Tag Archives: Public Health

Roundup: A recommendation to the Industrial Relations Board

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The rail duopoly lived up to their plans and locked out workers at midnight last night, and lo, the business lobbies across this country howled, and railed that the federal government didn’t prevent this from happening. Why didn’t they pre-emptively impose binding arbitration, they asked? Well, they actually can’t. They don’t have the legal authority to, they can only recommend it to the Industrial Relations Board, who can recommend binding arbitration, but they also know that the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that there is a Charter right to collective bargaining, so why they would imperil that right before the courts is something that these business lobbyists haven’t bothered answering. Seriously, it’s an issue. But also, these same lobbyists didn’t blame the rail duopoly for the lockout, which is also a problem because they didn’t need to do that.

By the end of the day, labour minister Steve MacKinnon declared that the issues at the bargaining table were at an impasse, and made his recommendation to the Board that they end the lockout that could include binding arbitration, but also extending their previous collective agreement to now, so that they can get trains rolling again in a matter of days, should the Board agree to these recommendations—but they may not! They’re arm’s-length, and recent court decisions show that the test for these kinds of tactics are a high bar.

The NDP, meanwhile, had a predictable meltdown over this, saying it was “anti-worker” and trotted out their lines about corporations without necessarily actually understanding what happened with the referral to the Board, who will make their own determination. Jagmeet Singh also took to the microphones to insist that he won’t support any back-to-work legislation (which is unlikely to be necessary), even if it’s a confidence measure…which doesn’t matter, because the Conservatives would support it. To add to this, pretty much every headline in the country got the point of binding arbitration wrong, making it sound like the minister ordered it when he doesn’t have that legal authority. This shouldn’t have to be so hard, and yet…

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian guided bombs killed two civilians in Sumy region, while evacuations continue from Pokrovosk in the Donetsk region. Ukrainian drones have been attacking an airbase in Volgograd in Russia. President Zelenskyy visited the Sumy region, which borders Kursk. CBC has been speaking to people in Kursk, hearing about Russians disillusioned by their own government, and conscripts surrendering to Ukrainians.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1826629421236977861

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Roundup: No, that lurid tweet was not “inartfully worded”

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Conservative MP Michelle Ferreri deleted her Twitter post that claimed that the high cost of living was causing parents to traffic their children into sex work, and that “soft on crime policies” mean that survivors don’t come forward. She claims that this was simply a statement being “inartfully worded.” Bullshit. Don’t believe her. Ferreri has a record of saying things that defy credulity, such as that seniors in her riding are reduced to eating cat food because of Trudeau, or that the carbon levy has created a mental health crisis in teenagers. No, seriously. She has also been caught on several occasions embellishing her personal history, such as her “scholarship” to university (she got discounted tuition because one of her parents worked there), or her claim that she is the “single mother of six children” (she’s divorced with three children from her first marriage, and her current partner has three children from his previous marriage, and occasionally custody overlaps). This is a pattern.

All of this is deliberate. It is not her being clumsy or not articulating herself—it’s a deliberate tactic of using lurid images to make people irrationally angry at the government, because lies that trigger strong emotions work. That’s the sad truth of the matter, and this is 100 percent the tactic that the Conservatives are using to try and win the next election. Ferreri, granted, likes to gild the lily a little more when it comes to her tales of woe, and that’s what got her into trouble this time, but this isn’t accidental, or her not understanding the crime statistics she heard from her local organizations. This was absolutely about trying to come up with a new lie to make people angry at Trudeau, and she got caught. Not that there will be any consequences, because everything is both-sidesed in the media, so her defenders will rationalize her falsehoods, and nothing will change. They know how to game the system like this, and they will keep doing it because it works for them.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukrainian forces say that they destroyed an S-300 anti-aircraft system in Rostov region overnight, citing that it was being used to attack civilian infrastructure. President Zelenskyy says that forces are shoring up defences in the east near Pokrovsk, as Russia tries to capture the city. There is some speculation that Putin’s slow response to the incursion in Kursk could cause him problems among his backers—or not, since he’s making them rich regardless.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1825896088315834440

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Roundup: Grossly distorting crime stats

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Pierre Poilievre has been putting out a series of charts lately to “prove” that the Justin Trudeau-led government has been an apocalyptic disaster for the country, and one of them has bene around violent crime statistics. But because this is Poilievre, he takes those statistics and distorts them to create a monstrous picture that doesn’t actually reflect reality, as Amarnath Amarasingam explains:

This is classic Poilievre, incidentally. He has made a career out of cherry-picking a single data point, then building a massive, misleading narrative around it and when you call him on the lie, he insists that that data came from Statistics Canada, or the PBO, or wherever. In other words, he tries to use their legitimacy to launder his disinformation, and provide him with intellectual cover when clearly he either did not understand what the data was, or he simply took the information and constructed a false narrative (and I have my particular suspicion about which one it is). What is even more dangerous about these kinds of distortions is that they are being mixed with a big dose of racism among Poilievre’s online base, who are blaming immigrants for this supposed “spike” in crime (which is not a spike), and this could lead to some very bad outcomes.

For another example, we have the real household income figures from 2022, which he has also utterly distorted because of course he has. And has any legacy media outlet called any of this out? Of course not. Meanwhile, this has never been about logic or facts, or reasoned arguments—it’s about lies that make people angry so that they vote emotionally, which he thinks will benefit him (and that those lies won’t blow up in his face when he can’t deliver on his false promises). Depending on lies is a very bad strategy in the medium-to-long term, but here we are, swimming in them.

Ukraine Dispatch

Even though Ukrainian forces shot down three missiles and 25 out of 26 drones, an energy facility in the Sumy region was hit, and fire broke out. A fourteen-year-old died when a Russian struck near a playground in Zaporizhzhia. Russia has been making an aggressive push in the east, claiming the towns of Zalizne and Niu-York. Ukraine is reported to have launched a drone attack on Moscow with at least ten drones, while a diesel depot on the Rostov region was set on firefrom a Ukrainian drone strike. Russian forces have confirmed that Ukrainian forces have damaged or destroyed all three bridges over the Seym River, which could trap Russian units caught between the river, the Ukrainian advance, and the Ukrainian border.

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Roundup: Both-sidesing the Russian jet footage

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Because this is sometimes a media criticism blog, I am going to call out The Canadian Press for their atrocious headline of “Tories delete Canadian dream video featuring what Liberals say are Russian jets.” *sigh* The Liberals didn’t say those were Russian jets—those were Russian jets. Anyone who knows about jets can tell what they are, and they certainly were not CF-18s or F-35s (as the new Canadian fighter jets will be). The problem of course is that CP feels the need to obsequiously both-sides absolutely gods-damned everything in the name of sounding neutral and balanced, rather than simply providing a proper fact-check like they should as the national wire service. It shouldn’t need to be framed as a partisan accusation that the video used stock footage of Russian jets because objectively that’s exactly what the video did—use stock footage of Russian jets when Poilievre’s speech was referencing new Canadian fighter jets (which again, are going to be F-35s).

I will note that CBC simply called out the fact with their own headline of “Conservative Party posts—then deletes—video showing Russian-made jets.” See—it’s accurate and fact-checks, and while the CBC is also just as obsequious as CP is with both-sidesing almost all of the time, they didn’t feel the need to couch this one in a partisan accusation in order to look like they weren’t the ones providing the factual correction. I wish I knew why CP is so gun-shy when it comes to actually calling out this kind of thing rather than always couching it in a partisan accusation (because again, this isn’t the first time this has happened), whether it’s because they’re afraid Poilievre will continue to harass their reporters at press conferences (which appeasing won’t actually help), or because they’re so afraid of being sued that they won’t dare call a spade a spade on their own. Either way, it’s not really serving Canadians to behave this way.

Meanwhile, the Liberals and NDP pounced on that video, including Bill Blair using that footage incident to accuse the Conservatives of being “soft on Russia.” And the Conservative Party’s spokesperson responded that “mistakes happen,” but then went on to excuse it by pointing out that the Liberals once used stock footage of a crowd rather than an image of real supporters at an event. Because apparently if it’s not both-sidesing, it’s whataboutism. (Could we all just be grown-ups in this country for a change?)

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine’s air defences downed all 11 drones launched overnight Sunday, targeting a number of cities including Kyiv. Civilians in Pokrovsk in Ukraine have been fleeing as Russians advance on their city, destroying outlying settlements as they approach, and the Ukrainian forces say they need to be out in a week or two. In Kursk, Ukrainian forces destroyed another bridge to slow Russian responses, while president Zelenskyy says that their incursion into Kurk shows that Russia’s alleged “red lines” are just a bluff, which they have now called.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1825645648697274715

Good reads:

  • Labour minister Steve MacKinnon is meeting with representatives of the two main railways and their unions ahead of the lockout deadline.
  • Mélanie Joly announced $1 million to help with the mpox outbreak in Africa, as she was visiting a vaccine coordination centre in Ivory Coast.
  • Northern Affairs minister Dan Vandal thinks there were better choices to appoint to the Senate than Charles Adler (which may be a breach of Cabinet solidarity).
  • The federal government is going to freeze approvals for temporary foreign workers in Montreal for the next six months per the province’s request.
  • The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs want the prime minister and Governor General to rescind Charles Adler’s Senate appointment. (No, the GG can’t do that).
  • A court challenge has been filed to force the government to enact its own legislation on making MAiD available for mental illness as the sole concern.
  • A recent report shows that the two business sectors responsible for the majority of capital gains earned didn’t create any jobs over the past five years. (You don’t say!)
  • The federal Liberals have pulled out of the Ottawa Pride parade because of the controversy over their pro-Palestinian statement.

Odds and ends:

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Roundup: Another committee demand

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The Conservatives are demanding yet more “emergency” committee hearings, but because it’s a committee they don’t control, they are getting in front of the cameras to make performative demands. Case in point, yesterday Andrew Scheer called a press conference to demand that the NDP and Bloc agree to recall the public safety committee to examine how a suspected terrorist was able to immigrate and obtain citizenship when he may have been videotaped dismembering a prisoner in 2015.

Of course, the Conservatives’ case and rationale is largely hyperbolic, and their blaming the current government for crime rates is both specious and done entirely in bad faith. But then again, Scheer is a lying liar who lies constantly, so he’ll say anything to get attention, and that’s all this is really about—attention. The Conservatives need to get fresh clips for their socials, and summer committee meetings are precisely the kind of thing that they think makes them look good, so that’s why they have been trying to run committees over the summer, and claiming that the other parties want to be “on vacation” rather than doing work in their constituencies. (This becomes one of those areas where you could accuse the Conservatives of projection in that they treat constituency time as “vacation” or a “break” rather than simply doing other kinds of work in the riding).

This is just one more demand for a dog-and-pony show. I’m not sure what exactly a parliamentary committee could do here.

In case you missed them:

  • For National Magazine, I look at BCCLA’s fight to try to see secret documents to hold CSIS to account for possibly improper spying on environmental groups.
  • Also for National Magazine, I delve into the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision on annuities the Crown owes for several Ontario First Nations for treaty breaches.
  • My weekend column conducts a thought experiment on how the Liberals could possibly hold a leadership contest under their current rules anytime soon.
  • My Loonie Politics Quick Take looks at the performative hairshirt parsimony on display as people lose their minds over the purchase of the diplomatic condo.
  • My column goes through some of Poilievre and company’s recent deceitful claims when it comes to drug decriminalisation and safer supply.
  • My feature story in Xtra looks at queer diplomacy in Canada, and how we’ve made great strides in the past decade, but we still have a lot more to do.
  • My weekend column on Jagmeet Singh’s continued announcements that are either economically illiterate, or entirely the domain of the provinces.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine says that their forces downed four Russian missiles and 15 drones overnight. Nevertheless, a missile did strike the Kharkiv region, killing one and injuring twelve. The first group of F-16 fighters are now in Ukraine, and ready to be deployed.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1820400963833958849

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1820799395371110697

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Roundup: Calling for price caps

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The NDP are at it again, and by “it,” I mean making stupid demands that should get them laughed out of any room they’re in. To wit, yesterday they demanded price caps on certain grocery items, claiming that the Loblaws settlement over the class action for the bread price-fixing scheme as “proof” that government needs to take action. I can’t think of a more economically illiterate argument that is trying to simply base itself on “vibes” that will only do far more harm than it will do good.

The high price of certain grocery items is rarely an issue of grocery chains hiking prices. It does happen, but there has been little evidence of it when margins have been stable. If you bother to actually pay attention to agricultural news or Statistics Canada data, it’s pretty clear that much of those price increases are a result of climate change-related droughts in food-producing regions, with the odd flash flood or hurricane also ruining crops, and driving up prices. The invasion of Ukraine exacerbated issues by throwing world markets for wheats and cooking oils out of whack, driving up prices as exports couldn’t get to market. And even if you have growing conditions that rebound, often price are locked into contracts with producers or processors for several years at a time, which can delay prices returning to lower levels as supply rebounds. But the point here is that most of this is explainable if you actually bother to look, rather than just screaming “corporate greed!” because you are ideologically predisposed to doing so.

More to the point, this just strikes me as a little bit of history repeating the demands for price controls in the mid-seventies as inflation was reaching double-digits, which then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau mocked with the phrase “Zap, you’re frozen!” We’re not there, and frankly the demand for price caps is frankly ridiculous, and if they persist, we should resurrect “Zap, you’re frozen” to mock them as relentlessly.

Programming Note: I am taking the next week or so off. Columns will continue on schedule but blogs and videos will be taking a bit of a break.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched drone attacks against power facilities in two regions, prompting more power grid disruptions. Another drone attack appears to have overshot and struck down in Romania, but NATO doesn’t believe that this was an intentional attack. A leaked UN report is pointing to Russia as the culprit of an explosion at barracks housing Ukrainian POWs two years ago that killed fifty.

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Roundup: Lies about legalisation

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For months now, Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives have been claiming that the Liberals “legalised” hard drugs in BC, which is false, and have been trying to build up a particular lie that they are planning to do so across the country. Again, to repeat, this is a lie, and the limited decriminalisation that happened in BC was done reluctantly, but only after the province, the provincial police force, and municipal authorities all wanted to give it a go as a way of reducing mortality from the toxic drug crisis. They’ve had limited success, but have started rolling back some of those measures which had nothing to do with decriminalisation, mainly being open drug use, because it’s spooking voters. And I get that, but it has nothing to do with decriminalisation and everything to do with the toxic supply. Drug users have taken the notion that if they use openly, then someone may save them with Naloxone if they overdose in public. It’s not just happening in BC, but everywhere across the country now—I see it on the streets in Ottawa all the time, and there is no decriminalisation happening.

Nevertheless, this week Poilievre claims he has “proof” that there is a national decriminalisation plan—which he and his MPs use “legalise” with interchangeably, even though they are absolutely not the same thing. The problem? That the very text he’s highlighting doesn’t say that there is a national decriminalisation plan, only that the federal government is willing to work with willing jurisdictions using the tools at their disposal, that can include decriminalisation. It doesn’t matter that they apparently have no reading comprehension ability—they’ve just highlighted a couple of words and made a false declaration.

And now Poilievre and his MPs are blanketing their social channels with this blatant lie, because they want to make people angry and afraid. The truth doesn’t matter. It never did. They’re going to keep lying, because it works, and because nobody, least of all legacy media, is going to call them on it.

Ukraine Dispatch

While both sides have traded drone assaults, the Russians claim to have taken over two villages—one in Kharkiv region, the other in Luhansk. Russians are moving in on the town of Pokrovsk in the east, which serves as a logistics hub for Ukraine. The Czech Republic says that artillery deliveries to Ukraine are going to accelerate. And Ukraine is closing in on a deal to restructure $20 billion of its debt.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1815394403675988039

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Roundup: Oh noes! Diplomatic residences!

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The absolute worst instincts in Canadian politics—and Canadian political journalism—are being indulged, being that of hairshirt parsimony. This time it’s about the decision by Global Affairs to purchase a new condo in New York for the consul general, because the current residence is no longer fit for purpose, and it’s cheaper to buy a new one than to refurbish the existing residence, and the new unit is expected to come with additional savings in terms of other maintenance costs. But lo, it’s worth about CAD$9 million, so immediately we need to frame this as being “luxurious” and “elite” while Canadians can’t find places to live.

It’s a diplomatic residence in New York. Real estate is expensive there, but it’s important to have a residence where our diplomats can entertain, because that’s what diplomacy is and diplomacy costs money. Nevertheless, there is a pervasive (and poisonous) attitude in the Canadian discourse that the Elder Pundits nevertheless reinforce is that spending money on this kind of thing is terrible, and there is an absolute attitude (which was more prevalent during the Conservative years) that Ritz Crackers and ginger ale is good enough for a church social, so it’s good enough for diplomats, which makes us as much of a laughingstock internationally as the prime minister’s (former) decrepit plane did, and they only just retired that one. And it’s why the media keeps indulging astroturfers like the “CTF” who phone them up to complain that the embassy in Tokyo wasn’t furnished by IKEA. (No, seriously). It’s absolutely ridiculous.

Of course, when I tweeted about this, all everyone complained about was Bob Fife which largely misses the point, other than the fact that he is one of the voices of the Elder Pundits, who must enforce the set narratives. Others went back as far so the Duffy Diaries to suggest that Fife is grinding some kind of axe with Tom Clark because he spilled that Duffy was leaking information to the press and Duffy complained to Fife (then the bureau chief) and the president of CTV about it, but that doesn’t make any sense either because Fife is amoral, and only cares about the scoops, not about the ramifications. (Seriously, did you see him get misty-eyed when he told Vassy Kapelos that he doesn’t like being called “Fife the Knife”?) What’s more concerning is that Andrew Scheer started going around saying that this purchase is furthering “Liberal insiders,” which is patent bullshit, but every story was going to reprint that because both-sides.

Ukraine Dispatch

Six people were killed and thirteen injured in a Russian missile attack on the town of Myrnohrad in the Donetsk region. Reuters profiles president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and how the war has changed him.

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Roundup: A first step in breaking up the RCMP?

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RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme was making media rounds this weekend, and said something interesting about how the government is planning to make changes to the structure of the RCMP, and to separate out the federal policing role (which the RMCP has not been doing a very good job of) while leaving the contract policing with provinces intact (more or less). Having a separate and dedicated federal policing agency would be a good thing, because then maybe it can be properly resourced and staffed to do the work that they’re supposed to be doing, rather than the money and personnel all being sapped by the contract policing wings. This could mean a more specialised police force for those roles, which are different than front-line policing.

This being said, I’m not sure that this is a solution to much, because maintaining the RMCP for their contract policing duties is not going to solve many problems because the Force is toxic and broken, and needs a radical overhaul that I don’t think is going to be possible from within the organization. Part of the problems that it has are because of its centralised nature, and sending officers fresh from training at Depot to parts of the country they have absolutely no familiarity with, and that creating its own source of problems. I get why the federal government wants to keep it around (aside from the branding of the Red Serge), which is that they basically subsidise the police forces of those provinces that use them, but that’s part of the problem, and it’s part of a hard conversation that should be had federally.

Incidentally, Duheme also says he hopes that no MP releases any names of possibly compromised MPs from the NSICOP report under the cover of Parliamentary privilege, for what it’s worth.

Ukraine Dispatch

At least one person was killed and eleven wounded in a Russian aerial attack on Kharkiv, while Russian authorities are claiming dozens of wounded from debris from a Ukrainian missile shot down over occupied Crimea. Russians also attacked a residential area of Kyiv, and energy facilities in the country’s southeast and west. Here is a look at midsummer festivals in Ukraine, with their pagan roots, and how this is seen as resistance as Russians try to erase Ukrainian culture.

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Roundup: Terrible capital gains narratives

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The communications around the capital gains changes have been atrocious. Chrystia Freeland is painting an apocalyptic picture of what will happen to Canadian society if we don’t make these changes, and the talk about fairness, where workers pay more taxes than those who can earn it on investment income is missing the key component of the discussion which is around the unequal treatment of different types of income that allows people to engage in tax arbitrage—picking and choosing which revenue models will net them the least taxation, which is a real problem for fairness that is not being discussed at all.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1801021913738698941

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1801022109172256818

In amidst this comes Calgary economist Jack Mintz, whose sole entire schtick is to cut taxes to solve every problem under the sun. And of course, Pierre Poilievre was quoting him in Question Period, calling him the greatest economy in the country, which is pretty risible. It didn’t help that Poilievre made the basic mistake of believing that the tax rate is going up rather than the inclusion rate (the point at which it kicks in on the profit you’ve made), but he has doomsday scenarios to unleash into the world to make his case that this is a Very Bad Thing, when it’s nothing at all like he seemed to believe.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1801086926696415384

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1801088499522937017

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1801096926227497107

Everyone has handled this whole situation poorly, media included, and this has been al lost opportunity to try and have a proper conversation about these kinds of tax measures and changes.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian missile attacks have left much of Kyiv without power and water. Russian missiles also struck an administrative building and an apartment block in Kryvyi Rih in the south, and killed nine and injured 29. The American government says they are aware of credible reports that abducted Ukrainian children are being put up on adoption websites.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1800901662820704467

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