Tag Archives: Trans Mountain

QP: Blair on repeat, into the summer break

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It was the final QP of the sitting, and everyone remains exhausted and cranky. The prime minister was still in Rwanda, while his deputy was present in person. Luc Berthold led off, and he accused the government of incompetence before railing about the passport issue. Karina Gould recited that the government implemented a new strategy at the Quebec offices to ensure there is proper triage of cases. Berthold was incredulous about this, before he pivoted to the inflation number, and demanded the government reduce fuel taxes. Chrystia Freeland listed the measures the government was taking. Berthold switched topics again, and after listing ministerial failures, he accused the government of interfering in an RCMP investigation, and accused the government of not believing an RCMP officer (even if they deserve no benefit of the doubt). Bill Blair asserted that there as no interference, but he doesn’t question the word of any police officer. Stephen Ellis took over in English to make the same accusation, being credulous about the content of those officer’s notes, and Blair repeated his denial and stated there was an independent inquiry under the way. Ellis demanded an investigation into the matter, and Blair repeated his response.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and demanded passport offices be opened seven days a week with extended hours until the situation could be cleared, and Karina Gould reiterated that the station in Montreal was unacceptable, which is why they have managers on the line, and that the offices would be open to midnight, and would be open Friday and Saturday (recognising that Friday is a holiday in Quebec). Therrien took a swipe, saying that they should call in the army, but Gould repeated her points.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he accused the government of waiting for inflation to go away, and Ahmed Hussen picked up on the points about housing to tout government programmes like the housing accelerator fund to “create systemic change” to build more supply. Singh repeated his accusations in French, and got the same response. 

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QP: For love of filibusters

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While the prime minister remains in COVID isolation, he didn’t join QP virtually today, and his deputy was in Toronto to give a big speech on the government’s affordability measures when it comes to dealing with inflation. Most of the other leaders didn’t bother to show up today either, though Candice Bergen did show up for votes after QP, for what it’s worth. Luc Berthold led off, and he declared that everything the Liberals touch “goes south,” and he complained about passports, line-ups at borders, and delays for EI cheques. Karina Gould got up and empathized with the frustration people face, and noted that in the face of high demand, the government was responding by changing processes and hiring more staff. Berthold insisted that the government’s management was “chaotic,” listing a number of alleged ministerial sins, accusing the prime minister of abandoning Canadians. Gould again recited her empathetic talking points, and repeated the answer. Berthold then called Marco Mendicino’s struggles the “Pinocchio Affair,” before demanding his resignation (and the Speaker did not cut him off for doing so, but after he finished warned against name-calling). Pablo Rodriguez took this one, stating the opposition is divided and they can’t agree on anything, and called out the Conservatives for their love of filibusters. Dan Albas took over in English to first raise the cheap outrage story about the GG’s flight, then panned Chrystia Freeland’s speech before demanding that the government adopt their plans to fight inflation. Randy Boissonnault insisted that the Conservatives only had bluster, while the government had a list of affordability measures. Albas raised the escalators in user fees tied to inflation and demanded they be halted, but Boissonnault reiterated his same response. 

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and raised the problems at passport offices before redeploying the talking point that the federal government should mind its own business rather than “meddling” in Quebec’s affairs. Karina Gould assured him that they had hired new staff and were hiring more. Therrien then pivoted to the Information Commissioner’s report on the record number of Access to Information complaints, and Mona Fortier assured him that they were working to increase transparency and proactive disclosures (which is pretty much famous last words from this government).

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he worried that the increase in the GST credit would be $7, which was insufficient. Boissonnault listed the measures in the budget to help people. Singh repeated his question in French, and Boissonnault repeated his same response en français.

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QP: Border crossings and gun control

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Even though the prime minister was mere steps away, concluding a press conference with this Latvian counterpart, he was not in the Chamber for QP today, though his deputy was, and most of the other leader didn’t bother to show up either. Luc Berthold led off in French, and he worried about Roxham Road, accusing the prime minister of creating a “gap” in the safe third country agreement, and he echoed François Legault’s demand to suspend the agreement and close the crossing. Chrystia Freeland read that they respect the immigration system, and that they work closely with the Americans on the shared border including with the agreement. Berthold then pivoted to gang violence in Montreal (and for a moment, it sounded like he was drawing a comparison because it was such a clumsy transition), and Freeland agreed with him that as a member from a big city, there is a problem with firearms, which was why the government was taking steps to limit them, and invited the Conservatives to support them in that. Berthold insisted that the prime minister was turning a blind eye, and targeting innocent people, and Freeland repeated her same response. John Brassard took over in English to decry gun violence and noted that in one arrest, the accused had been arrested on an unrelated charge 48 hours earlier. Freeland insisted that as a mother of Toronto teenagers, she was well aware of the problem of firearms, which was why they were banning military-style assault rifles. Brassard listed other gun incidents and insisted the prime minister was protecting violent criminals and not families. Freeland assured him that farmers and hunters do not use military-style assault rifles, which is why they were being banned.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he worried about the escalating cost of the Trans Mountain expansion, as it gets another $10 billion (loan guarantee, not actually new funds), and Freeland assured him that they did not intend to be the long-term owners and that it was a responsible investment that created jobs. Therrien bellowed louder on the matter, and Freeland repeated her response.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he worried that oil and gas companies got government money and is now raking in massive profits. Freeland listed efforts on eliminating subsidies and imposing emissions caps. Singh repeated the question in French, and got much the same response.

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Roundup: The Leaders’ Debate Commission has some suggestions

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We are now on or about day seventy-seven of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russian forces are now pummelling the strategic port city of Odessa, especially to disrupt supply lines. This is particularly key for grain shipments, which are already being blocked by the blockade of the Black Sea, and which are going to keep driving up world food prices, and hit areas of food insecurity even harder. It also looks like Russia is increasingly using Soviet-era munitions, which suggests that they are rapidly using up their supply of precision weapons. As for the Ukrainian fighters still in Mariupol, they are appealing to the UN to evacuate their wounded as they did with the civilians beneath in the steel plant there.

Closer to home, the Leaders’ Debate Commission released their report on the 2021 federal election debates, and lo, they concluded that the formats were clumsy and had too many moderators. Gosh, you think? Setting aside the fact that they had pollster Shachi Kurl to moderate the English debate, which was a questionable choice at best, the fact that they had a line-up of journalist co-moderators boils down to the fact that the broadcasters and media outlets who participate insist on having their talent featured as part of their participation, and one has little doubt that they don’t want to participate if they don’t get their way on this, and Kurl was likely the compromise if nobody could get their own talent to be the sole moderator for the event, and lo, in her desire to be tough, she gave François Legault what he had been begging for the entire election, so good job there. (After all, it’s bad enough that the broadcasters have to give up a couple of hours of American programming prime time that they rake in the ad dollars from).

The report also noted the unhappiness with the debate format, but their recommendation of firmer control and “working with stakeholders” is a bit weak. Yes, we need a simplified format, but will the leaders actually play ball with that? The insinuation is that the leaders like the convoluted format because it is easier to draw clips from, and avoids prolonged engagements with other leaders that can draw them into *gasp!* a substantive conversation. And that’s really the rub with this whole thing—it really requires the participation of reluctant broadcasters and reluctant party leaders, and too many compromises get made along the way. I’m not sure what the solution to that winds up being in the end, because the alternatives we saw in 2015, with the myriad of debates and formats, had far less engagement and that’s not good for democracy either.

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Roundup: Asking the parochial questions

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On day fifteen of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they bombed a children’s hospital in Mariupol, at a time that it was supposed to be under a ceasefire. And it’s not surprising that Volodymyr Zelenskyy is still insisting on “closing the skies,” but that wouldn’t stop the shelling from artillery and missile batteries on the ground, and yes, it would draw the rest of NATO into a shooting war with a nuclear power. So while he’s justified in asking for the assistance, it would not actually improve the situation and would most likely wind up making things a whole lot worse. To make matters worse, a power outage at Chernobyl means that it could start leaking radiation unless power lines are repaired, which requires a cease-fire in the area, so that’s alarming. And all of the chaos is making it hard for aid efforts, including those by Canadian non-profits to reach those in the country who need it.

Justin Trudeau, Chrystia Freeland, Mélanie Joly and Anita Anand were in Berlin yesterday for more meetings on the situation in Ukraine, and Trudeau vowed that Putin would face justice for his war crimes under the International Criminal Court. He also announced another $50 million worth of military aid being sent to Ukraine, and that he had invited Zelenskyy to address Canada’s Parliament, much as he did the UK’s earlier this week. On a related note, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg addressed the Ottawa Defence Conference yesterday and said that while Canada is playing a “leading role” in NATO’s response to the invasion, he is still calling for more military spending (which may not do any good given that our military doesn’t currently have the capacity or personnel to spend its current allotment).

And then, during a media availability with Freeland and Joly, a CBC reporter demanded to know why they were in Europe for “photo ops” rather than doing important work back home. And I can’t even—especially when he went on about the “taxpayer’s dime” when he tweeted about the exchange, trying to make himself sound put out by being smacked down about it. Aside from the “people are saying” framing, which is both ridiculous and telling, I’m not sure what pressing matters they should be attending to back home. The Commons is on March break this week and next. It’s just such parochial bullshit and the kind of cheap outrage/hairshirt parsimony that the CBC loves to engage in, and we wind up with poorer journalism as a result.

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Roundup: Police action underway, and the occupation thins

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On day twenty-two of the Grifter Occupation, the police closed their net. With all of the access routes to downtown Ottawa cut off with over 100 checkpoints, no grievance tourists were getting in for the weekend. Then, starting at Nicholas street, the combined police forces started pushing west, gaining ground on the occupiers, arresting over 100 occupiers and towing over 21 vehicles (though I’m not quite sure what the total was by the end of the day). The advance had been halted near the Chateau Laurier for most of the evening, but police have said that this would be going twenty-four hours a day, and while they can rotate in shifts, the occupiers can’t really, so we’ll see how far they have advanced in the morning when this goes live. Once the action started happening, other trucks that had been parked along Wellington started to get the message that this is real, that their organizers have all been arrested or fled the scene, and that their best bet is to leave while they still can. And so, a number of them did do just that—being stopped by the police on the way out to be given a ticket, but then sent on their way. But the hard-core elements are still there, and there were parents who put their children in the way of police as human shields yesterday, which is a Problem.

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To add to that, disinformation was going around, spread by certain less than scrupulous media figures in this country and picked up and amplified by Fox News personalities, claiming that a woman was trampled to death by a police horse (untrue, though occupiers did throw a bicycle at one horse to try to trip it up). Even more egregious were the declarations among right-wing media that this was somehow Canada’s Tiananmen Square, which is utterly boggling. Police haven’t even approached the level of violence if this were a homeless encampment in a park. They have been exceedingly careful with this whole affair (sparking yet more discussion of double standards and white supremacy), but it the fact that they are trying to make this comparison, and that Stockwell Day of all people was screaming this over Twitter, is just unbelievable, but considering that these people seem to think that Justin Trudeau is worse than Hitler (no, seriously), you see how completely unhinged their world view is.

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And then there were the Conservatives, who were tweeting up a storm today to disapprove of what has taken place, expressing their “sadness” at the police action taking place, decrying the use of emergency powers, and blaming the prime minister for not meeting these extremists or capitulating to their demands. More to the point, they are trying to foist this narrative that Trudeau is being “divisive” (along with “stigmatized and traumatized Canadians”) because he *gasp!* clocked these extremists for who they were and called them out. You call out extremists—you don’t coddle them or offer them succour. But the Conservatives are so willing to go to bat for these kinds of people in the hopes that they will get something out of it in the end, which they never will. Once the Overton window has been shifted, the extremists still won’t vote for the Conservatives, and the terms of debate will be worse than when they started. They just refuse to see this happening all around them. What’s worse are the right-leaning white male columnists who are also going to bat for these people, and buying into the “Trudeau is being divisive” narrative, no matter how it’s nothing more than bullshit.

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QP: Demands to capitulate to the occupiers

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While the grifter occupation carries on in a somewhat quieter way outside of Parliament Hill, MPs inside the West Block settled into their usual Wednesday pattern of proto-PMQs. Candice Bergen led off, script in front of her, and she praised other countries and jurisdictions who are lifting mandates, claiming they are “following the science,” and selectively quoted public health officers and raised yesterday’s presser by Joël Lightbound. Justin Trudeau reminded her that vaccinations were the way through the pandemic, and wondered why the Conservatives were against vaccinations. Bergen claimed that continuing federal mandates were because of Trudeau’s ego, and Trudeau took a solemn tone to praise Canadians for stepping up while the government had their backs. Bergen accused Trudeau of politicising the pandemic, and raised the farce of the country being “more divided than every before,” and painted a dystopian vision of the country under the Liberals. Trudeau reminded her that they did have an election on vaccinations and that it was what won the day. Bergen insistence that Trudeau was strategically trying to “divide and stigmatise” Canadians, and Trudeau insisted that they provided responsible leadership in getting the Canadians through the pandemic, before he accused the Conservatives of supporting the blockades at the border. Luc Berthold took over in French to raise Lightbound’s concerns, repeating the “divide and stigmatise” line. Trudeau repeated that they united Canadians around vaccine mandates in the election, before repeating that the Conservative refuse to condemn the blockades.

Yves-François Blanchet rose for the Bloc, and he demanded better communicate from the government on clearing the occupation outside, and Trudeau reiterate that the siege and the blockades need to end, and it would be great if the Conservatives could tell their followers that message. Blanchet insisted that the government wasn’t showing leadership, and Trudeau reminded him that in Quebec City, the municipal and provincial governments handled their protests well, and in Ottawa, they were offering what help they could to the city and province.

Jagmeet Singh appeared by video, and he demanded that they engage with the Americans to choke off foreign funds to this occupation. Trudeau assured him they were engaged, before raising how ironic it was that the protest that claimed to be about truckers was blocking real truckers at the borders. Singh repeated the question in French, and go the same answer.

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Roundup: Bergen hopes to blame Trudeau for a “mood shift” in the occupation

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Day one of Candice Bergen’s tenure as interim Conservative leader, and already the leaks have started. In particular, internal party emails have leaked that show Bergen advising Erin O’Toole not to tell the grifter convoy to leave (before it was a full-blown occupation), saying “I understand the mood may shift soon. So we need to turn this into the PM’s problem. What will he take the first step to working toward ending this?” There is no charitable way of reading this—it is beyond cynical politics, and this has far-reaching consequences.

Also starting to come to light are the behind-the-scenes dramas that led up to O’Toole’s ouster, and surprising nobody was the sense that most of the MPs lost count of the number of times O’Toole deceive them. A serial liar lying to his own caucus? Imagine that! As for Bergen’s elevation to interim leader, The Canadian Press talks to Rona Ambrose about her history with Bergen, and Ambrose’s belief that the caucus chose her because she is a “steady hand” (but apparently not enough have a problem with her courting the extremists).

Meanwhile, Matt Gurney hears from a member of O’Toole’s inner circle about what all went down. Jen Gerson despairsthat the Conservatives seem unwilling or incapable of making reasonable critiques of pandemic policies, and that they are neither as clever or politically savvy as they think they are. Althia Raj takes the optimistic route, that the party can attract social progressives and marginalise the social conservatives if they’re willing to put in the work to do so (which is true!).

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QP: Trying to make “Justinflation” happen

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The Liberal benches were again about two-thirds full, and the prime minister was in attendance, so that was something? While Erin O’Toole gave a lengthy speech in the Chamber earlier, he was nowhere to be seen. That left it up to Gérard Deltell to lead off, and he moaned about inflation and worries in the US about persistent inflation—which is not Canada’s situation. Justin Trudeau said the biggest thing that they could do was end the pandemic, which would end the supply chain disruptions that were increasing costs. Deltell cited the “not thinking about monetary policy” quip and demanded limited spending—erm, which is fiscal policy—and Trudeau repeated that they needed to end the pandemic. Deltell selectively quoted a  countries with lower inflation than us, and Trudeau noted that this was a global issue because of supply chains. Michael Barrett got up after and took a page from Pierre Poilievre’s playbook in confusing land and housing stock to rail about inflation, and Trudeau noted that the question ignored the pandemic, and the way to end it was by vaccination, which Conservatives didn’t seem to get. Barrett countered that his riding has one the highest vaccination rates in the country and gave more wrong talking points about inflation, and Trudeau suggested that Barrett’s constituents help convince his Conservative colleagues to get vaccinated).

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and worried that they softwood lumber tariffs were doubled after the Three Amigos summit and wondered what they talked about. Trudeau listed off items discussed including softwood and PEI potatoes. Blanchet made a jab at the potatoes, and mused that Quebec would be better able to negotiate on their own, but Trudeau insisted that they were defending the sector like they did aluminium (another Quebec export).

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and demanded immediate action on the housing crisis, but Trudeau disputed his characterisation and listed measures in the Speech from the Throne. Singh switched to French to repeat the question, and got the same answer.

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Roundup: Casting doubt as a smoke bomb

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As I was just saying about Canadian political leaders focusing on American issues and culture wars, we are seeing yet another instance in this country – this time over the upcoming riding redistribution hearings. The Conservatives have decided that they want to go all-in on American culture wars and are fundraising to fight these redistributions, citing that they don’t trust the Liberals to run the process fairly – never mind that the process is arm’s length, and the fact that the Speaker of the House is involved in the process is supposed to ensure neutrality. The fact that he was elected as a Liberals should not be a factor – and it’s especially rich from the Conservatives, seeing as it was their votes that ensured that Rota got into the post during Tuesday’s election (and I know enough about where votes were going for certain candidates that the maths work out that the Conservatives were voting for Rota).

We really, really do not want to go down this path of making a partisan issue of riding redistribution, because only madness lies this way. Aside from outright partisan lunacy in thinking that this is an effective way of fundraising never mind the corrosive effect that this has on our political system, it’s also a simple admission of sore loserism. If they think they’ve been losing because of riding redistribution (with “rurban” seats largely being split up into actual rural and urban seats), the most recent redistribution happened under their watch, and frankly, “rurban” seats were pure gerrymandering because they didn’t make sense and were trying to use rural votes to outweigh urban ones and never made sense in terms of “communities” like they are so concerned that ridings encompass. If they think that they won’t get a fair shake this time around, it’s pure projection.

Of course, this isn’t actually about riding redistribution – it’s about throwing another smoke bomb into the mix in order to distract from the party’s internal problems and the challenges to Erin O’Toole’s leadership. The fact that they are trying to discredit a process that is meant to be removed from political considerations and partisan gamesmanship is pretty gross, especially because that is meant to be a pure distraction (and fundraising grab). This process is important to our democracy, and for them to cast doubt for selfish reasons is a sign of the party’s continued moral decline.

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