Tag Archives: Labour

Roundup: Anecdotes about emigration

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It was a CBC story that caught the attention of Pierre Poilievre, and which his deputy leader brought up in Question Period, being one centred around census data showing a growing number of Canadians who are relocating to the US, and which tries to focus the attention on those who insist that they’re moving because Justin Trudeau has been so terrible. But this is also a story from a particular usual suspect, so it’s thinly sourced and written by a certain usual suspect who had a habit of this kind of sloppy work (and no, it’s not because he has any particular political agenda—it’s because he thinks he’s being edgy and that he’s tackling “big” things, even though he’s been relatively terrible about it.

To be clear, the story has no breakdown in the data to show much of anything useful about just who is moving, particularly from certain age groups and demographics, nor where they are moving to. This could be a case of retiring Boomers heading to Arizona and Florida and saying farewell to Canadian winters for good, but we don’t know. It does point out that a third of those who emigrate to the US were themselves Americans by birth returning home, and less than a third are immigrants to Canada from elsewhere who have since decided to move to the US, but for some of them, that could have been their plan all along. One of the profiled couples are fairly young and say that housing prices are an issue, but given how restrictive their immigration policies are, it’s hard to see how that many people are able to move just because housing is cheaper. This could also be a largely Ontario-driven phenomenon, but again, we have no breakdown in the data.

This is a big issue, but there is no attempt to get more clarity in the data. Instead, the focus is on getting anecdotes about how they hate Trudeau and want to move because of it, which is both an attempt to make this a federal story instead of a provincial housing one (and the usual suspect writing this piece has a history of doing that), but also because he thinks it’s going to get attention to the piece, and that’s exactly what it did, no matter how thin those anecdotes are, and the plural of anecdotes is not data. We shouldn’t need to remind a reporter at the gods damned public broadcaster of this fact, but things are off the rails there, and this is the kind of bullshit we get as a result.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian missiles hit three sites in Kharkiv overnight, as Ukrainian forces work to shoot down seven missiles and 32 drones. While Russians continue aerial attacks on Kharkiv, they have also increased their troop concentration in the region, looking like they will make a push toward the city. Word is coming out that president Joe Biden has quietly given the okay for Ukraine to use American-made and supplied weapons to strike military targets inside of Russia.

https://twitter.com/kyivindependent/status/1796418752411840609

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Roundup: Ford’s $600 million choices

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You might be excused if you were given the impression that things are going so well in Ontario right now that the government is spending its precious time and resources on the pressing need of…getting beer and wine into corner stores. Well, Doug Ford has decided that, in any case, and that he’s willing to pay out hundreds of millions in order to compensate the Beer Store—a conglomerate owned by the major breweries—for breaking their monopoly even earlier than he had planned to, to the tune of $225 million, with a possible $375 million in additional fees being rebated, meaning that this move could cost the treasury as much as $600 million.

So, to recap—that’s $225 million, but probably really $600 million, that could have gone toward something like keeping rural emergency rooms from having to close on weekends because they lack sufficient staff; it could have gone toward reforming how primary-care physicians are compensated so that they aren’t fleeing the field; it could have gone toward fixing the shortfalls in the early learning and child care programme that this government has caused by under-investment; or shoring up shelters housing asylum seekers; or really, any number of things that will actually have a meaningful impact on the lives of people in this province. But no, it’s going to pay these conglomerates.

Priorities.

Ukraine Dispatch:

While visiting Kharkiv, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that Ukraine now has “combat control” over the region after nearly two weeks of Russians trying to make advances.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1793904060535636362

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Roundup: Another failed attempt to oust the Speaker

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Because everything is so stupid right now, the first day of the final stretch started with yet another call for Speaker Greg Fergus to resign for a “very partisan” invitation to an upcoming event in his riding, and of course, the Conservatives tied this to Poilievre’s ejection from the House of Commons two weeks ago because he challenged the Speaker’s authority in refusing to withdraw unparliamentary language when invited to, falsely insisting that he gave the prime minister a pass on similar language. Because playing the victim is part of their playbook, and they have to insist that the system is against them.

A short while later, the Liberal Party came forward to take the blame for this, and insisted that the wrong text had been put on the website that was “auto-populated” with “standard-language” (decrying Poilievre), and that this was being organised by the riding association, not Fergus’ office. A short while after that, the party’s national director issued a public apology to Fergus and take full responsibility.

This didn’t placate the Conservatives or the Bloc, while the NDP were satisfied with the explanation and apology, so they’re not going to vote out Fergus (while they busily pat themselves on the back for being the “adults in the room”). Nevertheless, I will note that as media outlets rushed to tabulate all of the controversies Fergus has allegedly been involved in the past six months, they conflated a bunch of the bullshit ones with them, such as the remarks he made in Washington DC about the time he’d spent as a young Liberal with a retiring Democrat, which is hard to actually qualify as a partisan speech. Nevertheless, it got included, unfairly, because legacy media outlets are incapable of exercising judgment and will simply include the bullshit allegations with the real ones (the video he recorded in his robes and office) as a form of both-sidesing. While Fergus hasn’t been a great Speaker (albeit, better than his predecessor was), the constant attacks for bullshit reasons are starting to look suspicious.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces shot down 28 of 29 drones overnight Monday, with the remaining drone hitting private residences in Kharkiv. Ukrainian forces are finally getting new artillery shells on the front lines in order to repel the Russian advance near Kharkiv. Ukrainian drones attacked more Russian oil refineries, and purportedly sank a Russian missile cruiser stationed near occupied Crimea.

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Roundup: Huffing those culture war fumes

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My absolute exasperation with the need to constantly import American culture war bullshit into Canadian politics continues to grow, as we see yet another example playing out in the House of Commons. This time, it’s opposition whip Kerry-Lynne Findlay using the far-right gotcha of “What is the definition of a woman,” in the hopes that the response is some kind of confused mess in order to include trans women in the definition of women.

This being said, I’m not surprised that it was Findlay, because she has a growing record of doing things like this, most especially when she was tweeting her concern about how Chrystia Freeland once interviewed George Soros when she was a journalist. Findlay was greatly alarmed by what she saw, and in case you’ve been living under a rock, the attacks on Soros are largely rooted in antisemitic tropes that date back to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Findlay has repeatedly shown that she hasn’t learned her lesson from that incident, and this latest one is more proof of that.

The panic over trans people continues to infiltrate the discourse in Canada. The Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a thinktank that initially billed itself as a centrist endeavour in the mode of the two pivotal prime ministers who helped build and shape the country as we know it, has increasingly been pulling further and further to the right, and adopting anti-trans rhetoric as part of their offerings, which is a little alarming (and people who are associated with the Institute should start distancing themselves the more this kind of bullshit takes hold). This is also in the context that CSIS is seeing threats coming from the “anti-gender” movement, and for a group like MLI to pander to those sentiments is irresponsible, and dangerous.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russia launched one of its biggest air strikes against Ukrainian thermal power generation stations in weeks, causing blackouts throughout the country. A separate air attack hit a school stadium in Kharkiv. It was Victory Day in Russia, celebrating their victory in WWII, and it should be noted that they did not take Chasiv Yar like they were hoping to beforehand.

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QP: Scoring more points on opioid victims

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The prime minister was in town today but not in QP, though his deputy was. Most of the other leaders were also away, leaving Andrew Scheer to lead off, where he asked for the date at which the prime minister would like make it illegal to smoke crack in a hospital room. Chrystia Freeland said that BC approached the federal government with a pilot project, the government shares their concerns, and they are working then to adapt the programme, but MPs shouldn’t score political points off of this tragedy. Scheer tried a second time, and Freeland gave a paean to working together to solve these problems, and that relayed that she spoke to premier Eby about their cooperation in working on this, while opioid addiction is a tragedy. Scheer then cherry-picked data on BC’s opioid fatalities, and ignored the increasing rates in Alberta and BC. Freeland again said that she has been in touch with the premier on the issue and they are working collaboratively, and not fundraising off of the pain and death of desperate people. Luc Berthold took over in French, and worried about crack use “exploding” in Montreal, and demanded a preemptive no to any similar projects in Montreal. Freeland slowly annunciated that abC has a pilot project and now has concerns that they will be working together to address, and that these tragedies require putting partisanship aside. Bethold tried to implicate the Bloc in any decriminalisation in Quebec, and Freeland repeated this is a tragedy, and said that what is really extremist and radical are white supremacist policies, and wanted Conservatives to denounce them.

Luc Therrien led for the Bloc, and raised a newspaper story about a “rapprochement” between CBC and Radio-Canada and demanded they never be merged. Freeland insisted that they will always support the French broadcaster. Therrien demanded that each half be made fully independent—which would never work because Radio-Canada requires CBC’s infrastructure. Freeland repeated that they will always support French in Canada.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and started shouting about the government’s environmental record, to which Freeland insisted that this government has done more for the environment than any previous government in Canadian history, but they are doing more. Don Davies took credit for the capital gains changes, and wondered why the Liberals are maintaining Conservatives’ “corporate giveaways.” Freeland noted it was great that the NDP supports tax fairness, and that nurses and carpenters should pay the same taxes as CEOs, and noted Conservative silence on this fairness.

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Roundup: A genteel time that never was

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I saw a post yesterday that took a page from Hansard on that day in 1978, and well, it was full of the first prime minister Trudeau and several honourable members accusing one another of being animals, or parts thereof. And while hilarious, I think it’s a bit of a corrective when people keep insisting that Parliament used to be a much more genteel place (and we got a lot of that during the Ed Broadbent and Brian Mulroney memorials).

It really wasn’t that genteel. It never has been—there are infamous reports in Hansard about early debates in the 1860s where MPs were setting off firecrackers in the Chamber and playing musical instruments to disrupt people speaking. And I can also say that Question Period was a hell of a lot more raucous when I started covering it fifteen years ago compared to what it is today, which has a lot to do with the Liberals clamping down on applause (for the most part) for their members, which has led to there being less heckling from the Liberal benches (not saying it doesn’t happen—it absolutely does—just not as much, and certainly not in the quantities it used to be).

Question Period is worse in other ways, however—nowadays it’s all reciting slogans and everyone on the same script so that they can each get a clip for their socials, while the government gives increasingly disconnected talking points in lieu of responses, and there’s almost no actual debate (though every now and again, Justin Trudeau and Pierre Poilievre will get into an actual exchange with one another). And the repetition of slogans or the reading of canned lines each give rise to heckling because of its ridiculousness, and yes, there is louder heckling when women ministers are answering questions (but this is not a recent phenomenon either). But there was never a golden age of gentility in our Parliament, and we need to stop pretending there was as we lament the state of things. Instead, we should be lamenting the quality of the debate, which has been dead and buried since about the time that Bob Rae retired from politics.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian missile struck an educational facility in Odesa, killing four. Russian forces are advancing in the eastern Donetsk region after the withdrawal from Avdiivka, while Ukraine waits for new arms from the west. UN experts say that a missile that landed in Kharkiv on January 2nd was indeed of North Korean manufacture. Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, visited Kyiv—the first member of the royal family to do so since the war began—and continued her work championing those affected by conflict-related sexual violence.

https://twitter.com/RoyalFamily/status/1785060798890459222

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Roundup: Khera can’t defend the budget betrayal

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It’s strange and uncomfortable to watch a minister of the Crown absolutely shit the bed on national television, and yet disabilities minister Kamal Khera did just that on Power & Politics yesterday when she was put up to defend the absolutely inadequate Canada Disability Benefit announcement in the budget. Khera had about three talking points prepared for the interview—and they weren’t short talking points, but they were talking points nevertheless—and she kept repeating them no matter what question was asked, remixing them slightly every time to make it look like she was not just saying the same thing when she was in fact doing just that. It was grating and painful to watch, and in the end, you have to wonder just whose idea it was to put her up to subject herself to that.

I get that there are probably reasons why things rolled out the way they did—not good reasons, but reasons nevertheless, which would likely be something to the effect of they gave themselves a June deadline and had no ability to actually meet it, especially as they hadn’t even managed to get assurances from the provinces that they wouldn’t just claw back their existing benefits with this new money, and they simply decided to do this bare minimum an insist that this was “just the beginning,” and that “more was coming,” and so on, but as is so often the case with this government, there is no candour, and just an attempt to feed us happy-clappy pabulum instead, Which is what Khera tried to do yesterday, and destroyed her own credibility on the file in the process.

Now the government has betrayed the disabled community and broken their trust, and it’s going to be an even tougher hill to climb going forward because they couldn’t just be honest and say that hard things are hard, they needed more time, and maybe that they were worried about their deficit figures rather than simply insulting everyone’s intelligence like they did here.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian drone attack on Odesa has injured seven, while a missile strike took out a TV tower in Kharkiv region. And while Russians claim that they have overrun the village of Novomykhailivka, Ukraine says that they still control the territory. Ukrainian military sources say that the Russians have amassed a force of 20,000 to 25,000 troops for their push toward Chasiv Yar. While US aid and armaments could come shortly, Ukraine’s has a manpower problem on their front lines, which gives Russia the opportunity because it will take months for Ukraine to train their newly mobilised conscripts.

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QP: Is the PBO right or out of date?

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In spite of the fact that they are both in town, neither the prime minister nor his deputy were present for QP today, and most of the other leaders were absent as well. Andrew Scheer led off, and after rattling off slogans, he raised the story on the cost of the prime minister’s vacation, and got increasingly breathy as he demanded an election. François-Philippe Champagne said that Scheer had become the CIO of Canada—the Chief Inaction Officer, and that he was advocating inaction on climate change and clean growth. This earned him a warning from the Speaker. Scheer then railed about people not being able to afford food and blamed the carbon levy, and again demanded an election. Gudie Hutchings got up to recount the story of a senior in her riding who tracks his expenses, and what happy that he comes out ahead with the rebates. Scheer insisted this was just false, and claimed the PBO stated otherwise, and once again demanded an election. Hutchings recounted more stories from seniors in her riding. Luc Berthold took over in French, took some swipes at the Bloc, and demanded to know what the government promised them for support. Champagne said that it was clear that the Conservatives didn’t believe in climate change while the government takes action and grows the economy. Berthold tried to call out the Bloc on the upcoming vote, and and Steven Guilbeault reminded him that they ran on climate change in the last election, and that just behind him sits a former Quebec minister who brought in Quebec’s system. 

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and decried how much the government says no to Quebec, Pablo Rodriguez listed things they said yes to, and that the Bloc only wants to start fights. Therrien listed more things the government said no to, including the abolition of the monarchy, and Rodriguez gave much the same reply.

Peter Julian rose for the NDP, and in French, decried rent increases in Montreal—which is provincial jurisdiction—and wanted something for renters in the budget, Soraya Martinez Ferrada noted the investments in different types of housing, and their agreement with Quebec. Jenny Kwan appeared by video to give the same question with a BC lens, and Martinez Ferrada gave the English version of the same talking points.

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Roundup: Making up censorship claims

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Facing pressure for dismissing the Online Harms bill before he had even seen it, Pierre Poilievre put out a statement yesterday that said that things like child sexual exploitation or “revenge porn” should be criminal matters, and that police should be involved and not a new “bureaucratic” agency. It’s a facile answer that betrays the lack of resources that law enforcement devotes to these matters, or the fact that when it comes to harassment or hate, many police bodies have a tendency not to believe victims, especially if they are women.

But then Poilievre went one step further, saying “We do not believe that the government should be banning opinions that contradict the Prime Minister’s radical ideology.” I’m not sure where exactly in the bill he sees anything about banning opinions, because he made that part up. More to the point, the provisions in the bill around hate speech quite literally follow the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Whatcott, and codifies them, which means the standard is exposing someone to “vilification or detestation” if they are a member of a group that is a prohibited grounds for discrimination. That means that it goes beyond “opinion” one doesn’t like. The minister confirmed that “awful but lawful” content will not be touched, because the standard in the bill is hate speech as defined by the Supreme Court of Canada. And it would seem to me that if the standard of “hate speech is bad” is “radical ideology” in your mind, well then, you are probably telling on yourself.

Speaking of Poilievre making things up, he spent the afternoon loudly proclaiming that the RCMP sent him a letter saying they were investigating ArriveCan. Then he posted the letter on Twitter. The letter doesn’t say they are investigating. It literally says they are assessing all available information. That is not an investigation. That’s deciding if they want to investigate. The fact that he released the letter that doesn’t say they are investigating, and says that it proves they are investigating, feels like a big test of the cognitive dissonance he expects in his followers, which is just one more reason why our democracy is in serious trouble.

Ukraine Dispatch:

As Ukrainian forces withdrew from two more villages near Avdiivka, one of which Russia has claimed the capture of, there are concerns that Russia is stepping up influence operations to scupper international support. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has landed in Saudi Arabia for meetings related to his peace plan and a push to get prisoners and deportees released from Russia. In Europe, NATO countries have been backing away from statements that French president Emmanuel Macron made about not excluding any options to avert a Russian victory in Ukraine, which were presumed to mean western troops. (Macron said this was about creating “strategic ambiguity.”)

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QP: Constant questions to other opposition parties

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The prime minister and his deputy were on their way back from the weekend trip to Kyiv and Poland, while most of the other leaders were away. Andrew Scheer led off in French, and he recited the list of Conservative slogans to point out that the Bloc voted in favour of funding ArriveCan. Jean-Yves Duclos stood up to thank the Auditor General for her work, and cite the most of her recommendations have been acted upon. Scheer pointed out that the Bloc voted for this eight times, which got a warning by the Speaker, to which Duclos told him that that he should ask the Bloc, but reiterated the canned line about the government doing what needed to be done in the pandemic. Scheer switched to English to recite his slogans, and gave the same accusations about voting for ArriveCan, but this time directed to the NDP, to which Duclos repeated that if the opposition has question of the NDP, they should ask him not the government. Scheer repeated the slogans, and breathily worried about the carbon price increasingly, and misleadingly tied it to food bank use. Anita Anand reminded that climate change is real, and that they want to take money out of people’s pockets. Scheer misquoted the PBO about the carbon price, and linked it to people dumpster diving. Anand noted that they didn’t refute that they don’t believe in climate change or that they want to take money from people’s pockets.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he took his own shot at the NDP, accusing the government of spending on things Quebec already has and are not their priorities. François-Philippe Champagne acknowledged that they do take inspiration from Quebec, and noted they didn’t want to talk about their investments in the province. Therrien demanded more federal money instead of programmes, to which Mark Holland accused them of trying to start fights instead of helping people.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he demanded the government reform Nutrition North, claiming that the subsidies are not passed along to consumers. Dan Vandal insisted that they are working to ensure that the subsidy is fully passed along, and that progress has been made. Singh repeated the demand in French, and got the same response. 

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