Tag Archives: Parliament Hill

Roundup: Questions about Putin’s motives

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It’s now day twelve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and it appears to remain fairly stalled, but shelling continues. There had apparently been an agreement with Russia for a ceasefire to allow the evacuation of Mariupol, which they did not then live up to, making civilian evacuations all the more difficult in the area. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy worries that Odessa will be the next city to be targeted. And because Ukraine is considered Europe’s breadbasket, this is going to drive up the price of grain, further fuelling inflation, and there seems to be little idea of how this conflict could end considering where we are at currently.

https://twitter.com/dgardner/status/1500103479687360520

Something else we’ve seen over the weekend are a number of analyses of what Putin might have been thinking when he made the decision to invade. While I would recommend you read this post from Dan Gardner, there is also this thread by a former Russian foreign minister which also sheds a bit of insight (not fully replicated below, but just some key highlights).

On a related note to this conflict is the hope or at least speculation that this will mean that we’ll finally be serious about our defence spending in this country, but that relies on some poor assumptions, one of which is that the current government hasn’t been spending. They have, and they can’t actually spend any more because of capacity constraints within the Forces, not only in terms of our fairly broken procurement process, but mostly because they simply don’t have enough personnel. We have a major recruitment shortfall, and that severely limits their ability to actually spend their budgets. But let’s hope this doesn’t derail the efforts to fix the culture within the Forces that is proving a detriment to recruitment and retention, because you know there will be voices calling for it.

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Roundup: Prepping for a Euro trip to coordinate more sanctions

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As day ten of the Russian invasion of Ukraine picks up, there wasn’t the same drama around any nuclear facilities, though it now seems that Russia is in control of the Zaporizhzhia facility that they had been shelling the other night, so that’s not great. Ukraine’s requests for a no-fly zone continue, even though it’s not going to happen because that would drag NATO into a shooting war with Russia, which is a nuclear power, and that is a Very Bad Thing. Justin Trudeau made the point yesterday that we need to keep ourselves out of a situation in aiding Ukraine where NATO forces are put in direct confrontation with a Russian soldier, while the hope remains that the ongoing sanctions create the conditions for those around Putin to force him to stand down, because they have been so effectively crippled. But we’ll see. In the meantime, a warning about cyber warfare escalation in this conflict—they have not deployed their full arsenal, and that’s probably for the best.

Trudeau, meanwhile, will be heading to Europe for a series of meetings starting on Sunday, along with Anita Anand, and starts off in London (where he will have an audience with the Queen), then Latvia, Germany, and Poland. It sounds like part of what is being discussed are the next steps in tightening the screws on Putin and his regime, so coordination with allies could be a good and necessary next step.

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Roundup: O’Toole’s day of reckoning

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Regardless of the outcome of today’s caucus vote, Erin O’Toole is finished as leader—the only question is how long he lingers. Thanks to the (garbage) Reform Act, what should have been an exercise in reading the room has come down to weaponization, threats, and now a legalistic battle of wills where anything less than fifty-percent-plus-one will mean O’Toole will try to lord over the caucus until an eventual grassroots leadership review, which may or may not be sooner than the current date scheduled (pretty much acceding to what Senator Denise Batters sidelined for calling for). But the fact that we’ve even reached this point, months in the making, where more than a third of his caucus is alienated, means he’s unable to lead the party no matter what, and frankly, the (garbage) Reform Act is just making this situation worse than it needed to be.

O’Toole apparently spent the day working the phones, and apparently has been saying that he’s willing to change his policies if he survives—but isn’t that part of the problem that got him here? That he keeps changing his positions depending on the audience he’s in front of? I’m not sure how he thinks this promise helps him. Also, “coincidentally” an Astroturf grassroots group calling itself the “Majority Committee” launched itself yesterday morning, conveniently parroting the exact same lines O’Toole used in his challenge letter to his caucus, so that doesn’t look staged at all. Meanwhile, his former allies are lining up against him, a number of former MPs have added their names to an open letter calling for him to step down, so any illusion that continuing on as leader after this is really just delusion.

https://twitter.com/BobBenzen/status/1488633402400071682

Meanwhile, Andrew Coyne argues that it’s not O’Toole that needs to be ousted, but rather the unhinged yahoos in the caucus that are causing the party its biggest headaches. (I don’t disagree, but appealing to the yahoos is part of O’Toole’s problem). Althia Raj correctly notes that whatever the outcome of tomorrow’s vote, it’s untenable for O’Toole to stay. Matt Gurney (by video) wonders if this winds up leading to the break-up of the party.

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1488522864269705222

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Roundup: Badmouthing the CBC for grift

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Because this is occasionally a media criticism blog, I will mention that piece circulating from former CBC producer Tara Henley, who made a splash by quitting her job and starting a Substack blog (with paid subscriptions!) by badmouthing the CBC on her way out the door. While I was initially planning on not mentioning this, because the complaints she makes in the piece merely reflect poorly on her rather than the CBC, but it attracted some bizarre traction yesterday, from the likes of Jody Wilson-Raybould, and Erin O’Toole, who invited her to call him about plans to reform the CBC (as he promised to slash its budget).

But the piece itself (which I’m not going to link to, but I did read when the National Post reprinted it) was not the stunning indictment she claimed it to be, or the usual cadre of CBC-haters have been touting it as. When you get through all of her prose, it seems that her biggest complaint is that the CBC asked her, as a producer, to ensure there were more diverse guests on panels or interview segments. In Henley’s recounting, this was the booming klaxon of “The Wokes are coming!” and how this is some kind of Ivy League American brain worm/neural parasite import that has destroyed the CBC’s reporting over the past 18 months. Reality is most likely that what she considered “compromising” to the reporting was being asked not to use the same six sources on all of the panels or packages she was responsible for—because that is a very real problem with a lot of Canadian news outlets, where they have a Rolodex of usual suspects who have a media profile because they answer phone calls and make themselves available. There are a number of people, whose credentials are actually terrible and who have zero actual credibility or legitimacy, but because they are easy gets for reporters or producers, and they say provocative things, they are go-to sources time and again. That the vast majority of them are heterosexual white men is problem when a news outlet has had it pointed out to them repeatedly that they need more diverse sources. Henley appears to have balked at that.

There are a lot of problems with CBC’s reporting these days—much of it is either reductive both-sidesing, or its credulous stenography that doesn’t challenge what is being said, even if what is being said is wrong or problematic but has a sympathetic person saying it. There are a lot of questionable editorial choices being made in terms of who they are granting anonymity to and who they are not, particularly if it counters the narrative they are trying to set with the particular story (and there was a lot of this in their reporting on the allegations around House of Commons Clerk Charles Robert). There are problems with its mandate creep around their web presence, and yes, they have made very questionable decisions around some of their editorial pieces—and attempts to alter them once published. None of its problems have to do with the fact that Henley was asked to get more diverse voices. But Henley also knew that there is an audience for her recitation of the “anti-woke” platitudes, and she has a book she wants to sell, and figured that a paid Substack was more lucrative than the Mother Corp. And the fact that O’Toole and others are reaching out seems to indicate that she gambled on media illiteracy for this particular grift, in the hopes it might pay off.

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Roundup: No, an electoral agreement won’t work

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Because Doug Ford and his merry band of incompetent murderclowns have decided to make Ontario miserable again with eleventh-hour changes and nonsensical measures (sorry, guys, but I am going to be insufferably bitter about the gyms being closed down again), there is once again talk about how the provincial Liberals and the NDP need to come to some kind of agreement in order to get Ford out. Which is insane.

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/1478063212281085953

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The Liberals and NDP, provincially and federally, are not the same party, don’t have the same positions, and even if they both err on the side of progressivity, and frankly, it’s a major betrayal of local democracy if you’re telling your riding associations not to run candidates because of some cockamamie plan that involves dubious polls or results from an election three-and-a-half years ago with other factors in play which are irrelevant to the current context. Sorry, but no. The opposition parties need to come up with a coherent message and plan to sell to the people of Ontario, and to be steadfast in holding Ford to account rather than letting him get away with his folksy aw-shucks routine. It means the parties need to organise their ground game. It means a proper electoral contest, not a theoretical exercise based on bullshit reasoning.

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Roundup: Feeling like March 2020 all over again

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It’s definitely starting to feel like March 2020, as provinces all started increasing restrictions in advance of Christmas—some of them insufficient, and too late, but they are taking some actions nevertheless. (That, and they’re not all honest about what has been happening with rapid tests—looking most especially at the incompetent murderclown Doug Ford). Federally, the border measures are getting even tougher with negative PCR tests being required even for trips that are less than 72 hours in duration (and those PRC tests need to have been done out-of-country), while the travel ban on those ten African countries is now lifted as omicron has already achieved community spread in Canada and such a ban is now useless.

Prime minister Justin Trudeau is trying to offer some reassurances that we have the benefit of knowledge that we didn’t have during the first wave, and that Canadians know enough to do what it takes to curb the spread of the virus. I suspect that may be a bit overly optimistic considering that too many people will do what the government allows them to, so don’t take all of the precautions necessary to actually curb the spread.

Meanwhile, here’s an exploration of some of the psychological reactions that are being seen and felt to the rapid onset of omicron, where fatigue of the “new normal” is starting to overtake compliance to health measures, and the need to start thinking about what the world looks like if we have COVID forever now.

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Roundup: Demands to take action on transitory inflation

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Inflation was the word of the day again yesterday, as it was the monthly release of Statistics Canada’s Consumer Price Index, and lo, it was once again high – 4.7 percent, which it hasn’t been since February of 2003. But the factors behind it are largely global – energy demand versus supply on the market, the shortage of semiconductor chips that is driving up the cost of vehicles, and locally, labour shortages (much of it because of COVID) is driving up meat prices. Not that these factors matter much to Erin O’Toole.

Here’s the thing – there’s not a lot that the federal government can do about the causes of this current bout of inflation, which, let’s be clear, the Bank of Canada and the majority of analysts still believes is transitory given what’s driving it, so the last thing you want to do is overreact and create more problems in the economy. When it comes to food items, the rising costs of dairy are from supply management reflecting an increase in input costs; meat is being driven up by labour costs; other foods are impacted by droughts and supply chain issues. There’s very little that the federal government can actually do about this, not that it’s stopped O’Toole from demanding that something – anything – be done. But what is that anything? Price controls? Do we need to start practicing “Zap, you’re frozen!” again? Because it feels a lot like we’re heading back to that territory.

In the meantime, Kevin Carmichael puts the figures into context for what the Bank of Canada is likely to do about upcoming interest rate decisions. Mike Moffatt and Ken Boessenkool call on the Bank of Canada to give a clear explanation of what is happening with inflation, because otherwise the Bank will lose its credibility for allowing inflation to run hot when using their tools could do further economic damage if employed at this point. Heather Scoffield worries that the floods and washed-out roads and railways in BC will further drive inflation – though that fear may be somewhat misplaced, as the macroeconomic damage may be limited to a few days.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1461179942880694281

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Roundup: O’Toole boots Batters at his peril

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The internal strife within the Conservative ranks is getting more pointed, as word came down yesterday that Erin O’Toole had lined up enough caucus members to force out any MP who signed Senator Denise Batters’ petition – thus weaponizing the (garbage) Reform Act to protect the leader rather than curb the leader’s powers – and with that threat in the open, O’Toole then kicked Batters out of caucus.

There are a few things about how this is all going down. First of all, the use of the Reform Act provisions to threaten other caucus members is a completely hypocritical action that would be utterly galling if it were not predictable. If only someone *cough* had warned everyone that this was a garbage piece of legislation that would only be used to insulate leaders and give them freer rein to be more autocratic and to threaten the MPs who get out of line, and literally put a target on the backs of anyone who openly stood against the leader as the Act’s provisions require. Imagine it being abused in exactly the way that someone *cough* warned was likely to happen, no matter what Michael Chong and every talking head pundit in this country gushed over. Funny that.

The other aspect of this is the fact that O’Toole kicking Batters out puts a stake in the party’s self-righteous moralising that they respect strong women and that Justin Trudeau hates them (citing Jody Wilson-Raybould, Jane Philpott and Celina Caesar-Chavannes – but curiously omitting Chrystia Freeland from consideration). It’s even more curious that Senator Michael McDonald said virtually the same things about O’Toole that Batters did, and he didn’t face any sanction. In fact, this has clearly shown that O’Toole will tolerate the anti-vaxxers in his caucus but not someone who wanted the party’s grassroots membership to have a say in his leadership before August 2023 (at which time they would warn that there could be an election at any time so they couldn’t possibly change leaders then). And by kicking Batters out of caucus, she has nothing left to lose. She can join up with the Canadian Senators Group later today (the likeliest place for her to land) and carry on criticising O’Toole and calling on Conservative grassroots members to have their say about his leadership, and O’Toole can’t do anything about it. All of his leverage over her is now gone. If O’Toole thinks that this move solved any of his problems, he’s mistaken.

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Roundup: A headache over added and subtracted seats

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The question of seat redistribution and the allocation – and subtraction – of seats has been simmering, and the premier of Quebec is demanding that the prime minister step in and guarantee that Quebec not only retain the seat it is slated to lose, but also to guarantee that because of the notion that Quebec constitutes a nation within Canada, that they must be guaranteed that their share of seats never drops even if their population grows at a much slower pace than other provinces. The problem with that? It would require a constitutional amendment to do, using the 7/50 formula (seven provinces representing 50 percent of the population). And that could be the tricky part.

Of course, the obvious solution is to tinker with the seat distribution formula, which the Conservatives introduced (fully intending to screw over Ontario for new seats along the way). But as I stated in my column a couple of weeks ago, we would probably be better served adding far more than just four seats – something more like 40 would be better for everyone, especially because it would mean better populating committees and keeping parliamentary secretaries from voting positions on them. Mike Moffatt and I discussed this over Twitter:

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1456558821942431744

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Furthermore, if we stay at the current redistribution formula, that sole new seat in Ontario is going to cause a lot of problems with redrawing boundaries (which will then have provincial reverberations, because Ontario provincial ridings mirror their federal counterparts, with the exception of an additional seat in Northern Ontario for better representation. Once this reality starts to sink in, perhaps the government would start considering boosting that formula to avoid these kinds of headaches.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1456593608648298498

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Roundup: Rejections without significance

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Because it’s a story that refuses to die, we now know that both the Bloc and the NDP have rejected the four main votes in the (garbage) Reform Act, and now we await the Liberals, who will in turn doubtlessly reject it as well whenever they finally have their first official caucus meeting, and of course, we have political scientists trying to derive meaning from these refusals, as they have tried with the Conservatives agreeing to the four votes.

The simple truth, however, are that these votes really don’t matter because the legislation is garbage. The power to elect caucus chairs doesn’t require its adoption, as we’ve seen, and the power over the expulsion of caucus members is largely illusory anyway because it tends to depend on what the leader says either way. I would be hugely surprised if the caucus and the leader ever parted ways on whether or not to boot someone out of the club, as that would create a schism and be a sign that the leader was on the way out. As well, the power of the caucus to pressure a leader to resign is actually better off without the Reform Act because what the Act winds up doing is protecting the leader by setting a high threshold and requiring a public declaration to trigger a vote, which can invite retribution. It has been far more effective to push a leader out with one or two public declarations by brave members that signal the writing on the wall rather than demanding a twenty percent threshold.

In the Hill Times piece, the Act’s author, Michael Chong, pats himself on the back for codifying these sorts of caucus decisions, but codifying them is part of the problem. Our Westminster system tends to work best under conventions that aren’t codified because it affords them flexibility and the ability to adapt, whereas codification is inflexible, leads to testing of the system and the pursuit of loopholes and getting around what has been codified. It’s the same with setting that threshold to push out a leader – it winds up insulating the leader more than empowering the caucus, and we’ve seen leaders resign with far less pressure than what this codified system affords, not to mention that by Chong codifying that party leaders must be selected by membership vote in the actual Parliament of Canada Act as a result of this garbage legislation, he has made it even harder for parties to return to the proper system of caucus selection and removal of leaders as we need to return to. Chong has screwed Parliament for a generation, and it would be great if the talking heads would stop encouraging him.

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