For caucus day, all leaders were present (for a change), and when Andrew Scheer led off, he read some scripted concerns about carbon taxes raising the price of everything, and demanded to know how much it would cost families. Trudeau got up to respond that the Conservatives tried doing nothing and were trying to justify it now. Scheer switched to English and said that the PM was gleeful there were high gas prices in BC and accused him of not caring because he’s a millionaire. Trudeau said that it wasn’t what he said, and that this was just an attempt to create fear and division from a party that doesn’t have a plan. Scheer switched back to French to accuse the government of trying to game the electoral system for their own benefit, and Trudeau noted that this was about taking the influence of money out of politics. Scheer accused Trudeau of rigging the system to punish those who disagree with him, listing a number of conflated incidents that were “proof” of such behaviour. Trudeau responded that Conservatives tried to make it harder to vote while his party was trying to make it easier. Scheer accused the government of imposing fundraising restrictions because the Liberals can’t raise as much money as they can, and then demanded that ministerial travel be restricted in the pre-writ period, to which Trudeau said that the record number of voters in the last election was not because of the Conservative changes, but rather, it was about getting Stephen Harper out of office. Guy Caron was up next for the NDP, complaining that they didn’t have enough time to evaluate the candidate for Chief Electoral Officer. In response, Trudeau took up a script to read some praise for the candidate, and then Nathan Cullen asked the same in English, but with a truckload of added sanctimony. Trudeau read the English version of his same script. Cullen then accused the government of rigging the Trans Mountain approval process, to which Trudeau assured him that they enhanced the assessment process. Caron took over to ask the same again in French, saying that putting a financial stake in Kinder Morgan was the kind of subsidy that the government promised to end, but Trudeau repeated his response, insisting that any stake was about the project being in the national interest.
Tag Archives: Kinder Morgan
Roundup: An “uncontroversial” bill delayed
It’s starting to become something of a rote exercise – that whenever the Senate does its job and considers large and contentious legislation, it’s accused of moving slowly. Most of the time, they’re actually moving fairly swiftly in the context of how bills get passed, but that’s not the narrative. And every single time, the pundit class will moan about how they’re frustrating the “will of Parliament” (because that’s how they refer to the House of Commons, when it is in fact but a third of what constitutes Parliament – the Senate and the Crown being the other two aspects), and on and on we go. This week’s performative disbelief that the Senate is daring to do the job required of it is around the marijuana bill – but not just that, but the accompanying bill regarding mandatory roadside testing. While the marijuana bill is actually proceeding fairly quickly given the agreed-upon timelines that Senators set for themselves on the bill (though they were slow off the mark because Senator Harder thought it wise to have the Senate rise essentially a week early at Christmas and then not consider the bill again until well after they’d returned so that he could put on the dog and pony show of having three ministers appear in Committee of the Whole before second reading debate even began), the mandatory testing bill is languishing at committee. Why? While John Ivison may consider the bill “relatively uncontroversial,” it is actually the opposite, and there is a debate raging about the bill’s constitutionality, and many senators – including one who helped to author the Charter of Rights and Freedoms back in 1982 – are unimpressed with the government’s assurances. After all, they went through a decade of the Harper government insisting that their justice bills were Charter-compliant, only for them to be struck down by the courts, one after another.
Of course, this too has led to debates in the Senate about their role and whether they should be challenging the constitutionality of bills. Some of the Independent senators, which Leader of the Government in the Senate – err, “government representative,” Senator Peter Harder has added his voice to, believing that Senators shouldn’t substitute their judgment for that of the courts, citing that because these issues aren’t black and white that the courts should handle them. (In the same breath as Harder says this, he also says that they shouldn’t be rubber stamps, apparently unable to pick a lane). So to say that this is “uncontroversial” means that someone isn’t paying attention to the debate – only what’s being told to him by the government’s mouthpiece (in this case, Bill Blair).
If the Senate passes C-45 before C-46, the sky won’t fall. They can apply existing impaired driving laws, because, newsflash, people already drive high while pot is illegal. Once again, the government isn’t inventing cannabis – they’re legalizing and regulating it. Will it be more difficult without detection devices? Maybe. But it’s not like there’s a legal vacuum. Let’s calm down a little.
QP: Tax credits vs carbon taxes
While Justin Trudeau was away in Toronto, Andrew Scheer was absent once again (despite having been in Ottawa for the National Prayer Breakfast), leaving it to Lisa Raitt to lead off, worrying that Atlantic Canadians haven’t had a real wage increase which would be made worse by a carbon tax. Catherine McKenna reminded her that climate change impacts will make things worse and more expensive, and wondered why the other party didn’t have a plan. Raitt concerned trolls that high fuel prices would mean people can’t make choices to walk, to which McKenna turned the concern around to point to the children in the Gallery and the world they will inherit. Raitt demanded the government support their Supply Day motion about not imposing carbon taxes, and McKenna reminded her of the costs of climate change, and the trillion dollar clean energy opportunity. Alain Rayes then raised in French all of the tax credits that the government cancelled to decry the imposition of a carbon tax, to which McKenna again asked what the Conservative plan was. After another round of the same, Guy Caron was up next for the NDP, raising the changed candidate for the new Chef Electoral Officer, to which Brison reminded him that they should respect the privacy of those who engage in the appointment process. Caron asked again in English, to which Brison reiterate his admonishing. Hélène Laverdière was up next to raise the federal report on use of Canadian LAVs in Saudi Arabia, questioning its veracity. François-Philippe Champagne reminded her that they are passing legislation to strengthen control of arms abroad. Laverdière quipped that the bill has holes in it, and then reiterated the question in English before calling on the government to suspend arms exports to Saudi Arabia. Champagne reiterated his remarks about the bill, thanking MPs for their input.
Rayes: “The PBO, who is neutral…” and then selectively quotes the report that mischaracterizes why it said.
Good job, guys. #QP— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) May 8, 2018
Roundup: Questions about Scheer’s assertions
Andrew Scheer went to Calgary yesterday to talk to that city’s Chamber of Commerce and said a few things that I feel should probably stand a bit of questioning. Like the fact that he thinks it’s a “red flag” to use taxpayer funds to backstop the Trans Mountain expansion pipeline. And it’s fair that there’s scepticism about governments essentially subsidizing private business, but it’s his assertion that “governments investing tax dollars in energy projects is not the optimal solution.” Sure, it’s not optimal, but it’s complete and total historical revisionism to suggestion that this is somehow new or novel. Given the ways that governments, both federal and provincial, have de facto subsidized the development of the oilsands with generous royalty breaks and other tax incentives has been sinking a hell of a lot of taxpayer dollars into energy projects. And yes, there was a whole national crisis that had a hand in bringing down a federal government around the government sinking money into a cross-country pipeline.
But the other statement that Scheer makes that I find a bit puzzling is this continued insistence that somehow provinces were forced to “take matters into their own hands” over the Trans Mountain issue because the federal government showed a lack of leadership. And I’m still trying to figure out how this works. For starters, which provinces is he referring to? BC, which took it upon themselves to challenge federal jurisdiction in a naked attempt to appease a coalition partner? Or Alberta, who escalated tactics on the basis of a press release? “They should use all of the tools at their disposal,” Scheer insists of the federal government, and yet I’m not sure what exactly they were supposed to do. They already have jurisdiction – trying to re-assert it would imply that there was a question when there isn’t one, and creating doubt would embolden opponents. There wasn’t anything to challenge in the courts because BC had only put out a press release, and nobody even had a clue about what specific questions BC was raising until they filed their court reference this past week. How would going half-cocked have helped matters? But demanding they “use all the tools” sounds an awful lot like hand-wavey nonsense that serves to only invoke the politician’s syllogism than it does to suggest meaningful action. Kinder Morgan, meanwhile, has used this exercise in threatening to pull out in order to exact political leverage (and the fact that a private company is attempting to blackmail governments is not a good look), but there remain questions outside of all of this as to their own obligations to fulfil the conditions imposed on them by the National Energy Board for continued approval of the project. That can’t be glossed over.
I’m also curious what else he thinks the federal government should have done to silence BC’s objections, considering that he’s also supporting the Saskatchewan government’s attempt to push back against the imposition of the federal carbon backstop price. Is his position that federal governments should bigfoot provinces to get pipelines, but that they don’t dare interfere in areas of shared jurisdiction like the environment? That’s an interesting needle to thread, and somehow, I doubt we’ll see him attempting to do so anytime soon.
Roundup: Erin Weir’s apostasy
First thing Thursday morning, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh took to the microphone in the Foyer, caucus behind him, to announce that he had expelled Erin Weir from caucus following the conclusion of the investigation into harassment allegations. And to be clear, he wasn’t kicked out because of the conclusions, given that Weir agreed to anti-harassment training and conciliation with his accusers – rather, it was because he had the temerity to go to the media to respond to the leaked allegations made to him without getting the permission of the leader’s office. And then the other MPs told reporters that Weir “expelled himself” by doing so, because it meant there was no trust in that relationship. So…wow.
To be clear, we don’t have much in the way of details about the allegations that were sustained in the report, but we have Weir’s word for them, and the clues that Singh dropped. That the former senior staffer in Mulcair’s office leaked to the CBC forced Weir’s hand in responding (which he says he asked Singh’s office, and they never responded to him), and this was the basis of the policy dispute on the floor of the Saskatchewan NDP convention where that staffer threw her weight around, and then accused him of harassment. As for the three “sustained” incidents of sexual harassment, Singh said it was because Weir failed to read “non-verbal cues” but that when he was told his advances were unwarranted, he ceased. Weir says that he was told over the course of the investigation that it was essentially because he’s a “close talker” and failed to realize that it made some people uncomfortable, but he has no idea who his accusers were, and says that after the initial complaint about him that the party essentially put out a “call for proposals” from staff to see if there were any complaints, which does seem a bit suspicious. It also seems like there is a giant inflation in terms of what constitutes harassment and sexual harassment, particularly coming from an MP who is a bit socially awkward.
https://twitter.com/moebius_strip/status/992068538142605312
https://twitter.com/moebius_strip/status/992071432912781312
Weir contends that he will sit as an independent for now, hoping that Singh will see reason, but given how the ranks have closed around him in a way they didn’t when David Christopherson got punished for breaking ranks on a vote suggests that Weir is now guilty of some form of apostasy, particularly that he had the temerity to defend himself in public when his accuser apparently leaked to the media to get ahead of the report when the leader’s office would have had him be humiliated publicly while he waited for permission to respond, which reinforces this notion that there can be cult-like behaviour in the party. Meanwhile, Don Martin suggests that the outcome of this mess suggests that this became a witch hunt, while John Ivison contends that this whole affair is not reflecting well on Singh, who continues to flounder as party leader. At Issue also took a look, and notes the rumours circulating that the party was looking for an excuse to boot Weir for whatever the reason.
May 3rd, 2018: At Issue: "NDP expels MP from caucus, electoral reform bill" with @RosieBarton, @ACoyne, @ChantalHbert, and @AlthiaRaj: https://t.co/WhCD4q1SyE
— At Issue Videos (@AtIssueCBC) May 4, 2018
Good reads:
- Justin Trudeau says they will not delay implementing legal cannabis, but that will still likely mean a September rollout, and that legalization is a “process.”
- Scandal! The Trudeau family’s meals are prepared at 24 Sussex and then sent to Rideau Cottage by messenger! (Seriously? This is what we’re worrying about?)
- The federal government will intervene in the BC Court of Appeal reference on pipelines. This is standard since their jurisdiction is up for question.
- Bill Morneau says they’ll have a better handle on the costs to households from carbon pricing in September when all provinces have submitted their plans.
- An audit shows that the programme to help veterans transition to civilian jobs was next to useless. The government has since switched to a different system.
- Scott Brison isn’t looking to budge from his $7 billion fund in the Estimates to get programmes moving, while the real problem remains the sclerotic bureaucracy.
- The government used their majority to reject nine of nineteen Senate amendments to the transport bill. Now we’ll watch senators huff and puff before passing it.
- The Commons privacy committee is ordering Cambridge Analytica to preserve vital data in advance of investigation, given news of their bankruptcy proceedings.
- The military is being accused of “brass bulge” as upper ranks are growing faster than the regular forces are.
- In case you were curious, it turns out that part of why the parliamentary lawn is being dug up is because they have to replace the drainage pipes below it.
- While the Supreme Court of Canada upheld his influence peddling conviction, Bruce Carson is likely to avoid jail time.
- NDP MP Kennedy Stewart is considering a run for Vancouver mayor.
- Here’s a good profile of Doug Ford, and what the experience of working with him on Toronto City Council was like.
- The Canadian Press’ Baloney Meter™ tests the Conservative claim that they cut emissions without cutting taxes. (Ron Howard’s voice: “They didn’t.”)
- Colby Cosh contends that our system worked in keeping outsider Kevin O’Leary away from political leadership (but that Doug Ford was a perfect storm).
Odds and ends:
A documentary crew is looking to film the Senate’s third reading speeches and vote on the bill to end whale and dolphin captivity.
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Roundup: Detailed spending or slush fund?
The Parliamentary Budget Officer weighed in yesterday on the government’s desire to create a $7 billion fund as part of the Estimates to get a jump start on budget promises before those spending plans can be finalized with departments and voted on in the Supplementary Estimates later in the year. The verdict? That enabling this would make it more difficult for MPs to do their duty of controlling government spending, because in their estimation, nothing obliges the government to spend that $7 billion on what is outlined in the budget annex. Government officials (on background) dispute this because they say that if they were to spend it on something other than what is laid out in the budget annex that it would constitute an unauthorized use of public funds.
“See! It’s a slush fund!” The Conservatives immediately cried and gave their little song and dance about how it’ll mean the Liberals can spend it willy-nilly on anything they want. And perhaps they should know – after all, they created a $3 billion “emergency fund” to deal with the 2008 financial crisis and wound up spending it on things like the gazebos in Tony Clement’s riding for the G8/G20 meeting when those funds were supposed to be used for border infrastructure. So is this the voice of experience talking? Good luck getting them to admit it. The NDP line, meanwhile, is that this is the Liberals trying to “suppress Parliament,” which I think you’ll have a hard time trying to find evidence for given how few actual strongarm tactics they’ve managed to engage in so far (a couple of ham-fisted moves that they’ve had to walk back from aside).
While on the one hand, I think the PBO has a point, on the other hand, it’s not a $7 billion black box, and the spending is outlined in the budget, and they can be held to account for it, which is also Parliament’s role. And given that the Estimates are basically unreadable currently and the fact that most MPs don’t pay the slightest bit of attention to them, the cynic in me wonders why they really care (other than it’s a convenient bludgeon to bash the government with). After all, I’ve watched enough times when the Commons has passed the Estimates at all stages with no actual debate or scrutiny on several occasions, leaving the actual hard work up to the Senate. Add to that, watching the Conservatives on their vote-a-thon vote against line items in the Estimates that they probably shouldn’t have shows how little attention they actually pay to the process and the contents. So would this $7 billion fund matter in the long run? Probably not. If nothing else, it’s more impetus for why we need to fix the Estimates process, to realign it with the budget and the Public Accounts, and ensure that they’re readable once again. And until that happens, I find myself having a hard time caring about this item given that there has been an attempt at due diligence that is otherwise so often lacking.
Senate QP: Carolyn Bennett meanders a bit
This week for ministerial QP in the Senate, the special guest star was Dr. Carolyn Bennett, minister for Crown-Indigenous relations, her first time since the Indigenous and Northern Affairs portfolio was split into two. Senator Larry Smith started off, worrying that Northern and Indigenous groups said that they had not been consulted at all when it came to marijuana legalization. Bennett responded that every minister was supposed to build capacity in their own departments to do consultations with Indigenous communities. Smith asked if she had heard anything from Northern communities regarding the legalization of marijuana, particularly around mental health supports. Bennett noted that she was aware that some substance abuse stems from trauma related to things like residential schools, which is why they had a trauma-informed approach and that they were looking at healing and dignity moving forward.
QP: Memories of $5 fill-ups
While Justin Trudeau was present today, Andrew Scheer was absent again. That left Lisa Raitt to lead off, who worried that the widows and single parents would be adversely affected by carbon prices. Trudeau called out the falsehoods of the Conservatives, and reminded her that Canadians expect meaningful action on the environment, which contrasted to the Conservatives. Raitt cast her mind back to when a person could put $5 in the tank and get to work, but Trudeau insisted that the Harper Conservatives didn’t get it. Raitt tried a third time, but got no different answer. Gérard Deltell took over in French, citing that the Conservative track record was to lower emissions while the was economic growth — blatantly ignoring that those reductions came from Ontario shuttering their coal-fired plants. Trudeau offered some platitudes about action versus inaction, and when Deltell repeated his “facts,” Trudeau noted that the economic growth Deltell mentioned was the worst in the G7. Guy Caron was up next, and demanded documents that proved that the government rigged the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain approval. Trudeau took up a script to read that the Federal Court of Appeal denounced the previous consultation process, and he noted their enhanced consultations and their agreements with 43 First Nations along the route. Caron tried again in English, and got the same answer. Hélène Laverdière asked if the government was attempting to renegotiate the Safe Third Country Agreement with the Americans, and Trudeau took up a script to read that they have been having conversations with Americans for months, and that the Agreement helps to manage the flow of asylum seekers. Jenny Kwan asked the same in English, and Trudeau reiterated his same response.
Lisa Raitt remembers when $5 bucks in the tank got you to work.
She knows about inflation, right? #QP— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) May 1, 2018
Deltell’s “facts” ignore that the GHG reductions came from Ontario shuttered their coal-fired plants, not any action of the Harper government. #QP
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) May 1, 2018
QP: Applauding the ghosts of the Harper government
While the PM was off in Vancouver to announce a new investment by Amazon, and Andrew Scheer…elsewhere (I believe Toronto), it was up to Candice Bergen to lead off today, concern trolling about the loss of foreign direct investment in Canada, and tying that to the coming federal carbon tax, demanding to know how much it would cost families. Bill Morneau replied, offering some pabulum about how great economy has been doing. Bergen sarcastically suggested that the Liberals are saying that the carbon tax will fix everything wrong with the world, to which Jim Carr noted that they have taken action through the oceans protection plan, strengthening environmental assessments, and their carbon pricing plans were all taking action, unlike the previous government. Bergen accused the government of covering up those costs, and Jim Carr read some stats about how much carbon would be reduced with their plan. Gérard Deltell took over to ask the same again in French, and Carr noted that the opposition had no plan, nor did they while they were in government. Deltell made the “cover-up” accusations in French, and Morneau stood up to offer some pabulum in French. Guy Caron was up for the NDP, and demanded to know if the government denied ordering the Kinder Morgan approval to be fixed. Carr said that he did refute it, and when Caron asked again in French, Carr pointed to all of the materials available on the website. Romeo Saganash asked the same again in French, and Carr listed consultations and engagement including the monitoring panel co-developed with Indigenous communities. Saganashed tried again in French, and Carr noted that they had made accommodations and that the conversations were meaningful.
Deltell just offered a whopper about the previous government’s emissions reductions record (hint: Those réductions came from Ontario).
Did the government refute it? No. Morneau simply offered some pabulum instead. Cripes. #QP— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) April 30, 2018
Roundup: Yes, the Conservatives did it too
Amidst the faux drama in QP this week about the apparent discrepancy between the Dogwood Initiative getting funding for an anti-Kinder Morgan activist while the government refuses to give funding to groups that use such summer jobs grants to pay for students to distribute fliers of aborted foetuses, or to groups that refuse to hire LGBT students, I find myself losing patience with the constant refrains that if the Conservatives engaged in this kind of behaviour, there would be riots in the streets.
I hate these “flip it around” suppositions because they all happened already. Remember when the Conservative government defunded pretty much every women’s advocacy group? The howls didn’t amount to much. https://t.co/GlgID3Vas5 pic.twitter.com/e1t2U89kML
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) April 27, 2018
Reminder: the Conservatives did engage in that kind of behaviour. They wantonly defunded all manner of organizations, whether they ensured that women in developing countries could access safe abortions, whether they advocated for women’s equality here in Canada, or if they were ecumenical social justice organizations that engaged in education and outreach at home and abroad. They defunded the Court Challenges Programme which helped ensure that minority groups like the LGBT community could do the work of bringing their challenges to the Supreme Court of Canada (because it’s expensive and law firms can’t do it all pro bono). They cut funding to HIV and AIDS services organizations and diverted all manner of funding to a vaccine initiative that they then flaked out on and frittered away millions of dollars so that they had no impact (and the results of those cuts are still being felt today as the current government wants to shift funding priorities to prevention). They prioritized refugee resettlement for Christians in the Middle East over Muslims. They engaged in abusive auditing over charitable organizations that opposed them ideologically. All of this happened, in the most petty and mean-spirited manner at that, and there weren’t riots in the streets. There were a handful of protests, and the media barely mentioned a number of these cuts.
Is the way that the government handled this attestation on the Summer Jobs Grants heavy-handed? Yes. Was the wording clumsy? Probably. But groups aren’t being denied funding because they’re faith-based – they’re being denied funding because they’re refusing to either sign the attestation, or they’ve tried to rewrite it to suit themselves, despite the fact that the government has said repeatedly that “core mandate” refers not to values or beliefs, but daily activities. In all of the rhetoric and pearl-clutching, the actual facts are being distorted and need to be called back into focus. We also need to focus on the fact that the real problem here is that MPs get to sign off on those grants, which is a violation of their roles as guardians of the public purse, and instead makes them agents of the government in distributing spending (clouding their accountability role). But sweet Rhea, mother of Zeus, this constant invocation that “if the Conservatives did it…” is bogus and amnesiac. They did it. All the time.