Tag Archives: Speaker Fergus

Roundup: Stop ignoring the premiers’ role in pharmacare

Posted on by

Over the weekend, the Star ran a brief interview with Dr. Eric Hoskins, former Ontario health minister and the person that Justin Trudeau initially tasked with writing a report on getting to pharmacare, about the current situation between the government and the NDP over getting to just that. Hoskins says he’s trying to have high-level engagements with both parties, because this could be the last opportunity to get this to work in a long time, but some of that means getting the NDP to back down on their arbitrary timelines (which is more than reasonable considering how much their stupid timeline demands has meant a poor rollout of dental care, because proper implementation can take time).

This having been said, I was struck by the fact that the story completely left out the role of the premiers in this, and I cannot stress this enough, because healthcare delivery is a provincial responsibility, you cannot in any way, shape or form, get to national, universal pharacare without the provinces on board. And no, this isn’t something that they can just opt-in to over time, like the NDP seem to think—they need to be in on it from the ground floor, so that they can shape the direction of the Canada Drug Agency, and negotiate a national formulary rather than just the federal government pulling it out of their asses and, again, expecting the provinces to sign onto it (again, like the NDP seem to think). Hoskin’s whole report premised on the provinces being active participants in the process, because this affects them fundamentally. And it’s the provinces who have been the biggest hold-up for moving forward with this—only PEI has moved ahead, and thanks to the gradual build-up they’ve implemented with the federal government, they have a low-cost co-pay system running in the province, which is a wild step-up from the virtually nothing they at the provincial government level before.

The way that media keep talking about pharmacare is that this is something the federal government will do on high, and will somehow pay for entirely themselves, which again, is not how this would work. The PBO’s report cites a figure that the federal and provincial governments together would be paying (using whatever a methodology that may or may not survive reality), but doesn’t have any breakdown about what the cost-share would be, because of course that would need to be negotiated. It would be great if the national conversation, particularly that is happening in media, could actually include the crucial role of the provinces, but we all know that legacy media is allergic to the issues around jurisdiction, and it means a much worse discourse as a result.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian forces intensified their push toward Avdiivka in the east, and Kherson in the south, while six people were killed in a Russian missile strike on a postal distribution centre in Kharkiv. Russian forces claim that they foiled several attempts by Ukrainian forces to cross the Dnipro river near Kherson over the past day. Meanwhile, here is a look at Ukrainians preparing for another winter of attacks on the electricity grid, as they prepare firewood and candles.

Continue reading →

QP: The first attempt to publicly undermine Speaker Fergus

Posted on by

The prime minister and his deputy were in town but away, hosting CARICOM meetings instead, while the other leaders were all present. Speaker Fergus wanted to make a statement about decorum before things got underway, Pierre Poilievre decided to throw a tantrum because he started right now, and had Andrew Scheer fight on his behalf. There was a back-and-forth on the rules and consultation with the Table Officers, and Fergus trying to assert his authority as the Conservatives tried to undermine him publicly. Eventually, Fergus did get to his speech, and faced attempts by the Conservatives to interrupted him with points of order, and eventually he got to the point about excessive and loud heckling, while recognising that there is a place for witty comments as a feature of our system; the use of “provocative” terms that lead to tense exchanges, such as calling one another racists or shouting obscenities; and the tendency to the make personal attacks, including coming up with fake titles, or drawing attention to absences. He promised to use what tools he has to limit those attacks, reinforcing that he has the authority to preserve order and decorum. That would include refusing to recognise a member, or to name a member.

Poilievre finally led off in French, and he decried “inflationary deficits” with a couple of bespoke mentions of Quebeckers. François-Philippe Champagne trotted out the “take no lessons” line and decried the cuts the Conservatives would make cuts to services. Poilievre switched to English to worry about the “middle-class homeless,” and demanded an end to deficits, to which Anita Anand recited the points about the country’s Aaa credit rating and that the government invests in Canadians. Poilievre shrugged off the “incompetent ratings agencies” before worrying about homeless seniors with a specious connection to deficits. Mark Holland said that cuts to social programmes like Poilievre was peddling would make people worse off in the long-run. Poilievre boasted that the previous government balanced the budget will increasing healthcare (false), and Anand got back up to insist that they won’t balance the budget on the backs of Canadians. Poilievre retorted that the government runs massive deficits on the backs of people before turning to the hospital in Gaza, and demanded that they denounce terrorists for inflicting it. Karina Gould said that their hearts were broken for the innocent Palestinians affected and that they have denounced terrorism while they stand with Israel.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he demanded Canada work with allies to get humanitarian aid to Gaza. Gould insisted that they were calling for a humanitarian corridor and to protect the lives of civilians. Blanchet was incredulous that Trudeau had not apparently spoken to Joe Biden since the attack in Israel, and Gould reiterated that they are in contact with allies and stakeholders. 

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and mocked Champagne’s inability to get answers on how the grocery chains were lowering prices, and wanted support for a motion to call them to committee. Champagne insisted that his summoning those CEOs was unprecedented. Singh got back up ask the question in French—because he needs clips in both languages—and Champagne says that he wrote to the chair of the committee to ask him to summon the CEOs, so he was glad the NDP was on board.

Continue reading →

Roundup: An unearned victory lap amidst the Court’s repudiation

Posted on by

Yesterday morning, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the federal Impact Assessment Act is partly unconstitutional, and that the federal government was over-broad in the criteria they used to trigger a federal environmental assessment. Ironically, while Jason Kenney and the federal Conservatives liked to call the legislation the “No More Pipelines Bill,” the section that governs pipelines was found to be entirely constitutional, so it was fairly laughable as they started crowing over social media about their supposed victory. It might have helped if they had actually read it and not just the headlines.

The more important part of the decision, however, was the fact that while it did find part of the federal legislation ultra vires Parliament, it also explicitly repudiated the arguments that the Alberta government and the Alberta Court of Appeal were making, in claiming that the province somehow has interjurisdictional immunity for so-called “provincial” projects. That’s not true, and the Court said so, which means that when Danielle Smith and Pierre Poilievre were claiming that the Supreme Court “affirmed” that provinces have the exclusive right to develop their own resources, that’s wrong. It’s not what the Court said, and in fact they said the opposite of that. Alberta’s “victory” was a pretty hollow one because the Court affirmed the federal role in environmental assessments and that they can assess whatever they want once their ability to make said assessment is triggered—the only real issue was the criteria for the trigger, which needs to be narrowed. The federal government has pledged to do just that, and because this was a reference opinion by the Court and not a decision on legislation, it has not been struck down. In fact, because there don’t seem to be any projects under assessment that would be affected by the decision, it seems to show that the law is carrying on just fine, and that the amendment will be a fairly surgical tweak (and yes, I spoke to several legal experts to that effect yesterday).

Meanwhile, the reporting on the decision largely ignored this repudiation of the provincial argument. The Canadian Press, the National Post, and the Star all missed that point entirely in their reporting. Only the CBC caught it—in the main story it was given a brief mention amidst the egregious both-sidesing, but Jason Markusoff’s more nuanced analysis piece did get a little more into it, but again, it did not really point out that Kenney’s crowing over social media was for naught, and that Smith’s victory lap was not really deserved. (Smith later went on Power & Politics and lied about what projects that the Act supposedly impacted, such as the Teck Frontier mine—that project was assessed under the Harper-era regime, and was shelved because the price of oil couldn’t justify the project’s viability). It would be nice if we had more journalists actually talking to more experts than just one while they both-sides the ministers and Smith, because they would find that they missed a pretty significant part of the decision. (My own story that does precisely this analysis was delayed in publication, so it should be up on Monday).

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian forces pounded Avdiivka in the Donbas region for a fourth day in a row as they try to make gains in that area. Ukrainian authorities say that Russians have destroyed 300,000 tons of grain since they started attacking Ukrainian port cities in July (because they’re trying to weaponise hunger).

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1712871747672744431

Continue reading →

Roundup: A new Speaker in a toxic environment

Posted on by

The day began with the speeches from the prospective candidates for Speaker—unserious Liberal candidate Stephane Lauzon bowed out before things got started, and the rest began their speeches as to why they deserved to get the job. There were also a few fulsome (in the proper sense of the word) expressions of thanks to Anthony Rota and claims that he was a “good Speaker” when he absolutely was not, which is why we were here today. The notion of respect and decorum got mentioned time and again, because they always do, for what little good it does (because the Speaker can only do so much). Elizabeth May once again said she was running (even though her being a party leader should have been disqualifying automatically, except for the fact that because the Greens don’t have official party status was the technicality that allowed it), but her running was yet again less about being a serious candidate than it was about giving herself the opportunity to make a speech about the rules, and why the Speaker needs to give up the lists provided to him or her and use their own judgment as to who should be recognised. (I actually agree, but this is one of those areas where if the Speaker did this unilaterally there would likely be a revolt). May also made the point that Rota apparently broke his own rules in recognising the Nazi-aligned veteran, however the Speaker’s office says that those rules didn’t really apply because it wasn’t an official sitting of the Commons, and Speakers have wide discretion in any case.

In the end, Liberal MP Greg Fergus was chosen, making him the first Black Speaker in Canadian history. The choice was a surprise to me because Fergus had never shown any interest in the role prior to this past week. In fact, he has always been a pretty notorious partisan (former leader of the Young Liberals, former national director of the party, former parliamentary secretary to the prime minister), and that raises questions for me, but that’s solely my opinion. Fergus did talk about subscribing to Hansard when he was 14, and being a House of Commons page, which puts him in good stead for his respect for the Chamber and the institution, but again, he’s coming into the position as a complete neophyte with no experience as a Chair occupant, which should be a little worrying given the particular state of Canadian democracy right now, and the rancorous mood.

That rancorous mood extended to the congratulatory speeches. Prime minister Justin Trudeau’s speech danced on the edge of being partisan in his talk about what were essentially government priorities, to which Pierre Poilievre decided to one-up him and go full-partisan, that included a bizarre false history lesson where he tried to wedge his “common sense” nonsense into “common people,” and the House of Commons, with a wrong history of the name and the institution itself, before trying to compare Trudeau to King John, who was forced to sign the Magna Carta. If the words “classless jackass” crossed your mind, you would be correct, which is all the more reason why the state of Canadian democracy is in trouble, and Fergus will be hard-pressed to do much about it.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces downed 29 out of 31 Russian drones and one cruise missile in overnight attacks, while falling debris tarted fires in Dnipro. Russia claims it downed a Ukrainian missile off the coast of occupied Crimea. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was visiting troops in the country’s northeast.

Continue reading →

QP: Fergus’ first day

Posted on by

Things got off to a very late start as a result of the Speaker election that saw Greg Fergus take the Chair, somewhat unexpectedly. After the procession returned from the Senate, where they attended the Governor General giving her acknowledgment of Fergus’ new role, things got underway as they normally would, albeit an hour late. When QP got started in earnest, Fergus implored MPs to treat him like a new car and not dent him on the first day. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, citing a payroll institute report on people struggling, and demanded the government refund taxes they have created (though that may have been a translation issue). Justin Trudeau patted himself on the back with the list of programmes the government has been rolling out. Poilievre wondered if Trudeau would reduce the cost of turkey in advance of Thanksgiving this weekend. Trudeau recited about their meeting with grocery CEOs and their “grocery rebate.” Poilievre switched to English to repeat his first question, demanding the government reverse its so-called inflationary deficit and taxes. Trudeau read a list of programmes they have undertaken. Poilievre insisted that Thanksgiving turkeys now cost $120 and demanded to know if they would come down. Trudeau repeated that his government met with grocery CEOs. Poilievre insisted that the government was misleading about that their promise on prices (they weren’t), and Trudeau again recited about what they are doing with grocery CEOs to try and stabilise prices.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and raised the notion that there are half a million non-permanent residents in Quebec and that this was too many and that their social services couldn’t handle it. Trudeau recited some bland assurances that immigration is good for Canada and they were doing what they could to get everyone employed as soon as possible. Therrien railed that Quebec controls permanent immigration but not temporary visitors and demanded the levels be lowered. Trudeau pointed out that Quebec industry is crying our for workers because there is a labour shortage, which is why they were working with the provincial government. 

Jenny Kwan rose for the NDP, and she condemned the government for empty promises on building houses, to which Trudeau read a script about a groundbreaking at a housing project in downtown Vancouver that includes housing for people with HIV. Alexandre Boulerice took over in French and demanded the government instruct the Bank of Canada not to raise interest rates further. Trudeau responded that they respect the independence of the Bank, and read a list of their housing programmes.

Continue reading →