Tag Archives: Statistics Canada

Roundup: Objections to the waiver

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At first it seemed like today was going to be the big day. Jody Wilson-Raybould had agreed to meet the justice committee to tell “her truth.” On his way into Cabinet, Justin Trudeau said he was “pleased” that she would be able to appear at committee. The committee agreed to give her the thirty minutes she requested off the top instead of the usual five or ten for an opening statement. Some MPs wanted to try and get the hearing moved from after QP to beforehand (never mind that it’s when all of the parties hold their caucus meetings) in order to be able to ask the PM any questions that might arise from the testimony. And then, surprising probably nobody who paid attention, Wilson-Raybould sent another letter to committee, expressing her “concerns” that the Order in Council that waived solicitor-client privilege wasn’t enough for her to tell the full story.

At this point, it’s starting to feel like a game – that Wilson-Raybould’s attempt to keep controlling the narrative is running out of runway, given that Michael Wernick called her out and Justin Trudeau went and waived solicitor-client privilege (unnecessarily, if you listen to some of the legal commentary out there), and now she’s trying to sow doubt that she’s still not completely free to speak, in order to keep up the narrative that she’s the victim or the hero, distracting from her poor record as justice minister. And it’s starting to feel like the more song and dance that she keeps putting up in order to keep from speaking, the less there is to what she has to say. But maybe I’m getting cynical after a decade on the Hill.

Meanwhile, former litigator Andrew Roman takes a deeper look into the portents of doom for SNC-Lavalin if they were subject to prosecution and even a ten-year ban from federal contracts, and finds them to be less dire than advertised, which makes any alleged wrongdoing by the government to protect them all the more baffling.

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Roundup: Foreign policy complacency

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There has been some musing of late about Canada’s place in the world, and a couple of things jumped out at me. First is Paul Wells’ most recent column, which responds to a Globe and Mailop-ed from a former trade negotiator that wrings its hands at the way the current government is handling China. As Wells points out, said former negotiator is all over the map in terms of contradictory advice, but most gallingly, suggests that we break our extradition treaty with our largest and closest ally in order to appease China. And Wells quite properly boggles at this suggestion we break our treaty, while at the same time taking a moment to reflect on how there is a different way in which Ottawa seems to operate when it comes to these matters, particularly in an era where major corporations with investments in China are no longer calling the shots by way of political financing.

At the same time, Stephanie Carvin makes some particularly poignant observations about Canada’s foreign policy complacency in this era of the Americans retreating from their obligations on the world stage (never mind the Brexit-mired UK). We talk a good game, but have no follow-through, and in the past, she has quite rightly pointed to the fact that we won’t invest in the kinds of things we talk about the importance of globally (most especially “feminist” foreign aid). The government’s actions in Mali are another decent example – putting on a big song and dance about how important it is we go there, spend a few months there doing low-risk medevac, and then refuse to extend the mission for a few extra months so that our replacements can get properly established, meaning there will be a gap in services there.

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I do have to wonder about some of the crossover between what Wells and Carvin are talking about – that Wells points to the rise of crowd-pleasing populism freeing governments from the go-along-to-get-along complacency, but Carvin points to the fact that we are not actually free of that complacency, though perhaps there are different sorts of complacency that we are grappling with when it comes to our place on the world stage. Something to think about in any case.

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Roundup: Closer examinations of Canadian populism

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The topic of populism has been coming up a lot lately, in a variety of contexts, and there were a couple of interesting discussions around it in the Canadian context over the past couple of days. One is an examination by Frank Graves and Michael Valpy that looks at some of the demographic factors in Canadian populist sentiment, and digs out some interesting things like broader support among male millennials, and even some immigrant communities (though I would note that it’s not that difficult to get immigrant communities to turn against other newcomers – particularly asylum seekers – a technique that Jason Kenney tried very hard to exploit when he was federal immigration minister. The piece is worth digging into, and I had to read it a good two or three times before I started to appreciate a lot of what was contained within.

Another interesting piece was a look at the construction of Alberta conservatism, which goes beyond fiscal and social conservatism – indeed, when polled on values, much of the province actually skews toward fairly centrist values – and yet they disproportionately gravitate toward conservative parties out of a sense of brand identity, which is particularly curious, though one should note that political parties have been losing their ideological bases in favour of left-and-right flavoured populism over the past number of years. And populism is very much a factor in the Alberta voting populace, as the examination shows, which includes the distinction of populism as something that appeals to the “pure” homogeneity of a “people.”

To that end, here’s a good thread that digs into what sets populism apart from democracy, and why it’s something we need to pay attention to as this becomes an increasingly important part of the Canadian discourse.

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Roundup: Unfulfilled drama

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After days of building expectation that there was going to be drama at the First Ministers’ meeting, virtually none was had. Doug Ford was going to storm out, and then he didn’t, and his people started recanting the threats. And, well, other stories started emerging as well. And some other premiers claimed progress on their files, like François Legault saying he got closer to his demands for $300 million in repayment for irregular border crossers and dairy compensation; Rachel Notley could claim some progress on getting Ottawa to consider helping pay for her plan to buy more rail cars. That sort of thing. 

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Where there was some minor drama was Doug Ford and Scott Moe coming out at the end, complaining that the federal government was trying to “move the goal posts” on them when it comes to their climate action – which was immediately denounced by other premiers’ officials, and which also demonstrates that they don’t actually know what they’re talking about when it comes to the federal climate framework – in particular that Ford was walking back on some of the province’s earlier commitments to the tune of a 30-megatonne reduction in GHGs, which was not going to fly with anyone else. (Oh, and the federal government says that Ontario won’t get the $420 million promised as part of the Low Carbon Economy Fund after they pulled out of cap-and-trade).

Meanwhile, Andrew Coyne questions the point of these meetings, even from the standpoint of political theatre, while Chantal Hébert calls out Doug Ford’s marked inexperience and partisan petulance, and that he made threats with no reason to back them up. Paul Wells takes the opportunity to explore what these kinds of meetings mean for Trudeau’s style and his vision of federalism – before throwing some well-deserved shade at the final communiqué.

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Good reads:

  • In case you missed it, Statistics Canada reported record job numbers and the lowest unemployment rate since the current tracking began in 1976.
  • Here’s a look into the arrest of Huawei’s CFO, and the extradition process that she will now be subject to. She didn’t get bail; our ambassador in China is on the case.
  • The Canadian Institute of Health Research is doing away with virtual meetings citing lack of preparedness and distraction, but the trade-offs are travel costs.
  • Some BC First Nations are looking to renegotiate their benefit agreements with Trans Mountain on the pipeline expansion.
  • Crown attorneys will stop prosecuting some HIV non-disclosure cases as new prosecutorial guidelines come into effect.
  • Here’s a good look at how Doug Ford and Jason Kenney are sowing distrust with the media for their own ends.
  • Murray Brewster delves into the Crown’s filings on Mark Norman as part of their court case alleging he leaked shipyard information.
  • Kevin Carmichael looks into the darker undersides of the good job numbers that came out yesterday.
  • My weekend column calls out Andrew Scheer’s use of conspiracy theories as part of his war on truth that he hopes will give him an edge, but only feeds Russian trolls.

Odds and ends:

It looks like we’re seeing a renewed bout of really dumb takes on “Alberta separatism,” which seems to forget some pretty basic facts about their exports.

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Roundup: Sorry for the service interruption

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Hey everyone – sorry for the service interruption! Malware sucks. Fortunately, it’s been taken care of and I have new preventative measures to ensure that it won’t happen again in the future, but that also costs me a lot more money to run this site than it used to, so if you can, please consider becoming a patron (and you get some exclusive content to go along with your support). Thanks again for your patience with this.

Good reads:

  • This week’s first ministers’ meeting is expected to get testy, and lo, the oil and gas sector is not explicitly on the agenda (to which Trudeau insists it’ll get discussed).
  • Oh, look! Data on rural work camps and violence against women! It’s something that does happen, despite the Conservatives deriding the association made.
  • Dairy producers are the beneficiaries of import quotas under TPP rules (and lo, I wrote about this being likely two months ago based on the CETA experience).
  • Federal lawyers are objecting to the UCP trying to join the Saskatchewan court challenge on carbon taxes. (It is unusual for opposition parties to be party to a case).
  • A lot of doubt is being raised as to whether the government will actually end arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
  • Apparently Canada’s “feminist” foreign aid policy is too unfocused and spread too thin to have a meaningful effect (not to mention is underfunded).
  • The Commons foreign affairs committee was supposed to have an in-camera meeting with Chinese officials, but that has been cancelled.
  • The Privacy Commissioner is calling for tougher digital privacy laws.
  • Environment Canada is an outlier in that it generally doesn’t track the e-waste of its weather balloons (in part because it’s too costly as we’re a vast country).
  • The CFO of Hwawei was arrested in Vancouver for extradition to the United States, and that could trigger backlash from China.
  • Raj Grewal’s lawyer says that all of Grewal’s gambling loans were from friends and family, and are entirely traceable.
  • Ontario’s chief controller resigned after she refused to sign the Ford government’s attempt to sell the “true” size of the deficit as $15 billion.
  • The New Brunswick premier wants Energy East to be revived, but TransCanada isn’t interested. It’s like there are economics at play!
  • Kevin Carmichael looks at the Bank of Canada’s sudden caution on raising interest rates, in large part because of the oil price shock.
  • Colby Cosh looks into Statistics Canada’s programme of testing municipal wastewater for signs of cannabis consumption.
  • Chantal Hébert looks at the federal-provincial  battles over pipelines, that will play out well after the next election.
  • Chris Selley disputes that there’s a crisis around the French language in Ontario.
  • Andrew Coyne looks at how far Andrew Scheer is willing to go to get the far right vote on the immigration issue as he rails against the UN global migration compact.

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QP: Taking allegations outside

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While the PM took a personal day after his return from the G20, Andrew Scheer was off in Winnipeg to talk guns and gangs. Pierre Poilievre led off concerned about the PM’s supposed “celebrity lifestyle” that referred to the pre-planned tweet around funds for women and girls’ education, before he suddenly pivoted to Bill C-69, demanding it be scrapped. Amarjeet Sohi reminded him that the system the Conservatives put into place that wasn’t working, so they were working to get a one project-one-review process. Poilievre railed that the PM was at the G20 talking about how there were negative consequences when male construction workers went to rural communities,  before returning to the demand to scrap C-69. Sohi reiterate his response, and when Poilievre went for another, more boisterous round of the same, he got much the same answer. Alain Rayes took over to ask about the report in the National Post about a potential investigation on a land deal that might involve Navdeep Bains and Raj Grewal, to which Bains told him the allegations were false and invited him to repeat them outside of the Chamber. Rayes tried to insist on Liberal connections to the situation, to which Bardish Chagger read a statement that functionally repeated Bains’ response. Guy Caron was up next for the NDP, railing about high-protein milk under Supply Management, to which Lawrence MacAulay deployed his usual lines about defending the system. Caron then turned to the Oshawa closure and demanded action by the government, to which Bains read that the sector was strong, that they had the auto innovation fund if GM wanted to use it. Tracey Ramsey demanded action on Oshawa, to which Bains reiterated his previous response. Ramsey then railed that steel and aluminium tariffs were still in place, to which Mélanie Joly read that the NDP celebrated the deal behind closed doors.

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Roundup: Ginning up the Grewal resignation

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As the stories on Raj Grewal’s gambling debts and intended resignation continue to trickle through, a number of them have taken on a vaguely conspiratorial tone. A lot of facts that shouldn’t be out of the ordinary are treated as suspicious for absolutely no reason at all. For example, people keep wondering why he was reassigned from the finance committee in September “with no warning.” Gee, what else happened in September that would have affected committee memberships? Could it have been the fact that the parliamentary secretaries all got shuffled, so committee assignments need to be rejigged? Maybe? And whoa, he asked questions on catching money launderers to law officials and FINTRAC agents during a study on – wait for it – “Confronting Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing: Moving Canada Forward.” Such an amazing coincidence that is totally suspicious. And the latest “revelation” is that Senator Jean-Guy Dagenais says that a retired Mountie told him a year ago that he heard Raj Grewal was under investigation, and he therefore thinks PMO should have known then. Erm, except that neither the OPP nor the RCMP tell the PMO what they’re investigating because they operate at arm’s length, and more to the fact, Grewal was a backbench MP, which I cannot stress enough.

To that end, Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column looks at the issue of parties policing MPs’ off-hours, considering the Clement and Grewal situations, while Susan Delacourt cites those same two cases, and wonders if we need to do a better job of screening backbenchers. And I’m pretty dubious because backbenchers are not ministers. They don’t have access to secret materials (Clement, I remind you, is a former minister and thus a member of the Privy Council, and his activities on NSICOP are outside of the usual activities of a backbencher), nor are they public office holders. Their job is to hold government to account – they are not part of the government, and it doesn’t matter what committees they’re on. Treating them as the same thing is not only a gross overreach, but frankly it will give MPs a wrongheaded sense of their place in the system, which is already suffering because of civic illiteracy.

Are Grewal’s debts concerning? Yup. Is it a crisis that he was mentioned in passing as part of an investigation into other suspicious characters? Maybe, but we don’t know enough to say whether it is or not, and the baseless speculation and ginned up allegations aren’t helping. Should Trudeau and the PMO have been more candid from the start about the reasons Grewal was resigning? Probably, and given this government’s inability to communicate their way out of a wet paper bag, their approach once again blew up in their faces. But treating this affair with clickbait headlines and spinning random facts out of context in order to make them seem sinister is bad reporting.

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QP: Concern trolling about the media

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While the PM was off to Calgary to sell his fiscal update, Andrew Scheer was absent yet again. Alain Rayes led off, proclaiming that the government was racking up “record” deficits (not sure that’s correct), and demanded a plan for a balanced budget. Bill Morneau insisted that they did have a plan for growth and investment, and that the level of debt was the best in the G7. Rayes tried a second time, and got the same answer. Pierre Poilievre got up next, and said that the Morneau was trying to rewrite history from his deficit promises. Morneau got up and said that Poilievre was repeating buzz-words from first-year economic textbooks, while his government was getting results with growth. Poilievre then concern trolled that the government was buying off the press, to which Morneau said that journalism was vital democracy and they were trying to help the sector in a manner that was independent. Poilievre stated that the government thinks that journalists should shower then with praise, to which Morneau replied that it was insulting to think that journalists could be bought off. Guy Caron was up next for the NDP, decrying the tablet of back to work legislation for Canada Post, to which Morneau said that they tried to get a deal but the economy was starting to suffer. Caron railed that this was a gift not only to Canada Post but also EBay and Amazon, and Morneau responded with some pabulum about supporting small businesses. Karine Trudel and Irene Mathyssen further denounced the move on back-to-work legalisation, to which Patty Hajdu listed the ways they tried to get to a deal, and that the legislation may still give room for bargaining while getting the workers back to work.

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QP: Ignoring the Auditor General

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While the prime minister was present today, no doubt still jet-lagged from his international summits, Andrew Scheer was off in Vancouver to make a policy announcement for the election that is still nearly a year way. Lisa Raitt led off, demanding to know the the date the budget will be balanced. Justin Trudeau picked up a script to read about how great their policies including the Canada Child Benefit was, while unemployment was at its lowest rate in 40 years. Raitt said that Canadians’ choice was to keep deficits to $10 billion for year, and this time Trudeau eschewed a script to decry the last years of the Harper government, which nickel-and-dimed veterans and made cuts while his government invested in Canadians. Raitt listed tax credits that were cancelled, and Trudeau noted that those non-refundable tax credits weren’t available to low-income Canadians whereas the CCB was better off for those Canadians. Alain Rayes took over, asked the same again, and Trudeau reiterated this points about low unemployment and enhanced growth in French. Rayes reiterated the demand for a date, and Trudeau reminded him how much debt Harper left as a legacy. Guy Caron was up next for the NDP, raising the Auditor General’s report on CRA not going after rich corporations. Trudeau took up a script to praise the report and said that CRA would examine their internal processes to ensure fairness and uniformity. Caron asked again in English, and Trudeau read a list of investments made in the CRA to ensure more off-shore audits were completed. Alexandre Boulerice raised a report that said Canada’s climate policies would rise global temperatures (somewhat out of context), and Trudeau read a script to say that things were not fine and listed actions that the government was taking. Boulerice switched to French to demand more action, and Trudeau, sans script, insisted that they were taking action to fight climate change.

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Roundup: Not an election issue to fight over

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The leader of the Independent Senators Group seems to have inserted himself into the political discussion by demanding to know where parties stand on the issue of Senate appointments in advance of the next election. Senator Woo’s concerns seem to be that he doesn’t want people to “unwittingly” vote for a party that doesn’t conform to their views on the Senate. I’m going to go ahead and say that this was probably a mistake because it’s very easy to construe that he’s looking to shill for the Liberals since they are the only ones to are half-arsing the issue of Senate modernization, at least in this particular bastardized vision of a completely “independent” Chamber that is more likely to be problematic than anything.

In case you were wondering, the Conservatives say they don’t have a firm position yet, but their democratic institutions critic says she prefers the Harper system of appointing candidates voted on in “consultative elections” – you know, the ones that the Supreme Court of Canada said were unconstitutional because they were attempting to do through the backdoor what they couldn’t to through the front door. Oh, and they support a partisan Senate because they have a “very strong Senate group.” And the NDP, well, they’re still insisting that they want to abolish the Senate, never mind that they will never, ever, get the unanimous support of the provinces to do so. That leaves Senator Woo holding the bag for the Liberals by default, which isn’t a good look if he wants to keep insisting that he’s independent from the Liberals.

And those of us who think that maybe the Senate is better off with Liberals, Conservatives and a group of crossbenchers in roughly equal numbers? Who are we supposed to vote for? I suspect we’re SOL, unless the Liberals decide to change their tune after their “experiment” in a totally independent Senate starts to blow up in their faces and they can’t get bills passed (in part because their Government Leader – err “representative” – doesn’t want to do his job), but yeah. I’m not sure this is an election issue to fight over because nobody knows what they’re doing and we’re going to find ourselves cleaning up the mess made in this institution for a generation to come.

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