Tag Archives: Parliamentary Budget Officer

Roundup: The PBO’s new NATO numbers

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The PBO is at it again, and he released a report yesterday on his particular calculations about how Canada could get to our stated NATO goals of 2 percent of GDP by 2032-33, and that we would need to double defence spending to get there, and what that looks like if the government remains committed to its deficit and debt-to-GDP ratio targets. Fair enough, but there are a number of capital commitments in the works that include new submarines, and one has a pretty good bet that these costs will only increase as time goes by, for what it’s worth.

While this is all well and good, there was some particular language in the report that should raise some eyebrows, because Yves Giroux is talking about how other economic forecasts are “erroneous” and he is insisting therefore that his aren’t, which is…a choice. In his previous report on defence spending, Giroux went on a whole tangent about how the OECD figures used as the baseline weren’t correct and his numbers were, but NATO uses those OECD figures for their purposes, not the PBO’s. For the sake of an apples-to-apples comparison, you would think that he would use the same denominator as NATO does, but of course not. Giroux has a particular sense of hubris around his figures, and we all know what happened when he got them wrong with his first report on the carbon levy and then he tried to prevaricate and rationalize them away, and insisted there wouldn’t be any real changes when lo, there were some pretty significant ones.

While we’re on the topic, the 2 percent figure remains a bad one because the denominator—Canada’s GDP is much larger than many NATO members’, making that figure incredibly hard to reach, particularly as the economy grows, and the fact that any country could exceed that target if their economy crashed. Not saying we don’t need to spend more, because we do (and I would not expect the Conservatives to meet the target either as they pledge to cut significantly should they form government next), but we also need to keep some perspective.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukrainian forces shot down 33 out of 62 drones plus one missile overnight, which killed at least four in various regions of the country, while Russia claims they downed 25 Ukrainian drones, as North Korea’s foreign minister travelled to Moscow. Last evening, a guided bombs struck a high rise in Kharkiv, killing a child. Russians claim to have taken the village of Kruhliakivka in the Kharkiv region.

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Roundup: The PBO’s update won’t stop the disinformation

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The Parliamentary Budget Officer’s revised report on the distributional impacts of the carbon levy was released yesterday, and lo, it reconfirmed that indeed most households are better off with the rebates than what they pay—most especially the bottom 40 percent of households by income. It also showed a much, much smaller impact on the overall economic impact when broken out per household, which is a significant change from his initial report, and what the Conservatives in particular weaponized. They still are—Question Period was full of those same figures being mendaciously framed as costing individual households when it’s talking about the impacts on GDP when broken out into the abstract figure of per-household costs, which is not how the economy works, and yes, any climate action is going to have an impact on GDP, but inaction is also going to have an even larger impact. But lying liars are going to lie about what these numbers mean, because nobody will actually explain the difference to them.

https://twitter.com/maxfawcett/status/1844402178200670530

https://twitter.com/maxfawcett/status/1844402192742269299

With that in mind, take a look at the varied headlines, and guess the outlets:

As you can gather, at least one of those headlines is incredibly misleading, and unsurprisingly, some were framing this in explicitly the same terms the Conservatives are.

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1844551195257446581

As well, Yves Giroux went back on Power & Politics to talk about his updated report, and thankfully David Cochrane gave him the gears for it, because he continues to refuse to take responsibility for the state of confusion and disinformation that his previous report has left the country and the political discourse in. I was also struck by the fact that he kept saying that these are the government’s own numbers—so what exactly is his office doing if they’re not independently coming up with their own figures as is the whole gods damned point of why the office was created? It just keeps reiterated how Giroux is completely unsuited for this job, and needs to resign because he’s clearly making the case for why this office needs to be abolished.

Programming note: I am taking the full long weekend off, so have a good Thanksgiving, and I’ll see you on Wednesday.

Ukraine Dispatch

Overnight attacks by Russia and those into Thursday hit civilian and critical infrastructure in cities like Mykolaiv and Kherson. There is also fierce fighting in the strategic city of Toretsk as Russians increase pressure on the eastern front. Ukrainian forces hit an ammunition depot in a Russian airfield in the Adygeya region, about 450 km from the front line.

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QP: Misleading about the updated PBO report

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The PM was still in Laos, and his deputy was off to Toronto, as was Pierre Poilievre, meaning only one of the mainline leaders were present today. That left Andrew Scheer to lead off, and worried about the rise in antisemitism and hate crimes, blamed Justin Trudeau’s so-called “divisive rhetoric,” and that it takes too long to list terrorist groups as such, giving the example of the Houthis. Arif Virani says that they denounced the actions of Samidoun in Vancouver, and that they are being reviewed for a designation. Scheer then raised the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s updated report on the carbon levy, grossly mischaracterised it, and cited numbers out of context before demanding an election. Steven Guilbeault quoted the report to point out that eighth out of ten households are net beneficiaries. Scheer insisted that Guilbeault was also misleading because he only focused on the direct costs and not the net economic impact. Guilbeault recited more passages that made his point that only the wealthiest are impacted. John Barlow took over to insist that the impacts were worse for farmers. Guilbeault cited grain reports that prove that droughts have reduced grain yields. Barlow cherry-picked another citation from the report and demanded an election. Guilbeault listed the indirect economic impact costs on things like farms, and that they had the support of different agricultural associations.

Claude DeBellefeuille led for the Bloc and demanded that the Senate be abolished because they weren’t passing a Bloc bill on Supply Management (and good luck getting the constitutional amendment to make that happen). Lawrence MacAulay recited his support for Supply Management and impressed upon the Senate to pass it. DeBellefeuille demanded that the two senators be brought into line (which is not how this works), and Marie-Claude Bibeau reiterated support for the sector.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and complained about “greedy CEOs” and Thanksgiving dinners, to which François-Philippe Champagne said that they should thank the government for reforming competition, and gave props to Singh for his contributions. Singh switched to French to give the same again, and Champagne patted himself on the back for summoning the grocery CEOs to demand action.

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Roundup: Poilievre wants an October election. (Good luck with that!)

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Pierre Poilievre called a press conference in Ottawa yesterday, and demanded that Jagmeet Singh end the Supply and Confidence agreement with the government, and that a “carbon tax election” be held by October, which is never going to happen. Even if the NDP withdrew support (which they won’t, because their war chests are low and they think they can still extract things from this government that they can take credit for), the government could continue to survive on an issue-by-issue basis, particularly with the support of the Bloc, who also don’t want an election to happen. Not to mention, the Commons doesn’t return until the 19th, and there are no confidence votes coming up anytime soon that would allow the government to fall—certainly not anywhere close for an October election. Not to mention, with three provinces also holding elections this fall, trying to force a federal election in the middle of them is also a really dumb idea.

Poilievre, the whole while, was doing his best Trump imitation by name-calling (“Sellout Singh” has been a repeated phrase), misogyny (claiming that Chrystia Freeland can’t even work a calculator), whined about a declinist narrative of Canada and how it’s never been as bad as it is today, and then offered some more slogans, before he started badgering and hectoring journalists asking him questions. “But he’s nothing like Trump,” the Elder Pundits will keep declaring, never mind that he employs Trump’s tactics, along with a number of other pages from the Authoritarian Playbook, all the gods damned time.

During one of his responses, Poilievre said that he wants to cut immigration so that it’s below the rate of housing starts, and so on—and this is a dog-whistle. I have my weekend column coming out soon on this very topic, that this kind of rhetoric is directly appealing to the racists on social media who have come out of the woodwork to blame “mass migration” for all of the country’s woes, and this deserves to be called out, and not shuffled under the rug by the Elder Pundits yet again, who refuse to see that no, there is no “good parts only” version of authoritarian populism.

Programming Note: I’m taking the full long weekend off from blogging, so I’ll see you early next week.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine downed two missiles and sixty drones in another overnight attack, while Russian shelling killed a civilian in Kostintynivka yesterday. There are concerns that targeting energy infrastructure will eventually lead to an incident involving a nuclear power plant. Ukrainian forces say that one of their “new” F-16s crashed during a Russian missile barrage, and that the pilot is dead. In Kursk, Russian forces are still not responding to the incursion, Putin washing his hands of the matter, and not pulling troops from other areas of the front-line in Ukraine.

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Roundup: A decision without the grassroots

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There was a shocking announcement out of BC, where the leader of the “BC United” party (former the BC Liberals, which are not the same as the federal Liberal Party) declared that he was suspending his party’s campaign in favour of supporting the upstart BC Conservatives so that they could defeat the provincial NDP in this fall’s election. It’s stunning, and while I don’t really follow BC politics closely, there are a few observations that I am qualified to make from my particular perch.

One of those observations is that BC has a history of parties forming and dissolving in opposition to the NDP, so this is just the latest iteration of the same, and yes, that kind of history does make a difference. The other, more important observation is just how much this was leader-driven, with no real chance to consult or address the grassroots members of the party, which is a very real problem. Political parties are not supposed to belong to their leaders—they are supposed to belong to the grassroots members, many of whom don’t want to have anything to do with the BC Conservatives because the party is led by a climate-denier (he was kicked out of the then-BC Liberal caucus for expressing those sentiments), and is a party that has devoted itself to culture war bullshit (particularly anti-LGBTQ sentiments) and other social conservative nonsense. A lot of right-of-centre but socially progressive voters in the province have every right to be pissed off about this development, because it should be their party and they should be the ones to make the call about whether they will field candidates and run, even if the polls are against them. And if this is an attempted party merger under the rubric of not splitting the anti-NDP vote (and papering over the very big and cultural issues that kept the parties apart since their mutual inception), it’s also being done against the will of the grassroots membership (whose party this is). It sounds like there are a lot of frustrated incumbents and would-be candidates who are incredibly unhappy with this decision, and I’m curious about what kind of fallout will happen, but this kind of move is beyond cynical.

The other thing I noticed during the press conference was the use of catastrophising language with regard to the NDP, and why the BC United leader felt it was necessary to oppose them to the detriment of his own political fortunes. These are supposed to be rivals, not enemies, and yes, that does matter in politics, especially in this day and age where the polarization has become so great because they have personalized it to such a tremendous extent. They should be grown-ups about what has happened here, but I suspect it’ll be mostly a bunch of poll-driven narratives that only serve to alienate the grassroots members, whose party once again is supposed to belong to.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian missile struck Kryvyi Rih, which was already observing an official day of mourning for the previous day’s attack that killed four, while a family of four were killed when a Russian bomb hit a home in Izmailivka in Donetsk region. Ukrainian drones continue to strike oil infrastructure in areas outside of Moscow

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Roundup: Ministers don’t control committees

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In a bid to try and extend the Status of Women committee imbroglio story for another day, The Canadian Press tried to draw the Minister for Gender Equality and Youth, Marci Ien, into the fray to comment on what happened. Ien, who isn’t an idiot, refused, which was the right thing to do. Why? Because as a minister, she has no authority over committees, nor should she, because that’s how Parliament works.

Parliament exists to hold the government, meaning Cabinet, to account. Committees are tasked with holding ministers to account over specific subject matter areas, which is one of the reasons why ministers must come before their respective committees as part of the Estimates cycle (because one of the primary means by which Parliament holds the government to account is by controlling the public purse). Hence, the Status of Women committee is tasked with holding Ien to account for her department, and in fact, they should be doing a whole lot more of that accountability work because frankly, this government’s record on doing gender-based-analysis-plus (GBA+) is actually terrible, and most of the time consists of them just saying “GBA+” and not actually doing the work. A functioning committee would be addressing this, and even though Anita Vandenbeld wrote in her op-ed this week that the committee was functional and worked by consensus, this is a major issue that they have not been tackling like they should, not that this is a surprise. It is absolutely not Ien’s place to comment on what happened at that committee, and it would in fact be a major breach of decorum if she did.

It shouldn’t surprise me that a reporter couldn’t make this distinction for herself before writing the story, but honestly, this is basic parliamentarianism. It should be embarrassing for them to even make this basic error and not understanding the roles between ministers and committees, but this is also the state of political journalism, where actual knowledge of the system has become a rarity among those who are supposed to cover it.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian guided bomb killed two when it hit a schoolyard in the Sumy region. Ukrainian forces have confirmed that they have breached Russia’s Kursk region, sending Russians into disarray and panic, and have launched a massive drone attack further into Russia. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy calls this proof of Ukraine’s ability to surprise on the battlefield.

https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1821336708916347359

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Roundup: Giroux tries his hand at semantics

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Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux is at it again, deciding that he wants to play talking head pundit rather than sticking to the confines of his job. Case in point was his report on the proposed Digital Safety Office, and his calculations around staffing and the costs thereof (which the Conservatives have disingenuously suggested was reason to kill said office should they form government, when we know it has nothing to do with the costs). But Giroux has decided to make some utterly incomprehensible musings, talking about how “Canadians need to decide” if this is just “bureaucracy” or “enforcement” of the Act.

I’m not even sure where to start here. For one, of course it’s enforcement—that’s the whole gods damned point of the office. And there will be cost recovery in the way of fees and fines from the web giants, but Giroux didn’t bother to calculate what those could look like, because apparently, he can only pull certain methodologies out of his ass, but not others. But to try and play semantic games about whether or not this is “bureaucracy” is frankly baffling. What exactly is he trying to say? How is this at all related to his statutory responsibilities of providing economic and macro-economic analysis? It’s not, and Giroux should know that if he wants to be a pundit, he should resign and actually go do that.

But that’s not all. Giroux put out another report that is disputing Canada’s defence spending vis-à-vis GDP, so that he can weigh in on the Narrative about our commitments to NATO (without any actual context). Giroux claims that we’ll be below because the Canadian Forces has been lapsing certain levels of spending (which is true, and also a sign why we can’t just budget even more money that they can’t spend), but beyond this, he also decided he was going to use his own calculations for the GDP denominator instead of the OECD calculation that NATO uses, because he knows better, apparently. I mean, why have an apples-to-apples comparison that’s actually useful when you can pull a bespoke method from your ass in order to make a point, which again, is not within his remit to be doing. I’m going to be generous and say that there is a legitimate point about lapsing spending, but whatever he’s trying to do here is hardly within the confines of his job description, and more in line with his desire to be a media star.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched a daytime airstrike against Ukraine that hit a children’s hospital in Kyiv, and which killed at least 41 civilians in total. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in Warsaw to meet with the president of Poland to discuss strengthening air defences, as well as signing a bilateral defence cooperation agreement. Zelenskyy vowed retaliation for the strike, and called on allies to stand with him. Russia is claiming that Ukraine launched tens of drones at them, and that two power substations and an oil depot caught fire as a result.

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QP: Last chance to get clips before the summer

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It’s a sweltering, muggy Wednesday, and everyone hopes the final day before the House rises for the summer. The prime minister was present, while his deputy was not, and the other leaders al deigned to attend for on last go-around to gather some clips for the summer break. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he lamented that the country is broken, and took a swipe at the Bloc, and demanded an election right now. Justin Trudeau said that if the leader opposite was really concerned about affordability, he would help pass their measures to help people rather than play petty partisan games. Poilievre worried that the government is threatening to “shut down” the Quebec forestry sector (not true), and Trudeau responded that unlike the Conservatives, Quebeckers know they need to protect the environment and the economy at the same time. Poilievre switched to English to repeat his assertion that everything  is broken and demanded an election, and Trudeau repeated his same assertion that the Conservatives should support their programmes. Poilievre expounded on just how much the country is a living hell thanks to his “whackonomics,” and Trudeau shot back that the Conservatives are only concerned with protecting the wealthiest, particularly over the capital gains changes. Poilievre claimed the Middle Class™ doesn’t exist anymore, and Trudeau reiterated that Poilievre only cares about himself. 

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and complained about anglophone mail carriers in Quebec, and Trudeau praised the government’s support for French, including in Quebec, and promised to follow up on it. Blanchet accused the government’s programmes of harming French, and Trudeau dismissed this as “identitarian” squabbling.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he accused the government of coddling CEOs, to which Trudeau patted himself on the back for raising taxes on the wealthiest, and took a shot at the Conservatives in the process. Singh tried again in French, and Trudeau listed the programmes they have delivered.

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Roundup: Clearing the decks before summer

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It’s the last Wednesday of the spring sitting, and the big question is whether they’re going to pull the plug today or not. The government says there is still work to do—in particular, they want to push the Miscarriage of Justice Review Commission bill (Bill C-40) and the budget bill over the finish line, but the budget bill is up for a vote after QP tomorrow, leaving only C-40 at third reading debate, which is what is on for government orders tomorrow, and that’s the only bill they’re planning to bring forward for debate. This would make it pretty easy for them to pass a motion at unanimous consent to say something to the effect of it’ll pass on division or deemed pass at the collapse of debate at the end of the day, or some such if they really wanted, or to simply hold a vote at that point, and rise for the summer after that.

Of course, the Conservatives have been putting on a big song and dance about wanting to sit through the summer to “fix” the country, but we all know that’s all for show because that would mean nothing but more time for the government to keep passing bills and implementing their agenda, and that’s not what they want. They’re also trying to insist on committees sitting through the summer, but there are only two government bills at committee stage right now, so most of those meetings would likely be for private members’ business or for studies, and you can bet it’s going to be more of the latter, which would be little more than dog and pony shows to serve as clip factories while the House of Commons has risen. And if the Conservatives don’t agree for the House to rise tomorrow? Well, on the agenda are report stage debates on the cyber-security bill, the ports modernization bill, the (controversial) Métis self-government bill, and they have been debating the Elections Act changes, which the Conservatives and NDP are opposing because of bullshit objections to moving the fixed date back a week to avoid Diwali.

And then it’s up to the Senate to pass the number of bills on their plate, including the budget bill, and if they are true to recent form, they will race through their Order Paper until Friday, pass everything with little scrutiny other than maybe a few questions of the relevant minister at Committee of the Whole, and then rise by Friday, rather than stay another week or two to actually give things a proper review like they used to, back in the “bad old partisan days.”

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine is claiming responsibility for a drone attack causing a massive blaze at an oil reservoir in Russia’s Rostov region. Ukraine is investigating the suspected beheading of one of its soldiers by a Russian in the Donetsk region. Reuters has some photos of combat medics on the job on the front lines.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1802984596122034588

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QP: Who cares about the woodland caribou?

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For the final Tuesday of the spring sitting, the prime minister and his deputy were both present, as were nearly all of the other leaders. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and said that the environment minister is threatening jobs in Quebec’s forestry sector with an Order-in-Council, not mentioning that it’s because Quebec has not lived up to their obligations to protect woodland caribou. Poilievre vowed to undo such an order as government, and worried that there would be an increase in lumber costs and lost jobs until then. Justin Trudeau said that for decades, the federal government has had a responsibility to protect species at risk, and in this case, it’s the woodland caribou, and they are working with the province to protect the environment and jobs. Poilievre blamed the Bloc for keeping the government in power, and that they were letting the federal government kill jobs in the forestry sector, and Trudeau reiterated that you can’t build a strong economy without protecting the environment. Poilievre switched to English, and quoted Scott Brison’s comments about the capital gains changes, and Trudeau shrugged this off as a “partisan” attack and explained this was about $250,000 in profits, and asking them to pay a little more. Poilievre cited a Food Banks Canada report that claimed 25 percent of Canadians were now in poverty, and called the government’s programmes “whackononics,” and Trudeau pointed out that the Conservatives keep voting against help for people. Poilievre tried to tie in the nonsense conspiracy about the so-called secret carbon price report to discredit the government’s points on the capital gains, and Trudeau taunted that Poilievre hid for eight weeks in order to come up with an answer on the capital gains changes.

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and wondered why Trudeau was not sharing foreign interference warnings with provincial premiers, citing comments by David Eby. Trudeau insisted that they were working to get more information to provinces in a timely manner. Normandin demanded that the step up and give provinces the information they need. Trudeau said that Bill C-70 would do that, once it passes the Senate.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he playacted tough in trying to call out the PM for not doing anything about suspected MPs in his caucus, and the Conservatives for being incurious on the NSICOP report. Trudeau gave some platitudes about taking more actions than any other government. Singh repeated the question in French, and got much the same response.

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