Tag Archives: The Senate

Roundup: CSIS has a warning and a request

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The head of CSIS gave a rare speech yesterday, in which he did two things – called for more modernisations to the CSIS Act in order to let the organisation collect more digital information, and to warn about state actors who are targeting the country’s economic secrets, often though partnerships that they then take advantage of (pointing the finger on this one specifically at China).

Meanwhile, here’s former CSIS analyst Jessica Davis’ assessment of what she heard in the speech, which has a few interesting insights.

https://twitter.com/JessMarinDavis/status/1359213965851697154

https://twitter.com/JessMarinDavis/status/1359213967906865152

https://twitter.com/JessMarinDavis/status/1359214670624792576

https://twitter.com/JessMarinDavis/status/1359215146657341441

https://twitter.com/JessMarinDavis/status/1359215476224704512

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Roundup: O’Toole’s risky, ideological experiment

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Erin O’Toole met with the Toronto Star’s editorial board yesterday, and indicated that any election won’t be his doing, which would indicate that he’s in no rush to call non-confidence with this government – and why would he? Should he topple the government (in a pandemic), he would not only have to wear that decision, but also try to explain how he would do things differently around things like vaccine procurement – something which he won’t actually do because he knows that we don’t have the domestic capacity to produce them, and that the current delays are outside of this government’s control. He won’t say those things out loud, because he needs to create a narrative about this government “failing,” even though he couldn’t do any better, but the truth has apparently never been a barrier for O’Toole (nor his predecessor).

What O’Toole is trying to do is set up a competing narrative for the post-pandemic recovery, where he gets to frame the Liberals’ plans of “build back better” – focused on green and inclusive growth – as being some kind of risky, ideologically-driven “experimentation.” The problem with this, of course, is that his plans for getting the economy back to status quo is that the old normal led us to this point – including the thousands of deaths that happened as a result of this pandemic. It would seem to me that trying to get to the old normal is risky and ideological, because they have proven to have failed, and were stifling growth – remember that calls for inclusive growth predate the pandemic and were highlighted by those radical ideologues at the Bank of Canada as a necessary pathway if the Canadian economy was to continue growing at a point where we had reached “full employment” and future growth was going to be constrained. Nevertheless, O’Toole is pandering to a voter base (and, frankly, a pundit class) that fails to see that the future economic drivers are going to be the green economy and ensuring that we get more women and minorities into the workforce. For a party that likes to fancy itself as “good economic managers,” they seem to be completely blinkered on where the market is heading, and are trying to chart a path that everyone else is rapidly abandoning.

Meanwhile, O’Toole’s finance critic, Pierre Poilievre, has been putting on a big dog and pony show about our unemployment rate over the past few days, and thinks he has a winning line in talking about “paycheques versus credit card debt,” but he’s basing it on a false premise that unemployment figures are directly comparable – they’re not, and as a former employment minister, he knows that and is lying to you. (He also knows that places like the US have their economies opened with massive death tolls as a result, but those are just details, right?)

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Roundup: The COVAX conundrum

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It was another day of less than optimal vaccine news yesterday – first a warning that there was going to be more fluctuation in future shipments including what appears to be another reduction in the next Moderna shipment (of which we’re still not sure the allocation yet), followed by news that we are in line for a shipment from the COVAX facility, which comes with its own particular special challenges.

Why? Because part of COVAX is to provide vaccines to the developing world, and it appears that Canada is accepting vaccines that would be going to them. Except that’s not the deal we signed – while we are funding vaccines for the developing world through COVAX (and will be sending our excess doses once our own population is vaccinated), part of the procurement diversification strategy was the stream under COVAX that we get some doses while also funding for the developing world. But of course, that wasn’t clearly explained – and the minister did have to do the media rounds to do that later in the day, by which it was too late, and you had everyone tut-tutting that we’re taking doses from those who need it more than we do. Which, incidentally, is happening at the same time that the government is being yelled at for not procuring more doses faster (as though yelling will make Pfizer’s retooling go faster or Moderna’s supply chain issues resolve themselves), and lo, we have doses that we paid for, but we’re going to look like jerks if we take them. Damned if we do, damned if we don’t. Good thing this government can communicate effectively. Oh, wait…

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Roundup: Domestic vaccine production…eventually

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There was a sliver of positive news yesterday, when it was announced that the federal government had signed a deal with Novavax to produce their vaccine in the future National Research Council facility in Montreal. The catch? That facility won’t be completed construction until summer, and then it will require Health Canada approval, so it may not be able to produce new doses until the end of the year – at which point, most Canadians should already be vaccinated using the Pfizer and Moderna doses we’ve contracted for. That doesn’t mean this facility still won’t be for naught – it’s possible we will need booster shots for the other vaccines, possibly do deal with different variants (and Novavax has shown success with the B.1.1.7 variant first spotted in the UK), and it also means that we will be able to produce for export to other countries who will need it.

Of course, this started back in on the same questions about why we weren’t able to produce vaccines domestically earlier, and why this plant is taking so long. Of course, this plant is actually moving faster than is usual – Good Manufacturing Practices facilities to produce vaccines usually take two or three years to build, not a single year, and there are several other facilities under construction across the country for other vaccine candidates. As for the same questions about why we didn’t contract to produce other vaccines here, it was because there were no suitable facilities – particularly from the approved ones. (This NRC facility was in talks to produce the AstraZeneca vaccine, but there is also talk about why the PnuVax facility in Montreal has not yet been tapped – but it may yet be for a future candidate once approved). And for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, we simply didn’t have facilities in this country that could produce mRNA vaccines to scale (most existing mRNA production was on a single-dose system for tailored vaccines used for treating particular cancers). And these are things we a) can’t build overnight, and b) didn’t know were even viable because it’s a new technology that had not yet been approved for a vaccine, especially on the scale of the one we’re dealing with now. It would have been a hell of a gamble to build a facility to GMP standards for a vaccine technology that may not have panned out.

Why I’m particularly annoyed about the return of these questions – particularly from the likes of Jagmeet Singh as he appeared on platforms like Power & Politics – is that they pretend that any vaccine facility can produce any vaccine, ignoring that not all vaccines are created equally, or that the technology to produce vaccines isn’t different across platforms. Singh’s notion that a nationalised vaccine producer should have been able to handle this is also farcical because again, what platform would it have bet on? All of them? It’s ridiculous and dishonest – as have been the demands to make the vaccine procurement contracts public (which no other country has done), because all that would do is allow other countries to look at what we paid, and then offer the companies more money to break the contracts with us. (And FFS, both Singh and Erin O’Toole are lawyers and should know this). The kinds of point-scoring that is taking place right now is getting to be beyond the pale, and it’s obscuring the actual kinds of accountability we should be practicing.

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Roundup: Not another Supreme Court reference

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The medical assistance in dying bill is finally before the Senate’s legal and constitutional affairs committee, as the (extended) deadline approaches for it to be passed to comply with a Quebec court ruling, and we have justice minister David Lametti saying that there is always the possibility that they could yet refer this bill to the Supreme Court of Canada to get their judgment on whether it will meet the courts’ requirements. And I just cannot with this.

This is part of a pattern in this country where anytime there is a contentious or “moral” issue, parliamentarians of all stripes get afraid to put their necks on the line for something – no matter how right the cause is – and insist that the courts weigh in so that they can do the performative action of looking like they were dragged, kicking and screaming, into complying. They did this with lesbian and gay rights, they did this with safe injection sites, they did this with prostitution laws, and they did this with assisted dying – and in the cases of both prostitution laws and assisted dying, the laws drafted to replace those that were struck down were not going to comply with the court’s rulings, and yet they went ahead with them anyway so that they could force a new round of court challenges to really put on a show of kicking and screaming. It’s spineless, and it causes so much more unnecessary suffering (and in some cases, like with prostitution laws, deaths) when better laws could and should be drafted, but those MPs and senators who push for full compliance get sidelined by the skittish majority. And in the case of assisted dying, so many of those pushing to go back to the courts are simply seeking to re-litigate the action, which is not going to happen. A unanimous decision is not going to be scaled back on a second hearing.

While I am encouraged that Lametti did try to say that this option is not the best one, and his office later clarified that they have no plan to have yet another reference on assisted dying, but the fact that you have his clamour of people who don’t want to either make a decision, or who want to re-litigate the same issues, clamouring to send this back to the Supreme Court is disappointing. That parliament can’t respond to the Court’s ruling in a reasonable manner is one of the most irritating things about how we run this country, and it would be great if our MPs (and some senators) could forego the theatrics.

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Roundup: Ford fails, flails, and falsifies

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As the numbers of this second wave of the pandemic continue to climb, Ontario premier Doug Ford continues to flail and grasp for any bit of cover that he can. Yesterday, while warning that the next set of modelling data are truly terrifying – but not actually doing anything about it – he tried to once again shift blame. And the not doing anything – making vague promises that he’ll consider more actions for Monday or Tuesday, rather than immediately, despite the fact that the current mockdown isn’t working and ICU capacity is at the red line in most of the hot spots, means that Mr. “I won’t hesitate” is once again hesitating, and there will be more lives lost on his watch.

As for the blame-shifting, Ford (along with a couple of other premiers) are howling that they’re running out of vaccines, after the slow roll-out – so slow that Ontario is already starting to give people their second doses. But, running out of vaccines is a good thing, because it means they’re going into arms. And more to the point, he knows that there are thousands of more Pfizer doses coming next week, the week after, and then again, the week after that, plus another bulk shipment of Moderna vaccines – and deliveries are expected to scale up further in February. They know this. This has been communicated for a while now, but he’s trying to deflect the attention to Trudeau once again to divert away from his own incompetence. (And apparently there were some hurt feelings among the premiers during Thursday’s first ministers meeting because Trudeau dared to criticize the provinces for their role in the slow roll-out. The poor dears).

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1347570045178818560

Meanwhile, here’s a roundup of vaccine plans and timelines being put out by the provinces and territories (assuming that they will actually meet them).

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Roundup: Feigned ignorance and consequences

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The list of politicians, federal and provincial, that travelled over the Christmas break, has grown, and premiers especially have been finding it hard to keep their stories straight about their own culpability. A reminder: ministers cannot leave their province without permission, and they need to have someone appointed as an acting minister during their absence, which requires paperwork, and in no possible universe would the premier not have known. While Doug Ford has lied that he didn’t know his finance minister was leaving the country, Jason Kenney and Scott Moe took the weaselly path of “taking responsibility” for not making it clear to their caucus that there wasn’t to be any travelling – something which is a red herring in the case of ministers. They knew and were caught out, and now they are trying to minimize the damage and divert attention away from their culpability, but anyone who knows how governments work know that this is grade-A bullshit.

There is a question of consequences – particularly for the backbenchers who were caught out. Among the federal Conservatives, there seems to be little that they can do to sanction Ron Liepert, while David Sweet resigned as the chair of the ethics committee and said he’s not running again in the next election. A real question will be for Senator Don Plett, who is the leader of the opposition in the Senate. There could be some real political damage to the institution if he doesn’t do something to show remorse, whether that is stepping down from his leadership position, or some other act of contrition. If he doesn’t do it voluntarily, we’ll see if Erin O’Toole makes a move as party leader, or if the Conservative caucus in the Senate makes their own move to limit the damage to their own reputations. Regardless, we’ll see how the next few days play out as the outrage continues to swirl.

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Roundup: Unnecessary, lethal delays

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The pandemic continues to accelerate in certain parts of the country, because that’s what exponential growth is – exponential. To that end, Dr. Theresa Tam is calling for stricter lockdowns, because the longer you delay, the worse it gets. So what is Doug Ford doing? Delaying until Monday to decide on extending lockdown measures in some regions of the province, and signalling that tougher measures won’t go into effect until Boxing Day – you know, so that there can be more holiday super-spreader events and the situation will spiral out of control that much faster. Good job! And no, there haven’t been actual lockdowns, which is why the measures that have been put into place so far haven’t been effective (and there is talk emerging that some of the hot spots are in large industrial workplaces, that the government is insistent on remaining open).

There is some more promising vaccine news, in that it looks like there will be scheduled 125,000 doses of the Pfizer delivered per week in January, while more freezers are being delivered to provinces to store the doses. As well, the Moderna vaccine is nearly ready for approval (apparently Health Canada is waiting on some more manufacturing data), and new guidance is suggesting that it won’t need to be frozen as initially indicated, which makes it even more versatile for delivery in rural and remote communities.

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Roundup: CRA changed the rules

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There has been a lot of consternation over the past few days of the “education letters” that CRA has been sending to people to say that they can’t verify their incomes and that they may need to repay their CERB benefits. The big complication, however, is that it appears that the CRA had quietly changed its income criteria from gross income to net income. But reporters have receipts, and CRA did make changes that they aren’t saying.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1338505818090725378

This does seem to be something that the minister should probably look into, because this certainly looks bad for the CRA and like they are acting in bad faith – as the government keeps insisting that they will encourage flexibility and leniency for those who made mistakes “in good faith.” But if the mistake was CRA’s – or that they deliberately changed the criteria for whatever reason – then this is more than just people making errors in good faith, and punishing people for the CRA’s screw-ups is a really bad look in the current context.

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Roundup: Bold new climate action

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As expected, Justin Trudeau and Jonathan Wilkinson (along with Steven Guilbeault for good measure) announced the next round of climate action to get us to the Paris targets, and it includes a rapidly increasing carbon price, which immediately had conservative premiers like Doug Ford and Jason Kenney go into full meltdown about how this was going to crush the economy and make life unaffordable for people – never mind that it’s designed to be revenue neutral. We even had political show hosts try to frame this issue as “can we afford climate action when the economy is terrible?” which is both irresponsible in that it presents a false binary and a wrong expectation that climate action is costly as opposed to able to provide cost savings. As part of this, a more enhanced rebate for those provinces subject to the federal price was announced so that people will be getting larger quarterly front-loaded rebates so that they can offset their increased costs and make smarter choices and keep more of their money.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1337535225245655041

Meanwhile, Heather Scoffield declares the plan to be bold, but worries that there is no alternative to a carbon price if the Supreme Court of Canada strikes down the current one (but that ignores that they could impose it by a different legislative mechanism). Paul Wells is also surprised by the audacity of the plan, given that this government likes to try and take the easy route rather than make the politically hard sell of carbon pricing.

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