Tag Archives: RCMP

Roundup: Inviting anti-vaxx organisers onto the Hill

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It’s day one-hundred-and-twenty of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and no news out of Severodonetsk is presumed to be good news. That said, Russian forces have captured three other villages in the region, near the city of Lysychansk, which is across the river from Severokonetsk, so there is still movement in the region. There is optimism in the country, however, that their bid to join the EU will pass to the next stage during a summit this week. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, addressed University of Toronto students, and called on them to pressure governments to provide more aid to Ukraine.

Closer to home, a group of Conservative MPs, including leadership candidate Leslyn Lewis, hosted a trio of anti-vaxxer extremists and occupation organisers ahead of their planned Canada Day protests, and they did it within one of the Parliamentary office buildings just off of the Hill. Included in the group were a former Reservist being charged for a video promoting the occupation while in uniform, a former Trump advisor, and a former spokesperson for the occupation. And in case it’s not clear, they’re no longer talking about vaccine mandates, which have pretty much ended everywhere, but about regime change, and Conservatives are condoning it, if not outright encouraging it by saying “you have allies.” That’s not good. It’s especially not good when they’re talking about civil war in their discourse. Oh, and Candice Bergen’s office was aware this was going on, and did nothing to shut it down. It’s just unbelievable how clueless they are around this issue, when there is real potential for these violent online narratives to manifest into a real-world attack.

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QP: Too tired to land a punch

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While the prime minister was landing in Rwanda for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, his deputy was supposed to appear virtually, but didn’t in the end. Every other leader was present, one of them with a special guest. Candice Bergen led off, script on her mini-lectern, and she read the accusations that the PMO interfered in the investigation of the Nova Scotia mass shooting, and demanded an independent investigation into the matter. Bill Blair recited that there was no interference and no pressure, and pointed to the statement of the RCMP to corroborate this. Bergen insisted the government has a pattern of interference, and repeated her demand, and Blair repeated his own denial under the banner that this was the truth. Bergen pivoted to inflation, and demanded tax cuts, saying the government would rather let people suffer than accept their ideas. Jonathan Wilkinson reminded her that they have a package of affordability measures, and that they are working with global partners to stabilise the global oil supply. Luc Berthold took over in French to lament inflation and demanded tax cuts, and Rachel Bendayan denied that the Conservatives’ proposals would lower the cost of living, and that the government won at the Supreme Court to win about carbon prices, and that the Liberals have a plan. Berthold then raised the issue of passport lineups, and Karina Gould assured him that they have strategies to get those who need their passports expeditiously.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he too raised the passport lines with a dose of sarcasm about the prime minister’s international travel, and Gould reiterated that the situation in Montreal is unacceptable but different from elsewhere in the country, and that they have management teams to assist the situation. Blanchet gave it a second go and got the same response. 

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, his daughter on his arm, and he decried high inflation, demanding action for families. This gave Gould an opening to talk about child care. Singh repeated the question in French, and Gould repeated her points about child care.

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Roundup: Allegations of political interference amidst other errors and omissions

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It’s now around day one-hundred-and-nineteen of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and while the fighting continues at Severodonetsk, the people of Kharkiv are emerging from the subways and underground shelters they were in when Russian forces bombarded their city, and are finding so much of it shelled and burned. Meanwhile, we’re learning more about the Ukrainian helicopter pilots who were flying rescue missions from the steel plant in Mariupol, getting some of the wounded soldiers to safety.

Closer to home, allegations emerged from documents made public in the mass shooting inquiry in Nova Scotia that a superintendent’s notes said that RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki said she felt she had been disobeyed because he had not released any information about the weapons used, citing that she had promised PMO and Public Safety the information because it was tied to pending gun control legislation, while he said he didn’t want to release it because it would interfere in their investigation into how the weapons were acquired. In a separate interview, the director of communications for the Nova Scotia RCMP was expressing frustration that Lucki’s statements did not match what the department was putting out, and blamed that on political interference. The government immediately denied having made any orders or applied any pressure, and Lucki put out a statement a few hours later which she too denied interfering, but said she should have been more sensitive in her approach to the meeting.

This, of course, touched off a round of outrage and insistence that if the allegations of interference were true that there would need to be heads rolling, but I will confess to having a hard time sorting through this, because what I’ve read of these same documents shows a lot of errors and omissions in the statements the RCMP was putting out, and there is an imperative for RCMP brass and the government to have details and facts that the media are demanding from them. And the RCMP in the province seem to have been self-satisfied that they were putting out false or misleading information throughout the event, which is hard for the Commissioner or the government to deal with when they know there are other facts that aren’t being released. Was there an element of crassness in wanting to know what kinds of weapons were used? I mean, it sounds like it was a legitimate question that media would be asking, so it’s hard to say. I will say that the demands for an emergency committee meeting is unlikely to solve anything more than what we’ve already learned from all involved, and that this is just an excuse for more theatrics at the start of summer that Conservatives want to be able to fundraise off of, but they’ll probably get their wish because all MPs can’t resist putting on a show—especially if it gets unhinged as these meetings inevitably will.

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QP: Responding to breaking news mid-QP

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The prime minister made his final appearance at QP for the session this morning, in person after his second bout of COVID, before he heads off to Rwanda for a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting later in the week. All of the other leaders decided to show up as well, so that they could gather one last round of outrage clips before the summer. Candice Bergen led off, script in front of her, and she decried the sexual assault that Hockey Canada covered up had been known by the heritage department for four years, and accused him of being a bad feminist. Justin Trudeau lamented the situation, and insisted that the government pushed back against sexual misconduct in organisations around the country and that every needs to end the trivialisation of sexual misconduct in sport, which was why they ordered an audit of Hockey Canada. Bergen remarked that the government was either complicit or incompetent before she pivoted to hybrid sittings, and claimed that this was because Trudeau and his ministers don’t like to show up and would rather be on travel junkets. Trudeau proclaimed that hybrid sittings were vital and that Parliament was like “any other workplace,” adjusting to the ways of the future, and I nearly lost my gods damned mind. No, this is not like any other workplace. You are not middle managers in some office job. You’re elected representatives, and your job is in-person and in Ottawa, and trivializing this is incredibly poor form. Bergen tried again, demanding an end to hybrid sittings, while Trudeau went off about Conservative obstructionism. Luc Berthold took over in French and decried the lineups at passport offices, for which Trudeau read his lines about additional resources and employees work overtime. Berthold was not mollified and went off on this again, and got the same recited answer.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he too decried the lines and passport offices in slow, angry language, and Trudeau insisted that they believe the demand has peaked as they work through the delays. Blanchet wondered if Trudeau wanted to sleep in the rain for two nights to get a passport, and Trudeau insisted that they started hiring in January and that they were “accelerating solutions.”

Jagmeet Singh rose for the Bloc, worrying about the drinking water in Neskantaga, which has not had it for two decades. Trudeau paid mention to the fact that it was Indigenous Peoples Day, and that they have lifted 120 advisories when there were 109 when they took office, and for all remaining communities, there were plans and resources to complete their projects. Lori Idlout took over, and insisted that current investments in the Arctic were not sufficient for Inuit, and decried that NORAD was colonial and patriarchal. Trudeau noted his discussions with the premier of Nunavut, and his investments in the North.

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Roundup: Summoning the hockey executives

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It’s day one-hundred-and-eighteen of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and word has it that the Russians are trying to overcome Severodonestk by Sunday, thereby taking the whole of the Luhansk region. While the Ukrainians are being pounded by artillery, they are allegedly inflicting heavy casualties on the Russians, but they need more Western arms, and they need them to arrive even faster if they have any hope of taking out the Russian artillery that is pounding them. Ukraine, meanwhile, is planning on taking a bunch of destroyed Russian tanks and armoured vehicles on a tour around Europe to keep attention on the conflict as it drags on.

Closer to home, the attention on the Hill yesterday was on the heritage committee, where Hockey Canada officials were summoned to explain the payout to settle a sexual assault claim, and whether federal funds were used to do so in contravention of their funding agreements. The minister has ordered a forensic audit of their finances to ensure that this didn’t happen, but we did see MPs on all sides go hard on this, as they should have. (Note that the Conservatives did try to use this issue as a means of procedural warfare in their filibuster of the online broadcasting bill, which was absolutely skeezy). Here is some comment from former athlete and whistle-blower Alheli Picazo, who has experience with the problem of tackling abuse in sport:

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Roundup: A bill to swiftly pass?

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We’re at day one-hundred-and-fifteen of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and it sounds like Severodonestk is still contested territory, under constant Russian shelling making it impossible for civilians trapped under a chemical plant to escape. UK prime minister Boris Johnson visited Kyiv for a second time, promising more arms as well as training for soldiers on a rotating basis. At the same time, the European Commission is recommending Ukraine for consideration for EU Membership. Meanwhile, a Ukrainian soldier who recorded the atrocities at Mariupol has been freed from Russian custody, while the Ukrainian Cabinet approved a resolution to bar Russian citizens from entering Ukraine without a visa.

Closer to home, the federal government tabled a new bill aimed at responding to the Supreme Court of Canada decision five weeks ago that allowed automatism as a defence in very narrow circumstances. The bill eliminates “self-induced extreme intoxication” as a defence, while leaving automatism out in those very rare cases where it would be unknowable that one might enter into this state, which points to the fact that in at least one of the cases before the Supreme Court that led to the provisions being struck down was that it was simply a bad trip that they didn’t know would happen as he had never done mushrooms before. David Lametti also indicated that he’s been in discussion with the other parties, and it sounds like this could be a bill that gets passed at all stages next week before the House of Commons rises for the summer (and likely leaving any actual scrutiny up to the Senate, if they have the appetite to do so before they also rise, way too early).

I also did note that during the press conference announcing the bill, minister Marci Ien had some fairly critical words for her former media colleagues in how the Supreme Court of Canada decision had been reported, where the headlines were that “extreme intoxication is a defence,” which isn’t what the judgment said, and the judgment very clearly differentiated between extreme intoxication and a state of automatism. Nevertheless, bad headlines led to disinformation that was making people afraid (and Ien cited her own daughter’s experiences reading social media about this decision, and she listed some of the figures that these disinformation posts got in terms of likes and shares). And I remember reading those headlines, and listening to the outraged questions in QP in the days that followed, and having to sigh and point out that no, that’s not what the Supreme Court ruled, and it would help if they actually read the gods damned decision because it was all right there. But sadly this seems to be the state of the media discourse these days, so good on Ien for calling it out, especially given the fact that she was herself a journalist.

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Roundup: The non-retracted story and the myths around it

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It’s day one-hundred-and-fourteen of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Severodonetsk has not fallen yet. French president Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Italian Premier Mario Draghi all visited Kyiv together, while Romania’s president, Klaus Iohannis, arrived on a separate train. They were there to show European unity, in spite of the fact that there have been many criticisms levelled at them in recent weeks for being slow to deliver promised aid, or trying to appease Putin. The fact that they could see some of the atrocities in Irpin, outside of Kyiv, may have given them some perspective on the conflict as well. They did also come with a message about trying to facilitate Ukraine’s entry into the European Union, which would have a great deal of symbolic weight in the conflict.

Meanwhile, NATO defence ministers met in Brussels to discuss ways to continue bolstering their Eastern flank, which will mean more forward-deployed combat formations.

Closer to home, there has been a pervasive bit of disinformation circulating, spread by certain media outlets, that CBC had retracted some of its reporting on the occupation, and in particular about its funding. That’s false—there was on radio correction, but the stories themselves stood, and are still there. Nevertheless, this notion that there was this retraction has been the basis of part of the Conservative attacks on Marco Mendicino in the justification for the invocation of the Emergencies Act, and in particular the financial tools that were used to freeze bank accounts of participants. While the Conservatives, citing these certain outlets, claim that the allegations of “dark money” fuelling the occupation was false, there was indeed foreign money coming in, though not as much as some people assumed. Of course, the Conservatives are also lying about just who this occupation was made up of, so any of their assertions what is true or false around the entire situation are suspect because they have a vested interest in protecting the occupiers, believing they can harness them to their own ends. (Spoiler: They really won’t in the end).

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Roundup: Deficit is coming in lower than expected

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It is on or about day ninety-four of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russian forces are claiming that they have captured a rail hub in Donestk, while they continue to pound Severodonetsk, with some 90 percent of the city’s buildings damaged. Ukrainians are calling for Western allies to deliver weapons faster, though there is talk that it looks like this aggressive push by Russia has depleted their arsenal.

The invasion is also not accidental in terms of location or timing—the eastern part of the country are a trove of natural gas and critical minerals, and when Russia invaded, it cut off Ukraine’s exploration of natural gas reserves in the Black Sea, which could have been used to help wean Europe off of Russian oil and gas. Because aren’t all wars really about resources?

Closer to home, the Fiscal Monitor was released, and the deficit figure is coming in much lower than anticipated, because in large part the economy is overheated which is generating a lot of revenue (and inflation does help in terms of collecting higher taxes on higher prices). But as Kevin Milligan points out, this means that the obsession by the Conservatives with the deficit is becoming really misplaced—the massive spending in 2020 to get us through the pandemic is behind us, and we’re not in that situation anymore. Not that facts matter—this is really an exercise in people’s feelings about the deficit, and the perceptions that are not grounded in facts.

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Roundup: Cancelled committees because of the human toll of hybrid sittings

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It is now approximately day ninety-three of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russian forces have shelled more than 40 towns and villages in the Donbas region, while they try to encircle Severodonetsk and Lysychansk. It also sounds like Russia has lifted the age restriction for voluntary military service, which gives you a hint that they need more troops because the invasion has not gone well for them. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is asking Western allies for rocket systems to repel Russian forces from the Donbas, before the cities and towns in the area become “uninhabited.”

Closer to home, it looks like the realities of the finite resource of Parliament are finally starting to hit for MPs and senators, and more and more committee meetings are being cancelled as there simply aren’t enough interpreters to go around, exacerbated by late-night sittings, and more than anything, the fact that they keep finding excuses to extend hybrid sittings no matter that they know full well that the use of Zoom is causing injuries to the interpreters, and most of them know that they can’t simply hire more as there are no more to hire. They literally cannot graduate enough to replace the ones who are retiring or whose injuries are forcing them from the workplace (especially as they risk permanent hearing loss). And MPs simply don’t care. Worse, they passed a motion last week to create yet another special committee, as if they had the resources to do so. Because they don’t care. It’s all about show, whether that’s the Liberals and NDP patting themselves on the back for being “good examples” of working from home, or the Conservatives’ constant filibustering and wasting of time that drags out proceedings, which taxes the interpreters even further (and isn’t helped by the fact that they refuse to wear masks in the Chamber).

I’ve stated this before, and I’ll keep saying this—it is morally reprehensible for MPs and senators to keep demanding hybrid sittings when they know the human cost it takes on the interpreters. They could easily organize themselves in safer ways to have in-person meetings, which won’t strain the interpreters, and that they could have something that resembles normal operations as a result, but they refuse, because too many of them have grown to like the hybrid sittings, so that they don’t have to travel. Who cares if a human being is suffering injuries and facing the possibility of permanent hearing loss? That MP doesn’t have to travel, so that’s what counts. It’s absolutely unconscionable, and they should be shamed for it.

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QP: Tough on Black and Indigenous people

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In between events with the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, the prime minister was present in QP, as were all other leaders. Candice Bergen led off, script in front of her, and she declared that the stated reason for invoking the Emergencies Act was “falling apart” as the interim Ottawa police chief said he did not request it, and she insisted there was a cover-up. Justin Trudeau quoted another witness at the committee who praised the efficacy of the measures. Bergen blamed Trudeau for the blockade with a litany of dubious accusations, and Trudeau retorted that the opposition doesn’t want light shed into their role in prolonging the occupation. Bergen insisted this was “misinformation” before she pivoted the complaining about airport delays and demanded a return to “pre-COVID normal.” Trudeau reminded her that COVID is not over, and that they are identifying ways to help bottlenecks. Bergen started ranting that Trudeau got to go maskless in other countries while Canadians are tired of doing everything being asked of them (erm, which they haven’t been). Trudeau again reiterated that they are following the science. Bergen then launched into a tirade about COVID measures affecting youth, and Trudeau somehow hating youth, and Trudeau listed all of the help they gave young Canadians over the course of the pandemic.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he gave a bizarre rant about the “British monarchy” and the Anglican Church, and demanded to know how much this would cost. Trudeau, bemused, said that Ottawa must really be delivering for Quebec if the Bloc had to dig to reach this. Blanchet continued to complained that royal tours cost money, and Trudeau took the opportunity to praise our system and its stability at a time when democracy is under threat around the world.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, noted the inflation headline number, and repeated yesterday’s demand to cut oil and gas subsidies and to give that money to people in a GST rebate. Trudeau listed that they have been cutting subsidies, that they are going “line by line” on emissions cuts, and that they have affordability measures. Singh repeated the question in French, and got the same reply.

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