Tag Archives: GLBT

Roundup: A hung parliament in PEI

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The PEI election did not result in a Green Party majority, because shockingly, the polls were wrong. It did result in a hung parliament, which has never happened before in that province, and yet every single media outlet and then the prime minister himself declared that the progressive conservatives had won a minority. Err, except we don’t know the composition of the next government yet because the lieutenant governor hasn’t invited anyone to form government, and the seat distribution – 12 PC, 8 Green, 6 Liberal – is one where it’s not actually clear that the PCs will form government, as a Green-Liberal coalition remains more than possible. Which isn’t to say that it will happen, but there is a way in which government formation works in a Westminster system, and simply winning the most seats, even if you don’t win a majority, doesn’t mean that you get a chance to form government. It doesn’t work that way! And it would be really great if the media would stop creating this false sense that it works that way, because it doesn’t. And even if the PCs do form government, they will need one of the other parties to prop them up, and that will have a significant effect on the shape of that government. Pre-empting the lieutenant governor’s call simply invites confusion, which we should probably be avoiding.

Happily, the province’s electoral reform referendum also went down in defeat (and this is another place where the urban-rural split will likely be evident). Hopefully this means that the advocates will shut up about it because they keep losing. I know they won’t – they’re convinced that people just don’t understand or are too stupid to realise that PR is so good for them (it’s not), but you would hope that the constant defeats would be some kind of dissuasion.

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Roundup: Drawing the wrong lessons

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At the time I’m writing this, it’s not looking too good for Rachel Notley and her NDP in the Alberta election (and sorry I couldn’t stay up late to track results, but StatsCan waits for no journalist). With that in mind, I wanted to just post a couple of thoughts about what this could bode – not just the immediate nonsense of Jason Kenney theatrically tabling a bill to repeal the province’s carbon tax (and immediately subjecting him to the federal backstop), or his threat to “turn off the taps” to BC when it comes to oil — something a court would strike down immediately because it’s utterly unconstitutional. Rather, I suspect that this will provide additional encouragement to Andrew Scheer to emulate Kenney’s tactics — fomenting anger, and selling people a steady diet of lies and snake oil, and hoping that he can find someone to blame when he’s unable to deliver on any of it should he get into power. Scheer’s problem will be that he doesn’t have another level of government he can cast too much blame upon, but that won’t dissuade him from the other tactics.

I also suspect that we’re going to get a renewed round of wailing and gnashing of teeth from “progressives” about how they couldn’t coalesce their votes around Notley and the NDP, and there will be all manner of blame being cast at the Alberta Party and the Alberta Liberals for splitting their vote (which is nonsense, of course, but we’ll hear it anyway).

Meanwhile, my column offers my personal loathing and dread about the way the election happened, and the problem with stoking anger and promising magic wands and snake oil.

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Roundup: Media rounds and brand damage

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Freed from the expectation that they needed to stay quiet(er) in order to not jeopardise their chances of remaining in caucus, both Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott hit interview circuit, the former in Maclean’s and the Globe and Mail, the latter also in Maclean’s and on CBC Radio and Power Play. And there is no doubt that both of them thought they were doing the right thing, but I’m not sure they quite grasp some of the political realities that the prime minister is grappling with. They kept saying that if Trudeau had just apologised from the start, this all could have been avoided, but that would have meant admitting that he was in the wrong, and that’s both a problem on every level for him to do, and I get the impression that nobody thinks they were trying to interfere or apply inappropriate pressure. And because they both think they’re right, we’re in the situation we’re in. Philpott did tell Don Martin that she’s aware of other conversations that are still relevant to what happened, but she’s not going to dangle them out there (err, she just did) because everything that people need to know is already public, but she didn’t say that she thought the prime minister was lying. In her interview with the Globe, Wilson-Raybould admitted to clashing with Carolyn Bennett over the Indigenous Rights framework, but it was her comments to Maclean’s that really made me pause, where she said she didn’t really understand the Liberal Party anymore, and it makes me wonder if she actually understood them to begin with, given how the party morphed itself as the cult of Trudeau after his messianic leadership campaign, and that many of the new MPs are as a result of that rather than stalwarts who stood with the party through the lean opposition years. Oh, and Wilson-Raybould also sorta disputed that there were negotiations regarding ending the tiff with Trudeau, and some confusion as to whether that was before she quit Cabinet or in the weeks that followed, and we got a bit of clarification.

Speaking of Trudeau, there has been a lot of focus on the damage to his brand, in particular his Feminist™ brand in the past few weeks, and with the ouster of Wilson-Raybould and Philpott (not to mention Celina Caesar-Chavannes’ decision to leave caucus of her own accord). In particular, the symbolism of the whole Affair crashing down around the Daughters of the Vote event was a darkly ironic for the prime minister, with one of his former youth delegates calling his rhetoric hollow. Add to that, there has been an expectation built up around him that his “doing politics differently” led people to believe that when push came to shove that he wouldn’t act like a politician, in spite of all of the symbolism he invested in. (There is probably a lesson in there too about filling in the blanks when someone says they’ll be different, but won’t specify how). Over on Twitter, Moebius Stripper reminds us not to confuse the actual good feminist work of this government with its Feminist™ branding.

Amidst the awfulness and brand-torching, Chris Selley recalls weeks ago when the Liberals floated a trial balloon to say that Trudeau would apologise for…something, didn’t, and now the claims that Wilson-Raybould tried to force an apology. Paul Wells, meanwhile, is in a Mood, and he (quite properly) lambastes this while Affair as another in a line of incidents that reveals the true heart of this government, and the ramshackle way in which they run this government (and if you looked at what they’ve done to the Senate alone, I would absolutely agree).

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Roundup: A victory for the status quo

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Christmas came a few days early, courtesy of British Columbia, which rejected the referendum to change their voting system. A decisive 61.3 percent of British Columbians voted to keep First Past the Post, which one hopes would shut up the proportional representation Kool-Aid drinkers for some time – not that it will. They’ve already begun the ritual grousing over Twitter about how a) the referendum was the problem and people rejected it and not PR; and b) that voters are just too stupid to get that “PR is lit,” to coin a phrase. The provincial Green Party leader, Andrew Weaver, says that he gets the message and that they won’t be raising it “anytime soon” – but he also didn’t want a referendum in the first place and wanted it imposed, so we’ll see how long before he starts agitating for that option.

Next up for attempts at electoral reform are Quebec – where François Legault promised it sans-referendum with the support of other party leaders – and PEI, where PR narrowly “won” a poorly attended plebiscite, on the late round of a ranked ballot, hence the government plans to run another referendum during the next provincial election.
But seriously, guys. We need to stop this mythmaking about the current system, and this belief that PR is the only “good” system. Most of the gripes about the current system stem from ignorance and disengagement with the process that has allowed bad actors to co-opt the system to their own ends (and this is especially because of the bastardised leadership selection system that we have gravitated toward despite is demonstrated toxic effect on our system). PR doesn’t solve these problems – if anything, most PR systems simply exacerbate them and create whole new problems. Time to focus our efforts toward civic literacy and using grassroots engagement to fix the problems that we’ve allowed to creep into our system. And hey, I wrote a book on this as a primer for you.

https://twitter.com/moebius_strip/status/1075903388187910145

https://twitter.com/moebius_strip/status/1075906692880068608

https://twitter.com/moebius_strip/status/1075956069082386432

Meanwhile, Shachi Kurl of the Angus Reid institute breaks down the polling around the referendum, and should put to bed a few of the myths.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1075928443865292800

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Roundup: Pausing the birth tourism hysteria

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You probably heard last week about the recent report that incidents of “birth tourism” in Canada are higher than previously reported, owing to collecting data from hospital sources rather than local statistical agencies. Given that this became a flashpoint at the Conservative policy convention a few months ago, it’s probably safe to assume that this will become a topic of debate in Parliament in the coming weeks (though it depends on whether or not Andrew Scheer decides this will be the next issue he decides to chase down a rabbit hole, as is his wont). One does hope, however, that we may have a reasonable debate around this, and while Chris Selley may point to the fact that we may want to do something (that won’t violate human rights and create stateless persons), economist Lindsay Tedds has another view that may also be worth considering, especially if we look at the issue over the longer term.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1066763395578253312

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1066766469545975808

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1066768661434662912

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1066770215784996864

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Roundup: Fiscal update spin incoming

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This week is the federal government’s autumn fiscal update, and we’ve already seen a pre-emptive push by the Conservatives to try and set a narrative about the government’s deficit. Andrew Scheer took time out yesterday to hold a press conference to say that he plans to force a vote that would demand that the government set a date for a balanced budget. And yes, the shitposts over social media have already begun.

So, a few things to keep in mind this week about the narratives that will be spun:

  • The Conservatives will insist that they left the Liberals with a surplus and a “strong economy.” That’s not entirely true – the “surplus” was on paper and it included a lot of “savings” that the Conservatives falsely booked that never came to pass (e.g. Shared Services Canada, Phoenix). The Liberals will also point to stagnant growth rates.
  • There was a $70 billion hole between the fiscal situation that the Liberals found themselves in compared to the 2015 budget the Conservatives ran the election on. This would have been there regardless of who won the election. The Liberals had a choice to make – honour their spending promises, or honour their promise to balance the budget. They chose the former, and their spending has been largely in line with what was promised.
  • There is no debt crisis looming. The debt-to-GDP ratio is declining, and is the best in the Western world. Government debt is not like credit card debt, so equating the two in shitposts like Scheer does only serves to sow confusion and is a dishonest attempt to look like the government is “bankrupt.” Also remember that much of the deficit spending under this government has been at a time when interest rates were at historic lows, which is not credit card interest rates.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1064271285511811072

You can also expect a bunch of calls this week to cut corporate taxes like they did in the US, citing competitiveness, but again, there are things to remember about those US tax cuts – namely that their deficit is currently around $1 trillion, that those cuts are the economic equivalent of a sugar rush for which there are few long-term gains being made, and most of those cuts resulted in larger corporate dividends and share buy-backs rather than re-investment in companies or workforces. There’s a reason why Bill Morneau hasn’t jumped on this, and we’ll see what his response will be.

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Roundup: Endorsing the Brexitshambles

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In case you haven’t been paying attention, Britain is currently in a state of utter omnishambles as they try to deal with Brexit. A potential deal that was reached resulted in Cabinet resignations, and some very real threats not only to Theresa May remaining as PM, but possibly toppling the government as a whole. It’s lunacy over there right now. Back here in Canada, Andrew Scheer has decided that this was the right time to reiterate his support for Brexit. Because “sovereignty.”

While Scheer can bang on about how much control the UK gave up to the EU, and repeating falsehoods like the canard about the EU having regulations around the curvature of bananas, he both ignores that the EU has created a peace that has been unknown in Europe for centuries, and the fact that much of the Brexit campaign was fuelled by straight-up xenophobia. It’s this latter aspect that is particularly relevant because it’s part of a pattern we’re seeing with Conservatives, as John Geddes pointed out a couple of months ago – that they have this inability to orient themselves in a plausible way with the current nationalist populist trends in conservatism globally. Add to that, there is this naïve notion that they can somehow play with just enough extremism without it going into outright xenophobia or racism (and we’re especially seeing this playout with Maxime Bernier who blows the xenophobia tuba and then acts bewildered that white nationalists start showing up in his new party). But you can’t play with “just enough” extremism, because you can’t actually contain it. And when you wink about things enough times, you can’t act shocked and surprised when your adherents spell out what you were saying – like that post from a riding association Facebook account that posted Harjit Sajjan’s photo with the tagline “this is what happens when you have a Cabinet based on affirmative action.” They’ve only stated repeatedly that ministers in the Liberal cabinet are only there to fill quotas (whereas everyone in the Conservative Cabinet was there “on merit,”) but the moment someone puts Sajjan’s face next to that, well no, that’s totally not what they meant at all. Sure, Jan. And that’s why you can’t actually claim that Brexit is all about “sovereignty,” because it absolutely wasn’t. You can’t divorce the inflated sovereignty concern trolling from the xenophobia – it’s the same mentality as trying to assert that you can use “just enough” extremism for your political ends, but not go all the way.

Meanwhile, Andrew Coyne remains boggled by Scheer’s continued endorsement of Brexit, and wonders if he’s trying to appropriate some of its populist nationalism (the aforementioned “just enough” extremism).

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Roundup: Looking for a domestic MS-13

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Over the past week, Andrew Scheer has been touting his latest pre-election policy plank, which promises to tackle the problem of gang violence – except it really won’t. His proposals are largely unconstitutional and fall into the same pattern of “tough on crime” measures that are largely performative that do nothing substantive about the underlying issues with violent crime, but that shouldn’t be unexpected. The measures go hand-in-hand with their talking point that the government’s current gun control legislation “doesn’t include the word ‘gangs’ even once,” and how they’re just punishing law-abiding gun owners. And while I will agree with the notion that you can’t really do much more to restrict handgun ownership without outright banning them, it needs to be pointed out that the point about the lack of mention of gangs in the bill is predicated on a lie – the Criminal Code doesn’t talk about “gangs” because it uses the language of “criminal organisations,” to which gangs apply (not to mention that you don’t talk about gangs in gun control legislation – they’re separate legal regimes, which they know but are deliberately trying to confuse the issue over.

I have to wonder if the recent focus on gangs as the current problem in gun crime is that they need a convenient scapegoat that’s easy to point a finger at – especially if you ignore the racial overtones of the discussion. Someone pointed out to me that they’re looking for their own MS-13 that they can demonise in the public eye – not for lack of trying, since they focus-tested some MS-13 talking points in Question Period last year at the height of the irregular border-crossing issue when they were concern-trolling that MS-13 was allegedly sending terrorists across our borders among these asylum seekers. The talking points didn’t last beyond a week or two, but you know that they’re looking to try and score some cheap points with it.

With that in mind, here is defence lawyer Michael Spratt explaining why Scheer’s latest proposal is a house of lies:

Or as another criminal defence lawyer, Dean Embry, puts it, if you’re going to make stuff up on this issue, then why not go all the way?

https://twitter.com/DeanEmbry/status/1062102941123907590

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Roundup: Sexts and extortion

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Conservative MP Tony Clement has resigned from Conservative shadow cabinet and his parliamentary duties (but not from caucus) after he was victim to an attempted extortion after sharing “sexually explicit images and video” with someone.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1059976854415659008

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1059982799095050240

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1059986660748812288

Some observations:

  • Clement is part of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, which is of the highest security classification. Being a target for blackmail on that is a Very Big Deal, and can’t be excused by those who don’t want to be involved in any kind of shaming for sexting. Clement apparently notified PCO about this a few days ago, so this is serious in how it affects his role with NSICOP, and now they will need to find a new member to fill that vacancy.
  • This is likely to get bigger. Already a number of women are coming forward over social media about his creepy behaviour on Instagram and this kind of thing has apparently happened before (sans extortion attempt).
  • The Conservatives can stop being so smug about the fact that they haven’t had to boot anyone from caucus for being sexually inappropriate. Clement is still in caucus for the moment, but we’ll see how this grows in the next few days.
  • Clement says that he’ll be “seeking treatment,” which is the really gross part here, because it employs the language of trying to medicalise sexual harassment or inappropriate behaviour. And when you try to medicalise it, you try to diminish personal responsibility – as this Tracey Ullman sketch so amply demonstrates.

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QP: Mendacious privacy concerns

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For the first time this week, all of the leaders were present for QP, and Andrew Scheer led off, and he decried the “intrusions” of StatsCan collecting financial transaction data. Justin Trudeau, as he did the last two days, read a script to assure Canadians that the data is anonymised, and that they are working with the Privacy Commissioner. Scheer insisted that this was an extraordinary, and Trudeau dropped the script, and insisted that privacy was being protected. Scheer tried again, ignoring that the data was anonymised, and Trudeau hit back by decrying the Conservatives’ quest to eliminate data and evidence that they find to be inconvenient. Scheer went yet again, and this time Trudeau called it an attempt to sow fear and division. Scheer raised the number of government privacy breaches that resulted in a class-action lawsuit, to which Trudeau paid had his respect for the work of the Privacy Commissioner while the Conservatives continued to play politics over it. Guy Caron was up next for the NDP, demanding web giants be taxed like is happening in the UK and Spain. Trudeau read a script about how they were reviewing the Broadcasting Act and to point out how much they have invested in the cultural sector. Caron switched tracks to complain that CRA was only after going the little guys and not major tax evaders, to which Trudeau read about the investments they’ve made in CRA to combat tax evasion. Nathan Cullen was up next to demand that outstanding by-elections be called, and Trudeau assured him that he would call those by-elections soon. Cullen tried again, and this time, Trudeau praised their new elections legislation.

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