Tag Archives: Infrastructure

Roundup: A refusal to admit failure in the face of the third wave

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Ontario is once again going back into a four-week mockdown because the province walked right into the third wave of the pandemic, despite being warned repeatedly that they were headed for disaster, but they barrelled ahead anyway. And because the murderclowns who run this province want to keep things as confusing as possible for everyone, decided to brand this one a “shutdown” instead of a “lockdown” or a “stay at home” order.

But what remains galling is the fact that nobody wants to take responsibility for the current state of affairs. Most concerning is that the province’s chief medical officer of health insists that it hasn’t been a failure, because hey, the modelling said we’d be at five or six thousand cases a day if they didn’t make any interventions, and we’re only at 2000, so mission accomplished. No, seriously – that’s his argument. It’s utterly bonkers, and they’re getting away with it because all of Doug Ford’s folksy sing-song pronouncements keep blinding people to what is going on, and the bulk of the media in Queen’s Park is not going hard enough on him for it.

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Of course, this isn’t simply confined to Ontario either. Alberta is seeing some its highest case numbers, and the variants are in full-blown community spread, and what does Jason Kenney do? Refuse to impose tougher measures, trot out his failed “personal responsibility” schtick, and blame the federal government for not making enough vaccines appear from thin air by way of magic. No, seriously. How people stand for it, I just don’t understand.

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QP: Glad you’re keeping to your Queen’s Park roots

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For proto-PMQ day, not only was the prime minister present, but there were six Liberals including two other Cabinet ministers — almost unheard of in the current situation. Erin O’Toole led off, scripts on mini-lectern, and he raised the scourge of domestic violence, citing a recent incident in Quebec, and Justin Trudeau readily listed off the investments that his government had made in combatting it. O’Toole then switched to the topic of the the delay between vaccine doses, claiming the federal government mandated the four-month gap — which they did not — and complained about the delay in doses arriving. Trudeau reminded him that NACI is arm’s length and they follow guidance while they have procured vaccines that are arriving. From there, O’Toole asked if the National Security Advisor was tasked with investigating the allegations against General Vance, for which Trudeau stated that allegations were sent to the proper authorities and that politicians should not be involved. O’Toole waved an email from the former Advisor in saying he was not alerted to the allegations, and Trudeau repeated that they always forward allegations to the proper authorities, and that they need to ensure there are resources and recourse for those who come forward. O’Toole repeated that question in French, and got much the same answer. 

Yves-François Blanchet raised a Quebec port that is damaged and can’t participate in crab season, for which Trudeau stated that they are working with local authorities to ensure the safety of fishers and those who use the facilities, and that they were doing everything they could to support them. Blanchet then moved to whether a high-frequency train route would be in the budget, for which Trudeau told him to wait for the budget, before offering a paean to the people in Trois-Rivières he met earlier this week.

Jagmeet Singh then rose for the NDP, and in French, he castigated other parties in the Commons for voting down their motion on removing profit from long-term care, and Trudeau chided that this is Ottawa and they have to respect provincial jurisdiction. Singh switched to English to repeat his plaintive wail, and he got the same answer.

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Roundup: O’Toole’s hand-wavey five-point plan

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Erin O’Toole gave his keynote speech at the Conservative convention, and it was…serviceable. It was no rhetorical or oratory feat, but it wasn’t the stumbling, breathy mess that Andrew Scheer tended to deliver either, so there was that. But while he laid out his “five-point plan” for economic recovery, it was mostly hand-wavey and gave no real indication of just what exactly he planned to do, or how. Or, as one description put it, it was all tell and no show. But for as much as saying that the country has changed and the party needs to doesn’t really say how. Reaching out to private sector unions? Okay, sure, but just telling a bunch of blue-collar workers that you’re not “woke” isn’t going to cut it when you’re arguing against better wages and benefits. Trying to appeal to Quebec by out-Blocing the Bloc? I’m not seeing exactly what kind of broader, more inclusive party he’s trying to build other than his usual lip service about wanting more Canadians to see a Conservative when they look in the mirror.

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While you can see my thread responding to his speech here, the party put out a backgrounder on their “Canada Recovery Plan” shortly after the speech, it’s still pretty hand-wavey. In short:

  1. Jobs – What government doesn’t promise jobs? O’Toole promises to recover the million jobs lost by the pandemic, just as Trudeau has, and while O’Toole says that includes women and youth, he literally spent the rest of the speech deriding the Liberals’ inclusive growth plan as being “picking and choosing who gets ahead,” and a “re-imagining of the economy.” Pick a lane.
  2. Accountability – Promises for new anti-corruption laws miss the point. Stephen Harper rode in on the white horse of accountability, and all it did was drive away talent from political staff jobs. Trudeau’s “ethics scandals” have largely been penny ante, and stem from a belief that so long as they mean well that the ends justify the means. Even more laws aren’t going to change that, and this is just populist noise, trying to rail against “elites.”
  3. Mental Health – I will give O’Toole props for mentioning that this will require the cooperation of the provinces, but he’s also already promised increased health transfers with no strings attached. So, again, pick a gods damned lane. As for his “incentives for employers to provide mental health coverage,” we all know that means another tax credit. As for the national three-digit suicide prevention hotline, the Liberals already started this process, but it’s going to take up to two years to implement.
  4. Secure the Country – Partner with pharmaceutical companies to increase capacity for medicines and vaccine production? Erm, what are you willing to capitulate to them? Blow up PMPRB? Give them longer timelines for intellectual property to keep out generics? These kinds of measures would increase drug prices, and would hugely impact provinces and health plans. More domestic production of PPE? You’re talking about subsidising industries to do that, which doesn’t sound very Conservative, and it sounds like picking winners and losers.
  5. Economy – Winding down emergency supports and targeting stimulus are pretty much exactly what the Liberals are promising. There is no daylight here. As for promising to “grow the economy again” and claiming there was slow growth under the Liberals is 100 percent fiction – the Liberals needed to provide some kind of economic stimulus because Conservative austerity was dragging economic growth. This claim is complete bullshit.

Meanwhile, Paul Wells is heartened that O’Toole has woken up to the reality that his party can no longer continue being a cargo cult for Stephen Harper – but also notes that his plan is light on calories, for better or worse at this stage.

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QP: Random accusations and incoherence

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For the day’s proto-PMQs, prime minister Justin Trudeau was present, along with three other Liberals — still a pathetic turnout and contemptuous of Parliament. After a late start, Erin O’Toole led off, mini-lectern and script in front of him, and he accused the prime minister of being out of step with allies and his own caucus on China, and demanded that Canada remove itself from the Asia Infrastructure Bank — as though that would do anything. Trudeau stated that they continue to express their concern about China’s activities and human rights record, solidarity with the two Michaels, and that more discussions were happening in next week’s virtual G7 meeting. O’Toole tried to wedge Canadian job numbers with the Asia Infrastructure Bank, and Trudeau took the opportunity to pat himself on the back for the measures they rolled out to help those who lost their jobs because of the pandemic. O’Toole then worried about our vaccination rollout, and the lack of domestic production capacity, and Trudeau read about their investments in Canadian bio-manufacturing, and how the vaccine plan was on track. O’Toole switched to French to repeat the question and got the same answer, before he demanded to know how many Canadians would be vaccinated next week — as though he can answer for the provinces, but Trudeau listed what deliveries we were expecting this week,

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and stated that the Quebec government was investing in that Laval vaccine candidate, to which Trudeau listed what investments that particular researcher was given by the federal government. Blanchet was not mollified, and he continued to rail that multinationals got contracts instead of Quebeckers, for which Trudeau chided that we can hear the frustration in the Bloc leader’s voice because Ottawa was delivering for Quebec.

For the NDP, Jagmeet Singh got up, and in French, demanded a promise from the government that they would not call an election in the pandemic, and Trudeau took the opportunity to call out the Conservatives for stalling the latest pandemic aid bill. Singh repeated his demand in English, and Trudeau noted that in a minority parliament, the government doesn’t have the sole determination of that, before praising their efforts today.

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Roundup: A freak-out over vaccine math

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With things in a particularly…fragile state around the vaccine rollout, leaking numbers without context should be seen as a Very Bad Thing, and yet that’s what happened yesterday morning, when it appeared to look like Pfizer was cutting the number of vials they were sending us before the end of our Q1 agreement, and there was a freak out. Premiers started demanding federal action (as though Justin Trudeau can just strong-arm Pfizer into producing more doses somehow), or badmouthing Pfizer itself (because that’ll help). And it turns out that it was all for naught.

It turns out that with the possibility that the vials of vaccine will be re-labelled to say that they contain six doses instead of five (which apparently is not uniform, and requires either a skilled operator or different syringes which are in short supply right now), Pfizer decided to rejig the math so that there are the same numbers of doses, but just in fewer vials. Health Canada has not agreed to this re-labelling, and has no timeline on when such a decision could be made, but Pfizer apparently jumped the gun in sending new numbers that got misinterpreted (and misrepresented once the context was actually known), and this government can’t communicate its way out of a wet paper bag at the best of times, so its inability to properly communicate these new figures only made things worse (especially as they didn’t smack it down during Question Period). And if Health Canada doesn’t relabel the vials? Pfizer still sends us the contracted-for number of doses. So the freak-out was for nothing – except maybe yet another kick in the ass for this government to get in the game when it comes to getting ahead of these things.

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Meanwhile, we also found out that Ontario had mis-reported its vaccination figures, and they’ve only vaccinated half as many as they said they did, which really puts the province’s hue and cry into the fact that it was running out of doses into a new light – and also the fact that they have been so desperate to blame the federal government for everything. It’s the “look over there” strategy, that certain members of the media seem to keep falling for, every single time. The absolute incompetence of the Ford government never fails to astound.

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Roundup: More pandemic theatre

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The horror show of COVID infections continues apace in Ontario, and premier Doug Ford has decided to get really serious and issue a “stay-at-home” order, which amounts to little more than the mockdown that is currently in place already. In spite of his promises of an “iron ring” around long-term care facility, there are now outbreaks at forty percent of facilities. Ford won’t do anything about the sick days that are necessary for people to stop spreading infections at workplaces, and he won’t do anything about evictions from commercial landlords. So he’s totally handling this with aplomb.

So really, what Ford is offering is more pandemic theatre – the close cousin of security theatre. And most of the restrictions and exemptions don’t actually make sense. They’re not going to do enough to curb transmission – especially as newer variants start making their way into the community – because he won’t do the hard work of closing the large workplaces where spread is happening, because that would be harming the economy – as though rising infections and deaths won’t do worse economic damage. Ford continues to shirk his responsibilities and let this pandemic get worse, and more deaths to pile up, as he tries to shift blame and try and to get people to blame one another than acknowledge his own culpability. The “Uncle Doug” schtick isn’t working, and he keeps hoping it will, and here we are, waiting for things to get worse before he institutes more half-measures. Welcome to Ontario – yours to discover.

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QP: Eight questions to get an answer

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While the prime minister was meeting with the premiers over Zoom to hear their demands for more health transfers, his deputy was in the Chamber for QP. Erin O’Toole led off, script on his mini-lectern, and he demanded to know why the deputy prime minister pushed for a military training exercise with China, to which Chrystia Freeland read a statement about the two stolen years of the two Michaels, who remain in Chinese detention. O’Toole was not mollified, to which Freeland very slowly and measuredly stated that she has experience reporting on authoritarian regimes, and their priority is the release of the two Michaels. O’Toole raised CanSino before he continued to thunder about the joint training exercise, but Freeland stuck to the CanSino point and chided that O’Toole was worked up about vaccines because he has spent weeks trying to create a panic when he should focus on the anti-vaxxers in his own party. O’Toole tried again about the military exercise, and Freeland stuck to repeating about demanding that the Chinese government release the two Michaels. O’Toole gave it one more shot in French, and she repeated that they take authoritarian regimes seriously. Mario Beaulieu led off for the Bloc, and he once again demanded that Quebec’s Bill 101 to federally-regulated industries, and Freeland calmly stated that the government is aware of the “fragility” of the French language in Quebec and Montreal and they will be happy to work on the protection of French. Beaulieu tried again and for the same answer. Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and in French, he demanded increased health transfers for the provinces, to which Freeland reminded him that they had transferred billions to the provinces. Singh switched to English to decry the CRA’s letters to the self-employed around the CERB, and Freeland stated that the letters are only about verification, not a demand for repayment.

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QP: One last PMQs for 2020

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For Wednesday, every major leader was present in the Chamber, for the last proto-PMQs of 2020. Erin O’Toole led off, worrying that the wage subsidy padded the books of sixty-eight corporations (per the reporting in the Financial Post). Justin Trudeau said he would get to the question in a moment, and wanted to pay tribute to the doctors and regulators who got the Pfizer vaccine approved, but warned there was still going to be a long winter ahead. O’Toole said that was important, but noted that one of the corporation was a long-term care provider who needed help from the Armed Forces. Trudeau noted that they provided aid when it was necessary. O’Toole stated that the government didn’t do their due diligence — which is something of a self-own given that the opposition didn’t apparently do theirs either, and Trudeau noted that they are being criticised for getting money out too quickly and compliance would be on the back end. O’Toole said that people were being told to pay back CERB based on net income and not gross, and Trudeau said that people who made good-faith mistakes would be given leniency. O’Toole then switched to French to bring up the PornHub story again, and Trudeau reminded him that new rules are coming to ensure internet providers take down illegal materials. Yves-François Blanchet was up for the Bloc, and he once again demanded support for a Bloc bill to extend Quebec’s Bill 101 to federally-regulated sectors, to which Trudeau picked up a script to read about how they are committed to protecting both official languages and an updated Official Languages Act is on the way. Blanchet then wondered if the prime minister would meet the premiers in order to give them all the money they want with no strings attached, to which Trudeau chided him that the Bloc only wants to pick a fight when they have been working well with the provinces. Jagmeet Singh was up next, and in French, returned to the story of shareholders getting dividends while taking the wage subsidy, to which Trudeau stated that they helped Canadians throughout the pandemic. Singh repeated the question in English, worrying especially about artists being forced to pay back aid, for which Trudeau reminded him of the additional aid they provided artists.

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QP: Going hard on the CanSino conspiracy theory

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It being Wednesday, the prime minister was present and ready to respond to all questions put his way. Erin O’Toole led off, script on his mini-lectern, and he immediately started in on his CanSino conspiracy theory, apparently not understanding how vaccine regulation works, to which Justin Trudeau insisted that they signed on with Moderna and Pfizer before the CanSino deal fell apart, and why they put their eggs in as many baskets as possible. O’Toole said that CSIS was trying to warn the government about CanSino for years, but Trudeau again refuted this. O’Toole quoted an unnamed security analyst to say that China played Canada on the CanSino deal, and Trudeau stated that O’Toole was making stuff up, and that when the CanSino deal fell apart, Canada’s vaccine portfolio went from eight candidates to seven. O’Toole switched to French to claim that other countries will have all of their populations vaccinated by June, but Canada wouldn’t by September, to which Trudeau reminded him that Health Canada was studying four candidates and that there are guarantees for doses for Canadians. O’Toole demanded a plan to give the country “hope,” to which Trudeau said that their plan was to protect Canadians and help the economy weather the storm so that we will emerge from the pandemic in a strong state. Yves-François Blanchet got up next for the Bloc, and he demanded increased health transfers to the provinces, to which Trudeau reminded him that they have been working with the provinces since the pandemic began and have already transferred billions of dollars to them. Blanchet tried again, and got a much more emphatic version of the same answer. Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and in French, he lamented the lack of a vaccine plan, for which Trudeau reminded him that they have been working with the provinces since the spring to prepare for this. Singh changed to English to decry that the government wouldn’t be able to complete their pledge to end all boil water advisories on time, and read a statement from a First Nations child. Trudeau read a script that they have been working with those communities, and it takes time to overcome decades of neglect.

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QP: Chauvinism and confusion over vaccines

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While the prime minister was around, neither he nor his deputy were in QP today, unfortunately. Erin O’Toole led off, script on mini-lectern, and he demanded to know if the government acquired the rights to manufacture the leading vaccine candidates — never mind that we have no capacity to manufacture them. William Amos replied, pointing out that the capacity to manufacture these vaccines had been lost in this country over decades, and that the government had reinvested that capacity. O’Toole then started — falsely — that the NRC facility in Montreal could produce millions of doses, which ignores that the facility has not yet been built and no Canadian facility has the technology to manufacture the two leading candidates. Patty Hajdu stated that Canada is one of the best placed for vaccines, and is the only country reviewing all three leading candidates. O’Toole tried again, and this time Hajdu pointed out that he was trying to confuse Canadians. O’Toole switched to French to repeat the question and Hajdu gave him much the same response. O’Toole then tried to point to letters from the premiers of Ontario and Quebec to say they have no idea about the federal government’s vaccine plans, and this time Pablo Rodriguez stood up to punch back at O’Toole’s assertions in French. Alain Therrien led off for the Bloc, and he called the vaccine plan chaos, which Hajdu rejected and stated that she was working with her provincial counterpart. Therrien went further, listing what he perceived as federal failures, to which Rodriguez got up to state that the premiers were meeting with the prime minister later in the day. Jagmeet Singh got up for the NDP, and concern trolled that the government hadn’t invested in the ability to produce vaccines over the past five years, to which Amos got back up to remind him that the government has been investing in biomanufacturing. Singh switched to French to demand the vaccine plan, to which Hajdu again reminded him that the provinces are the experts in immunisation and that the federal government was there to support them.

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