Canadian Politics

Another longshot. It will be an interesting race.

I have no idea what Carney stands for other than fiscal management. As for Freeland, I hope she is not the front runner or successful. She makes me cringe. And she took out an excellent candidate when running against Linda McQuaig.

laine lowe wrote:

I have no idea what Carney stands for other than fiscal management. As for Freeland, I hope she is not the front runner or successful. She makes me cringe. And she took out an excellent candidate when running against Linda McQuaig.

Freeland could end up being the Canadian version of Hillary Clinton. Someone who is smart on a policy level but who doesn't resonate well enough with voters in a general election campaign.

I think Anita Anand is more articulate and charismatic than Freeland.

Webgear wrote:

John Ivison: What's the difference between a Liberal and a New Democrat these days? Accountability (msn.com)

Question Period in the House of Commons is the longest running farce in Canadian history but the slapstick hit new highs this week when NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh questioned Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the contents of the impending budget.

Will the government commit to the housing and dental-care policies the NDP has been championing, Singh asked, wide-eyed.

In characteristic fashion, Trudeau didn’t answer, beyond the usual blather about “having Canadians’ backs.”

But he didn’t need to. Singh knew the answers because, as he revealed at his press conference earlier in the day, he’d already been briefed about much of the budget’s contents.

John Ivison is a Conservative troll.

Today the environmental group Stand.earth accused the Trudeau government of lying about not spending more money on Trans Mountain. On April 29th the Trudeau Liberal government quietly gave a $10 billion loan guarantee for the construction of the Trans Mountain pipeline that only became public yesterday through Politico. Loan guarantees are considered subsidies by the World Trade Organization. This after PM Trudeau and Deputy PM Freeland promised in February that the Trudeau Liberal government would not spend any more money on Trans Mountain, a project whose costs keep climbing from the orignal purchase price of $4.5 billion and now has a "Projected cost of Trans Mountain pipeline jumps to $21.4B" (https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trans-mountain-cost-increase-1.6357169), a cost so high for this white elephant it prompted PM Trudeau and Deputy PM Freeland in February to tell the public not to worry, the government would not spend any more money on the project. The emissions from the tripling of Trans Mountain pipeline's carrying capacity of 71.1 million metric tons would be greater than all of BC's 2019 greenhouse gas emissions. 

Today the federal government not only announced $3.5 million for access to abortion out of a total initial election promise of $45 million, they sent ministers to CBC Power and Politics and CTV' Power Play to tell people that providing less than 10% of the promised abortion funding was great and somehow forgot to mention it was 0.0035% of the $10 billion just provided in loan guarantees for Trans Mountain. Neither Power and Politics or Power Play bothered to talk about the $10 billion loan guarantee. I guess they know where their bread is buttered. This is classic Liberal strategy -announce some tiny fraction, or none at all (think pharmacare, dental care, childcare promised since either 1993 or 1997 by the Liberals) of the total amount promised for some social program while leading the world in per capita fossil fuel subsidies at $78 billion in 2019 and 2020 according to Oil Change International, before adding on the $10 billion in loan guarantees (https://www.ctvnews.ca/climate-and-environment/canada-leads-g20-in-finan...). 

An environmental group has accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland of lying to Canadians about a high-profile pipeline project.

On February 18, Freeland declared that the federal government would not spend any additional money on the $21.4-billion Trans Mountain expansion.

 However on May 10, Politico reported that the cabinet has approved a $10-billion loan guarantee on April 29.

Stand.earth pointed out today (May 11) that the loan is being administered under the Canada Account at Export Development Canada, which a federal Crown corporation.

The environmental group also noted that loan guarantees are considered to be subsidies by the World Trade Organization. …

“This is just more evidence that this pipeline is not viable, and that is way past time that the Liberal government allowed this project to be cancelled," Sven Biggs, a spokesperson for Stand.earth, said in a news release. …

https://www.straight.com/finance/trudeau-government-provides-10-billion-...

Despite being reprimanded in 2016 by the UN regarding the "continued disparities in access to abortion in Canada", the Trudeau Liberals have failed to do anything to correct the problem. Although they have promised to greatly increase access to abortions, they failed to take any action to accomplish this until the leak of the US draft ban on abortion made the growing pressure on the issue a problem they could no longer ignore. However, this week they offered only $3.5 million of the promised $45 million to deal with the abortion access problem, an insignificant rounding error compared to the $10 billion they just offered in loan guarantees for completion of the ever more costly $21.4 billion Trans Mountain pipeline that is discussed in detail in post 42. And even this amount is only a small fraction of the $78 billion in the annual fossil fuel subsidies the Trudeau government gave out in each of 2019 and 2020. This tells us exactly what the priorities of this government are as climate change continues to get worse every year. Meanwhile, according to CTV News, only 4% of hospitals in Ontario, 6% of those in Alberta and Saskatchewan and 4% of hospitals in New Brunswick offer abortions. There is also very little access to the morning after pill in Canada despite the UN pointing this out in 2016. Below is Action Canada on Sexual Health and Right's analysis of the 2016 UN report on the failure of the Canadian government to provide significant access to abortion in much of the country. 

 On Friday November 18, 2016, the UN body responsible for assessing Canada’s progress on upholding women human rights (CEDAW) released its Concluding Observations to Canada. Central to Canada’s review was the issue of the accessibility, affordability, acceptability and quality of sexual and reproductive health services.

The UN Committee expressed grave concern regarding continued disparities in access to abortion in Canada. Only 1-in-6 hospitals provide abortion services with most service points (hospitals and clinics) located in large urban areas. Many provinces restrict the medically necessary service by denying coverage of abortion performed in clinics; by not requiring hospitals to perform abortions; and by placing gestational limits on abortion, thus forcing individuals to travel long distances at their own expense.

People in Canada also lack access to the World Health Organisation’s gold-standard drug for medical abortion (Mifegymiso), approved only recently under strict conditions which will severely limit its availability in Canada.

In addressing the many barriers to access abortion, the UN Committee called on Canada to ensure the exercise of conscientious objection does not impede women’s access to the service. Many provincial Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons have yet to amend their policies in line with human rights obligations to include effective referrals and mechanisms to seek redress or remedy for violations.

The UN Committee also urged Canada to ensure contraceptives are affordable, accessible and available to all women and girls. Individuals in Canada have a narrow range of contraceptive options with varying coverage for specific methods (i.e., implants are not available in Canada), leaving them to rely on the method they can afford rather than the method of their choice.

The UN Committee further called on Canada to establish national guidelines or standards to harmonize sexuality education curricula among provinces/territories and to hold provinces/territories accountable for implementing such guidelines or standards. There are severe discrepancies in content and delivery across the country as provinces are left to develop their own implementation, monitoring and evaluation strategies. In the absence of federal standards, young people and adolescents often lack the knowledge and skills required to lead healthy sexual and reproductive lives.

Finally, on the issue of sex work, the UN Committee called on Canada to “decriminalize women engaged in prostitution.” While this is a step forward, the recommendation fails to recognize that decriminalization requires the removal of all specific laws related to sex work, including those that criminalize clients and third parties. Canada’s Minister of Justice has committed to engage in an evidence-based review of sex work laws, in consultation with sex workers. Action Canada is working with sex workers and their allied organizations to ensure policy in this area is informed by evidence, not ideology.

“Canada must take immediate action to implement these recommendations,” said Sandeep Prasad, Executive Director of Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights. “The federal government is responsible to ensure that all people in Canada can fully exercise their sexual and reproductive rights. The federal government has an obligation to seriously engage provincial and territorial governments on issues like the availability and accessibility of medical and surgical abortion, access to contraceptives and standardized sexuality education that is human-rights based and comprehensive.”

https://www.actioncanadashr.org/about-us/media/2016-11-21-un-human-right...

Thanks JerryM