Tag Archives: Syria

Roundup: Continuing the budget reactions

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Now that the budget is out, and people have had a little more time to digest it, more reactions are pouring in. Without further ado, let’s review some of them:

  • AFN national chief RoseAnne Archibald says the budget failed to make progress on a new “economic deal” with First Nations.
  • The aviation industry has some mixed feelings about the measures to address delays.
  • Veterans groups are afraid that they may face possible cuts, because the budget was vague on commitments to their needs.
  • Public sector unions welcome the cap on outsourcing, but are worried about coming cuts as part of the programme review.
  • Humanitarian groups are decrying the $1.3 billion cut to foreign aid in the budget, which is moving further away from our goals.
  • The proposed mortgage code of conduct is welcomed, but there is almost nothing else in the budget around the housing crisis.
  • Here is how the alcohol industry says they got the government to back down on the planned escalator tax.
  • There are hints as to how the assault-style weapon buyback will be handled.
  • Quebec already wants to opt-out of the not-yet created federal dental care programme (with full compensation, of course).

Meanwhile, the debt bomb “it’s 1995 and will always be 1995” crowd is lighting their hair over the deficit, even though it’s really not that big, and it’s not 1995.

https://twitter.com/BrettEHouse/status/1641196835468374017

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces are saying that Russians have had some limited success in Bakhmut in recent days, while there are concerns that Russians have been significantly increasing the number of troops around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which they are occupying. Here is a look at how president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been travelling across the country recently. Zelenskyy says he has invited Xi Jinping to Ukraine, since China wants to play a role in peace talks, but he hasn’t heard back.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1641149869975797774

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Roundup: David Johnston, special rapporteur

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The “unimpeachable” eminent Canadian chosen to be the special rapporteur on allegations of foreign interference is former Governor General David Johnston, and it took mere minutes for the Conservatives to start denouncing him, citing that he was affiliated with the Trudeau Foundation, and that his role on the election debate commission saw Rosemary Barton ask questions during the last debate when she “sued” the Conservatives (note: she did not sue them, but the CBC sued the party in her name for unauthorised use of footage; also, I don’t believe Johnston chose the moderators or questioners, considering that it was a demand of the broadcast consortium that their talent each be allowed to have time during the debate), and on and on it went. The pundit class largely insisted that Johnston should have recused himself right away because he is too closely associated with Trudeau, and others insisted that if it was truly a non-partisan appointment then Pierre Poilievre and Jagmeet Singh should have been part of the process and naming him, and anyway, the whole special rapporteur thing was stupid and so on.

https://twitter.com/SusanDelacourt/status/1636102797623009281

I mean, I understand why Trudeau decided to go this route—not everyone agrees that a public inquiry is the best route to go, because it could go for years and that could mean delaying action that should be taken now. Even if it is the route we want to go (and several Liberals are now saying that it’s the only option at this point), it would still be Trudeau and Cabinet setting the terms of reference, which is also part of the rationale—Trudeau says that he would leave that determination up to Johnston, and he’d follow his recommendations, thereby trying to put some measure of distance between himself and any such task. I do say that it mystifies me that everyone demanding an inquiry right now if not yesterday never seems to care about this very point, even though we all damned well know that they would immediately cite these points as to why the inquiry is illegitimate.

But honestly? Canada is a small pond. There are not too many “eminent Canadians” who have the track record to take on this kind of task, and who don’t have some kind of perceived conflict, no matter how unrealistic it is. But that’s the whole thing with perceived conflicts, and this notion of “smell tests” that don’t actually mean anything but which get the chattering classes frothing. Is Johnston the best choice? Maybe, maybe not. The likely other option was a former Supreme Court Justice, which has become a running joke in Canadian politics these days. Regardless, the fact that this is just more partisan fodder is all the more proof that parties are not actually taking this seriously, and would rather be out to score points instead.

Ukraine Dispatch:

American intelligence suggests that the Russians are making small advances toward Bakhmut, but at great cost. Further north near Kreminna, similar battles are playing out, with the Russians making unsuccessful attacks, but they worry that the attempts to surround Bakhmut could have repercussions for their section of the front, while fatigue is starting to set in.

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Roundup: An upcoming vacancy that will be impossible to fill

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The report was expected after the complaint had been made, but yesterday, the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner released a report that confirmed that Liberal MP Greg Fergus did break the rules by writing a letter of support to the CRTC for a constituent, given that he is a parliamentary secretary and that position could be construed as trying to exert pressure on a quasi-judicial body. Fergus owned up to the mistake and apologised, and the Commissioner suggested that perhaps ministers and parliamentary secretaries would benefit from additional training from his office.

But that wasn’t all—the commissioner, Mario Dion, announced that he would be retiring in a few days because of persistent health issues. While Dion has not been a great Commissioner (some of his rulings have been highly dubious because he over-interpreted his mandate or his enabling statute), the real problem is going to be in finding a replacement, because the legislation about who can apply for the job is, well, nearly impossible to meet. The previous Commissioner, Mary Dawson, needed to keep extending her tenure because they couldn’t find anyone to replace her, and now Dion is leaving without a replacement in the wings. And like I said, the criteria are nigh-impossible, because there are vanishingly few retired judges in this country who want the aggravation of this job with its modest pay, and the other option is the head of an administrative tribunal (which is how Dion got the job), and again, there are only so many of those. So good luck, MPs—you’re really, really going to need it.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 357:

Russian forces were concentrating their artillery on Bakhmut and the surrounding settlements. Meanwhile, NATO defence ministers met in Brussels to discuss getting more firepower to Ukraine as quickly as possible, now that Russia’s new offensive has begun. Germany has signed a deal to produce more ammunition for the anti-aircraft guns provided to Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/lyla_lilas/status/1625525076182310912

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Roundup: Danielle Smith’s Nice History of Canada

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Alberta premier Danielle Smith took the opportunity to shoot a video on Parliament Hill when she was in town earlier this week, and it’s a doozy. It’s so bad. Some of it is outright revisionist history—Danielle Smith’s Nice History of Canada, where the Indigenous People and settlers got together to “tame an unforgiving frontier.” No, seriously. She actually said that. And there was so much nonsense about the energy industry and market. We know that the people she listens to engage in outright residential school denialism, but this is just galling.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 353:

Kyiv and Kharkiv were among the cities hit by a renewed Russian attack on critical infrastructure, particularly on the country’s power supply. Zaporizhzhia has faced a relentless barrage, as have the front lines in the east, where they are continuing their concerted push toward Bakhmut. Meanwhile, here is a look at the “drone hunters” trying to bring down those Iranian-made drones as best they can.

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Roundup: The big health summit is today

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Today is the day, where the prime minster is meeting with the provincial and territorial premiers to lay out the future of health transfers, and from the sounds if it, it’s not a negotiation. The Senior Liberal Sources™ are pointing to a ten-year deal with an expansion to the main Canada Health Transfer, as well as individual deals with provinces that focus on their priorities, and yes, there will be strings attached to that money. Trudeau is framing this conversation in a way that talks a lot about data, but the more unspoken part of that is the fact that the point of that data is so that there can be outcomes that can be compared across jurisdictions, and not have it in a format where it takes six months or a year for researchers to compile the data in a way that’s usable, because each province reports their data differently. People often don’t realise that it’s one of the reasons why we have such poor statistical data in this country, which is because provinces (who are responsible for vital statistics) don’t report in a way that is consistent, and it takes StatsCan or other agencies like CIHI time to make the data work.

The other reason for strings, of course, is that provinces have a demonstrated history of not using health transfers on their healthcare systems. For the decade that health transfers rose at six percent annually, health spending in most provinces rose by somewhere around 2.2 percent annually, meaning a lot of that money got spent elsewhere. Andrew Coyne tweeted data going back 20 years, and it’s very noticeable the gap between what the federal government sent to provinces for healthcare, and what actually got spent on it. Given how much additional pandemic spending went directly to provinces’ bottom lines during the pandemic, there is no longer an appetite for this to continue, which is why strings are not only important, but need to be in place, and it looks like the premiers have finally run out of room in the court of public opinion to operate otherwise.

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1622760959977656321

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 349:

Russian forces have been keeping up the pressure in the eastern part of Ukraine while they prepare for a new offensive, likely around the anniversary of the start of the invasion, and there are worries they could be putting that pressure in Donetsk so that they can launch a surprise attack in the south. As well, there has been shelling around Zaporizhzhia.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau says that Canada is ready to assist allies with aid they need around the earthquake in Türkiye and Syria.
  • François-Philippe Champagne and Pablo Rodriguez gave the new chair of the CRTC her marching orders in a public letter.
  • Marco Mendicino says that any foreign agent registry will need the buy-in from cultural communities in Canada lest it turn into a tool of stigmatisation.
  • As part of the government’s Ocean Protection Plan, there is investment in deep sea research; coastal First Nations chiefs have endorsed the marine protected area plan.
  • Canada is expanding its temporary work permit programme for Hong Kong residents.
  • The deputy minister of Public Services and Procurement says that McKinsey’s global record isn’t enough to disqualify it from Canadian government contracts.
  • The new Indigenous languages commissioner says he hopes to have his office fully operational by summer.
  • A labour tribunal has found that Parliament hasn’t been protecting the health and safety of its translation staff. Gosh, you think?
  • A man has been arrested for making death threats against the Liberal MP for Kichener—Conestoga, Tim Louis.
  • Former Liberal MP Raj Grewal wants the breach of trust charges laid against him during his time in office dismissed for lack of evidence.
  • The Conservatives are calling on the Auditor General to probe the McKinsey contracts, for no reason other than they’re building a conspiracy theory.
  • All opposition parties are peformatively demanding answers from the government about the Chinese “spy balloon.”
  • Quebec’s immigration minister is freaking out after reports that New York City is providing free bus tickets to asylum seekers trying to reach Roxham Road.
  • Matt Gurney explains why the gun control changes were an impossibility and a trap of the Liberals’ own making, which is why they had to walk them back.
  • Colin Horgan notes the Conservatives building conspiracy theories and trying to use the Unreal in order to tap into dark impulses in voters, as QAnon has done.

Odds and ends:

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Roundup: Fire which gatekeepers?

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It sounds like Pierre Poilievre is back on his bullshit again (do the kids still say that?) with his “gatekeeper” nonsense, as in releasing another one of his cringey videos where he promises to “fire the gatekeepers” in order to build housing. Except I’m not sure exactly which gatekeepers he’s proposing to fire, because the biggest impediments to building housing are NIMBY homeowners and neighbourhood associations that oppose any kind of densification, not to mention the elected city councillors who enable said NIMBYism. How, pray tell, does Poilievre propose to “fire them”? I’m sure he’ll tell you that he’ll threaten to withhold federal transfers to municipalities that don’t comply, but then you’ve got elected councillors beholden to voters in conflict with the dictates of a federal leader, so that’s going to be fun.

Poilievre also held a press event in Vancouver yesterday where he unveiled plans to consult on a proposal that would allow First Nations to keep more federal tax revenue from projects on their lands—which sounds like a great policy! But it’s vague, has no details, and is almost certainly going to be a hell of a lot more complicated than he’s making it out to be, especially if he’s going to insist that provincial royalties and taxes won’t be affected either. Listening to the language he used, it also sounds like he hopes that this will be the kind of thing that will ensure projects get built, as though the money from this tax revenue will make concerns over environmental or social impacts evaporate, and I suspect he’ll be surprised when they don’t.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 336:

While Russian forces increase pressure around Bakhmut and Vuhledar, it is expected that Germany will announce today that it will send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, and allow other countries to transfer them as well. Meanwhile, more officials have been named and fired in relation to corruption allegations, as Zelenskyy’s government continues their pledge to clean up the graft in government so that they can attain EU membership.

https://twitter.com/cfoperations/status/1617887130625413123

https://twitter.com/uasupport999/status/1618043593285062656

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Roundup: New Zealand’s leadership selection

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New Zealand is about to have a new prime minister, and lo, it was a process that took a single day. Yes, it was an acclamation where only one person put his name forward (“to avoid disunity,”), but that is less of an issue because New Zealand is one of the last remaining parliaments where it’s decided by a vote held within the caucus among the MPs—the way that Westminster parliaments are supposed to work. And of course, it’s completely alien to how things have devolved in this country.

The quasi-American pseudo-presidential primary system that we’ve adopted in this country is corrosive to politics. It has hollowed out the political parties, and pretty much killed grassroots riding associations, because they no longer matter to the party. Memberships—paid or unpaid (as is the latest craze)—is about leadership selection, not sticking around to do the hard policy work, because the parties have centralized that and justify it using Big Data. It’s all about populating databases rather than ensuring you have a base of engaged partisans who act as a link between the community and the caucus in Parliament. The leader then turns the party into a personality cult while they wield almost absolute power because there are almost no checks on that remaining. At least with caucus selection, there is a direct line of accountability so that the caucus that chose the leader can remove said leader as well, which is one of the most important considerations.

Suffice to say, while one might have preferred that they at least had a vote between two candidates for the job, the fact that they have retained caucus selection is important, and Canada needs to return to the same system if we are to have any hope of fixing the damage to our system.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 332:

Russian forces claim that they took control of the town of Klishchiivka, south of Bakhmut, which their mercenaries claimed to have taken already. And they’re still claiming they’ve taken Soledar, which Ukraine disputes. Meanwhile, the NATO meeting in Ramstein, Germany, ended without an agreement on sending Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, as Germany is the holdout and needs to authorize the use of their technology.

https://twitter.com/oleksiireznikov/status/1616506280876642317

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Roundup: Danielle Smith and prosecutorial independence

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Because it never ends in Danielle Smith’s Alberta, we learned last night that members of her staff were indeed calling up Crown prosecutors to totally not pressure them on cases, only it wasn’t around public health order rule-breakers—it was around those arrested as part of the blockade at the Coutts border crossing. Remember that? Where they arrested Diagolon members for their plot to murder RCMP officers, where they had a hit list? Yeah, totally normal for the premier’s office to be calling them up and totally not pressuring them by asking if those prosecutions are in the public interest, over and over.

https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/1616209929165213696

When news broke, Smith denied that she was in contact, or that anyone in her office was…except there are emails, and her story around totally not pressuring those very same Crown prosecutors around pandemic rule-breakers kept changing, depending on which media outlet she was talking about, so her denials are pretty hard to believe, especially since she didn’t seem to understand how pardons work in Canada until earlier this week, by which point her story had changed about six or seven times (and is probably still changing).

Of course, I don’t expect that anyone is going to resign or be fired for this, because that would mean that someone would need to possess enough self-awareness, or have a shred of humility, or even be capable of feeling shame for their actions, and that’s pretty much a foreign concept in Smith and her cadre. And all of those voices who were having meltdowns about the Double-Hyphen Affair and the alleged pressure being applied to Jody Wilson-Raybould (which my reading of the situation seems to have largely come from Bill Morneau’s office) are strangely silent about what happened here, because I’m sure it’s totally different.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 331:

Ukraine is awaiting the decision of allied governments and particularly Germany about providing them with modern tanks, especially Leopard 2 tanks (which Germany controls the export licences for) as they meet at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany. Meanwhile, here are some testimonials from Ukrainian soldiers who are big fans of the armoured vehicles we have sent them so far, with another 200 on the way.

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Roundup: A hospitalized interpreter should be a wake-up call, but probably won’t be

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The inevitable has happened, and a parliamentary interpreter collapsed during a Senate committee meeting after an acoustic shock and was sent to hospital as a result, when the committee chair decided to go ahead with a meeting despite the fact that two witnesses appearing by video did not have appropriate headsets. And to add to matters, this interpreter was a freelancer and not in the union, so they won’t be getting sick pay for this injury either, given that they were filling in for the full-time, unionised interpreters who are on leave for the injuries they are all facing because of hybrid sessions and meetings, and the fact that the vast majority of MPs and senators simply do not care about their well-being, or the fact that these kinds of acoustic injuries can lead to permanent hearing loss. They don’t care because it would mean giving up the luxury of staying in their ridings rather than coming to Ottawa when they don’t want to, even if it means treating the interpretation staff like furniture. (And as we’ve established, they cannot simply hire more interpreters because there aren’t any more to hire—they’re not even graduating enough to meet the level of attrition from retirements and those quitting from injuries).

To add to this was Government House Leader Mark Holland appearing at the Procedure and House Affairs Committee, where they are debating extending hybrid sittings, possibly permanently, and he spoke about his suicide attempt after his 2011 election loss and used that tale as justification for extending hybrid. And as brave as Holland is to share that story, I find myself deeply disturbed by the fact that he is using it to push for a morally bankrupt proposition around making hybrid sittings permanent when he knows the human cost to them. I am also appalled that the lesson is trying to be “when an MP is struggling, let them work from home” rather than “when an MP is struggling, let them take the time they need to get better and not create an unrealistic and dangerous expectation of presenteeism.” MPs are allowed sick days and leaves of absence. They do not need to be on call 24/7, or to vote on every single issue. There were rules about pairing for absences for decades, and they worked just fine. It’s the same with the groups who keep appearing at PROC, such as Equal Voice, who insist that we need to make hybrid permanent to let more women with children participate in Parliament—it ignores the human toll on the interpreters (and when you raise it, they simply handwave it away with the magic words “we need to find a solution”), and frankly these MPs have the luxury of options when it comes to arrangements they can make. Hybrid or virtual sittings injures interpreters. If there is a technological solution, Parliament has been ignoring it. It is frankly morally reprehensible that they continue to have this debate at the expense of the health of these interpreters. It would be great if this publicised injury and hospitalisation were a wake-up call, but I am frankly too cynical at this point to believe that is going to happen.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 244:

Russia continues to claim that Ukraine is planning to use a “dirty bomb,” which sounds increasingly like pretext for Russia to detonate one, and that they have been using their occupation of the Zaphorizhzhia nuclear plant to build it.

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Roundup: Giving Dean French undeserved credibility

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In an attempt to keep litigating the “revelation” from court documents that there was a “potential breakthrough” with the occupation in Ottawa in advance of the invocation of the Emergencies Act, the CBC credulously brought the “negotiator, Dean French, onto Power & Politics to give his side of the story. It was a complete gong show. French was self-aggrandizing while trying to appear faux-humble, and insisted he wasn’t taking sides when he clearly was, particularly in repeating the patent horseshit from former Newfoundland and Labrador premier Brian Peckford, who spent the occupation claiming he’s the last living signatory of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (he’s not), and that the public health measures violated the Charter and that the government was operating illegally (they’re not, and the courts have pointed out that those measures are saved under Section 1 of the Charter, which is reasonable limits in a free and democratic society). Yet there was French, unchallenged by the host of the show, repeating these claims from Peckford in justifying his assertion that the government was in the wrong. It’s also patently absurd on its face that French’s negotiations would have done anything about the occupation—shifting a few trucks from residential streets and packing them even tighter onto Wellington was not any kind of solution, not that there was agreement among the occupiers on even doing this much. That was not a solution, because the occupation would still have been in place, and the occupiers would have continued to terrorize the residents and businesses in the area. There was no “breakthrough” to be had, and I cannot believe that CBC would go along with the fiction that there was. No, wait—I do believe it, because they uncritically both-sides everything, just like they did with this French interview, and even more to the point, gave French credibility in this. (French, for those of you who may not be aware, was Doug Ford’s initial chief of staff who was forced to resign because he was handing out government appointments to unqualified people with whom he had a lacrosse connection. And yes, I’m being completely serious). The complete lack of critical thinking on the part of P&P’s producers and host when it came to this interview, or the choice they made in pursuing this losing line of inquiry is particularly troubling. Credulously both-sidesing is not journalism—it’s stenography, and that is costing us our democracy.

 

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 176:

Ukrainian forces say they beat back a Russian attack in the southern region of Kherson, while Russian forces shelled the city of Kharkiv in the north, killing more civilians. This as the UN Secretary General is set to meet with president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the western city of Lviv. Meanwhile, it sounds like Russia sacked the head of their Black Sea fleet after the recent explosions in Russian-occupied Crimea, and that they have relocated more of their planes and helicopters either deeper in the peninsula or into Russian territory.

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