Vancouver lawyer Steven Ngo was in his car on the corner of Fraser Street and 41st Avenue in mid-April when two white men called him a harsh, racial slur. He thought he misheard, so he rolled down his window. They responded by throwing garbage at him.
Incensed, he went to the Vancouver police website to report what happened. And hit a roadblock.
The VPD website said people who have experienced hate, prejudice or bias because of ethnicity should call the police non-emergency number. He did, but after waiting on hold 30 minutes, he gave up.
Then he found there are reporting forms offered on the VPD’s website. But there are only two versions. One uses traditional Chinese characters and the other simplified Chinese characters.
As Ngo, who is ethnic Chinese and Vietnamese, put it: “Not all Asians are Chinese, and if you are Chinese, you may not read or write Chinese.”
His mother, who is Cantonese, could use the form, he said. His father, who is Vietnamese, could not.
Not having an English form was the most egregious thing to him.
“It’s a serious oversight and is a systemic barrier that actively prevents people from reporting hate crimes,” said Ngo.
Last year, the VPD said, there was a 717 per cent jump in the number of reports it received about anti-Asian hate crimes. There were 98 of them in 2020, up from 12 the year before.
Ngo wondered if this figure might have been higher if there weren’t the barriers to reporting that he experienced.
VPD Sgt. Steve Addison VPD said the majority of the reports made to police in 2020 were made by phone and the online forms are used infrequently.
He said the form were created last year after there was a spike in hate crimes: “Many of these crimes occurred in Chinatown and Strathcona and the forms were meant to be an extra option for people who wished to report incidents.”
Addison told Ngo that there can be delays when calling the emergency line, but calls to 911 as an incident is happening offers access to “a translation service for those who can’t communicate effectively in English” and that the VPD workforce speaks more than 50 languages.
He reached out to other lawyers and together they translated the VPD’s Chinese-language form into English and several other Asian languages including Vietnamese, Tagalog, Korean and Japanese.
it’s working with community groups to develop a hotline for reporting racist activities.
“When comparing our province with communities across North America on a per capita basis, there can be no doubt we are a major hot spot for anti-Asian racism,” Attorney-General David Eby said in a statement.
He said the hotline was considered because people may be reluctant to call police and there may be “an under-reporting of the scope of the problem.”
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Monday was an absolutely hideous day if what you wanted was clear, useful, confidence-boosting communication about COVID-19 vaccines in Canada. If you wanted…the horrible opposite of that, then it was a good outing.
First up was the National Advisory Council on Immunization (NACI), whose press conferences must increasingly be viewed like incoming meteorites by public health agencies who have to figure out how to educate and reassure a jumpy public after each one.
NACI is an independent group of experts who serve on a volunteer basis to advise the Public Health Agency of Canada on the administration of vaccines approved for use in this country. The advisory group has been around since the 1960s working in gentle obscurity, but in the last few months as COVID vaccines have poured into Canada and the third wave of the pandemic raged, NACI has been thrust under a glaring real-time spotlight in which it has struggled to communicate clearly and effectively with the public.
In Monday’s press conference, NACI Vice-chair Dr. Shelley Deeks provided an update on the Janssen vaccine (also known as Johnson & Johnson), saying the advisory group recommended that, like AstraZeneca, it should be offered to people age 30 and up “if the individual prefers an earlier vaccine rather than waiting for an mRNA vaccine and if the benefits outweigh the risks.”
A reporter asked for clarification on why NACI was now saying that the mRNA vaccines—Pfizer and Moderna—were a better choice than AstraZeneca and Janssen, which work on viral vector technology. “Can you just tell us, are you now saying don't take the first vaccine that's offered, wait for the one you want?” he asked.
“So what we're saying is that—and what we've said all along is that—the mRNA vaccines are the preferred vaccine,” Dr. Deeks replied. “The viral vector vaccines are very effective vaccines but there is a safety signal…and the issue with the safety signal is that although it's very rare, it is very serious. And so, individuals need to have an informed choice to be vaccinated with the first vaccine that's available or to wait for an mRNA vaccine.”
To which much of Canada responded: “I’m sorry, you’ve been saying what all along?”
In recent months, very rare instances of Vaccine Induced Immune Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia (VIIT) associated with the AstraZeneca and Janssen vaccines have caused some jurisdictions to pause the use of those vaccines and have unsettled the public at large. The risk of this serious adverse event has been pegged around one in 100,000, but even with COVID cases skyrocketing, younger patients becoming sicker and dying and hospitals bursting at the seams, side effect worries caused “vaccine shopping,” with viral vector vaccines languishing in refrigerators while some people waited for an option they perceived as better.
In response, the constant mantra for everyone from public health officials to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau—who himself got the AstraZeneca vaccine on April 23—was “Take the first vaccine you’re offered.”
But then suddenly, there was NACI adding an enormous caveat to that, and telling everyone this is what they should have known all along.
A short time later in question period in the virtual House of Commons, Michelle Rempel Garner, the Conservative health critic, asked Health Minister Patty Hajdu to clarify. “What does Health Canada advise? This is a lot different than what we’ve been hearing, taking the first vaccine offered or wait if you can for an mRNA vaccine?” she asked.
Hajdu began by thanking NACI—the same advisory group that had just sparked widespread anxiety and resentment with their muddled communications—”for their ongoing work” helping provinces and territories decide how to deliver vaccines to Canadians. Then she said, “If any Canadian is questioning whether a vaccine is right for them, the best place to get information is from their health-care professional.”
Rempel Garner emitted an incredulous snort and tried again: your answer is going to leave a lot of Canadians confused, just like that press conference, so as the health minister, tell Canadians what they’re supposed to do. “What is the advice from Health Canada, take the first vaccine that is offered, no matter what it is, or if you can, if you work from home or whatever, wait for an mRNA vaccine?” she asked. “What is it?”
Now, a brief pause in the proceedings for context.
Rempel Garner has not always been a good-faith interrogator of the government over the last several months. As she did in her exchange with Hajdu, she routinely conflates NACI (which advises on how to administer vaccines) with Health Canada (which regulates drugs in Canada, and which has stoutly maintained that all of the COVID vaccines it has approved are safe for use) when it suits her rhetorical purposes. In the fall, she sent the government digging into every filing cabinet and hard drive it has to satisfy a massive document dump required by a motion she put forward for the health committee to study the government’s pandemic response.
Rempel Garner often relishes playing a critic role a little too much, but the questions she asked Hajdu on Monday were good and necessary ones.
Hajdu decided not to see it that way, adopting a delicately aghast air. “Mr. Speaker, it’s somewhat disconcerting to see the member opposite trying to instil fear in our health-care institutions that of course guide patients toward the best medication for them,” she said. “For her to imply that patients would not get that expertise, advice from their medical professionals is really a lack of confidence in all of our provincial and territorial partners who are doing so much work to ensure that Canadians get the right vaccine for them.”
Later in the day, on CTV’s Power Play, Dr. Caroline Quach-Thanh, chair of NACI, somehow made things so, so much worse.
First, she explained that all of this depends on where people live: if you live in a place with high COVID risk (she did not specify what that would mean), absolutely get the first vaccine available to you. But if you’re in a low-risk area or you work from home, given the flood of mRNA vaccines coming into Canada, maybe you should consider waiting a few weeks for Pfizer or Moderna, which don’t have a “safety signal” linked to them.
What came next was one of those moments you sometimes get in statements or interviews with public officials, where you can pinpoint in real-time the single sentence they utter that is going to obliterate everything else. Quach-Thanh inexplicably chose to express the very low risk of a serious blood clot in the most emotional and dramatic narrative way possible—the sort of framing that lodges in people’s minds and conversations, whirling around over and over like an anxiety carousel.
"This needs to be an informed consent," she said. "If, for instance, my sister was to get the AstraZeneca vaccine and die of a thrombosis when I know that it could have been prevented and she's not in a high-risk area, I'm not sure I could live with it."
Host Evan Solomon’s eyebrows jumped as he immediately interjected to point out how rare those blood clots are, that ordinary people don’t always assess risk rationally and they get into their cars all the time to drive somewhere when that stands a greater chance of seriously injuring them. Quach-Thanh immediately agreed with all of that, which made her explosive depiction of risk seconds earlier even more puzzling.
There was plenty of fear and lack of confidence over Canadian COVID vaccines in the air on Monday, but despite what Patty Hajdu said, Michelle Rempel Garner was not the cause of it.
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stressed vaccinations are the only way for Canada to return to normal Tuesday, but did not directly contradict the advice of an expert panel that said Canadians should wait for an mRNA vaccine if they can.
On Monday, the National Advisory Council on Immunization (NACI) said that while the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines were effective they should only be used in people over 30 due to a rare blood clot risk.
NACI also advised Canadians who can wait to hold out for an mRNA vaccine, like Pfizer or Moderna, because they were more effective and did not come with the same blood clot risk.
But critics accused NACI of sowing anxiety and confusion with recommendations that conflicted with Health Canada, who advises that AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson can be given to anyone over 18.
Asked about the contradiction on Tuesday, Trudeau stressed that people should get vaccinated as soon as possible, because vaccines were the best way to end the pandemic.
“The longer we wait, the longer it takes, the slower before we get back to normal, the slower before we get to drive down case numbers across the country,” he said. “Every single vaccine available in Canada has been approved by Health Canada as being both safe and effective.”
Trudeau didn’t directly challenge NACI’s advice, but said Canadians should be considering how quickly they want the pandemic to end when they decide whether to wait for a different vaccine.
“It is a good thing that we get to hear from a broad range of medical experts and doctors, making recommendations to keep us safe. Bottom line is we need all of us to get vaccinated, as quickly as possible, so we can get back to normal,” he said.
NACI’s advice for Canadians to wait for an mRNA vaccines was based on a rare risk of blood clots, which have happened seven times in Canada after about two million AstraZeneca shots have been administered. Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine has been administered to eight million Americans with just 17 cases of the rare clots reported.
Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam said NACI was using the best data they had with a new virus and new vaccines constantly bringing forward new information.
“It’s hard for people to understand, evolving science and evolving data. That’s been so difficult for so many people throughout the pandemic,” she said.
Canada is experiencing a high caseload in many parts of the country with extreme pressures being placed on hospitals and ICU beds. Tam said under those circumstances waiting on a perfect vaccine was putting yourself at risk.
“The longer you wait to get vaccinated, the longer that you’re not protected,” she said.
Dr. David Naylor, a former president of the University of Toronto who wrote the SARS report reviewing Canada’s effort during that crisis, said NACI was sending a terrible message about vaccines that are effective.
“I really worry that Canada will be the only country in the world to manage to create buyer’s remorse about a vaccine we provided free of charge to Canadians,” Naylor told CBC News on Tuesday.
He said comparing the efficacy of the mRNA vaccines against AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson was an imperfect comparison, because the mRNA vaccines were tested at different times, in different places, and didn’t face as many variants of the virus.
He said NACI was sending a message that those who had already rolled up their sleeves for AstraZeneca made a mistake.
“It’s an unsettling message because it suggests you got the second best vaccine,” he said. “Let’s not get into Gucci versus Rolex versus no-name branding vaccines based on questionable effectiveness comparisons.”
Conservative health critic Michelle Rempel Garner said the government had to do better to provide clear advice to Canadians on vaccines.
“What Canadians need is clear, concise, and constant communications when it comes to vaccine use. Conservatives have been calling for this for weeks. The buck stops with the Health minister. She must immediately fix this problem of her creation. Lives are at stake,” she said in a statement.
NACI’s advice doesn’t change Health Canada’s authorization for the vaccines, which still allows it to be used in anyone over the age of 18. NACI’s recommendations can also be ignored by provincial governments when they roll out the vaccines.
In the short-term, the problem of which vaccine to take is a theoretical issue, because the vast majority of vaccines in Canada are Pfizer and Moderna.
In addition to two million Pfizer doses, which are arriving this week and in every week this month, Procurement Minister Anita Anand announced that one million Moderna doses set to arrive next week would arrive Wednesday instead. Moderna’s shipments have been inconsistent since early March, arriving late or with fewer vaccines that expected, but Anand said the company was working with the government to set up a more reliable schedule.
The government has 300,000 doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine in the country, but they are being held due to quality control concerns. Anand said she expected more deliveries of the vaccine in June.
There have been 2.3 million doses of AstraZeneca shipped to the country so far and Anand said she was confident there would be many more soon, even though specific details were not available.
“Prior to the end of June, we expect to have almost double that amount. We will continue to press the supplier, as well as all other sources, for an expedited delivery of AstraZeneca into this country.”
Politics and journalism share the dubious distinction of being activities where no prior experience is considered necessary.
You could be, say, a teacher and end up as prime minister, or a graphic designer who becomes health minister.
What you do need, though, is an ability to walk the line.
For this government at this time, the line is that the best COVID vaccine is the first one that is made available.
Opinion research shows the government has had some success, with Canadians less hesitant than Americans, Germans or the French.
But that progress was threatened by the muddled recommendation issued by the National Advisory Committee on Immunization this week. In a press conference that should be studied by future generations of communicators for its epic incongruity, chair Caroline Quach-Thanh and vice-chair Shelly Deeks pointed out that, while the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is highly efficacious at preventing critical illness and hospitalization, it also carries some risk (there have been 17 cases of blood clots from the eight million doses administered in the U.S.)
Consequently, the advisory council recommended it only be offered to individuals over 30 who preferred an earlier vaccination, rather than waiting for Pfizer or Moderna mRNA shots.
NACI previously expressed its reservations about another viral vector-based vaccine produced by AstraZeneca, suggesting it should not be given to those older than 65. A later recommendation stated AstraZeneca should not be given to anyone under 55. Both recommendations contradicted Health Canada’s position that the vaccine could be given to anyone older than 18.
In media interviews later in the day, Quach-Thanh, a professor at the Université de Montréal, added a note of alarm to the confusion. “If my sister was to get the AstraZeneca vaccine and then died of thrombosis when I knew it could have been prevented … I’m not sure I could live with it,” she told CTV’s Power Play.
The reaction from other health care professionals was immediate and uniform. David Naylor, head of the National COVID-19 Immunity Task Force, told CBC he worries that Canada could become the only country in the world where “buyer’s remorse” develops among people who have already been vaccinated. Naylor pointed out that all vaccines do well at protecting against COVID and that vaccines can only be compared directly after head-to-head clinical trials, something which has not happened in any jurisdiction.
“It is an unsettling message because it suggests you got the second-best vaccine (if you got Janssen or AstraZeneca)” he said.
NACI’s suggestion that Canadians in COVID hotspots should take one of the two viral vector- based vaccines, leaving the mRNA vaccines like Pfizer and Moderna to less effected populations sends a “terrible signal,” he said .”Let’s not get into Gucci verses Rolex versus no-name branding.”
NACI’s role has always been complementary to that of Health Canada, which assesses vaccines for safety, efficacy and manufacturing quality. It is an external group that provides government with independent advice and it is meant to take into consideration the broader real-world situation. Yet in this case, it seems to have overlooked the context that all vaccines save lives and the more people who are inoculated, the safer everyone else will be.
Thankfully, everyone else gets that. Or almost everyone.
It should probably be assumed by this point that Patty Hajdu, the health minister, will take a day or two to adapt to changing circumstances. In question period on Monday, Conservative health critic, Michelle Rempel Garner, pointed out that many Canadians will be confused by NACI’s recommendation. Should they take the first vaccine offered or make an informed choice about waiting for mRNA vaccines? “What is the advice from Health Canada?” she asked.
This was the perfect opportunity for the minister to walk the line.
But she flubbed it, saying Canadians should consult their health care professional to see which vaccine is right for them.
The Conservative MP repeated her question, causing the minister to fly into a synthetic rage. “It is somewhat disconcerting to see the member opposite try to instil fear in our health care institutions… For her to imply that patients would not get that expertise and advice from medical professionals is really a lack of confidence in all our provincial and territorial partners,” she said.
If I were the prime minister, I would be expressing a lack of confidence in my health minister right about now – a repeat offender when it comes to putting her foot in it.
It was left to Trudeau in his regular news conference to steady the ship and point out that people should take the first vaccine offered to them. “Our advice to Canadians has not changed. Make sure you get your shot. Vaccines work.”
Hajdu was back on track later in the day in question period, when she made clear she was unwavering in her opinion that Canadians should accept the first shot offered. “We can be part of the solution,” she said, with the resounding confidence possessed only by those who live life in constant confusion.
It would be amusing, if only the stakes weren’t so high.
to have Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan answer a question about the cancellation of a defence committee meeting earlier in the day — rather than the committee’s chair, Liberal MP Karen McCrimmon, who was apparently responsible for cancelling the meeting.
Rodriguez apologized for the unparliamentary language, but his outburst revealed the Liberals’ increasing frustration over a scandal that threatens to shatter their carefully cultivated feminist identity — and the progressive voter support that comes with it.
At the cancelled meeting, the committee was supposed to debate whether Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s chief of staff, Katie Telford, should be called to testify on what the PMO knew in 2018 regarding sexual misconduct allegations against former chief of defence staff Jonathan Vance. Sajjan stands accused of refusing to investigate the allegations when they were initially raised, before Vance retired in January.
, Sajjan demurred five times when asked whether he knew at the time the complaints against Vance were sexual in nature.
But last month, Elder Marques, one of Trudeau’s former advisers, suggested to the committee that Telford was previously aware of the allegations against Vance. Smelling a coverup, the Tories and the NDP asked to hear from Telford. Then last Friday, the Liberals filibustered the debate on calling Telford to testify, prompting Conservative leader Erin O’Toole on Monday to call for her to be fired.
Shortly thereafter, the committee website announced — surprise, surprise — that the meeting to debate calling Telford as a witness had been cancelled. McCrimmon’s office provided no explanation. The opposition parties then sought answers in question period, prompting Rodriguez’ salty splutter.
Of all the parliamentary hearings currently taking place, those happening at the defence committee could well prove to be the government’s Achilles heel. Last week, Maj. Kellie Brennan dropped the bombshell that Vance had not only conducted a relationship with her for years while in a position of power over her,
. Previously, Gary Walbourne, who was military ombudsman in 2018, testified that Sajjan was aware of the sexual nature of complaints against Vance, but refused to look at evidence when Walbourne presented it to him. (Another woman
. If he was, of course, he would be hard pressed to explain why he gave Vance a raise and a promotion shortly after the allegations were made — and why he and Sajjan allowed Vance to continue presiding over an investigation into sexual misconduct within the forces with the general facing accusations of his own.
But if Telford is forced to take the stand, she will be in the uncomfortable position of putting her loyalty to the prime minister ahead of her feminist principles. Just as he did in the SNC Lavalin scandal, Trudeau may end up throwing a strong woman under the bus to save his own skin.
Telford may not be as high profile as Jody Wilson-Raybould was. But she is still well known, and liked, by Liberal partisans. If she ends up taking the fall for her boss, it will be one more nail in the coffin for Trudeau’s feminist bona fides — at a time when he can ill afford it.
For when it comes to women, the Canadian military is a mess. Outside the committee, more and more allegations of sexual misconduct continue to surface. This past Sunday, Lt.-Gen. Wayne Eyre, acting chief of the defence staff,
, following revelations that Dawe wrote a letter in support of a soldier found guilty of sexual assault.
The fact that these situations continue unabated under the current government shows that Trudeau cannot reconcile his feminist image with action. And that could leave the Liberals with a lot more to curse about than a misdirected question.
OTTAWA — The United States is “highly unlikely” to order the shutdown of a critical cross-border oil pipeline ahead of a looming deadline next week, Canada’s chief negotiator on the file says.
Last November, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer called for the shutdown of Line 5, a crucial conduit that cuts across the Great Lakes and supplies oil and other petroleum products to a major refinery in Ontario. Her directive, which cited concerns over potential oil spills, sought to block the pipeline by May 13.
Canadian officials have been pressing the U.S. on several fronts to ensure the pipeline remains in operation, arguing that a forced shutdown would deeply wound Canada-U.S. relations and crimp supplies of vital products like jet fuel and gasoline to Ontario and Quebec.
But Joe Comartin, Consul General of Canada in Detroit, said the valves are unlikely to be shut off next week as such a move would require a confirmatory order by a federal or state-level judge. The state of Michigan has, meanwhile, entered into official talks with the pipeline operator, Calgary-based Enbridge Inc., and may therefore be hesitant to interfere with the discussions by applying for a court-ordered shutdown.
“It’s highly unlikely that any judge will issue that kind of a confirmatory order at this period,” Comartin said.
Threats to shut down the pipeline have reinforced the heavy energy interdependence between Canada and the U.S., and could complicate relations between the two countries should they fail to reach a settlement on the issue. The U.S. imports roughly 80 per cent of Canada’s total oil output, or 3.7 million barrels per day.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau raised Line 5 in a virtual meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden back in February, and several Liberal Cabinet ministers have been in contact with U.S. officials on Line 5. Enbridge has said it would not shut down the line at Michigan’s request and has appealed the order in U.S. federal court.
The federal judge overseeing the dispute tapped Gerald Rosen, the U.S. lawyer who masterminded the $820-million bailout of the city of Detroit, to act as a mediator between the state and Enbridge.
The two parties are set to conclude their third and final round of meetings around the end of this week, and officials are hopeful that an agreement can be reached.
“Our assessment of where the Biden administration is on the issue right now is it’s waiting to see how the federal litigation goes,” Comartin said. He said the Biden team “appears hopeful” that the mediated talks can bring about a resolution “without any need for the federal government to engage.”
Officials at Canada’s embassy in Washington have also been in meetings with State Department officials, Comartin said, in an effort to keep the Biden administration up to date on the issue.
“There’s been extensive contact by Canada with the U.S. federal administration,” he said.
Line 5 currently delivers 540,000 barrels per day of oil and other petroleum products from Superior, Wis., to refineries in Sarnia, Ont. The pipeline is a part of Enbridge’s Mainline system that brings roughly 2.8 million barrels of oil — more than half of Canada’s total production — from northern Alberta to the U.S. Midwest every day.
All of the jet fuel used at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport is made in Sarnia, and distributed through Line 5. It also carries propane used to heat homes in northern Michigan and Ontario, and supports thousands of jobs on both sides of the border.
Enbridge and others have argued that a shutdown of Line 5 would only place a greater dependence on other forms of transportation that are less safe, equal to 2,000 trucks or 800 rail cars making a one-way trip every day.
Experts on the issue have long said that a complete shutdown of the pipeline is unlikely, particularly because Michigan State would have to prove its jurisdictional right over the federal government to stop the flow of oil.
Still, Canadian officials have readied a number of potential moves should the shutdown be enforced, including a plan to invoke the 1977 Transit Pipelines Treaty, an obscure agreement designed to stop either Canada or the U.S. from impeding the flow of petroleum products.
Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan last month said that the continued operation of Line 5 was “non-negotiable,” and that Canada has been “extremely clear” in its communication with the U.S.
The Michigan order would effectively revoke a 1953 easement that allows Line 5 to cross the Straits of Mackinac, a narrow channel connecting Lake Huron and Lake Michigan.
Governor Whitmer, a Biden ally, has sought to shut down the 70-year-old pipeline over concerns of a potential oil spill that could spoil a crucial Michigan waterway. Her argument echoes concerns raised by environmental groups, who have opposed the operation of aging pipelines even in cases where those pipelines are set to be replaced or converted.
Enbridge plans to build a new tunnel for Line 5 that would burrow beneath the Straits of Mackinac, replacing the current line that rests at the bottom of the lake and
The replacement, according to the company, would greatly reduce the chance of accidents and remove the pipeline from the waterway. The replacement project has received regulatory approval from the U.S. transport department, and is expected to be completed in 2024.
VICTORIA — An all-party committee of the B.C. legislature is asking the public whether to continue the taxpayer subsidy for political parties that was brought in by the New Democrats four years ago.
The annual allowance has already paid almost $15 million to the New Democrats, B.C. Liberals and Greens. They are on track to collect a further $5 million by July 1, 2022, when the allowance expires unless extended by the legislature — which is the question before the committee and the subject of virtual public hearings that start later this week.
Before the 2017 election, NDP leader John Horgan flatly denied he intended to provide taxpayer subsidies for political parties, mocking the accusation as “alternative facts” from then Premier Christy Clark.
“More distortion, more fabrication, more making stuff up for the premier,” said Horgan. “At no time have I said that I prefer to make public dollars responsible for political parties.”
Within weeks of taking office, the New Democrats tabled legislation providing $2.50 in public funding for every vote a party garnered in the 2017 election, dropping to $1.75 this year and next. The reversal was all Horgan’s doing according to the NDP’s partner in power, then Green leader Andrew Weaver.
“We did not push for the subsidy,” said Weaver.
Horgan defended the subsidy as a necessary offset to the NDP decision to ban corporate and union donations. He explained it as “a transition fund and it will be gone at the end of this mandate.” He meant it would expire just after the Oct. 16, 2021 fixed election date that the New Democrats enacted at about the same time as the allowance.
Later he reneged on the fixed election date as well, calling a snap election and putting the government into caretaker mode in the middle of the pandemic.
The B.C. Liberals denounced Horgan’s flip-flop as “disgusting” and voted against the enabling legislation. But when the first instalment of the allowance arrived at party headquarters in January of 2018 — it was for almost $1 million and the first of two for the year — the Liberals cashed the cheque. They have somehow found the strength to swallow their disgust and bank the allowance ever since.
After the 2020 election, the Liberals appear to need the subsidy more than ever. The party ended the year with a $2 million deficit while the New Democrats reported a $3 million surplus and the Greens came out $1.3 million ahead. The Liberal entitlement from the allowance is down from $1.6 million last year to $1.1 million this year. Their vote tally dropped by about 20 per cent in 2020 and the base calculation for the allowance is down from $2 to $1.75 a vote.
The New Democrats gained enough votes in 2020 over 2017 to ensure that their subsidy will hold at about $1.6 million this year. The Greens dropped votes as well and their allowance is down about $170,000 to $500,000. The B.C. Conservatives got enough votes in the ridings where they ran candidates to qualify for an allowance of $63,000. The Rural B.C. Party stands to collect $1,300.
These amounts are separate from a second entitlement whereby taxpayers are also obliged to cover half of the valid campaign spending by the major parties. Once the claims are audited, the payout is expected to be in the $10 million range. And that reimbursement is not subject to the sunset clause or the committee review.
Horgan characterized the two allowances, totalling an estimated $30 million, as “only a modest cost to taxpayers in the grand scheme of things.”
Taxpayers have until May 28 to submit their views to the committee, which to that end has established an email address: electionactcommittee@leg.bc.ca. Those inclined to make a presentation on line can request a spot at one of the virtual hearings, starting Thursday.
The four New Democrats, two Liberals and one Green on the committee have until Sept. 1 to report to the legislature with recommendations on whether the allowance should be paid after 2022 and if so at what amount and for how long. Don’t be surprised if members see no conflict of interest in voting to keep the money flowing into party accounts.
Chief Electoral Officer Anton Boegman is neutral on those questions. But he did suggest that if the committee decides to maintain the allowance, it should tweak the dates for the twice-a-year payouts, currently Jan. 1 and July 1.
“They are holidays and banks are closed,” explained Boegman. “The approach that we have taken is to make these payments to the designated financial accounts on the day following, and that has not proved to be an issue with the recipients.”
No surprise there either — despite the delay, the parties still managed to bank the money without complaint.
•
David Rosenberg was the lawyer who successfully argued the Tsilhqot’in Aboriginal title case at the Supreme Court of Canada, not Jack Woodward as I wrongly reported in a piece on the passing of Tom Berger last Friday. My apologies to both — and especially to Rosenberg — for getting it wrong. “Although I was there, sitting in the courtroom beside the clients, having co-signed the factum with David, it was David who stood up and presented the very fine and persuasive arguments that won the day,” as Woodward put it in a note to me.
Dr. Chowdhury gets top points for being diplomatic about calling our leaders to task, asking that we hold them accountable and not blameworthy. I’ll play along with that, but it is vital that we ask questions and determine answers for critical events in the attempt to deal with COVID-19.
Who is accountable for the botched order of vaccine from China and the scurry to find alternate sources for vaccine when China cancelled the deal? The delay in finding new sources, coming into the market when almost every other country had already cornered the market, created a delay in getting our deliveries and put us behind the 8-ball. Additionally, who is accountable for extending the date of second vaccination, supposedly to allow more to receive the first jab? Wise or expedient?
Who is accountable for ordering massive additional numbers of doses down the line to compensate for lack of in-time delivery, as if that would help?
Further, who is accountable for the inability to deliver enough vaccines in time to avoid most of the third wave, putting Canada into record case counts, hospitalizations and deaths?
Lots of other questions need to be asked, including the actual effects of lockdowns and closures, causing our economy massive losses and hardship for countless citizens. What about the late decisions on border closures from the hot spots? At this stage of the game, should we have been informed about the practice of giving vaccines to someone who has already been through a bout of the virus? Do we know?
We do not yet know about all the consequences of our governments’ attempts to quell the virus, for which authorities will have to be held accountable. Don’t hold your breath waiting for these folks to step forward with their mea culpas.
Allan Garneau, Harrison Hot Springs, B.C.
Now is not the time to see who is at fault for Canada’s mediocre attempts to curb the spread of COVID-19. But at some point in time, accountability must be reckoned with in face of the needless suffering and deaths endured by so many Canadians. It didn’t have to be this way. If only our federal and provincial governments had worked together from the get-go rather than waiting until the next guy made his or her move or turning the whole matter into a competition in an attempt to enhance political fortunes.
Donald Cangiano, Oakville, Ont.
I see that U.S. President Joe Biden is looking at opening the United States by July 4th. Thanks to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s boondoggle of a vaccination rollout, we in Canada are looking forward to July 1, when we can hopefully open a Tim Hortons.
How can a sign written in the Chinese language generate anti-Asian sentiment when the only readers of the sign would be persons familiar with the Chinese language?
Maybe it would have been a little more constructive for MPPs Vincent Ke and Aris Babikian to commend Dr. Kester Kong for his efforts to protect his patients during the pandemic.
I can only imagine how stressful it must be to be a medical professional at the current time. Does Dr. Kong truly deserve this criticism from two members of our legislature?
Terry Glavin’s column is an excellent roundup of the loss of any vestige of democracy and freedom in Hong Kong. But then what did anyone expect?
Even before the British lease on the colony was coming to an end, many were fleeing in anticipation of the inevitable clampdowns that were sure to follow. It is somewhat miraculous that it has taken Xi Jinping this long to assert the powers of the autocratic regime he commands.
The suppression of democracy there, is just a small incident. Xi’s plans are on display in various ways all over the world. He is powerful and patient.
Of all of the federal government’s 36 Cabinet posts, with their associated departmental costs, the Minister of Middle Class Prosperity is the obvious choice for the knife.
Surely we can govern our country with no more than 20 or so Cabinet departments. Our many democratic allies around the world do so with much larger populations.
Our good friends to the south have 15 Cabinet positions with 333 million citizens.
Let the trimming begin.
Brian Davidson, Pincourt, Que.
•••
Regulating the internet: 'Even Donald Trump did not try this'
Even Donald Trump, for all his ranting about “fake news,” did not try to acquire for his government the power to arbitrarily decide what people could post on the internet. Imagine if he had!
Hugh McCoy, Toronto
•••
The National Post welcomes letters to the editor (preferably 150 words or fewer). Letters should be emailed to letters@nationalpost.com. Please include your name, place of residence (town or city and province) and daytime phone number. Letters may be edited for length or clarity.
Up to now, the federal government’s attempts to bring clean drinking water to First Nations have been dominated by slick photo-ops to show off the expensive new infrastructure that has been put in place. But once the cameras are turned off and the politicians have gone home, many communities have been left in the lurch.
Though the federal Liberals failed to live up to their 2015 campaign promise to end all First Nations boil water advisories within five years, they have had some success solving water and wastewater woes with large, expensive capital assets. This response is not altogether misplaced, as infrastructure and technology are essential for clean water.
But this policy approach is, in many ways, akin to buying a new car every time you get a flat tire. Ministers have made big purchases, but rarely provided the necessary resources to run them and support their upkeep.
However, Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller, who has been at the post since late 2019, appears to understand the critical importance of operations and maintenance (O&M). First Nations officials — both elected leaders and managers of public utilities — have been clamouring about this issue for as long as I can remember.
In my previous career, I was an analyst on the water and wastewater file at what is now Indigenous Services Canada (ISC). Ten years ago, in April 2011, the department released the
. The extensive study highlighted the need for significant investments in water infrastructure to address decades of neglect, as well as costing estimates to operate and maintain the infrastructure.
Despite the dreadful picture that the 2011 national assessment painted, the previous Conservative government did little to remediate water conditions in First Nations. The Liberals, however, have made remarkable investments since tabling their first budget in 2016. In the last five years, the Liberals have spent about $2 billion on water and wastewater and, just last December, Miller announced an additional $1.5 billion.
These figures are impressive. This level of expenditure on First Nations water quality has never been seen before. But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are not much different than Stephen Harper’s Conservatives in substance, even though they’re spending much more money.
Like the Conservatives, the Liberals seem to be seduced by the same promises of photo-ops, ribbon-cutting and news releases that accompany the completion of pricey infrastructure projects. The Indigenous Services Canada website is filled with celebratory announcements and provides a very
of infrastructure projects and investments. It’s all a bit self-congratulatory and pandering.
When a new water treatment plant is built, or an old one breaks down, politicians see it as an opportunity to warm up to embittered Indigenous communities. The problem begins the moment the asset is turned on and the minister has left the community after the pomp and photographs.
Oftentimes, communities are given few resources to properly operate and maintain the new treatment facilities. First Nations authorities find themselves scrambling to find the revenue to pay for the estimated 30- to 50-year life cycle of their new treatment plants. The problem is that ISC takes a laissez-faire, “you’ll figure it out,” approach to First Nations water infrastructure.
Water and wastewater treatment plants are supposed to be run by certified operators. It’s not that First Nations lack people with the skills or intelligence necessary to run these plants (I have heard stories of First Nations operators who have taught themselves to run high-tech water treatment plants without any formal training); it’s that ISC often doesn’t provide enough funding to properly train and pay people to operate them.
In some First Nations, funding barely supports part-time operations at wages that are only marginally above the minimum wage. According to ISC’s own data, a full 26 per cent of First Nations public water systems are run without a fully certified operator.
Just like with a car, things can, and often do, go wrong, even with brand new facilities. And when things break down at multimillion-dollar treatment plants, the cost of repairs can exhaust a community’s annual infrastructure budget.
This is especially true for projects that are ill-conceived or use unproven technologies. Around the year 2000, Kebaowek First Nation was given a shiny new wastewater treatment plant. The plant used technology designed for treating animal waste. As it happens, treating human wastewater is very different from farming.
The cost of the filtration material was astronomical and had to be replaced every three years. The plant barely lasted its estimated lifespan and was replaced by conventional technology in 2017. Still, Kebaowek can barely afford to staff its new facility, and has been forced to divert funds from other important areas, such as housing.
Behind the precarity of operating water infrastructure is an outdated policy that should never have been implemented. ISC has long used a funding formula that provides First Nations with a mere 80 per cent of their estimated operating and maintenance costs.
It is little wonder that clean drinking water and safe wastewater treatment remains a challenge when Ottawa knowingly undermines the maintenance of these expensive investments. As a result of this policy, a significant proportion of water infrastructure is at risk of premature “rust out,” and increased service disruptions.
The good news is that Miller seems to understand this problem: his announcement of $1.5 billion in December 2020 provides over $600 million for O&M costs over six years. More importantly, Miller has suggested that ISC will be moving towards covering 100 per cent of formula-funded O&M costs. This is good news, but Miller also needs to consider adequately funding operator salaries, and not just at the current level, as it is often half of what they could earn off-reserve.
National Post
Veldon Coburn is an assistant professor at the University of Ottawa's Institute of Indigenous Research and Studies.
Sunday was the 10th anniversary of Canada’s 2011 general election, which saw Stephen Harper’s Conservatives romp to a majority government and Jack Layton’s NDP pull off a surprising sweep of the terra incognita of Quebec. In a strange way, and maybe I’m not alone in this, I found something cheering in the jarring contrast with the current situation.
The pandemic has forced us all to live a year of relative personal stagnation. Even the most devil-may-care people have seen large parts of their economic and social lives put into cold storage. We’ll begin to emerge from this state in a matter of weeks, but in the meantime, the length of the pandemic and the uncertainty of its precise “ending” is an all-new source of torpor and misery. We stagger on in a bleak landscape we have mostly traversed.
It is much nicer to look back over the previous 10 years rather than the previous one, isn’t it? Even the most unambitious and solitary life takes on the character of a fantasy epic when you look at a whole decade of activity against the current background. And think what it was like to be surprised by an election outcome!
Whatever your private political commitments, May 2, 2011, delivered a surprising, immediate and profound change. Liberals can look back at a near-death experience from the regained heights of “natural governing party” status. Conservatives can be reassured, at a time of confusion and ill fortune, that victory is possible. New Democrats can simply relive the pinnacle of their national branch’s history. And federalists of all stripes can, like hockey fans watching videos of 1980s fights, relish a blow from which ’70s-style Quebec separatism has not recovered.
The wine tasted delicious, but for some of these parties, of course, the chalice may have contained just a soupçon of poison. The New Democrats’ relationship with Quebec is a particular problem. For now, their one bountiful harvest of paper candidates is a memory of something that actually happened, and not a dream that they can bear to abandon. This leaves their ability to object strenuously to repugnant but popular Quebec language and laicity legislation visibly compromised.
And what benefit, in the end, did they receive from the influx of vaguely unknown “vague orange” MPs marching under Jack Layton’s banner? A political movement is supposed to benefit from having its own saints, but the benefit of Layton’s personal example doesn’t seem to have amounted to much, either for subsequent party leaders or for its annihilated Quebec rank and file.
It seems just remotely possible that too much attention was paid during his life to Layton’s chummy, optimistic style — everybody has a certain charisma when they’re winning — and not enough paid to the fact that the man was Quebec political royalty many times over. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has genuine star quality and strong social media game, even if he sometimes wilts in interviews. His problem in Quebec cannot possibly be a lack of charisma. But our most talented surgeons haven’t figured out how to do a family tree transplant yet.
Strong grassroots party-building might have shored up the beachhead, and the personal effort that the NDP’s paper winners put in was impressive when you looked closely, as some of us bloodthirsty journalists did. Many of the paper soldiers worked hard, mastered parliamentary technique, hustled to meet constituents and put faces to names on a ballot. For better or worse, this work was all written in water.
Yes, 10 years is a long time, all right. The Conservatives can at least take comfort from having been the most popular party in the October 2019 election. That’s not so long ago, and as strategic positions go, it is not the worst place you could start.
But the NDP and the Conservatives have a temporary irresolvable problem: we live in a disease-induced atmosphere of fear in which almost everyone is bound to approve of a government that is expert at writing cheques, whether or not it is any good at anything else. King Austerity has been dethroned. His carefully accumulated hoard of fiscal power — literal treasure! — has been ransacked and distributed to the mob. And the mob approves.
It’s a state that is at once frigid and volatile, a paradox of political physics. But there are such things as counter-revolutions, too. On May 1, 2011, a lot of people thought they knew how the evening of May 2 would end. There’s a lesson for us in that, as we try to imagine the world as it will appear at some far-off date like, say, September 2021 or January 2022.
National Post
Twitter.com/colbycosh
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