Tag Archives: Russia

Roundup: Dubious procedural moves and political theatre

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We are now on or about day sixty-four of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the big news is that Russia is cutting off natural gas to Poland and Bulgaria, ostensibly because they refuse to pay in rubles as Russia demands. The real reason is, of course, blackmail over support for Ukraine, as well as an attempt to divide Europe, but that doesn’t seem to be happening.

Closer to home, there is some procedural bullshit going down, and I’m unimpressed. The government has put forward an omnibus motion that would give them the power to start implementing late-night sittings right away, rather than in the few weeks before the break, and even more curious is the notion that they would give ministers the ability to adjourn the Commons for the summer with no notice, and a simple vote call. The late-night sittings—with the added language that those sittings can’t be obstructed with dilatory motions—makes a certain amount of sense in that the procedural warfare that plagued them last year has made a comeback, and they haven’t even managed to pass the budget implementation bill from December, which is not good. This is in a sense make-up time for all of the time wasted on dilatory motions—actions have consequences. But that ability for a minister to pull the plug for summer at any point really sticks in my craw, and I’m not mollified by Mark Holland insisting that this is only intended for use during the final week. It feels to me a lot like the ability to give themselves a nuclear option to hold over the other parties, including the NDP, if they don’t want to play ball in getting bills through. If Holland really wants this only for the final week, the motion should be drafted to say so.

At the same time, Holland also announced that they were going to move ahead with creating a special security-cleared committee for those Winnipeg Lab documents, whether or not the Conservatives agree to join in. But…this feels like theatre at this point, because the Conservatives stopped boycotting NSICOP, and that’s exactly the kind of thing that committee exists to deal with. And the government already turned over the unredacted documents to NSICOP, so what really is the point here? Aside from political theatre? Why can’t we have grown-ups in charge?

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QP: An inept attempt at prosecution

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All leaders were present today once again, which is always nice to see, particularly on proto-PMQ day. Candice Bergen led off, script in front of her, and she torqued the responses made by minister at the special committee last night and accused the government of covering up misdeeds behind Cabinet confidence, and that they would do the same at the inquiry. Justin Trudeau stood up and read a script that stated that existing provincial and territorial laws were insufficient, and on the advice of law enforcement, they invoked the Emergencies Act narrowly and in a limited manner. Bergen accused the government of using the inquiry to call the “innocent” occupiers “racists and misogynists,” but Trudeau largely repeated his same points. Bergen then pivoted to demand that Trudeau meet with the RCMP over the Aga Khan vacation, and Trudeau retorted that this was an issue three Conservative leaders ago. Bergen insisted this was serious because of possible criminal charges, and demanded to know if he met with private criminal council about this matter, for which Trudeau listed things that were more relevant than this settled matter. Bergen sermonised about whether the prime minister considers himself above the law, and Trudeau listed more things the Conservatives don’t want to talk about.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he thundered about the lack of French in federal institutions, and demanded basic knowledge of French at businesses headquarters in Quebec. Trudeau read a script about how unacceptable it as that CN Rail appointed a unilingual English board, and they were working on rectifying it. Blanchet was indignant and raised that the Governor General and the lieutenant governor of New Brunswick could not speak French, and Trudeau noted that Mary Simon is Indigenous, and she is taking intensive French classes.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he decried that delayed action on the environment was the same as denial. Singh quoted the Environment Commissioner to say that the government’s plan was not viable, and Trudeau read a script noting how far they have come in the past seven years.

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Roundup: The showboat special committee

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It’s now around day sixty-three of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russia is waving around the threat of nuclear action if NATO members don’t stop arming Ukraine, which some are taking as mere talk. But still. There have also been more attacks over the border in Moldova, which Russia is trying to blame on Ukraine. Allied defence ministers met in Germany, and more weapons are on the way to Ukraine, so that warning by Russia isn’t dissuading them too much.

https://twitter.com/rafaelmgrossi/status/1519031867642728450

Closer to home, the special joint committee on the Emergencies Act (which is not the inquiry) held their first major meetings last night, hearing from two ministers, and ostensibly the commissioner of the RCMP and the head of CSIS, but those latter two barely got any questions, because like I predicted seven weeks ago, this was really just about showboating as opposed to substance. And yeah—showboating and demands to release documents that we have no idea if they’d actually be relevant (but still operating under the assumption that the government is engaged in some sort of cover-up), while Conservatives still went to bat for the far-right extremists, grifters and conspiracy theorists who made up the occupation.

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/1519079631042789378

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/1519081717126074369

What we did hear from Marco Mendicino included the fact that the Ottawa Police being the police of jurisdiction created challenges, and that that they had no choice but to invoke the Act in as limited way as possible. The head of CSIS did manage to get a question, in which he said that the agency is spending about fifty percent of their time currently on ideologically-motivated violent extremism, and that extremist content in the occupation didn’t surprise him. You can read Rachel Aiello’s livetweeting thread here for more, but it was pretty ridiculous overall. It’s a sad indictment of the fact that we are no longer a serious parliament made up of serious people, taking the business of the nation seriously.

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Roundup: Questions on the inquiry terms

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It is now on or about day sixty-two of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and there were missile strikes throughout the country as Russian forces targeted Ukraine’s rail infrastructure, with a particular eye toward disrupting the ability to move weapons coming in from allied countries in the west toward their positions in the eastern part of the country. (This is the kind of operational security that is at stake when our government won’t give specifics about their weapons shipments). As well, the American officials who just visited Kyiv have said that more weapons are on the way, and that they are hoping to resume activity in their embassies within the country within the next few weeks, and hopefully in Kyiv itself, which would be a major symbolic move (and yes, Canada is making its own considerations for resuming activities, depending on the security situation).

Closer to home, the government waited until the very last moment to launch the public inquiry into the use of the Emergencies Act, as the Act stipulates. Justice Paul Rouleau of the Ontario Court of Appeal will head the inquiry, and has 300 days to table his final report in Parliament. While I have a column that delves further into this, I did want to put a few comments here, from national security experts Jessica Davis and Leah West, about particular observations they have about the terms of reference for this inquiry:

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Roundup: Undermining the central bank to score points

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It is now approximately day sixty-one of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and after saying that they would blockade the remaining Ukrainians trapped in Mariupol, the Russians have instead tried to storm the steel plant where they are holed up. As well, over Orthodox Easter weekend, they have shelled residential areas of Kharkiv, and fired missiles at Odessa, so that’s concerning. As well, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had a meeting with two US cabinet members, where Zelenskyy is expecting more arms and security guarantees.

https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1518192560816201728

Closer to home, as the narratives around inflation get more ridiculous the longer they go unchallenged, remember that this both undermines the ability of the Central Bank to do its work, and ultimately it undermines its independence because they have to fight political narratives about them without actually fighting them, which is a hell of a thing to try to do.

And the longer the nonsense goes unchallenged, and my media colleagues try to be cute about “heehee, everyone is a little bit right!” as they both-sides the nonsense, the closer I’m getting to this particular Effin’ bird:

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Roundup: Legitimizing lunatic narratives about inflation

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We are now around day fifty-nine of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and it looks like Russia is shifting more units to attacking cities in Eastern Ukraine, and what could be a battle to control the country’s industrial heartland. We also have satellite images that show Russians digging mass graves around Mariupol to try and hide evidence of their war crimes and atrocities against civilians in that city. In Russia, the regime is cracking down harder on its critics, including Vladimir Kara-Murza, who is being charged under the new law that criminalises spreading “false information,” and could be imprisoned for up to 15 years as a result.

Closer to home, I have about lost all patience with the way that the inflation numbers are being reported on, particularly because it’s primarily a lot of both-sidesing without actually reading the gods damned Consumer Price Index from Statistics Canada, even though it’s right there, and spells out what the drivers are. But because our media outlets—and both the CBC and The Canadian Press are especially bad about this—are more invested in the appearance of fairness for political messages than actually calling out falsehoods, simply give equal time to all of the messages. This particular piece on the CBC’s site yesterday, that goes and very gently debunks the messages that different political parties are spreading, is a lot more both-sidesing because it’s still giving equal weight to all of these messages, even if it’s getting experts to push back a little bit (but in some cases, still framing it as though some of these messages are still “a little bit right,” which is the cute trick that they’ve been relying on to not look like they’re biased against any party). And how much room is given to explaining the actual drivers? A single, small paragraph that lists a few of them in general terms, rather than laying out the issues of energy production and fuel shortages in certain countries, or the global supply shortage of semiconductor chips, or most importantly, the fact that we’ve had a lot of droughts in food-producing regions, including in Canada, and that is having a huge impact on food prices because the supply simply isn’t there.

Why this becomes even more important is because you have Pierre Poilievre saying flat out that the Bank of Canada’s economists are “financially illiterate,” because he learned better from the crypto bros on YouTube. It’s alarming, and if the mass media can’t push back against this utter lunacy, but instead soft-pedals it and frames it like “everyone is a little bit right” when they don’t actually bother to go to the gods damned statistical data, it lets this utterly bogus narrative gain traction and legitimacy. This is a problem for our democracy and our society in general, because they’re afraid that Poilievre’s bot army will be mad at them. They’re going to call you biased whatever you do, so why not show a bit of fortitude and call the lies what they are?

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Roundup: Incoherent housing plans

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We are now on or about day fifty-eight of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russia has declared victory when it comes to their siege of the strategic city of Mariupol, and has ordered its troops not to storm the last pocket of resistance there. But hey, they’ve “liberated” the city by shelling it to rubble, so good job there. It is estimated that some 2000 Ukrainian troops remain on site, spread out in a network of tunnels and bunkers, along with several thousand civilians. Of course, this also means that Russian forces are likely going to simply try and wait out those remaining troops and civilians as they run out of food and supplies, and trap them inside.

Closer to home, Pierre Poilievre has been unveiling more of his housing platform, but…it’s pretty incoherent, in a lot of ways. There isn’t that much financial leverage that the federal government can wield when it comes to ending NIMBYism and seven decades of market incentives for single-family homes that are unsustainable and which only continue to exacerbate the affordability crisis (not to mention the climate crisis). Oh, and Poilievre is defending his own rental property portfolio, citing that he’s providing affordable rental accommodations to two “deserving families.”

The last point on that list is pretty critical—it would undermine central bank independence, and one imagines could actually create a deflationary spiral in the right circumstances that would create a depression, which is precisely what they were avoiding when they engaged in quantitative easing during the pandemic recession. Jennifer Robson has even more concerns about the incoherence of the plan in this thread. Meanwhile, I would also recommend checking out this thread by Mike Moffatt about just how complex the drivers of the housing situation in Ontario is. It’s not just one thing—it’s a lot of moving parts that got us to where we are now.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1517214855572320256

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Roundup: Higher inflation than expected

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It is now day fifty-seven (or so) of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and hope is waning for the remaining defenders of Mariupol, and the civilians still sheltering there. As the fighting intensifies in the eastern part of the country, there are also concerns that it will devolve into a war of attrition, which Russia has historically been more able to withstand. We have also learned more about what happened when Russian troops occupied Chernobyl, where staff were working at gunpoint, and sleeping three hours a night in order to safeguard the site and ensure that Russians didn’t tamper with any of the equipment there.

Closer to home, the inflation numbers were released yesterday, and they were much higher than expected, as conflict inflation brought on by the aforementioned invasion of Ukraine is hitting. And of course, most media outlets were useless in explaining the causes of it, while the parties were equally useless in their own reactions. The government keeps focusing on their talking points about things like child care and dental care, and the fact that they indexed benefits, rather than actually explaining the drivers. The Conservatives are railing about “printing money” (which, to be clear, nobody is actually doing) and insisting that the government should declare a GST holiday, which would a) do nothing for grocery prices as most groceries are GST-exempt; and b) would have a stimulative effect and just fuel even more inflation, especially as people would be likely to use said GST holiday to buy big-ticket items. And the NDP, predictably, chalk this up to greed and want higher wealth taxes, which again, do very little about the drivers of inflation.

And then there’s the Bank of Canada, who will be forced to respond with higher rate hikes, but the question becomes whether they’ll keep the increases more gradual—another 50 basis points at the next meeting in June—of if they’ll go even higher as a way of demonstrating that they are really taking this seriously and that the system of inflation control that they’ve been responsible for since the 1990s will prevail. It doesn’t directly address the drives, but it could be that the signals are more important than the actual policy at this point, because the bigger worry is the expectation that inflation will continue, which will turn it into a self-fulfilling prophecy—something they are very, very keen to avoid.

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Roundup: First leadership deadline passes

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We are now on or about day fifty-six of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russia has been pouring more troops into their offensive in the Donbas region, and they are making a bunch of unverified claims about their strikes on Ukrainian targets (which should be taken with a salt lick’s worth of scepticism). As well, there were more missile strikes on the western city of Lviv, and Russia has given another ultimatum for the Ukrainian defenders of Mariupol to leave, but thus far there has been no sign that they will take them up on it.

Closer to home, the first deadline for the Conservative leadership contest has passed, and eight of the declared candidates have crossed the threshold of the $50,000 entry fee and the completed questionnaire. They have ten days to reach the next deadline of $300,000 in fees and 500 signatures, and thus far, only three of the candidates have crossed that threshold so far (and judging from the names of the eight remaining, most won’t make it either). Meanwhile, Pierre Poilivre’s camp claims that they have sold memberships in all 338 federal ridings, in order to claim that they have broad appeal, for what that’s worth.

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Roundup: Lower-tier leadership candidates

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It is now on or about day fifty-five of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and it looks like the fighting in the eastern part of the country, around the Donbas region, has intensified as has been signalled for a couple of weeks now. At the same time, more missile attacks have hit western cities in the country like Lviv, which has mostly been out of the fighting, so that is keeping everyone on edge, particularly given that Lviv is hosting a lot of the people who have fled from other parts of the country.

Other news from Ukraine over the long weekend:

  • Thus far, the invasion has damaged about 30 percent of the country’s infrastructure, at a cost of about $100 billion.
  • There were further attacks on Kyiv over the weekend, possibly in retaliation for the sinking of the Moskva
  • Ukrainian fighters in Mariupol are defying Russia’s surrender-or-die orders
  • Here is a look at the situation LGBTQ+ Ukrainians find themselves in during the war.

Closer to home, Power & Politics interviewed Conservative leadership candidate Roman Baber yesterday, and it was…painful. He is not a serious person. At all. He kept speaking in facile talking points about “restoring democracy,” as though we didn’t just have free and fair elections, based on his nonsense reading of public health restrictions and what happened during the Ottawa occupation, with a dose of facile catch-phrases about “cancel culture.” And, bless her, Vassy Kapelos did gently try to push back against some of what he said, but wow. I would be very surprised if he manages to get his $300,000 in fundraising and all of his signatures to become a verified contestant because he offers nothing original, and even if this about trying to rebuild his profile after being booted from the caucus provincially, it’s a very difficult way to go about it, with not much in the way of reward.

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