Tag Archives: The Senate

QP: Goading the Conservatives on Ukraine

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The prime minister was off to meet EU leaders in Newfoundland and Labrador, while his deputy was doing photo ops in Toronto. Even Pierre Poilievre was away today, as were every other leader. Andrew Scheer led off, and after giving the new “time’s up” slogan, he misquoted the Scotiabank report and demanded the government balance the budget. Randy Boissonnault got up to denounce the Conservatives for the voting against the Ukraine trade deal. Scheer repeated the lie that the government is forcing a carbon price on Ukraine, before repeating his demand for a balanced budget. Karina Gould pointed out that there was no carbon price in the trade deal, and brought up that Poilievre falsely called yesterday’s Rainbow Bridge incident a terror incident. Scheer demanded the government support their amendment to send more weapons and energy to Ukraine before rambling about the so-called “replacement” temporary foreign workers at the Stellantis plant, which again, has been debunked. Bill Blair got up to pat himsefl con the back for the billions in military aid sent to Ukraine. Gérard Deltell got up to repeat the demand for a balanced budget in French, to which François-Philippe Champagne praised the government’s efforts. Deltell railed that the government would force our great-grandchildren to pay the price for their mistakes, and Champagne implored for them to pass their affordability bill.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he decried the plan for interprovincial labour mobility for healthcare workers, and railed that this would disadvantage Quebec. Boissonnault pointed pivot that the federal government transfers hundreds of millions of dollars to Quebec to help francisise immigrants. Therrien insisted that all the federal government needed to do was increase transfers so that Quebec could hire more doctors on their own, to which Pablo Rodriguez said that Canadians can work together, whether the Bloc likes it or not.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and he accused the industry minister of not doing anything about the grocery CEOs. Champagne insisted that he stared down those CEOs and he forced them to stabilise prices, before imploring them to pass the affordability bill. Alistair MacGregor gave the English version of the same question, and Champagne accused the NDP of not doing anything for consumers and again implored them to pass that bill.

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Roundup: More reactions to the economic update

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Reactions to the Fall Economic Statement continue to roll in, so I figured I would highlight a couple of them. On the subject of housing, pretty much everyone is unhappy with what was on offer, in spite of the fact that the federal government didn’t have a lot of room to manoeuvre as they try to avoid juicing economic growth too much, which would put upward pressure on inflation (and the provinces are already doing just that).

To that effect, here’s a thread from Mike Moffatt on things the federal government could have done that won’t impact the inflation situation.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1727301177833132254

Kevin Milligan delves into the debt and deficit figures in this thread, and provides a dose of perspective sauce for all of the hyperventilating that is coming from certain quarters and voices, particularly as debt servicing charges have risen. As well, I’m highlighting this one tweet about just how big the increase is in relative and historical terms, because again, perspective.

As well, Lindsay Tedds explains in this thread why she thinks the government’s plans to limit short-term rentals is going to be far easier said than actually done (and that they may not have thought it through).

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1727491807834177690

Ukraine Dispatch:

The death toll from the Russian strike on the hospital in Selydove has risen to three. The Russians are reported to be sending fewer troops and less equipment to Avdiivka after failing to capture it in a major assault. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned of a “difficult defence” on the eastern front as the winter cold sets in. Ukraine’s coal industry has had to start hiring women and overturning policies that barred them from working underground because of the war.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1727376980851486836

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Roundup: A conspicuous lack of self-reflection

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It has not gone unnoticed that while Conservatives have been decrying the rise in antisemitism, there has been absolutely zero introspection about the kinds of deeply antisemitic conspiracy theories that they have been promulgating in an attempt to win the far-right fringe votes that they think will push them over the edge to electoral victories.

 

It wasn’t that long ago that there was a song and dance about how Kerry-Lynne Findlay’s tweets about how “shocking” it was that Chrystia Freeland interviewed George Soros when she was a journalist, were supposed to result in some kind of apology to Jewish groups, but nothing really came of it. Findlay is now the caucus whip, and the party is still sending out mailers about the dangers of the World Economic Forum, which Poilievre himself has denounced for incredibly stupid reasons. And yet, there is absolutely zero self-awareness that their pushing conspiracy theories is helping to feed this. And while there is a tonne of equivocating about how it’s really the “left” that is antisemitic and dangerous, they refuse to look at themselves in the mirror. This all remains so deeply stupid.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian missile struck an apartment block in the eastern town of Selydove, killing two and wounding three. Ukrainian forces have confirmed that they have established a beachhead on the eastern banks of the Dnipro River, which is a milestone in the ongoing counter-offensive. Civil society groups in Ukraine estimate that the death toll on their side is around 30,000 troops.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1724784115210428863

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Roundup: The King will soon appear on your pocket change

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It was King Charles III’s 75th birthday yesterday (in his natural capacity—his official birthday as King of Canada is on Victoria Day and as King of the UK in June).

https://twitter.com/RoyalFamily/status/1724367291767267802

So, what did Canada get him? Well, the Royal Canadian Mint unveiled the design of his effigy that will appear on circulation coins (and there’s no telling how long they’ve been sitting on this and waiting for his birthday to announce it, because there’s nothing more that this government loves than to time announcements to specific days), and he got a new lieutenant governor in Ontario.

https://twitter.com/adamgoldenberg/status/1724547305011867823

With the new LG in mind, here’s an exit interview with Elizabeth Dowdeswell, who has been the longest-serving LG in Ontario history, and is the last Harper vice-regal appointee who was still in office (who was chosen though the old vice-regal appointments committee process, which Justin Trudeau trashed for no reason, then replicated for senators).

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces say that Russians are pushing in several directions in the country’s east, and launching even more drones than they were before. European Union leaders are admitting that they’re having trouble meeting their promised ammunition donations to Ukraine because the defence industry is not producing them fast enough, which some are blaming on the EU’s focus on peace and soft power for decades.

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Roundup: Ministers in the Upper Chamber

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Something rather unusual happened in the UK, which I figured I would explore a little bit here for how it relates to our shared Westminster system of government. There was  Cabinet shuffle in Westminster yesterday, and prime minister Rishi Sunak appointed former prime minister David Cameron to the House of Lords, and to be his new foreign secretary. Cameron is a particularly interesting choice, given that his spineless decision to call the Brexit referendum to appease certain segments of his party blew up in his face and created much of the foreign policy chaos the government finds itself in,

One of the big questions around this kind of appointment is how MPs get to hold a minister who doesn’t sit in that chamber to account. There are mechanisms in the Lords for asking questions of the government, and while usually that’s directed to the Leader of the Government in that Chamber, this gives Lords an opportunity to ask questions of the foreign secretary directly. There was talk of creating a mechanism to use Westminster Hall, which is the “second chamber” used for debates in Westminster, to allow some sort of mechanism that’s not the Commons, but it never got off the ground the last time this was an issue. For the record, because of the way Australia’s parliament is structure, it is fairly common for several ministers to sit in their Senate, and to answer questions during their Senate Question Time, or however they term it there.

As for Canada, the last time we had a fairly major minister in that Chamber was Michael Fortier, starting in 2006 when Harper formed government and felt he needed a minister from the Montreal area, but didn’t have any MPs from there. So, he chose Fortier, his campaign co-chair, and made him minister of Public Works, which was a bitter twist of irony considering this was just post-Sponsorship scandal, and the complaint was there wasn’t enough accountability for that department. Fortier was later appointed minister of international trade, and faced questions from the Liberals in the Senate, but there were complaints the Bloc and NDP couldn’t use the same avenue, though they could ask questions of his parliamentary secretaries in the Chamber, or question him at committee. Previously, Joe Clark had appointed his minister of justice from the Senate, as he had no Quebec seats at all, while two of our prime ministers—John Abbott and Mackenzie Bowell—were senators and not MPs, so we do have that bit of history to draw on as well.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces say that Russians have intensified the bombardment around Avdiivka, as well as tried to make a push around Bakhmut again. In Romania, the F-16 pilot training hub for Ukraine and NATO allies has now opened, but training Ukrainian pilots likely won’t start until next year. Here’s a look at how the information warfare happening has created confusion with legitimate news sources, particularly when they can’t get independent verification.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1724172638132576649

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QP: More fiction, more soliloquies

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The prime minister was present today, while his deputy was on her way to Winnipeg. All of the other leaders were present, and it remained to be seen in today would be as abysmal as the past week has been. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he started off with a slam of the Bloc for voting with the government, claiming this was a new “coalition” and wondered what deal he offered them. Justin Trudeau said that he offered Quebeckers what he offered all Canadians, which was a plan to grow the economy with a plan to fight climate change. Poilievre decried that he mixed up the Bloc with all Quebeckers, and repeated his demand to know about the supposed deal. Trudeau noted that half a million Quebeckers still use home heating oil, particularly those in lower-incomes, which is why they were offering to replace them with heat pumps. Poilievre switched to English to mouth some slogans and again repeated the falsehood that there is a coalition with the Bloc, and his demand to know what he offered them. Trudeau said that the only division in the country was within the Conservative Party on the issue of climate change, and praised the rebates that the carbon price system offers. Poilievre raised the Environment Commissioner’s report that the government’s climate plan wasn’t going to reach its targets, and again claimed there was a coalition. Trudeau trotted out his line that while the country agreed to phase out coal, they are now doing the same with heating oil. Poilievre raised the premiers’ objections to the heating oil pause, and said that Trudeau was partnering with the separatists to divide the country. Trudeau went into a tear about about how the government was helping Canadians while the Conservative had no plan.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he wanted the government to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. Trudeau recited his call for a “humanitarian pause” that can get aid in and Canadians out, while they support a two-state solution. Blanchet noted that Israel has broken the trust or the international community, and demanded stronger action from Canada in calling for a ceasefire. Trudeau said that they are working with partners around the world to protect civilians and restore peace in the region, but we also need to beware of the rise in hate seen in Canada.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and denounced the “Liberal and Conservative corporate coalition” before he demanded support for the NDP’s Supply Day motion on eliminating the GST on heating and imposing a windfall tax on oil companies. Trudeau noted his “confusion and consternation” the NDP’s incoherent position in the Conservative vote, and said that it disappointed progressives around the country. Singh declared that the government has missed all of their climate targets (not actually true), before repeating his question in French. Trudeau repeated his same response. 

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Roundup: A primer on inflation calculation

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Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem testified at the Commons finance committee earlier in the week, and a whole lot of people, including a certain “Food Professor” charlatan and numerous Conservative MPs, demonstrated that they don’t understand math or inflation as they all misconstrued the numbers that Macklem gave. And they’re the same number he has given before—that the carbon price has had a 0.15% effect on inflation, and if you removed it, going from $65/tonne to 0, it would have a temporary effect of reducing inflation by 0.6%.

A whole bunch of people–said charlatan, those MPs—insisted that because 0.6% is 16 percent of the 3.8% of headline inflation, that it means that the carbon price is responsible for 16% of inflation, which is wrong and not how inflation is calculated. Removing it wouldn’t actually mean inflation would go from 3.8% to 3.2% because the carbon price is not driving it. Energy and food prices are doing a lot of the driving there (and food prices are being hugely affected by climate change), and even if it did move to 3.2%, the Bank isn’t going to start lowering interest rates until it reaches the two percent target. Essentially, you’d be killing the carbon price and undoing the work it’s doing to lower emissions on the basis of a bad lie that it has made life unaffordable.

Meanwhile, here’s economist Stephen Gordon breaking down how inflation is calculated, with the inevitable conclusion that the carbon price is just noise—it’s not driving inflation, and it’s better to focus on the things that are.

A threat to democracy

A bunch of people got the vapours yesterday when Mark Miller called Pierre Poilievre a threat to democracy. Apparently these same people have convenient amnesia, or wishful thinking that he’s only kidding in what he’s doing and saying, because nobody learned a gods damned lesson from the Trump years.

Ukraine Dispatch:

While rallying Ukrainian troops, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy counselled patience and not to expect instant success (the latter comment directed primarily toward Western allies). A UN report says that 40 percent of Ukrainians need humanitarian support as a result of the conditions brought about by Russia’s invasion.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1719348496640200777

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Roundup: Hutchings made everything worse

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The Liberals’ capacity to be their own worst enemy continues apace, that in the wake of Thursday’s ill-considered plan to “pause” the carbon price on heating oil (note that this is for the entire country, but the benefit is primarily felt in Atlantic Canada), rural economic development minister Gudie Hutchings made it all the worse with an appearance on CTV’s Question Period (taped Friday, and aired Sunday, but the news story went out on Friday evening). In it, Hutchings tried to defend the policy saying that Atlantic caucus was particularly vocal, and maybe if the Prairies voted in more Liberals, they “could have that conversation as well.” Oof.

Unsurprisingly, the Conservatives had an absolute field day with this over the weekend and claimed that this was “proof” that the carbon price was simply about punishing Western Canadians for not voting Liberal (which doesn’t make any logical sense, but this is about anger and not logic). Yes, there is a constant in Canadian politics that all of the parties pander to Quebec because they have a lot of seats and their votes are up for grabs, whereas the prairies reliably vote mostly Conservative so it doesn’t really pay for the Liberals to pander to them while the Conservatives take them for granted. But this was not the way to make that argument in relation to this carbon price issue, and it just made everything worse, so well done there.

Pierre Poilievre, meanwhile, says he’ll support any motion to remove the carbon price on all heating, which is going to be the constant demand now because the Liberals did such a poor job of coming up with a fix for the Atlantic Canada problem (and there were much better options available). But now they’ve undermined their signature policy, opened the door to more exceptions that will just corrode the whole system, and yes, the Conservative still have their propaganda victory. The Liberals couldn’t have handled this any worse.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Not much news from Ukraine this weekend, other than the fact that they are hoping to hold a global peace summit of world leaders later this year, following talks held in Malta over the past couple of days.

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Roundup: Misreading Friday’s decision

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In light of Friday’s Supreme Court of Canada decision on the Impact Assessment Act, Conservatives are already making some pretty stupid demands, like this one from MP Shannon Stubbs, who wants to move a motion at the Natural Resources Committee to repeal the old Bill C-69—except that it’s not what the Supreme Court ruled on, it’s a complete misreading of what the ruling was, and more to the point, would try to repeal the parts that are constitutional, and create even more uncertainty in the market. If people think that the system that the Harper government put into place was somehow better, all it did was ensure that project approvals wound up in litigation because there was too much uncertainty and ambiguity in the rules, and it didn’t do anything to speed approvals like they claimed it would.

For those of you who aren’t quite following, the thrust of the Court’s ruling was not that the whole scheme is unconstitutional, but rather that the list of things the federal government put into the Act in order to trigger a federal environmental assessment was overbroad, particularly around the issue of treating greenhouse gas emissions as an automatic federal issue because it’s a cross-boundary effect. That was too broad for the Court’s liking, so they’re essentially telling the government to narrow the scope of what triggers an assessment—that’s it. As previously stated, the Court explicitly rejected the notion that a “provincial” project is immune from federal assessment, so any talking points related to “exclusive jurisdiction” are also bogus, but so many people are proving that they either didn’t bother to read the decision, or if they did, certainly didn’t understand it.

Meanwhile, here’s another explanation of Friday’s ruling, this time from Martin Olszynski, Nigel Banks and David Wright.

Ukraine Dispatch:

On the 600th day of Russia’s illegal and unjustified invasion of Ukraine, their assault on the city of Avdiivka appears to be losing steam, after Ukrainian forces repelled 15 attacks from four directions over the previous 24 hours. Russians are also apparently looking to pierce the front lines in the Kupiansk-Lyman area on the country’s northeast. Elsewhere, Russia launched another overnight attack, with five missiles and twelve drones, focused on the western part of Ukraine.

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Roundup: Zelenskyy’s trip to Canada

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It was Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s big day in Ottawa, his first since the war began, and he began the day paying a visit to Governor General Mary May Simon. She taught him the Inuktitut word “Ajuinnata,” meaning perseverance in the face of adversity, and it’s a message Zelenskyy took with him. (Simon also taught that word to the Queen when she was first appointed, and has been something of a calling card that she leaves with those she interacts with).

From there, Zelenskyy arrived on Parliament Hill and did the official greetings within the West Block before having an extended bilateral meeting that included signing new economic agreements and pledges of another round of economic and military support from Canada. And from there, to the House of Commons to address a joint session of Parliament, giving an excellent speech (that was far better than the one Joe Biden delivered a few months ago).

From there, Zelenskyy was off to Toronto to meet more business groups and supporters in Canada. The CBC has photos from the day here, and here is a summary of what was agreed to between the leaders.

Ukraine Dispatch:

While the cat’s away… Ukrainian forces launched a missile strike against Russian forces in occupied Crimea, and destroyed the headquarters of Russia’s navy in the region. On the eastern front, Ukrainian troops are vowing to fully re-take Bakhmut, but know that it’s going to be a challenge.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1705219158013522222

https://twitter.com/rustem_umerov/status/1705273496157192520

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