Good morning, Mr. Poilievre, your mission, should you choose to accept it …
… is to make the settlement of the Vancouver port strike yesterday after less than two weeks look like a disaster for Justin Trudeau.
This will not be easy. Indeed, at this point, one might even say it’s impossible.
It seems likely, though, that federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre will do his utmost to achieve the impossible.
Word of the settlement of the strike by about 7,400 longshore workers in Vancouver and other B.C. ports that began on July 1 reached Alberta just after noon on social media in the form of a tweet from federal Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan.
The tweet was linked to a short joint statement by Mr. O’Regan and Transport Minister Omar Alghabra, stating that the deal was reached at 10:20 a.m. B.C. time – so, literally, just before the 11th hour, at least on a 24-hour clock – based on terms of settlement drafted by federally appointed mediators.
“We thank the Union and the Employer for their commitment to the collective bargaining process,” the statement said, a small dig at the daily calls throughout the strike by business groups and Conservative politicians for an immediate legislated settlement, presumably to be dictated by the port bosses. (This would have ensured months or even years of hostility on the waterfront.)
The ministers also thanked the federal mediators “for their instrumental role in supporting the parties in their negotiations and proposing the successful settlement.”
Rather graciously, the two Liberals didn’t pat themselves on the back for holding a sledgehammer over both parties if they couldn’t reach an agreement by noon yesterday.
Should he choose to try to undermine the government’s success ending the strike, Mr. Poilievre won’t be helped by the polite, and only slightly ambiguous, statement from Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.
“I am pleased to see a settlement reached,” Ms. Smith admitted in the first line.
“Alberta has been advocating since Day 1 for the federal government to step up and ensure a timely resolution to this strike,” her statement continued, in part. “This agreement is in the best interest of both workers and employers, and it will allow us to return to normal operations and get our product to market.”
It is not entirely clear whether Alberta’s premier was complaining that the settlement didn’t happen fast enough or whether she is genuinely congratulating Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on his government’s role in the deal. It’s possible it was intended to be possible to read both ways.
As for whether the agreement is in the interests of both parties, that is something that neither Ms. Smith nor the rest of us here in Alberta yet know – since the details of the tentative agreement recommended by the mediators are for the moment known only to the negotiating parties.
As is normal in labour relations, the terms of the deal will not be made public until both parties have ratified it.
That the employer bargaining group, the British Columbia Maritime Employers Association, will ratify the deal is probably not in any doubt, although the fact the bargaining team does not represent a single employer, but 49, raises some potentially interesting dynamics.
As for ILWU Canada, you never really know how a union workforce is going to vote on a contract ratification, but the fact members were cheerfully taking down their picket lines yesterday and getting ready to go back to work last night suggests they’ll ratify the deal too.
“I want to recognize the efforts of the federal government and thank them for advancing their authority under the Canada Labour Code,” Ms. Smith concluded her message yesterday, sounding uncharacteristically gracious.
If Mr. Poilievre wants to make something of the 13 days the strike took to resolve, he’ll also not be helped by his own record cheering on the border blockades by far-right insurrectionists in January and February 2022, and personally delivering coffee and doughnuts to the thugs occupying Ottawa.
Those events, of course, cost the Canadian economy quite a bit of money too – although there’s been some interesting journalistic inflation regarding the supposed cost of the B.C. port strike, estimated by the usual suspects at $500 million a day for the first part of the strike, but raised to $785 million a day, a figure attributed to the Vancouver port authority, in Ms. Smith’s statement. By last night the Globe and Mail was reporting the sum at $800 million a day. One imagines someone will be claiming it was $1 billion a day before the end of next week.
Regardless, so far, at least, Mr. Poilievre seems to have wisely chosen to exercise his right to remain silent about the port strike – although he was complaining about a lot of other stuff on social media yesterday.
As a Conservative, he must be aware, that, as always, should he or any of his supporters be made to look foolish by voters, the party will soon disavow any knowledge of their actions.
Vive la France!
Today is Bastille Day, marking the day in 1789 when revolutionary insurgents seized the royalist armoury and political prison in the heart of Paris, generally recognized as the beginning of the French Revolution. It’s only been 234 years, so we can argue about the meaning of the French Revolution, but as Zhou Enlai is reputed to have told Henry Kissinger, it’s really too soon to say. Regardless, Vive la France!
“Never bother your enemy … especially when he’s making a mistake.” — Napoleon.
Okay, so Skippy Pollivere tried to weaponize the BC port strike as being all Trudeau’s fault, in the event that the strike is never resolved and the dispute carries on until the next election. But then the strike is settled and Pollivere has egg on his face. I guess it’s back to the cross-training gym to get another pump on.
Seriously, the CONs tell everyone something is going to be a disaster, but look totally befuddled when things are settled and nothing went the way it was so sagely predicted. The CPC are not a government in waiting: they are a continuous train wreck that never stops crashing. So now the CONs are trying to sell that the notion that Trudeau’s appearance at the recent NATO summit wasn’t an official engagement, it was a vacation. There were many complains back in 2015 that the “boys in the short pants” were running Harper’s campaign off the road every chance they could get. (Whose idea was it for a 70 day campaign anyway? Even Harper was bored half way through it.) This goes along with the claim that Harper’s Canada Day celebrations were better because they were held on Parliament Hill. Trudeau hates Canada because his celebrations are not on the Hill. Well, yes. Because the Hill is a construction site. The buildings are just one wind storm away from falling over, because they are close to being condemned. One gets the impression that the CONs’ base maybe has no idea where Ottawa is or what it does? If that’s the case, if anything happens to Twitter’s raging hellscape, what are they going to do to get out their crappy messaging out?
The clearly have ADHD and are drawn to the next shiny faux scandal before they move onto the next shiny faux scandal. Now, it seems that their latest ploy is that the Governor of the Bank of Canada is a Trudeau plant, and the plan all along was to crash the Canadian economy with the Bank Rate. So, the CONs are rolling out the notion that the Governor should be sacked and everyone should use crypto. The last time they tried this stunt, it blew up in the CONs’ faces. I guess it’s going to have to happen again, because they are running out of tricks.
So I guess it wasn’t necessary to legislate the dock workers back to work after all.
On July 4 westernstandard.com posted a tweet from Mr. Poilievre.
“So the federal Port of Vancouver is on strike blocking billions of dollars worth of goods, driving up prices and threatening jobs. And the minister responsible is busy showing off his new sneakers. Any wonder why, after eight years of Trudeau, so many families can’t pay their bills?”
Is this the best a would-be prime minister can come up with? Were Mr. Peepers to put his glasses back on he might find better quotes.
Poilievre’s over the top blame Trudeau for everything strategy doesn’t always work as planned and sometimes ends up undermining his own credibility. This could be one of these cases.
Of course, it plays to the base and their friends in the media are only to eager to try pick up on it, but it risks becoming like the boy who cried wolf. Eventually, the risk is other people start to tune it out and dismiss it.
There are several cases they have over reached and fell short. One was the inquiry into the Ottawa convoy occupation that was supposed to make the PM look bad, but he came out of it fine. Also the Johnson report on foreign election interference was good for the PM although Conservatives managed to destroy the reputation of Johnson who ironically was previously one of their own heros. However, with the upcoming public inquiry, perhaps they will have better luck next time.
So they keep swinging hard, but for all their efforts not much success. If this strike is resolved, all of Polievre’s and their media echo chambers over the top criticism of Trudeau and his government may again seem like too much ado about something.
Also they tried to make the convoy the government’s problem while encouraging the convoyers. I think the mess from that sticks to PP more than to PMJT.
They have been more successful in getting people to blame Trudeau for being divisive, though I think that is also more the fault of Conservatives like the past few federal leaders as well as Conservative premiers including Kenney moving too far right and demonizing anyone who disagrees with them.
Vive la France indeed! Compare how much the British have spent on their monarchy since the late 1700s with how much the French have spent. While considering the (many, many) atrocities committed during the Revolution/Terror and trying to weigh whether it was worth it, I realized something. One (of many) problems with monarchy is that if a people really want to be sure they will never be ruled by one again, they must eradicate the entire family line. In that way, being a monarch is even more paranoia-inducing than being a dictator. For instance, the people of, say, Russia, don’t actually need to kill everyone related to Putin to effect political change, just the man himself. If Putin were a monarch they would need to get the whole bloodline, lest a survivor pop up in a generation or two with an army at their back.
Kind of hard to make the comparison of the net spend on the British monarchy with that of the French since 1793. France has endured many periods of (presumably costly economically as well as in terms of bloodshed) turmoil and upheaval since then – the terror, Napoleon’s consulate then emperorship, the restoration, the hundred days, the 1830 revolution and Louis Phillippe, the citizen King, Upheaval again in 1848, Napoleon III, the Franco Prussian war (huge disaster), two world wars that were disasters for France, the odious Vichy government, various unstable republics until De Gaulle established the current, far too authoritarian (President has too much power) one.
I would love to abolish the current British/Canadian monarchy, but I don’t think economic grounds would be the prime reason. Whether the monarchy is responsible or not I don’t know, but the UK has endured a fairly stable and prosperous period (relative to other places in Europe) since the end of the Stuarts.
IMO the UKs comparative peace and prosperity came from being an island nation. The English Channel > The Maginot Line (which I totally agree was incredibly stupid). Not saying France has been better run or throwing shade at the English, just that the French have saved a heck of a lot of money over the years. If I had my druthers not cent from the Canadian taxpayer would ever go to the monarchy again.
Gee I dunno a more apt Russian comparison would prolly be the ROMANOVS & the idea that killing the elected head of the Russian federation who enjoys the support of the military, security services, parliament, population, and many foreign allies would change all that much is pretty ignorant of the facts on the ground. But hey, keep reading the yellow western press.
Isn’t it strange how these so called”freedom fighters”, who are opposed to federal government “over-reach” and “meddling in our economy” as Smith so often says, want the federal government to intervene on their behalf when it serves their interests. It’s equally strange how these corporate propaganda mills like Postmedia never point out these glaring hypocrisies. This is what happens when we live in a corporatocracy and not a democracy.
When Skippy P is not wearing his spectacles, his eyes look eerily similar to the young man playing the banjo in the movie “Deliverance”. Small eyes, close together. Take a look!
So a win for sanity? That just doesn’t comport with the Dani Party! Her mandate letters are a toxic stew of pork barrel and poison. Lord! This will be a long four years! BTW, is Dreeshen wearing an ankle bracelet and billing the province for a chauffeur yet?
The Conservatives are hypocrites. They supported the trucker’s convoy in Otrawa, Coutts, and in other places, which cost us a lot of money, and made a lot of loud and disruptive noises, from the honking horns, and yet they wanted Justin Trudeau to take prompt action on the port strike in British Columbia.
I couldn’t help notice the forest industry exec on Global news, that could not say that it was raw logs that needed to to be shipped to customers.
This rather prescient quote is from the 1995 movie The American President.
“And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, (conservative politician name) is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who’s to blame for it.”
To be fair, all politicians do this to some extent; however, right wing politicians have taken it to a higher level.
What’s worse is the amount of voters who continue sipping from the poisoned chalice.