Tag Archives: Parliament Hill

Roundup: The dog and pony show around Telford at committee

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After weeks of haranguing, filibusters, and Question Period clown shows, the prime minister’s chief of staff, Katie Telford, appeared at the Procedure and House Affairs committee. Shortly before she appeared, documents were tabled to show some dates of briefings the prime minister had with his National Security and Intelligence Advisor, but there weren’t many specifics, and in her testimony, Telford didn’t fill in any of those blanks. And nearly two-and-a-half hours were spent with Telford largely telling MPs that she couldn’t confirm or deny anything, except when the Liberals asked her to pat herself on the back for all of the actions the government has thus far taken around taking foreign interference seriously.

And of course, the Conservatives spent the time putting on a show for the camera, whether it was Larry Brock playing prosecutor—in spite of committee chair Bardish Chagger repeatedly warning him that this was a committee and not a court room—or Rachael Thomas’ rehearsed Disappointment Speech at the end. It was nothing but a dog and pony show.

This never should have happened. Telford never should have been summoned. We’ve once again damaged the fundamental precepts of parliamentary democracy and Responsible Government for the sake of some cheap theatre and clips for social media. Our Parliament should be a much more serious place, but this was just one more incidence of MPs debasing themselves and the institution for the sake of scoring a few cheap points.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian missiles struck the eastern city of Sloviansk, hitting residential buildings and killing at least nine people and wounding over 21.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1646844031190614017

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Roundup: A lack of enthusiasm

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The House of Commons resumes today, and normally at this time I would have started to miss them all, and would be eagerly awaiting the first Question Period back, but this year? I’m having a hard time summoning the enthusiasm, which may be a reflection of just how tired I still am, or possibly because there isn’t a lot to get excited about right now. We are in this kind of holding pattern of outright lies coming from certain opposition parties, and a government that just carries on responding to absolutely everything with a mountain of pabulum. It also doesn’t help that almost nothing is getting done, because of dilatory motions on every single piece of legislation, and the fact that they passed only two non-budget-related bills in the fall doesn’t really give any confidence that they’re going to get stuff done.

With that in mind, I’m going to point you in the direction of this piece I wrote a few weeks ago about what is on the Order Paper, and it’s a lot, and considering how long some of the bills have been on there (carrying over from previous sessions or parliaments), one has to wonder just how they plan to get things done, and I suspect we’re going to be in for a lot more time allocation, closure, and other procedural tools to finally get these bills moving.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 341:

Russian missiles struck Kosyantynivka and an apartment building in Kharkiv, and the town of Chasiv Yar near Bakhmut. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s defence minister says that now that they have secured modern tanks, they are now looking for new fighter jets, and the president’s aide says that talks for planes and missiles are being fast-tracked.

https://twitter.com/maksymeristavi/status/1619040069490442241

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1619295582878834688

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Roundup: Ford getting huffy about his Greenbelt plans

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There was a hint of defensiveness from Ontario premier Doug Ford yesterday when he was asked about comments that the federal environment minister Steven Guilbeault made about the plans to develop parts of the Greenbelt. Guilbeault had pointed out that the plan goes against plans for dealing with climate change, and that he could look at potential federal tools to stop those projects, though later his office clarified that there are currently no projects proposed, so this was about potential legal processes to protect nature, which is fair enough, but is really getting up to the line on what he can actually do there.

Doug Ford, however, got a bit huffy and insisted that this is his jurisdiction, and then blamed the federal government’s immigration targets for needing to open up new spaces for housing development, which is bullshit because Ford has the tools to force cities to end exclusionary zoning that prevents densification, but he chooses not to use them. As well, much of the Greenbelt is on watersheds so you really don’t want to build housing there because it’ll be at high risk of flooding, and good luck getting those properties insured. It’s really not the place you want to build housing, so Ford is really not making any good case there for carving up those protected areas.

Of course, Jagmeet Singh also chimed in and demanded that the federal minister use his “tools” to stop the development, citing both the Species at Risk Act and the Impact Assessment Act as possibilities, but that’s on some pretty thin ice. To use the Species legislation, well, you need to prove there is endangered habitat there, which may not be a relevant consideration in those particular places. And the Impact Assessment Act would be going out on a very big limb to try and assert jurisdiction there because there is unlikely to be an interprovincial federal effect to hang it on (such as increased GHGs or mine runoff). Yes, the minister currently has the power to add any project in exceptional circumstances, but I’m not sure this would qualify, if those powers are around much longer, because they’re being challenged in the Supreme Court of Canada in March, and this is far less of a sure thing than the carbon pricing legislation. Once again, there are very few ways for the federal government to swoop in and assert jurisdiction, and they may not have the ability to come to the rescue of the Greenbelt (and yes, Ontarians are going to have to organise if they want to stop the development).

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 339:

Renewed Russian shelling in the east and south killed ten Ukrainian civilians and wounded twenty others. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that Russians are focusing on Vuhledar and Bakhmut, methodically destroying towns and villages as they go. Meanwhile, here’s the tale of Canadian medic serving on the front lines near Bakhmut in Ukraine.

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Roundup: A bill to swiftly pass?

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We’re at day one-hundred-and-fifteen of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and it sounds like Severodonestk is still contested territory, under constant Russian shelling making it impossible for civilians trapped under a chemical plant to escape. UK prime minister Boris Johnson visited Kyiv for a second time, promising more arms as well as training for soldiers on a rotating basis. At the same time, the European Commission is recommending Ukraine for consideration for EU Membership. Meanwhile, a Ukrainian soldier who recorded the atrocities at Mariupol has been freed from Russian custody, while the Ukrainian Cabinet approved a resolution to bar Russian citizens from entering Ukraine without a visa.

Closer to home, the federal government tabled a new bill aimed at responding to the Supreme Court of Canada decision five weeks ago that allowed automatism as a defence in very narrow circumstances. The bill eliminates “self-induced extreme intoxication” as a defence, while leaving automatism out in those very rare cases where it would be unknowable that one might enter into this state, which points to the fact that in at least one of the cases before the Supreme Court that led to the provisions being struck down was that it was simply a bad trip that they didn’t know would happen as he had never done mushrooms before. David Lametti also indicated that he’s been in discussion with the other parties, and it sounds like this could be a bill that gets passed at all stages next week before the House of Commons rises for the summer (and likely leaving any actual scrutiny up to the Senate, if they have the appetite to do so before they also rise, way too early).

I also did note that during the press conference announcing the bill, minister Marci Ien had some fairly critical words for her former media colleagues in how the Supreme Court of Canada decision had been reported, where the headlines were that “extreme intoxication is a defence,” which isn’t what the judgment said, and the judgment very clearly differentiated between extreme intoxication and a state of automatism. Nevertheless, bad headlines led to disinformation that was making people afraid (and Ien cited her own daughter’s experiences reading social media about this decision, and she listed some of the figures that these disinformation posts got in terms of likes and shares). And I remember reading those headlines, and listening to the outraged questions in QP in the days that followed, and having to sigh and point out that no, that’s not what the Supreme Court ruled, and it would help if they actually read the gods damned decision because it was all right there. But sadly this seems to be the state of the media discourse these days, so good on Ien for calling it out, especially given the fact that she was herself a journalist.

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Roundup: Running out of patience on procedural warfare

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It’s day one-hundred-and-eleven of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russian forces have destroyed the final bridge connecting Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, which cuts off the escape route for other civilians in the region. In echoes of the siege of Mariupol, there are allegedly people sheltering below a chemical plant, and Russians are telling those trapped in Severodonetsk to surrender or die. This is giving urgency to the calls for western governments to hurry up with their deliveries of heavy weapons in order to force Russians back. Elsewhere, more mass graves have been found near Bucha, and exhumations have begun. Here is a look at the network helping to transport vulnerable elderly Ukrainians out of the conflict zones toward safer destinations further west.

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1536273801599672321

Closer to home, there are eight scheduled sitting days left in the House of Commons before the summer break, and the government is trying to move on several key pieces of legislation in the face of Conservative obstruction. While the bill to preserve Quebec’s seat count is likely to pass with little issue, Conservatives continue to fight the bill to remove mandatory minimum sentences, and the changes to the broadcasting rules to include online platforms. The Commons spent the day moving a programming motion on the online bill that includes mandating that it finishes up at committee by the end of the week, while the Conservatives decry this as draconian and undemocratic, and so on. They’ve completely ground the progress of the bill to a halt at committee, and are insisting they need to hear from more witnesses, never mind that they have wasted the time of the witnesses who have tried to appear by filibustering on procedural issues. Also never mind that they would not tolerate the same level of obstruction when they were in government, where they simply time allocated everything from the start rather than negotiate timelines. Of course, that’s the thing about procedural warfare, is that eventually something has to give, and seeing as the Liberals have the support of the NDP, their patience has run out. Nobody is acting responsibly here, and it’s just one giant gong show at this point. Perhaps eight more days is too long.

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Roundup: Just who is lacking in self-awareness?

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It’s day one-hundred-and-ten of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russian forces have destroyed a bridge liking Severodonetsk with its twin city of Lysychansk, which cuts off a possible escape route for civilians fleeting Severodonetsk. Street-by-street fighting continues in that city. Meanwhile, here’s a look at the uneasy state that inhabitants of Kyiv find themselves in at this juncture of the war. Elsewhere, two UK citizens and one Moroccan fighting on Ukraine’s behalf has been captured and given an illegal show trial by the so-called separatist government in Donetsk, and has been sentenced to death, creating an international outcry.

https://twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1535918133801889799

Closer to home, I’ve seen a few conservatives sharing a two-minutes video of Justin Trudeau talking with what I presume to be a radio or podcast that he appeared on while in California last week, talking about how there has been a backsliding of democracy around the world because it’s hard and takes work, and you have people who are offering simple solutions and stirring up hate against other groups to achieve their ends. While these conservatives seem to think that Trudeau lacks self-awareness here, I suspect that they are the ones who need to look in the mirror. Trudeau is not saying that the solution to the problems are to “fire the gatekeepers,” or the governor of the Bank of Canada, while making contradictory statements about the housing market. Are the current Liberal policies getting it done? Some of them, but I struggle to think of some simple solutions he’s offering for complex problems. I’m also not sure who they think he’s stirring up divisions against, unless they think that the unvaccinated are an identifiable minority whose rights need to be protected (they made a choice and get to live with the consequences of that choice), or that because he said mean things about the coalition of far-right extremists, grifters, conspiracy theorists and grievances tourists who occupied downtown Ottawa for three weeks that somehow he’s the monster (and if these conservatives want to go to bat for that crowd, then they should do so honestly and not whitewash just who those occupiers were, pretending that this was some kind of class warfare). And while I don’t have a great deal of affection for Trudeau, and think that he’s really his own worst enemy, he’s not wrong in what he says in that clip, and if conservatives think that he’s somehow talking about himself, they should give their heads a shake.

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Roundup: Extremism on our own doorstep

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It is on or about day eighty-three of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and though the Ukrainian forces have pushed some Russian troops back to the Russian border near Kharkiv, it appears that they have given up the fight for Mariupol, and that Russian troops in the steel plant are being evacuated. We’ll see how much of this is confirmed in the next few days. Meanwhile, here is a look at the aftermath of the fighting in villages surrounding Kharkiv as people start to see what is left.

Elsewhere, Putin gave a calm response to Finland and Sweden’s decision to apply for NATO membership, saying that there is no threat to Russia if these states join. So that’s…interesting. Finnish and Swedish troops will be taking part in a NATO military training exercise in Estonia (which has apparently been in the works for years).

Closer to home, there has been a lot of handwringing about the mass shooting in Buffalo, and the role that white supremacy and violent extremism play here in Canada, and the conspiracy theory of “white replacement theory” playing its own role in our politics (Hello, Andrew Scheer!). This also led to more sniping between Conservative leadership candidates, with particular focus on Pierre Poilievre, who has aligned himself with some of these characters in his support for the occupation in Ottawa. With that in mind, here is a thread full of receipts from Stephanie Carvin, selectively quoted below so click through to read the whole thing (and bonus threads here from Jessica Davis, and here from Amarnath Amarasingam that are also worth considering).

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1526302228868374528

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1526302232622288896

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1526302236074250242

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Roundup: Preparing for another rally, this time of bikers

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It is now approximately day sixty-five of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russians fired two missiles at Kyiv while UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres was visiting, which is not a good thing. There are also concerns that Russia will attempt sham referendums in the southern and eastern parts of the country that they have captured as an attempt to legitimise their occupations. Elsewhere in Europe, Russia’s decision to cut off Poland and Bulgaria off from natural gas as a form of blackmail was met with condemnation from the rest of Europe, and given that Putin sees a united Europe as a threat, his attempts to divide the community is not working very well.

https://twitter.com/Podolyak_M/status/1519734914018590726

Closer to home, Ottawa is bracing for a different kind of convoy this weekend, this time led by motorcycles instead of trucks, and they claim to be veterans concerned about freedoms, and much like the previous occupation, while there were a handful of truckers involved, I’m not sure how many legitimate veterans will be in this rally, or that it won’t have the same group of far-right extremists, grifters, conspiracy theorists, and grievance tourists tagging along. There don’t seem to be as many links in organisers between this rally and the previous occupation, given that many of them are either in jail or on bail, but that’s not necessarily indicative of the others that tag along. This time, the police seem much more alert to the situation—and to the fact that they are on thin ice with the people of Ottawa (seriously, the whole force needs to be disbanded), and they have set up exclusion zones and barred the rally from stopping at the War Memorial as they had planned, which is just as well because it shouldn’t be used as a symbol for these kinds of events. RCMP and OPP are already in the city in preparation, and the city has announced a bylaw crackdown during the rally.

As for the previous occupation, the added security around Parliament Hill cost $6.3 million in parliamentary security alone, with another $4.5 million being racked up in overtime for Parliamentary Protection Services officers. And then there are the $36.3 million the city is demanding that the federal government foot the bill for (though frankly the city should swallow some of this out of their police budget considering how useless the Ottawa Police were and that they allowed the occupation to take hold). One wonders how much this upcoming rally is going to add to that total.

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Roundup: Incoherent housing plans

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We are now on or about day fifty-eight of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russia has declared victory when it comes to their siege of the strategic city of Mariupol, and has ordered its troops not to storm the last pocket of resistance there. But hey, they’ve “liberated” the city by shelling it to rubble, so good job there. It is estimated that some 2000 Ukrainian troops remain on site, spread out in a network of tunnels and bunkers, along with several thousand civilians. Of course, this also means that Russian forces are likely going to simply try and wait out those remaining troops and civilians as they run out of food and supplies, and trap them inside.

Closer to home, Pierre Poilievre has been unveiling more of his housing platform, but…it’s pretty incoherent, in a lot of ways. There isn’t that much financial leverage that the federal government can wield when it comes to ending NIMBYism and seven decades of market incentives for single-family homes that are unsustainable and which only continue to exacerbate the affordability crisis (not to mention the climate crisis). Oh, and Poilievre is defending his own rental property portfolio, citing that he’s providing affordable rental accommodations to two “deserving families.”

The last point on that list is pretty critical—it would undermine central bank independence, and one imagines could actually create a deflationary spiral in the right circumstances that would create a depression, which is precisely what they were avoiding when they engaged in quantitative easing during the pandemic recession. Jennifer Robson has even more concerns about the incoherence of the plan in this thread. Meanwhile, I would also recommend checking out this thread by Mike Moffatt about just how complex the drivers of the housing situation in Ontario is. It’s not just one thing—it’s a lot of moving parts that got us to where we are now.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1517214855572320256

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Roundup: Chalk up another Conservative disinformation campaign

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We’re now on or about day fifty-one of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and has been confirmed that Russia’s Black Sea flagship, the Moskva, has sunk, which is a huge loss for Russia (particularly as Turkey is blockading the entrance to the Black Sea to military vessels, so there will be no replacement for it anytime soon), and it will no longer be able to support Russian ground forces, or to shell cities from afar. In the meantime, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy continues to show that he is a master communicator for his country and his cause.

https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1514681561412780035

Closer to home, yet another pernicious bit of disinformation has started circulating, courtesy of the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation, who read the Emissions Reduction Plan (which was prepared by an arm’s-length advisory panel), found a reference to a proposal to add a surtax to certain kinds of gas-guzzling vehicles, and then wrote an op-ed in the Toronto Sun that declared this was the government’s plan. Jason Kenney picked up on this and decried it, as has the Conservative Party writ-large and several of its leadership contenders. Of course, there are no actual plans for such a tax, but why does the truth matter? This was the tactic they’ve been using on the supposed plans for a capital gains tax on primary residents, which doesn’t exist and never will exist (even if it’s actually decent public policy). This also compounds with the selective quotes they’ve been using from the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s recent report on carbon pricing, which has been torqued into more disinformation.

There’s so much disinformation and lies floating about, as though there weren’t enough actual things that you could absolutely excoriate this government for, and yet they resort to fiction. Utterly boggling.

Programming Note: I will be taking a long weekend off from the blog, because I am exhausted after the past few weeks. See you Tuesday!

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