Tag Archives: Jean-Yves Duclos

Roundup: Few answers at committee

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The Procedure and House Affairs committee met yesterday for an emergency meeting around these recent allegations of Chinese interference in the last election, and it wasn’t the most illuminating exercise—not just because MPs constant attempts at point-scoring, but because most of the national security agencies couldn’t answer very many questions, because answering questions can jeopardise sources or investigations. And we got the same cautions that virtually every media outlet is ignoring, which is that intelligence is not evidence, and much of it is out of context or incomplete, which is why everything needs to be taken with a grain of salt and not repeated credulously the way absolutely everyone is.

We did learn a couple of things. The first is that the RCMP were the ones who opted not to proceed with any investigations or charges around interference when presented with information about it. The second is that the prime minister is being briefed constantly about these kinds of threats, and that the problem is getting worse instead of better.

And then there were all of the calls for a national public inquiry, which the NDP insisted they were going to try and look tough in demanding. Not to be outdone, Poilievre not only demanded an inquiry, but said that all recognised party leaders had to have a say in who would chair it, otherwise it would just be another “Liberal crony” (which was again used as a smear against Morris Rosenberg). The prime minister’s national security advisor said that a public inquiry wouldn’t get many more answers because of the nature of the secret information, and all of that would still be kept out of the public eye, which is a good point. Incidentally, the opposition parties cannot demand a public inquiry—it doesn’t work like that. They can’t force a vote in the House of Commons, or anything like that, so this is once again, mostly just performance.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Despite the warnings that the Ukrainians may not be able to hold Bakhmut for much longer, they nevertheless held positions for another day, while Russian forces are also gearing up for a renewed offensive in the Zaporizhzhia region.

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Roundup: Sanctimonious outrage over unsavoury characters

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There was another bout of sanctimonious outrage in the House of Commons yesterday as a notorious Holocaust-denier attended an event put on by MPs of the Canada-Palestine Parliamentary Friendship Group, and the Conservatives (and Melissa Lantsman in particular) demanded apologies and denunciations. While at least two Liberals, Salma Zahid and Omar Alghabra, denounced, there hasn’t been much of an apology, but noted that said denier was not invited, but that an open invitation went out to the Palestinian community and he was one of 150 or so who showed up. One would think that with a topic as sensitive as solidarity with the Palestinian people that there would have been more of an emphasis on ensuring that someone like this didn’t show up, but they didn’t. In QP, Alghabra was not incorrect in noting that they can’t control the attendance at every public event and that sometimes unsavoury people will show up, which is true—but again, you should know with an event like this that it’s going to attract certain characters, and to beware.

What is rich, however, is that when far-right extremists showed up at Pierre Poilievre’s rallies, or when he cavorted with the occupiers on Parliament Hill in February, or when he went on that walk with members of Diagalon, that he and his caucus insisted that he couldn’t be held to account for those people showing up. And lo, they have a different standard when it happens to others. It’s something of a pox on all their houses situation—the MPs who hosted the Palestinian event should have been more careful, and headed off trouble when they saw who showed up, while the Conservatives need to own when they were attracting extremists, and consorting with them. But I have little doubt that either side will own this, and the sanctimonious outrage will continue, back and forth from each side, in perpetuity.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 282:

Russian shelling has taken out power in over a third of recently liberated Kherson, and Ukrainian officials are reiterating their call for civilians to relocate for the time being. Meanwhile, here’s a look at the grinding battle near Bakhmut, whose strategic importance is questioned, but nevertheless, the well-fortified Ukrainians are exacting a heavy toll from Russian forces, even though it is costing between 30 to 50 Ukrainian casualties per day.

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Roundup: The federal walkout in the face of the premiers’ games

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The federal-provincial health ministers’ meeting broke down with federal ministers Jean-Yves Duclos and Carolyn Bennett walking out after a communiqué from the premiers was leaked, decrying a failure of the talks, drafted five days ago, indicating that there was no intent to listen to the federal government’s position on tying increased funding to accountability measures like outcomes and pan-Canadian data. Duclos said in his press scrum after walking out that just increasing the transfer to provinces is not a plan, which is one hundred percent correct, because we know that provinces have a demonstrated history of spending additional federal dollars on other things that are not healthcare. (Duclos’ statement here). The provincial spokes-minister, Adrian Dix, carried on with his disingenuous talking points about not being able to fix the system without more money, or demanding a first ministers’ meeting about this, the only purpose of which would be for the premiers to gang up on the prime minister for the cameras. Dix also painted this false picture of lamenting that the federal government couldn’t come together with them like they did over COVID, completely ignoring that the federal government sent billions of additional dollars to provinces for COVID and most of those provinces simply put that money directly onto their bottom lines to end their fiscal year with a surplus, which is not the point of sending money to them for healthcare.

Justin Trudeau, earlier in the day, was already calling the premiers out on this bullshit by pointing out that they are crying poor while they are offering tax breaks for their wealthier citizens, which is not a sign that their budgets are hurting for federal dollars. And this is exactly the point—premiers have largely decided to make this the federal government’s problem, because they can get away with this particular lie. Legacy media will continue to take the line that so long as a single federal dollar is involved, this becomes a federal responsibility, which is not how this works. The crumbling healthcare system is not the federal government’s problem. They have done nothing but increase funding year over year. The provinces have created this mess, and in all likelihood exacerbated it deliberately in order to force the federal government’s hand in giving them a lot more money with no strings attached, but the federal government isn’t blinking, and is finally starting to call bullshit. Let’s see if legacy media actually catches on (but I have serious doubts they will).

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 259:

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he’s willing to negotiate peace—on his terms, and not Russia’s, but forestalled criticism Russia was levelling against him. Otherwise, there was more shelling in Bakhmut, and two civilians were seriously wounded by unexploded mines around Kharkiv.

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Roundup: More alike than unalike

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The NDP decided that the bilateral meeting between Justin Trudeau and Joe Biden was the perfect time to take to shitposting about it, in the form of a juvenile mock-up of the agenda items, and making their remarks on them. Because this is where we’re at in this country – our two main opposition parties have decided that the online tactics of shitposting are definitely the way to win the hearts and minds of Canadian voters.

In the NDP’s case, this is not only about trolling Trudeau, but also Biden, because they have made a concerted effort to appeal to the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez/Bernie Sanders fanbase – consistent with their lifting their policy ideas wholesale, no matter whether or not they have any relevance in the Canadian context. This tends to involve a certain amount of trying to “win the Internet,” whether it’s with Jagmeet Singh adopting TikTok memes, or the culmination of this attempt to co-opt American Democrat cred when Singh and Ocasio-Cortez played Among Us over Twitch as part of a fundraiser. As a more centrist, compromise candidate, Biden is seen as a betrayal of the progressive wing of the Democrats, and you can bet that the Canadian New Democrats trying to appeal to them is going to cash in on that as much as possible.

None of this should be too surprising, however – the NDP have long-since abandoned any real sense of ideology for the sake of being left-flavoured populists, running after flavours of the week and pursuing policies that don’t actually make sense for their own purported principles (like their demand to cut the HST off of home heating, which would only disproportionately reward the wealthy). In this way, they have been more like the Conservatives than unalike for a while now, but with this full-on embrace of shitposting (as opposed to simply the mendacious omission of jurisdictional boundaries in their demands) just drives that point home.

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Roundup: Exit Morneau

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After a week of leaks about clashes, finance Bill Morneau took to a lectern late in the day on Monday to announce that he had tendered his resignation, and would be resigning both as minister and as MP. Well, first he did some back-patting over his record and couched the decision by saying that he never planned to serve more than two election cycles, and since the economic recovery would take years, it was better for someone else to step in who could carry the work through. The bombshell out of this was the face-saving gesture that he had put his name forward to be the next secretary general of the OECD, and that he had the PM’s full support in doing so – which is either really cute that he thinks he actually has a chance, or a bit pathetic in that he offered up an excuse that beggared credulity. The Q&A portion had very few answers, but this kind of pabulum is what Morneau was so good at – lots of words, not a lot of substance. When asked about the difference that he was apparently clashing with Trudeau over, Morneau mouthed that there was “vigorous discussion and debate,” and that he hoped that work on the green economy could continue and that he would try to help with the OECD (which he won’t get). He denied that he was pressured to resign, said that when it came to WE, he has been involved in philanthropy for many years and that in hindsight he wished that he had one things differently and recused himself – and yet said nothing about the donor trip he didn’t disclose. He insisted that he still wanted to contribute, and said that at the OECD, he would deal with things like international taxation and digital transformation, and use the expertise he gained as the finance minister of a G7 country to help, but, well, that’s not going to happen and we all know it.

Liberal Sources™ are saying that there won’t be an interim finance minister, though the Orders in Council say that Mona Fortier is already the Acting Minister since Morneau is out of the picture. The leading contenders for the job appear to be Jean-Yves Duclos, Chrystia Freeland, and François-Philippe Champagne.

Meanwhile, Paul Wells describes the strange circumstances that surrounded Morneau’s departure – particularly the leaks to the media about fights that Morneau lost and was gracious about, with added snark about how the departure went down. Heather Scoffield notes the good work Morneau did before agreeing that it was time for him to go. (Look for my own column on Morneau’s departure later today on Loonie Politics).

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Roundup: Civil liberties or delegated taxation authority

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Prime minister Justin Trudeau was in Prime Minister Dad mode during yesterday’s presser, telling people to stay home and that “enough is enough,” you’re not invincible, and you’re only putting others’ lives at risk. In terms of announcements, he talked about Parliament passing the emergency fiscal measures, that Farm Credit Canada was opening up funds, that flights were secured for a few countries that have secured their airspace, and that more funds were made available for vaccine and drug testing for COVID-19. He also spoke about his planned call with premiers to better coordinate emergency powers, and clarified that the Emergencies Act was largely about the federal government assuming the powers that provinces or municipalities haven’t enacted – in other words, it’s those levels of government that can suspend civil liberties in this time, and he’s trying to get premiers on the same page.

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For the bulk of the day, all anyone could talk about however was the Emergencies Act, and every journalist in town wanted to know why it hadn’t been invoked yet, and when they would do so. Trudeau, and later Freeland, kept making the point that it was a tool of last resort that would only be used when all other tools have been exhausted, but that doesn’t seem to have deterred anyone – lest of all New Brunswick premier Blaine Higgs, who said that he wanted the federal government to invoke it, either because he’s too reluctant to use the significant powers he has at his disposal provincially and would rather Ottawa do it for him, or because he can’t seem to deal with his fellow premiers to coordinate anything. And while everyone was practically begging the government to start taking away civil liberties, they also lost their minds when it was leaked that the government planned a significant overreach in their fiscal aid legislation that would have essentially given them delegated authority over taxation for up to December 2021 – which is clearly unconstitutional, but hey, they mean well, right? They backed down, but cripes the lack of competence in this government sometimes… (Look for more on this in my column, later today).

Meanwhile, here’s John Michael McGrath explaining why the federal government doesn’t need to invoke the Act, while Justin Ling notes that measures that trample civil liberties generally make problems worse instead of better. Adnan Khan ponders individual liberties versus authoritarianism in a time of crisis. In this thread, Philippe Lagassé explains more about the Act.

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Roundup: It’s Cabinet Shuffle Day!

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We are now well into Cabinet leak territory, and right now the news is that Chrystia Freeland will indeed be moving – but we don’t know where. We do know that François-Philippe Champagne will replace her at Foreign Affairs, that Pablo Rodriguez will be the new Government House Leader (after we already heard that Steven Guilbeault will take over Canadian Heritage), plus Seamus O’Regan moving to Natural Resources, that Jonathan Wilkinson is taking over Environment and Catherine McKenna will take over Infrastructure. We’re also hearing from Quebec media that Jean-Yves Duclos will take over Treasury Board, and that Mélanie Joly is due for a promotion – but no hint as to what it means otherwise. Still no word on Public Safety, which is a huge portfolio that will need a very skilled hand to deal with in the absence of Ralph Goodale.

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Meanwhile, some of the other roles that Trudeau needs to decide who are not in Cabinet will include the whip, parliamentary secretaries, and considerations for committee chairs (though he won’t have the final say on those as they are ostensibly elected by the committees themselves, and it’s the whips who largely determine who will sit on which committee). Committees are especially important in a hung parliament, so this could mean big roles for those who didn’t make it into Cabinet.

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Roundup: Scheer’s own personal Brexit idea

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You may have heard the Conservatives making a big push over the past couple of weeks about promising that they would bow to Quebec’s wishes and let them have a single tax return (as in, surrender the federal authority to collect income tax in the province, as opposed to Quebec returning to the system that every other province uses by which the federal government collects all taxes and turns over their provincial share). While the Conservatives portray it as a simple administrative change, and that there wouldn’t even need to be any job losses – just put those 5000 CRA employees in Quebec to work on tax evasion! – it’s really a lot more complicated than that. While Alan Freeman wrote about the history and why it’s naked pandering to Quebec, tax economist Kevin Milligan walks through the complexity, and quite tellingly, notes that this is a Brexit-like proposal from Scheer – bold idea, no proposal of how to implement it. And yes, that is a problem.

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Roundup: Sexts and extortion

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Conservative MP Tony Clement has resigned from Conservative shadow cabinet and his parliamentary duties (but not from caucus) after he was victim to an attempted extortion after sharing “sexually explicit images and video” with someone.

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Some observations:

  • Clement is part of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, which is of the highest security classification. Being a target for blackmail on that is a Very Big Deal, and can’t be excused by those who don’t want to be involved in any kind of shaming for sexting. Clement apparently notified PCO about this a few days ago, so this is serious in how it affects his role with NSICOP, and now they will need to find a new member to fill that vacancy.
  • This is likely to get bigger. Already a number of women are coming forward over social media about his creepy behaviour on Instagram and this kind of thing has apparently happened before (sans extortion attempt).
  • The Conservatives can stop being so smug about the fact that they haven’t had to boot anyone from caucus for being sexually inappropriate. Clement is still in caucus for the moment, but we’ll see how this grows in the next few days.
  • Clement says that he’ll be “seeking treatment,” which is the really gross part here, because it employs the language of trying to medicalise sexual harassment or inappropriate behaviour. And when you try to medicalise it, you try to diminish personal responsibility – as this Tracey Ullman sketch so amply demonstrates.

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Senate QP: Duclos versus petulant questions

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It’s rare that there is drama around ministers appearing at Senate Question Period, but it happened today. While senators had initially been promised an appearance by finance minister Bill Morneau, he ended up jetting off to Vancouver with the prime minister for the LNG announcement. Apparently Senators were apprised at 11 AM that he wouldn’t be appearing due to “obligations related to NAFTA negotiations,” and the Conservatives got a bit miffed by the last-minute switch to minister Jean-Yves Duclos. Senator Larry Smith led off, noting that they expected Minister Morneau and would ask some questions to the government leader instead, and he launched into a broadside over the trade deal and he lack of action on steel and aluminium tariffs. Senator Harder said that the matter was subject to a stream that was different from the NAFTA agreement, and that the government was still negotiating on them.

Senator Eaton also asked about the clause in the new agreement about “non-market countries” and what it meant for trade with China. Harder responded that all agreements have clauses the termination of the agreement, and it wasn’t surprising and that this particular clause references the opportunity of all sides to review the agreements that any of the three partners might enter into with third parties and that the signatories to NAFTA aren’t disadvantaged.

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