting on a big song and dance about wanting to sit through the summer to “fix” the country, but we all know that’s all for show because that would mean nothing but more time for the government to keep passing bills and implementing their agenda, and that’s not what they want. They’re also trying to insist on committees sitting through the summer, but there are only two government bills at committee stage right now, so most of those meetings would likely be for private members’ business or for studies, and you can bet it’s going to be more of the latter, which would be little more than dog and pony shows to serve as clip factories while the House of Commons has risen. And if the Conservatives don’t agree for the House to rise tomorrow? Well, on the agenda are report stage debates on the cyber-security bill, the ports modernization bill, the (controversial) Métis self-government bill, and they have been debating the Elections Act changes, which the Conservatives and NDP are opposing because of bullshit objections to moving the fixed date back a week to avoid Diwali.

And then it’s up to the Senate to pass the number of bills on their plate, including the budget bill, and if they are true to recent form, they will race through their Order Paper until Friday, pass everything with little scrutiny other than maybe a few questions of the relevant minister at Committee of the Whole, and then rise by Friday, rather than stay another week or two to actually give things a proper review like they used to, back in the “bad old partisan days.”

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine is claiming responsibility for a drone attack causing a massive blaze at an oil reservoir in Russia’s Rostov region. Ukraine is investigating the suspected beheading of one of its soldiers by a Russian in the Donetsk region. Reuters has some photos of combat medics on the job on the front lines.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1802984596122034588

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Roundup: Trudeau weighs in—sort of

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It was another big day on the foreign interference/NSICOP file today, with Elizabeth May holding another press conference to clarify her previous remarks and to assure everyone that she doesn’t think there’s nothing to see here, and that like Jagmeet Singh, she’s alarmed by what she read, but no, there is nothing to indicate that any sitting MP has committed treason (the only possible exception of course being the one former MP), but a few MPs may have compromised themselves by accepting favours from certain embassies in order to secure their nominations, which was stupid and possibly unethical, but certainly not treason (which has a strict Criminal Code definition).

Shortly after this, Justice Marie-Josée Hogue sent a letter saying that her commission can look into these issues, that she has access to all of the documents that went into the NSICOP report, and that she’s going to try to include this assessment as part of the final report by the end of the year, which isn’t the October 1st that MPs wanted when they voted on this stupid motion in the first place, but hey, she didn’t tell them to go drop on their heads (like she should have), and this pushes the ability for the party leaders to put on their grown-up pants and actually deal with this political problem even further into the future, which is a problem. This should not have happened, she should have told them to deal with their political problems on their own and not fob them off onto a judge, but she didn’t, and so nothing gets solved.

But then, Justin Trudeau himself appeared on Power & Politics, and kept up his evasive talking points on the issue and the report, wouldn’t really clarify what exactly it is that he disagrees with NSICOP about, and kept pointing to how great it was that we have an independent commission that’s looking into all of this, so people can rest assured. Which doesn’t actually help, especially when the biggest accusation is that he has done nothing with this information for months. About the biggest thing to come from that interview was Trudeau saying that there are a range of issues with foreign interference in all parties, and that false accusations may well be a goal of some foreign regimes. He also threw a bit of a bomb at Singh by implying that maybe the NDP isn’t as clean as Singh insisted after he read the classified report, so this is going to extend the media circus tomorrow, particularly when Singh has his usual media availability tomorrow before Question Period.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian missile struck dwellings and power lines in the Poltava region, injuring twenty-two and knocking out electricity in the area. Ukrainian troops have been massing in the Kharkiv region, pushing out the Russian incursions. Ukraine is having difficulty restructuring their bonds, and might fall into default.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau and Mélanie Joly are expected to meet with the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Ottawa today.
  • Bill Blair, being far too diplomatic, suggests his critics were “confused” about the purpose of Canada sending a warship to Havana (when they spread disinformation).
  • Blair also made it clear that he is not contemplating sending trainers back to Ukrainian soil. (Current training is happening in the UK, Poland and Latvia).
  • Patty Hajdu committed $1.2 billion for a hospital near James Bay, which will flow to the province, who is doing the actual construction (as it’s their jurisdiction).
  • The government is prevaricating on the question of whether Canadian news outlets should be compensated when “AI” chatbots train on them as copyrighted sources.
  • Here is an explainer of the stupid fight happening at the Canadian heritage committee over the CBC not airing certain hockey games.
  • At committee, the Parliamentary Budget Officer now says the government hasn’t gagged him, it was all a misunderstanding of translation. Convenient!
  • Liberal MP Rachel Bendayan talks about her severe concussion and how that has sparked advocacy for how concussions affect women differently.
  • Liberal MP Andy Fillmore is resigning his seat in order to make a run for the mayor of Halifax.
  • While former Supreme Court chief justice says she’s stepping down from the Hong Kong court to spend time with family, she renewed her tenure on Singapore’s court.
  • New Brunswick’s government site about the carbon levy overestimates the costs and doesn’t mention the rebates, because why tell the truth?
  • Paul Wells spent a day on the Hill to see the current state of the place, and well, it’s not great. (And thanks for the shoutout!)

Odds and ends:

My Loonie Politics Quick Take looks at the PBO’s big mess, and the spin over the “secret report” which wasn’t a secret or a report.

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QP: Harvesting carbon and capital gains clips

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As the final sitting week of the spring begins, with a heat wave starting, neither the prime minister nor his deputy were present, but most of the other leaders were. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he worried about Bloc having concerns about the capital gains changes, and that their hoped-for amendments wouldn’t happen next week when it comes into force. Anita Anand praised the plan the government put forward for the economy, which the Conservatives don’t have. Poilievre kept needling the Bloc, claiming they were taking Quebeckers’ money and giving it to Ottawa. Jean-Yves Duclos asked Poilievre to explain why people who make half a million in capital gains should pay less tax than a nurse making $50,000 in a year. Poilievre switched to English to worry about the so-called “cover up” of the costs of the carbon levy, claiming it costs the economy $30 billion per year, and wondered what else they were hiding about their other tax hikes. Steven Guilbeault pointed out the reductions in emissions while the Conservatives want to let the planet burn. Poilievre tried the same again, insisting the carbon levy won’t change the weather or stop a single forest fire, to which Jonathan Wilkinson wondered if Poilievre was a climate denier. Poilievre turned back to the capital gains changes, and cited the “Food Professor” about it (seriously?!), and Anita Anand praised…housing starts. Come on!

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he worried that the government would discredit the Hogue Commission if she didn’t come to the same conclusion as the government. Dominic LeBlanc said that he was pleased that Justice Hogue had agreed to look into this. Therrien railed that the prime minister has slept on the foreign interference file for months, and LeBlanc insisted that they have taken this seriously since the get-go.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he railed that progress on the Truth and Reconciliation calls to action were taking too long to be implemented. Patty Hajdu insisted that they have been working, and that she just stood with the National Chief to announce funding for a Northern Ontario hospital. Singh repeated the question in French, and got much the same response.

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Roundup: A possible reluctant partial briefing

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Because we’re stuck on this story, the Globe and Mail has heard that Pierre Poilievre has now said that he will accept a briefing if CSIS has any particular concerns about his caucus or party—but that’s it! Nothing more, because he keeps falsely insisting that his hands would be tied, when they actually wouldn’t be. Nevertheless, there is more to intelligence than just CSIS, and the NSICOP report is drawn from various sources, who sometimes disagreed with one another, and that matters in this kind of thing too, so it is baffling why Poilievre keeps insisting on tying his own hands.

Meanwhile, Jagmeet Singh was on Power & Politics to discuss his reading of the classified version of the report, and it was just more evasion and going around in circles rather than answering anything, and some of this was the continued attempt to take shots at the Liberals and Conservatives without actually spelling out what he thought should have done differently. He did say that the Liberals should keep Han Dong out of caucus, but that was as much as he would say, but kept insisting that the government has done nothing, but couldn’t say what they should do, or even acknowledged that there wasn’t really actionable intelligence that they could have acted upon, so again, what has really been the point? Incidentally, Elizabeth May does say that she is just as concerned about what is in the report as Singh, but her relief was that there were not current MPs implicated, which Singh won’t even say.

The only smart thing that Singh has said to date is that he isn’t going to pull the plug on the government over this because it would make no sense to go to an election if there are still questions about how it might be interfered with. To that end, they are in the process of passing the Elections Act updates, and the foreign interference bill, which should hopefully provide new tools to combat any attempted interference. Once those are passed and implemented it’ll probably get us closer to the fixed election date, so that may be the one thing that keeps the Supply and Confidence Agreement going until then.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukraine shot down seven of eleven Russian drones targeting critical infrastructure on Friday. Ukraine has been adopting an “elastic” defensive posture while they wait for the arrival of more western weapons to shrink the munitions gap between Russia and them. Vladimir Putin said he would call a ceasefire if Ukraine turned over the four regions his forces partly occupy plus forswear any NATO membership in the future, which Ukraine flatly rejected. The International Criminal Court is investigating Russian cyberattacks on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure as potential war crimes.

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Roundup: Singh’s turn with the report

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It was NDP leader Jagmeet Singh’s turn to read the classified NSICOP report yesterday, and like Elizabeth May, he too called a press conference afterward, but there was a striking difference between the two, and Singh’s conference went off the rails shortly after he started.

First of all, there was a major difference in tone. Singh’s opening remarks were practically verbatim his condemnatory remarks from Question Period a few days ago, and stuck to those partisan scripted points trying to lay into both the Conservatives and the Liberals while trying to pretend that he’s the adult in the room (when clearly, he’s not, and that still remains Elizabeth May on this file). And after all, it’s hard to walk back the language he and Heather McPherson were using earlier in the week about the report and the supposed lack of action on the part of the prime minister, ignoring the obvious question of how he would know that the Liberals haven’t done anything if they’re keeping it quiet because the gods damned allegations are secret. Honest to Zeus, this shouldn’t be rocket science, but no, he is so intent on scoring points that he can’t seem to think through his own lines of attack. Just amateurish.

Which brings us to his point about how he says he’s more alarmed by what he read, but kept talking in circles, and refused to say whether he has concerns about any sitting MPs or senators, and his office needed to clarify to CBC later on that “Singh’s comments should not be taken as confirming or denying that the parliamentarians cited in the report are currently serving.” Really? Then what exactly was the point of this exercise? Other than to try and poke Elizabeth May in the eye, score points, and look like he’s the big man on campus? This is supposed to be a serious issue, and it would be really great if our political leaders could actually treat it that way.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukraine says it needs more air defences within the next few weeks, otherwise there won’t be sufficient power to get them through next winter. More than 4500 Ukrainian inmates have applied to enlist in the military under the new law, some of them eager to do their part for their country. At the G7 meeting, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been working toward getting security agreements signed with the US and Japan.

https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1801175861443383308

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