Tag Archives: Pharmacare

Roundup: Reviving the NEP to own the Libs?

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It’s kind of amazing how little thought goes into some of the slogan-laden thinking in so much of the politics in this country, and no party is exempt from it. It’s also funny how some of these policies are just rehashing of old programmes that they hated before. Case in point? Alberta trying to make hay about New Brunswick importing oil rather than getting it from Alberta.

Or as I like to say:

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian drones hit a petrol station in Kharkiv, causing a massive explosion. The new commander-in-chief wants to regain momentum in the conflict, but problems with manpower and dwindling ammunition remain structural challenges for him.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1756210514835722290

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Roundup: It’s auto theft summit day

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It’s the big auto theft summit happening in Ottawa today, and it’s more than just federal and provincial governments and police who are meeting—it’s also insurance companies and auto manufacturers, because part of the problem are the ways in which auto companies have made unsecured RFID technology with key fobs and so on part of the recent lines, which means thieves can capture the frequency of your fobs and steal your card by cloning said fobs. Insurance companies could wield their might in insisting on these changes, which could make a measurable impact. As a down-payment of sorts, Dominic LeBlanc announced a $28 million boost to CBSA’s ability to detect stolen vehicles with more detection tools and analytics.

Meanwhile, as Pierre Poilievre tries to insist that this problem can solely be attributed to Justin Trudeau because of certain legal changes around conditional sentencing and bail (which were in response to Supreme Court of Canada decisions, it must be stated), he’s also made a bunch of specious correlations about how car thefts were lower in the Harper era in order to back up this claim. Except, that’s mostly not true either. But then again, facts, logic or honesty are never really in play when Poilievre is speaking, and this is no different.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces downed 11 out of 17 drones in the early morning hours of Thursday. Russia launched massive attacks on Kyiv and other cities over the day yesterday, which killed five and wounded more than thirty. The mobilisation bill has now passed first reading. Here’s a look at the corps of retired Colombian soldiers fighting for Ukraine

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QP: Quoting the Criminal Code to one another

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Neither the prime minister nor his deputy were present today, in spite of both being in Ottawa, though most of the other leaders were present. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, fresh from his press conference earlier this morning in Brampton, and he tied the Bloc to government legislation around bail conditions and conditional sentencing, blaming them for the rise in auto thefts (which is pretty specious at best), before asking the government to reverse those positions. Steven MacKinnon says that the Conservatives were pretending to care about auto theft like they pretended to care about grocery prices, and tried to connect Poilievre’s campaign chair, Jenni Byrne, with lobbying Loblaws. (She wasn’t the lobbyist, and they were only lobbying about beer and wine sales, for the record). Poilievre declared that he announced “common sense” solutions for ending auto thefts, most of which are unconstitutional. MacKinnon repeated the insinuations that Poilievre had made promises to Byrne, who is advising the caucus. Poilievre switched to English to again claim that “catch and release” bail was to blame for the rise in car thefts, and MacKinnon repeated his claim that the Conservatives were only pretending to care, and made the insinuations about Byrne in English. Poilievre insisted that Byrne’s advise was the slogan he repeated, and once again blamed the government for increasing car thefts and touted his “common sense” plan. Arif Virani reminded him that mandatory minimums for auto theft are already on the books, so he’s demanding a policy that already exists. Poilievre insisted that bail reform didn’t apply to auto theft so he should have read his own legation. Virani responded that he listens to police and noted that this isn’t an issue of individual crime but organised crime, and that the Conservatives are blocking measures to combat money laundering.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and railed that Quebec is owed $470 million for asylum seekers, no less. Marc Miller said the money they have sent is not nothing and that they are working with the province. Therrien listed grievances related to immigration and asylum seekers, to which Miller accused them of being “armchair managers,” and cherry-picking statistics.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and took credit for Manulife walking back their decision to only fill certain prescriptions at Loblaws, and demanded the government stop working for Big Pharma. Mark Holland pointed to actions they have taken to lower drug prices across the board. Singh switched to French to complain that the government met with Loblaws lobbyists 60 times—which means nothing—and Holland repeated his response in French.

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Roundup: The crybully edit

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Because yes, everything is that stupid, the Conservatives are crying that Justin Trudeau is racist because in his speech to caucus, he referred to Conservative candidate Jamil Jivani as a “twofer,” and then immediately says that it’s because Jivani is an “insider and an ideologue,” and went on to talk about how he’s a parachute candidate in the Durham by-election. Not sure why this was a topic in said speech to caucus, but it was.

Jivani then edited the video and just used the part where Trudeau referred to him as the “twofer,” said he didn’t know what that was supposed to mean—even though he deliberately edited out the part where Trudeau spelled it out—and then recited the Pierre Poilievre slogan checklist. Partisans posted a purported definition of “twofer” as a person from an underprivileged background who can fulfil two quotas or appeal to two political constituencies—a definition I have never heard in my life—and started screaming racism, and revived the whole Blackface thing, because of course they did.

The point here is that this is yet another example of the very same Conservatives who mock the “snowflakes” on the left who need their trigger warnings, and trying to play crybully at the very same time. They did it to me when I said that a joke was lame, and tried to insist that I threatened to shoot one of their MPs (which they know full well is not what I said). They are so quick to play the victim because they think that it works for “the left,” and so therefore it should work for them equally, which is dumb, and completely doesn’t get the point that people on the left make about oppressive language, or structural racism, or what have you. They make this big song and dance about how censorious the “left” is (and yeah, some of them are), but then immediately try to replicate it while at the same time try and insist that they’re the ones who are all about free speech and so on. It’s childish, it’s dishonest, and when they have to edit video and lie to try and make their crybully point, it’s even more obnoxious.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians continue to insist that Ukraine shot down that plane that allegedly contained POWs, but won’t provide evidence or access to the crash site (making it even more likely that this is an info op). There is also word that president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has invited Xi Jinping to the forthcoming peace talks in Switzerland.

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Roundup: Just what farm emissions are subject to the carbon levy?

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While Pierre Poilievre continues to insist that the federal carbon levy is driving up food prices, he provides no proof of that other than his “common sense” reckon that the levy increases the price of everything.

It doesn’t really, but Poilievre likes to make you think it does. So, University of Alberta’s Andrew Leach has crunched the numbers, and lo, the carbon levy is exempt on very nearly all farm emissions, and contributes but a fraction to other expenses, like transportation. Of course, Poilievre is lying to make you angry, but it’s nice to have some receipts to know just exactly what the lies are.

Ukraine Dispatch:

The fallout of that Russian plane downing that allegedly carried Ukrainian POWs continues to reverberate, as Russia claims they gave Ukraine a 15-minute warning about said plane, which Ukraine denies; as well, Ukraine’s human rights commissioner says that he believes this is an information op because the list of supposed POWs provided included several names on it that had previously been swapped. Several Ukrainian state organisations are reporting that they are experiencing cyber-attacks. Russia is also claiming that Ukrainian drones are responsible for an attack on an oil refinery in Russia’s south.

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Roundup: Chow chooses blackmail

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Toronto mayor Olivia Chow woke up and chose violence, as the kids say, when it comes to her budget proposals for Toronto. While the 10.5 percent property tax increase is long-overdue for a city whose property taxes remain well below the national average after years of austerity governments who have allowed the city to crumble so they can keep from increasing said property taxes (and this is not unique to Toronto either), she is also calling for an additional measure—federal blackmail. The proposal is called a “federal impacts levy,” or an additional six percent increase ostensibly to cover the costs of providing services for asylum seekers, and is basically holding the federal government at knifepoint, saying pay up or all your safe seats in this city are going to be in jeopardy.

The asylum seeker issue is rife with other levels of government falsely claiming that this is solely a federal responsibility, so they should foot the whole cost. It’s not actually true—the federal government is responsible for refugees once their claims have been approved, but before that point, they generally fall under the social services provided by provinces and municipalities, and the federal government will reimburse a portion of those costs. Of course, premiers like to wash their hands of this because of course they do (and there is a constant rhetorical battle happening in Question Period where the Bloc keep demanding that the federal government owes Quebec some $450 million for the provision of services, again falsely claiming sole federal responsibility), which leaves cities often bearing the burden, and Toronto and Montreal most especially as they get the lion’s share of asylum claimants. There remain questions around Toronto, if they have followed the proper channels to request federal funds for this (I believe there is a need for a certain provincial action to accompany it which may not have been undertaken), but again, they have been given millions of dollars this year for assistance with this.

My bigger concern is the Pandora’s Box that this kind of federal blackmail opens up. While some pundits will declare it to be genius, and on a strategic level, it is a clever way to back the federal government into a corner, but at the same time, this invites other cities or provinces to start adopting this kind of tactic, and even more to the point, it once again leaves the province—whose constitutional responsibility the city is—off the hook for their own underfunding and downloading of services to try and make their own bottom lines look good. We already have provinces who think they can just declare themselves exempt from federal laws, and others who are openly breaking those laws (or at least threatening to under the cover of legal fictions), while the pundit class says it’s the prime minister’s fault, that he made them break the law and behave this way. Chow is now pushing this envelope even further, and I worry about the long-term consequences for this country so that she can solve her short-term problem of being an adult around her city’s fiscal crisis.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Two Russian missiles struck a hotel in Kharkiv, injuring eleven people, many of them journalists. Ukrainian forces have been shifting toward building fortifications and a more defensive posture in recent months. Speaking in Vilnius, Lithuania, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that they have shown that Russia can be stopped, but that Ukraine still needs more air defence systems and ammunition. Zelenskyy added that there are “clear signs” of a slowdown in Russia’s defence industry as he called on allied nations to tighten sanctions.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1745019147065721141

https://twitter.com/kyivindependent/status/1745348642100109636

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Roundup: Opening the Canadian Drug Agency

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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.

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Roundup: Scheer throws stones at Fergus from his glass house

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The saga around Speaker Fergus’ fate is starting to become farcical, as Andrew Scheer brought up more “proof” that Fergus has been engaged in partisan activities, because he went to a party event…for a Quebec Liberal MNA, which, again, is not the same party or the same league. (Honestly, there are a bunch of former Quebec Liberal MNAs currently sitting in the Conservative caucus, much like there are a bunch of former BC Liberal MLAs in the Conservative caucus.). Scheer’s urge to keep finding this “proof” and tattling is becoming ridiculous.

But then, a twist—CBC found out that Andrew Scheer was fined by the House of Commons for filming a partisan video in support of a by-election nomination candidate in his Hill office, which isn’t allowed, and then had that successful candidate pay for the fine out of his campaign expenses, which may run afoul of Elections Canada rules (but those returns haven’t been audited yet because the by-election is too recent). The NDP have also been finding instances of where Scheer attended party fundraisers when he was the Speaker, but Pierre Poilievre’s spokesperson insists this was totally different, while also falsely saying that the provincial party event was a “fellow Liberal’s fundraiser.” But the fact that Scheer is not only a liar but a hypocrite (to say nothing of being a braying doofus) is no surprise to absolutely anyone.

And because the stupid twists don’t stop, we also learned that Fergus had a conversation with former MP Glen Pearson, who went on to write an op-ed in Fergus’ defence shortly after he took the role (before the drama happened) about the decorum in the Chamber. I’m starting to get very tired of this particular back-and-forth, and hope this doesn’t carry into the New Year.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians launched 42 drones and six missiles at southern Ukraine overnight Wednesday, which killed one person. Ukraine and Molodova got the green-light to start fast-tracking their bid to join the European Union, but Hungary remains an obstacle as they held up new aid funding for Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/kyivindependent/status/1735378672029167827

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Roundup: Fergus at the NDP’s mercy

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It looks like Speaker Greg Fergus may last another day, as the word from the NDP is that they’re going to demand a fine and another apology to the House of Commons for his lapse in judgment over that video he recorded, though I have to wonder what they think a fine is going to accomplish. That report from the Procedure and House Affairs Committee will be tabled in the Commons by Thursday, so we’ll see if there’s any kind of vote or concurrence debate at that point. And there may yet be, as Andrew Scheer is promising that he’s going to move a vote of non-confidence in the Speaker, possibly in the hopes that he can shake enough NDP MPs loose to oust Fergus. As for the Bloc, Yves-François Blanchet said that perhaps it’s time for a woman in the position, as though Alexandra Mendès hasn’t been there as Assistant Deputy Speaker the whole time, and has twice now run for the position and not gotten enough votes for it.

On the subject of the Speaker, Carleton University’s Philippe Lagassé made some comments to the Hill Times about the fact that we do treat the neutrality of the Speaker in Canada as much more of an illusion than Westminster does. He also suggests we start adopting more Westminster practices like the Speaker running for re-election as an independent, and that past Speakers be appointed to the Lords/Senate where they can continue to serve in less partisan roles, rather than having them rejoin the party ranks (and absolutely not have them run for party leader, Andrew Scheer).

Ukraine Dispatch:

An overnight missile attack on Kyiv has resulted in 45 injuries, while nearly 600 shells and rockets rained down on the southern part of the country amidst a major cyberattack on the country’s largest telecom provider. A US intelligence report estimates that Russia has suffered 315,000 casualties, which is about 90 percent of the forces it began the conflict with. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to Washington DC doesn’t appear to have swayed too many Republicans, while he continued to insist that asking to give Russia land concessions was insane because it meant abandoning families and children to terrorists.

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Roundup: Pre-approved housing plans?

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The federal government is planning to revive an old post-war CMHC programme to create a list of pre-approved housing designs as a way of speeding up the construction of new housing. The aim is to have these available for builders by the end of 2024, with various sizes and options available, in the hopes that it makes zoning and permitting decisions run smoother and faster.

One of the things this shows is that the government is listening to experts, who have been calling for this as a way for the federal government to use what levers they have to demonstrate leadership, and that’s a pretty good start. One would also have to wonder if this couldn’t also spur a movement to pre-manufacture components of these designs in order to make construction go even faster, particularly if there is an element of modularity to these designs. There does also need to be a recognition that these shouldn’t be limited to single-family dwellings, but to multi-family units including four-plexes, now that the rules around those are being relaxed in many municipalities as part of the Housing Accelerator Fund conditions, and rules around use of these designs could be conditions for future funds.

Meanwhile, check out this thread from Mike Moffatt on this particular policy move (which he was an early champion of), and we’ll see what elements the government announces as part of it later today.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1734354682837918043

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russia attacked Kyiv with eight ballistic missiles before dawn on Monday, which were all shot down but debris did injury people. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be in Washington today to try and convince Republicans to vote for the aid package as time runs out for Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1734231565301895538

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