Tag Archives: Tough on Crime

Roundup: Poilievre punches down

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Pierre Poilievre made a lot of statements yesterday, and they were all alarming in their own ways. First up was expressing support for Bill S-210, which aims to require ISPs to ensure age verification for any online porn sites, or face massive penalties—a bill that passed the Senate and is now headed to committee with opposition support in the Commons. It’s a hugely problematic bill that is going to be a privacy nightmare and cause more problems than it solves. Poilievre also said he doesn’t want this implemented by way of a government digital ID or that prevents people from access legal materials, and his MPs keep handwaving and insisting that there must be some kind of technological solution here. There’s not, this is bad, and frankly is pretty Big Government/gatekeeping, which Poilievre claims to hate. What it does, however, is tap into the moral panic over porn being the root cause of a bunch of social ills, and Poilievre loves getting in on that action.

He was then asked by Rebel Media about trans people and washrooms—because of course the far-right remains obsessed about this—and Poilievre stated that he was against trans women in changing rooms, washrooms, or women’s sports, which is an outrageous egregious overreach and is Poilievre punching down in order to appease the Rebel Media audience. (I will note that you had pundits on Power & Politics baffled by this, believing that Poilievre has this demographic “locked down.” Not true—he needs to actively court them because they see him as being too soft and establishment—see Christine Anderson referring to him as “Pussyvere”—and he has to constantly prove himself to them). It’s also worth noting that for Poilievre’s press conferences, which are limited to five questions and no follow-ups, Rebel and True North are often at the front of the line for questions, which is another particular sign of who he’s speaking to. Justin Trudeau did respond and push back about this making trans people unsafe, which is true, but this is another moral panic Poilievre is trying to cash in on.

The last bit was perhaps the ugliest, where Poilievre was asking about the upcoming online harms bill, and he said that Trudeau shouldn’t be the one to bring it in, claiming this would be censorship, misquoting the line about “those with unacceptable views” (again, playing to the “convoy” audience who took up this misquote with great aplomb), and then launched into a tirade about how Trudeau needs to look into his heart about his past racism and Blackface. And then, because of course, a certain CBC journalist wrote this up (which I’m not going to link to) and devoted half of the story to rehashing the Blackface history including photos, because they didn’t learn a gods damned thing about how Trump got in (and this goes beyond just egregious both-sidesing). None of this is good.

Ukraine Dispatch:

With the loss of Avdiivka, Ukrainians are expecting more advances from Russians. This has spooked enough of the elderly in villages in the area, who are now heading for safer regions, worried that their towns are going to be the next to be ground to dust. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is downplaying the loss of Avdiivka as he calls for more western arms and support, but it has been relentless grind for Ukrainian forces. This said, western intelligence suggests that Russia doesn’t have the domestic capacity to manufacture the ammunition it needs either, so we’ll see how long they can keep up their current pace. Meanwhile, anti-corruption authorities in Ukraine are investigating more than sixty cases involving the defence sector.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1760235411987980541

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Roundup: Falsely framing carbon prices and inflation

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Because this is sometimes a media criticism blog, I want to point your direction to a CTV piece from the weekend, taken from an interview with Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon on CTV’s Question Period. The headline and substance of the piece, taken from the interview, is “Feds won’t pause carbon price despite inflation.” Now, if you were a casual reader who didn’t know what was going on, you might think that the carbon price is driving inflation and the government is being obstinate in refusing to deal with that driver of inflation.

That would, however, be completely wrong. We know that the carbon price contributes only negligibly to inflation because inflation is measured on a year-over-year basis, and with the carbon price increasing at the same rate every year, the impact on year-over-year prices remains negligible. The Bank of Canada figures that it works out to 0.15 percent of inflation. Is this mentioned anywhere in the story? Nope. Instead, it’s both-sides as pointing to Poilievre’s promise to “axe the tax” (which is not a tax, but a levy, and yes, there is a difference), contrasted with MacKinnon pointing out that at committee last week, food economists pointed to the fact that there’s no evidence the carbon price has had a meaningful impact on the price of food, because, again, if you pay attention, you would know that the bigger drivers of food price inflation are droughts or floods in food-producing regions, including Canada’s, which is related to climate change. (That poing is also absent from the story).

Why does this matter? Because of how the story has been framed. It frames itself that carbon prices are driving inflation, which is false and misleading. It sets up a false scenario about what is driving inflation (which has fallen over the last year and is now in a sticker place just above target), and sets about positing a false solution, while trying to look like it’s concerned about cost-of-living concerns while looking at absolutely none of the driving factors of what has caused an increase in the cost of living. This, my friends, is shoddy journalism. I get that they were trying to get a headline out of that interviews, but great Cyllenian Hermes, that was not the way to do it, and it’s a little embarrassing that this was the result.

Ukraine Dispatch:

At least three Ukrainians have been killed in Russian attacks on cities in the country’s east, near the front lines. Ukrainian forces repelled an attempted Russian advance on the southern front, as Russians move their forces forward following the withdrawal from Avdiivka. The withdrawal from Avdiivka was preceded by a change in Russian tactics designed to take advantage of the shortage of ammunition. Ukrainian forces say that Russians executed six unarmed Ukrainian soldiers taken prisoner in Avdiivka as they were fleeing, and two more in the nearby village of Vesele. Here is a look at the significance of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil refineries and other infrastructure within Russian borders.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1759195559272108467

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Roundup: A dubious Federal Court decision, but right about judicial appointments

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The Federal Court ruled yesterday that the federal government must start filling judicial vacancies faster because, which is true, but the judgment itself is something of a mess. It’s hard to see how the Court has jurisdiction here, and the judge seems to have invented a bunch of justification and has handwaved around constitutional conventions, and in the end, declared that the government must fill most of those vacancies “in a reasonable period of time,” which is vague and of little value other than the declaration. Emmett Macfarlane has promised a post on this soon, and Leonid Sirota has a thread here taking issue with the reasoning (though not the underlying issue of not making sufficient appointments—everyone is agreed on that point).

I have been writing on this government’s problems with appointments since probably their second year in office, possibly even sooner than that. While you can look up the myriad of columns I have written, the short version is this: The government wants to make diverse appointments (which is good! This is a good thing!) but they insisted on a system of self-nominations rather than going out and nominating people. We know that women, people of colour, and LGBTQ+ people routinely don’t apply for positions like this because society has drilled into them the message that only straight, old white men get positions like this. Even the Liberal Party itself gets this in their candidate selection process, where they set up systems to be persistent in getting women and diverse people to seek nominations. And even with that, the federal government has utterly dropped that ball and thinks that they can simply say “We’re accepting diverse applications!” and expecting those applications to flood in. They seem to act like the Sesame Street sketch where Ernie simply goes “Here, fishy, fishy, fishy!” and the fish leap into the boat. That’s not how this works, and when they don’t get enough applications, it slows down the process tremendously. And after seven years, they have absolutely refused to learn this lesson. Refused! It’s some kind of giant ideological blinder that they cannot get their collective heads around, no matter how many times the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court warns them, or the Auditor General sounds the alarm about vacancies on port authorities or the boards of Crown corporations, or even their process for appointing senators. They absolutely refuse to learn the lessons of their failures.

It does bear mentioning that there has been an uptick in the pace of appointments in the past few months, and filling vacancies for provincial chief justices and associate chief justices has also picked up speed (and yes, I have been keeping an eye out for this). That said, making federal judicial appointments faster won’t solve the problems with our justice system because a lot more of them involve provinces not properly resourcing provincial courts or superior courts, where you have a lot of cases where there are no court rooms or court staff available, and that causes as many if not more problems. The issue of federal appointments, however, is low-hanging fruit so it’s taking a lot more attention than it should, and once again, premiers are being allowed to skate because of it.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians have struck a hospital and apartments in Selydove in eastern Ukraine, killing three people. Here’s a look at how Ukrainians are decoding Russian battle communications to save lives on the front lines. Russia is pulling old tanks out of storage and refurbishing them after having lost more than 3000 in the fighting in Ukraine over the past two years. Ukraine’s military intelligence is now saying that Russia has been buying Starlink terminals by way of “Arab countries.”

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Roundup: The hit piece that wasn’t

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Remember a week ago when Pierre Poilievre put out a tweet declaring that the Toronto Star was attacking him, and he tried to pre-spin a forthcoming story about he and his wife buying a $300 splash pool for their kids? Well, we finally saw that story on the weekend, and lo, it was nothing at all like Poilievre whiningly described. Instead, it was about how security upgrades have been made at Stornoway because of concerns that included those from the Sergeant-At-Arms of the House of Commons. Some “attack.”

This is, of course, how Poilievre likes to frame every media interaction, no matter what. The attacks he’s been making against The Canadian Press for the corrections they made to a story were not misquotes or certainly not a “hit piece” like he keeps saying—the corrections were because the journalist drew the links that Poilievre was hinting at in the remarks he made to a radio station. That was it. With the stories about Danielle Smith’s anti-trans policies and trying to get comment from Poilievre on them, he keeps accusing them of “disinformation,” when it’s nothing of the sort. We all know, of course, that this is him playing for clips that he’ll feed to his base on his socials, and that his friendly outlets like Rebel and True North will pick up on his behalf, but come on. At some point, you would think that people would see that the stories were not attacks and that he’s being a big crybaby over nothing. Of course, that would mean that their cognitive dissonance wouldn’t also kick in to avoid criticizing their leader, but come on. You’re not the victim here.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russia launched 45 drones over Ukraine early Sunday, after they previous hit Kharkiv the day before, which killed seven. Russian forces are pushing into Avdiivka, and getting close to main supply lines, which creates a major challenge for the new commander-in-chief. Russians have been found using Starlink terminals in occupied territories in an organised manner, while Starlink insists that they haven’t sold terminals directly or indirectly to Russia.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1756210514835722290

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Roundup: Reviving the NEP to own the Libs?

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It’s kind of amazing how little thought goes into some of the slogan-laden thinking in so much of the politics in this country, and no party is exempt from it. It’s also funny how some of these policies are just rehashing of old programmes that they hated before. Case in point? Alberta trying to make hay about New Brunswick importing oil rather than getting it from Alberta.

Or as I like to say:

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian drones hit a petrol station in Kharkiv, causing a massive explosion. The new commander-in-chief wants to regain momentum in the conflict, but problems with manpower and dwindling ammunition remain structural challenges for him.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1756210514835722290

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Roundup: Bad Supreme Court reporting is bad

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There is a reason why journalists should have beats, and why it can be dangerous to write about topics or institutions when you’re not familiar with them. There was a case in point yesterday in the National Post which was trying to sound some kind of alarm about what’s going on at the Supreme Court of Canada—except there’s actually no story here. I’m really not trying to pick on the reporter of the piece, because he’s a good journalist, but he just doesn’t know the file, and got swept up in what a particular lawyer was telling him without having a proper bullshit detector.

The supposed crisis is that the Court is hearing fewer cases lately, and a lot of what it is hearing is being decided in rulings from the bench, meaning they generally don’t release written decisions, and that this is somehow bad for developing case law. Because he talked to one lawyer who tracks stats, he figures that’s the story. Except it’s really not. They’re hearing fewer cases as a direct result of the pandemic, which slowed down the ability to hear cases at the trial court level, which then slows down appeals, which slows down their ability to get to the Supreme Court. They piece pooh-poohs that almost four years later this is still a problem, when of course it is. These things take a long time, particularly when courts were operating on a minimal standard for nearly two years. And because they were operating minimally, most of what they did hear were criminal cases, because they have timelines attached lest they get stayed for delays. That means that most of what does filter up to the Supreme Court are criminal cases, many of them as of right (meaning that at the appeal level, it wasn’t unanimous, so it automatically goes to the Supreme Court of Canada). That’s why a lot of these cases are being decided from the bench—there isn’t any matter of national importance being decided, so they have few needs for written rulings. In the Court’s current session, only two of the cases are not criminal because that’s how the lower courts have been operating. It’s a problem for sure, but it’s one because provinces aren’t funding courts adequately, and the federal government is too slow to make appointments to fill vacancies. This is not a Supreme Court problem.

Furthermore, the piece quotes from a literal constitutional crank—a particular law professor who is of the “burn it all down” school—because it’s a lazy journalist’s trick to make the piece sound more controversial or edgy. But here, he’s saying that he can’t believe they weren’t hearing certain cases without actually saying what he wanted them to hear, and then, out of nowhere, says the Court is going to have to expand, but doesn’t explain why. It makes no sense other than it’s piggybacking on an American issue that has nothing to do with our Court. There is also concern that the court’s decisions are a lot more divided these days and not unanimous without actually exploring that. This is largely because of the different styles of chief justice—under Beverley McLachlin, she strove for more unanimous decisions, and in the end, many of the rulings became so narrowly focused in order to achieve unanimity that they were largely useless for the purposes of developing case law. There is more dissent now because Richard Wagner isn’t concerned with achieving unanimity to the detriment of the decisions, and you have a couple of judges on the court who like to be contrarians. That’s not a bad thing. There is no crisis with the Supreme Court, and if the reporter had any grounding in the institution, he would have seen that there’s no smoke, no fire, and stats without context are useless.

Ukraine Dispatch:

The fighting is now inside the city of Avdiivka, which Russians have been trying to capture for months. There was another prisoner swap yesterday, with 100 exchanged on each side. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has replaced the top army commander, looking for fresh ideas on how to push Russian invaders back. (More about the new chief here).

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QP: Getting partisan about gendered violence

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The prime minister was off attending the big auto theft summit several blocks away from the West Block, while his deputy was similarly absent, as were all other leaders. Andrew Scheer led off in English, read some specious statistics about auto theft, and demanded more tough policies. Jennifer O’Connell countered with the fact that five years under the Harper government saw even higher auto theft rates than now. Scheer volleyed that those were the first five years with the problem they inherited, before giving a misleading statement about carbon prices and grocery prices. François-Philippe Champagne deployed his “take no lessons” line and gave a swipe about Jenni Byrne. Scheer returned with the number of former Liberal staffers who lobby for Loblaws, and gave an “it’s the carbon tax, stupid.” The Speaker warned him, before Champagne extolled his efforts to get new grocers into Canada. Gérard Deltell took over in French, and accused the government of prioritising photo ops over building housing. Champagne said that the only thing the Conservatives are good at is insulting  mayors. Deltell noted the decrease in housing stocks under the Liberals and demanded action. Champagne said that he has nothing to learn about videos and photo ops from the Conservatives, as they don’t solve problems.

Claude DeBellefeuille led for the Bloc, and she wanted the government to let Quebec proceed with advanced request for MAiD, to which Jean-Yves Duclos noted that as the former minster of health, he wanted to recognise Quebec’s movement and said that they would work together. DeBellefeuille repeated the demand for the Criminal Code changes, and Duclos said that they need to protect the most vulnerable, and promised to look closely at this.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the Bloc, and demanded support for their “grocery prices” bill, and in response, Champagne stated that they have moved forward with competition reform and took most of the NDP’s recommendations. Lindsay Mathyssen repeated the demand in English, to which Champagne repeated the same response in English.

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Roundup: It’s auto theft summit day

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It’s the big auto theft summit happening in Ottawa today, and it’s more than just federal and provincial governments and police who are meeting—it’s also insurance companies and auto manufacturers, because part of the problem are the ways in which auto companies have made unsecured RFID technology with key fobs and so on part of the recent lines, which means thieves can capture the frequency of your fobs and steal your card by cloning said fobs. Insurance companies could wield their might in insisting on these changes, which could make a measurable impact. As a down-payment of sorts, Dominic LeBlanc announced a $28 million boost to CBSA’s ability to detect stolen vehicles with more detection tools and analytics.

Meanwhile, as Pierre Poilievre tries to insist that this problem can solely be attributed to Justin Trudeau because of certain legal changes around conditional sentencing and bail (which were in response to Supreme Court of Canada decisions, it must be stated), he’s also made a bunch of specious correlations about how car thefts were lower in the Harper era in order to back up this claim. Except, that’s mostly not true either. But then again, facts, logic or honesty are never really in play when Poilievre is speaking, and this is no different.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces downed 11 out of 17 drones in the early morning hours of Thursday. Russia launched massive attacks on Kyiv and other cities over the day yesterday, which killed five and wounded more than thirty. The mobilisation bill has now passed first reading. Here’s a look at the corps of retired Colombian soldiers fighting for Ukraine

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QP: Who has more connections to Loblaws lobbyists?

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The prime minster was present as is customary for a Wednesday, while his deputy was away. All of the other leaders were present as well for a second day in a row. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, citing rental increases as though that were a federal jurisdiction. Justin Trudeau cited a Conservative MP pointing out that the government has new announcements every day, which Trudeau agreed, that they were rolling out programmes to help Canadians and speed up home building. Poilievre insisted that the government just bloats bureaucracy but doesn’t build houses. Trudeau called him out for insulting mayors and using the homeless as props while offering nothing. Poilievre cited CMHC figures and population estimates for needing another five million units. Trudeau said that they were investing in municipalities to decrease red tape and accelerate building while increasing densification. Poilievre switched to English to repeat his first question, to which Trudeau repeated his same response. Poilievre trotted his line that people can’t live in programmes and announcements, to which Trudeau walked into the trap by pointing to an announcement he made about investments made years ago turned into houses today, and accused Poilievre of insulting mayors and people’s intelligence. 

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, pointed to the government delaying the expansion of MAiD and that if the Conservatives get in, they will lock it down when the delay expires. Trudeau said that they are upholding fundamental rights and freedoms, but this is a difficult issue that they will “continue to reflect” on. Blanchet wanted the government to adopt Quebec’s request for advance requests, to which Trudeau insisted this was an very difficult decision for them to make as a society.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, to demand the government support his bill on grocery prices. Trudeau noted that they have measures in the Fall Economic Statement that align with the NDP proposal, and trotted the accusations around Jenni Byrne. Singh switched to French to repeat the demand, and Trudeau repeated his same response. 

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Roundup: Sanctions theatre, Hamas edition

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Yesterday, foreign affairs minister Mélanie Joly announced that Canada would be sanctioning senior leaders of Hamas…which is already a listed terrorist organization. The whole exercise appears to be little more than sanctions theatre, according to Jessica Davis, who does this for a living. Nothing Joly announced is likely to make any difference compared to what is already on the books, meaning this is likely just a hollow gesture to make it looks like the government is doing something without actually doing anything. Of course, if they really wanted to do something, they could properly resource the RCMP’s sanctions enforcement regime and their counter terrorism financing abilities (or better yet, disband the RCMP and start up a dedicated federal policing force that can specialise in this kind of work).

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian attack overnight on a village in the Kharkiv region killed a two-month old baby. The Donetsk region’s governor says that his province is pounded by 2500 Russian strikes daily, while Avdiivka, a short distance away, has been the focus of Russian attention for months now. Ukrainian special forces say they blew up a drilling platform in the Black Sea that Russians were using to support their drone operations. As the shake-up of the Ukrainian military approaches, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy wants a dedicated branch devoted to drones.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1754881455702897018

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