Canadian Politics 2021

[Pentagathus]

Oh so it's a legal requirement that such places check vaccine passports? I can see why people would get excited about that.

[dubsartur]

Oh so it's a legal requirement that such places check vaccine passports? I can see why people would get excited about that.

yes, since mid-2021.  But nothing essential like grocery shopping.



Kevin Vuong, the independent MP and former Liberal candidate in Ontario, is facing a loud campaign to resign figureheaded by some of his constituents https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/kevin-vuong-mp-liberals-charge-1.6255056  Whether its sincere or directed from the Prime Minister's Office I can't say.  And a typical firearms smuggling operation into Canada (56 semiautimatic handguns and 56 magazines in boxes in the trunk of a car entering from the United States) was interrupted in Central Canada.  This time the driver was Florida woman.

[Pentagathus]

Interesting. Was he ousted for having the charge of sexual assault or for not disclosing it? It seems weird that a criminal charge which is dropped before even going to court should be punished in this way, I wonder if there was something else going on or if it's just the more political choice to appear to be taking a hard stance on sexual assault.

[Jubal]

Yeah, some of these cases can be quite murky - and it's valid, in fairness, for organisations to have lower burdens of proof for e.g. bringing the organisation into disrepute than the police have for a literal criminal charge. We like to separate these things neatly as a "did they do it", but in reality there's a lot more cases in the "we can't prove to a criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt that there was a sexual assault, but we can reasonably say that whatever happened this guy made some people at minimum extremely uncomfortable and we're showing him the door" category (which may not be what's going on here at all, I'm just saying that's more common than people often expect).

It's almost certainly also a condition of being a party candidate that you disclose any current or recent interactions with the police, and that's a sufficiently important rule in running a political campaign that I wouldn't blame them for dropping him solely for not disclosing - especially because often if someone hasn't disclosed something, it's often a bit of a flag for it actually being potentially bad.

[Pentagathus]

True that, I imagine that most employers would exactly be thrilled with such a situation if it was flagged up on a CRB check for example (although I'm not sure if dropped charges are shown on CRB checks).
It does seem rather telling that he hasn't spoken about the actual allegation at all.
Edit:
Ok it appears he has spoken about the allegation, at least in passing.

[dubsartur]

The other big issue is that in BC, the provincial government took advantage of the floods and the mudslides to charter a plane and fly in RCMP officers to arrest journalists and land defenders blocking the route of the pipeline to Vancouver Kitimat.  The pipeline crosses territory which has never had roads cut across it, and which the government never even claimed to acquire rights to by treaty.  Since the minister who gave the order was the one who should be in charge of dealing with floods and mudslides

Interesting. Was he ousted for having the charge of sexual assault or for not disclosing it? It seems weird that a criminal charge which is dropped before even going to court should be punished in this way, I wonder if there was something else going on or if it's just the more political choice to appear to be taking a hard stance on sexual assault.

For not disclosing it (as an officer in the Navy Reserve he was also obliged to notify his commanding officer of the charge).  And I think it became public less than ten days before the election, so many people had already voted or did not know that he had been rejected by the party.

In the case of the Liberals, a big issue is that 2015-Trudeau campaigned on his credentials as a feminist, then governed in a way which called them in to question (if you appoint a gender-balanced cabinet, but the male PM and his male staffers try to command the female Minister of Justice and Attourney General to do things which favour their party and don't accept her "no", is that really girl power?  Especially if when she resigns you launch a gendered whisper campaign against her?)  So the 2021-Liberals are concerned not to be associated with any kind of inappropriate behaviour towards women.



One of the many advantages of electoral reform would be that it reduced the incentive to release dirt on candidates shortly before the election and dare the party to support them, and let people faced with a candidate no longer supported by a party vote for "a Liberal" rather than "either this newly independent candidate or another party's candidate"

[dubsartur]

The US has doubled its tariff on Canadian softwood lumber to 17.9%.  This tarriff goes back to the 1990s, and every time the US loses in court and just launches another appeal or carries on regardless.  I am bemused by the kind of US person who intones solemnly about the "rules-based international order" when the US does what it likes just like any other hegemon.

The Trudeau government will be fighting a lawsuit against the RCMP for its misogyny and/or racism and/or culture of immunity for bullies.  The RCMP is a paramilitary organization which reinvented itself after the Winnipeg General Strike in 1919 for domestic intelligence (spying on lefties and commies).  It lost most of its intelligence roles in the 1980s after scandals in the 1970s. So it has many cultural issues similar to those of the Canadian Forces, with an additional dose of false pride (RCMP cadets are indoctrinated that they are the best police force in Canada, if not the world).  This, and the continued use of the RCMP to arrest indigenous people blocking corporate incursions into their territory, is another good example of how 2015-Trudeau's feminist and pro-indigenous language did not lead to fundamental shifts in policy.

[dubsartur]

The big US bill contains a clause supporting electric and hybrid vehicle production in unionized shops in the USA.  That would hurt car plants in Ontario, and so gets a lot of attention in Ottawa.  https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/canada-blitz-washington-evs-1.6271842

The new parliament opened by passing a ban on gay-to-straight conversion therapy as a kind of multi-party icebreaker.  We will see what happens when more contentious bills come up.

The Green Party of Canada are considering closing their newly-unionized national office to reduce costs as they approach bankruptcy.

[Pentagathus]

What about straight-to-gay conversion therapy?

[dubsartur]

Some internal squabbles: three UCP MLAs in Alberta voted against their party's bill to loosen up the laws governing party memberships and finances while a former Progressive Conservative MP publishes an op-ed calling Kenny's faction of the United Conservative Party "republicans".  I think a lot of the animus from the right against the PCs was because they were seen as selfish and slow-moving, not abstract ideological differences.  So a binary split like that is not very good analysis, but its a powerful political weapon (traditional Canadian conservatives versus a new foreign import).

Edit: The Ceeb has a summary of Alberta Bill 81, which also has clauses restricting union criticism of government policy and loosening the tight rules for political donations which the NDP introduced https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/albertans-should-be-taking-notice-of-bill-81-here-s-why-1.6280351

And Laurentian University in Ontario, which suddenly declared insolvency and is firing tenured faculty and shutting programs, is fighting the legislature's demand to turn over financial documents about how it became insolvent.  Since the legislature has police forces and the uni does not, and Laurentian is a public university, its hard to see how this could end well for the board of directors.  The legal form they are using is called a speaker's warrant.

What about straight-to-gay conversion therapy?

s/ they are saving that for the aftermath of the next snap election in 2022 /s

[dubsartur]

Former Wildrose Party head Brian Jean has become a United Conservative Party candidate, and just told a reporter that Jason Kenney must step down https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/brian-jean-gunning-to-replace-alberta-premier-kenney-1.6285753 As in the UK Conservatives, I think there are forces within the party who want to sacrifice the leader to keep the scam going.  But I don't know that changing leaders could keep the UCP in government in Alberta, especially since there is a large faction within the United Conservative Party which does not want public health measures to contain the pandemic.  And without public health measures, everything continues to get worse and the reality-based community votes the government out.