Tag Archives: Pierre Poilievre

Roundup: The shuffle and the kabuki responses

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The Cabinet shuffle happened, and four ministers had a change in portfolio, with eight new faces joining the ranks. Nothing is too much of a surprise here—David McGuinty did get public safety, Nathaniel Erskine-Smith got housing as was expected and that means he is going to run again. Anita Anand is now solely transport but also got “interprovincial trade,” which is interesting. There is no minister from Alberta, as George Chahal remains tainted (and has been vocal in calling for a secret ballot in caucus on Trudeau’s future), so Terry Duguid from Winnipeg is pretty much it for the prairie representative. In some respects, this may be a “caretaker” Cabinet as the leadership question remains in the air, or it could have a short shelf-life, as threats of non-confidence circle ever-closer. It doesn’t solve any problems, it doesn’t really put a fresh face on government, and the only thing that can do that is for Trudeau to make as graceful an exit as possible, because the number of MPs who are publicly against him continues to grow, and he could very well be pushed by the next caucus meeting.

Trudeau does keep saying he wants MPs to be the "voice of their ridings in Ottawa"…

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2024-12-20T16:36:01.558Z

Amidst this, Jagmeet Singh decided to publish an open letter to say that he was ready to vote non-confidence in the government, but…blamed them for things that are completely within provincial jurisdiction, like healthcare and building housing. But more to the point, this is more performance art after he got called out by absolutely everyone for his “all options are on the table” equivocation, and this letter also didn’t specify that he would seek to vote them out at the first opportunity, so he has wiggle room. Trudeau may yet prorogue (but most likely if he does decide to step down), and if a new leader is chosen before Parliament comes back, Singh can always prevaricate and equivocate yet again about giving said new leader a chance, or something else like that. This is just more of the kabuki theatre that Canadian politics has descended into.

And Jagmeet Singh wants to rush us into the Poilievre era. Great.

— Emmett Macfarlane (@emmettmacfarlane.com) 2024-12-20T17:53:04.092Z

And then to top it all off (and possibly to try and call Singh’s bluff), Pierre Poilievre called a press conference to say that he wrote a letter to the Governor General so that she can “reconvene” parliament and demand a confidence vote. Erm, except we’re not prorogued, so Parliament is merely adjourned and not suspended, and it’s at the call of the Speaker to recall the House on a non-sitting week, not the Governor General. Never mind that the government just survived a series of confidence votes, this is deliberate obfuscation and confusion of our system, and no doubt he will attack the GG if she doesn’t accede to his request (which she can’t, because it’s not in her powers to do so). Poilievre is deliberately misleading people about how our system operates so that he can claim that constitutional safeguards are illegitimate if anyone tries to use them against him. Aspiring autocrats love to weaken the guardrails, and Poilievre is engaged in a very concerted effort to do that right now.

Programming Note: This is it for 2024, barring some major news happening. Loonie Politics content will continue on its usual schedule, but the blog is on holiday because the burnout is real. Thanks for sticking with me all year, and we’ll see you in 2025.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian missile struck Kyiv in the morning rush hour, killing at least one person and damaging a historic cathedral. Ukrainian forces needed to pull back from two locations in the eastern Donetsk region, lest they become encircled. Here is a look at some of the people staying in Pokrovsk, in spite of Russia’s advance.

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Roundup: Healthy tensions made dramatic

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The Globe and Mail had one of those stories that sets the cat among the pigeons, where they got a number of sources to describe the tensions between PMO and the department of finance over their spending plans, and in particular that the PMO was adamant that they wanted to do that stupid GST “holiday”/rebate cheque programme, while Chrystia Freeland was trying to keep a lid on spending because she had fiscal anchors that she was trying to stick to.

As for those anchors, Freeland had her usual Tuesday economic good news press conferences yesterday, and very deliberately said that the Fiscal Update next Monday will show that the debt-to-GDP ratio fiscal anchor would be met—but steadfastly refused to mention the other two fiscal anchors she spoke of in the spring, being a cap on the size of the deficit, and a target for the deficit to be less than one percent of GDP by 2026-27. Freeland repeatedly said that the debt-to-GDP ratio was the one that mattered and that we would see on Monday that it was continuing to decline, but the interpretation of that statement is essentially that the deficit will indeed by higher than $40.1 billion, but that overall GDP grew enough that the higher number is less of an issue. We’ll have to see on Monday, but she very much appeared to be telegraphing lowered expectations.

As for those tensions, if anyone has been around Parliament Hill for any length of time, this should be normal. PMO wants to do things that are politically expedient, and that usually involves spending money, which finance tries to rein in as much as they can. This appears to be little different from that very ordinary standard operating procedure. This, of course, didn’t stop Pierre Poilievre from pouncing on this in QP as proof that the PM has “lost control” of his Cabinet (which is risible on the face of it), and every journalist was trying to get some kind of comment on it (when they weren’t trying to get a comment on Trump’s latest slights). Maybe I’ve been up here too long but “PMO wants to spend money, finance tries to say no” isn’t really news. That’s a day that ends in y. Maybe we don’t need to be so breathlessly dramatic about everything all the time?

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian missile hit a clinic in Zaporizhzhia on Tuesday, killing at least six and injuring at least 22. A missile attack also damaged an industrial facility in Taganrog the same night. President Zelenskyy says that he used his meeting with Trump in Paris to raise the issue of security guarantees.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1866509325197316109

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Roundup: Tariff threats still inbound

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There were a few bits of Canada-US relations over the weekend, starting with the re-opening of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, where François Legault secured an invite, and managed to get a few minutes with Donald Trump as a result, and allegedly spoke about the border issues and tariffs. (Incidentally, all of the people who complain about Justin Trudeau’s foreign travel also complained he didn’t attend this event, because of course they did). Trump then went on Meet the Press and extolled the virtues of tariffs, claimed that the trade imbalance somehow means that America is “subsidising” Canada (what?!) and he’s still talking about annexing Canada and maybe turning it into two states (huh?!), because of course he is.

My favourite thing that happened all week was when the premier of Quebec said he wanted to ban public prayer and then flew across the ocean to attend the re-opening of a church.

— Paul Wells (@inklesspw.bsky.social) 2024-12-09T03:21:45.529Z

Meanwhile, several Conservatives including Jamil Jivani went to the IDU conference in Washington DC, and Jivani had dinner with his old friend JD Vance, as well as UK Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch. Poilievre insists that every Conservative is telling Americans that tariffs are a bad idea…yet they are also saying that Trump is right about the border and fentanyl, so do they not make Trump’s case for him? Again, does anyone think about anything they say these days?

And senior public servants are warning Trudeau that the size of America’s debt and deficit are going to have knock-on effects to our economy because they are so closely tied, particularly when it comes to interest rates on the bond market—higher interest on US treasury bonds also drives up the rates on Canadian government bonds. Take that for what it’s worth.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukrainians shot down 28 out of 74 drones Sunday night, with a further 46 “lost” likely from electronic warfare. No word yet on damage or casualties. Following a meeting with President Zelenskyy at the Notre Dame re-opening, Trump called for an immediate ceasefire in the conflict, along with usual schtick about making a deal, which meant that Russia has sent along their conditions. (Why does this give me a sinking feeling?)

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Roundup: Fiscal update when?

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This year’s Fall Economic Statement is very late—it’s extremely unusual for it to happen in December—but these are not normal times, and the ongoing privilege filibuster hasn’t helped matters any. The government’s attempts to get shame either the Bloc or the NDP into finally voting with the government to pull the plug on it have all been in vain, because they all want to do their part to embarrass the government as much as possible. This being said, I’m not sure what the holdup is with the Public Accounts either, though they have insisted that they’re with the Auditor General and will be released soon. In any case, the government has refused to explain exactly why these releases are so late, because we’re back to the tiresome “If you’re explaining, you’re losing” schtick, so as usual, this government never explains.

Pierre Poilievre decided that he would pretend to be magnanimous and “offer” the government two hours from the Conservatives’ allotted day on Monday to present the update, but Chrystia Freeland rejected it out of hand, calling the offer absurd, and saying “This proposal from the Conservatives is like an arsonist who set the fire in the first place, saying, ‘don’t worry about it, I’ll come with a fire truck for a couple of hours, but tomorrow I’ll be back again with matches’.” Procedurally, I don’t see how the Conservatives could offer up time to government business on an allotted day, but also procedurally, Freeland could use the daily Statements by Ministers slot during routine proceedings to deliver the update (though that may be somewhat more awkward for the associated media lockup because those statements tend to be earlier than budget or fiscal update speeches are traditionally delivered, in part because of any data from those lock-ups moving markets (which is why they are traditionally delivered after 4 PM). They could technically also deliver it outside of the Chamber (Paul Martin once read it at committee, and the Conservatives liked to deliver it off Parliament Hill entirely), but we don’t want to encourage a return to the practice of announcing things outside of Parliament (and the UK Speaker uses very strong language about this sort of thing).

If I had to guess, I would suspect that it’ll be delivered next Wednesday or Thursday, once the Supply votes are out of the way, which makes it extremely convenient for Freeland and every other minister to spread out across the country to deliver the “good news” about the programmes in the budget, whereas Poilievre would want to use the timing of the update to claim that he “forced” the government to “come clean about the numbers,” or some such bullshit like that. None of this is great, but we’re dealing with an exhausted government and a dysfunctional parliament, so nothing is as it should be right now.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine is giving soldiers who deserted or went AWOL a second chance, particularly given the shortages they’re facing on the Eastern front, and lo, some six thousand soldiers have rejoined. News leaking out of the Trump camp indicate that his plan to end the war involve major land concessions, NATO membership being off the table, and cutting military aid, unless Putin refuses, in which case they would provide more. (Land concessions are not really his goal, guys).

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Roundup: Parsing the dinner at Mar-a-Lago

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So much of the weekend was spent parsing what happened at Mar-a-Lago on Friday, particularly given that Justin Trudeau didn’t put out an official readout of the meeting (probably because Trump is not officially in government yet), while Trump posted about it on his social media where he called it “productive.” The takeaways appear to be that the tariffs threats cannot be avoided immediately, because Trump believes in them and wants to use them to balance the budget (good luck with that), but that we may be able to carve out exceptions. There was also talk about the border and fentanyl, according to Dominic LeBlanc, and talk about more drones and helicopters to patrol the border (but who knows where the helicopters and personnel will come from—we are not flush with excess capacity).

None of this was good enough for Pierre Poilievre, who took to the microphones on Sunday to claim that Trudeau went in a “position of weakness” (because that’s Poilievre’s go-to line these days), and lamented that Trudeau came home “empty-handed,” as though these things are done in a day, particularly with a mercurial chaos agent like Trump. Poilievre also says he wants a cap on asylum seekers, because he claims there are too many bad actors, and said he would allow a reprieve in the ongoing filibuster if there is a border plan that meets his approval on the table. But when asked what he would do different, Poilievre says he’s not the prime minister, and walked away. So…that happened.

In a fight between Canada and the US, with the incoming US President engaged in disinformation about the Canadian border, Pierre Poilievre sides with the US.

— Emmett Macfarlane (@emmettmacfarlane.com) 2024-12-01T19:19:43.012Z

Meanwhile, Doug Ford insists that the premiers are “unanimous” that they want us to accelerate defence spending to reach our NATO target sooner than later. No word yet on what fiscal demands they will give up from the federal government to reach that spending target faster (because the money has to come from somewhere).

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian drone hit a residential building in Ternopil overnight, killing one and injuring several others. Drones also targeted Kyiv the night previous, and killed three in a strike on Kherson. Russians claim to have overtaken the settlements of Illinka and Petrivka in Donetsk region. Ukraine says it will increase the use of unmanned ground vehicles over the coming year.

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Roundup: GST “holiday” bill passes

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The federal government got their wish, with the cooperation of the NDP, to get their GST “holiday” bill through the House of Commons thanks to a programming motion that paused the ongoing privilege filibuster for the sitting day. In spite of the Bloc and Conservatives slow-walking it with dilatory amendments, it did pass late at night, with the terms of the motion being that once it passed second reading vote, it would automatically be deemed to have been referred to committee of the whole and passed, and then passed at third reading. (The Senate won’t see it until Tuesday at the earliest). It’s the first opportunity the Commons has had to do real work in more than six weeks, for what it’s worth. The Liberals and NDP, however, think they’ve found a big gotcha, that by forcing the Conservatives to vote against this legitimately terrible policy will be the key to reversing their fortunes in the polls, and their attempts remain cringe-worthy.

Pierre Poilievre took to the microphones to denounce it as “inflationary,” which is actually nonsense because we’re no longer in an overheated economy. Nevertheless, he relies on the simplistic notion that any government spending or deficits are inflationary (and claims that Chrystia Freeland herself this, which isn’t really what she said—not that the truth has ever mattered to Poilievre). Then again, his entire understanding of economics comes from crypto bros on YouTube, so probably best not to take him seriously. It’s still a terrible policy, however, so their opposition to it somewhat accidentally puts them on the right side of the issue, even if the reasons are entirely false and misleading (but broken clocks being right twice a day, and all of that).

As for the implementation of this terrible policy, it just looks even worse as the details emerge. What counts and what doesn’t for the rebate are all over the map, and it’s so chaotic that businesses are, quite rightly, frustrated at just how much work it’s going to be to implement for those two months. None of this should have happened, and the Liberals should have come up with a better measure than this (and rubbed the NDP’s faces in their own ill-conceived GST cut plan), but here we are, and it just keeps getting worse by the day. Well done, guys. Slow clap.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia fired another nearly 200 missiles and drones, targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure to leave more than a million people without power. Fragments from downed drones hit two buildings in Kyiv, injuring one person.

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Roundup: Falling over each other to defend Trump’s position

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The first day of fallout from Trump’s tariff threats was full of more panicked flailing, and performative attempts at toughness. Danielle Smith, Scott Moe, and BC’s opposition leader John Rustad fell all over themselves to demand Trudeau address Trump’s border concerns (because boot-licking is how you really own the Libs, apparently). Pierre Poilievre took to the microphone to debut his latest slogan of demanding a Canada First™ plan, which basically involved all of the things that he’s already been calling for—most especially cutting taxes, killing the carbon levy and eliminating environmental regulations—plus more handwavey demands to increase defence spending (which he’s never committed to), and an even more authoritarian crackdown on drugs than he had previously been planning under the guise that Trump was somehow right about fentanyl coming over the border. He also full-on invented the claim that this announcement caught Trudeau’s government off-guard (never mind that they’ve been spending the past year re-engaging with American lawmakers at all levels for this very contingency). Best of all was that he insisted that the prime minister needs to put partisanship aside, and then launched into a screed of partisan invective, and said that putting partisanship aside means doing what he wants. If this was an attempt to show that he’s an adult in the face of trouble and that he has the ability to be a statesman, well, this was not it—just more of the same peevishness that he always displays.

Meanwhile, Justin Trudeau will be holding a virtual meeting with the premiers later today. One of the Bank of Canada’s deputy governors made the unsurprising observation that those tariffs would have economic repercussion on both sides of the border. The Logic has a look at the impact on Canadian business, plus a reality check on fentanyl seizures going into the US and irregular border crossings, and the legalities of Trump’s declaration.

https://twitter.com/tylermeredith/status/1861533934724563237

I probably shouldn’t be surprised at the number of people with a platform in this country who insisted that Trump must be right, and it must be our fault that he’s doing this, but seriously? Capitulate and boot-lick at the first opportunity? He doesn’t have a point. If anything, there is a bigger problem with American drugs, guns, and migrants coming into our borders, and we aren’t threatening massive tariffs until the Americans secure their border, because that would be insane, and yet, supposedly intelligent and successful people in this country suddenly think the reverse must be true. We live in the stupidest of times.

https://twitter.com/JosephPolitano/status/1861207325651943487

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Roundup: Pants-wetting about a marching song

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News stories yesterday that the Royal Canadian Navy was, of their own initiative, exploring changing their marching song from “Heart of Oak” caused an inordinate amount of absolute pants-wetting from not only the usual suspects, but even some other otherwise rational voices who insisted this was all Justin Trudeau’s fault. When pointed out that the government had nothing to do with this, that the military brass was doing this on their own, they replied with things like “A military leadership shaped by, and following the direction of, the government. This horseshit is absolutely on the prime minister.”

I find it borderline incomprehensible that people cannot accept that the military itself has recognised that they need to change their own culture. They are in a recruitment and retention crisis because they can no longer count on straight white men from economically-depressed regions to fill their ranks in perpetuity. The country has changed, and they need to change with it—to say nothing of the fact that the former culture was rife with racism, misogyny, homophobia, sexual violence, and abuse of power in the top ranks. That kind of toxic environment wasn’t good for anyone, but it is being mythologised as “warrior culture.”

Even more to the point, this is being dismissed as “DEI” or “woke,” even from people who should know better. Trudeau is not sitting there forcing them to adopt “quotas” or so-called “DEI” or he’ll take away their lolly. But this goes back to my column last week about how a lot of these voices are pretty unconsciously privileging anything from straight white men as the “norm” and as the default “neutral,” and everything else is “woke,” and if you point out that privilege, you’re “divisive.” People need to grow the hell up and realise it’s 2024, and that means recognizing that the world has moved on from treating straight white men as the only “normal” that matters, and that includes the military.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian drone attack on residential buildings in Sumy killed two and injured more than twelve. Russians also claim to have overtaken the village of Novodmytrivka in the Donetsk region. There are more details about the hypersonic missile attack on Dnipro earlier in the week, to which president Zelenskyy says that Ukraine is developing new types of air defence to counter “new risks.”

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Roundup: Clapping back at the provinces and their JPs

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Justice Minister Arif Virani has been honing his responses to the cries for bail reform lately, both in pointing out that the provinces are not living up to their responsibilities—whether that’s with properly resourcing the court system so that trials are conducted in a timely manner, or in dealing with overcrowded remand centres where people are locked up awaiting trial, and because of the overcrowding and poor conditions, many accused are being given bail rather than subjected to those conditions. Even more recently, he has started pointing to how certain provinces, and Ontario especially, have been appointing Justices of the Peace, to decide on most bail hearings.

Ontario in particular had this whole song and dance about how great it was that they were appointing JPs who weren’t all lawyers, because it gave them greater breadth of experience or whatever, but if it’s true that they’re not actually applying the law of bail properly, that’s a problem. It could simply be that their training is inadequate, which again is a provincial responsibility, because if they are being expected to read, understand and apply case law that the Supreme Court of Canada has laid out when it comes to the law of bail, then again, that is a problem that the provinces need to solve.

And yes, there are going to continue to be voices chirping that the law is the problem, and that the Liberals created an “open door” through two pieces of legislation, but this has been an orchestrated disinformation campaign. The one law that the Conservatives refer to codified Supreme Court jurisprudence, and actually toughened bail in certain respects, especially around domestic violence; the other law they refer to had to do with doing away with solitary confinement in federal penitentiaries, which has nothing to do with bail in the slightest, but repeated lying that has not been pushed back against by both-sidesing media has led a whole lot of credulous people to believe the bullshit. The law of bail is not the problem—it’s everything else that is, and the provinces are once again being allowed to get away with not doing their jobs.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukrainian security services have detained a special forces unit commander accused of being Russian mole. Russian air defences claim to have downed a series of Ukrainian drones in a number of different regions. There could be another mass displacement of Ukrainians if energy systems continue to be damaged over the winter. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had a call with Putin, asking him to withdraw his troops and negotiate, which of course Putin won’t, and now Zelenskyy is angry with Scholz because these kinds of calls decrease Putin’s isolation.

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Roundup: Promising populist GST cuts

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

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

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

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

Ukraine Dispatch

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

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