Tag Archives: Procurement

Roundup: Impressing the Scots

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The Speaker of the Scottish Parliament paid a visit to Ottawa’s Parliament earlier in the week and was apparently so impressed with our Question Period that she plans to write a report to take suggestions from it. I’m frankly a little dumbfounded, because our QP is pretty gods damned terrible in pretty much every respect, but let me first take what her observations are.

One of them is that ours operates bilingually fairly seamlessly. Well, she didn’t see the seams, in any case. In Scotland, they have translation available for those who speak Gaelic, but it’s not automatically provided like English/French is here. But she didn’t seem to see the stress that the pandemic has caused our simultaneous interpretation abilities, from the injuries to interpreters, or the strains to resources that are now severely limiting the function of our Parliament because MPs didn’t care enough about those interpreters as they abused them over Zoom, and lo, we’re staring down a crisis.

She was impressed with the “brevity” of our QP, where it operates in thirty-five second questions and answers. I’m not sure that’s a good thing, frankly, because it has largely just created a demand for talking points, both in asking and answering questions, and so much of the exercise is useless—the questions must contain key phrases (and that’s getting worse), while the answers are frequently non-sequiturs or just bland pabulum that is disconnected from what has been asked. I’m not sure what she saw that was so impressive. The fact that it happened at a rapid pace and bilingually looks impressive from afar, but spend more than a day here, and the uglier underside quickly becomes apparent. Yes, ours can be more dynamic than Westminster’s because we don’t require questions be asked in advance in order for briefings to be prepared, so the PM must be nimble when answering, but again, most of those answers are going to be vague and superficial.

It’s kind of flattering that they’re seeing the good we have to offer, but these days, our rules and system has given rise to an increasingly unserious Chamber, and that’s not something we should be exporting to anyone.

Ukraine Dispatch:

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the border with Poland and Belarus, citing a need to be ready in case Belarus became another invasion route for Russia.

https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/1648688637670830083

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Roundup: The dog and pony show around Telford at committee

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

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

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

Ukraine Dispatch:

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

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

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Roundup: No, David Lametti isn’t threatening to tear up the constitution

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You may have noticed that the Conservatives engaged in a lot of rage-farming over the long weekend, sometimes to the point of flailing and reaching. There was one particular bad-faith episode (well, they’re all bad faith episodes) that was particularly egregious, and roped in several premiers, who were also engaged in their own bad faith. Late last week, justice minister David Lametti attended a special chiefs’ assembly of the Assembly of First Nations, and was asked about the Natural Resources Transfer Act of 1930, and how these treaty nations were not benefitting from them, and Lametti said he’d look at it, but acknowledged this would be controversial.

And how! Immediately, Danielle Smith, followed by Scott Moe and later Heather Stefanson insisted this was a plan to “tear up the constitution” and nationalise the control over natural resources, and before long, Pierre Poilievre got in on it, along with a chunk of his caucus who insisted this was some sinister federal plan. It’s not, and this is more bad faith bullshit (which, of course, the gods damned CBC just both-sidesed, because they still think you can both-sides bad faith).

It’s actually in the legislation that the federal government can give back land to the First Nations to honour treaty obligations, and that’s at the heart of this. It’s their land. The treaties are to share the wealth, and, well, we haven’t been. They have a legitimate point here and the government has an obligation to at least hear them out on this. Is that going to cause a fuss? Yeah, probably, because settler governments, particularly in provinces, particularly those who are dependent on resource revenues, are not going to want to share that wealth. But the time is coming, sooner or later, when these conversations need to be had, because economic reconciliation means more than just dangling bribes to affected First Nations when resource extraction projects happen on their lands. Not that bad faith actors like Danielle Smith, Scott Moe or Pierre Poilievre will acknowledge this reality.

Ukraine Dispatch:

In what seems to be a repeating story, Russian Wagner group mercenaries claim—again—that they control most of Bakhmut, while Ukrainian forces claim, again, that they are holding firm. Not far away in Avdiivka, it is estimated that some 1800 people are still living in the city as Russian forces pound it. There was a prisoner swap of about 200 Russians and Ukrainian soldiers on Monday. Ukraine also resumed electricity exports to Europe now that they are able to meet their domestic demand after Russia targeted their energy infrastructure late last year.

https://twitter.com/denys_shmyhal/status/1645857297955192848

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Roundup: An abuse of parliamentary privilege

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I’m going to start off with the caveat that I don’t know a lot of what is happening in Nova Scotia politics, but I came across this story yesterday that is pretty concerning for the practice of parliamentary democracy across Canada. During debate on a bill around use of non-disclosure agreements in sexual assault cases, an independent MLA (formerly a Progressive Conservative but was ejected from caucus in 2021) tabled a document that she claimed was a non-disclosure agreement that a former female staffer had been coerced into signing with the PC Party. (To make things more interesting, said staffer died last year, and was working for this MLA at the time, and she says the document was found in the staffer’s effects—and, the party’s former leader was forced out over inappropriate behaviour toward a female staffer, so I’m not sure how many of these factors actually connect).

A government minister has since moved a motion to force her to retract her comments about the incident, and if she doesn’t, that she should be ejected from the Chamber until she does. And that’s a capital-P Problem. Said independent MLA has since complained to the province’s justice department that the move is unconstitutional…but the justice department can’t do anything about it, because this is clearly a matter that is within parliamentary privilege. But it absolutely violates all of our constitutional norms, and should be a warning sign about the lengths to which parties will abuse their majorities in legislatures to silence or bully opposition members. It sounds like the provincial Liberals and NDP will be opposing this motion, but the PCs do have a majority, so they may not be able to do much in the long run. I would not be surprised if the Speaker finds that the motion is out of order, but this is genuinely frightening about how much they are willing to abuse process and parliamentary privilege like this.

Don’t get me wrong—parliament or the legislatures do have the power to eject members, but it needs to be for very serious wrongdoing, such as being convicted of a serious crime, and if the member refuses to resign gracefully, then they can order the seat vacated. But those are extreme circumstances that have yet to be actually tested (because in virtually every case, sanity prevails and they resign with a shred of dignity still intact). But this is an unconscionable abuse of that power, an abuse of a parliamentary majority, and sets a very dangerous precedent for the future, and the PC members who thought this was at all appropriate should not only be ashamed, but should probably consider tendering their resignations for this debacle.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces say they repelled 45 Russian attacks around Bakhmut over a twenty-four-hour period, continuing to grind down the Russian forces while they await more arms from allies like the US in order to begin the spring counter-offensive.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1643326962226585604

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QP: Facile questions about the deficit

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While the prime minister was in town and in his office, he was not available for QP on Wednesday as is his usual practice, as he was instead speaking virtually at the Summit for Democracy, before he and his deputy whisked off to a photo op. That’s right—the day after Budget Day, and the finance minister was also absent from the Chamber. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and both gave several falsehoods about deficits and inflation before complaining there was no path to balance in the budget. Randy Boissonnault pointed out the measures to help, and that this was a budget about hope. Poilievre listed four things that Chrystia Freeland said last year that he deemed false (to varying degrees of veracity), and wondered how anyone could trust anything this government says. Boissonnault listed the declining deficit and low debt-servicing charges. Poilievre returned to French to complain the government has “lost control” of finances, and this time François-Philippe Champagne said that it was the Conservatives who were disconnected because the government did the three things that Canadians were asking of them. Poilievre switched back to English to worry about people living in their parents’ basement while the country “goes broke.” (It’s not going broke). This time Karina Gould got up to decry that the Conservatives had already declared they were going to vote against things like the grocery rebate and supports for families. Poilievre denounced the budget as “tax and squander,” and once again, Gould reiterated the things the Conservatives were voting against.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he listed measures that were not green, and wanted an admission that money was going to oil companies. Steven Guilbeault said that this was not the case, and quoted the David Suzuki Foundation’s praise. Blanchet complained the budget was anti-Quebec because it meddles in provincial jurisdiction on things like dental care, but Guilbeault just kept reading praise for the budget.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, patted himself on the back for the things in the budget he liked, and said that if the government needs more ideas, they can tackle the housing crisis. Ahmed Hussen recited the elements of the National Housing Strategy that he trots out. Singh repeated his backpatting in French, and this time, Irek Kusmierczyk read their plans about reforming EI, and that it is on the way.

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QP: Launching a new, unconstitutional talking point

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It was a surprise that the prime minister was present when he wasn’t initially planning to be, though most of the other leaders weren’t. Pierre Poilievre led in French, demanding to know if the debt-to-GDP ratio would fall in the coming budget. Justin Trudeau responded that he knew everyone was on tenterhooks waiting to hear what is in the budget, but reiterated what their priorities are. Poilievre changed to English, listed the number of violent deaths in the past few days and demanded the prime ministers reverse the policies that made this happen. Trudeau said that while they are concerned, they have invested in public safety while the Conservatives cut funding to them. Poilievre insisted that in Vancouver, 40 repeat offenders were arrested 6000 times in a year, and demanded the prime minster “replace bail with jail.” (That is contrary to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms). Trudeau said that if the Conservatives were concerned, they would support their gun control bill. Poilievre insisted that the government was letting violent criminals go free, and Trudeau accused the Conservatives of distracting away from their opposition to gun control bill. Poilievre made a number of specious correlations, pretended there was causation, called it “evidence,” and Trudeau said that the Conservatives loosened gun control which caused the spike in violent crime. (Erm, not sure that’s true either).

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, raised the allegations against Han Dong, and accused the government of being asleep at the switch. Trudeau cautioned Therrien of being sure of his facts so that he doesn’t mislead the House, and stated that the government took actions where necessary. Therrien wondered if Trudeau was naïve or incompetent and demanded an immediate public inquiry. Trudeau said this was just the Bloc trying to score points rather than getting to the bottom of things, which is why we should count on David Johnston.

Heather McPherson rose for the NDP, and noted that Ukrainians in Canada on visitor visas can access training programmes, to which Trudeau noted that he did sit down with union leaders, gave some bland statements about supporting Ukrainians while growing the economy. Lisa Marie Barron worried about seniors who can’t make ends meet, and that single seniors pay more in taxes than their coupled counterparts, and Trudeau insisted that they did increased the GIS for single seniors, which the NDP voted against.

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Roundup: Another Auditor General Day goes by largely unnoticed

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Yesterday was Auditor General day, not that you really heard much about it. No questions were raised about her reports in Question Period, and none of it came up on either of the politics shows, which is not good. We’ve already ceded so much of Parliament’s ability to hold the government to account to Officers of Parliament like the Auditor General, but whereas once upon a time, the biannual Auditor General Days were all anyone could talk about because media in Ottawa worshipped at the feet of said Auditors General, and who took their word as gospel, well, there has been almost none of that now. (And frankly, the fact that we are now listening to every single utterance of the Parliamentary Budget Officer and not the Auditor General is another problem).  In fact, most outlets ran Canadian Press wire copy instead of doing their own reporting from the reports, and those outlets that did their own stories only focused on a one or two of the reports and not all four, which again, is a warning sign about the state of our media.

Nevertheless, her reports concluded that:

  • The slow rollout of high-speed internet to rural and First Nations communities in particular is creating an economic divide.
  • The government can’t track the outcomes of their “feminist foreign policy” because they’re not tracking if aid dollars are actually meeting goals.
  • Two-thirds of people with disabilities found barriers to accessing federally-regulated planes and passenger trains.
  • The Centre Block renovations are on budget so far, but it’s taking far too long to make any decisions related to the work.

So really, there’s some pretty heavy stuff in there that the government should be held to account for, most especially the part around foreign aid funding that they like to show up at an announcement for and pat themselves on the back later, but are neglecting tracking the actual work. That’s a problem with this government, and we should be holding their feet to the fire over it, but we’re just not, and that’s a problem for our democracy.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces closed the town of Avdiivka to civilians in the wake of increasing attacks as Russian forces shift their attention there and away from their flagging assault on Bakhmut. Ukrainian forces also shot down a dozen Russian drones headed for Kyiv, destroying all of them. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited troops in the south-eastern part of the country, where it’s likely part of the spring counter-offensive will take place. Zelenskyy later met with the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and said that Russians were holding the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant hostage.

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Roundup: Evading a direct question with fiery rhetoric

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Yesterday’s press conference with the prime minister and US president was the first opportunity to ask Justin Trudeau about the allegations made against MP Han Dong, and whether he believed them. Trudeau said that he accepts that Dong left caucus to fight the allegations, prompted people to watch Dong’s speech in the House of Commons, and then went on a tear about how any foreign interference was unnecessary, and it was why the G7 meeting at Charlevoix set up the Rapid Response Mechanism to deal with it in elections. And it sounded like the kind of answer he should have been giving three weeks ago when he was simply flailing, until you stopped to realise that he didn’t actually answer the question, but sidestepped it with the rhetoric. So that’s a choice.

Meanwhile, here is an interesting deep dive thread into what the Globe and Mail published on Thursday night, and the subtle shade they were throwing at Global about the decision not to print allegations they could not confirm without seeing the transcript of the alleged call or listen to audio. I still think it’s interesting that this seems to confirm that the same source appears to be shopping leaks to both outlets.

Stephanie Carvin answers some questions about the kinds of warrants that could be in play as it appears that CSIS was monitoring the calls of the Chinese consulate.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1639255538021339136

Former national security analyst Dennis Molinaro gives a good gut-check about the kinds of intelligence we’re dealing with, and why none of it can be taken as conclusive, particularly as much of it is time and context specific, which may be why it wasn’t acted upon at the time.

https://twitter.com/dennismolin11/status/1639402944708632576

And finally, while some are hoping that a public inquiry might stop the leaks, I wouldn’t be so sure. The leaks are intended to cause damage, but to the government in particular, and that’s partly why they are being shopped to the journalists that they are. That they are causing damage to the intelligence service and institutions seems to be considered collateral damage, particularly if the op-ed from last week is indicative of a narcissistic personality who thinks they know better.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian forces attacked stretches along the northern and southern fronts in the Donbas region, as their assault on Bakhmut has flagged. Ukrainian forces are using three Soviet-era helicopters to pummel Russian forces on the front lines from afar. Slovakia has delivered the first four of 13 MiG-29 fighters to Ukraine. The UN’s human rights monitors have seen cases of abuses and killing of prisoners of war on both sides of the conflict (though disproportionately more on the Russian side).

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Roundup: Forcing a confrontation for point-scoring alone

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The whole sorry affair over summoning Katie Telford to testify at committee is coming to a head today with the vote on the Conservatives’ Supply Day motion to bypass PROC and have her testify at the Ethics Committee (where they hold the chair). And in the meantime, the Liberals are deciding if they want to make this a confidence vote, while the NDP are deciding if they are going to go along with the Conservatives on this, or back the Liberals—particularly if this does become a confidence measure.

It’s all really stupid. While I have a longer piece on the underlying parliamentary implications around forcing staffers to testify at committee coming out later today, we can’t lose sight of why this is happening. The Conservatives knew the government would balk at forcing a staffer to testify, so they would use the reluctance to push the line that they are hiding something, and if they’re fighting this hard “it must be really bad.” Which is bad faith bullshit, but that’s the name of their game, and true to form, the Liberals walked right into it, because they flailed over the leaks in the media, and can’t communicate their way out of a wet paper bag. And the Conservatives get to jam the NDP in the process, and try to force a wedge between them and the government. None of this is about foreign interference or taking the issue seriously. This is entirely about the Conservatives smelling blood in the water and going on the attack so they can score as many points as possible, because nobody in this parliament is serious or a grown-up. This is all a gods damned game to them, and it’s destroying our Parliament in the process.

Do I think the Liberals will force a confidence vote? No, because as much as the principle of ministerial responsibility is of importance, they’re not going to risk bringing down the government over it—particularly to have an election over allegations of interference in elections without any chance to ensure there are proper safeguards before that election happens. Then again, miscalculations have happened in minority parliaments before, and sometimes games of chicken go wrong. But really, this is yet another instance of play stupid games, win stupid prizes. And this really is the stupidest game.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces are warning that the town of Avdiivka could become a “second Bakhmut,” as they have held out against assault for eight months while avoiding being encircled, but Russians are trying to cut off their supply lines. Meanwhile, Ukraine sort of claimed responsibility for destroying a shipment of cruise missiles travelling by train through occupied Crimea. Elsewhere, here is a look at the de-mining work that needs to take place in places freed from occupation before they can complete critical infrastructure repairs.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1637881139355328523

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Roundup: The allegations reach Vancouver

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The Globe and Mail had another leak yesterday, and this time it involved municipal politics, and more particularly, the allegation that the Chinese consulate in Vancouver was meddling in that city’s election last year. Later in the day, former mayor Kennedy Stewart appeared on Power & Politics to confirm that yes, he did get a visit from two CSIS officials to warn him that they were concerned about interference, but there wasn’t really anything Stewart could do about it, since the Vancouver police couldn’t investigate. The new mayor, Ken Sim, rejected any insinuation he was helped by Beijing, and that there wouldn’t be the same questions if he were Caucasian.

The most interesting thing from the story in my opinion was that these diplomats were hoping to get a council member or two in place in the hopes that they could groom them into having political careers that included provincial or federal ambitions, but again, this is mostly about trying to get people into place who will be sympathetic to Beijing and who can help project a better image for them, and is less about actual espionage, for what it’s worth.

I’m seeing a couple of issues here. One is that we’re going to start seeing “Did the Chinese interfere?!” with every lost race in this country, I fear, no matter how ridiculous the charge, because that’s how media tends to operate. I also think there is a lot of “not my problem” happening on the official side, especially because the federal government doesn’t want to be seen to be bigfooting any municipal races, while lower levels of government don’t know what to do with warnings because they don’t have any systems in place (because we have an enormous normalcy bias in our politics). I also question why so much emphasis seems to be placed on the boasts of these consular officials who are claiming credit for election outcomes that there is no possible way they could have meaningfully influenced. People take credit for lots of things they didn’t do. We shouldn’t believe them because it’s convenient for our narrative. Cripes.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Poland has decided to give its MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, with the first four to be sent in the coming days, answering Ukraine’s pleas for more fighters. Because they are Soviet-era fighters, the Ukrainians already know how to fly and service these planes, so they can be put into operation immediately and not requires months or years of training on newer platforms. Meanwhile, the artillery battle continues around Bakhmut.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1636430656954671105

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