Tag Archives: Tough on Crime

QP: Won’t somebody think about the GDP?

Posted on by

The first prototype-PMQ day of the fall sitting promised to be a caustic set of exchanges between the PM and the leader of the opposition, and it did not disappoint. Well, it’s always disappointing, but it went about as well as expected, though perhaps not quite as caustic as one might have assumed. Pierre Poilievre led off in French with a swipe at the Bloc for their plans not to topple the government, and listed a bunch of nonsense about what the federal government allegedly did—but it wasn’t really a question for the government. Justin Trudeau listed things they have done that the Conservatives would cut. Poilievre recited some slogans, and wondered again why the Bloc allowed it, which was again not a question for government, and the Speaker said nothing. Trudeau listed things that Poilievre voted against in his “thirst for power.” Poilievre switched to English to make the same swipe, but this time directed to the NDP, and wondered why they weren’t saying they would vote against the government, which again was not a question for government. Trudeau repeated that Poilievre voted against Canadians’ interests because he only cares about himself, and that he was in a bad mood because the economy was performing well. Poilievre recited a litany of slogans, and Trudeau said this was mere performance because he doesn’t care about Canadians and repeated the points about inflation coming down and that Poilievre can’t use his “justinflation” slogan anymore. Poilievre took this as an excuse to list the people using food banks or who are in tent encampments, and Trudeau said this empathy was false because he was using the vulnerable for his own gain.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he lamented the remarks of the special advisory to counter Islamophonia, and wanted the government’s definition of Islamophobia. Trudeau spoke about the rise of it and antisemitism, but did not provide a definition. Blanchet noted this and accused the government of polarising Canadians, and Trudeau pointed out that he is a proud Quebeckers and there are more Liberals from Quebec than in the Bloc, and that they need to combat intolerance. 

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the Bloc, and decried the increasing privatisation of healthcare and demanded the government put a stop to it. Trudeau said that the NDP can’t deliver the goods on progressive policies, as shown by their backing out of their agreement, because they didn’t like it when things got hard. Alistair MacGregor took over in English to worry about grocery prices, and accuse the government of “caving to CEOs.” Trudeau accused them of taking a page from the Conservative playbook in choosing slogans over hard work.

Continue reading →

QP: Did you hear the good news about inflation?

Posted on by

The prime minister had initially indicated that the would be present, but when the time came, he was not. His deputy was present for a second day in a row, in the wake of the by-election losses, but also in the wake of the news that the inflation headline figure has returned to target, and which I fully expected the Liberals to be insufferable about. All of the other leaders were present, unlike yesterday, and Pierre Poilievre led off in French, raised the by-election losses, falsely called the federal government as having been responsible for the largest expansion of government in history, and wondered how the Bloc could support them—which really wasn’t a question for government. Chrystia Freeland got up to praise the inflation numbers, as expected. Poilievre dismissed this as cold comfort for people, and again asked why the Bloc supports them (which is not a question for government), and Freeland again praised the inflation numbers while calling Poilievre economically incompetent. Poilievre switched to English to again raise the by-election losses and recited his slogans. Freeland repeated her good news talking points in English. Poilievre again called this cold comfort, called Freeland incompetent, and raised the fictitious “second carbon tax” as taking a huge hit on the economy. Freeland insisted that the inflation news was good news for Canadians and bad news for the Conservatives. Poilievre repeated his fiction of the “second carbon tax,” which is not a Thing, and demanded an election. Freeland recited good news talking points about housing, repeating the announcement she made yesterday on mortgage amortization.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and first addressed to Poilievre that they got fourth place in LaSalle—Émard, before demanding support for their bill on expanding pensions for seniors under age 75. Freeland recited talking points about supports they have added for seniors, particularly those most vulnerable. Blanched again demanded a royal recommendation for the Bloc bill, and Freeland would not indicate support for that bill.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP and declared the Liberals “done,” then demanded price caps on certain groceries. Freeland hoped that they would set partisanship aside in order to congratulate Canadians for getting inflation back under control, before noting they have increased taxes on corporations. Singh switched to French to repeat his same declaration before demanding and end to “real estate giants” ripping people off. Freeland scoffed at the notion that the Liberals are teaming up with the Conservatives (earned Conservatives applause) and then slammed the Conservatives. 

Continue reading →

QP: Slogans after the summer

Posted on by

The first day back from summer break, and nearly all of the leaders were present and ready to perform for the cameras. After the newest Conservative MP was introduced to take his seat, Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he noted how many times the Bloc has voted in favour of the government, before reciting some slogans. Justin Trudeau said that if he had spent any time talking to Canadians over the summer, he would have seen a desire for solutions, not things in his own interests. Poilievre claimed that they had overseen the biggest expansion of the federal government in history (not even remotely true), and recited his slogans again. Trudeau praised the investments into Telesat and mocked the Conservatives trying to call up Elon Musk. Poilievre switched to English to recite come slogans that obliquely called for an election, and Trudeau repeated the line that Poilievre is only out for his own interests. Poilievre blamed the carbon price for child hunger, and demanded an election. Trudeau reminded him is that climate change costs money, and that Poilievre’s do-nothing plan would be even more expensive. Poilievre said that the carbon price hasn’t stopped any fires or floods, and took a swipe at Mark Carney before again calling for an election. Trudeau repeated that Poilievre’s do-nothing plan would help nobody and endanger the future.

Yves-François Blanchet rose for the Bloc, and raised the by-election in Montreal, and raised the “discrimination” that seniors over 75 get higher pension cheques. Trudeau noted that people over 75 have higher expenses and more depleted savings, and called out the Bloc for voting against dental care. Blanchet said that dental care encroaches upon provincial jurisdiction, and said that he misled people when he said that Anglophones in the province were getting poorer services. Trudeau said that the provincial government itself said that they were not clear but had not provided a clarification. 

Peter Julian rose for the NDP, and in French, named the two ridings with the by-elections, before reciting talking points about corporate landlords. Trudeau needled him for hiding once the Conservatives pressured them, while the government is doing the hard work of progressive policies. Julian switched to English to name the two ridings and accused the government of making people pay for healthcare. Trudeau needled them even more forcefully about how they turned tail when hard things got hard.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Grossly distorting crime stats

Posted on by

Pierre Poilievre has been putting out a series of charts lately to “prove” that the Justin Trudeau-led government has been an apocalyptic disaster for the country, and one of them has bene around violent crime statistics. But because this is Poilievre, he takes those statistics and distorts them to create a monstrous picture that doesn’t actually reflect reality, as Amarnath Amarasingam explains:

This is classic Poilievre, incidentally. He has made a career out of cherry-picking a single data point, then building a massive, misleading narrative around it and when you call him on the lie, he insists that that data came from Statistics Canada, or the PBO, or wherever. In other words, he tries to use their legitimacy to launder his disinformation, and provide him with intellectual cover when clearly he either did not understand what the data was, or he simply took the information and constructed a false narrative (and I have my particular suspicion about which one it is). What is even more dangerous about these kinds of distortions is that they are being mixed with a big dose of racism among Poilievre’s online base, who are blaming immigrants for this supposed “spike” in crime (which is not a spike), and this could lead to some very bad outcomes.

For another example, we have the real household income figures from 2022, which he has also utterly distorted because of course he has. And has any legacy media outlet called any of this out? Of course not. Meanwhile, this has never been about logic or facts, or reasoned arguments—it’s about lies that make people angry so that they vote emotionally, which he thinks will benefit him (and that those lies won’t blow up in his face when he can’t deliver on his false promises). Depending on lies is a very bad strategy in the medium-to-long term, but here we are, swimming in them.

Ukraine Dispatch

Even though Ukrainian forces shot down three missiles and 25 out of 26 drones, an energy facility in the Sumy region was hit, and fire broke out. A fourteen-year-old died when a Russian struck near a playground in Zaporizhzhia. Russia has been making an aggressive push in the east, claiming the towns of Zalizne and Niu-York. Ukraine is reported to have launched a drone attack on Moscow with at least ten drones, while a diesel depot on the Rostov region was set on firefrom a Ukrainian drone strike. Russian forces have confirmed that Ukrainian forces have damaged or destroyed all three bridges over the Seym River, which could trap Russian units caught between the river, the Ukrainian advance, and the Ukrainian border.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Sophistry and the “Canadian Dream”

Posted on by

A piece widely shared over the weekend in the Globe and Mail, titled “The Canadian dream is on life support,” was a curious bit of writing, as the Elder Pundits of this country treated it like a damning indictment of the current government. While Omer Aziz’s ultimate conclusions in the piece are correct—that the federal government needs to admit that things have gone wrong, throw out their old assumptions and pivot, and they need to throw away their talking points while they’re at it—his process of getting there was torturous, and full of outright sophistry.

One of the things that really stood out for me in the piece was just how shallow the analysis really was, particularly in the fact that it served as something of an apologia for the premiers. You wouldn’t know it from reading the piece, but while he levels much of his scorn at the federal government, many of the problems he described are the fault of provincial governments, even where he asserts that they are solely federal such as with immigration. His attention to things like international students were the fault of provincial governments—most especially Ontario and BC—who let their post-secondary institutions treat these international students like cash cows (because they cut funding to those institutions), and allowed the public-private partnership colleges that were largely fraudulent to flourish, again because these provincial governments weren’t doing their jobs, while the federal government was told to just trust them (and I’m not sure how the federal immigration department was supposed to be auditing these institutions in the first place). Likewise, provincial governments scream for temporary foreign workers, and the federal government has to operate on a certain level of trust that these provincial governments know their labour markets best. With his condemnation of the supposed laxity of our criminal justice system again ignores that policing and the administration of justice are provincial matters, but that is never mentioned. He even sides with Facebook on their cutting off of Canadian news and says that the Canadian government wasn’t nice enough to them. Come on.

There are things going wrong in this country, but many of them are complex, and have roots in decades of policy choices by federal and provincial governments that have taken us to this point, and it’s hard for any one government to unwind these structural problems. This kind of essay does a disservice by trying to be simplistic about the problems and solutions to those problems.

Ukraine Dispatch

A father and son were killed in a Russian missile strike on the Kyiv region on Sunday, while three civilians were killed in attacks on Kharkiv and Donetsk on Saturday. In the Kursk incursion, Russians claim that they are increasing security in the area (as videos of their troops surrending en masse flood social media), while president Zelenskyy says that this move puts pressure on Russia as the aggressor. There was a fire reported on the grounds of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, but the structure itself appears to be intact.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Calling for price caps

Posted on by

The NDP are at it again, and by “it,” I mean making stupid demands that should get them laughed out of any room they’re in. To wit, yesterday they demanded price caps on certain grocery items, claiming that the Loblaws settlement over the class action for the bread price-fixing scheme as “proof” that government needs to take action. I can’t think of a more economically illiterate argument that is trying to simply base itself on “vibes” that will only do far more harm than it will do good.

The high price of certain grocery items is rarely an issue of grocery chains hiking prices. It does happen, but there has been little evidence of it when margins have been stable. If you bother to actually pay attention to agricultural news or Statistics Canada data, it’s pretty clear that much of those price increases are a result of climate change-related droughts in food-producing regions, with the odd flash flood or hurricane also ruining crops, and driving up prices. The invasion of Ukraine exacerbated issues by throwing world markets for wheats and cooking oils out of whack, driving up prices as exports couldn’t get to market. And even if you have growing conditions that rebound, often price are locked into contracts with producers or processors for several years at a time, which can delay prices returning to lower levels as supply rebounds. But the point here is that most of this is explainable if you actually bother to look, rather than just screaming “corporate greed!” because you are ideologically predisposed to doing so.

More to the point, this just strikes me as a little bit of history repeating the demands for price controls in the mid-seventies as inflation was reaching double-digits, which then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau mocked with the phrase “Zap, you’re frozen!” We’re not there, and frankly the demand for price caps is frankly ridiculous, and if they persist, we should resurrect “Zap, you’re frozen” to mock them as relentlessly.

Programming Note: I am taking the next week or so off. Columns will continue on schedule but blogs and videos will be taking a bit of a break.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched drone attacks against power facilities in two regions, prompting more power grid disruptions. Another drone attack appears to have overshot and struck down in Romania, but NATO doesn’t believe that this was an intentional attack. A leaked UN report is pointing to Russia as the culprit of an explosion at barracks housing Ukrainian POWs two years ago that killed fifty.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Lies about legalisation

Posted on by

For months now, Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives have been claiming that the Liberals “legalised” hard drugs in BC, which is false, and have been trying to build up a particular lie that they are planning to do so across the country. Again, to repeat, this is a lie, and the limited decriminalisation that happened in BC was done reluctantly, but only after the province, the provincial police force, and municipal authorities all wanted to give it a go as a way of reducing mortality from the toxic drug crisis. They’ve had limited success, but have started rolling back some of those measures which had nothing to do with decriminalisation, mainly being open drug use, because it’s spooking voters. And I get that, but it has nothing to do with decriminalisation and everything to do with the toxic supply. Drug users have taken the notion that if they use openly, then someone may save them with Naloxone if they overdose in public. It’s not just happening in BC, but everywhere across the country now—I see it on the streets in Ottawa all the time, and there is no decriminalisation happening.

Nevertheless, this week Poilievre claims he has “proof” that there is a national decriminalisation plan—which he and his MPs use “legalise” with interchangeably, even though they are absolutely not the same thing. The problem? That the very text he’s highlighting doesn’t say that there is a national decriminalisation plan, only that the federal government is willing to work with willing jurisdictions using the tools at their disposal, that can include decriminalisation. It doesn’t matter that they apparently have no reading comprehension ability—they’ve just highlighted a couple of words and made a false declaration.

And now Poilievre and his MPs are blanketing their social channels with this blatant lie, because they want to make people angry and afraid. The truth doesn’t matter. It never did. They’re going to keep lying, because it works, and because nobody, least of all legacy media, is going to call them on it.

Ukraine Dispatch

While both sides have traded drone assaults, the Russians claim to have taken over two villages—one in Kharkiv region, the other in Luhansk. Russians are moving in on the town of Pokrovsk in the east, which serves as a logistics hub for Ukraine. The Czech Republic says that artillery deliveries to Ukraine are going to accelerate. And Ukraine is closing in on a deal to restructure $20 billion of its debt.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1815394403675988039

Continue reading →

Roundup: Elections Canada’s helpful suggestions

Posted on by

Amidst the (possibly overblown) hysteria that party nomination contests are a possible vector for foreign interference, Elections Canada has come along with a series of “helpful” proposals to parties in order to reduce the vulnerabilities. They insist they don’t want to actually manage these contests (which is good, because that would be an enormous expansion of the organisation, which I’m not sure we really want), but nevertheless they could play some kind of role around financial oversight of these contests, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Their suggestions include limiting votes to Canadian citizens, or at least permanent residents, which I think is reasonable, because much like I think it’s good that parties let people join by age 14 so that they can learn about and participate in grassroots organisation before they’re able to vote, bringing in permanent residents before they can also vote could help foster better civic engagement (well, if parties hadn’t decimated their grassroots as they centralised power in their leaders’ offices). Other suggestions include published nomination rules and processes (which parties will hate because they have become used to the ability to tip the scales at the behest of the leader and his or her cult of personality), publishing fuller results such as number of ballots cast and vote distribution, requiring all contestants file a financial return, and banning the sale of party memberships in bulk (the Liberals no longer have paid memberships, while the Conservatives are more expansive rules around this, for the better).

Some of these are quite reasonable, but I have my doubts that parties will do more than theatrically take them under advisement, because they simply don’t want to. They’ve spent so much time and energy in order to minimise their grassroots in favour of the leader and his or her office that they have eliminated most of the checks and balances that are supposed to keep them from getting too big for their own britches (and the Liberals have been the absolutely worst with this, with the 2016 changes to their party constitution). Will they start to re-impose these minor changes in order to hold themselves accountable? I’m not going to hold my breath.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian missile struck a playground in the southern city of Mykolaiv, killing three. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was invited to attend Cabinet in Westminster, where he reiterated the need reduce restrictions on long-range missiles so that they can strike sites in Russia where they are being attacked from.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1814328171543580848

Continue reading →

QP: The overwrought demands for a gas tax holiday

Posted on by

The prime minister was in town but otherwise engaged, while his deputy was present for QP today. Most of the other leaders were present, and Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and recited a bunch of abject nonsense about the Bloc supporting the government, and wondered why the government didn’t formalise their supposed “coalition.” Chrystia Freeland noted that Quebeckers believe in a lot of things the government does, such as child care, and the that the Conservatives only want to cut, cut, cut. Poilievre said that he would cut taxes, and went on another rant about the Bloc. Freeland responded talking about social solidarity, and raising the rate of capital gains. Poielivre switched to English to take a swipe at the out-of-context comments by Mark Holland on Friday, and wondered if he would also call out his leader for taking his so-called “private jet” (which is not a private jet, it’s the Canadian military’s plane). Holland says that he was mistaken on the math, that it wasn’t 37,000 kilometres, but 44,000 kilometres to meet the supposed savings the Conservatives promised, and that they were meeting the existential challenge of climate change unlike the Conservatives. Poilievre dismissed this as “whacko math,” and decried the government’s climate plans before demanding the gas tax holiday. Steven Guilbeault repeated the point about the Conservatives’ math, which meant that a person could drive from the North Pole to the South Pole and back, and have kilometres remaining. Poilievre again dismissed this and demanded people get their gas tax holiday from the “miserable economy.” Guilbeault replied with another example of how far someone would have to drive to achieve the supposed savings the Conservatives claim.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and decried another Liberal MP’s comments on bilingualism, to which Pablo Rodriguez pointing out that the Bloc keeps voting against language funding. Therrien continued on his tear about the Liberals disrespecting French, and Rodriguez dismissed it as a ridicule question.

Leah Gazan rose for the NDP, and decried the lack of progress on the MMIW report, and Gary Anandasangaree read some anodyne talking points about systemic racism, and that they tabled their progress report today. Heather MacPherson went on a rant about the Liberals not doing enough to stop the war in Gaza. Mélanie Joly agreed the situation was catastrophic, which is why Canada supports the Biden plan.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Stop talking about what they’re talking about

Posted on by

The one thing everyone was talking about this weekend was Conservative MP Arnold Viersen going on Nate Erskine-Smith’s podcast and just blatantly laying out his anti-abortion (and anti-gay) agenda, and then a) claiming he was ambushed, and b) putting out the vaguest statement ever to walk back his comments and defend The Leader’s position (which is less clear than he likes to pretend).

But as this is happening, we see the country’s Elder Pundits sighing and saying “There the Liberals go again, always talking about abortion,” and “wow, they’re really desperate to pull this card again, especially so early,” when the Conservatives are the ones who keep bringing it up, time after time, but the Elder Pundits keep telling everyone to just ignore it, because that will apparently make it go away. It’s not going away, and they are increasingly emboldened about these kinds of issues because the authoritarians and wannabe-authoritarians are using these very issues to oppress, and to create wedges that they can leverage, but calling that out is a little uncouth. While yes, I do think that backbench suck-up questions on abortion every day in Question Period for a week is overkill, but again, the Conservatives are the ones who keep bringing it up and who keep insisting that they’re going to re-open these issues, and if the leader says they won’t, I don’t feel inclined to believe him because he has lied about every single issue under the sun (which again, the Elder Pundits of this land continue to studiously ignore). Maybe we need to stop ignoring what is right in front of us, Elder Pundits be damned.

As a bonus, here’s a story about Viersen and what a homophobic/transphobic person he really is (on top of his continued bullshit about trying to block porn). He’s not alone in the party on this front. We should be paying attention but the Elder Pundits keep telling us not to. It’s really tiresome.

https://twitter.com/HannahHodson28/status/1796928863265521767

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian missile hit residences in Balakliia near Kharkiv, injuring 13. Russians have also continued pounding energy facilities across Ukraine, prompting a fresh plea for more air defences. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy headed to the Asia security summit in Singapore to drum up support for the upcoming peace conference, and to call out China for pressuring countries not to attend.

Continue reading →