Tag Archives: Stephen Poloz

QP: You should read a book or two

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While the prime minister was in town, he was not in Question Period today, but his deputy was, so all was not lost. Candice Bergen led off, script in front of her, and she went off on inflation, accusing the finance minster of printing money so that she never runs out of bucks to pass. Chrystia Freeland read contradictory statements from different Conservative and wondered who was right. Bergen selectively quoted economists to assign blame for inflation. Freeland quoted former Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz that government spending is not the problem. Bergen was apoplectic and demanded federal action on inflation, to which Freeland again quoted Poloz, and then suggested the Conservatives read a book or two. Alain Rayes took over, and asked about the labour shortage in Quebec. Marco Mendicino, even though it’s no longer his file, reminded him they have been working with Quebec and hit a record high of temporary foreign workers. Rayes went another round, and got the same.

Luc Therrien led off for the Bloc, and raised the Environment Commossioner’s report, and then demanded the government cap the production of fossil fuels. Stephen Guilbeault appeared by video, and reminded him that the Commissioner’s report didn’t capture several new programmes from the government. Therrien was not mollified, and in response, Guilbeault listed measures they have taken that no other government has taken.

Don Davies rose for the NDP, and demanded that the government support lifting patent restrictions on vaccines manufacturing to help the developing world avoid new variants. Harjit Sajjan read about the government’s vaccine donations. Niki Ashton repeated the question in French over video, and François-Philippe Champagne reminded her of Canada’s support for COVAX and other initiatives to deliver vaccines.

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Roundup: Honest mistakes and sticking points

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s daily presser was far more lacklustre yesterday in terms of announcements – mostly just an update on how many more shipments of personal protective equipment have arrived, and contracts that have been signed with domestic producers in order to supply more. There was a little more action in the Q&A – on the question of proposals when it comes to punishing fraud for CERB, Trudeau insisted that this was only about people for whom there was demonstrable intent for fraud and not honest mistakes, though that is not reassuring to everyone. On the lack of a fiscal update, he insisted that things were still too much in flux because we have no idea how the economic restart is going to look like, but then went into his song and dance about just how open and transparent they’ve been because they take questions from the media every day and at the special COVID committee in the House of Commons, except that those are more about the performance of asking questions and less so about providing substantive answers (but being performative on transparency is on brand for this government). Part of the fiscal update measures was wrapped up in a “but the deficit!” moans from one reporter, whom Trudeau did rebuke a bit given that we are in an era of historically low interest rates. On MP Marwan Tabbara, he reiterated that he only found out about the arrest on Friday (and while people don’t believe that, we have to remember that the leader’s office doesn’t track every MP like a convict, and they’ve all been somewhat preoccupied with the pandemic – and it was up to Tabbara to disclose to them). On body cameras for the RCMP, Trudeau said that the was only one measure among many they were discussing, which gives him a bit of wiggle room as this becomes an issue of debate.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1270384288601567233

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The issue of the penalties for fraud with CERB look like they will be a sticking point with the NDP, no matter Trudeau’s assurances that this is not about people who made good-faith mistakes, and that it aligns the penalty regime with people who defraud EI (but without all of the same accountability measures for defence – and it should also be noted that the EI fraud rate is about two-to-three percent). And funnily enough, it seems like some of his own MPs aren’t keen on this either. This could be the kind of punitive measure that will get the Conservatives on-side, but they will be objecting to the fact that the bill will be attempted to get passed in one fell swoop today rather than with a proper legislative process, and the Bloc don’t appear to want to play ball because they want even more measures for seniors, so this could start getting sticky for the government. I guess we’ll have to see what compromises got made, and what deals were cut.

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Roundup: That 21-second pause

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Sometimes the news out of prime minister Justin Trudeau’s daily pressers is unexpected, and yesterday was no exception. After first acknowledging that he would be speaking more on the situation with anti-Black racism in the House of Commons later, Trudeau turned to the subject of the government’s efforts to procure more personal protective equipment and the industry retooling to supply it domestically in Canada. But none of this was the actual news. It was during the Q&A that, after a question on Hong Kong (Trudeau: We are very concerned because there are 300,000 Canadian citizens there), he was put on the spot about what Donald Trump is doing in the US, and what Trudeau’s silence in not denouncing it says. And then Trudeau paused. Gathering his thoughts, for twenty-one seconds, there was uncertainty as to what was going on in his mind, when he finally spoke about the “horror and consternation” of what was going on in the US – but he was very diplomatic and not calling out Trump on anything specifically. There is a relationship to manage there, especially during this global pandemic. When asked about Israel, Trudeau reiterated the support for a two-state solution and that he is “concerned” about annexation plans into Palestinian territory and that he told both prime ministers of that country (because there are now two) about it personally. He was also was asked about the MMIW Inquiry report and its finding of “genocide,” and Trudeau prevaricated somewhat, using the term “cultural genocide” before talking about the need to do better and work on the road to reconciliation, but wasn’t going to allow himself to be drawn into using other language.

A short while later in the Commons, Trudeau stood to give his speech on racism, and made sure that he had MP Greg Fergus and minister Ahmed Hussen in the frame behind him – because it’s always about optics. Nevertheless, he stated that he didn’t want to be another white politician lecturing about racism, and said that not being perfect is not an excuse for not doing anything, before he listed actions his government had taken in engaging the Black community, for what it’s worth.

Andrew Scheer gave a far more predictably milquetoast denunciation of racism, name-checking convenient names for his narrative along the way, like Lincoln Alexander and John Ware. But in his denunciation of racism – including anti-Asian racism and anti-Semitism along the way in light of a recently vandalized synagogue, he kept going on about peaceful protests over riots, and the importance of freedom, singling out economic and religious freedom. There was zero awareness from Scheer about structural racism, or self-awareness in how his party’s “tough-on-crime” fetishism contributes to over-policing at the heart of these protests.

Yves-François Blanchet was less equivocal than Scheer, going on about the anthropology of there being no such thing as race and that racism was about othering – but then stated that the Canadian and Quebec governments “weren’t racist” (erm, you do know what Bill 21 in Quebec was all about, right?) before saying that there may be “traces” that create systemic barriers. And then this shifted to a demand to process the claims of certain asylum seekers (because there’s nothing like the reliance on low-wage and untrained labour that is a direct beacon to the systemic barriers that these very minorities face) before citing that peaceful protests were legitimate and violent ones were not.

Jagmeet Singh kept saying that the government needs to make concrete action instead of making “pretty speeches,” and that the prime minister has the power to do things beyond words, demanding things like ending racial profiling, ending the over-policing of Black and Indigenous bodies, subsequent over-incarceration of Black and Indigenous people, and the need for race-based data. But as Singh can’t even grandstand properly, when he was up to question Trudeau several minutes later in the special committee, he seemed to indicate that things like ending racial profiling could be done with the snap of a finger, and when he demanded that boil water advisories be lifted in First Nations communities, Trudeau reminded him that they are on schedule for doing just that.

Elizabeth May closed out the speeches by naming as many Black and Indigenous deaths at the hands of police that she could recall, before talking about the cyclical nature of these kinds of denunciations every few months, acknowledging her white privilege, denounced Trump, and called on the government to root out white supremacist groups as a terrorist threat, particularly within police forces in Canada.

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Roundup: Not the provinces’ cash cow

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Everything got off to an earlier start yesterday, beginning with the ministerial presser, during which Marc Miller announced another $650 million being allocated to Indigenous communities for healthcare, which would also include added income supports for those living on-reserve, as well as some $85 million to build new shelters for women on reserves. Marc Garneau also announced that the ban on cruise ship docking in Canadian waters was going to be extended to October 31st, which will impact the economies of these communities, but also limits potential vectors for the pandemic. When pressed about the issue of airline ticket refunds, Garneau reiterated the warning that the sector could fail if they were forced to refund all of the tickets, though later on, prime minister Justin Trudeau indicated that there were talks ongoing.

For his presser, Trudeau started off by talking about his teleconference with the premiers and spoke about sick leave being one of the items on the agenda, and it was later in the Q&A that he said that he was offering for the federal government to assume most of the responsibility for the costs, rather than putting it on business owners, but it sounds like some premiers remain rather cool to the idea. After reiterating the earlier Miller/Garneau announcement, Trudeau took questions, which included mention that he was trying to get premiers to agree to some modified orders at the Canada-US border that would allow family reunification, such as cases like the Canadian woman who was trying to get the American father of her unborn child into the country before she gave birth – but again, there are premiers who are not keen. After the questions, Trudeau then gave an unprompted statement on anti-Black racism as a result of what’s going on in the US – that there is a need to stand up as a society, that there needs to be more respect, and that we have work to do as well in Canada. He called on all Canadians to stand together in solidarity, as they know how deeply people are being affected by what we are seeing on the news.

Something else raised in Trudeau’s Q&A was a letter sent to him by five of his Toronto-area backbenchers, calling on him to lead the country in national standards on long-term care, and to press Ontario for a full public inquiry into what happened with the breakdown in care (which I maintain won’t tell us anything we don’t already know). Trudeau praised them for their efforts, and talked about the ongoing talks with provinces, but two of those MPs were on Power & Politics later in the day, and something that I was also glad to hear was Judy Sgro saying that while they wanted federal leadership, they both were respecting that this is provincial jurisdiction and they also didn’t want the provinces treating the federal government like a “cash cow” when you have premiers like Ford demanding more federal funds to fix their own long-term care mess. My own patience for provinces crying out for federal funds to fix the problems in their own jurisdiction is wearing mighty thin, particularly as most of those provinces have broad taxation powers at their disposal (though some of those provinces have less tax room available to them – Ontario, however, is not one of them). Premiers don’t want to have anything on their books and would rather it come from Ottawa’s, so that they don’t have to look like the bad guy when it comes to paying for their own programmes – never mind that there’s really only one taxpayer in the end.

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Roundup: Selling out parliament for a press release

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If there was any more sign of crass politicking than Jagmeet Singh starting the day by declaring that he would only agree to the government’s plans regarding continued special committee hearings in lieu of actual parliamentary sittings if the government ensured there was access to two weeks of paid sick leave available to Canadians, I’m not sure what else it could be. To predicate kneecapping the House of Commons in exchange for something you can count as a win is…quite something. Not quite the petulance of Andrew Scheer’s short-lived declaration that he would only wear a non-medical mask if regular House of Commons sittings resumed, but certainly brash.

To that end, Justin Trudeau held his daily presser and, in reference to the hipster jamboree at Toronto’s Trinity Bellwoods park on Saturday that social media spent the rest of the weekend litigating, said that the variety of local rules can be confusing but people should pay attention to what their jurisdiction’s rules are, and to keep physical distancing. Then then announced that the commercial rent assistance programme was now accepting applications, and outlined that half of the provinces would accept applications on that day, listed the provinces that would accept applications Tuesday instead, and that those with ten or more tenants were to apply Wednesday. Trudeau then said that he had spoken to Singh, and assured him that he was in discussions with the provinces to ensure that people got access to those ten paid sick days per year, but in the Q&A, gave the credit to BC premier John Horgan. That didn’t stop Singh from putting out a self-congratulatory press release immediately, as though this were a done deal and not negotiations that were ongoing because it’s mostly provincial jurisdiction. Trudeau also defended his party’s use of the wage subsidy, but because he can’t answer these questions like a real human being, it was mostly a lot of platitudes and verbal pabulum.

In the wake of this, a bunch of my Twitter critics felt like Trudeau’s discussions with the province on this sick day policy was some kind of an own to my constant reminders that this is provincial jurisdiction, which is bizarre because nothing has been agreed to. Trudeau can’t force the provinces to do anything, and even pointed out that the mechanism to make this happen is complicated – particularly if the provinces are going to expect the federal government to pony up for those paid days instead of forcing employers to pay for it themselves. But again, this isn’t something Trudeau himself can do on his own – he can try to get the provinces on board, but that’s not always a winning proposition. Look at the dog’s breakfast that the commercial rent subsidy managed to be, which is because it’s what the provinces could agree to, while Trudeau takes the blame. And even if the provinces get on board with this paid sick leave, it’ll still be months before that comes to fruition, but hey, Singh got a press release out of it, so he can declare victory to his base.

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Roundup: A campaign of lies to demand Parliament’s return

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For his daily presser, prime minister Justin Trudeau opened with an announcement of some $75 million in additional support for off-reserve First Nations people, Métis and Inuit, primarily those in urban situations that require additional supports. He also said that provinces – most especially Ontario and Quebec – were being offered additional federal supports for testing and contact tracing as they open up their economies, which was later confirmed in the readout of the first ministers’ teleconference that took place later in the day. During the Q&A, Trudeau also referred to China not understanding the notion of what a rule of law country is after certain comments about the detention and determination of the extradition of Meng Wanzhou (and the BC court will make its determination next Wednesday).

Meanwhile, in the special COVID-19 committee, Conservative MPs engineered outrage by demanding the government answer questions on the Harrington Lake renovations, and when they were called out for the fact that the agreement between all parties was that the special committee’s ambit was on the pandemic, they tried to justify the question by saying that if the government was granted extraordinary spending powers, they needed to ensure that it wasn’t going to these renovations – which is disingenuous bullshit because the spending for those would have been approved of years ago. Nevertheless, they bundled their outrage clips and started putting shitposts around social media to claim that because we don’t have proper parliamentary sittings right now that they weren’t allowed to ask questions that the “government doesn’t approve of” – again, which is disingenuous bullshit. Those questions weren’t in the ambit of the committee, which is why they were objected to. I’m also incredibly pissed off that they are trying to make an issue out of these renovations, calling them “secret renovations” to “mansions for the prime minister’s enjoyment,” which is out of bounds. These are official residences, and every time they get weaponised like this in order to score political points, it means that we can’t maintain them properly. That’s the reason why 24 Sussex was allowed to turn into a crumbling shitpile, and yet here they are, carrying on the same kinds of accusations that led to this situation. They refuse to learn, and we all pay the price for it.

At the same time, I am exasperated by the fact that the Conservatives are now trying to use yet more lies and disingenuous bullshit to bolster their case to bring back regular sittings of a skeletal parliament. Nobody wants these sittings more than me, but the fact that they are trying to drum up fake outrage against Trudeau, claiming he is trying to permanently sideline parliament in favour of daily press conferences (where they falsely claim that he hand-picks the journalists asking questions), is really beyond the pale. But this is what the party has become under Andrew Scheer – a haven of liars who will say anything, no matter how outrageous, in order to try and score points. The fact that people saw through this and kept him from forming government should be a lesson, but no. They are barrelling ahead with this tactic, and it boggles the mind why they think this a winner for them. Poisoning the well hurts everyone in the end – most especially Parliament as an institution, which they suddenly claim they cherish and are trying to defend.

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Roundup: Expanded help, pending the provinces

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For his daily presser, prime minister Justin Trudeau opened by talking about his meeting with G7 leaders, talking about the need for a global response to a global pandemic, and the need to help more vulnerable nations – leaving it unspoken that it will be harder to do that if the WHOs funding takes a big hit thanks to Trump’s conspiracy theorism around it. He mentioned his upcoming meeting with the premiers, and noted that Quebec had made an official request for assistance with its long-term care workers – and while many reporters wanted details on what exactly the ask was, the response through the day was that it came late the night before and they were still talking with the province about how best to support them (though the theme seems to be that they want the army to help with these long-term care facilities – something they may have some ability to help with). Trudeau also noted that when things weren’t going as well as hoped, “we make changes,” and then announced that they were expanding the eligibility for the Canada Emergency Business Accounts, as well as gave a few more details about the planned Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance, which would provide loans (some of them forgivable) to commercial property owners on the condition that they provide rent reductions to commercial tenants in May and June – though the coordination of this is still happening with the provinces.

One thing that did emerge, both in the Q&A with Trudeau and during the ministerial one that followed, were questions relating to the modelling of the pandemic, and how we’ve had nearly twice as many deaths as projected by this point, prompting questions about what went wrong with the models. And my head exploded. These models were not predictions or forecasts – they’re an exercise to help with resource planning, which has been stated over and over again, and yet we had more than one journalist try and treat these models as credible data. And because these reporters been told time and again that they’re not data, they’re not forecasts, they’re planning tools, and the fact that this doesn’t sink in, is crazy-making.

Meanwhile, here’s economist Kevin Milligan’s evaluation of the Conservative demand for a GST rebate, which is harder than it looks, and probably not as helpful as the Conservatives think it would be.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1250802992565022720

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Roundup: Trying to blame the WHO

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Andrew Scheer was again out first yesterday morning to repeat his call for in-person sittings in the House of Commons (which Elizabeth May somehow claims is mere partisanship, which I don not grasp), before Scheer went off on tangents about the WHO, because apparently he thinks that following Trumpian logic is a winning plan. (The Conservatives on the Commons health committee have also been aggressively trying to “get answers” on misinformation from China laundered through the WHO).

Prime minister Justin Trudeau was up next for his daily presser, wherein he laid out plans to expand the CERB to those who make less than $1000 and seasonal workers, as well as those whose EI has run out, and promised wage top-ups for those essential workers who make less than $2500/month, but still no news on help for students and commercial rent (which one assumes is in partnership with the provinces). He also noted the assistance that the Canadian Forces as providing in Nunavut and in Northern Quebec. During the Q&A, Trudeau refused to get involved in the WHO debate, for what it’s worth.

Meanwhile, the issue of long-term care in Ontario was getting much more scrutiny, and it turns out that out of 626 facilities in the province, a mere nine got an inspection last year. Nine. Because the province moved to a “risk-based” system, which apparently means that there is only an investigation after a complaint is filed. So that’s totally fine, and one more sign about the complete mismanagement of the Ford government (that people seem to be forgetting when they praise Ford “stepping up” to the current pandemic challenge).

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Roundup: Long-term care and quarantine

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Andrew Scheer was out first this morning, saying that he was trying to get some kind of a deal with the government on how to bring parliament back next week as they are scheduled to, and that he wants in-person sittings of some variety to ensure ongoing accountability (and he’s right). But when asked about bringing his family on that flight when they weren’t planning on them being there (and apparently Senator Don Plett had to get a different flight because it was suddenly full with Scheer’s family), he brushed off said questions. He then spent the rest of the day raising “serious concerns” about the WHO and its recommendations (recall that Jason Kenney on Monday accused Dr. Theresa Tam of repeating talking points from the People’s Republic of China), because what the world needs right now is to hew to the Trumpian instincts to undermine international institutions.

Next up was prime minister Justin Trudeau for his daily presser, in which he announced that four planes full of N95 masks have arrived and are in the process of being validated and distributed, before he brought up $130 million of new funding for the northern territories, including more money for healthcare, for Nutrition North, for northern air carriers, and money for the CanNor development agency. He also noted that they were working to enhance the Canada Emergency Business Account programme and were looking into something about commercial rent (though that’s provincial jurisdiction, so not sure what the federal government could do). As if that weren’t enough, he also raised that they were strengthening some of the measures under the Quarantine Act, as well as boosting the capacity of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, particularly when it comes to ensuring there are more inspectors on the line. Oh, and he didn’t offer any apologies for his trip to Harrington Lake on the weekend, so there was also that. When asked about the issue of long-term care facilities (which is provincial jurisdiction), Trudeau did say they were working with the provinces to see about sending some additional funds to bolster salaries, so there’s also that.

Meanwhile, Vancouver’s city council tried to meet “virtually,” and here’s how that went down, in case anyone thinks it would actually go any better with 338 MPs in parliament.

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Roundup: Supplies, spin, and rent

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Prime minister Justin Trudeau’s daily presser was on the theme of medical supplies – signing agreements with three major medical suppliers in the country, MOUs signed with five other companies, and some 3000 other companies who have volunteered to help the government with those supplies in whatever way they can. Trudeau also noted that they have allocated an additional $2 billion for new personal protective equipment, largely by way of bulk-purchasing, and that more supplies would be arriving within days. As well, the government is tasking its next-generation manufacturing supercluster with scaling-up these kinds of producers to meet the domestic and global demand. Why this became a somewhat fraught issue is because there are places in the country where PPEs are being rationed, and Quebec stating that they were days away from running out – though Trudeau said that in some cases, it may be the medical providers who were rationing because they were trying to preserve supplies for an anticipated surge of cases.

[Here is another Q&A with infectious diseases specialist, Dr. Isaac Bogoch, and a discussion on the current debate about masks.]

Meanwhile, the National Post hears from a bunch of government insiders who claim that the attempt to get the power of taxation without parliamentary approval was about trying to hold leverage of the big banks who have been reluctant to loosen lending requirements, which is an explanation that makes absolutely no sense, and makes me again repeat that there appears to be a cadre of jackasses in Morneau’s office who have been responsible for many of this government’s missteps and woes, and we shouldn’t trust them.

And while I’m on the subject of jackasses, I spent much of yesterday on the Twitter Machine trying to remind people that rent is provincial jurisdiction, so constantly hounding the federal government is a waste of time. This was met with numerous people who insisted that the federal government could invoke the Emergencies Act to claim that power. The mind boggles. Why in the hell would the federal government invoke the tool of last resort to intrude into landlord/tenant legislation when the provinces are perfectly capable of doing so on their own. It makes zero sense. Add to that the people crying out that the federal government should immediately give money to renters, as though there were a mechanism to do so. It’s taking the CRA three weeks to retool their systems to deliver the CERB, which is a pretty breakneck speed to ensure that the system can do what’s being asked of it and hopefully not fail doing it (because their computers are not magic, and you can’t just type “give everyone $2000” and expect it to happen. It’s impossible). And no, there is no analogous funding arrangement to healthcare or post-secondary, as others were trying to claim – those are funding envelopes to provincial governments that come with agreements. They don’t go to individuals, and they are not spending in provincial jurisdiction over the objection of any province. The number of people who seem to think otherwise is astounding.

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