Tag Archives: Parliament Hill

Roundup: Promising populist GST cuts

Posted on by
2

In a speech to the Canadian Club in Toronto, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh laid out a pre-election campaign pledge of removing the GST on certain “essential” items like ready-made food, diapers, home heating, and mobile phone and internet bills—all of which he would finance through an “excess profit tax” on large corporations. It is possibly the dumbest economic policy possible, but our politics are moving into an absolutely brainless phase of populism.

Removing the GST on these items will have a negligible impact, particularly for those in low-income brackets. If anything, most of those reductions will benefit higher-income households, such as the GST cut on home heating (because wealthier households have bigger houses that take more fuel), and it when it comes to apartment buildings, the cut has little impact, or for places with electric heat, how exactly do you disentangle how much of the hydro bill is heat versus other electricity usage? I know that the NDP have been pushing this policy for years now, long before Singh was leader, but has anyone thought about it for more than five seconds?

In addition, making more exceptions to the GST are hard to administer, and it will reduce the GST rebates that lower-income households rely on. And promising the “excess profits” tax is basically an arbitrary exercise in determining what they consider “excess,” and that will basically be how much they think they can soak out of these companies, who will inevitably engage in creative accounting to suddenly lower profit margins or incur paper losses to avoid paying said tax, and all of the things the NDP had hoped to spend that windfall on will blow away like ashes in the wind. This isn’t progressive policy, but the NDP are going to pursue it anyway because they think that they can get the populist win here, when it’s almost certainly going to fail.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2024-11-15T01:27:01.865Z

Ukraine Dispatch

A combined Russian strike hit a residential building and energy installations in Odesa, killing one on Thursday evening. As well, the Russian assault on Kupiansk in the northeast broke through the outskirts of the city, but were eventually repelled.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Senators won’t be pushed around

Posted on by

The Bloc Québécois are trying to sweeten their demand for their two private members’ bills to pass before October 29th, saying they will help end the current filibuster in the House of Commons if the government does. Couple of small problems there—one is that the Senate can’t speed passage of any private members’ bills, no matter how much MPs or even the government strongly encourages them to; and the second is that the government isn’t going to give a royal recommendation to their OAS bill, because they absolutely don’t want to set a precedent there.

Nevertheless, Mary Ng wrote a letter to Senator Peter Boehm, who chairs the committee studying the Supply Management bill, urging him to speed it along, and it was co-signed by a few MPs from different parties, no doubt to try and demonstrate that they all care about this. Boehm, rightly, responded by telling them to go pound sand. The committee estimates it’ll get to clause-by-clause of the bill in the first week of November, because that’s how long it’ll take, end of story. And let me reiterate once again—there is no mechanism in the Senate to fast-track private members’ bills, and that’s for very good reason. In fact, during the Harper years, they tried to rewrite the Senate rules to allow for it to happen—in part because they were moving some odious legislation through as private members’ bills instead of government bills for various reasons (including the fact that PMBs get very little study and are automatically time-allocated so they can’t really be filibustered), and enough senators pushed back on that attempt that it didn’t happen. Again, for good reason.

As for the Bloc’s frankly boneheaded suggestion that the prime minister needs to get on the phone to order senators “that he appointed” around undermines the entire institutional independence of the Upper Chamber. They are appointed in such a way as to make them largely immune to this kind of political pressure for very good reason, and this is proving that very point. By that logic, should the prime minister be phoning up judges that they appointed in order to pressure them to deciding cases in a particular way? How about the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court? This extended tantrum they’re throwing is embarrassing for them, particularly when it began as a ham-fisted attempt at blackmail that it turns out they weren’t very good at.

Ukraine Dispatch

Three people, including a child, were killed in a Russian drone strike in Sumy. The UN estimates that the Ukrainian population has declined by ten million since the start of the invasion, a combination of people being displaced and war deaths. Ukraine has been targeting alcohol plants in Russia over the past several days. With news that North Korea is sending troops to fight with Russians, South Korea is now considering sending weapons to Ukraine.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Another vice-regal safeguard?

Posted on by

As the security clearance discourse carries on, we remain confronted by the false notions that Pierre Poilievre is unable to receive a clearance, rather than the fact that he is unwilling, using the false claim that it’s somehow a “trap” to keep him from criticising the government. It’s not, there’s plenty of opportunity for him to criticise the government while being fully briefed, but as is the tradition with Canadian politicians, they have long preferred not to know because then they would have to be responsible in their commentary rather than bombastic, or as the Beaverton aptly put it, he would have to lie just slightly less than he already does.

Nevertheless, this turns to the question of what would happen if someone were to become prime minister, or at least win an election, where there are genuine security concerns about them? Well, Philippe Lagassé has an answer for that, and it lies in the reserve powers of the Governor General.

He makes a crucial point that it would be beyond the pale for CSIS and the RCMP to somehow have the veto over the appointment of a prime minister, but the discretion of the Governor General could conceivably be the constitutional fire extinguisher in such a case. It’s extremely unlikely to ever happen, but nevertheless, it’s a good thought exercise to consider given the times we live in.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian missile struck a residential district in Odesa on Friday, but there were no casualties. Residents in Kupiansk are fleeing ahead of a Russian advance in the area. Both Russia and Ukraine swapped 95 prisoners each in a deal brokered by the UAE. South Korean intelligence is corroborating Ukrainian intelligence’s claim that North Korea is now sending troops to right for Russia. Here’s a look at how far-right influencers openly used Russian money to make “documentary” hit-jobs on Ukraine and president Zelenskyy.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1847257217424113736

Continue reading →

Roundup: Speaker Fergus on the spot in new privilege battle

Posted on by

The brewing privilege battle over the Sustainable Development Technologies Canada documents is largely going under-reported, save for the National Post, but it’s going to be an interesting showdown with the Speaker about the refusal to turn over these documents. The government’s argument is that the stated purpose for demanding these documents is not for Parliamentary business, such as committee study, but because they intend to be turned over to the RCMP, which is in and of itself a problem because it does violate the separation of powers and really, really looks like politicians trying to direct the police (who have said that they don’t want the documents, because it would violate the Charter rights of any accused). I think this is a sound argument, and one that is necessary because of the ongoing abuses of privilege that the past couple of parliaments have engaged in.

Yes, Parliament has unfettered authority to send for the production of papers, but there have to be limits on this privilege, or it can be abused, and I think that this case demonstrates the limits. The complicating factor is that limits are especially difficult to maintain in a minority parliament situation because all of the opposition parties tend to be all be interested in embarrassing the government at any turn (and this is not unique to this government, but any government). It’s partly why NSICOP was fine during a majority Parliament but became the subject of political manoeuvring during the minority years—because opposition parties will try to use their leverage to embarrass a government or score points when they think they can.

I don’t envy Speaker Fergus in having to make this decision, but this kind of exercise is clearly beyond the pale. It’s not up to MPs to get information on behalf of the RCMP, and that crosses so many red lines that it should be blinding. He’s going to be criticized whatever he makes, but hopefully for the sake of precedent, he makes the right choice and rein in some of this foolishness, because once MPs feel empowered enough to do this to one organisation—SDTC in this case—they’re going to start going after anyone they disagree with ideologically on an increasing base going forward.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russians targeted a geriatric centre in Sumy, as well as the power grid, which a UN body believes is probably against international humanitarian law. Russia says they are ramping up their drone production tenfold (but that may just be all talk, given the sanctions and the availability of components).

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1836807096391676132

Continue reading →

Roundup: Hearings before the investigation concludes

Posted on by

As we’ve been expecting the Commons public safety committee met yesterday, and held the usual performances about just how very seriously they take the situation of the two accused terror suspects, and the questions about how they made it to Canada and in one case was given Canadian citizenship. But rather than waiting for the internal investigation to complete so that they could scrutinize the results, they all decided to go ahead and start holding hearings before they have those answers, because what’s important is getting clips for their socials. To that end, they have agreed to hold six meetings starting in the last week of August, but there are competing agendas at play.

For the Conservatives, the agenda is pretty clear—outraged clips, and showcasing their MPs badgering and hectoring witnesses, most especially the ministers who will appear before them. For the Bloc and NDP, it’s quite obviously to embarrass the government at every opportunity, like they are keen to do with every single other issue that rears its head. For the Liberals, however, they believe they are being clever and want to make this into an exposé into the cost of Conservative austerity, because it would seem that the timeline would match up to a point where Conservatives had cut thousands of CBSA agents and civil servants in the immigration department, before the Liberals were able to really reinvest and reinvigorate the processes (if that ever did happen—remember, it’s incredibly difficult to recover capacity once you’ve lost it through cuts). They think they have some kind of gotcha here, but I suspect that they’re going to mishandle this so badly that it’ll blow up in their faces like it always does.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched 38 drones and two missiles overnight Monday, and while 30 of those drones were destroyed, one person was injured as a result. Russian shelling killed at least one civilian in the Sumy region, and the government has restricted civilian movement in that area. Russians have been increasing their assaults in the Pokrovsk area of Eastern Ukraine. Russians claim that they halted Ukraine’s advance in the Kursk region, while Ukraine says they actually have no interest in holding that territory (but their ultimate goals remain unclear).

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1823306864097988712

Continue reading →

Roundup: Back to the constituencies

Posted on by

At long last, the children—and by “children,” I mean MPs—have gone home for the summer. Finally. Not before there wasn’t another last-ditch effort by Conservatives to try and demand more committee hearings over the summer, because they need clips for their socials, after all. I also find it particularly strange that the Conservatives have been phrasing their condemnations that the other parties want to go back to their ridings to “vacation” for the summer, because normally MPs are extremely precious about the fact that this is not a break because they have sO mUcH wOrK tO dO in their constituencies and that if they had their druthers they’d do even more work in their constituencies and less in Ottawa, so this feels like the Conservatives making a tacit admission that they don’t do work in their constituencies. (I know they’re not, but this is what happens when you make dumb arguments to score points).

This being said, MPs are absolutely behaving like children over all of this, and they all need a gods damned time out, not that I expect things to get much better in the fall because the incentives for this kind of behaviour remain—it’s all about getting clicks and engagement on their socials, and acting like children gets them that, apparently. It’s too bad the incentives aren’t there for them to act like adults, but the world has gone stupid.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russians resumed air attacks on Ukrainian power facilities. (Timeline of such attacks here). The fire at the oil terminal in southern Rostov burned for a second day after Ukraine’s drone strike. Here’s a look at how Russian glide bombs have accelerated the time it takes for them to destroy front-line settlements in Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1803342727267885346

Continue reading →

Roundup: Soft-pedalling the extremist camp

Posted on by

It has been very interesting to watch how legacy media outlets have been covering Pierre Poilievre’s appearance at a “tax revolt” encampment on the Nova Scotia border, but also very, very predictable. For example, they take at face value that this is some kind of “anti-carbon tax” protest, much as they did during the Occupation of downtown Ottawa, but don’t actually who all of the participants are. While they may note that there are Diagolon signs, none of the outlets mentioned that much of this encampment is made up of adherents to the “sovereign citizens” movement, which is a dangerous movement that believes that with some special incantations, they can opt themselves out of laws or obligations like paying taxes. That’s kind of a big deal to be overlooked.

Somewhat hilariously, they all got the vapours over the fact that Poilievre said of Justin Trudeau “People believed his lies. Everything he said was bullshit, from top to bottom.” *gasp!* No mention of course that this was projection, that everything that Poilievre says is lies and bullshit, because they couldn’t possibly. And then it veered off to Trudeau’s response that this is a sign that Poilievre will do “anything to win,” and the whole stupid thing about not disavowing Alex Jones, which seems to be the wrong thing to try and hang this whole thing on. The matter is not that Poilievre is getting the endorsement of the biggest conspiracy theory charlatan in the United States, but rather that he is courting far-right extremists and making false promises to them that he can never keep, and that will have consequences down the road.

This being said, I also find it somewhat predictable that all of the conservatives who had a field day with the head of Hamas thanking Canada for a UN vote—which was a clear information operation—are now whinging and crying about the Alex Jones attention, and saying that Poilievre doesn’t follow him so he shouldn’t need to denounce him. I mean, good for the goose and the gander here, but if you think one is legitimate to make hay with, the other should be fair game as well by your own rules of engagement. Neither of you should make hay over these things, but consistency would be nice.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian missiles struck residential buildings in Kharkiv, injuring six people. Ukraine launched its own drone attack against a major Russian steel factory in Lipetsk region, and partially destroyed an “oxygen station” that should do long-term damage wo their work. Ukraine’s government has also clamped down on military-aged men applying for passports as they try to deal with their mobilisation woes.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Opening the Canadian Drug Agency

Posted on by

There was an announcement yesterday that went under the radar of what appears to be every major news organization, which is that the Canadian Drug Agency is now fully operational. This has been in the works for a couple of years now, first as in a transitional form while the government consulted with the provinces and territories on what shape this would take, and it has now emerged from transition status into a full office.

Why is this important? Because this is the kind of actual policy work that is going to contribute to future national pharmacare in this country, not the ridiculous legislation that the NDP are insisting upon, under the mistaken belief that this is something that provinces can join one-by-one like with healthcare. It’s not—if national pharmacare is to work, it needs to be all or nothing, because it won’t be economically feasible otherwise. That means you need the premiers at the table from the start, and they all need to negotiate the national formulary together, not just let Ottawa decide and join up if they feel like it.

So, while Jagmeet Singh and Don Davies put on this dog and pony show about the pharmaracare legislation that hasn’t happened yet, and say boneheaded things like “The Liberals are on the side of Big Pharma,” the government has been putting in the actual work, and not the performative part, for what it’s worth.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A shortage of artillery shells is forcing Ukraine to scale back some operations, while the Russians are changing their tactics in their bid to overtake Avdiivka. Ukraine’s military chief is now saying that the war isn’t at a stalemate as he previously asserted (to which president Volodymyr Zelenskyy contradicted him). Said military chief found bugs in one of his offices, and hints that more devices have been found. He has also been critical of Zelenskyy’s decision to fire all regional military draft officers in a corruption crackdown.

Continue reading →

QP: An apology, but apparently not the right apology

Posted on by

The prime minister gave the media a warning that he would be offering a public apology in the House of Commons for Friday’s incident, as had been demanded over the past several days, as this was his first day back in the Chamber since it happened. Deputy Speaker Chris d’Entrement was back in the big chair, and he started off with a mild admonishment about some of the charged language used yesterday, but didn’t demand an apology for it. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and declared that it was the prime minister’s personal responsibility for inviting Zelenskyy to Parliament, and insisted that his office should have vetted everyone in the Chamber—which is absolutely absurd. Trudeau got up and read that he apologised sincerely for what happened on Friday, and that it was terrible that the person received applauses in the Chamber. Poilievre switched to English to repeat the same misleading question, and Trudeau read the English version of the same apology script, but when he read that he apologised on behalf of everyone in the House, the Conservative benches objected to it not being on his behalf alone. Poilievre demanded to know if everyone was vetted by his office that day, and Trudeau rightfully stated that doing so would be a grievous violation of Parliament’s sacred privileges. Poilievre played outrage that this was some apparent violation, conflating security and political risk. Trudeau insisted that the facts were well known, and that this was entirely the outgoing Speaker’s responsibility, and that the opposition is misleading to score points. Poilievre again repeated the falsehood that PMO should have vetted everyone, and accused Trudeau of “hiding in his cottage” for three days. Trudeau stated that Poilievre has defended Parliament’s privileges before, and how he’s pretending that PMO should have some kind of oversight over the Speaker.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and asked if he has called Zelenskyy and if he has a strategy to combat Russian propaganda. Trudeau mouthed some pabulum about propaganda and defending Ukraine, but didn’t really answer the question. Blanchet took from the answer that he hadn’t called Zelenskyy and repeated the question. Trudeau said that they had sent several direct messages, before condemning Russia’s invasion.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he declared that “real damage” had been done by the incident on Friday, and wanted “concrete action” on cleaning up the mess. Trudeau recited that they stand with Ukraine, for as long as it takes. Singh repeated his same question in French, and Trudeau repeated his same response. 

Continue reading →

Roundup: No resignation from Rota, chaos ensues

Posted on by

The fallout from Friday’s incident in the House of Commons where Speaker Anthony Rota recognised a Ukrainian veteran who had served with a Nazi-affiliated unit was a complete and utter gong show yesterday, as Rota did not offer his resignation as he should have, and the day simply spiralled out of control. Both the NDP and the Bloc have called for Rota to resign, and the Liberals have been doing this weird hinting that he needs to “really think about” whether he can maintain confidence, without just coming right out and saying he can’t, while only the Conservatives have been de facto rushing to his defence by trying to blame Justin Trudeau and the PMO for what happened, in a stunning display of bad faith and mendacity, while also apparently trying to shield an incompetent Speaker whom they want on the job because he’s so lenient with them. The prime minister did make a brief statement about how this was an “embarrassment,” but didn’t call on Rota to resign either.

Much of the bad faith arguing was a deliberate conflation from every single Conservative between security screening and political vetting. The 98-year-old veteran was not a security threat. All security screening was followed. What he was not subject to was political vetting, as the Speaker is not subject to the PMO, and his office submitted their guest list to the Parliamentary Protocol Office who doesn’t share the list with PMO, and which doesn’t to background checks or vetting for political embarrassment, because that’s frankly not their job. The fact that there is a reporting relationship between the Parliamentary Protective Service and the Minister of Public Safety also has nothing to do with political vetting, as it’s not their job, and they don’t (and couldn’t) do background checks on everyone who visits the Hill, because that would be insane. Nor should PMO be doing this, as has been the assertion from a great many people who should know better, which is again utterly ludicrous.

Compounding the mystifying behaviour yesterday was Government House Leader Karina Gould trying to move a motion to strike the mention of said individual from the record, but also to have the audio-visuals scrubbed as well, which is weirdly Stalinist behaviour. While I get the impulse to try and remove the taint of his visit from the record, and that Parliament has done this in committee when Conservative MP read the manifesto of a mass shooter into the record, this was nevertheless fairly gross and disturbing, and the Conservatives objected (which also turned into an absolute gong show as this went down, and Rota was, yet again, out of his depth in the Chair).

So while we await Rota’s resignation, which cannot happen soon enough, we’re seeing Russian propagandists having a field day with this. But should Rota finally do the right thing and resign, the session will need to suspend, possibly for a day or two, so that the election of a new Speaker can take place. The likely two candidates are Conservative Chris D’Entremont and Liberal Alexandra Mendès, currently the deputy and assistant deputy Speakers, and we’ll see how this ends up. But Rota has to resign, immediately.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russia’s early-morning attack on Odessa Monday has killed four people and caused significant damage to infrastructure at their grain storage facilities. There were early morning attacks today against the grain port at Izmail. Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials say that their attack on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet headquarters in occupied Crimea last week killed 34 officers including the fleet commander.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1706193779940581503

Continue reading →