Tag Archives: Trade

QP: Griping about the Colbert appearance

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The prime minister was still in New York, but his deputy was present once again, while the Conservatives were revved up because this was their Supply Day, and they were busy gathering clips from their prepared speeches in favour of their non-confidence motion. With that in mind, Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he immediately demanded that the Bloc vote against the government. The Speaker warned him about questions being related to administrative responsibilities of government, but Jean-Yves Duclos stood up anyway to denounce that Poilievre told people dental care doesn’t exist. Poilievre again listed the government’s supposed failures to demand the Bloc vote against them, and Soraya Martinez Ferrada decried that Conservative MP Jeremy Patzer got a trip paid for to Florida from a pro-life church. Poilievre switched to English to recite slogans and demand an election, and Mark Holland listed things the Conservatives would cut. Poilievre accused Holland of coming unglued before saying completely untrue things about pharmacare and demanded an election. Holland pointed out his scare-mongering before saying that free diabetes medication and contraceptions are actually freedom. Poilievre again claimed that pharmacare would “ban women” from using their existing drug plans before trotting out the “nuclear winter” line to demand an election. Karina Gould got up to say that freedom doesn’t look like trips to Florida to meet with anti-abortion groups.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and demanded “justice” for seniors via enhancing OAS, and Steve MacKinnon listed efforts to help seniors and that the Bloc voted against it. Therrien declared that seniors deserve better than partisanship, and again demanded the OAS enhancement. MacKinnon again noted that the Bloc has always voted against more help for seniors, including dental care.

Jagmeet Singh demanded the Liberals stand up to Doug Ford around private health care, and Mark Holland said that if he wants to talk courage, the NDP capitulated to the Conservatives when bullied. Singh switched to French, and swapped François Legault for Ford, but asked the same thing. Holland urged parliamentarians to stand up to what the Conservatives would do to the healthcare system.

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Roundup: Angry over an invented grievance

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Two new Senate appointments were made over the weekend, both from Alberta, which naturally resulted in a mountain of utter bullshit, because neither were from the so-called “senators in waiting” that Alberta periodically “elects” as a stunt in order to invent a grievance against the federal government. There was also more of this nonsense hand-wringing that one of the two is a habitual Liberal donor and held roles as an organiser in the party in the past, but hasn’t for well over a decade. Nevertheless, clueless journalists and bad faith opposition members decry this as “partisan,” even though there is no actual Liberal caucus in the Senate for them to sit with, nor any Liberal whip to direct their votes (even though that has only ever really been illusory in the Senate).

The whole “Senate consultative elections” schtick in Alberta has only ever been a stunt—even when Stephen Harper appointed those who won them, because he was trying to make a point about reforming the Senate through the backdoor without actually doing constitutional changes. The logic of how they’re “just consultations” and that they are still appointed and don’t have any additional legitimacy within the Senate was laid bare during the Supreme Court hearings when Justice Cromwell asked the person making the argument “So why isn’t a consultative auction just as legitimate?” and they didn’t have an answer. But really, the whole thing was just to invent one more reason to make people mad at the federal government, at a time when there was a political impetus to stoke such regional divisions and resentments because that always helped them score political points, and lo, it’s still working for them decades later as they continue to get angry about something they just invented for the sole purpose of making them angry. It’s predictable, and it’s childish, and we should expect provincial governments like Alberta’s to behave like adults (but good luck with that these days).

Of course, where would we be without the conservative columnists in this country, making pronouncements about this without actually understanding a gods damned thing about it. “Not representative of Albertan thinking”? What exactly is “Albertan thinking?” If the insinuation is that their appointment is somehow illegitimate because they’re not conservatives, then I have news for you because the Senate is often a place where political outliers in a province can gain representation, such as Liberals in Alberta, particularly during the “bad old partisan days” where they may be shut out of the province electorally but could still have representation in the Senate and be present in caucus to provide that representation. That doesn’t happen anymore thanks to Trudeau’s short-sighted decision to boot all of the senators from his caucus, which is also why Ivison’s comments about Trudeau “renouncing” his reforms are such utter nonsense, because if Trudeau had renounced them, he would invite senators back into his caucus. He won’t (even though he should), but hey, Ivison needs to think of something from his perch in Costa Rica, and reinforcing a bullshit narrative is about the best it’s going to be.

Ukraine Dispatch

It was a bloody day in Ukraine as Russian missiles struck a military academy and a hospital, killing over fifty people and wounding more than 200. In the hours since, Russia has since launched missiles and drones against Kyiv and Lviv. This as children are returning to school, and in Kharkiv, those schools are now underground because of constant bombardment. Meanwhile, president Zelenskyy continues to call on Western countries who haven’t yet allowed their weapons to be used for long-range strikes inside Russia to not only allow them, but to supply further weapons so that Ukraine can make crucial hits. It also looks like a major government shake-up is on the way after a wave of resignations.

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Roundup: Another Longest Ballot initiative

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The chuckleheads at the “Longest Ballot Committee” have struck again, this time with the by-election in LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, where they have ensured that there are 91 names on that ballot, which surpasses the number they have on the Toronto—St. Paul’s by-election ballot. And no, this is not Conservative skullduggery as many people like to suggest—this is the work of proportional representation fetishists who think that stunts like this will somehow convince the federal government to bow to their demands and institute PR, which isn’t going to happen. Why? Because we’ve been through this process before, and the hot garbage report that the parliamentary committee produced called on the government to invent a bespoke PR system whose main features were going to essentially be impossible to implement without massive constitutional change (because seats have provincial allocations and you can’t achieve a low Gallagher-index score with as few seats as many provinces have) or massively increasing the size of Parliament.

These stunts, however, are pretty much going to guarantee that electoral reform is coming in the form of increasing the thresholds for getting on the ballot, and restricting the kinds of nonsense that enabled these stunts, such as allowing a single person to be the official agent for the vast majority of these names. There is already an electoral reform bill in front of the Commons, which was intended to do things like allow for more early voting days and greater accessibility options, and that means it’s going to be very easy to add in an amendment that will help thwart these kinds of cockamamie tactics going forward. They haven’t helped their cause, and their self-righteous justifications for doing so have actually hurt themselves more than anything.

Ukraine Dispatch

The latest barrage of Russian missiles killed six people across two regions, which included another hotel being targeted. Ukrainian forces also noted that many of those missiles were shot down by their new F-16 fighters. While Ukrainian forces continue to advance in Kursk, Russian forces continue to press toward Pokrovsk because it is a strategic rail hub. Ukrainian drones have hit a Russian oil depot in their Rostov region, and started a fire. President Zelenskyy says that he will present a plan to Joe Biden to help pressure Russia into ending the war.

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Roundup: Building communes? Really?

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Something you may have noticed is the propensity by which Poilievre likes to describe Trudeau as being a communist or a Marxist—there was even video posted on social media of him describing Trudeau as such while door-knocking (in spite of all evidence to the contrary). The so-called “convoy” occupation made frequent references to the current government as being some kind of communist dictatorship, again, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. And once again, Poilievre was at it yesterday when he described the federal government’s plan of leasing properties for housing as “building communes.”

Aside from the way he wrote that as describing Trudeau as being in power perpetually, this tends to back to one of Poilievre’s most ridiculous obsessions, which is equating any form of socialism with the so-called “national socialism” of Naziism, yet again, in spite of all evidence to the contrary (this has become a recurring theme).

In no way is Trudeau, whose government faces a minority Parliament, a dictator, communist or otherwise. In the same way, Stephen Harper was not a dictator, and all of the people freaking out who insisted he would never relinquish power had all made fools of themselves by insisting otherwise. But Poilievre’s continued insistence on this kind of behaviour is not only dishonest, it’s the continuation of a campaign of unrelenting lying that legacy media obstinately refuses to address, let alone even acknowledge.

Ukraine Dispatch

Rather than deal with the Kursk incursion head-on, Russia decided to launch hundreds of drones and missiles across Ukraine on Monday, killing at least four people as the strikes targeted 15 regions including Kyiv, and damaged energy facilities that led to more rolling blackouts. A second round was launched overnight. It appears that at least one Russian drone crossed into Polish airspace on Monday, but no word yet on if it has been found.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1828129805537325206

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Roundup: Labour dispute over, now begin the court challenges

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The rail labour dispute and trains are expected to start rolling again today as the Canadian Industrial Relations Board issued their ruling after nearly two full days of deliberation, saying that they had agreed to impose binding arbitration in the situation, ending the CPKC lockout and the strike notice at CN. It may be a couple of weeks before things are fully up and running because of the phased shutdown over the past two weeks in preparation for the lockout (and yes, this began as a lockout by the duopoly that controls something like 80 percent of the rail in this country).

The Teamsters, predictably, are not happy with this outcome, accusing the government of breaking unions (which is not how I would describe this particular situation) and plan to take this to the Federal Court, where the Board said that particular complaints should be directed because they have the legislated authority to deal with certain issues that the Board does not, particularly when it comes to questions of the Board’s discretion around the minister’s directives. No doubt we’ll see that play out over the next year or two. But for now, the conflict is over, the arbitration process will begin, and we’ll see how the arbitrators feel about the particular complaints the union has made around fatigue management and forced relocation, which the rail companies dispute.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched a drone attack against Kyiv early Monday morning, but all ten were shot down. Overnight attacks on Saturday killed four and injured 37. A Russian missile hit a hotel in Kramatorsk, where a number of journalists were staying. Three Reuters journalists were injured, and their British security advisor was killed in the strike. Over 100 prisoners were swapped on Saturday, which was Ukraine’s independence day.

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Roundup: Grossly distorting crime stats

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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.

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Roundup: The imagined need for Cardy

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I don’t really want to give the “Canadian Future Party” (formerly the “Centre Ice Conservatives”) too much air time and attention, but their interim leader, Dominic Cardy (formerly leader of the New Brunswick NDP who defected to that provinces’ Progressive Conservative Party but now sits as an independent after a falling out with Blaine Higgs) was making the media rounds yesterday, and he was mostly saying ridiculous things about the state of politics as they are today.

In order to try and claim the centrist high ground, Cardy rightly points to the fact that the Conservatives are moving to the far right in many areas (and many of his party’s organizers appear to be disaffected Conservatives), but he then tried to insist that they are going to be different from the Liberals by claiming that the Liberals are moving to the “extremes.” Reader, I howled with laughter. The Liberals have barely budged from their amorphous centrist position, moving ever-so-slightly to the left by actually implementing some of the programmes they’ve been trying to for a couple of decades, like child care, which has a hell of an economic case to recommend it when you look at the participation of women in the labour force and the economic returns that it brings. I’m not sure what “extremes” Cardy seems to be thinking of—the Liberals haven’t nationalized any industries; they haven’t abolished private property or beheaded any billionaires. Hell, they’ve barely raised the taxes on said billionaires, whose existence remains a policy failure in any just society. For all his talk about being an “economic disaster,” the country’s books are the strongest in the G7, the deficits that have been run outside of the height of COVID were rounding errors in the size of our economy, we had the lowest inflation spike of comparator economies, it returned to the control zone fastest, and we’ve achieved the soft landing of avoiding a recession after said inflationary spike. Cardy’s economic daydreams appear to be coming from some kind of fantasyland.

Selley is right—this isn’t an issue about ideologues, and Cardy’s going on about their policies being “evidence-based” is another one his weird fantasy daydreams. If we wanted a technocracy, we would install one, but governing is about making choices, and sometimes there are trade-offs to that policy. You can’t just keep shouting “evidence-based!” because sometimes the decisions you need to make will need some kind of an ideological grounding in order to weigh which trade-offs you’re willing to make. Nothing Cardy is offering here has even the hint of being serious, and people should recognize that fact.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian missile struck port infrastructure in Odesa on Wednesday night, while a drone attack killed two medics in Kharkiv region, and more energy infrastructure was hit in the Chernihiv region. Ukraine says they have pushed furtherinto the Kursk region, and are now claiming this is about creating a “buffer zone” to prevent shelling of Ukrainian territory from positions within Kursk. Here is a look at the use of drone warfare as part of the Kursk operation, such as using them to strike four airfields in surrounding regions.

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Roundup: Sutcliffe gets a federal no

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With a bit of an apology to non-Ottawa residents, but our mayor, Mark Sutcliffe, is trying to blackmail the federal and provincial governments for more money, and insists that the city’s budget shortfall isn’t his fault. That’s a lie, and his low-tax austerity plan has bitten him in the ass, and he wants someone else to bail him out, but man, has he made some choices. There is plenty about the budget hole that is his fault, not the least of which is pandering to rural and suburban voters at the expense of downtown meaning that their property taxes stay low while downtown’s are high (under the rubric that multi-unit buildings put more strain on the system, rather than the cost of extending the system to ever-more-distant suburbs and exurbs). In fact, during the last city election, his main rival warned him that his plan had a massive budget hole in it and lo, they were proved right. Funny that.

Well, the federal government isn’t having any of it, and for good reason, not the least of which is that they are not in the mood to set the precedent that bailing out one city because of their poor choices, which will lead to every other city demanding the same, and no, the whole issue of payments for federal properties in lieu of property taxes are not justification. So, Sutcliffe is pretty much out of luck, because I’m pretty sure that Doug Ford is going to give him much the same response. Of course, this is likely just a PR move so that he can justify the tax increases that he should have instituted two years ago, but making the federal government your punching bag to justify doing your own job is pretty sad.

Ukraine Dispatch

In spite of Ukraine downing all 27 drones Russia launched overnight Thursday, Russians bombed a shopping mall in Kostiantynivka in the Donestsk region, killing at least 14 people. The UN says that July was the deadliest month for Ukrainian civilians since 2022. Russia has declared a federal emergency as a result of the Ukrainian incursion in Kursk. Ukrainian forces also raided Russian forces on the Kinburn Spit in the Black Sea, and hit an airfield with their drone attack on the Lipetsk region.

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Roundup: Desperately latching onto a narrative

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It’s not unexpected, but over the past fifty-two hours or so, we are getting the attempts to wedge the Canada Angle™ onto the Joe Biden/Kamala Harris handoff, and trying to somehow it to Justin Trudeau. When it comes from ignorant Americans, it’s a bit creepy and you want to tell them to worry about their own messes. When it comes from Canadians, it’s cringey and a little bit desperate.

Even if Justin Trudeau were to somehow miraculously decide it was time for him to step aside, say after a long walk along the beach during his vacation right now, there will be no automatic handoff to Chrystia Freeland. Even if she were still interested in the leadership at this point (and it’s not clear if she were, because I suspect that even she realizes that no matter how competent of a minister she is, she’s something of a charisma black hole), there is no internal process for leadership selection, and the process the party designed to bring us Trudeau needs months of voter sign-ups in order to build to a coronation for a new personality cult hermit crab to inherit the empty shell of a party brand. It’s not a quick pivot, and Trudeau would likely still need to remain in a leadership capacity until a handoff, months later, which gives his successor little runway. (As I wrote in my column, if this were a healthy Westminster democracy with caucus selection of leadership, this could have been handled weeks or months ago).

Aside from that fact, there is no consensus candidate to be that replacement that would allow for a handoff like with Harris, where the Americans’ interminable election process means that they had little time to find a replacement before their convention, and all of the major players decided to line up behind Harris. That wouldn’t happen here because there is no one that the party is going to rally around as a whole. There are frankly too many personalities who want that leadership, even if it’s a poisoned chalice by now, and I’m not sure how the dynamics of trying to convert from one cult of personality to another plays on the fly rather than after a complete crash and rebuild. In any case, this isn’t the US, it’s not even remotely the same as Biden/Harris, and the pundit class needs to cool their jets.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian attack damaged a power facility in the Sumy region, resulting in more power cuts. Russians claim that a Ukrainian drone attack damaged a ferry and killed one person in port.

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Roundup: Senate criticisms that miss the mark

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The Globe & Mail wrote an unnamed Editorial Board missive on Friday, about how the “Trudeau Senate” is not a better Senate overall. While long-time readers may not be surprised to know that I actually agree with this, I do not, however, endorse the thinking or methodology behind the Globe editorial, because it’s sloppy, lazy, and ultimately doesn’t understand the Senate and what it’s supposed to be, but that shouldn’t be a surprise given that the Elder Pundits have never actually understood the Senate or its function.

To wit: They start out with the concern trolling from that shoddy CBC article last week about how recent appointees to the Senate include former party donors, which I dismantled in my column last week, so I’m not going to repeat it here. Suffice to say, anyone who clutches their pearls at this misses the mark at the bigger danger of only appointing people completely divorced from politics. They misjudge what the rules changes recently passed mean (or that they were largely about changing the names of everything), and try to make them sound ominous when they don’t have a grasp on the internal dynamics. They raise the costs of the Senate, but compare it to a base year when the Senate was about twenty senators short, but they also seem to not understand that senators need to organise themselves internally, and that costs money for staff and infrastructure. And no, an “independent” senate should not be comprised of about 100 “loose fish” with a Speaker and a Government Leader, because that would be complete chaos.

The only genuine point they make is that the Senate is producing fewer substantive reports, which is true. And why? Because when there so many type-A people appointed who feel that they have earned this position because they applied for it (which again, is a Problem with how Trudeau’s process), the majority of them feel like they should be off doing their own projects, which has meant an absolute explosion in Senate public bills (which are their equivalent of private members’ bills), and you have a bunch of Senators doing things like commissioning polls, or trying to fly to international conferences and justifying it on their expenses (even when they were denied permission by Internal Economy) because they’re important Senators. Trudeau’s Senate is not a better Senate than the one he inherited—which had its problems!—but not for the reasons the Globe’s Elder Pundits imagine.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian missiles and drones struck the Kharkiv region, killing two and damaging energy facilities and rail infrastructure. Russia’s Black Sea Tuapse oil refinery was damaged by a Ukrainian drone attack. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is again calling for long-range weapons to protect the country after another drone attack on Kyiv, the fifth in two weeks.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1814560384864412036

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