Tag Archives: IRB

Roundup: The allegations reach Vancouver

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The Globe and Mail had another leak yesterday, and this time it involved municipal politics, and more particularly, the allegation that the Chinese consulate in Vancouver was meddling in that city’s election last year. Later in the day, former mayor Kennedy Stewart appeared on Power & Politics to confirm that yes, he did get a visit from two CSIS officials to warn him that they were concerned about interference, but there wasn’t really anything Stewart could do about it, since the Vancouver police couldn’t investigate. The new mayor, Ken Sim, rejected any insinuation he was helped by Beijing, and that there wouldn’t be the same questions if he were Caucasian.

The most interesting thing from the story in my opinion was that these diplomats were hoping to get a council member or two in place in the hopes that they could groom them into having political careers that included provincial or federal ambitions, but again, this is mostly about trying to get people into place who will be sympathetic to Beijing and who can help project a better image for them, and is less about actual espionage, for what it’s worth.

I’m seeing a couple of issues here. One is that we’re going to start seeing “Did the Chinese interfere?!” with every lost race in this country, I fear, no matter how ridiculous the charge, because that’s how media tends to operate. I also think there is a lot of “not my problem” happening on the official side, especially because the federal government doesn’t want to be seen to be bigfooting any municipal races, while lower levels of government don’t know what to do with warnings because they don’t have any systems in place (because we have an enormous normalcy bias in our politics). I also question why so much emphasis seems to be placed on the boasts of these consular officials who are claiming credit for election outcomes that there is no possible way they could have meaningfully influenced. People take credit for lots of things they didn’t do. We shouldn’t believe them because it’s convenient for our narrative. Cripes.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Poland has decided to give its MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, with the first four to be sent in the coming days, answering Ukraine’s pleas for more fighters. Because they are Soviet-era fighters, the Ukrainians already know how to fly and service these planes, so they can be put into operation immediately and not requires months or years of training on newer platforms. Meanwhile, the artillery battle continues around Bakhmut.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1636430656954671105

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Roundup: Sanctions take time to really bite

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It’s now around day forty-nine of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and it’s carrying on as Putin insists that they will continue until they meet their goals. This as there are unconfirmed reports that chemical weapons were used in an attack in Mariupol, while Russian spokespeople from Donbas were discussing the possibility. That could lead to another escalation in sanctions, and talk of “red lines,” though that didn’t seem to do much good when it happened in Syria. The mayor of Mariupol says that more than 10,000 civilians have been killed as the strategic port city continues being flattened by Russian forces. Ukrainian government officials also say that they have thwarted an attempt by Russian hackers to knock out power to parts of the country, and it’s worth noting that Canada has been providing cyber-security assistance to Ukraine.

On the subject of sanctions, there are lots of questions circulating about how effective they really are if the invasion continues, and it’s one of those things for which it’s not an easy answer. Yes, they’re hurting Russia, but Putin and his inner circle seem fairly insulated from some of the worst of it, in part because they managed to stop the ruble from collapsing entirely. That makes it even more imperative to provide military support to Ukraine so that they can defeat Russia on the battlefield, which will hurt Putin more. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t carry on with sanctions, because we should, but they’re at the point where they are hurting us as well, and we had Conservatives demanding exemptions for farmers last week who bought fertilizer from Russia before the conflict began and now don’t want to pay the tariffs associated. But for sanctions to be effective, they will hurt us as well, and people seem to forget that.

As well, this conflict is now going to have an effect on inflation globally, because of the effect of diverting from Russian oil and gas, and from the effect this war has on Ukraine’s ability to produce and export food, as the breadbasket of Europe. Of course, it’s going to continue to be blamed on government spending (never mind that it actually isn’t, and this is a global problem), and the Bank of Canada is going to hike rates this week if only because they need to be seen to be doing something about the problem even if it won’t actually address the root causes of these price increases. Things are messy, and it’s going to take time for everything to work itself out, but what will really help is for Russia to get out of Ukraine.

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Roundup: Big border closure, big aid package

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As the impact of the pandemic starts to be really felt in Canada, there is a new kind of rhythm starting to take shape in Ottawa, which is essentially that we get our daily press conference with Justin Trudeau, followed by ministerial press conferences, one after the other, and along the way, the daily briefings and pressers from the different provinces creep up in there as well. Today’s Trudeau press conference outlined the agreement to close the Canada-US border to non-essential traffic, and to outline the broad strokes of the $82 billion in economic measures (when you include tax deferrals) designed to help the country cope with the pandemic. He also said that measures specific to the airline industry and oil and gas sector were coming later in the week, including significant measures to remediate orphan wells in Alberta, which means that the federal government has now assumed a chunk of the province’s environmental liabilities, and both the companies that left them and the province that didn’t properly regulate their remediation are going to be let off the hook, so slow clap for that one.

Other measures included in the package were a suspension of federal student loan repayments (made interest-free), and distinctions-based funds for Indigenous communities, along with additional funds for shelters and the homeless. Not everyone is happy with those measures – the small-business lobby says that the measures aren’t enough to stop layoffs because the wage subsidy is only ten percent, which they say isn’t big enough. And in case this weren’t all bad enough, the price that Canadian oil is going for fell to its lowest level ever. So that’s fun.

We also learned that negotiations are ongoing between the parties – and Chambers – to temporarily recall Parliament in order to pass spending measures that were announced yesterday, and that could happen as early as next week, because there is a forty-eight-hour window after the Speaker agrees to the request. Part of the issue is the negotiation around how many MPs to recall – quorum for the Commons is twenty, and fifteen for the Senate – because they want to ensure proportionality. Pablo Rodriguez stated that he also wants to ensure that it’s MPs who don’t have to travel by plane to get here, but Jagmeet Singh was on TV yesterday saying he’s ready to come back, which kind of defeats the purpose, especially if we’re trying to encourage Canadians not to travel.

[Maclean’s has updated their Q&A on symptoms and contacts on where to get help.]

Meanwhile, Heather Scoffield gets a personal perspective on the aid package announced today, while Kevin Carmichael weighs in on the debate around the package – whether it is preferable to favour speed and not precision – by finding that the details are a bit too finnicky, but also notes the “elasticity” of the aid, which can expand or contract as need be as it progresses. In this thread, the Parliamentary Budget Officer finds it not targeted enough (though I’m not sure that it’s his job to weigh in on policy decisions like this). Economist Lindsay Tedds also has some suggestions on how provincial governments can step up given that the federal aid package only goes so far.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1240331137517367298

Good reads:

  • Here’s a look behind-the-scenes of the discussions around closing the Canada-US border.
  • Two new test kits for COVID-19 have been approved for use in Canada, to hopefully speed up testing in provincial labs.
  • The IRB has suspended in-person refugee hearings for the time being, and CBSA has halted deportation orders.
  • Here’s a look into emergency federal procurement rules that can be activated to rapidly source things like medical equipment.
  • The Hill Times got a look into the deals made between parties and caucuses in both chambers to pass those four bills and to suspend Parliament.
  • CBC is suspending their local evening news broadcasts for a central CBC News Network broadcast (in place of Power & Politics), which may breach CRTC rules.
  • It looks like MPs have agreed on a subcommittee of MPs to help guide the Centre Block renovations, including a list of “do not touch” heritage spaces.
  • Jason Kenney introduced an aid package for Alberta given that the province is being hit not only with COVID-19, but also plummeting oil prices.
  • Colby Cosh offers a meditation on the nature of liberal democracy in times of crisis like the one we’re facing.
  • Susan Delacourt notes that the current pandemic means that the government has stopped talking about citizens as “taxpayers” and framing politics as transactions.

Odds and ends:

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QP: Demanding to end the blockades

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In the wake of the statements in the Commons earlier this morning on the ongoing protests and blockades across the country, the benches were full and all of the leaders were present for QP. Andrew Scheer led off, mini-lectern on desk, and he read some of his same condemnation for the government not dealing with the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs in favour of those who support Coastal GasLink. Justin Trudeau noted that they are concerned with dialogue, and that he invited other parliamentary leaders to discuss the matter but not Scheer because he disqualified himself after this morning’s statement. Scheer insisted that Trudeau was elevating “professional protesters” with those Indigenous communities that wanted these projects, and demanded a date for the blockades to come down, and Trudeau reminded him that they need solutions for the long term. Scheer decried the lack of action, and Trudeau said that they needed to ensure there was long-term partnership so that Canadians could rely on their transportation network rather than short-term violent action. Scheer again tried to insist that Trudeau was pandering to activists, and Trudeau reminded him that the Conservatives couldn’t get projects built because they would pick and choose who they would engage with. Scheer got increasingly breathy and high-pitched as he demanded action, and Trudeau reminded him that five years ago, Canadians chose parties who were committed to reconciliation. Yves-François Blanchet was up next for the Bloc, and he expressed his concern that Québec and Canada’s image was one where Indigenous communities were opposed to development, and wanted some clarity on the timeline for when blockades would be lifted. Trudeau stated that they were still committed to dialogue, and that was the first step to lifting the barricades. Blanchet asked for future meetings on the issue, and Trudeau said that he was open to that — for parties that wanted to engage constructively. Jagmeet Singh was up next, and demanded to know when the federal government would meet with the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs, but they were waiting on them. Singh wanted concrete action now, but pivoted to record-keeping on Indigenous kids in care, go which Trudeau reminded him that child and family services were provincial jurisdiction and they were working to devolve that to First Nations themselves.

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Roundup: Protests and impossible demands

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The protests in support of the hereditary chiefs who are against the BC Coastal GasLink pipeline continue to disrupt the rail corridors in central Canada, though that may soon come to an end as the OPP has stated that the situation has become “dire” and threatened enforcement of court injunctions soon enough. Rail service has been cancelled for both freight and passengers, which is going to cause some economic disruption, especially as other sympathetic protesters have been attempting to blockade ports on both coasts. The federal government maintains that they are very concerned about what is happening, but state that these remain areas of provincial jurisdiction, and that’s something that we can’t simply handwave away.

And this is something that should be remarked upon a little more – the demands that the federal government get involved with the Coastal GasLink situation are essentially saying that the government should ignore the constitution, or that when a group feels aggrieved by the provincial government that they can then turn around and demand that the federal government do something, like asking your mother for permission after your father says no. Meanwhile, some of the protesters – like those staging a “sit-in” in the Department of Justice building, are making novel demands of the minister that are outside of his powers, and which don’t respond to how government operates in Canada – particularly given that the RCMP operates at arm’s length and doesn’t take orders from the justice minister or any Cabinet minister. In this case, they are enforcing a court order, which again, the government can’t simply step in and make disappear. We have a rule of law. And yes, the situation is complicated by the fact that there aren’t treaties in this area of BC, which means there is uncertainty as to the rights and title question (which have been under negotiation for years, if not decades), but the justice minister can’t wave a magic wand. Real life doesn’t work like that, and for this group to declare that if he doesn’t wave a magic wand by today that “reconciliation is dead,” well, it’s more than a little precious.

Meanwhile, these protests are giving rise to other voices who want to exploit the situation, like Conservative leadership hopeful who says that if he was prime minister, he would do something about it. He won’t say what – but by gum he’d do something! Jason Kenney, meanwhile, is trying to build the case that this is somehow a “dress rehearsal” for future pipeline protests, and calling these actions “ecocolonial” (whatever that means). Meanwhile, his environment minister is slagging the First Nation chief who has raised concerns about Teck Frontier and the lack of engagement by the provincial government, saying that it’s just about money and the government has to worry about taxpayers. Of course, unless Kenney and company don’t tone it down, things are bound to get worse because of the underlying complexity, so perhaps people need to take a deep breath.

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Roundup: Lowest cost and least economically-damaging

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The Ecofiscal Commission released their final report yesterday, and said that Canada will have to increase carbon prices to $210 per tonne by 2030 is the cheapest and most effective way to reach our climate targets, though certainly not the only way – regulation or subsidies are also possible, but less effective and far more costly. Increasing carbon prices would also mean increased rebates under the current federal backstop (but provinces could certainly recycle revenues in other ways, and some provinces could entirely eliminate their income taxes with said revenue), which would have other knock-on economic effects, but for simplicity and cost, they point toward carbon prices. (It’s worth noting that this analysis didn’t cover the output-based pricing system for large emitters, which helps take things like trade-exposure into account to provide those industries more time to adjust).

Predictably, the Conservatives freaked out and started a new round of social media shitposts about how this was the Liberal plan all along, and they would prevent the cost of everything from going up, etcetera, etcetera, but that’s a dishonest position because other models, like regulation and subsidies, drive up the costs just as much, but they tend to be passed onto consumers in a hidden way, whereas straight-up carbon pricing is transparent and makes it easier for consumers to make better choices (which addresses the demand-side of carbon emissions).

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/1199747804727513089

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/1199753818763862016

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/1199755545063952385

To that end, here is the Ecofiscal Commission’s Chris Ragan making the case in his own words, while Heather Scoffield suggests that premiers Kenney and Ford should be thanking Trudeau for imposing the federal carbon backstop because it’s a less economically damaging way of reducing emissions than their plans to date have been.

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Roundup: A carbon reality check

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A couple of weeks ago, Paul Wells did one of his CPAC interviews with Elizabeth May, the transcript of which is now available, and she talked a lot about how she thinks Canada can transition to a cleaner economy, and said a bunch of things about the oil and gas industry as part of that. The problem, of course, was that she was wrong about pretty much all of it, as energy economist Andrew Leach demonstrates.

Leach, meanwhile, also takes Jason Kenney’s rhetoric about carbon pricing to task in this Policy Options piece, and lays out the danger of that rhetoric, which has a high probability of blowing up in Kenney’s face. And as a bonus, he proposed a tool for conservatives to check their policy instincts against.

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Roundup: A few straw men and some rhetoric about immigration

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Andrew Scheer gave another one of his “economic vision” speeches yesterday, this time on the subject of immigration policy. And while it was all “yay economic immigrants,” there were still a few questionable pronouncements throughout. It should be pointed out that off the top, he made a big deal about how they don’t want racists or xenophobes in the party (in apparently contradiction to the succour they gave avowed racists when they thought they could use them to paint the Liberals as the “real” intolerant party), and invoked his belief that we’re all God’s children so nobody is inferior regardless of race, religion, or sexual orientation, and if they didn’t like that, the door was that way. So there’s that.

As for the policies, they were not only deficient when it comes to detail, but there was some of his usual problems of straw man arguments and hollow promises. For example, he repeated his usual argument that privately sponsored refugees do better than government-sponsored ones, but nobody is disputing that, and nobody is arguing against private sponsorship, but there is a place for government sponsorship which has to do with the most vulnerable who need more timely relocation and who may not have private sponsorship lined up. And yet, it’s part of his dichotomy about private groups being better than government. He also vowed to stop irregular border crossings, and good luck with that, because it’s always going to happen, and unless he can also stop Donald Trump from threatening immigrants and refugees in his own country, it’s not going to stem the flow coming into Canada irregularly – it’ll just push them to more dangerous crossings. He also didn’t stop the usual rhetoric that pits immigrants against asylum seekers that this kind of vow just exacerbates, so that’s not exactly turning over a new leaf. He also promised that economic migrants would get their credentials recognised in Canada faster, but good luck with that because credentials recognition is a provincial responsibility, and the federal government has precious few levers there, and successive federal governments have tried to deal with this situation in the past and not had much success, ensuring that his promise is empty. But what was perhaps most frustrating was his talk about intake levels – and while he took a dig at Maxime Bernier for calling on them to be reduced, he also said that the level should change every year based on “Canada’s best interests,” which is a giant loophole for that same kind of talk about reducing levels for bogus reasons.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1133506929442131971

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1133508491438624769

Meanwhile, the IRB says they need more funding if they’re going to tackle the asylum claimant backlog (which again, they inherited from the Conservative government) rather than just stabilize growth, which is what they’re projecting currently – but the real kicker here is that they’re still relying on faxes and paper copies rather than emails or electronic files, because they can’t share information effectively with CBSA, which should boggle the mind. And this problem was identified a decade ago (as was pointed out by Liberal MP Alexandra Mendès at Public Accounts), and it’s still a problem. I’ve talked to immigration and refugee lawyers who say that it’s a huge frustration for them that until recently, they couldn’t even schedule hearings by email. The IRB say they’re seized with the issue, but cripes, this should be embarrassing.

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Senate QP: Morneau explains…and explains

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Just minutes after the Commons QP ended, Senate Question Period got underway with special guest star finance minister Bill Morneau, for what was likely to be forty minutes of Morneau’s trademarked pabulum, but in slightly longer form. Senator Larry Smith led off with a completely question about how Canada can’t get pipelines built while we help China build theirs (not true), and demanded to know when the Trans Mountain expansion would be built. Morneau noted that there were a number of questions in there, but stated that by buying the existing pipeline, they wanted to get it built but we engaged in a meaningful process of engagement with those along the line, and that they planned to make the decision by June 18th. On Smith’s other questions, the decision to be part of the Asian Infrastructure Bank was part of our global economic engagement, which has a positive impact on the Canadian economy, and on Bill C-69, they looked forward to the amendments from the Senate. On a supplemental, Smith asked whether his office was working with Catherine McKenna’s about amending Bill C-69, and her acknowledged that they were engaged, but the amendments were up to the Senate.

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Roundup: Green wins, and the AG’s report

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After the Green Party won their second seat in Monday night’s by-election in Nanaimo–Ladysmith, it was inevitable that we would be subjected to a litany of hot takes about what this means for the upcoming federal election, most of which I’m not going to bother reading because frankly, I’m not sure it means anything at all. The Greens have been doing well provincially on Vancouver Island, where this riding is, and more than that, this particular candidate was once an NDP candidate who was booted from the party (apparently for views about Israel), and when the Greens picked him up, he won for them, while the NDP vote collapsed. Add to that, Green wins in BC, New Brunswick and PEI were also predicated by incumbent governments who had been in place for a long time (well, in New Brunswick, it was a constant PC/Liberal swap), and that’s not necessarily the case federally. While Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh tried to spin this as “proof” that Canadians care about the environment (for which both will try to tout their party policies on the same) we can’t forget that Canadians want to do something about the environment in the same way that they want a pony – it’s a nice idea that nobody has any intention of following up on because it’s a lot of effort and mess. This has been proven time and again. I would also caution against the notion that this means that “progressive” votes are up for grabs, because the Greens, well, aren’t all that progressive. If you read their platform, it’s really quite socially conservative, and they had whole sections essentially written by “Men’s Rights Activists” because they have little to no adult supervision in their policy development process. So any hot takes you’re going to read about the by-election are probably going to be full of hot air (quite possibly this one as well).

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1125798043905818624

Auditor General’s Report

The big news out of the Auditor General’s report was of course the backlog that the Immigration and Refugee Board faces regarding asylum claimants in Canada. The Conservatives, naturally, have jumped on this to “prove” that the current government has somehow broken the system, but every single expert that was cited over the day yesterday said that the Liberals inherited a system that was already broken (some went so far as to say that the Conservatives deliberately broke it in order to force a crisis that would allow them to adopt more draconian measures – though those backfired in a spectacular way, worsening the backlog), and that they have taken steps to increase the IRB’s resources. I wrote about some of these issues a while ago, and the IRB was starting to streamline some of their processes and start making use of technology like email (no, seriously) that cut down on some of the bureaucracy they were mired in – but as with anything, these kinds of changes take time to implement and have an effect. But expect the narrative of the “broken” system to continue in the run up to the election. Meanwhile, here are the other reports:

  • Half of Canadians who call a government call centre can’t get through, which is blamed on technology that was allowed to go obsolete
  • The RCMP are still not adequately prepared to deal with active shooter situations.
  • Our tax system hasn’t kept up with e-commerce and needs modernization
  • The mechanism to prevent governments from doing partisan advertising has little documentation and rigour.

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