Tag Archives: Israel

Roundup: Premiers concern trolling on the carbon levy

Posted on by

A number of premiers have been writing letters to the prime minister, imploring him not to increase the carbon price on April 1st, citing the cost-of-living challenges that people are having. Unmentioned, of course, is the fact that the rebates are also increasing, and they’re front-end loaded, meaning the higher rebates already come into effect as the carbon levy increases, so if you pause the increase, the rebates will have already increased, which is going to cause a problem down the road for the federal books.

Nevertheless, this is largely concern trolling from the premiers, and yes, that includes Newfoundland and Labrador premier Andrew Furey, whom everyone has been making a big deal of because he’s currently the last Liberal premier standing, and he too is making the call. “Oh, just hold off on the increase while rates are still high!” they say, but rest assured, it will never be a good time to raise the price, and it will stall climate action, while the premiers mouth that they still believe in fighting climate change so long as it doesn’t cost them anything or that they don’t have to take any action, or that they’ll solve it through magical technology that hasn’t been invented yet, and never will be, especially not without adequate price signals that the carbon levy provides as it increases. Also, we’ve been down this road before with the price of oil. When it rises, people buy more fuel-efficient vehicles, and when it comes down, they go right back to buying SUVs and ridiculously oversized pick-up trucks that drive on suburban roads and never haul anything (especially because the box sizes in newer models are tiny).

If I were advising the government (and clearly, I’m not), I would insist that they hold the line on the increases, make the point about the rebates as much as possible—especially as they are delivering more to those who need it the most—because they can’t afford to show any further weakness on this file if they want to have any credibility left. They shouldn’t have caved on the home heating oil (but should have come up with a better temporary rebate for those in that particular situation), and they most especially shouldn’t have made the announcement in front of every single Atlantic MP (which was the single dumbest thing they could have done, so of course they did it). Maintaining the credibility of the programme may be its best hope for staying put, particularly when compared to all other options.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian missiles hit two apartment buildings in Kryvyi Rih on Tuesday, killing three people. Ukraine’s security service says it broke up the largest pro-Kremlin “informational sabotage” networks it has found to date. Russia says they fought off “incursions” coming from Ukraine in the Belgorod region, while Ukraine fired drones and missiles at a major refinery in Russia, inflicting serious damage.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Taking Atwood’s unfounded concerns too seriously

Posted on by

I am starting to think that the Globe and Mail has a secret penchant for humiliating Margaret Atwood while pretending to substantiate her concerns about legislation. They did it with Bill C-11 on online streaming, where Atwood read a bunch of utter nonsense on the internet, some of it by a fellow CanLit author who is currently a crank in the Senate, and she got concerned about bureaucrats telling people what to write. It was utterly ridiculous, but what did the Globe do? Write up her concerns as though she knew what she was talking about, including the part where she admitted she hadn’t really read the bill.

And now they’re doing it again—same journalist, in fact—about the Online Harms bill. Atwood again read some stupid things online, this time from the right-wing press in the UK, and is again worried about “Orwellian” consequences because of “vague laws” and “no oversight.” And hey, the Globe insists that because she wrote The Handmaid’s Tale, she’s an expert in Orwellian dystopias. But again, Atwood is operating on a bunch of bad information and false assumptions, and the story in the Globe doesn’t actually do the job of fact-checking any of this, it just lets her run free with this thought and spinning it out into the worst possible scenario, which if you know anything about the bill or have spoken to the experts who aren’t concern trolling (and yes, there are several), you would know that most of this is bunk.

The biggest thing that Atwood misses and the Globe story ignores entirely is that the hate speech provisions codify the Supreme Court of Canada’s standard set out in the Whatcott decision, which means that for it to qualify, it needs to rise to the level of vilification and detestation, and it sets out what that means, which includes dehumanising language, and demands for killing or exile. That’s an extremely high bar, and if you’re a government, you can’t go around punishing your enemies or censoring speech you don’t like with that particular bar codified in the gods damned bill. I really wish people would actually pay attention to that fact when they go off half-cocked on this bill, and that journalists interviewing or writing about the topic would actually mention that fact, because it’s really gods damned important. Meanwhile, maybe the Globe should lay off on talking to Atwood about her concerns until they’re certain that she has a) read the legislation, and b) understood it. Honestly.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces downed 15 out of 25 drones launched toward Odesa, while a Russian missile destroyed a grain silo in the Dnipro region. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that their frontline situation is the best it’s been in three months as they have improved their strategic position. Here is a deeper look at the Ukrainians’ retreat from Avdiivka, as ammunition was low and one of their commanders disappeared. UNESCO says that Ukraine will need more than a billion dollars to rebuild its scientific infrastructure that has been damaged or destroyed in the war.

Continue reading →

Roundup: A couple of notes on Campbell’s record

Posted on by

The weekend was full of conservatives and other right-leaning commenters chirping about Kim Campbell’s record after her (verifiably true) assessment that Pierre Poilievre is a “liar and a hate-monger” who doesn’t believe in the urgency of climate change. Some of them—such as a certain self-aggrandising independent MP—have been utterly dismissive of Campbell and her record, but most people don’t really understand what happened in 1993, and why the fact that the PCs went from a majority to two seats was hardly her doing.

The thing to remember about Brian Mulroney’s massive majorities was that he had managed to build a particular coalition of conservatives in the Prairies, and that he was won over Quebec, which is incredibly difficult for any conservative to do, and no doubt a lot of this was premised on the (somewhat hubristic) promise that he was going to finish the constitutional project that Pierre Trudeau wasn’t able to complete and bring Quebec “into the fold” (which is mostly hyperbolic nonsense anyway). By 1993, that coalition has collapsed, in part because of the failure of Mulroney’s constitutional projects, being Meech Lake and Charlottetown, the latter referendum failing.

Conservatives in Quebec has largely fallen away to the Bloc, which was formed in part by Mulroney’s old friend and confidante, Lucien Bouchard. To this day, the Dean of the House, Bloc MP Louis Plamondon, was first elected in 1984 as part of Mulroney’s PC landslide, and in 1990, crossed to the nascent Bloc. Meanwhile, the prairie conservatives had defected to the nascent Reform Party under the banner of so-called “Western alienation,” in part because of decisions that Mulroney had made, not only in areas of the constitutional reforms that failed, but also because of things like CF-18 maintenance contracts that were supposed to go to a Winnipeg firm were instead given to those in Montreal, and it exacerbated the existing grievances that the Pierre Trudeau’s National Energy Programme had inflamed (though he was largely blamed for things that were not his fault, like the collapse in world oil prices that the NEP didn’t cause, but were blamed for regardless).

Campbell inherited a PC party that had lost its voter coalition, thanks to Mulroney’s actions. The election went from three parties to five, with two very different regional parties at play. Trying to pin the blame for that collapse on Campbell is classic glass-cliff logic, where she was handed a bag of dogshit and when she didn’t perform a miracle, was given the blame for it. Did she make mistakes in that campaign? Indeed she did. Could she have resurrected the party’s fortunes with the voter coalition disbanded? Certainly not in the time allotted. For modern conservatives to say that her “record speaks for itself” don’t seem to understand what actually happened in the early 1990s, and instead are showing a particularly misogynistic streak in how they are choosing to attack her and her record.

Ukraine Dispatch:

One woman was killed in Russian shelling in the Kursk region on Sunday. Two people were killed, including a teenager, in Russian artillery attacks on the Dnipropetrovosk region on Saturday, and Russia claimed to have shot down a Ukrainian fighter jet. Here is a horrifying look at the rapes and torture that Russians have subjected Ukrainian prisoners to, particularly in occupied areas.

Continue reading →

Roundup: More lying to cover up for the lies

Posted on by

Earlier in the week, Conservative MP and justice critic Frank Caputo put out one of the party’s signature shitpost videos where he spent seven minutes talking about how he took a trip to the medium-security prison that houses notorious serial killers Paul Bernardo and Luka Magnotta, and it was replete with this theatrical outrage that the facility has a hockey rink and a tennis court. How dare they! Such “luxury”! Caputo also says he got to tour Bernardo’s cell while Bernardo was away, but that he came face-to-face with him after, and that Bernardo ask him something.

Well, it turns out that encounter didn’t actually happen. Correctional Services says that they were at opposite ends of a corridor and may have seen one another but didn’t interact. They also said that the hockey rink that Caputo was complaining about hasn’t been in service for the past couple of years, so as to dispute the notion that Bernardo is spending his days playing pick-up hockey.

Well, the Conservatives didn’t like that. Andrew Scheer accused The Canadian Press of bias for quoting the Correctional Services. Caputo claims that they denied the existence of the hockey rink, which they didn’t. And Pierre Poilievre’s press secretary accused CP of lying to cover for the government, except he was the one lying.

It’s galling just how egregious the Conservatives have lied throughout this affair—both Caputo lying on his shitpost video, and then all of the other Conservatives trying to run interference and lying about CP’s reporting. CP, the most egregious of both-sidesers in order to maintain strict neutrality in all things. But they will say and do anything to discredit the media, both to build their dystopian alternate reality, but to also condition their followers to believe absolutely anything, and to just ignore all of the cognitive dissonance. And of course, their apologists will either keep lying or keep trying to distract from the lies in order to try and whitewash the whole affair. This is the kind of thing that kills democracies, and they’re gleefully going along with it.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces say that they have sunk another Russian warship using unmanned sea drones.

Continue reading →

QP: Escalating histrionics about the two fired scientists

Posted on by

The prime minister was off in Thunder Bay, and his deputy otherwise absent as well, leaving only one other party leader present. Michael Chong led off in French, and he went on a tear about the Winnipeg Lab documents, and the lack of responsibility for it. Mark Holland said that the health agency is independent, and the government created a process to release the information, and that there was an RCMP investigation. Chong switched to English to insist that the Canada-China committee could have done the work of the ad hoc process (erm, not really), and demanded an end to any collaboration between the Lab and China. Holland said that any foreign interference was unacceptable, and that this was about two Canadian citizens who lied, and they faced the consequences. Chong went on a tear about sensitive information being sent to China and biological weapons, and Holland disputed this characterisation of this, and that this was an example of the government going beyond usual transparency requirements. Stephen Ellis repeated the biological weapons accusation and gave a swipe about the prime minster admiring China. Holland said that there was plenty of legitimate collaboration around Ebola at the time, and that they shouldn’t weaponise national security for partisan purposes. Ellis read an even more fictional version of cover-ups, to which Holland reminded him that the government shouldn’t be redacting the documents of an independent health agency. 

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and demanded that the federal government stay out of any Supreme Court of Canada appeal of Quebec’s “secularism” law. Arif Virani said that he is still reading the decision, but the federal government will stand up for Charter rights before the courts. Normandin repeated her demand, and Virani repeated that they will defend the Charter.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and tried to needle the government about how one of the ArriveCan consultants was actually a civil servant. Bill Blair said that as soon as they found out the contractor was a DND employee, they suspended the employee and the contracts. Singh switched to French to raise the plight of a family who lost their housing in Montreal, and Soraya Martinez Ferrada noted that they doubled funding for communities to fight against homelessness.

Continue reading →

Roundup: The Winnipeg Lab documents revealed at last

Posted on by

We finally got a look at the Winnipeg Lab documents yesterday, and the reason why those two research scientists were fired, and it’s certainly far more innocuous than the lurid tales that certain Conservative MPs have been telling over the years. The short version is that the scientists in question, likely out of sheer naïveté and belief in the goodness of science, were far too trusting of Chinese counterparts, and didn’t like to follow rules and protocols when they didn’t feel like it, and eventually, lied to CSIS security screeners about their activities. This doesn’t appear to be some kind of major espionage, but a pair of scientists were entirely too precious, and were used to having their own way, and became security risks as a result, hence their termination.

It shouldn’t have taken this long to see the documents, but this was a whole dog-and-pony show for the Conservatives, who demanded—bizarrely­—that the Commons’ law clerk do the redactions for the documents rather than trained public servants, never mind that the clerk has no national security training and doesn’t know what to look for in terms of potential security issues. Even though the government turned the documents over to NSICOP in an unredacted form, the Conservatives went and boycotted the committee for theatrical reasons alone, and eventually, the government came up with an ad hoc process that involved MPs from all parties and retired judges to go through the documents, and it took years longer than it should have if they just let NSICOP do its work in the first place. There was no reason for them to object and to do this song and dance, and make false accusations about what was being hidden, and yet they carried on like this for years for absolutely no reason.

Predictably, Pierre Poilievre is trying to make this an issue about Justin Trudeau “allowing” this potential security breach, except that these scientists did most of their work in the Harper era, and the Public Health Agency of Canada is an arm’s-length agency, which the government cannot micro-manage. Kind of like CBSA. There has been zero contrition from Michael Chong about the fact that he has been spinning outright fictions and conspiracy theories about these documents for the past four years, but he sold out his integrity years ago, so none of this is surprising. And now that these documents have been released, I will point out that reporter Dylan Robertson was getting these stories and had the context of their firing correct when he was reporting on this for the Winnipeg Free Press years ago. That reporting all stands up with the release of these documents, and he deserves major props for it.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians bombed the Kharkiv region, killing four people including a six-year-old girl and a priest. Here’s a look at the new chief of military intelligence for Ukraine, who has hinted that the country’s previous counter-offensive plans wound up in Russian hands before it had begun. Ukraine’s finance minister says they need about $3 billion in foreign aid per month in order to maintain macroeconomic stability through the year.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Trying to allay diaspora concerns

Posted on by

After two diaspora groups pulled out of the foreign interference inquiry, Justice Marie-Josée Hogue released a statement yesterday outlining precautions that are being taken to protect witnesses and sensitive information, which is hoped will allay their concerns (though some of those concerns have to do with the three politicians being given standing and the ability to cross-examine other witnesses).

It should probably be noted that this was probably inevitable. David Johnston warned as much of this in recommending against a public inquiry, but hey, politics took over and here we are.

https://twitter.com/chercywong/status/1760726555259752568

Ukraine Dispatch:

There has been a drone strike in Odessa, killing three. It is hoped that examining the debris of the North Korean missiles that the Russians have acquired and are using against Ukraine will offer clues as to how they are avoiding sanctions. Here’s a look at two years of conflict through the eyes of one Ukrainian soldier who has seen it all. Here is a look at those whose relatives have gone missing in combat and their bodies not yet found. Reuters has a photo library from the first two years of the war.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1760766644995887429

Continue reading →

Roundup: Leaking an MP’s private conversation

Posted on by

There were plenty of tongues wagging yesterday as a private phone conversation that parliamentary secretary for foreign affairs Rob Oliphant had with a constituent about the situation in the Middle East was leaked to the media, showing how he disagreed with some of the positions the government has taken for political reasons, and how they have badly communicated on some of the particulars. It’s a little bit grubby to have leaked the conversation, because it makes it harder for more MPs to be frank in their interactions for fear of this exact thing happening, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the leaders of other caucuses in particular used this as an object lesson in message discipline and never straying from it. (And before anyone says anything, the NDP tend to be worse than the Conservatives about this sort of thing).

When asked about the leaked comments, prime minister Justin Trudeau didn’t go off, and talked about how it’s great how much diversity of opinion there is in the Liberal caucus, so it sounds like Oliphant’s job is safe, but then again it’s also possible Trudeau was saying this and that Oliphant will be dropped in a week or two, once the spotlight isn’t directly on him, because he broke message discipline, even if this was supposed to be a private conversation.

Regardless, Oliphant says he sticks by his words and says there’s nothing he wouldn’t say publicly, and if anything, he’s probably conveying the delicate tightrope that the government is being forced to walk on this better than the government is doing, in particular because he has a deep knowledge of the region, and can express it better. If Trudeau and his inner circle have any brains, they would get him to do a better job of crafting their messaging for them, but we all know that the communications geniuses in this PMO are allergic to taking any lessons, so I have my doubts that they’ll turn to Oliphant to up their game.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russia launched new missile and drone attacks against several Ukrainian cities, air defences taking out half of them. At least three civilians were killed in an airstrike on the Kharkiv region; in spite of the constant attacks, the people of Kharkiv keep on. Ukraine is withdrawing some of its forces from Avdiivka in order to get them to more defensible positions while one of their special forces heading to the region. France will be signing a security assurances agreement with Ukraine in Paris today.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1758143268313870473

Continue reading →

QP: Demands to turn over documents

Posted on by

The prime minister was off in Winnipeg for a healthcare announcement with premier Wab Kinew, and his deputy was away in Toronto, while most of the other leaders were also absent. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and after deploying a half-dozen slogans, he broached the ArriveCan issue and said that he was told that a court order would be required to get a court order for the production of documents, and wanted the government to turn them all over. Jean-Yves Duclos said that the Auditor General did good work in her damning report, and that they have taken steps and more would follow soon, and that they were being transparent and turning over all requested documents to the RCMP and elsewhere. Poilievre switched to English to repeat the allegation that the RCMP needs a production order for records and again demanded that the government simply turn over the documents to the RCMP and committees. Duclos cautioned that Poilievre sounded like he was calling into question the capabilities of the Auditor General. Poilievre repeated his claim and again demanded that all documents related to ArriveCan or GC Strategies be turned over. Dominic LeBlanc insisted that they have been cooperative. Poilievre then quoted Thomas Mulcair on the situation, Poilievre wondered why the NDP were keeping the government in power, but that wasn’t a question to government. LeBlanc got up anyway to insist that they have taken this situation seriously. Poilievre then quoted Sean Fraser, claiming he was attacking himself, and demanded the government start building homes. Soraya Martinez Ferrada got up to pat the government on the back for working with mayors, and said that unlike when Poilievre was minister, they were getting housing built.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he wanted an expanded investigation into GC Strategies. Duclos reminded him of the scope of urgency in the pandemic, but said it wasn’t an excuse for civil servants not to do their jobs properly. Therrien demanded a “clean sweep” at CBSA, to which Duclos agreed that there needed to be an investigation, several of which are ongoing.

Heather McPherson rose for the NDP, and raised the number of casualties in Gaza, but insisted that the government is keeping up with arms sales (which they haven’t), and called out Rob Oliphant’s leaked comments. Ahmed Hussen insisted that Canada was the first to start offering humanitarian aid. Daniel Blaikie wanted support for the party’s bill on amending EI benefits, and Randy Boissonnault said that the work to modernise the system is ongoing, and this particular issue of women on mat leave being laid off was before the courts.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Another day of Guilbeault-baiting

Posted on by

It’s becoming a little too predictable, and yet here we are again. Steven Guilbeault said something not even that controversial—that we have enough roads to suit our needs so the government isn’t going to spend more infrastructure dollars on major projects to grow them, while they focus on other things like transit and active transport. He’s not even terribly wrong for the most part—there is reams of evidence to show that expanding roads and highways doesn’t cure congestion but merely causes more, so the focus should be on other priorities.

Predictably, everyone freaked out—Conservatives went into full meltdown, and the premiers all lined up to howl about this, when again, they know he’s not wrong, and oh, by the way, there isn’t any money left in the infrastructure fund anyway, so why does it matter? Guilbeault was trotted out to say that he should have been more specific in his comments, and he was mostly referring to the Third Link proposal in Quebec City, which they have no intention of funding, but of course, by that point, the narrative is set as chuds across the Internet have been memeing this for all it’s worth.

Dunking on Guilbeault has become something of a national preoccupation, and news media likes nothing more than to both-sides this sort of thing, taking the bait to continue to give uncharitable readings and framing this as he and the government being “out of touch.” If there’s one thing that makes everyone angry, it’s the whole “war on the car” bullshit that keeps incredibly bad city councillors and mayors in power across this country. And we wonder why we are incapable of serious discourse in this country?

https://twitter.com/s_guilbeault/status/1757961974137168362

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces say that they used naval drones to sink a Russian landing ship in the Black Sea. Here is an explainer of the security assurances that Ukraine is signing with a number of countries including Canada.

Continue reading →