Tag Archives: General Jonathan Vance

Roundup: A nuanced conversation post-interview? Hardly.

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I’ll say right off that I did not watch That Interview last night because I was trying to have what little life I have available to me in these pandemic times, but judging from the reaction over the Twitter Machine, I have a feeling that we’re in for a week full of boneheaded op-eds and “tough questions” about being a constitutional monarchy, or whether we should abandon the monarchy. Well, good luck with that, because we’d need to rewrite the constitution from top to bottom, because the Crown is the central organising principle, and good luck deciding on just what we would replace the monarchy with. No, seriously – good luck, because that exercise went so poorly in Australia that not only did their republican referendum failed, but support for the monarchy has been on the rise since.

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And lo, some of our country’s Serious Journalists are already Asking Questions™. And it’s going about as well as you can expect.

So, yeah. That’s what we can look forward to this week. I can’t wait, because I’m sure it’ll be even dumber than we expect.

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Roundup: Keeping the minister away

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The drip-drip-drip of revelations around the allegations surrounding former General Jonathan Vance continues to be felt, with emails showing that defence minister Harjit Sajjan’s former chief of staff emailing about the attempted investigation, but with the former ombudsman not providing any information that could be deemed actionable, we know it went nowhere until after Vance retired. The Conservatives are trying to use this to “prove” that PMO knew that something was up with Vance and are now engaged in a cover-up, but I am not entirely sure about that. A Liberal MP appearing on Power & Politics last night made the salient points that as soon as Sajjan was alerted to the allegations, he steered clear of them and turned PCO onto the case, because he needed to ensure that this did not become politicised, and if this is the case – and it sounds very plausible that it is – then it’s also quite plausible that these staff were trying to create that ringfence around the minister and prime minister to keep them from getting involved so as to avoid politicising any aspect of the investigation or its fallout.

This of course raises questions about what Sajjan should have done in leaving Vance in place knowing this allegation was out there, and whether or not he had an obligation to pursue the claim against his chief of defence staff. If he was trying to stay out and let the arm’s-length PCO process carry out, and it didn’t proceed because of a lack of actionable information, is that on Sajjan? Or should he have been more proactive in possibly accelerating Vance’s departure, given that he was already reaching what would have been the usual end of his term as CDS (and the fact that he stayed on for three more years meant that Vance became the longest-serving CDS in Canadian history)? Again, it’s a hard call to make because he was trying to keep that separation in place to avoid this being politicized.

Trudeau, meanwhile, says he still has confidence in Sajjan, which had everyone joking on Twitter that this essentially put a countdown clock over Sajjan’s head. But this is a mess that makes it very difficult to sort out because of the considerations at play, and the fact that a parliamentary committee is now digging into this will make it all the more partisan as the days go on. I will not be too surprised if Sajjan is made to fall on his sword about this in a few weeks’ time, but not before the Liberals put up a fight to say that he did all the right things, and that the real problem is that the accuser didn’t feel comfortable enough to want to make the allegations official or actionable – but that gets us back into something of a Catch-22. None of this will end well.

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Roundup: Misinformation in service of the Narrative

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Every now and again, coverage of a story gets me so riled up that I absolutely cannot even, and this happened last night on Power & Politics where once again, former Conservative interim leader Rona Ambrose was trotted out to complain that her bill on training judges in sexual assault law hasn’t passed. This is the fourth or fifth time that the show has had her on to complain, and every single time, they mischaracterise the legislative process, and absolutely ignore that her original bill was blatantly unconstitutional and was completely unworkable in a real-world scenario, and it needed to be rewritten entirely.

Every. Single. Time.

Part of the framing last night was that the bill is “stalled” in the Senate – except that isn’t true at all. It was sent to the Senate at the beginning of December, at a time when they were preoccupied with the assisted dying bill (which is under a court deadline), and it just got sent to committee now that the Senate is back from the winter break (which was longer than the Commons’ because they have so few bills on their Order Paper). In no way is the bill “stalled,” but this is the narrative that the show chose to run with, and facts be damned, that was how they were going to play it. The CBC’s flagship politics show was actively misinforming its viewers as to what was going on with this bill, which makes me really question its ethics, and those of the producers.

Aside from the misinformation about the process, over subsequent appearances, Ambrose has repeatedly maligned the Senate as holding up the bill because of the “old boys club,” which is patently absurd because the Senate is at essentially gender parity (unlike the Commons), she has also dismissed the concerns of judges as “arrogance.” But that’s in contrast to the concerns that judges themselves actually raised (and lo, I actually spoke to them in this piece I wrote about the original version of her bill). And yet there was zero pushback to these assertions, nor was there any mention of the first bill – or even mention that this version of the bill is basically just for show because it’s now useless (because that was the only way to actually make it constitutional).

There has been so much journalistic malpractice on this particular bill over the past several years, and it very much seems that there is a consensus Narrative about this bill that every media outlet has decided to service rather than actually challenge, and that’s a problem. The way this has been handled has been a complete disservice to Canadians, and I wish there was far more critical thinking among the media about this, rather than simply blindly servicing the Narrative.

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Roundup: Too-generous benefits?

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I find myself a bit troubled by this notion that pandemic benefits have been “too generous,” even when people trot out statistics that show that some households got as much as $3000 more in supports like CERB over reported lost income in a three-month period, and some $2500 more in lower-income households. Partially why this rankles is because this is a gods damned global pandemic and we needed people to stay home rather than try to recklessly go to potentially unsafe workplaces where they could spread the virus. This notion that people needed to get back to work is one of the reasons why COVID infections and deaths were at much higher rates in other countries who had less generous supports, and I don’t think we should necessarily be apologising for this.

The other aspect of this that is unsettling is this notion that if these benefits continue that there will be a disincentive to work as the economy recovers, but again, if the economy is recovering and we are reaching a point of mass vaccination sufficient to actually have a re-opened economy, then these pandemic-specific programmes would be wound down, so it shouldn’t be a long-term consideration. More to the point, however, is that these pandemic supports were not really all that generous, and if people think it’s a disincentive to work, then maybe they should re-examine the wages that people are being paid – if they’re so low that CERB-level payments are a disincentive, then perhaps the job is the wage rate and not the benefits themselves. Businesses have continually lobbied to keep minimum wages artificially low, in spite of an increasing volume of evidence that higher minimum wage don’t actually cause businesses to close (and in fact, have the opposite effect). Perhaps governments should take that into account as we look to “build back better,” with more inclusive growth that should include higher wages for these workers, rather than returning to the failed “old normal” of grinding poverty.

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QP: Working in the real world, within the constitution

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For Wednesday, proto-PMQ day, Justin Trudeau was in the Chamber, thankfully, with a mere two other Liberals along with him. Erin O’Toole led off, also in person with a script on his mini-lectern, and complained that only eight percent of Canadians would be vaccinated by April, for which Justin Trudeau gave the “good news” of vaccine deliveries that are arriving. O’Toole was not impressed, and quoted Dr. Theresa Tam saying that it was a fact that a lot of people won’t be vaccinated for months, for which Trudeau stated that they are getting doses as quickly as they can. O’Toole said demanded the plan to get 300,000 people vaccinated per day, and Trudeau said that they are supporting provinces to get ready for the “big lift” as deliveries ramp up. O’Toole switched to French to repeat the question, got the same answer, and then O’Toole whinged that we were so far behind other countries, and Trudeau said that he believes in the provinces and territories to administer the vaccines (which may be optimistic on his part, given that certain provinces are run by incompetent murderclowns).

For the Bloc, Yves-François Blanchet raised the government’s discussion paper on official languages and demanded that the government apply Quebec’s Bill 101 to federally-regulated sectors, and Trudeau gave a paean about French being under threat outside of Quebec and the government was working to protect it. Blanchet felt the government plan was too slow and demanded Bill 101 be applied immediately, but Trudeau said that while the Bloc was focused on Quebec, he needed to be focused on French all over the country.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and in French, demanded support for this party’s (unconstitutional) pharmaceutical bill, for which Trudeau stated that they support pharmacare, but they would not support the NDP’s plan to impose a top-down solution in favour of negotiating with provinces. Singh switched to English to claim that his bill was according to the Hoskins Report (it’s not), and Trudeau listed the actions his government took to lower drug prices, and stated that because they respect the constitution, they are negotiating with provinces.

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QP: More complaints about hotel quarantine

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While the prime minister normally makes an appearance on Tuesdays, he did not today in advance of his virtual meeting with Joe Biden. There were three Liberals in the Chamber, including a minister — Mona Fortier — for what it’s worth. Candice Bergen led off by video, demanding that the government impose sanctions on those responsible for the genocide against the Uyghurs. Rob Oliphant assured her that the government was working with its international allies on this issue. Bergen then pivoted to vaccines, and complained that other countries were planning their re-openings, to which Anita Anand reminded her of how many doses are arriving this week. Bergen carried on, insinuating that there was no plan for vaccinations, which Anand disputed and stated the procurement plan once again. Gérard Deltell took over in French to complain about the hotel quarantine phone hotline, to which Patty Hajdu recited the litany of border measures including hotel quarantine. Deltell then turned to the fact that there still wasn’t a legislative fix for the loophole around people who could claim sickness benefits during quarantine from voluntary travel, to which Pablo Rodriguez said that they have tried to move it by unanimous consent and the Conservatives refused.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he also complained about the hotel quarantine hotline, for which Rodriguez said that people were calling for information, which is now available from other sources. Therrien was outraged by the government’s slow action, and Rodriguez chided him for his theatrical outrage.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and in French, he demanded a Canadian exemption for Buy American policies during Trudeau’s call with Joe Biden, for which Mary Ng reminded him that they have been engaging on this since the start. Singh repeated the demand in English, and got much the same reply.

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Roundup: A slacktivist declaration

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The Conservatives’ non-binding Supply Day vote went ahead yesterday on declaring that China is conducting a genocide against the Uyghur population, and it passed unanimously – without anyone in Cabinet voting. Well, Marc Garneau was there to performatively declare that he was abstaining – which you can’t actually do, because Commons votes are strictly yay or nay (the Senate has an abstention option), but no one else in Cabinet was there, for what it’s worth.

Immediately, news outlets everywhere started declaring that “Parliament declared a genocide,” which, no, did not happen. It was a non-binding vote in the House of Commons – which is not Parliament – that essentially expressed an opinion. There is nothing official about said declaration, which is important, because an official declaration would have consequences. Essentially, the House of Commons voted to put a black square on their Instagram and call it action against genocide.

And there will be consequences, such as China attempting to impose further sanctions upon Canada in an attempt to try and warn other Western countries from making a similar declaration, because China doesn’t want to lose face. This is precisely why the government has been working with allies to do – ensure that all of their ducks are in a row before they make a formal declaration of genocide, so that they a) have a united front against China’s retaliation, b) that they can uphold the obligations under the Genocide Convention around preventing genocide and punishing those responsible – something that the Americans have opted themselves out of because they refuse to respect the authority of the International Court of Justice, which means that America declaring a genocide is largely a symbolic act, whereas Canada doing the same is not. (And it would be great if media outlets could actually articulate this point rather than ignoring it, because they all have. Every single one of them).

But the opposition parties – and apparently the backbench Liberals as well – are more concerned with making a statement and the kind of preening that comes with “showing leadership” rather than doing the actual hard work of getting our allies on-side so that we have a meaningful declaration and that we aren’t cheapening the term “genocide,” which is literally the worst crime against humanity. But political leadership in this country is decidedly unserious, so this is the kind of clown show we’re getting, complete with a cartoonish understanding of foreign policy. Go us.

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Roundup: A lack of will is not an emergency

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With the spread of variants on the rise, and certain provinces still insistent on relaxing public health restrictions, we’re going to get another round of reporters demanding that the federal government invoke the Emergencies Act to force provinces to maintain lockdowns – which they can’t actually do. No, seriously – they can’t do it.

I cannot stress this enough – the federal government cannot just invoke the Act on a whim. It needs to meet the threshold – which I am hard-pressed to see how this situation does – and it needs provincial consent, and if it doesn’t it is essentially declaring war on the provinces, and is going to poison the well of federalism. And even more to the point, keeping the focus on the federal government continues to give premiers who aren’t doing their jobs a free pass when we should be holding them to account for their failures.

Speaking of which, the math on these variants is scary, and premiers need to so something about it rather than feigning helplessness, which is what they’re oh so good at. They have the power to do something about it, rather than shrugging and blaming the federal government for not making vaccines appear out of thin air. But that’s what they’re doing, and that’s what the vast majority of the media are letting them get away with. We shouldn’t let them.

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Roundup: Not calling out conspiracy theories

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Conservative MP Cheryl Gallant has been spreading conspiracy theories about the Liberals on her YouTube channel, and in conversations with campus conservative clubs, and how does The Canadian Press frame it? “Tory MP Cheryl Gallant accused of peddling ‘deranged conspiracy theories’ by Liberals.”

No.

Gallant outright peddled batshit lunacy, and CP went and both-sided the it rather than point out what Gallant was up to. “The Liberals say this. The Conservatives say this. Who’s right? You decide!” No, that’s not good enough. This is exactly the reason why political leaders realised that they could get away with outright lying to people – because they’re not being called out on it, since these outlets feel the need to be performatively “objective” and “fair,” and both-sides rather than be objective in pointing out that the kinds of things Gallant is saying are outrageous falsehoods in the headline and lead paragraphs. And speaking of leaders who lie, what was Erin O’Toole’s response when this was brought up? That this was just the Liberals trying to create a distraction. Seriously, that’s what he said. So, he’s tacitly endorsing that this is the kind of thing that’s okay in his party. Then again, he’s been fine with the outrageous lies being told by his MPs in Question Period and on social media, and has contributed more than a few of them himself, so I’m not sure why I’m surprised that he hasn’t drawn the line at behaviour like Gallant’s.

Another case in point of how media is doing active harm has been the way the COVAX Facility has been framed, as every single outlet calls it a way to give vaccines to poor countries as though it’s some kind of charity. It’s not, and that framing is wrong, and actually undermines the programme. (Case in point here). The whole gods damned point of COVAX is for wealthy countries like Canada to sign up and get doses from them so that it encourages them to invest and use their capital to leverage vaccine manufacturers to scale up production, and gives heft to the bulk purchases so that low-income countries can get equitable access. Yes, it has a separate arm that is solely about donations, but the main programme relies on countries like Canada to buy doses from there, not just donate money. And yet you wouldn’t know it ready or listening to any media outlet in this country. (And seriously – the reason other G7 countries have not taken their doses is because the only vaccine available through COVAX at this point is the AstraZeneca vaccine, which those countries are apparently producing for themselves so they don’t need that vaccine.) But hey, there is an established narrative that the media consensus has decided to feed into rather than taking ten minutes to read the gods damned GAVI website to understand how it works so that they can describe it properly, and we must service the narrative, right?

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Roundup: Putting vaccine procurement facts on the record

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There was a very important interview released yesterday, with the co-chair of the government’s vaccine task force, which blew most of the narratives about the vaccine procurement out of the water. Particularly, it goes through the evaluation of domestic production capacity and candidate development, the decision to create a broad portfolio of vaccine candidates from international sources, and the fact that CanSino was just one of several options – it was never “all of our eggs,” as the Conservatives continue to lie about. She talks about how long it takes to build bio-manufacturing capacity, and people demanding that it be done overnight are like trying to tell a farmer to grow his crops faster. There are just so many falsehoods that the opposition has been circulating in order to give the impression that the federal government has been incompetent in their handling of this vaccine procurement, which this government has not been effective in pushing back against, even when the media does finally get Anita Anand to give proper answers – which tend not to stick in people’s minds. This notion that the government was simply incapable of signing good deals is ridiculous but corrosive (indeed, the opposition parties spent the whole day trying to use the Health Committee’s production powers to force the release of the vaccine contracts, in spite of the fact that they have rigid non-disclosure clauses, for which Liberals on the committee were filibustering), and yet here we are. So, it was good to finally get an interview with one of the people at the centre of this on the record, but man, it should not have taken this long.

Meanwhile, after Manitoba put on a dog and pony show about procuring their own domestically produced vaccines (which couldn’t happen until the end of the year at the earliest), Jason Kenney announced that he would do the same, but started talking about how the company – Provenance – would need 50 million doses ordered before they could properly scale up and produce them, and he wanted other provinces to sign up – err, at a point when everyone in the country should be vaccinated already – and insisted that they could simply sell surplus doses abroad. Well, the CEO of that company went on Power & Politics yesterday to say that oh no, Kenney must have been poorly briefed, and there was no 50 million dose minimum, and if they’re only contracted for two million doses, they’ll produce two million doses – but I’m not sure which of them to believe, because while Kenney is not exactly an honest broker, it’s quite possible he said the quiet part out loud when it comes to Provenance (though the industry minister is supposed to be meeting with the CEO today, so we’ll see).

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