Tag Archives: The Senate

Roundup: Not the provinces’ cash cow

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading →

Roundup: The opposition kneecaps itself

Posted on by

In case you were wondering, yes I’m still upset by the move to keep regular Commons sittings suspended in favour of these showboat “hybrid” committee sittings, while the government continues to pat itself on the back for all of the questions they’re letting the opposition ask as they let the substantive work of Parliament slide. And while this particular piece talks about the “image politics” of Trudeau using his Rideau Cottage briefings, there was little discussion about how these somewhat farcical committee meetings – especially now that they have the gloss of the Chamber in this “hybrid” capacity – can let Trudeau keep crowing about how much he respects Parliament because low-information votes (enabled by low-information journalists who seem incapable of determining the difference) see the gloss of the Chamber and think that the Conservatives are just being big babies about it all.

This particular op-ed by professor Lori Turnbull makes some very salient points about the fact that our opposition was already weak – the Conservatives hobbled by their leadership contest (though I would argue that Andrew Scheer’s particular brand of political ineptness certainly made that situation worse), the NDP having lost their national relevance (again, Turnbull is being polite in not calling out Singh’s particular lack of ability), and the Greens’ irrelevance – and yet they’ve managed to kneecap themselves even further by giving away the tools they had at their disposal, like Supply Days and private members’ legislation. It’s kind of embarrassing, really.

Meanwhile, while this is going on, the Senate opposition leader, Senator Don Plett, is calling for the Senate to return and start sitting two days a week to start doing some parliamentary work including weekly questioning of ministers. Plett is calling for in-person sittings with about 40 senators in the Chamber at a time, and proportions are likely under negotiation right now, but it might allow for the Chamber to finally get some of its housekeeping out of the way like getting committees agreed to (now that the Progressives are a viable force again and aren’t at the mercy of ISG leader, Senator Yuen Pau Woo, as he tried to deny them committee seats), and perhaps the Chamber could give those committees their orders of reference so that they can start doing some work. It would be fitting if the Senate could start showing up the Commons, as they are wont to do – provided that it doesn’t simply devolve into endless back-patting, which is a danger with some of the newer members.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Making help available to the provinces

Posted on by

Prime minister Justin Trudeau’s daily presser was earlier than usual yesterday, Trudeau saying it was because of a pending Cabinet meeting, and his itinerary showed an afternoon of calls to other world leaders as the race to secure votes for the UN Security Council seat is in full-swing. Trudeau’s main message of the day was that the federal government was making available trained federal employees capable of making 3600 contact-tracing calls per day, with the ability to deploy an additional 1700 StatsCan interviewers capable of making 20,000 calls per day, should any province require their services as part of the testing and tracing necessary for economies to re-open. (Because obviously, provinces need the federal government to do everything for them these days). Trudeau also mentioned the launch of an online benefits portal, to help people navigate the various financial benefits available to them.

During the Q&A that followed, Trudeau said that the government was trying to find a balance when it comes to the issue of airlines offering vouchers instead of refunds for cancelled travel as they face their own cash crunches and layoffs. When asked about contact-tracing apps, Trudeau did hint that they were trying to find one that would be useable across the country – as Apple and Google have stated that they want a single app to service an entire country (which is hindered by the fact that Alberta has already launched their own app) – but he also gave a reasonable explanation about the fact that they haven’t recommended one to date because they required the app to run in the foreground while people were out, which drains batteries and limits functionality. As for the worrying news out of Hong Kong, Trudeau stated that he was concerned about the situation – and a few hours later, Canada made a joint statement with the UK and Australia to condemn the proposed law that China apparently plans to impose on the region.

For his part, Andrew Scheer held his own presser to present a motion that the Conservatives are proposing for the Commons to debate for Monday’s regular sitting, wherein he wants Parliament to be declared an essential service (where have I heard that before?) and wants regular sittings with a maximum of 50 MPs present where regular business can be discussed. And he’s got a point, were he and his caucus not being complete dicks about it and creating a series of falsehoods to justify their position. We’ll see what happens on Monday, and whether they can come to an agreement before then.

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1263901581256384514

Continue reading →

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading →

Roundup: LEEFF details and mask recommendations

Posted on by

As is becoming the norm on days when there is a special committee sitting, it was the ministers who were out first – specifically Bill Morneau, who was announcing more details for the Large Employer Emergency Financing Facility (LEEFF), and how that was going to work – including more of the attached conditions such as ensuring that there was some kind of beneficial arrangement for the government in the form of warrants, and the possibility of a government observer on boards of directors.

Prime minister Justin Trudeau was up next for his daily presser, wherein he repeated his pleas to employers to use the wage subsidy to re-hire their workers, and for commercial landlords to take advantage of the rent subsidy programme, which would begin taking applications on May 25th. He also said that more assistance for large retailers would be coming.

What made no sense was the Thing that journalists made of the fact that Trudeau has increasingly been seen with a non-medical mask in certain public situations, followed by Dr. Theresa Tam making an “official recommendation” that people wear such masks when physical distancing is difficult. Erm, except she’s been saying that for weeks now, so why this was such a big deal that journalists needed to play up and then dissect the “evolution” of her position is boggling. Nothing has changed – the message has always been that these masks won’t prevent you from contracting the virus, and that you still need to maintain physical distancing and proper hygiene (and more to the fact that these masks can instill a false sense of confidence, and that people are more likely to touch their faces more with them on). But hey, our de facto parental authority figure is telling us this “officially” now, so that obviously has some kind of psychic weight, or something. (Seriously, guys).

Continue reading →

Roundup: Setting the Auditor General up for failure?

Posted on by

Andrew Scheer was first out of the block this morning for a presser to call for the return of more in-person sittings of Parliament when the current suspension order lifts in a week’s time – which he is correct to do – but his bombast and rhetoric about Trudeau looking to avoid accountability is over the top and unnecessary, and simply alienates the audience he needs to persuade. Score another one for Scheer’s complete inability to read the room. Later in the day, the Procedure and House Affairs committee tabled its report recommending full virtual sittings (over my dead body – and yes, I’ll write more about this next week), but we’re faced with a number of MPs who immediately start to clutch their pearls about travel to Ottawa, as though there weren’t better options available to minimize said travel.

Prime minister Justin Trudeau was up next for his daily presser, and he announced some $450 million in funding for health researchers and others who have been unable to access the existing aid programmes due to technicalities, so it shows that the government has been responsive to some of the complaints that have been lodged about those programmes (well, those that are within federal jurisdiction, anyway). Trudeau also announced that the wage subsidy programme would be extended until August, as well as expanding the eligibility criteria, which is a signal that they are looking to transition more people on to the payrolls of their employers and not the CERB.

Little remarked upon was the fact that the nominee for Auditor General went before committee of the whole in the Senate yesterday, after they completed their debate on the dairy bill, as is customary for the appointment of any new Officer of Parliament. And Senator Peter Harder did make a pretty good intervention on the focus on value-for-money audits that the AG’s office seems to have shifted toward in recent years.

https://twitter.com/SenHarder/status/1261429867410751488

This having been said, I find myself irritated by this concern that MPs are apparently setting up the new AG for failure because her office is currently “underfunded.” Why? Because they created these conditions, and are trying to now blame the government for them. There have been concerns about the office’s resources, which are fair, and some of that blame has to lie with the previous AG, Michael Ferguson, who voluntarily cut his budget and put off needed IT overhauls in order to please the Harper government and its deficit reduction plans. The current government increased the funding, but apparently that’s not enough. But in the past few months, the current crop of MPs have passed a motion in the Commons to order the AG to audit the federal infrastructure programme in a politically motivated move to try and embarrass the government (when it was the slow response of provincial governments that has been holding up federal dollars going out the door), and then on the eve of the pandemic and the suspension of Parliament, MPs ordered the auditor general to track all of that spending rather than doing their jobs and checking the money before it goes out the door, like they’re supposed to. And now they want to complain that the Auditor General doesn’t have enough money to do the audits that he was working on before this happened? Seriously? Does nobody have any self-awareness? Add to that, this notion that the office needs an apolitical means of funding its budget so that governments can’t “politicize” the resourcing is technocratic bullshit that has no place in our system. Officers of Parliament have already been given way too much power and authority without any accountability for it, and now we want to turn over the ability for them to get any of the resources that they demand, when they already have no accountability? Seriously? Does nobody actually listen to themselves? Would that we could get some MPs who know their own jobs and do them. It would be embarrassing if they had any sense of shame.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Pearl-clutching over fraud

Posted on by

While he didn’t show up at the “virtual” special committee yesterday, prime minister Justin Trudeau nevertheless held his daily presser, during which he announced that they were creating a $470 million programme to support fish harvesters, which would include grants for those businesses who needed a bridge, and EI application rules for those who would have to miss the season because it wasn’t safe. As well, there was another $100 million for an agriculture and food solutions programme through Farm Credit Canada. Trudeau also noted the upcoming long weekend, and said that as of June 1st, some national parks and historical sites would be re-opened to the public – provided the province they are in would allow it – and that there were new restrictions for pleasure craft, with the intention that they not be allowed to head to places where they could infect local populations, particularly in the North.

Meanwhile, the breathless pearl-clutching fraudulent CERB claimants continues unabated, as the National Post procured yet another government documents that allegedly says to grant it even to people who have quit their jobs or been fired with cause, which shouldn’t be allowed. But as Trudeau stated under questions after his presser, the goal was to ensure rapid delivery for the 99 percent of people who were claiming this benefit for legitimate reasons, and that if they had insisted on more robust checks at the beginning of the process, the money still wouldn’t be flowing. This of course hasn’t stopped some of the usual suspects from tweeting bullshit about how the programme is being abused, with zero evidence and using examples that could not actually work. But let’s create a moral panic about it.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1260960640480407552

We also had some observers fanning themselves and reaching for their fainting couches when Liberal MP Wayne Easter, who chairs the finance committee, remarked to Bill Morneau at yesterday’s finance committee meeting, that he wanted a stronger statement from the government that they were going to deal with fraudulent cases. Imagine – an experienced backbencher taking a tough tone with his own party in government! Suffice to say, the message from this government has consistently been that if there is misconduct, it will be caught and dealt with at the appropriate time (and now is not that time). I’m not sure how much more explicit they can actually get, but maybe that’s just me.

Continue reading →

Roundup: A bridge loan, not a bailout

Posted on by

It was a bit of a staggered rollout of the message of the day, starting with Bill Morneau and Navdeep Bains in Toronto to announce the creation of the Large Employer Emergency Financing Facility (LEEFF), which is designed to give large employers temporary bridge financing if they can’t get it by other means, but that comes with a great many strings attached, such as ensuring that jobs and collective agreements are maintained, that climate change plans are not affected, and that there are limits to executive compensation, share buybacks, dividends, and on top of that, these companies will need to disclose their financial structures to ensure that they’re not avoiding taxes with offshore banks or shelters.

Justin Trudeau was up shortly thereafter for his daily presser, noting the start of National Nursing Week, before he spoke about enhanced measures for medium-sized businesses, and then reiterated the messages around the LEEFF, citing that these were bridge loans and not bail-outs, and that the government was only to be a lender of last resort. When asked whether this was some kind of attack on oil companies with the focus on environmental plans, Trudeau insisted that many of them had net-zero-by-2050 plans, so this condition should not have been more onerous on them – but that didn’t stop the usual suspects from complaining that this wasn’t the kind of help that the energy sector was looking for.

During the ministerial presser, Chrystia Freeland said that they working with the US to deal with the inevitable increase in cross-border traffic as economies started re-opening, as premiers express reservations around the possibility of visitors once again coming to Canada.

Meanwhile, here’s economist Kevin Milligan on the path of the labour market and the economy, that’s worth thinking about.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1259641163989970945

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1259641908436930560

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1259642852260278272

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1259644740460404736

Continue reading →

Roundup: Possibly a criminal leak

Posted on by

The day got off to a very brow-raising start when someone – meaning almost certainly a minister’s office – leaked StatsCan jobs data ahead of its official release to soften the narrative around it, given that the predicted number of job losses were twice as many as what wound up being reported. This is a big deal – it’s market-moving information that should have criminal consequences for leaking, and yet here we are. And what is particularly galling about this is that I have my suspicions about which minister’s office leaked the information, and it’s one that has been showing a particular pattern of impunity, which is a very bad sign for how this government works – and not to mention how it communicates. Because they can’t communicate their way out of a wet paper bag, someone took it upon themselves to leak sacrosanct data (which, it needs to be reiterated, should not and cannot happen in a gods damned G7 country) in order to spin the narrative. Heads should roll for this.

And then prime minister Justin Trudeau had his daily presser, acknowledging the jobs numbers before he announced that the government would be extending the wage subsidy beyond June in order to keep the (eventual) economic recovery strong, while also announcing that Navdeep Bains would be leading a new industry strategy council. During the Q&A, Trudeau also had to face questions about why nobody can say “Taiwan” when it comes to thanking them for donations of personal protective equipment, so Trudeau did just that, so I guess certain MPs will need to find something else to have a meltdown over next week.

And for the 75th anniversary of VE Day yesterday, the Queen made a televised address in the footsteps of her father.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Virtual aggression at committee

Posted on by

Prime minister Justin Trudeau began his daily presser a little earlier than usual, owing to the fact that the Commons’ Special Committee on COVID-19 was meeting at noon, and today, the announcement was for $252 million in aid for food producers and the agri-food sector – which he assured us was a “first step,” as the industry representatives have been asking for some $2.6 billion in aid. Some of this aid was for beef and hog producers to keep their animals longer, given that meat processing plants have faced outbreaks and been shut down; other funds were for the government to buy stocks of produce that is facing the risk of expiring, in the hopes that it can be distributed elsewhere. During the Q&A, when asked about news that there were eyewitnesses to the crash of the Canadian Forces Cyclone helicopter off the coast of Greece, Trudeau responded that the military has their protocols for notification that he respected.

And then there was the “virtual” Special Committee meeting, which was a decidedly less friendly tone than it had been last week. MPs asking questions were constantly interrupting ministers because they felt they were going too long (because talking points need to be recited), some MPs had signs up in their backgrounds which they wouldn’t have been able to get away with in a regular Commons sitting or committee meeting, and some MPs felt the need to lob personal insults as part of their questions – and the Chair said nothing of it. In fact, had they done so during QP, the other MPs in the chamber would have raised hell, and the Speaker would have been obliged to say something, if only a warning about inflammatory language. But because it’s “virtual” and there can be no heckling, some MPs are feeling emboldened. I suspect it’s also the kind of emboldened attitude that people have when they abuse customer service people over the phone because they don’t have to look them in the eye, and this goes directly to my warnings about the social contagion that will accompany any attempts to solidify “virtual sittings” of Parliament.

The other thing of note was that MPs were asking questions about things that were outside the ambit of the committee, which is supposed to be about the pandemic response. Questions about the assault rifle ban are not about pandemic response, and those should have been ruled out of order. As well, the thing that kept getting asked repeatedly during the hearing was the notion that the government should deny aid to companies who use legal tax havens, because they are “immoral.” It’s a bit galling for MPs to be calling on the government to deny aid to people who work for those companies, particularly since they are not engaging in illegal behaviour. The minister, Diane Lebouthillier, kept repeating that the CRA was investigating anyone using illegal tax avoidance, but wouldn’t call out that what was being demanded was problematic. The other reason why those demands are problematic is they keep saying “Demark did it!” without offering any kind of analysis of how Denmark’s tax system compares to Canada’s, particularly where tax havens are concerned. When Denmark introduced their 75 percent wage subsidy and people kept pointing to it, they ignored the list of caveats that accompanied it, which was vital context. But hey, parties need soundbites and clips for their social media, even now.

Continue reading →