Canadian Politics 2023

[dubsartur]

Just some notes:

The BC forestry industry is in crisis after 150 years of management by people whose only disagreement was how much of the money from cutting down all the trees should go to the workers, and how much to the bosses. The crisis was hurried by climate change which allowed the Mountain Pine Beetle to spread north and eat the pine plantations laid out after clear cutting.  Climate change is also killing the local and imported cedars which need cool summers with some rain not a month or two of no rain. CBC on structural issues CBC on a speech Tyee

The BC salmon fisheries are in trouble too, some people blame parasites spreading from open-tank fish farms, climate change is probably a factor too

A few homeless people in BC are dying because they take shelter in dumpsters and the garbage trucks don't check that anyone is in there before dumping the dumpsters into the compactor

The police have released a bit more information about the twin brothers with semiautomatic rifles who robbed a bank and shot six police officers before dying CBC

Alberta PM Danielle Smith is throwing a temper tantrum that the federal government is preparing a Just Transition Act to help oilfield workers change industries as those jobs go ("what do you mean we can't extract more and more fossil fuels forever?")

And the federal health minister is saying louder and louder "provinces, it would be a really good idea to require people to wear N95 or better masks on public transit and in public indoor spaces" (the PM and co rarely let themselves be seen in a mask any more though; but at events such as Davos there are rigorous infection control measures to keep powerful people safe)

Canadian companies are getting caught up in the fashion for layoffs

Former Liberal Finance Minister Bill Morneau has a book out which says the same things that anyone else who left the Trudeau government unhappily says (that Trudeau does not care about the details of policy just about how something will look or how voters will react).  Moreau was implicated in the We Charity scandal and spent five years as Trudeau's Minister of Finance so give me a policy wonk, lord, but not yet!

And there will be a provincial election in Alberta which will probably end the United Conservative Party government after one term

Edit 2023-01-22: Oh, and a second Liberal cabinet minister got caught hiring a close relative (or a senior advisor's close relative) to do "communications". In this case, its not obvious that the relative provided any services for the money.  The names are Mary Ng and Ahmed Hussen and both are still in Cabinet and in parliament.  If this sounds like the We Charity scandal, where Trudeau gave a large sole-source contract to a scam charity which had paid members of the Trudeau family generous speaking fees, you have a good memory. Global News summary, the figures involved are about $93,000

Edit: and the government of Canada has reached a 3 billion dollar settlement with 325 First Nations over the destruction of lives, language, and culture at the residential schools https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/residential-school-band-class-action-settlement-1.6722014

[dubsartur]

A Liberal MP, the former Sport Minister, is criticizing the government for neglecting her push for more protection for athletes against abuse within sports https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/kirsty-duncan-abuse-sport-trudeau-1.6727658 (here is one example of a current scandal, cw: child abuse)

The latest trouble between Daniel Smith and the old media is a report that she tried to interfere with the prosecutor's office during and after the blockade at the border crossing at Coutts which ended in a number of heavily armed individuals being arrested and charged with conspiring to kill police officers https://www.cbc.ca/news/editorsblog/cbc-stands-by-coutts-story-1.6728100

[dubsartur]

The federal government has had to withdraw its proposed bill banning new handgun sales after making a series of amendments which broadened it to include a wide range of rifles.  There was pretty wide support for a handgun ban in Parliament (you could debate its merits as a policy) but quite a few Canadians own long guns which can hold more than 5 rounds.  Unfortunately, we are probably not going to follow up on this by collecting and sharing more data about the firearms used in crimes, because nudging the federal bureaucracy into motion is hard and proving how many firearms used in crimes come from the USA could create political difficulties.

Needles to say, Pierre Polievre and the usual suspects in Alberta are gloating.

[dubsartur]

John Tory the mayor of Toronto will resign after a newspaper learned that he had an affair with a staffer.  He decided to get ahead of the story by calling a press conference, saying what he had done, and saying that he planned to resign.

[Jubal]

Kind of interesting that someone with a conservative political background, as Tory seems to have, was still winning over 60% of the vote in a city as big as Toronto last year: that feels impressive/unusual?

[dubsartur]

I'm tired and I don't understand electoral politics but Rob Ford amalgated Toronto proper with the suburbs to get a base of reactionaries.  I get the impression that John Tory is more or less an honest conservative not a radical or a crook.

The BC government is planning to rush out a lot of legislation to deal with the crisis in housing prices, grocery prices, and availability of medical care.  And a local new media organization, the Capital Daily, is in crisis after the journalists refused to promote the owners' other businesses in the news section and the owners fired four of the seven journalists.

[dubsartur]

The first First Nations woman in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia has resigned complaining about name-calling and defamation by the opposition especially by white male MLAs.

Three Canadian Conservative MPs had lunch and a photo shoot with a MP for the aggressively xenophobic Alternativ für Deutschland https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/poilievre-christine-anderson-vile-racist-1.6759453  Spiegel describes her as an activist for the anti-Moslem PEGIDA movement.

The federal Liberals are trying to even further reduce migrant-driven migration into Canada by removing the loophole in the Safe Third Country Agreement which lets people who entered Canada from the USA outside a regular border crossing appeal for refugee status (normally if they entered the USA first they can be sent back because the USA is a 'safe third country').  The main obstacle is that US lawmakers are distracted and the law was already a good deal for xenophobic Canadians (its much easier to get to the USA from desperately poor or violent places than to get to Canada). 

In terms of immigration policy, the biggest difference between the Liberals and the Conservatives is that the Liberals are consistently for continued large immigration by workers (especially if those workers are precarious or kept out of the best-paid jobs by not recognizing their training) while factions of the Tories are more broadly against immigration or especially against Moslem immigrants.  The Liberals don't have a broad philosophical commitment to let people seek shelter in Canada, but a narrower instrumental belief that some kinds of mass immigration are in the country's or the party's interest (always governed by what their pollsters tell them voters want).

Edit: and the Vancouver Police allegedly shot an unarmed man with rubber bullets within seconds of stopping him (it turned out that they had stopped the wrong person) https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-police-shoot-man-mistaken-identity-1.6762370  Some Canadian police forces have a culture of using less lethal weapons instead of words (rather than using them instead of firearms)

[dubsartur]

People who follow news sources I don't follow are talking about allegations that the government of China tried to interfere in the 2021 federal and 2022 Vancouver elections.  Their favourite in the former was allegedly a Liberal minority government, the later was a Chinese-Canadian candidate (possibly the winner who won 51% to 29%).  I think the ultimate source is a CSIS report passed to the Globe and Mail, the more centrist of the two big Toronto papers.

None of my sources say what this interference allegedly consisted of 

Justin Trudeau has pulled out the old Liberal playbook by announcing an investigation chaired by a {former Supreme Court Justice - former Lieutenant Governor - former Governor General} who is connected to the Prime Minster and the Liberal Party via {a position at the Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation - ...}

Edit: not bad CBC story on the operations of the Hong Kong Triads in Canada since 1997 https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-dragon-lord-probe-book-1.6783063

Edit: and a related story on Indian government relations to Canada https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/india-foreign-interference-public-inquiry-1.6784676 (see also Air India Flight 182 Bombing).

[dubsartur]

The CBC has a half competent story on how American handguns are smuggled into Canada https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/features/the-path-of-a-gun  It needs more on the backgrounds of the dealer in Canada and the victims of the various shootings in Canada.

"In Ontario alone, pistols from the United States made up 90 per cent of all crime-related handguns traced by police in 2022, with Texas as a leading source state, according to the Ontario Provincial Police."

Edit: and

Liberal MP Han Dong, who is at the centre of Chinese influence allegations, privately advised a senior Chinese diplomat in February 2021 that Beijing should hold off freeing Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor (when they were held while the US was attempting to extradite a Huawei executive from Canada), according to two separate national security sources.

Both sources said Dong allegedly suggested to Han Tao, China’s consul general in Toronto, that if Beijing released the “Two Michaels,” whom China accused of espionage, the Opposition Conservatives would benefit.

https://globalnews.ca/news/9570437/liberal-mp-han-dong-secretly-advised-chinese-diplomat-in-2021-to-delay-freeing-two-michaels-sources/

[dubsartur]

A BC Liberal MLA expelled from caucus for being a climate-change denier is now head of the very small Conservative Party of British Columbia

Rustad, who says he's pro-freedom, pro-trucker and is fighting to end vaccine mandates, says he expects the Conservatives under his leadership to challenge the NDP and Liberals.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/john-rustad-leader-bc-conservative-party-1.6797879

And the Public Health Officer has switched from encouraging infection control measures to telling that this spring should be a time of renewal and hope and that "People need to get back to doing those things that are important to us and being with others."  That is a choice I guess.

Ontario cryptocurrency swindler Aiden Pleterski was allegedly kidnapped and beaten by people who wanted some of the money he had collected https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/crypto-king-pleterski-kidnapped-1.6790615

[dubsartur]

The owner of Twitter's latest way of getting attention has been applying the state-owned media designation to public media in democracies.  Former Federal NDP leader Thomas Mulcair has thoughts and is convinced that the CBC is currently partisan Liberal https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/tom-mulcair-why-all-the-fuss-about-twitter-s-description-of-cbc-1.6360448  They have spent many more words on internal drama in the federal Greens than on possible Chinese interference in the 2019 federal election.

This CBC story on the dysfunctional nature of parliament is not bad in what it takes for granted https://subscriptions.cbc.ca/newsletter_static/messages/politicsnewsletter/2023-04-09/

There is a big strike of federal public-sector workers in Canada right now.

Alberta will probably call a provincial election on 1 May.  The story about Danielle Smith trying to get prosecutors to lay off a pastor who violated public health measures is still in the news.

[dubsartur]

The AB election has been called for 29 May! https://www.elections.ab.ca/elections/albertas-next-election/  The opposition has started the laborious task of clipping out the ridiculous things she said in her previous career with podcasts and talk radio as recently as 2021 and saying "gee isn't that foolish, disturbing, or dangerous?"

Recent protests against logging are not the first time police did shady things in rural Vancouver Island.

A typical large Canadian fraud has collapsed https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/victoria-mortgage-clients-worry-about-life-savings-1.6837491 https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news/victoria-mortgage-brokers-firm-under-control-of-receiver-as-lawsuits-pile-up-6962648

[Jubal]

Are there many polls or predictions for the Alberta election?

[dubsartur]

Astonishingly it is close https://338canada.com/alberta/ but I am with those who suspect that Danielle Smith and the UCP will get turfed out.  Danielle Smith is not good at sticking to a script and looking like a safe pair of hands.

Smith tried to interfere in the legal proceedings against a pastor who violated public health rules early in the COVID pandemic.  She seems to think that she has the royal power of pardon like a US president or state governor.

[Jubal]

Hm, yes - fingers crossed, then.