Tag Archives: Irwin Cotler

Roundup: Badmouthing the CBC for grift

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Because this is occasionally a media criticism blog, I will mention that piece circulating from former CBC producer Tara Henley, who made a splash by quitting her job and starting a Substack blog (with paid subscriptions!) by badmouthing the CBC on her way out the door. While I was initially planning on not mentioning this, because the complaints she makes in the piece merely reflect poorly on her rather than the CBC, but it attracted some bizarre traction yesterday, from the likes of Jody Wilson-Raybould, and Erin O’Toole, who invited her to call him about plans to reform the CBC (as he promised to slash its budget).

But the piece itself (which I’m not going to link to, but I did read when the National Post reprinted it) was not the stunning indictment she claimed it to be, or the usual cadre of CBC-haters have been touting it as. When you get through all of her prose, it seems that her biggest complaint is that the CBC asked her, as a producer, to ensure there were more diverse guests on panels or interview segments. In Henley’s recounting, this was the booming klaxon of “The Wokes are coming!” and how this is some kind of Ivy League American brain worm/neural parasite import that has destroyed the CBC’s reporting over the past 18 months. Reality is most likely that what she considered “compromising” to the reporting was being asked not to use the same six sources on all of the panels or packages she was responsible for—because that is a very real problem with a lot of Canadian news outlets, where they have a Rolodex of usual suspects who have a media profile because they answer phone calls and make themselves available. There are a number of people, whose credentials are actually terrible and who have zero actual credibility or legitimacy, but because they are easy gets for reporters or producers, and they say provocative things, they are go-to sources time and again. That the vast majority of them are heterosexual white men is problem when a news outlet has had it pointed out to them repeatedly that they need more diverse sources. Henley appears to have balked at that.

There are a lot of problems with CBC’s reporting these days—much of it is either reductive both-sidesing, or its credulous stenography that doesn’t challenge what is being said, even if what is being said is wrong or problematic but has a sympathetic person saying it. There are a lot of questionable editorial choices being made in terms of who they are granting anonymity to and who they are not, particularly if it counters the narrative they are trying to set with the particular story (and there was a lot of this in their reporting on the allegations around House of Commons Clerk Charles Robert). There are problems with its mandate creep around their web presence, and yes, they have made very questionable decisions around some of their editorial pieces—and attempts to alter them once published. None of its problems have to do with the fact that Henley was asked to get more diverse voices. But Henley also knew that there is an audience for her recitation of the “anti-woke” platitudes, and she has a book she wants to sell, and figured that a paid Substack was more lucrative than the Mother Corp. And the fact that O’Toole and others are reaching out seems to indicate that she gambled on media illiteracy for this particular grift, in the hopes it might pay off.

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Roundup: The necessary context on vaccines

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Vaccines was once again the talk of the day yesterday, and while there was a whole lot of caterwauling about demanding dates for vaccine arrivals and rollout specifics – something that is impossible to determine at this point considering that a) no vaccine has been approved in any country yet, and b) distribution is a provincial responsibility in Canada, and some of those provinces have not got their plans in place, such as Ontario, which just hired former Chief of Defence Staff, General Rick Hillier, to help them plan their logistics. So yeah – it’s pretty hard for Justin Trudeau to give any solid timelines with those particular factors in mind.

With this in mind, Maclean’s has a must-read interview with Dr. Supriya Sharma, Health Canada’s chief medical advisor, about the vaccine approval process – because a lot of people have been talking out of their asses about said approval process. And when you’ve finished reading that, here is a deeper dive into the vaccine manufacturing availability in this country – the delays at the planned National Research Council facility because they decided to upgrade it to be a fully-compliant Good Manufacturing Practice-compliant facility that will be more versatile and able to produce more vaccines once it’s up and running (probably later next year). As well, the two early promising vaccines, from Pfizer and Moderna, are both mRNA technology vaccines, and there are no facilities in this country that can produce them – because not all vaccine production is the same, and different vaccines require different technologies to produce them, and nobody seems to understand this basic fact as they demand to know why we’re not producing it here, or why we haven’t acquired the rights to produce it, given that we have nowhere that can produce it even if we did.

In other pandemic news across the country, Doug Ford’s government got raked over the coals by the province’s Auditor General when she examined the province’s early pandemic response (and while I have some issues with the fact that she seems to be straying outside of her lane, it is nevertheless reassuring to see that she has called out a lot of Ford’s lies about his actions or lack thereof). Ford also started the process of telling Ontarians that Christmas isn’t going to be one with large family gatherings, so at least he’s not trying for the same kind of “social contract” nonsense that Quebec is pushing in spite of the fact that it’s likely to cause more spread of the virus. (Then again, people seem to want to obstinately get together anyway, if Thanksgiving is any indication, so it may not matter). Meanwhile in Alberta, experts are calling out the half-measures of Jason Kenney’s “mockdown,” which is only going to lead to more deaths, and longer and deeper shutdowns to get the virus under control.

https://twitter.com/LagassePhilippe/status/1331654772282298369

https://twitter.com/LagassePhilippe/status/1331657172137238529

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QP: Calmly upset versus storming out

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With Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh still at D-Day commemorations, and Andrew Scheer at a family event in Regina, there were no major leaders present. Lisa Raitt led off, and she made a statement about D-Day, and offered the government a chance to say how they are commemorating the event. Bill Blair read a statement about service and sacrifice in response. Raitt then moved onto affordability and a plea for a government to “stop the taxes” without specifying which ones, to which Ralph Goodale stood up and reminded her of the Middle Class™ tax cuts and the Canada Child Benefit. Raitt moaned about the loss of boutique tax credits, and Goodale noted that the net of the government’s changes mean that most families are $2000 better off than before. Alain Rayes then cited the false Fraser Institute figure that taxes were raised by $800 per year, to which Jean-Yves Duclos recited in French the same measures that Goodale listed. Rayes tried again, with added theatrics, and Duclos cited that he was upset that the opposition was painting a false picture (in his calm demeanour). Ruth Ellen Brosseau was up next for the NDP, and she read a lament about the settlement that CRA reached with KPMG clients, to which Diane Lebouthillier stated that she had asked the CRA for more transparency around settlements going forward. Daniel Blaikie repeated the question in English with added outrage, and Lebouthillier repeated her response. Blaikie then moved onto a demand for additional aid for homeless veterans, and Blair read that their whole of government approach was getting results with homeless veterans. Brosseau then read the French version of the same question, and Duclos repeated the same response in French.

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/1136701597906558977

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Roundup: Bernier goes full tinfoil hat

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Maxime Bernier appears to be going full tinfoil hat, with a Twitter thread about a supposed move to create some kind of UN parliament that will erase borders, and that Canada will be absorbed into, and I can’t even. I literally cannot.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1082829073922093057

As Carvin points out, this is a campaign that is orchestrated by Neo-Nazi sympathizers in Europe, and it’s the very same thing that Andrew Scheer was also have been touting this very same conspiracy theory as part of their attempt to push back against the UN global compact on migration. But then again, Scheer and company also gave succour to racists in order to try and paint Trudeau as some kind of bully, so it shouldn’t be a surprise, and they’re being wilfully blind and deaf to the white nationalists and xenophobes that are infiltrating the “yellow vest” protests that they like to promote, so there’s that.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1082252207234473985

Meanwhile, Bernier has tapped an anti-abortion, anti-trans “Christian pundit” as his party’s candidate in Burnaby South. And he’s being accused of running a campaign in that riding that is trying to depict Jagmeet Singh’s efforts as being one that is running only for the Indo-Canadian community, so, you know, the xenophobia tuba instead of the dogwhistle.

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Roundup: In danger of losing the plot

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As Nigel Wright’s testimony wrapped up in the Duffy trial yesterday, I am going to confess that I have pretty much lost the plot at this point. I’m having a hard time seeing what the point of Donald Bayne’s cross-examination was, and how anything Wright did somehow excused Duffy either claiming those expenses, or accepting the cheque in the end. Trying to establish a broad conspiracy that may or may not include the prime minister’s current chief of staff is salacious political gossip, which may or may not go to the prime minister’s judgement in the people he surrounds himself with, but for the life of me, I can’t see how this is relevant to the trial. Yes, people lied and covered up what happened – politically relevant, perhaps, but legally? I’m still having a hard time following where Bayne is going in this. Meanwhile, Aaron Wherry offers some ideas about what may constitute political scandal in the whole ClusterDuff affair – seeing as some are starting to express doubts that there is one – while Andrew Coyne expresses faux sympathy for Harper, who has been deceived by those closest to him for so long.

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Roundup: No, they’re not new powers

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I’ll admit that there has been some terribly naïve punditry about Michael Chong’s Reform Act, and a lot of touchy-feely optimism about the fuzzy notion of “reform,” but perhaps one of the most gallingly maladroit to date has come from Campbell Clark, who wonders if MPs will actually get the will to confront party leaders with their “new powers.” Yes, that was the sound of me sighing deeply. “New powers.” For those of you keeping score, Chong’s bill did not give MPs any new powers. MPs had all the power in the world thanks to the way our system of government is designed – elected as an individual MP under the first-past-the-post system, they are empowered to give or withdraw confidence, whether it is to their party leaders, or to the government of the day in the Commons. That’s an incredible amount of power because confidence is how our system runs. The problem is that they stopped empowering themselves to exercise their power, deferring first to leaders who were no longer accountable to them after we broke our leadership selection system to make it “more democratic” by taking away that power from MPs and giving it to the party membership (a convention which Chong’s bill now cements into law), and later to leaders who gained the power to sign off on their nomination forms (a measure designed to prevent spoofing on ballots and hijacked nomination races). Sure, MPs still had power and they could exercise it – but it generally meant that enough of them had to defy the leader all at once to ensure that the spectre of group punishment didn’t draw further questions, and few MPs had the intestinal fortitude to risk their necks. They still, however, had that power. For Chong to claim that his bill grants “new” powers is bogus. As I’ve stated before, it actually takes power away because it did not actually do away with the nomination sign-off power in a meaningful way, and it raised the bar by which MPs can openly challenge a leader so it can no longer be a small group who has the gonads to go forward, but will now see the media demanding the 20 percent headcount. So will MPs have the will to use these “new” powers? Probably not, because the bar has been set higher. But in the meantime, we’ll have the pundit class praising Chong for his efforts and his “courage,” rewarding him for the campaign of bullying and attempting to disenfranchise an entire body of parliament along the way.

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Roundup: Backfiring Conservative traps

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Once again, Conservative operatives – and their friends at Sun News Network – have been too clever for their own good. While trying to get the Liberal candidate from Banff–Airdrie on tape saying something incriminating, a Conservative staffer recorded someone else talking smack about their childcare tax credits, and then tried to claim it was the candidate. This made the Twitter and Facebook rounds, Members’ Statements in the Commons, and even backbench suck-up questions about this “beer-and-popcorn” statement made by said candidate. Only, as it turned out, it was someone else who said it, and admitted to saying it, even after said candidate was mocked for denying that he said it, and how we have cabinet ministers with egg on their faces – though I have yet to see an apology for any of the insinuations or mocking made over social media. Given that Conservative – and Sun News Network – operatives have been trying this record-and-embarrass tactic a few times before (such as the nuanced explanation that retired General Leslie made on the situation in Gaza which they tried to spin completely to distortion), one has to wonder about the detrimental impact this will have on open political discourse in this country. Nobody wants candidates to turn into scripted robots, but these kinds of “gotcha” tactics are encouraging just that.

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Roundup: An interim process

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The Commons Board of Internal Economy met yesterday and adopted the House of Commons administration policy on harassment as an interim measure going forward, but noted that they didn’t have any mandate to deal with the harassment incidents in question, and that they should be referred to the Procedure and House Affairs Committee instead (as only MPs can discipline themselves. Parliament is self-governing after all). That leaves the two suspended MPs in limbo for the time being. The NDP meanwhile are saying that one of the incidents may have actually been sexual assault and not harassment, according to Craig Scott who was in one of the meetings with one of the complainants. But the NDP’s justice critic, Françoise Boivin, said that Trudeau should have delivered a verbal warning to the two MPs and left it at that, because they didn’t want to lay charges or file a formal complaint. So they could then turn around and claim that Trudeau didn’t do anything about the incidents once he was made aware of them? Especially if they waited until the election to make that particular reveal? Trudeau maintains that he had a duty to act, which he followed up on.

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Roundup: Warnings about changes to the CSIS Act

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Stephen Blaney has confirmed that the government will table a bill next week to enhance CSIS’ powers to better combat terrorism, in order to enhance cooperation with our Five Eyes allies, and to enhance the anonymity for CSIS informants. Never mind that the Supreme Court ruled that those sources already have adequate protections, and the fact that the lawyer for Mohamed Harkat warns that the inability to cross-examine this kind of testimony is dangerous. Former Privacy Commissioner Chantal Bernier also warns that rushing into these kinds of changes could have longer-term human rights consequences. But terrorists!

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Roundup: Votes cast, commence the grumbling

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As expected, the confidence vote on the government as it ordered a combat deployment to Iraq went ahead last night and passed with little trouble, and not without a great deal more political posturing on all sides. I’m not going to say we’re going to war, because that gives ISIS too much credit, but it does escalate Canada’s role in the region, though we’ll see how long any airstrikes will be effective for. The NDP are grumbling particularly about the door being opened to combat in Syria, while Liberal MP Irwin Cotler put out a release to state his reason for abstaining from the vote, which was eloquently stated when it comes to needing to engage in some form of combat against ISIS, but not agreeing with the way this government has gone about it. In the region, Matthew Fisher notes the logistical challenges that will mean it may not be until the end of the month before our CF-18s can begin making any airstrikes. Terry Milewski notes the divisions among those opposed to the combat mission, including former Liberal voices that want it to go ahead, while Michael Den Tandt looks at the way in which the Liberals were squeezed in this debate. Paul Wells goes back to the archives to find the ways in which the Liberals handled Iraq deployments in the past, and finds the curious ways in which history repeats itself.

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