Tag Archives: Yves-François Blanchet

Roundup: Delays for new doses

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The pandemic continues to trend poorly, and new modelling suggests there could be as many as two thousand deaths in the next ten days, and if the current restrictions don’t curb people’s interactions, spread could triple as our hospitals are already out of space. It’s grim. And to compound it, news came down yesterday that Pfizer’s plans to retool part of their vaccine production facility in Europe means that for the next few weeks, shipments could be reduced by as much as fifty percent – shortfalls that will likely be made up once production is up and running because they’ll be able to increase their output capacity, but it’s still disappointing. It’s also funny (in a black humour sort of way) to watch premiers struggling to deliver this message without taking shots at the federal government because they know that it’s beyond their ability to do anything about.

Part of why this is a problem that needs to be communicated is because there seems to have been a brewing sense that vaccines are here, so we’ll be able to start lifting restrictions soon, and that’s not actually the case. Even once everyone gets vaccinated, we’ll probably still have restrictions and mask-wearing for the time being because we don’t yet know if people can transmit the virus once they’re vaccinated, and it will take time for everyone’s immune response to sufficiently build even after they’ve had their second dose. And then we don’t know how long the immunity will last either, while the virus is starting to mutate. So seeing this delay to vaccinations (and it’s mostly a delay on the early phases and less likely to be so for the general public, who will still likely get their shots at the same time as was planned) as a delay for returning to the old normal is just not something that anyone should be counting on, and we should be communicating that effectively.

As for international travel, prime minister Justin Trudeau hinted that they are looking at tighter restrictions, but this comes with a host of other problems, not the least of which is the fact that mobility rights are Charter rights, and trying to define what travel is deemed “essential” is going to require some actual definition (unlike what Ontario has done with its current stay-at-home order). But with unchecked community spread already happening, and variants identified in the UK and South Africa also having been identified here, it may already be too late. The better tactic may be better enforcement of quarantine orders, but that may also be a question of resources. Nevertheless, there are no easy solutions to the problem.

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Roundup: Preparations at the border?

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Everyone is going to spend the day obsessing about the US election, and while I just can’t, I figured that I should at least make the point that I’m hoping that in this government’s preparations, there includes some for the border because if there is a Trump victory (or violence that breaks out if the result is unclear or a narrow enough Trump defeat), I would expect a rush of would-be asylum seekers heading for our borders, particularly vulnerable minorities who are already in precarious situations in the US and are likely to become targets of violence if things degenerate. That means that this government is going to need to have proper quarantine protocols in place, as well as hopefully a plan that involves more than simply turning them back as they have been since the border closure in March, because a deteriorating situation in the US would mean that sending them back would almost certainly be unconstitutional – this as the government is already fighting with a Federal Court decision that says that the US is not a safe third country and that the agreement to turn these claimants back violates the constitution. This may all be for naught, but the US is on the verge of becoming a failed state, and we need to be ready for how that will affect us, in the short and long term.

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Roundup: Taking credit for changing nothing

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It’s becoming a tale as old as time, where NDP leader Jagmeet Singh calls a late-afternoon press conference to declare that he has achieved a great victory of pushing on an open door and getting nothing new that the Liberals weren’t already going to do, to be followed by his supporters taking to social media to crow about it. And thus, late Friday afternoon, Singh held a press conference to say that he had struck a deal with the Liberals about paid sick leave, and that this, along with their previous decision to keep EI and the recovery benefit at CERB levels, meant that he was likely to vote confidence in the government, thus avoiding the election that was never going to happen anyway.

But let’s review – you can be assured that the Liberals didn’t decide to boost the EI and recovery benefit levels from $400 to $500/week because of Singh’s pressure, but rather because they can see the COVID case counts climbing like the rest of us, and with the second wave here earlier than anticipated. That’s likely going to mean more shutdowns, even if they’re not as bad as the initial one in March, and their commitment to having Canadians’ backs means that it was easier to keep the benefit levels the same. On top of that, they had already committed to paying for the sick leave benefit that the provinces would implement, based on negotiations that happened at the behest of BC premier John Horgan (as Trudeau assiduously assigned him the credit and not Singh). When Trudeau got this assurance from the premiers, Singh declared victory and his supporters crowed that it was all him that did this when it clearly wasn’t. And now, Singh is again taking credit for this benefit, even though nothing has actually changed.

And then we get supposed dunks like this one. Nothing changed. Nothing the federal government does will unilaterally change provincial labour laws that will actually implement this sick benefit, especially on the permanent basis that Singh wants it to be. Sure, the federal government says they’ll pay for those two weeks of sick leave, but does that mean that the person’s job is going to be protected? Nope. There are provinces, like Nova Scotia, who were reluctant about it because they felt it was up to collective bargaining between employers and labour to come to an agreement on this leave. Does this agreement that Singh got change that? Nope. Nothing has changed, and yet he’s suddenly the new Tommy Douglas. Girl, please.

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Roundup: The creeping presidentialization of national addresses

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As far as Throne Speeches go, it was on the long-side – fifty-four minutes in total – while the scene was sparse owing to the pandemic. A common refrain from the commentariat was asking what exactly was new in the speech – much of it was a recitation of the Liberal Party’s greatest hits, with a newfound sense of urgency to some of those long-standing promises (most of which require negotiations with provinces who are reluctant to take on costly new social programmes), and the assurance to Canadians that this is not the time for fiscal austerity as we need to “build back better.” There were some relevant things about ensuring a green and inclusive recovery,

https://twitter.com/AdamScotti/status/1308932151925145602

The post-Speech responses in the press conferences that followed were pretty typical – the Conservatives hated everything about it, and complained about things that their leader has been shitposting the opposite of for the past couple of weeks. The Bloc have decided that it somehow violated the rights of the provinces, when it talks about negotiating national programmes with them. The NDP weren’t going to pan it outright, but Jagmeet Singh instead demanded that the government implement paid sick leave for every worker in Canada – something that the federal government can’t do because the vast majority of workplaces are provincial jurisdiction. So that’s fun.

And then, a short while later, were the big national addresses. Trudeau started off good, talking about the fight of our generation, and that Thanksgiving is now out of the question but we still have a shot at Christmas if we can get the second wave under control, which means get a flu shot, wear masks, wash your hands, and download the COVID Alert app. But then he started selling the Throne Speech, and it turned into an infomercial, in spite of the promise that this was going to be an urgent message about the pandemic and not about politics. That assurance was completely lost on Erin O’Toole, whose only nod to the pandemic was to say that his family’s situation shows that we all need to be extremely vigilant – before he pivoted to Western alienation, and complaining that Trudeau didn’t listen to any of his (performative) demands around the Throne Speech, and concluded by warning about Communist China. So that was something. Yves-François Blanchet, also in COVID isolation, addressed his reply to Quebeckers and Francophones, and then accused the prime minister of interfering in Quebec’s jurisdiction (he didn’t), and demanded unequivocal transfers to Quebec in a week or he’ll vote against the Throne Speech. Erm… And then there was Jagmeet Singh, who started off with the empathetic approach of “I know you’re worried and we’re going to fight for you,” but quickly pivoted to demanding a wealth tax. So…that was the “urgent” and “not political” use of prime-time airtime. The worst part of the whole exercise, however, was the creeping presidentialization of it – addresses that should have happened in the House of Commons were forced to dinnertime television in the hopes of getting a bigger audience, for messages that came off sounding like pre-election posturing. If Trudeau had stuck to his first couple of minutes – that we need to get our shit together and flatten this infection curve – then that would have been fine. But the sales job on the Throne Speech with him giving the clips and not Julie Payette was a complete misstep.

Meanwhile, Heather Scoffield finds good things for the economic recovery in the Speech, but hopes the government can gets its act together when it comes to implementing them. Economist Lindsay Tedds sees a lot to like in the Throne Speech, particularly the pledge around automatic filing of income taxes so that marginalized people who often don’t file will finally be able to get benefits they are entitled to. Susan Delacourt contrasts the two speeches on Wednesday, and what each’s tone is trying to convey. Paul Wells pans the whole thing, and notes that nothing has changed since before the prorogation. Jen Gerson puts the whole display in a wider context of a world in which real trouble is brewing, and Canadian politics is utterly unprepared for it.

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Roundup: Another brave demand for money without strings

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Four nominally conservative premiers convened in Ottawa yesterday to once again bravely demand that the federal government give them more money for healthcare and infrastructure, and to not attach any strings to it. In total, they demanded at least $28 billion more per year for healthcare, $10 billion for infrastructure, and retroactive reforms to fiscal stabilization that would give Alberta another $6 billion. Of course, two of those premiers – Jason Kenney and Brian Pallister – were in the Harper government when health transfers were unilaterally cut, to which we must also offer the reminder that the numbers at the time show that provincial health spending was not rising nearly as fast as the health transfer escalator, which means that the money was going to other things, no matter how much the provinces denied it. As well, most provinces have not actually been spending the current infrastructure dollars that are on the table for one reason or another (some of which have been petty and spiteful), so why demand more when they already aren’t spending what’s there.

As for Alberta’s demand for retroactive fiscal stabilization, one should also add the caveat that the current formula asserts a certain amount of moral risk for provinces who rely too heavily on resource revenues for their provincial coffers – that they should be looking at other forms of revenue (like sales taxes) so that they aren’t so exposed to the vagaries of things like world oil prices. Retroactively changing the formula means that the federal government becomes their insurance for the risks they undertook on their own balance sheets, which hardly seems fair to the other provinces in confederation, who have to pay higher provincial taxes.

And then Kenney dropped this little claim:

This is patently untrue. The province still has tremendous fiscal capacity because they still have the highest per capita incomes in the country and the lowest taxation. Sure, that fiscal capacity has diminished, but not that much. The province’s deficit is a policy choice because they refuse to implement a modest sales tax that could actually pay for the services that Kenney is now in the process of slashing, having ordered up a report to tell him that they have a spending problem instead of a revenue problem. Err, and then he spent billions on a money-losing refinery and another pipeline that will actually make said refinery an even bigger money-loser. So no, the quality of healthcare in his province isn’t being jeopardized by the state of his economy – it’s because he won’t stabilize his revenues (and because he’s launching an ill-conceived war against the doctors in his province in the middle of a global pandemic, because he’s strategic like that).

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Roundup: The Energy East distraction

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After wide reporting that Jason Kenney’s poll numbers have been tanking and that he’s currently tied with the provincial NDP, it was predetermined that Kenney was going to have to start coming up with something new to blame the federal government about in order to whip his voter base into a new round of irrational anger. He also, apparently needed to provide some cover to his friend Erin O’Toole after O’Toole’s meeting with the Quebec premier, and so Kenney’s distraction of choice was going to be Energy East, and blaming the federal government for its demise. Of course, that’s not true at all, and energy economist Andrew Leach has the receipts.

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Roundup: Giving Legault the farm

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Erin O’Toole paid a visit to Quebec premier François Legault yesterday, and immediately promised to give away the farm to Legault if he were to become prime minister – capitulating on Bill 21 and letting Legault expand it (in spite of the Conservatives insisting that they are all about religious freedom), signing over the language rights of federal industries in the province, and promising more provincial transfers with no strings attached, all in the name of “provincial autonomy.” At the same time, O’Toole danced around the question of pipelines, which Legault opposes and O’Toole is in favour of shoving down the throat of a province in spite of his talk of “autonomy,” so his record of policy incoherence continues unabated. (As an aside, it seems to me that giving Quebec everything it demands wouldn’t actually win O’Toole Bloc votes, but rather empower the Bloc to say that they were so effective that they got everything the demanded).

This exchange with Legault made some waves in Alberta, where the visions of Energy East continue to evade reality. So while Rachel Notley tries to score points against O’Toole, and her UCP opponents try to score their own points, here’s energy economist Andrew Leach calling out both sides on how wrong they are.

On the subject of Alberta’s oil patch, here is Leach laying out why the province over its past six premiers have engaged in a $26.4 billion boondoggle around building a refinery in the province and assuming all of the risk from their private sector partner, and will almost certainly wind up losing a hell of a lot of taxpayers’ money in the process. For everyone who insists that the province doesn’t subsidize the oil and gas sector, this is proof enough that such a claim is false, and it should enrage everyone in the province that their trust has been betrayed in such a way.

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Roundup: A brief return to the Commons

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The Commons will be meeting today in an actual, real sitting and not an abbreviated strange hybrid committee, in order to pass Bill C-20 on disability payments, which they say is in an improved format from their previous attempt in C-17 (which one presumes is now withdrawn from the Order Paper). The bill also includes the changes to the wage subsidy that were announced on Friday, and it sounds like will also have the changes to court system timelines that were previously announced and part of C-17, but the text of the bill won’t be out until the Commons actually sits. We also know that the bill will pass, because the Bloc have agreed to everything, and this means a motion that will see the bill essentially passed at all stages with a couple hours’ worth of speeches in lieu of actual debate or legislative processes, which is less than ideal. We’ll also have a proper Question Period today, so we can look forward to that, and all of the questions on the WE Imbroglio that will come with it. The Senate has not yet announced when they will be meeting to pass it on their end, which may not be until later in the week.

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Roundup: A curious case for declaratory legislation

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A curious story showed up on the CBC website yesterday, wherein justice minister David Lametti stated that if it looked like pandemic delays were going to cause criminal trials to essentially “age out” of the court system as a result of the Jordan decision – meaning that once they reach a certain point, they are deemed to be stayed because they took too long and have become unconstitutional – that he would introduce legislation to “clarify” how the Supreme Court’s Jordan decision was to be clarified. It’s curious because it seems to be a bit of a made-up issue – the Jordan decision already stated that the 30-month timeline allowed for exceptional circumstances, and we can all agree that a global pandemic is by definition an exceptional circumstance. This isn’t to say that declaratory legislation isn’t a valid exercise, because it can be – but it just seems wholly unnecessary in this case, when there are other ways that the government could be better dealing with the criminal justice system and juries than worrying about the Jordan timelines.

In any event, here is defence lawyer Michael Spratt with some thoughts on the story:

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Roundup: The safety of being in fourth place

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Ah, the safety of being the third and fourth parties in the House of Commons, where nothing you say really matters! Case in point with both Yves-François Blanchet and Jagmeet Singh, who spent yesterday lambasting prime minister Justin Trudeau for not badmouthing Donald Trump in public – Blanchet calling Trudeau “spineless,” and Singh condemning Trudeau’s silence. Because there’s nothing like demanding that the leader of our country insult the thin-skinned and erratic leader of our closest neighbour and trading partner, whom we rely on for economic security and military protection. Yeah, poking that bear will have no consequences whatsoever! One expects this kind of thing from Blanchet, who never has to worry about ever being in power, but for Singh, it seems to further prove that he has no interest in even pretending like he has a shot at forming a government, so he’s going to simply grandstand (badly) and look as unserious as he possibly can. And it’s more than just these kinds of declarations – it’s the demands that pretend that massive systemic change can happen with the snap of a finger, or that the federal government can just reach into provincial jurisdiction willy-nilly and using the incantation Canada Health Act as though it’s a justification or a blueprint for a federal role that accidentally forgot the part where you need to negotiate with the provinces first, and assumes that they’ll gladly sign onto whatever programme is being offered to them with all of the strings attached. Real life doesn’t work like that – but apparently you don’t need to worry about real life when you’re the fourth party.

Shameless self-promotion alert:

I’ll be appearing (virtually) before the Procedure and House Affairs committee this morning to talk about “hybrid” sittings and remote voting for MPs. (Spoiler: I’m against them). The fun starts at 11 AM Eastern.

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