Tag Archives: Harassment

Roundup: Mischief petitions

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There’s a nonsense e-petition circulating on the Parliamentary website about the PM’s groping allegation, and essentially calls for him to be removed from caucus because that’s what happened to other Liberals who faced allegations (not true), and then goes on about how he’s lost the confidence of citizens. It’s pure mischief, and the fact that Michelle Rempel is sponsoring it is pretty much proof of that, but that aside, I’m mystified how this passed the vetting that these kinds of petitions are supposed to get because it has nothing to do with a government issue but rather it’s phrased entirely about caucus management. It should be disqualified as such.

This having been established, I have to say that I’m getting mighty tired of e-petition stories, because they’re not actually news. The fact that they’re hosted on the Parliament of Canada website makes them easy to search, so it’s cheap and easy filler content, but the fact that the story here didn’t contextualize the petition as not having anything to do with government business, and instead ginned it up with a headline that it was trying to force a “government response” to the allegation when it has nothing to do with government business, is actually on the irresponsible side. Yes, it’s salacious because it keeps the “groping” allegation story going, but there’s nothing actually there. It’s the equivalent of empty calories in news form. We should be doing better.

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Roundup: Bozo eruptions coming from the top

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Given some of the “bozo eruptions” over Twitter over the past couple of days by Conservative MPs and senators, I have to wonder about both the mindset behind this strategy of posting, and the adult supervision that underpins it. Obviously, the latter is lacking given what we’ve seen this week especially, but we also can’t deny that there is an attempt at strategy behind it, even if it’s a strategy that’s been kluged together in service of a narrative. That narrative is to put “Justin Trudeau” and “failed” in as many sentences together as possible, but it’s also about a deliberate campaign of lies and misdirection in service of creating that narrative. But even with this in mind, some of it is just really, really dumb.

Take this tweet from Shannon Stubbs – who is a pretty decent MP, it should be stated, but seems to have lost her ability to be credible over Twitter. Part of what is so gross about this tweet is that it basically undermines our entire criminal justice system, which requires that the accused have advocates in order to have a fair trial. And she knows this – the party knows this (while they go about fetishizing victims of crime and altering the entire vocabulary around them in order to tilt the playing field against the accused so as to deny them fairness). But the temptation to be shamelessly partisan is just too much for some of them to withstand. And in the end, I have to think that it’s this mindless partisanship is often to blame – and it is mindless. It robs them of their intellect and critical thinking capacity, and makes them focus solely on scoring cheap points.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1028043707788996610

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1028049573279948800

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I’ve seen a lot of the chatter about the tweet from Senator Denise Batters about Omar Alghabra, to the point that the woke crowd is referring to as a “white nationalist,” which I’m quite sure she’s not – she’s just partisan to the point of being mindless, and that includes making ill-suited attacks to the point of dogwhistling, because it becomes reductive and about scoring points. She should know better. (As for Blaine Calkins and his tweet, well, I’m not sure I’d give him the benefit of the doubt that he knows better, so I’ll leave it at that). But there needs to be a recognition that this kind of point-scoring is actually doing damage to their own brand, and as we’ve seen this week, has blown up in their faces more than once. You would hope that this would be cause for some reflection and that they’ll think twice before continuing to engage in this kind of behaviour – but I’m not holding my breath. So long as the official line from the leader is to lie over Twitter as often as he thinks he can get away with it, he’s set a low bar of an example for the rest of his caucus to follow, and it’s no surprise that we’re seeing these kinds of bozo eruptions.

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Roundup: Singh’s pipeline waffle

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On yesterday’s Power & Politics, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh gave an interview that was probably as close to a car crash as I’ve seen him give to date, which should probably start to worry some people. His insistence that he’s in this “for people” is baffling, because that seems to be the most basic, elementary thing that politicians are in politics for. He spoke about the “housing crisis” that the federal government is supposed to do something about (he won’t exactly say what, because in places like Vancouver, supply is an issue), he rattled off the lie that the federal government had cut healthcare (a changed escalator is not a cut, and that particular lie went unchallenged), and he insists that he can do more as an opposition member to make the government keep promises than a Liberal backbencher could. (This kind of spin is something that the Liberals will play with the exact reverse – that a backbencher can do more because they can talk to ministers in the caucus room). He also denied that seeking this seat was because of caucus pressure to get a seat (this was indeed an issue), and is promising to move there if he wins (and good luck finding a house in that market, even to rent), but won’t say what he’ll do if he doesn’t win (and it was a close three-way race in the last election).

The more painful part of the interview, however, had to do with his commentary on the current spat with Saudi Arabia, during which Singh started pontificating about energy sovereignty, and not getting oil from the Saudis any longer. Okay, great – they currently supply a mere 11 percent of Canadian oil imports, so that’s not a big deal, but energy sovereignty means pipelines going west-to-east, which the NDP had a big problem with already in a proposal called Energy East. But when asked about pipelines, Singh deflected and started talking about refineries, which is a different thing altogether. Falling back on NDP catchphrases like “value-added” and “rip-and-ship,” his argument not only didn’t make any sense (the question wasn’t refineries – but that is an issue because East Coast refineries aren’t built to handle western heavy crude), particularly economically (seriously, there’s a reason why we haven’t built new refineries and have in fact shuttered others), it ignored the question about how you have energy sovereignty without pipelines that will run through Quebec – a voter base that the NDP is desperate to hold onto.

He’s been leader for almost a year now – this kind of talking point word salad is getting a bit thin for someone who should be able to provide answers on issues of the day, and who shouldn’t just fall on reheating non sequitur talking points. But this is what the party chose (well, in as much as we’ll see how many of those memberships stay active).

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Roundup: Moe’s carbon bafflegab

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Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe (or his staff) penned an op-ed in the National Post yesterday, to explain why he thinks Canadians are opposed to the federal government’s planned carbon tax. The reasons, however, are…not convincing. Nor are his counter-claims about what the alternatives are. And to be fair, almost nobody likes taxes, which is why leaders like Moe have been casting any kind of carbon price in as negative a light as possible in order to turn public sentiment against them. And we can’t ignore that most Canadians want to fight climate change like they want a pony – they say they want to do it, but don’t actually want to undertake any of the responsibility that goes with it.

As for Moe’s arguments, he decries the carbon price as a “one-size-fits-all” approach, which is bogus off the start. The price does not indicate the mechanism by which it’s implemented, whether that’s cap-and-trade or a tax, and how those systems are set up and administered can vary greatly, particularly in how the revenues are recycled. That’s why the federal government gave provinces the space to design a system that fits their particular circumstances best. So right off the start, Moe is being intellectually dishonest in his argument. And as for the stated goal of reducing emissions, a carbon price is not only about reducing emissions – it’s about giving a market signal so that major emitters can drive innovation to reduce their emissions and avoid paying it (you know, something a fiscal conservative would recognise, were Moe actually one and not a populist goof), and it ensures that everyday consumers make choices to reduce their emissions. If you see people lining up at gas stations when the price drops a few cents, imagine what price indicators mean when it comes to other behaviours.

Moe keeps pointing to his province’s investment in carbon capture and storage, which has not yet proven itself cost-effective as a technology, but ironically would be more cost-effective if there was a carbon price that would help to better monetize its value. He talks about designing an offset system that would recognise carbon sinks in agriculture, but again, having a price allows this recognition to be better tracked and monetized, which again, provides incentives. You’d think this would be elementary stuff to someone who purports to be a fiscal conservative that believes in the free market. But that’s not what Moe is (nor is Doug Ford or Andrew Scheer for that matter), and they need to justify how they’re rejecting actual fiscal conservative measures.

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Roundup: A summer stunt

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With the new Cabinet in place and a new trade minister now in the portfolio, Andrew Scheer decided that yesterday was the day to engage in a political stunt and demand that Parliament be recalled in the middle of summer in order to pass the enabling legislation for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Astute observers may recall that the Conservatives made a couple of attempts before the Commons rose for the summer to pass the bill at all stages with zero debate or committee study, but were rebuffed both times. Now they want Parliament to sit over the summer in order to pass it expeditiously.

There are, of course, a few problems with this demand. First of all, Ottawa is a virtual ghost town at this time of year, as a sizeable portion of the population (and most especially the civil service) is off at some cottage somewhere, and very little is getting done. You want to ensure there’s a revolt, then cancel everyone’s vacations. A number of workers on Parliament Hill, such as those who work in the Parliamentary Restaurant, get laid off over the summer, so rehiring them for a few days or a week would be a giant logistical nightmare. Not to mention, you’re going to have a tonne of cranky MPs who are hot and sticky in humid Ottawa, who are will spend the time grousing that they have work to do in their consitutencies (especially with an election a little over a year away). This especially includes Scheer’s own MPs. Add to that, Scheer says that the Commons needs to move now because there’s no guarantee how long the Senate will take with this – err, except if his own senators offer to play ball with the other senators and come to an agreement on a timeline for the bill, then it’s more of an empty threat.

The government, mind you, shot down this proposal because it’s a blatant stunt, but that left the Conservatives the day to start tweeting sanctimoniously over Twitter about how they’re willing to get to work but the Liberals aren’t. (Seriously guys, this game will bite you in the ass before you know it). And then there’s the kicker – Scheer made this demand, then rebuffed the media requests and said he’s off for holidays for the next two weeks, thus cementing the fact that this was all a stunt. Slow clap, guys. But I guess it’s a way to try and capture the news cycle for the day.

Meanwhile, here’s Philippe Lagassé to school you on how most people don’t it right when they talk about treaty ratification in our parliamentary system.

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Roundup: The Brexit meltdown accelerates

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The big news yesterday wasn’t really in Canada, but the UK, where two cabinet ministers resigned over the “compromise” Brexit deal, and there remain questions as to whether Thresa May can survive this (though her options are severely limited given the Fixed Terms Parliament Act). Lauren Dobson-Hughes has a good breakdown of just what has been going on:

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Andrew Coyne notes the difficult position that May and the Brexiteers find themselves in, where a Norway-style deal may be their out (but it will be a humiliating climbdown). Andrew MacDougall examines the internal party politics playing out with these resignations. John Cassidy highlights that Boris Johnson’s bluster aside, he can’t point to any more credible Brexit deal, which makes his departure all the more opportunistic.

https://twitter.com/cfhorgan/status/1016376257590657026

https://twitter.com/cfhorgan/status/1016376998036320256

And hey, just remember that Andrew Scheer was a Brexit proponent, and fellow leadership aspirant Erin O’Toole promulgated a fantasy Canada-UK-Australia-New Zealand trading bloc that relies on constructing a pre-WWII relationship that really didn’t exist the way they like to think it did. In case you thought that Canada is immune to such flights of fantasy.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1016330038940258306

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Roundup: Forcing a narrative of hypocrisy

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The meltdowns over this “groping” allegation continue, and I keep coming back to the ways in which specious comparisons continue to be made with the situations of other MPs who’ve been investigated and/or been kicked out of caucus. The fact that said specious comparisons keep being made fuel the kinds of columns that keep coming out that declare Trudeau to be guilty of hypocrisy in how he’s treating this situation, when there is no actual comparison. Much of this I’ve outlined in my weekend column, but there are a couple of things to highlight that this Robyn Urback column sticks in my craw in particular with the comparisons to Pacetti/Andrews. For one, everything we’ve heard about the 18-year-old incident, from the corroborating editors, was that this was a brief touch, and was not sexual assault. Pacetti, by contrast, had sex with a fellow MP who felt that there was not explicit consent. Can you spot the difference there? Add to that, Urback falls back on the public outcry that the NDP made at the time that Trudeau “blindsided” the complainants by going public, which is part of the problem with someone from Toronto who has never been in Ottawa writing about things that she was not privy to at the time. Those of us who were around and who talked to people involved know that Thomas Mulcair had already called a press conference for that morning where he was going to declare that Trudeau had been warned that he had two MPs that had allegations of sexual misconduct against them in his ranks and he had done nothing about it – but Trudeau headed him off, and Mulcair was left without his thunder. It’s a nasty bit of business, but that was the background scenario, which makes it even more inappropriate for Urback and others to cry hypocrisy with what is going on with Trudeau in the here and now. I know that Urback thinks she’s making a good point, but she’s missing a truckload of context and history, which makes the column look terribly foolish if you’re someone who knows what went down in 2014.

Amidst this, a bunch of concern trolls freaked out that Trudeau went to Kent Hehr’s Stampede pancake breakfast and made a “strong show of support” for his only MP in the city, which is a fairly unavoidable thing for Trudeau to do. (For context, Hehr’s sexual harassment allegations were investigated, partially substantiated, and he made a public apology which was accepted by his complainant). I would be curious to see in the coming months just how “strong” Trudeau’s support for Hehr really is, particularly when it comes to his nomination, and I suspect there will be some backroom engineering of a contested nomination that Hehr may not survive.

Meanwhile, this incident has people fighting over who gets to call themselves “feminists,” and it’s just so tiresome, particularly because some of the players are trying to use the aforementioned specious comparisons to claim hypocrisy.

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Roundup: A confirmation of sorts

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Because the “groping” story continues to circulate, we got yet more developments yesterday, as Justin Trudeau faced yet more questions and essentially reiterated what he’d said previously but seemed confirm that something may have happened in her perception that he didn’t perceive to be a problem, and sure, keep asking him questions because this is all about the process of re-examination in these changing times we’re living in. And while the concern trolls melted down over that, the woman at the centre of the allegations came forward with a statement that said yes, something happened as reported (but no specifics, for which we continue to be left with vague suggestions as to what did happen) and she’s not talking about it.

When asked about why this is different from other situations, Trudeau said that he’s confident that people can assess this on a case-by-case basis, for which I have doubts precisely because the concern trolls (and even some well-meaning reporters) keep conflating previous issues with this one, entirely speciously. And some of those specious comparisons are done with malicious intent (and when you call them on it, funny that they don’t have an answer).

There are still questions about what happened (though I’m not sure that all of Anne Kingston’s questions here are legitimate), but an independent investigation won’t solve anything because it’s impossible to conduct, and seriously, reporters and pundits should know this. Meanwhile, my weekend column wonders if we can have a nuanced conversation about the “groping” allegations amidst specious comparisons and dubious calls of hypocrisy.

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Roundup: Explaining the system to Ford

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had his first meeting with Ontario premier Doug Ford yesterday, and it went about as well as could be expected. While the expected topic was going to be carbon pricing, Ford’s people pre-emptively put out a release saying that they were going to wash their hands of the whole irregular border crossers issue, citing that it was the problem the federal government created and they would have to pay for it going forward. Which is a pretty interesting interpretation of areas of provincial responsibility. Trudeau took this in stride, apparently, and in the press conference after, said that he took the time to explain some of the confusion that the premier seemed to have around the issue and things like the difference between immigration and asylum, and Canada’s international obligations when it comes to refugees and asylum seekers. For what it’s worth.

Of course, Ford’s provincial immigration minister lashed out after this happened, but what I find particularly telling about all of this is how much it relies on the kinds of partisan talking points that the federal Conservatives have been putting out around how this is entirely the fault of Trudeau’s #WelcomeToCanada tweet (which would be predicated on ignoring the political situation in the United States), and that it misrepresents the number of migrants who have been since shuttled to Ontario as a result. Now, the federal government is not blameless, as they have been slow to ramp up the resources needed to process claims and were a bit slow off the mark to look at ways to communicate with the communities on the ground in the US – a tactic that ultimately has proved to be successful, but not before a wave of arrivals had already crossed the border. The other thing that is notable is that the predominantly American framing of “illegals” has been cropping up here too, which should be a warning sign about the kinds of populist rhetoric that is being repurposed for domestic effect.

The other thing that this highlights is the fact that we have a provincial government that got to where it is on the basis of simple slogans and unrealistic promises (no, you’re not going to get cheaper gasoline or buck-a-beer), so it should be no surprise when they start making noises that don’t reflect their obligations, both nationally and internationally. Yes, they can try to get more money out of the federal government – which they are providing – but trying to wash their hands of the issue (while subtly playing into the kinds of xenophobic populism that they have largely eschewed to date) is not going to fly.

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Roundup: Barriers and non-solutions

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As part of a discussion on Power & Politicsyesterday on barriers women face in politics, there were a few well-worn tropes thrown out there, but I wanted to poke into a couple of the items discussed (much of which I’ve already written about in my book, but a refresher course never hurts):

  1. This needs to be an issue addressed by the parties at the grassroots level and shouldn’t be legislated top-down. Parties are already too centrally controlled, and if you want empowered MPs that are women and those who are from diverse communities, they need to participate from the ground-up rather than be appointed top-down.
  2. The side-effect of quotas, be they de facto or de jure, tends to be that women and minorities are nominated in “no-hope” ridings. We’ve seen this time and again, even from the NDP, who have their “no nomination can be run unless the riding association has exhausted the possibility for an equity-seeking candidate” rule. That rule is often conveniently broken if they think they have a winnable straight, white male candidate, and 2011 is a perfect example of how they loaded a lot of women and racialized candidates in “no hope” Quebec ridings that got swept up in the “orange wave.” Most were not good MPs, and some had never been to their ridings before winning, which is the opposite of how nominations should be run.
  3. The voting system is not the problem – it’s entrenched barriers in the nomination system where not enough encouragement is given to women to run (i.e. until this last electoral cycle, they didn’t recognize that women need to be asked several times before they will consider running, and they may have things like childcare issues that need to be sorted when running). A PR system usually creates some manner of list MPs, where your women and minority MPs come from lists rather than having had to run and win ridings, which creates two-tiers of MPs. This also manifests itself in countries with quotas, and women MPs in places like Rwanda have seats but little power as a result.
  4. We can’t do much more to make our parliament more “family friendly” without hollowing it out even more than it has been. While there are issues with childcare, MPs are not without resources to address it (like hiring nannies) rather than forcing the institution to hire precariously-employed childcare workers for part of the year with no sense of numbers on a daily basis. While 60-day parental leave is not objectionable, remote voting and Skyping into committee meetings is very much a problem that we should not encourage in any way.

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