Tag Archives: Maxime Bernier

Roundup: Kenney’s McCarthy-esque quest

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Over in Alberta, Jason Kenney’s McCarthy-esque Committee on un-Albertan Activities received its terms of reference and will begin taking submissions, and just like the MacKinnon Report, it was gamed to specifically look at anything that was being mean to the oil and gas sector while studiously avoiding any falsehoods used by the oil and gas lobby to state their own case. And it’s all going into feeding their “war room” to “fight back” against those un-Albertan activities. Because this is totally normal for a democratic government in the western world.

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Roundup: An expedited process

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The Federal Court of Appeal ruled yesterday that of the twelve challengers to the government’s decision to approve the Trans Mountain pipeline a second time, that they would grant leave to hear from six of them, on an expedited basis, and on the very narrow question of whether or not the government has actually complied with the previous FCA ruling, particularly when it comes to the issue of appropriate consultation with Indigenous communities as it pertains to Section 35 of the Constitution. Immediately there was a bunch of wailing and gnashing of teeth that this would be some kind of delay, and others demanded that the government start using magic wands apparently hidden in the text of the constitution (never mind that they don’t actually exist). Worth noting as well – there is no injunction against continued construction, so that will continue to ramp up in the weeks ahead as this expedited hearing gets underway.

This having been all said, there were a number of questions as to why the federal government didn’t file any materials in defence regarding those leave applications in eleven of the twelve files (though, curiously, the Alberta government did even though they’re not the defence). We didn’t get much of an answer – Amarjeet Sohi (who is not the justice minister) saying that they would mount a defence at the right time, but I have to wonder if this was simply about giving the appearance that they weren’t trying to constantly take Indigenous communities to court. Or, they may have simply felt confident that their position was self-evident, that they fulfilled the conditions from the previous FCA ruling and filing something to repeat exactly that wasn’t worth the time or energy because they didn’t think the Court would grant leave on that basis. Either way, it’s not the “rolling over” that certain opposition MPs have railed in the media about because this is a leave application, and not the actual defence.

https://twitter.com/Honickman/status/1169324576960122881

Meanwhile, energy economist Andrew Leach debunks the myths about what is holding back investment in the oilsands, and lays out the four real reasons, which are very different from what industry lobbyists and Jason Kenney are trying to sell to Canadians. Some of the big takeaways are that corporate tax cuts won’t help, and carbon pricing isn’t hurting it, never mind that those are the kinds of things that Kenney is focusing on, and it’s all snake oil – none of it will make investment come flooding back to the sector because the reasons are bigger and more complex.

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Roundup: Dubious studies on populism

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A study out of Simon Fraser University shows that a rising number of Canadians are only “moderately convinced” that we should be governed by a representative democracy – nearly 60 percent, which is up 15 percent since 2017. As well, 70 percent of those surveyed don’t feel that government officials care about the concerns of “ordinary Canadians,” along with rising support for populism and anti-immigrant sentiments. This shouldn’t really surprise anyone who has paid the least bit of attention to what is going on in the world, but let’s first of all get out of the way that these percentages are fairly shoddy reporting once you dig into the study, which finds that Canadians are still very much in favour of democracy, and that the representative democracy still figures better than the other alternatives (direct democracy, rule by experts, strong ruler, military rule), and much of the reporting on the anti-immigrant sentiment is fairly torqued.

To be clear, I have a great many concerns about the methodology of the study, which offers some fairly torqued binaries for participants to choose from and then tries to draw conclusions from that, leaving no room for the kind of nuance that many of these positions would seem to merit. As well, their definitions of populism are too clinical and don’t seem to really reflect some of the attitudes that those who respond to the sentiments, so I’m not sure how much utility this methodology actually has in a case like this (or in this other study which looks at pockets of “forgotten workers,” which at least admits there are no obvious answers to stemming the tide of this sentiment). Nevertheless, there is some interesting regional breakdowns in where certain attitudes are more prevalent than others, and which identified populist sentiments register more strongly in some regions over others.

This having been said, the questions on people feeling frustrated with how democracy works are pretty much why I do the work that I do, particularly with the book that I wrote, which is all about identifying where things are breaking down (reminder: It’s not structural, but rather the ways in which people are not using the system properly), and showcasing how it should be operated, which is with the participation of voters at the grassroots levels. But if we’re going to get back to that system, that requires a lot of people at those grassroots demanding their power back from the leaders’ offices, and that also means needing to get out of the thrall of the messianic leader complex that we keep falling into, going from one messiah to another once the current one loses their lustre (which I do believe also feeds into the populist sentiments, who also latch onto messianic leaders). This can’t just be people complaining about the quality of the leaders out there – it’s about how we feed the system. If we input garbage, we get garbage out of it, and this hasn’t connected in the brains of enough voters yet. One day, perhaps, it might, but we don’t appear to be there yet, and the torqued binaries of a survey like this don’t help us get any better of an understanding of what it will take for people to wise up and get serious about our democratic system.

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Roundup: Misleading his recruits

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After some confusion in the Conservative ranks, Andrew Scheer’s Quebec lieutenant, Alain Rayes, is apologising for misleading candidates in the province when he insisted to them that the party considered abortion a settled matter and that they wouldn’t allow any attempt to change the laws. Not so – Scheer’s actual pledge is that the government – meaning Cabinet – would not bring forward any bills, but the backbenches are free to do so, which is why anti-abortion groups have been busy trying to get their supporters nominated as candidates. And now the party and Rayes are saying that he just misheard Scheer’s pledge, which could put some of those Quebec candidates that Rayes recruited in a sticky position because some of them are saying that they decided to run for the Conservatives because they were assured that they weren’t going to touch abortion. Oops.

And this dichotomy of a hypothetical Conservative Cabinet pledges versus its backbenchers is one of those cute ways that Scheer can try to mollify the Canadian public while at the same time assuring his social conservative base that yes, he’s still the party for them, and he’s going to ensure that they have space to put forward legislation. From there, depending on whether or not they have a majority government and if so, how large it is, it comes down to counting votes to see if these kinds of bills have a chance of making it – and the current move in anti-abortion circles is to use backdoor attempts at criminalization through means like trying to create jurisprudence by means of laws that give a foetus personhood status through bills that treat them as such when a pregnant woman is murdered, for example, which they then plan to slowly extend to abortion services. It’s a long-term plan, but one that begins with getting enough anti-abortion candidates nominated and elected, so even though Scheer says his Cabinet won’t introduce these bills, as private members’ bills, they are unlikely to be whipped, and that leaves him to free his caucus to “vote their conscience.”

Of course, if he’s planning to be like Stephen Harper and assert pressure to ensure that these kinds of bills don’t make it through, then his courting of the anti-abortion community is hollow, and he’s lying to them, which will also be something that his base will have to contend with. But the clarification that only a hypothetical Cabinet wouldn’t introduce any anti-abortion measures is too cute by half, and relies on the fact that not enough people appreciate the difference between Cabinet and the backbenches, and why that distinction matters.

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Roundup: When the leaders are away…

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Pride in Ottawa came and went this weekend, and surprising nobody, Andrew Scheer didn’t show up. But then again, not a single leader, federal or provincial leader, showed up either. Trudeau gets a pass because he was off at the G7 meeting in France, but he’s also only ever showed up to a single Pride in this city. And the only time any of the leaders showed up was the year Trudeau did – a one-off which is a bit of an insult to the city which is seat of government, and the second-largest city in Ontario (for those absentee provincial leaders), which essentially tells us that we’re not worth the effort. (For the record, Jagmeet Singh was in Edmonton to campaign in the NDP’s sole riding in that province).

Meanwhile, here’s a look at why Scheer shouldn’t have shown up at Ottawa Pride without an invitation – or an apology – and more than one person has remarked that straight people shouldn’t be inviting people to Pride on behalf of the LGBT community.

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Roundup: Bashing a fictional plan

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In the days ahead, you are likely to hear federal Conservatives start echoing Jason Kenney’s current justification for killing the province’s carbon price based on a report by the Fraser Institute. The problem? Well, the modelling that they used is based on a work of fiction, and not the plan that was actually implemented, and since the federal carbon price is closely based on the Alberta model, they will have roughly similar effects. But hey, why fight with facts when you can use fiction and straw men?

And for the record, here is the EcoFiscal commission explaining how the Fraser Institute got it all wrong.

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Roundup: Narratives about radicalization ahead

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One of the sub-plots from the 2015 election is about to get a rerun as the UK decided to revoke citizenship from “Jihadi Jack” Letts, who has joint-UK and Canadian citizenship. That essentially leaves him with only Canadian citizenship – dumping their problem on our laps (likely in contravention of international law, incidentally). And that means a return to Trudeau’s decision to revoke a Conservative law that would have had a similar effect in Canadian law, because as you may recall, “A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.”

Where this will be compounded with the Conservative talking points that Trudeau thinks that returning fighters are “powerful voices” that can be reformed with podcasts and poetry lessons – which is a gross distortion of both Trudeau saying that people who were de-radicalised (not returning fighters) could be those powerful voices in their communities, and de-radicalisation programmes themselves, which again, are not for returning fighters but preventing people from taking that step once they’ve been radicalised. And lo, they will talk about how “naïve and dangerous” the notion that returning fighters can be de-radicalised is, when all of the things they point to are about de-radicalising people before they leave the country or do something violent here. But why should they let truth get in the way of a narrative?

Meanwhile, Letts’ parents are imploring the Canadian government to do something, and they are prepared to move here if that helps, but it also leaves questions as to what Letts may be charged with – though there is no evidence he was actually involved in any fighting. Nevertheless, it’s a problem the UK dumped on us that will become a partisan election issue, with all of the nonsense that entails.

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Roundup: The bitumen-soaked petard

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Probably the most important piece you could read from yesterday’s offerings was this analysis from energy economist Andrew Leach, who dismantled much of the logic behind the Conservative environmental “plan” that Andrew Scheer was so proud of. Aside from the fact that it lacks detail, it’s full of contradictions (such as eschewing carbon taxes, and yet does largely the same thing with large emitters), and a lot of things that don’t make sense. Leach not only calls out the fact that the “plan” is full of straw men and distractions (such as the focus on raw sewage), but probably most devastating is that he punches holes in the plan for the Canada Clean Brand™ that Scheer is trying to promote – the notion that Canadian products are “cleaner” and should displace those abroad, thus keeping Canadian jobs and still (ostensibly) lowering emissions. And while that may be true enough with aluminium, it’s certainly not for our oil exports, which kind of blows the whole thing out of the water. Oops.

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Roundup: Attacking his own plan

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Andrew Scheer’s sudden denunciation of the planned clean fuel regulations got some reaction yesterday, partly from the government, and partly from economists who deal with this kind of thing for a living. Scheer’s labelling it a “secret fuel tax” is more than a little odd, because it’s exactly the kind of thing he’s proposing by removing the transparent federal carbon price and replacing it with more costly regulations, which would get passed onto consumers in a hidden way without any of the rebates that the current federal backstop programme provides – in other words, doing exactly what he’s accusing the Liberals of doing. The government noted that Scheer’s 4¢/litre figure are just a guess because the regulations haven’t been finalised yet (though some economists say it’s about right based on current projections), but again, it needs to be driven home that this is exactly the kind of thing that Scheer himself is proposing, but without the added “technology is magic” sheen attached.

To that end, here’s economist Andrew Leach’s mock open letter to Scheer.

Meanwhile, Heather Scoffield points out that this latest attack by Scheer risks boxing him in, and attacks his credibility on the climate file.

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1148609609424429057

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Roundup: The premiers’ pre-meeting

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While a Council of the Federation meeting will be happening this week in Saskatoon, Jason Kenney has been planning a pre-meeting for several premiers at Stampede, last night and today. It’s an interesting bit of dynamic because while Kenney is one of the most junior members of the Council (with only PEI being more junior), he’s trying to act like a bit of a ringleader for the various conservative-led provinces as they wage war against Justin Trudeau and the federal government. We’ll see how well that goes over.

Meanwhile, John Horgan says he’s hoping that they can use this meeting to get something accomplished, and that it won’t be a number of premiers trying to have a stand-off against Trudeau in advance of the election. But given that several of those premiers have been having public tantrums over the carbon price, two of them now having lost their court challenges, I’m quite certain that they’re going to have some kind of theatrical blow-out for the sake of Andrew Scheer to come in and try and look statesmanlike. (Have I mentioned that fixed election dates are garbage?)

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