Tag Archives: Official Languages

QP: Go meet with the RCMP again

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The prime minister was present today, as were all other leaders, so that was a nice change. Candice Bergen led off with her script, and she declared that “fraud on the government” occurred with relation to the prime minister’s trip to the Aga Khan’s private island—the details of which Bergen omitted and framed to sound more lurid—to which Justin Trudeau noted that this was dealt with five years ago, and that the Conservatives were focused on him while he was focused on Canadians. Bergen demanded a yes or no answer as to whether he gave himself permission to break the law, and Trudeau gave a resounding no, and that the RCMP decided there was nothing to pursue, and that it was thoroughly investigated by third parties, while the government doesn’t interfere in the RCMP’s operations. Bergen suggested that Trudeau go back to the RCMP to let them reconsider, and he more emphatically noted that government does not direct the RCMP. Luc Berthold took over in French, demanded the same response on the decision not to pursue the fraud charge, and Trudeau again repeated that this matter was put to bed and that the RCMP made their own decision. Berthold tried to suss this out further, and he too demanded that Trudeau meet with the RCMP again, and Trudeau listed the things the government was doing while the Conservatives were playing petty politics.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and accused Trudeau of disrespecting Canadians and Ukrainians by not chartering flights for those refugees, to which Trudeau read the script that they are working safely and effectively, and thanks to the emergency travel fund, it was the safest and most effective way to act. Blanchet took issue with the rapidity at which this is happening, and Trudeau insisted that they were taking all measures to expedite this travel.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and after some word salad about profits and corporations, he demanded the government block the proposed merger between Rogers and Shaw. Trudeau noted that they set a goal to lower prices, it actually happened, which is why they were focused on competition and access. Singh switched to French to repeat the demand, and Trudeau recited the same response that did not address the demand.

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QP: Resurrecting a five-year-old scandal

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After a number of tributes for Guy Lafleur, and one for former astronaut Bjarni Tryggvason, things got underway after the two-week break. While he was in town, the prime minister was absent, but his deputy was present, so that was something, though no other leaders were present either. Luc Berthold led off in French, and he he decried the budget, accusing the prime minster of being out of touch. Chrystia Freeland replied that Canadians understand that inflation is a global phenomenon, and she listed some international comparisons to show that Canada was lower, citing the reasons as COVID and Putin. Berthold then pivoted to the story in the Globe and Mail about the RCMP considering laying a fraud charge against the prime minister for the trip to the Aga Khan’s private island, to which Mark Holland stood up to say that this matter was settled years ago. Berthold insisted this proved Trudeau’s lack of judgment, and decried the loophole in the law, and demanded to know when Trudeau last met with the RCMP, and Holland repeated his response. James Bezan repeated the question about the story in English, and he wondered if the prime minister gave himself the power to break the law, and Mark Holland got back up to recite in English that this was settled five years ago and that the Ethics Commissioner had a report. Bezan repeated his question, and Holland sang the praises about the government’s economic actions.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he led with this dubious court decision of the appointment of a unilingual lieutenant governor of New Brunswick, saying it demonstrates that the government treats francophones as second-class citizens, and Ginette Petitpas-Taylor insisted that the LG was taking French lessons, and why they were modernising the Official Languages Act. Therrien kept after this, and added to his outrage the appointment of a unilateral anglophone board of directors at CN Rail, and Omar Alghabra insisted that this board would be rectified in the next round of appointments.

Rachel Blaney rose for the NDP, and she raised the fact that the seniors reimbursed for GIS clawbacks were subjected to a time limit, for which Kamal Khera rose to recite her praise for the government’s actions on seniors. Don Davies raised the fact that the government was backing down on some PMPRB regulatory changes for drug pricing, and Adam van Koeverden read a statement about balancing access for new medicines and lowering drug prices.

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Roundup: Lower-tier leadership candidates

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It is now on or about day fifty-five of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and it looks like the fighting in the eastern part of the country, around the Donbas region, has intensified as has been signalled for a couple of weeks now. At the same time, more missile attacks have hit western cities in the country like Lviv, which has mostly been out of the fighting, so that is keeping everyone on edge, particularly given that Lviv is hosting a lot of the people who have fled from other parts of the country.

Other news from Ukraine over the long weekend:

  • Thus far, the invasion has damaged about 30 percent of the country’s infrastructure, at a cost of about $100 billion.
  • There were further attacks on Kyiv over the weekend, possibly in retaliation for the sinking of the Moskva
  • Ukrainian fighters in Mariupol are defying Russia’s surrender-or-die orders
  • Here is a look at the situation LGBTQ+ Ukrainians find themselves in during the war.

Closer to home, Power & Politics interviewed Conservative leadership candidate Roman Baber yesterday, and it was…painful. He is not a serious person. At all. He kept speaking in facile talking points about “restoring democracy,” as though we didn’t just have free and fair elections, based on his nonsense reading of public health restrictions and what happened during the Ottawa occupation, with a dose of facile catch-phrases about “cancel culture.” And, bless her, Vassy Kapelos did gently try to push back against some of what he said, but wow. I would be very surprised if he manages to get his $300,000 in fundraising and all of his signatures to become a verified contestant because he offers nothing original, and even if this about trying to rebuild his profile after being booted from the caucus provincially, it’s a very difficult way to go about it, with not much in the way of reward.

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Roundup: Sour premiers wanted more money

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We’re not on or about day forty-five of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and yesterday’s particular war crime of note was an attack on a train station in Kamatorsk that killed fifty-two Ukrainians fleeing to safer parts of the country. More chilling was the fact that the remains of the rocket had “For the children” spray painted on its side. Meanwhile, an international organization formed in the 1990s to identify the dead and the missing in the Balkan conflicts is preparing to send a team of forensic experts to Ukraine to help identify their dead as a result of Russian atrocities.

Closer to home, there is more reaction to this week’s budget, and in particular, some of the sour notes coming from provinces. It’s not just the current bit of confusion around just what the dental care programme is going to entail, because we don’t have any implementation details yet, and it sounds like the federal government may try to leverage existing provincial programmes for low-income earners. But more to the point, it’s about health transfers, and the fact that premiers aren’t getting their way with their demands for increased unconditional transfers, ostensibly to ensure that the federal government pays 35 percent of the share of health costs—a figure which is distortionary because since the 1970s, provinces were given tax points instead of direct transfers, so the true cost to the federal government would be far, far higher than the 35 percent figure they like to float. Not to mention, we saw that when federal transfers were higher for a decade, provinces used much of that money on other things, as certain provinces also did during the pandemic. So frankly, I wouldn’t expect the federal government to just hand over more unconditional money in the budget, particularly as they are negotiating with provinces for specific outcomes around mental health and long-term care.

Those demands for higher transfers are also raised in this op-ed by economist Trevor Tombe and professor Daniel Béland, which accuses the federal government of being uninterested in reforming those health care arrangements. I would dispute that because they have made it clear, during the election and since, that they are very interested in reforming those arrangements, and that those reforms mean strings attached to federal dollars, and those negotiations are ongoing. I’m also troubled by the notion that the federal government should be doing something about provincial debt, which is far more unsustainable than the federal government’s. Is the suggestion that the federal government upload more costs or programme responsibilities? Because I don’t see premiers clamouring for that (though they do want more money). Is the suggestion that the federal government simply pay for everything? Because that’s absolutely not sustainable either. It also ignores that most provinces have the ability to raise revenues the old-fashioned way—raising their own taxes. (Some provinces are admittedly screwed demographically, but again, what levers are we proposing the federal government employ?) Tombe and Béland want an open and collaborative process to rethink the fiscal relationships between levels of government, but we’ve all seen this movie before, and it always winds up with the provinces demanding the federal government give them more money. I’m not sure how that helps.

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Roundup: No more human resources to spare

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I believe we are now in day thirty-seven of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russian forces are believed to be leaving the area of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant after their soldiers soaked up “significant doses” of radiation while digging trenches in the area. (You think?) There were also plans for another humanitarian corridor to evacuate people from Mariupol, but it doesn’t appear to have been honoured.

Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that he had sacked two high-ranking members of the security services, citing that they were traitors. As for the Russians, the head of CGHQ in the UK says that they have intelligence showing that some Russian soldiers in Ukraine have refused to carry out orders, sabotaged their equipment, and in one case, accidentally shot down one of their own aircraft. There are also reports that Russian troops have resorted to eating abandoned pet dogs because they have run out of rations in Ukraine, which is pretty awful all around.

Closer to home, the Senate was debating their orders to extend hybrid sittings yesterday, as the sixth wave has been picking up steam, and one point of contention are the resources available to senators to hold sittings and committee meetings. In particular, they have a Memorandum of Understanding with the House of Commons about sharing common resources, and that MOU gives the Commons priority when it comes to resources available. This has hobbled the Senate, but even if they did try to come up with some way to add resources, the biggest and most constrained resource of them all is the finite number of simultaneous interpreters available, and we are already in a problem where as a nation, we’re not graduating enough of them to replace the attrition of those retiring, or choosing not to renew their contracts because of the worries that those same hybrid sittings are giving them permanent hearing loss because of the problems associated with the platform and the inconsistent audio equipment used by the Commons. These hybrid sittings exacerbated an already brewing problem of not enough new interpreters coming into the field, and Parliament is going to have a very big problem if they can’t find a way to incentivise more people to go into the field. We rely on simultaneous interpretation to make the place function, and if the number of interpreters falls precipitously low—because MPs and senators insisted on carrying on hybrid sittings in spite of their human cost—then we’re going to be in very big trouble indeed.

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QP: Unhappy with the new emissions plan

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With Justin Trudeau off in Vancouver to give a speech on the government’s new emissions plan for 2030, we did have his deputy present, which was something. Most of the other leaders weren’t present either, and some have become rare sights of late. Luc Berthold led off in French and complained that the emissions reductions plan would cripple the oil sector and that this meant we couldn’t help our friends in Europe get off Russian oil and gas. Terry Duguid stood up to recite some bromides about the plan as announced. Berthold then launched into a rant about how the government doesn’t answer simple questions, and demanded to know if inflation was costing Canadians more. Chrystia Freeland responded that they were sensitive to costs which is why they indexed benefits and introduced $10/day child care. Berthold then railed about the increasing price on carbon, demanding it be suspended, to which Freeland recited the good news about economic growth. Kyle Seeback took over in English, and he misleadingly cited the PBO report on carbon pricing in order to complain that the emissions reduction plan wasn’t going to work. Duguid got back up to recite that the PBO indeed stated that most families would be better off with rebates, and he cited the rebate levels in several provinces. Seeback then railed that the government spent $60 billion on fighting emissions and they still went up—again, somewhat misleadingly because the curve of growth has flattened—and Duguid responded that if the Conservatives were still in charge the emissions would be even higher.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he demanded that the government start chartering planes to get more Ukrainian refugees over here. Sean Fraser insisted people were arriving all the time and they were rolling out programmes to support them. Therrien said that Air Transat was just waiting for the government to charter flights and repeated his demand, and Fraser said that they are discussing with airlines.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP in person, and he called the emissions reduction plan “disappointing,” saying it gives a free pass to the fossil fuel sector. Duguid got back up to recite a number of actions they have taken around the energy sector. Singh repeated the question in French, and Duguid recited some more climate action plans.

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QP: Selectively quoting a PBO report that selectively frames an issue

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With Justin Trudeau away—first to Mississauga to announce the child care deal in Ontario along with his deputy, then off to Vancouver, none of the other leaders bothered to show up in the House of Commons for Question Period today, so happy Monday to you all. Luc Berthold led off, script in front of him, and in French, he regaled the Commons with a tale of how people approached him in the grocery store about complaints about the rising cost of living, and demanded to now how the prime minister intends to feed Canadian families. Randy Boissonnault accused him of creating economic fiction, and recited Statistics Canada data on the growth of the GDP. Berthold railed about the price of gas and what it was doing for inflation, to which Boisonnault praised the child care agreement with Ontario as an affordability measure. Berthold then switched to health care transfers to provinces and the principles the government were attaching to them, to which Jean-Yves Duclos praised their measures to save Canadians’ lives. Kyle Seeback got up and in English, railed about the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s report on carbon prices, selectively quoting a report that only selectively looks at a portion of the issue, to which Terry Duguid assured him that the PBO stated that most families will get more back in rebates than they pay. Seeback insisted this was wrong, that the PBO stated otherwise, and Duguid repeated his points.

Alain Therrien rose for the Bloc, and he demanded that health transfers have no conditions and blamed the federal government for underfunding provincial health systems, and Duclos recited some good news talking points about the $2 billion for surgery backlogs. Therrien listed federal failures to insist that they had no competence for healthcare, to which Pablo Rodriguez quipped that the Bloc should invest in shirt-making companies because they keep tearing their shirts every day.

Alexandre Boulerice appeared for the NDP by video and wondered about enforcement of sanctions in Canada, to which Mélanie Joly praised the sanctions and the assets that they froze. Heather McPherson repeated the question in English, and Joly repeated her assurances.

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Roundup: A confidence agreement in the works?

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We are now on day twenty-seven of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Ukraine has refused to surrender the strategic port city of Mariupol to the Russians. As well, Russian shelling destroyed a shopping centre in Kyiv killing eight, which is escalating the attacks facing the capital. Also of note was a possible leak of Russian casualty figures, citing 9,861 killed and 16,153 injured over the course of the invasion, which contradicts Russian propaganda figures to date, and which could turn up the pressure on Putin by the Russian people.

Back in Canada, news started spreading over the evening that the Liberals and NPD had reached a tentative agreement to a supply-and-confidence agreement that would see the NDP agree to support the next four Liberal budgets so that they can stay in power until 2025 in relative stability, and in return, the Liberals will make “real progress” on national pharmacare and dental care. I’m a little confused why those would be the conditions, given that they’re wholly dependent upon the provincial governments signing on, and while the current federal government put a framework in place for national pharmacare, thus far only PEI has signed on (and I haven’t seen the NDP publicly haranguing John Horgan to sign on either). And while people ask why they can’t do what they did with early learning and child care, part of that answer is that the reason why provincial governments are gun-shy about these programmes is they are concerned that if they set them up, a future federal government will cut funding and leave them holding the bag for very expensive programmes. While Quebec has shown that child care will pay for itself once more women are in the workforce and paying taxes, I’m not sure the calculation is quite the same for the other two, or will at least take much longer for the fiscal benefits to work their way through the system. So could the government come to the table with a lot more money—maybe. But that doesn’t eliminate the trepidation that once 2025 hits that their fears won’t come true. There are also reports that the deal could include more for housing, reconciliation, and some form of wealth taxes, so we’ll see what gets announced this morning.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, are touting this as evidence of a “coalition” and that it’s “backdoor socialism,” which doesn’t make sense. It’s not a coalition because there are no Cabinet seats for the NDP, and these kinds of confidence agreements are easily broken (see: British Columbia and the deal with the Greens, which Horgan’s NDP tore up when the polls looked good enough to get a majority, which he did). It’s not socialism because they’re not going around nationalising the means of production. They’re still going to wail and gnash their teeth, and pretend that this is somehow illegitimate when it’s one hundred percent within how hung parliaments work under our system, but I’m not going to say it will last the full four years. It will however alter the narrative of the Conservatives’ leadership contest, and could be read either as Trudeau giving himself enough runway to make a few more accomplishments before turning it over to a successor, or for him to try and build the case for re-election. Either way, it’s fairly unprecedented at the federal level in this country, and could make for interesting days ahead.

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Roundup: Calls to further isolate Belarus

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The continued shelling of Mariupol marked day sixteen of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while the Russians were aggressively pushing disinformation and propaganda about what happened there. It also looks like that long convoy on the way to Kyiv has broken up, and redeployed elsewhere. The US, European Union and G7 are all moving to follow Canada’s lead in revoking Russia’s “most favoured nation” trade status, while Belarus’ exiled opposition leader called for tighter sanction on that country, including having it removed from the SWIFT system as well, as she seeks diplomatic isolation of the Lukashenko regime, as well as Canadian recognition of her “government in exile.”

Justin Trudeau’s final stop on his European tour was in Poland, where he met with Ukrainian refugees who had fled across the border. Trudeau later said that Putin would lose the war, and that he would face consequences for his illegal war and the war crimes that come along with it. It has also been announced that Volodymyr Zelenskyy will likely address Canada’s Parliament on Tuesday, which is during the March Break, meaning that MPs and senators will fly into Ottawa for a day, then fly back out again.

Closer to home, the Chief of Defence Staff says that Russia’s re-occupation of its Cold War bases in its far north are of concern to Canada, and that we shouldn’t be complacent. General Eyre’s big challenge remains recruitment, however, which is not going to be an easy nut to crack, particularly as culture change is still underway within our military ranks. Of course, we should also remember that it’s extremely unlikely to face any kind of northern invasion because it’s simply not feasible. Seriously.

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QP: Demanding the inflation target

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With the prime minister virtually attending Biden’s “democracy summit,” and Chrystia Freeland absent, it was promising to be a rockier day in the Commons. Erin O’Toole led off, his script on his mini-lectern, and he brayed about inflation, housing prices, and coming interest rate hikes. Ahmed Hussen reminded him that they were the federal party that restored leadership to the housing file and he praised the National Housing Strategy. O’Toole raised the prospect of predicted food price hikes, and then pretended that Trudeau and Freeland were in the Chamber and not answer, and Randy Boissonnault, in his role as associate finance minster, reminded O’Toole about the Bank of Canada’s inflation target. O’Toole pretended that the prime minster ignored his responses about the Bank’s mandate and worried it would be changed, to which Boissonnault reminded him that the Bank is independent. O’Toole switched to French to misleadingly say that the Liberals planned to abandon the inflation targeting mandate, and Hussen repeated his first response, and called out the nonsense in the Conservatives’ supply day motion. O’Toole returned to braying about inflation in French, and Boissonnault repeated in French about the Bank’s mandate, before reciting some good news talking points.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he worried that the Auditor General showed that thirty percent of COVID tests were lost or mislabelled, for which Duclos said that he thanked the AG for her work, and said they would examine the results. Therrien worried about the stat that fourteen percent of those tested were never notified, but Duclos gave a bromide about working to prevent omicron.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and after citing a report on growing inequality (I would be dubious of that given that the Canadian trajectory has not been the same as the US), and he demanded a tax on the super-wealthy, for which Boissonnault listed measures to help those in need. Singh repeated the question in French, and Boissonnault read measures in the Liberal platform about taxing banks and insurance companies.

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