Tag Archives: Transfer Payments

QP: Variations of keeping the heat on

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While the prime minister and his deputy were meeting with premiers about future health transfers, most of the other leaders were absent, safe Pierre Poilievre. Poilievre led off in French, then pointed out the increase in the national debt without fixing the system, and demanded the prime minister take responsibility for the problems he caused, never mind that this is the result of generations of provincial premiers cutting their systems to the bone. Randy Boissonnault reminded Poilievre of the additional transfers under the pandemic, and that the PM is meeting with premiers today. Poilievre went another round in English and got the same answer. Poilievre went back to French to accuse the government of causing runaway inflation with overspending, misquoting people left and right along the way, to which François-Philippe Champagne vociferously defended the government’s investments in science and innovation. Poilievre returned to English to mock the investment in Medicago before reciting his “triple, triple, triple” ear worm and his new line about keeping the heat on while cutting the tax. Champagne got back up to defend the investment in Medicago as investing in all vaccines until they found ones that work. Poilievre listed a bunch of non sequiturs he considered misspending, and then modified his talking point to promise that they would keep the heat on until they take off the tax. Karina Gould got up to list the things the government has done to help people while the Conservatives voted against it.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc and he accused the prime minster of dividing people with his appointment of Amira Elghawaby and the Liberal MPs raising concerns about the Charter of the French language. Pablo Rodriguez got up to taunt that the Bloc only exists to divide. Therrien got up to rail some more about those Liberal MPs, to which Ginette Petitpas Taylor recited well-worn talking points about the bill protecting French across the country, after the opposition benches stopped chanting “Pablo! Pablo!” in the hopes he would respond a second time.

Don Davies rose for the NDP, and he railed sanctimoniously about private delivery of healthcare, and Adam van Koeverden read some pabulum about the investments under discussion with the premiers. Daniel Blaikie repeated the question in French, and van Koeverden repeated his script in French.

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Roundup: The big health summit is today

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Today is the day, where the prime minster is meeting with the provincial and territorial premiers to lay out the future of health transfers, and from the sounds if it, it’s not a negotiation. The Senior Liberal Sources™ are pointing to a ten-year deal with an expansion to the main Canada Health Transfer, as well as individual deals with provinces that focus on their priorities, and yes, there will be strings attached to that money. Trudeau is framing this conversation in a way that talks a lot about data, but the more unspoken part of that is the fact that the point of that data is so that there can be outcomes that can be compared across jurisdictions, and not have it in a format where it takes six months or a year for researchers to compile the data in a way that’s usable, because each province reports their data differently. People often don’t realise that it’s one of the reasons why we have such poor statistical data in this country, which is because provinces (who are responsible for vital statistics) don’t report in a way that is consistent, and it takes StatsCan or other agencies like CIHI time to make the data work.

The other reason for strings, of course, is that provinces have a demonstrated history of not using health transfers on their healthcare systems. For the decade that health transfers rose at six percent annually, health spending in most provinces rose by somewhere around 2.2 percent annually, meaning a lot of that money got spent elsewhere. Andrew Coyne tweeted data going back 20 years, and it’s very noticeable the gap between what the federal government sent to provinces for healthcare, and what actually got spent on it. Given how much additional pandemic spending went directly to provinces’ bottom lines during the pandemic, there is no longer an appetite for this to continue, which is why strings are not only important, but need to be in place, and it looks like the premiers have finally run out of room in the court of public opinion to operate otherwise.

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1622760959977656321

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 349:

Russian forces have been keeping up the pressure in the eastern part of Ukraine while they prepare for a new offensive, likely around the anniversary of the start of the invasion, and there are worries they could be putting that pressure in Donetsk so that they can launch a surprise attack in the south. As well, there has been shelling around Zaporizhzhia.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau says that Canada is ready to assist allies with aid they need around the earthquake in Türkiye and Syria.
  • François-Philippe Champagne and Pablo Rodriguez gave the new chair of the CRTC her marching orders in a public letter.
  • Marco Mendicino says that any foreign agent registry will need the buy-in from cultural communities in Canada lest it turn into a tool of stigmatisation.
  • As part of the government’s Ocean Protection Plan, there is investment in deep sea research; coastal First Nations chiefs have endorsed the marine protected area plan.
  • Canada is expanding its temporary work permit programme for Hong Kong residents.
  • The deputy minister of Public Services and Procurement says that McKinsey’s global record isn’t enough to disqualify it from Canadian government contracts.
  • The new Indigenous languages commissioner says he hopes to have his office fully operational by summer.
  • A labour tribunal has found that Parliament hasn’t been protecting the health and safety of its translation staff. Gosh, you think?
  • A man has been arrested for making death threats against the Liberal MP for Kichener—Conestoga, Tim Louis.
  • Former Liberal MP Raj Grewal wants the breach of trust charges laid against him during his time in office dismissed for lack of evidence.
  • The Conservatives are calling on the Auditor General to probe the McKinsey contracts, for no reason other than they’re building a conspiracy theory.
  • All opposition parties are peformatively demanding answers from the government about the Chinese “spy balloon.”
  • Quebec’s immigration minister is freaking out after reports that New York City is providing free bus tickets to asylum seekers trying to reach Roxham Road.
  • Matt Gurney explains why the gun control changes were an impossibility and a trap of the Liberals’ own making, which is why they had to walk them back.
  • Colin Horgan notes the Conservatives building conspiracy theories and trying to use the Unreal in order to tap into dark impulses in voters, as QAnon has done.

Odds and ends:

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QP: Return of the ear worm

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The prime minister was present, but only a couple of other leaders were. Melissa Lantsman led off with a script on a mini-lectern, and she wanted an update on the earthquake situation in Türkiye and Syria. Justin Trudeau assured her that the government was working with partners to offer whatever assistance is required. Lantsman pivoted to government spending, quoting Bill Morneau and misquoting Mark Carney’s alleged concern, to which Trudeau offered some well-worn talking points about helping people in the pandemic and ensuring growth for the future. Lantsman demanded humility and an admission of responsibility for people having a tough time. Trudeau insisted that they have stepped up with supports for those who need it, because it’s the smart thing to do to ensure growth in the future. Pierre Paul-Hus took over in a French, and raised both spending and McKinsey contracts, because McKinsey. Trudeau repeated his talking points about being there for people in the pandemic and ensuring future growth. Paul-Hus cited the PBO’s concerns about overspending and tried to wedge concern about the closure of Medicago in Quebec, for which Trudeau reminded him that in the height of the pandemic, we didn’t know which vaccines would win the race, and the Conservatives only want austerity. 

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc and railed about health transfers and the need for speed, urging a quick cheque with no strings attached. Trudeau disputed the question, noting the record number of meetings with premiers over the pandemic and the record spending he sent to them. Blanchet went on a tear, blaming Trudeau for the Quebec government’s choices in health spending. Trudeau reiterated his same response.

Alexandre Boulerice falsely accused the federal government of cutting health spending before railing about private health delivery. Trudeau assured him he always defend the Canada Health Act and the public system, which is why he wanted results from future transfers. Blake Desjarlais took over in English to rail about creeping privatisation and demanded strings on those dollars, and Trudeau repeated that he was standing up for the public system. 

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Roundup: Concerns divorced from reality in C-11

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The continuing discourse around Bill C-11—the online streaming bill—continues to plumb new depths of utter idiocy, and this weekend, the Globe and Mail dragged Margaret Atwood into it, where she said some things that have absolutely nothing to do with the bill at hand. Why? Because Senator David Richards, a novelist who has been little more than a crank during his time in the Senate, gave a speech last week (around 1530 in the Hansard) that was pretty much complete and utter nonsense in which he accused the government and the CRTC of being Goebbels-like propagandists because of this bill, and people have glommed onto the debate without knowing anything about it.

If anything, the Globe story was complete journalistic malpractice, because it didn’t give sufficient context to the bill or what it actually says, and Atwood admitted she hadn’t read the bill, and they ran the story about her comments regardless.

I have done several stories on this bill and its predecessor in the previous Parliament (here and here). In spite of the Conservative narrative that this was “Orwellian” and that an “Internet czar” was going to censor your tweets, the bill is nothing about that. It’s about ensuring that streaming services like Netflix and Disney+ play by similar rules as other conventional broadcasters, particularly in using part of their revenues to continue to Canadian content media funds. YouTube was included for that reason—as the largest music streaming service, it should also disclose its Canadian revenues and submit the same proportion to media funds for artists that radio does. That’s it. The CRTC has been determining what counts as “Canadian Content” for those purposes, as well as for tax credits, for decades. The current point system has been in place since 1984. None of this is new or novel, and none of this is the Minister of Heritage telling people what to produce, and absolutely none of this is “government censorship,” and if people believe that, then they don’t understand the meaning of the word. And yet, these narratives have been allowed to perpetuate in the mainstream media, either because the journalists in question are too lazy to actually read the bill, or they are content to both-sides the debate, and when one of those sides are outright lying, or are free speech zealots who object to CanCon regulations on principle, and on the other side you get ministerial pabulum, you’re not exactly cutting through any of the bullshit. We have been so let down by the media over the course of this interminable debate, and we are all the worse off for it because people aren’t doing the jobs.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 348:

Russian missiles struck Kharkiv over the weekend, destroying residential buildings, while a fire caused a blackout in Odessa. Russia and Ukraine also traded almost 200 prisoners of war in a prisoner exchange on Saturday. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s defence minister is being shuffled to a new portfolio as part of the government shake-up in light of combatting corruption allegations.

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Roundup: It’s like the market is deciding

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There remains a lot of insistence that Canada should be exporting more LNG, and confusion as to why we’re not. And lo, there are a bunch of market forces at work, as fully permitted projects are not getting underway. Justin Trudeau’s remarks about there not being a business case turns out to actually be true. Funny how that works.

 

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 345:

Russia hit more apartment buildings in Kramatorsk in overnight bombings, while they try and encircle Bakhmut in the East. Meanwhile, the UK is saying no to providing fighter jets to Ukraine because they say that training the pilots takes three years (and yeah, I can see that, not to mention the maintenance on them is hideously time-consuming). Ukraine is also restarting repairs to some of its power plants, which is relieving the electricity shortages brought on by attacks.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1621193898948182021

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QP: Like an interminable rerun

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For caucus day, all of the leaders were present, which has been nice to see more consistently over the course of the week, for as long as this is going to last. Pierre Poilievre led off, and in French, asked how much the federal government had spent on contracts with McKinsey. Justin Trudeau said that he asked the deputy prime minister, the minister of public service as the president of the Treasury Board to follow up to ensure all rules had been followed, and that they are open and transparent with the committee. In English, Poilievre asked the same question again, and lamented that McKinsey is shrouded in scandal. Trudeau repeated his same response, noting that most of those contracts were signed by the public service. Poilievre quoted a previous Trudeau statement about his recruiting Dominic Barton, and demanded again to know how much they got paid. Trudeau noted that he has been touched by the number of Canadians of extraordinary backgrounds who have asked to contribute to the country, and Barton was someone who served the country; with regards to the contracts, he repeated his previous response. Poilievre accused Trudeau of never taking responsibility, and shed some crocodile tears about the civil servants feeling undervalued by those McKinsey contracts—never mind the history that the Conservatives and Poilievre personally had with using outside consultants because they didn’t trust the civil service—and again demanded a figure for those contracts. Trudeau mouthed some platitudes about supporting Canadians through a difficult time with direct supports. Poilievre listed mortgage prices, the cost of rent, the number of people going to food banks and blaming the carbon price for that (which is specious to say the least), and somehow tying this to the use of consultants, and his pathetic “just inflation” line. Trudeau said that while the Conservatives focus on schoolyard taunts, he’s helping Canadians.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, mentioned his meeting with the new special representative for combatting Islamophobia, Amira Elghawaby, and wanted Trudeau to admit that he did things indirectly. Trudeau noted that there are difficult conversations that needed to be had around the country, such as systemic racism, which is why they appointed Elghawaby in the first place. Blanchet wanted the prime minister to say that Quebec’s Law 21 is not Islamophobic, but Trudeau gave some platitudes about learning together. 

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he blamed the prime minister for the growing nursing deficit across the country, which is solely a provincial issue. Trudeau noted that they sent billions of dollars to the provinces in the pandemic, and they were sitting down with premiers next week to discuss next steps. Singh made the same accusation in French, and got the same answer.

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Roundup: A failure to condemn Carlson

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The increasing unseriousness of our Parliament continues apace. After Question Period yesterday, NDP MP Matthew Green stood up to move a unanimous consent motion to condemn Fox “News” personality Tucker Carlson for his comments calling for an armed invasion of Canada in order to depose Justin Trudeau, apparently before we “become Cuba.” (Carlson also called for a “Bay of Pigs” invasion, apparently not understanding how badly that went for the Americans). And when the Speaker asked if there was consent to move the motion, a few Conservatives said nay (and no, I couldn’t tell which ones did).

A couple of points. Number one is that Green shouldn’t have bothered because this just gives Carlson the attention he craves, but we know what this is for—social media clips, so that he could plaster it over Twitter and whatever other socials he’s on that he got Parliament to condemn Carlson, and isn’t he a hero for doing so. It’s performative bullshit, and that’s what our Parliament runs on these days to our detriment. Point number two is that the Conservatives could have shut up and not shown support for foreign regime change, but they did not, meaning they a) agree with Carlson, b) want to appease the Carlson fans in their base, or c) didn’t want to give Green the clip he was fishing for. None of those three are good looks, and just shows the continued decline in the state of debate. Everyone should rethink some of their life choices here.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 343:

The villages of Klishchiivka and Kurdyumivka, which are on the southern approach to Bakhmut, came under renewed Russian fire. As well, a new assault against Vuhledar is unlikely to make gains. Meanwhile, a new US aid package to be announced later this week is said to include longer-range rockets, which Ukraine has been asking for.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1620441189710450690

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QP: Field-testing a new talking point

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While Justin Trudeau was in the building, he didn’t show up for Question Period today, nor did his deputy, but all of the other leaders were present. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and decried that the national debt has doubled (ignoring the reason, being the pandemic), and decried that rent and mortgage payments have doubled, worried about seniors, lamented supposed rising crime rates, and then somehow tied this all to McKinsey contracts, because that makes logical sense. Pascale St-Onge got up to agree that it was a difficult period with high inflation, but the government would be there for people who need it. Poilievre wondered if those most in need were McKinsey consultants, and lamented how much the government was spending on consultants (never mind the explosion in such contracts under the Conservative government and in Poilievre’s department in particular when he was a minister). Mark Holland got up to remind the Conservatives that when they were in government, they never talked about poverty or people using food banks, while praising his own government’s record on lifting people out of poverty. Poilievre then accused the government of telling people that they should stop complaining because they’ve never had it so good. Holland called out Poilievre for doing nothing about the situation other than making YouTube videos. Poilievre went on a tear about rental costs—which is provincial responsibility—and red tape preventing housing development—a municipal issue—and blamed the federal government for it. Holland got back up to insist that Poilievre is just amplifying anxiety. Poilievre then accused the government of trying to silence the debate, and demand they fix the problems instead, and Holland reiterated that the government is playing it straight about the problems the country is facing, while Poilievre’s only solution was to tell people to invest in crypto. Poilievre got back up, but had run out of questions. 

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc to wonder what the Notwithstanding Clause was for if not preemptive use—which is hilariously wrong. David Lametti got up to talk about minority rights, the dialogue between legislatures and the courts, and why the last word should not be the first. Blanchet rambled for a moment before quoting Pierre Trudeau on the Charter, and Lametti reminded him that Charters in Canada and Quebec were about protecting minority rights, and he repeated his point about dialogue with the courts.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and recalled the horrors that were in long-term care homes early in the pandemic and accused the government of doing nothing since, demanding legislated standards—never mind this is provincial jurisdiction. Kamal Khera got up to remind Singh that she was a nurse, and that the government appreciated the work of the Canadian Standards Association in developing national standards. Singh switched to French to lament increased privatisation, and Jean-Yves Duclos insisted they were holding up the principles of access and the public system.

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Roundup: A lack of enthusiasm

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The House of Commons resumes today, and normally at this time I would have started to miss them all, and would be eagerly awaiting the first Question Period back, but this year? I’m having a hard time summoning the enthusiasm, which may be a reflection of just how tired I still am, or possibly because there isn’t a lot to get excited about right now. We are in this kind of holding pattern of outright lies coming from certain opposition parties, and a government that just carries on responding to absolutely everything with a mountain of pabulum. It also doesn’t help that almost nothing is getting done, because of dilatory motions on every single piece of legislation, and the fact that they passed only two non-budget-related bills in the fall doesn’t really give any confidence that they’re going to get stuff done.

With that in mind, I’m going to point you in the direction of this piece I wrote a few weeks ago about what is on the Order Paper, and it’s a lot, and considering how long some of the bills have been on there (carrying over from previous sessions or parliaments), one has to wonder just how they plan to get things done, and I suspect we’re going to be in for a lot more time allocation, closure, and other procedural tools to finally get these bills moving.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 341:

Russian missiles struck Kosyantynivka and an apartment building in Kharkiv, and the town of Chasiv Yar near Bakhmut. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s defence minister says that now that they have secured modern tanks, they are now looking for new fighter jets, and the president’s aide says that talks for planes and missiles are being fast-tracked.

https://twitter.com/maksymeristavi/status/1619040069490442241

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1619295582878834688

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Roundup: A note of optimism from the Bank of Canada

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The Bank of Canada’s decision to raise rates another quarter point yesterday was not a huge surprise, given that inflation is still running hot, and the labour market remains unsustainably tight, but what was of particular note was that the Bank was much more clear in saying that they are more likely to hold the rate at where it is if things continue in the current trajectory—though they did also provide the caveat that if things continue to run too hot they won’t hesitate to hike rates yet again. (Here is Kevin Carmichael’s great explanation of the decision).

It is also noteworthy that the Monetary Policy Report, which explains the economic landscape and gives some insight into the Bank’s thinking, was really quite optimistic in terms of the possibility of avoiding a recession, but seeing stalled growth in the middle of the year, with a return to slower growth by the end of the year—certainly more of a soft-landing scenario. It’s not guaranteed, mind you, given global economic forces and the mood of the public, but the report was not all doom and gloom, in spite of media narratives.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 337:

Weeks after both Wagner Group mercenaries and Russia forces claim they have taken the town of Soledar, Ukraine only now has started to withdraw its forces from the area, given the heavy toll it is taking as Russians and mercenaries essentially keep feeding lives into the grinder. This puts Russian forces once step closer to the strategically important town of Bakhmut. Meanwhile, Germany has indeed agreed to send its Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, as they were expected to.

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