Juxtaposition

The Saskatchewan Party government's public health expectations for the mid-pandemic jet set willing to shell out for private testing:

"It's been challenging to provide timely results for asymptomatic travelers, especially within the tight timelines required by airlines and international destinations," Howey said in part. 

"[Quantum Genetix] have the technology to provide PCR COVID-19 testing for anyone requiring proof of a negative COVID-19 test before travelling."

Their expectations for everybody else:

Shahab discouraging inter provincial travel over Christmas says Sask. people should stick to its household and limit indoor private gatherings to 5. #covid19sk

— Adam Hunter (@AHiddyCBC) December 2, 2020

Juxtaposition

The effect of the perpetual fear of falling downwards on ideology:

As far as there are forces at play that push job losers to the right of the ideological spectrum, these forces appear trumped by other pressures that pull job losers to the left. Indeed, while we do observe many people who revise their ideology to the right during our study window, these rightward shifts do not seem directly driven by job loss experiences. This finding aligns well with other recent work suggesting that the success of right-wing populist parties is primarily fuelled by fears of economic hardship, as opposed to actual experiences of economic hardship. If anything, actual hardship seems to first and foremost trigger a leftward ideological shift.

The Libs' position on the desirability of a perpetual fear of falling downwards:

Finance Minister Bill Morneau says Canadians should get used to so-called "job churn" — short-term employment and a number of career changes in a person's life.
...
And when asked about precarious employment the finance minister told delegates that high employee turnover and short-term contract work will continue in young people's lives, and the government has to focus on preparing for it.

"We also need to think about, 'How do we train and retrain people as they move from job to job to job?' Because it's going to happen. We have to accept that," Morneau said during a question-and-answer session.

Canada's Libs: fuelling the rise of right-wing populism, one demand that we continually accept less at a time.

Juxtaposition

Some parties and leaders recognize the stakes in determining how to manage a minority Parliament:

I asked Mr. Duceppe what he thought would happen if the prime minister refused to accept such an ultimatum. He replied that a government defeat so soon after a general election meant the Governor General would have to turn "to one of us" to form a government. We both knew that meant Stephen Harper and his Conservatives. I asked Mr. Duceppe if he could accept such an eventuality. He was not only clear that he could, but he would.
...
Realizing immediately the full magnitude of what was at stake, I knew I had to walk away. I was not about to participate in any scheme cooked up by the Bloc and the Conservatives that would put the country in the hands of Stephen Harper.

And some, well...

With three months until Canadians vote in the next federal election, Green party leader Elizabeth May says her big hope for the final result is a minority government over which she can exert some influence.

In fact, May thinks that influence could even get the Conservatives to drop their dyed-in-the-wool opposition to carbon taxes if it means the difference for them between governing or spending more time in opposition.

"People change their minds when they see the dynamic of a way a Parliament is assembled and maybe think, 'Killing carbon taxes isn't such a good idea if the only way I get to be prime minister is by keeping them,' " May says.
...
Federally, May says she could support a minority government of any party but only if that party is serious about acting to stop climate change.

"We will negotiate with anyone, we will talk to everyone, but we won't compromise on climate action," she says.

Meanwhile, let's keep in mind that it's a single vote of confidence following the 2008 election that gave Stephen Harper the ability to stay in office rather than facing the consequences of pushing to exacerbate an economic meltdown with cuts and political attacks.

May might well be able to get the Cons to say they'll change their position on climate policy for the purpose of taking power. She'd have far less leverage in getting them to follow through when they have the option of running away from Parliament.

Juxtaposition

So which of these quotes conflating immigration with terrorism is from the bigoted autocrat provoking protests around the world for his widely-acknowledged lack of human decency...

[The leader] is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering [his country] until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on.
...
[The leader] stated, "Without looking at the various polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension. Where this hatred comes from and why we will have to determine. Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life."

...and which one is from the premier currently trying to get in front of the parade headed in the opposite direction only when it suits his political interests?

[If] even a small number of individuals who wish to do harm to our country are able to enter [it] as a result of a rushed refugee resettlement process, the results could be devastating. The recent attacks in Paris are a grim reminder of the death and destruction even a small number of malevolent individuals can inflict upon a peaceful country and its citizens.
...
[My jurisdiction] will be fully supportive of any delays in resettling...refugees in order to ensure appropriate screening and security checks...
...
I note that refugee resettlement is one of the items to be discussed at our meeting next week. With that in mind, I am asking that you would have the appropriate officials provide [leaders] with a complete intelligence briefing on the terrorist threat that exists [in our country] today and on how the federal government plans to ensure that no ISIS-trained operatives are able to enter [the country], either as part of a refugee resettlement or in any other manner.

Suffice it to say that Byelection Brad's sudden claim to be an advocate against bigotry is about as credible as Donald Trump's past bloviations about defending the public from the greed of the financial sector.

Juxtaposition

Brad Wall is perfectly happy to waste time tweeting his outrage at a business operating with both foreign and domestic suppliers.

But Brad Wall couldn't care less whether provincial money earmarked to clean up messes in Saskatchewan actually stays in the province - choosing instead to cut out local businesses entirely:

The province’s Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Orphan fund put out a request for proposals (RFP) in January looking for companies to, “successfully conduct the down hole abandonment(s) on oil, gas and industry related wells, flow line abandonments and well site decommissioning.

...
About 10 of the 15 companies that applied to clean those orphaned sites up were Saskatchewan-based, but the government chose four Alberta-based companies to do the work.

Juxtaposition

Shorter Tim Naumetz on the NDP's consistent stance opposing Bill C-51, a position supported by 17% of respondents in a recent poll (with plenty more undecided):

Boy, it's weird that a political party would take stand on a policy issue despite the public being less than fully on board at the moment.

Shorter Tim Naumetz on the Cons' position refusing to countenance any criticism of or change to Bill C-51, a view supported by 19% of the public in the exact same poll:

[crickets]

Juxtaposition

Verbatim Brad Wall then:

(W)e may -- possibly -- campaign on [privatizing liquor stores] in the next election, but people will be able to decide then. In other words, we would never change the act without a mandate to do so.

Shorter Saskatchewan Party response now to every invitation to make the case for any mandate during an actual election campaign:

[ERROR 404 CANDIDATES NOT FOUND]

Juxtaposition

On the one hand, there's what Canadian voters actually want...

(N)early 60 per cent of respondents support the idea of two or more parties forming a coalition government, if no party gains a majority of seats in October’s election.

And this:

By a margin of almost two-to-one, the voters of today would send Mr. Harper packing in favour of a coalition.

And this:

More than two-thirds of Liberal and NDP supporters favour the idea of the parties forming a coalition in the event of a Conservative minority in the Oct. 19 election, according to a new poll by Forum Research.

Of Liberal supporters surveyed, 68 per cent support a coalition, while 75 per cent of NDPers favour the idea –– about half of all Canadian voters.

And on the other hand, there's what Justin Trudeau is pretending we want:

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau says his party is always open to working with other parties on passing legislation, but he believes Canadians aren't looking for coalition government at this point.

When asked about the possibility of joining forces with the New Democrats to take power from the Conservatives, Trudeau said on Tuesday that "Canadians aren't interested in formal coalitions."

No word yet on what two-thirds of his own party's supporters should be considered if not "Canadians". But if Trudeau is going this far out of his way to mislead people as to what they want from their parties now, we have all the more reason to doubt that he'll be any more accurate or honest if he gets to decide who governs in a minority Parliament.

Juxtaposition II: Humanitarian Boogaloo

From one stunt...

The news of McCain's suspension drew gales of derision from the press. No one was willing to give him the slightest benefit of the doubt...that his motivations were anything less than craven...

McCainworld had assumed that the suspension would be viewed as an authentic, characteristic act of putting country first. But...McCain was now seen as a typical, and faintly desperate politician - and his campaign a campaign of stunts.

...to another:

Conservative candidate Chris Alexander has suspended his campaign for re-election in the riding of Ajax, Ont., in the wake of the Syrian refugee crisis.

Alexander cancelled a Thursday morning media appearance and is returning to Ottawa to focus on his ministerial responsibilities. They include looking into a case brought to the forefront Wednesday after disturbing images emerged showing a Syrian toddler's body washed up on a beach in Turkey.

In a statement, Alexander said "the tragic photo of young Aylan Kurdi and the news of the death of his brother and mother broke hearts around the world."

Meanwhile, Tabatha Southey calls out Alexander for still caring only about optics:

“Photo,” “images,” image,” talking point. A sense of what Alexander sees as the problem & where he’s going with it. https://t.co/GOtCIoquAh

— Tabatha Southey (@TabathaSouthey) September 3, 2015

And Tonda MacCharles notes how the Cons' campaign-only mentality will prevent Alexander from running even a public relations exercise from his office:

According to Chris Alexander's Ottawa office, all media relations spox are on leave until Oct. 19 working on election.

— Tonda MacCharles (@TondaMacC) September 3, 2015

Juxtaposition

In 2008, a floundering candidate for public office made a fool of himself by turning serious economic danger into an opportunity to showboat, only to find that nobody was buying his self-proclaimed leadership (Heilemann & Halperin, Game Change at p. 384-385):

McCain set off back to the Hilton. In the car he called Bush and informed him of his decision, and asked if the president would hold a meeting at the White House for him, Obama, and congressional leaders to discuss the bailout bill. Bush feared such a meeting would inject a destabilizing dose of politics into a fragile situation. He told McCain that his intercession would undercut Paulson and wasn't likely to help solve the problem. After hanging up, Bush instructed his aides, Find out what's going on here. But before they had a chance, McCain was on TV, standing at a lectern at the Hilton, announcing the suspension and calling on Bush to convene a conclave.
...
The news of McCain's suspension drew gales of derision from the press. No one was willing to give him the slightest benefit of the doubt...that his motivations were anything less than craven...

McCainworld had assumed that the suspension would be viewed as an authentic, characteristic act of putting country first. But...McCain was now seen as a typical, and faintly desperate politician - and his campaign a campaign of stunts.

In 2015, the same is happening in Canada:

Was there any concrete economic reason for Stephen Harper to call Stephen Poloz yesterday, as global stock markets continued their gyrations?  And then to have his office subsequently issue a cryptic and rather foreboding statement about the conversation?

Of course, Prime Ministers and central bank governors talk to each other every now and then — but these conversations, for obvious reasons, are rarely publicized.  And since we are in an election campaign, the meeting was all the more odd.

Poloz himself has no control over the actions of the markets.  And his response to any macroeconomic damage that results is limited to monetary policy adjustments (the next Bank of Canada interest rate decision is September 9), over which the Prime Minister is not supposed to have sway.

The Prime Minister himself can’t do anything about the market chaos, either.  Once the writ has dropped, the government switches into “caretaking” mode, and has no discretionary policy-making authority.

And there was nothing in yesterday’s gyrations, stomach-churning as they were for the buy-low-sell-high crowd, that indicated a need for emergency action by either the government or the Bank.  If anything, it was “par for the course” for speculative markets which are always driven by alternating waves of greed and fear.

So what was the point of the call?  Political optics, obviously — which explains why the PMO’s subsequent spin effort was more important than the phone call itself.

Politicians always follow the “look busy” rule: when bad things happen, they have to be seen to be responding, even if there is little likelihood their actions will have any effect. 

Which raises the question: who will be cast as Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber as the Cons' campaign follows the McCain path?

Juxtaposition

Stephen Harper plays chess:

Sources say Conservative planners did factor in testimony by Wright and Harper’s former legal counsel Perrin.

Once the testimony was over, they calculated, the sting would fade, and those voters who were inclined to believe Harper’s version would continue to do so. Those who never believed him would never vote for him anyway.

Just one problem with his strategy:

The vast majority of Canadians do not believe Stephen Harper is telling the truth about the Mike Duffy Senate expenses scandal, a new poll has found.

Some 56 per cent of respondents do not think Harper has come clean about a controversy that is dominating news coverage in the federal election campaign, according to the Forum Research survey.

Only 22 per cent said the Conservative leader has told the truth about his role in the Duffy affair, while 22 per cent don’t know.

So the Cons' entire campaign plan was based on pursuing a pool of voters inclined to believe him regardless of what came out in the Duffy trial. And that pool now consists of...22 per cent of Canadians.

We can only hope the Cons were right in figuring that "(t)hose who never believed him would never vote for him anyway".

Juxtaposition

ZOMG A CANDIDATE SAID UNFETTERED TARSANDS EXTRACTION WON'T GO ON FOREVER!!!! HERESY AGAINST OUR PETROLEUM OVERLORDS!!! THAT PARTY IS DOOMED!!! DOOMED I SEZ!!!

Also, pay no attention to this guy:

Justin Trudeau:  The reason environmental groups in Canada and across the United States are so concerned about Canadian oil is because Mr. Harper has turned the oil sands into the scapegoat around the world for climate change. He is – has put a big target on our oil sands, which are going to be an important part of our economy for a number of years to come, although we do have to get beyond them.

Update: Or indeed this one. 

Juxtaposition

The current Liberal leader, who apparently saw no reason to think his actions in the present might result in the loss of his party's self-proclaimed brand:

Trudeau said he finds Canadians he talks with when he travels are open to the idea of balancing security and rights. But he conceded that he may have underestimated the backlash, partly because he thought that as a Liberal he wasn’t vulnerable to being seen as lax on defending the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. (The Charter was, of course, introduced as part of the constitutional reforms ushered in by his late father, former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, in 1982.)

“I quite frankly—and this is maybe where I made a strategic or a calculation error—I didn’t think that people would be so divisive and so aggressive as to somehow make it seem like the Liberal party doesn’t care about the Charter,” he said.

The fate of the previous Liberal leader, in whose caucus that current leader served (via Paul Wells, The Longer I'm Prime Minister at p. 253-254):

(T)he truly striking gap was on the response to the question about which leader respondents regarded as "a patriotic Canadian". Harper's advantage there was thirty-four points, nearly double his next-widest margin.

Shortly before EKOS released that poll, I received an e-mail from a Harper advisor:

The simple fact that we are debating the "Canadianness" of the Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada is a victory for Conservatives. Iggy is now playing defence on the #1 brand attribute of the Liberal Party of Canada. Even after the sponsorship scandal the Liberals still owned being the "Canada Party." The party with the pan-Canadian vision. The party best able to keep the country together...Attacks on Iggy related to "arrogance and elitism" (e.g. the "arrogance spot") and/or "tax and spend" (e.g. the "economy" spot) are standard operating procedure - the personalization of negative brand attributes associated with the party itself. But the attacks on Ignatieff's long-term commitment to the country are much deeper and much more problematic for a Liberal.

On inevitable abuses

Justice James Stribopoulos sees the G20 human rights abuses as highlighting the problems with handing over poorly-defined powers to law enforcement:

In an essay published in a new book on policing during the summit, Justice James Stribopoulos blames the abuses that took place on an absence of specific legislation to “confine, structure and check police discretion” during large events, which he says is “long overdue.”

“Unfortunately, without that, the legal framework that helped facilitate the civil liberties abuses that marked the G20 Summit in Toronto will persist,” he writes in Putting the State on Trial. “And that, I fear, will make a repeat appearance somewhat inevitable.”

And surely the need for checks and balances is even more obvious when it comes to secret police. So let's see how the terror bill passed by the Cons and the Libs does on that front (emphasis added):

Bill C-51 erodes the distinction between CSIS’s traditional intelligence gathering role by giving it broad new powers to engage in law enforcement–type activities. Under Bill C-51, CSIS would be able to take “measures” to reduce threats to the security of Canada. For example, s. 12.1(1) of the proposed act states,

If there are reasonable grounds to believe that a particular activity constitutes a threat to the security of Canada, the Service may take measures, within or outside Canada, to reduce the threat. 

The power under s. 12.1 is broadly defined, giving CSIS virtually unfettered authority to conduct any operation it thinks is in the interest of Canadian security. The definitions are so broad that they could apply to almost anything...

Of course, it may take far more time for any "measures" to become known given that they can be carried out in secret. But we can safely say that C-51 is based on exactly the same philosophy of unfettered authoritarianism that led to the G20 abuses - and it's entirely foreseeable that we'll see the same results.

Juxtaposition

Sure, it might be tempting to say there's no difference at all between this...

The federal government touted a number of initiatives Wednesday for improving First Nations’ well-being but could not explain why a new report showed the prosperity gap between aboriginal and non-aboriginal people was widening in some cases.

The report, released by the federally appointed National Aboriginal Economic Development Board, found that First Nations living on reserves had shown the least improvement.

Relying on 2006 and 2011 census data, the report found the non-aboriginal employment rate went from 62.7 per cent to 61.2 per cent. For First Nations living on reserves, it dropped from 39 per cent to 35.4 per cent.

Large disparities in income levels remained. In 2010, average income was $18,586 among aboriginals on reserves and $30,266 off reserves. For non-aboriginals, the average was $41,052.

...and this:

China’s president, Xi Jinping, has told villagers in one of the most deprived areas of the country, where four children killed themselves last week by swallowing pesticide, that poverty is nothing to fear.

He made the comments in Huamao, a village in the south-western province of Guizhou, according to China’s official news agency.
...
Speaking to Caixin, a current affairs magazine, in the wake of the children’s deaths, Ye Jingzhong, a scholar from the China Agricultural University in Beijing, said: “Rural society is withering.”

Xi’s trip to Guizhou appeared partly designed to address such concerns. The ruling Communist party of China “cares a lot about farmers, particularly those in poverty, and has enacted various policies to boost rural development”, the president reportedly told villagers.

But there's certainly one distinction worth drawing. Unlike Stephen Harper, China's leaders at least deigned to show up in the general vicinity of the people they're telling to keep suffering through avoidable poverty.

Juxtaposition

Brad Wall's Saskatchewan Party is trumpeting the "success" of a hiring freeze in which the entire government saved $8 million in a quarter - or roughly $32 million per year - by not hiring staff.

Brad Wall's Saskatchewan Party has increased the cost of consultants in the Ministry of Highways alone by roughly $50 million per year by using more expensive outside contractors rather than hiring staff.

Anybody else think the Saskatchewan Party might be freezing the wrong kind of spending?

Juxtaposition

The minister responsible for the plight of Saskatchewan's homeless people:

In response to a CBC iTeam question about the waiting list for social housing faced by homeless people Harpauer said, “you’re assuming that there’s these desperate homeless people.”

The plight of Saskatchewan's homeless people:

Saskatoon police have confirmed that a 42-year-old homeless man was found dead inside the cab of a an abandoned semi-trailer in an alley off Avenue K.

...

There is no confirmation on the cause (of) Peequaquat’s death, but police said it did not appear suspicious.

Severight said he did have addictions issues and he had been homeless since being cut off social assistance.

I do hope Harpauer will clarify how much more desperate someone like Jerry Peequaquat needs to become in order to receive some help.

Juxtaposition

The Cons can't wait to lock up any refugee who might arrive in Canada on the wrong ship:

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney insists Canada’s new measures [including mandatory detention for every single passenger on a designated ship] will provide a strong deterrent to anyone thinking of paying a human smuggler to cross the Pacific...

Canada’s new law, C-31, requires mandatory detention for so-called “irregular arrivals” — to include arrivals by boat or cases where human smuggling is suspected. The detention will be reviewed after the first 14 days and then every six months. Previously, detention was reviewed every 30 days.

Asylum seekers will be detained until the Immigration and Refugee Board makes a decision on their claims or orders their release. That means people could be in detention for lengthy periods as their refugee claims move through the system.

The average processing time for claims is 18 months.

But they're more than prepared to look the other way when it comes to employers convicted of human trafficking:

Labour and business stakeholders say they're baffled by the Conservative government's recent removal of provisions from its Temporary Foreign Worker Program that would have barred criminal employers from participating.

In a notice on New Year's Day, the government said its original proposals aimed at employers convicted of human trafficking, sexually assaulting an employee or causing the death of a worker were "too rigid and cumbersome."

Because who wants to see our government deter employers from engaging in human trafficking when it can instead be used to detain the goods?

[Update: see more from Simon and Alison.]

Juxtaposition

Bert Brown this week, shedding crocodile tears over blind partisanship in the Senate:

The real problem, Brown told HuffPost, is that the overwhelming majority of senators don’t do the job they were appointed to do.

Senators are supposed to represent their province’s interest “but they don’t,” he said; they just follow what their party’s leadership tells them to do.

“They just vote either for Liberals or for Conservatives,” he said.

“I was there for five years and eight months and we voted everything that was voted to the Conservative government, every one. There was one guy who said who wanted to abstain once,” Brown recounted.

Senators toe the party line out of a sense of loyalty to the person who appointed them, the retired senator said.

Bert Brown less than two years ago, offering his view as to the duties of an appointed Senator:

"Every senator in this caucus needs to decide where their loyalty should be and must be. The answer is simple; our loyalty is to the man who brought us here, the man who has wanted Senate reform since he entered politics, the Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper," Brown wrote.

[Edit: fixed title.]

Juxtaposition

From Warren Bell's devastating comparison between the Peter Kent of yesteryear and the embarrassment he's become, here's Canada's environment minister on why we shouldn't worry our pretty little heads about the environment effects of the tar sands:

"One of the opposition parties has taken the treacherous course of leaving the domestic debate and heading abroad to attack a legitimate Canadian resource which is being responsibly developed and regulated," Kent told reporters.

So what is Kent doing to any system of responsible regulation which might once have existed? Let's ask James Munson:

The federal government is quietly removing in situ oilsands operations from the list of projects covered by its environmental assessments branch.

The move is an extension of the overhaul of federal environmental regulation for resource projects that began with last year’s budget bill. The public had until last Monday to consult the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) on its decision to drop in situ projects from its Regulations Designating Physical Projects list, which spells out all projects under its jurisdiction.

The change essentially keeps Ottawa out of most future oilsands development, since the bulk of remaining resources are too deep to be extracted by strip mining. Around 80 per cent of all oilsands will be mined in situ, say industry sources...

Now, I for one would have taken Kent's quote as a (however disingenuous) argument for the status quo rather than a perceived need for change. But he's now chosen to ensure that the vast majority of tar sands development proceeds without any federal environmental assessment whatsoever - meaning that he's definitely debunked any claim the Cons might have made to reasonable regulation.