Monthly Archives: October 2016

Roundup: Chong’s plans are a start

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While new Conservative leadership candidate Steven Blaney decided to come out swinging with a niqab ban policy designed to appeal to those Quebeckers still hot for the idea and to give Kellie Leitch a run for her money, Michael Chong also came out with some policy yesterday morning – much more modest policy in line with how he thinks he could start to change parliament for the better if he were party leader. Because it’s not big policy pronouncements, it’s more in keeping with the kinds of things that leadership candidates should be focusing on, but that said, there are a few problems with what he laid out. I tweeted some of those concerns earlier, but I’ll elaborate a bit more.

So yes, Chong made a valiant attempt at doing this with this Reform Act, but it got so watered down in his amending the bill to get it passed that it rendered it useless, and the veto went from the party leader to their designated surrogate. This is a promise that is more difficult than it sounds because there does need to be a quality control mechanism in place (which is why it was introduced in the first place), but it also needs to be arm’s length from the leader, and Chong’s previous proposals for such an officer didn’t fly. He’ll need to try and thread this needle much more carefully going forward.

This one bothers me a fair deal because it’s buying into the nonsense that the Liberal Party has been spreading with their reforms to their party constitution. They claim it’s about “modernizing” the party structure and making it more responsive, but it’s more about populating databases, so that when they come out with top-down policy pronouncements, they can use their Big Data approach to justify anything. If other parties want to simply populate their own databases to target or micro-target policies even more that the Conservatives did during their decade in office, this isn’t actually good for democracy, and it’s not actually good for the grassroots. You don’t have people who are quite literally buying into the process (thus putting some skin in the game) and having an interest in their responsibilities as members when it comes to policy and nominations. It devalues membership, and I do think that’s a problem.

Promising reforms to the way the Senate operates while billing this as part of a package of giving power back to the grassroots is curious, but I’ll run with it only so far as to say that Chong shouldn’t actually be trying to out-Trudeau on this. Trudeau has put some things in motion that are not actually for the better, be it centralizing power in his own caucus, or trying to weaken the accountability role of the Senate, while his current “representative” there is trying to upend the whole system so that he can be the true bureaucrat that he is and empire-build, co-opting the whole burgeoning independent system for his own ends. Chong not grasping the constitutional role of the Senate Speaker, or the role of the Government Leader under Responsible Government is worrying, and I do feel like he should know better and not just try to play the reform-for-the-sake-of-reform card. That becomes a very dangerous thing under our system, especially because the system is not broken, so we should stop trying to break it while insisting on fixing problems that don’t actually exist.

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QP: Demanding adult supervision

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Despite the fact that it was a Monday, none of the leaders save Elizabeth May were present in the Commons. Denis Lebel led off, blaming Chrystia Freeland for being unable to conclude the Canada-EU trade agreement, or any other trade agreement. Freeland insisted that Canada had done its job, but this was an internal dispute for the EU to resolve and then come back to Canada, and that she remained committed to it. Lebel repeated the question in English word-for-word, and Freeland elaborated on her answer. Lebel demanded that the PM head to Europe to salvage the deal — as though that was how negotiations work, and Freeland started getting feistier about the previous government’s record. Gerry Ritz picked up the torch, and took on a more bullying tone with a pair of questions that belittled Freeland for her visible emotion in Brussels, and saying that she needed the “adult supervision” of the Prime Minister. Freeland had none of it, and hit back on the previous government’s record on the stalled agreement and expensive signing ceremonies for a deal that wasn’t done. Murray Rankin led off for the NDP, and kept up the same topic, but from the angle that they needed to drop the investor-state dispute resolution mechanism. Freeland listed socialist governments in Europe who had signed onto the deal, trying to prove it’s not just an ideological divide. Niki Ashton then got up to decry the comments from the Finance Minister about “job churn,” decrying precarious work. MaryAnn Mihychuk said that the new work environment had a lot to do with technology but they were helping Canadians. Ashton demanded that Morneau and the PM attend their precarious job summit, to which Mihychuk reminded her that they have a youth workers council.

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Roundup: Lamenting the regional ministries

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Agriculture minister Lawrence MacAulay told his local paper that he’s not too concerned that the minister in charge of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency isn’t from the region, but that he’s a Central Canadian, but hey, he’s gotten results so it’s all good. And then people went insane because how dare the government not have a regional development minister from the region, ignoring that the policy of this government has been to eschew the tradition of regional ministers writ large, and that all regional development agencies all report to the same minister – the industry minister – rather than spreading it around to a number of ministers of state (and bloating the size of cabinet while you’re at it). And then from there comes the perennial outrage that we have regional representation at the cabinet level, which ignores that cabinet positions are not actually something that requires subject matter expertise, but that it’s a political position that is largely based on managerial competence, which is fine, particularly under a system of Responsible Government that the legislature can hold them to account for the performance of their duties. After all, they have the civil service to do the subject-matter expertise part for them, and it’s the job of ministers to make decisions that they can then be held to account for. But a few of the exchanges were at least worth noting.

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Most of those were all well and good, but this one from Candice Bergen caught my eye, because it actually highlights something that has largely been ignored.

While it may be a little overwrought, the point about centralizing power in the PMO is actually quite astute, and fits the pattern of centralization that Trudeau has been entirely underreported. Within the Liberal Party itself, Trudeau has convinced the party to abolish its regional powerbases and centralize it all within his own office under the guise of “modernization” and “being more responsive.” Once could very well argue that eliminating regional minister has a similar effect. That said, one could also argue that the purpose of regional minister was about pork-barrelling and doing the partisan work of securing votes from those very same regions for the government’s benefit, so their loss wouldn’t be too deeply felt in a move to make a system built to be more responsive to evidence than political consideration. Regardless, the propensity of this prime minister to consolidate power should not be underestimated, and this is something we should absolutely be keeping an eye on.

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Roundup: Walking out on Wallonia

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Talks to save the Canada-EU trade agreement broke down yesterday, and after more than two days of direct talks, trade minister Chrystia Freeland walked out of the meeting and basically declared that it was now impossible for the EU to come to an international trade deal. And really, this was about the Walloons in Belgium who weren’t letting this go through. Wallonia’s president tried to sound an optimistic tone, and said that “difficulties remain” around largely the investor-state dispute resolution mechanism and wanted Justin Trudeau to hold off on his planned trip to Europe next week to finalize the deal so that the Walloons could have more time.

While Freeland said she was ready to get back on a plane and go home to see her kids, it looks like the EU president managed to keep her around for more talks, which may have been the whole point of Freeland’s exit – so that the rest of the EU could pressure Wallonia to come to their senses. While Belgium’s ambassador to Canada also said that the deal wasn’t dead, we did see some of the usual suspects line up to applaud the potential demise of the agreement, like Elizabeth May, the NDP, and the Council of Canadians.

Throughout this, however, I will admit to more than a little distaste at the snide tone of the Conservatives throughout all of this. In QP yesterday, Candice Bergen laid this at the feet of Freeland personally and declared that she would have to “wear it.” Gerry Ritz said that Freeland should have “rolled up her sleeves” and stayed at the table (which she had already been doing), and Rona Ambrose demanded that Justin Trudeau get on a plane and smooth this over himself. And there is this overall tone that the deal had been “gift wrapped” for the Liberals (after Harper had already done two symbolic signings of the agreement before it had been ratified), which is specious and facile. The Liberals have countered that the deal was essentially dead before Freeland resurrected it, largely through reopening some of the negotiations and through declaratory statements to clarify the language in the provisions of the deal, so it’s not like they didn’t do nothing. Quite the opposite, in fact. And one fails to see how it’s Freeland’s fault when pretty much everyone agrees that this is now an internal EU matter that Canada really can’t do anything about. Then again, the Conservative message around other trade deals like softwood lumber are equally fantastical (how they could have forced the Americans to come to an agreement when they clearly aren’t interested is beyond me, and there was a lot of unhappiness with the deal they signed when they first got into office that gave the Americans a victory). Sure, they signed a bunch of deals with small countries with small economies. Sure, they got CETA and TPP off the ground, but they still protected a lot of industries that didn’t necessarily deserve it, nor did they seal those deals either. Trade is a difficult business, and I’m not sure they have the moral authority to be as frankly abusive as they have been on the file.

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Roundup: Fundraising fears

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It’s been a curious thing the last few days, watching in QP as the Conservatives are tearing their hair out over this Bill Morneau fundraiser in Halifax and raising the spectre of the wealthy contributing to politics, and calling Bill Morneau a millionaire like it’s a bad thing. As though suddenly the Conservative Party of Canada has become overrun by socialists or something. Really, it’s just their cheap populism run amok, trying to cast themselves as champions of ordinary Canadians (never mind that their policies disproportionately aided wealthier Canadians during their decade in power), and if they really were the champions of the working class, you would think the rest of their policies to date would be different (such as around labour unions or the Canada Pension Plan, or anything like that), but no. And if you think this is really a question about ethics or conflicts of interest, well, no, the Ethics Commissioner herself has stated that this fundraiser was above board, but hey, if they wanted to tighten the rules around fundraising, she’s been asking them to do that for years and after a decade in power, they wouldn’t do that either. So here we are, with a desperate attempt to frame perfectly above-board fundraising as “cash for access” and somehow comparable to the situation in Ontario, which it’s not. Meanwhile, Howard Anglin had a perfectly apropos tweet storm on this, so I’ll let him finish off here.

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QP: The menace of millionaires

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Despite it being Thursday, there were no leaders present in the Commons today (save Elizabeth May), Justin Trudeau at an Amazon fulfilment centre opening in the GTA, and the others, well, elsewhere. Denis Lebel led off for the opposition, decrying the government not respecting provincial jurisdiction regarding healthcare, and Jane Philpott immediately hit back that the previous government didn’t much care for the file and they were making investments. Lebel asked again in English, and Philpott noted that previous investments did not transform the system as was necessary, which they were engaged in. Lebel then moved onto that Bill Morneau fundraiser in Halifax, and Bardish Chagger stood to take that bullet, assuring him that all rules were obeyed. Candice Bergen took over, decrying the appointment to the Port Authority one of the attendees. Chagger repeated her answer in English, and Bergen took her through one more round of the same. Murray Rankin led off for the NDP, his first time as their new House Leader, and he carried on the same line of questioning. Chagger’s answer didn’t change, leaving it for Brigitte Sansoucy to ask again in French, no avail. Sansoucy moved onto the investments in mental health, to which Philpott insisted that this was not a political issue but one of a responsibility to Canadians and ensuring that the investments translated in better access to care. Rankin asked the same again in English, and Philpott responded with an edge in her tone, assuring him that she does not play politics with mental health.

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Roundup: A warning or a betrayal?

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Justin Trudeau made some comments to Le Devoir about the reduced sense of urgency around electoral reform, and a bunch of people – notably the NDP – freaked out. Trudeau said:

Under Stephen Harper, there were so many people unhappy with the government and their approach that people were saying, ‘It will take electoral reform to no longer have a government we don’t like’. But under the current system, they now have a government they’re more satisfied with and the motivation to change the electoral system is less compelling.

And then comes the parsing of the rhetoric – is he trying to walk back on his election promise that 2015 was the last election under first-past-the-post, or is he trying to give signals to the electoral reform committee as they begin to draft their report after their summer of consultations across the country? To the NDP (and Ed Broadbent of his eponymously named Institute), Trudeau’s comments are a betrayal because to them, he can only deliver proportional representation or bust. Their working premise is that Trudeau was saying that because the system elected Liberals it’s fine, but when it elected Conservatives, it was broken. But I’m not sure that’s what Trudeau was actually saying, because the prevailing popular discussion pre-election was that reform was needed because any system that delivered Conservative majorities was deemed illegitimate – one of those kinds of talking points that gives me hives because it presumes that electoral reform needs to be done for partisan reasons. And to that extent, Trudeau is right, that the sense of urgency has decreased because the Conservatives are no longer in power, so there’s less clamour for it to happen. There is also the theory that what Trudeau was signalling was that there are degrees of acceptable change, and that without as much broad support that smaller change like ranked ballots could be something he would push through (seeing as we all know that the committee is going to be deadlocked).

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Kady O’Malley, on the other hand, thinks that Trudeau is signalling to the NDP and Greens that they should be willing to compromise on PR during the committee deliberations, or he’ll deem it a stalemate and either walk away or put it to a referendum, where it would almost certainly be doomed. Rona Ambrose says that it could signal that Trudeau is backing down, which the Conservatives would like (and to be perfectly honest, I would too because the system is not broken and electoral reform is a solution in search of a problem). That he may have found the excuse to back down and admit this election promise is a failure – and then move on – would be the ideal move in my most humble opinion.

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QP: A scrappy anniversary

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At long last, all leaders were in the Commons, and Rona Ambrose led off by immediately demanding that the PM stop meeting with billionaires and restoring those boutique tax cuts that the government got rid of. Justin Trudeau reminded her of the tax cuts they made across the board to the middle class. Ambrose worried that the new mortgage housing rules hurting families. Trudeau replied that he was bringing investment into the country and listed the companies that have been moving more operations to Canada. Ambrose went another round in French, and Trudeau listed the ways in which they’ve helped families. Ambrose moved onto the issue of the healthcare accord, decrying waitlists. Trudeau said that Canadians expect healthcare dollars to be spent on healthcare. Ambrose then moved onto the “carbon fuel tax” impacting Alberta, but Trudeau hit back that the last government couldn’t get Alberta’s resources to markets after a decade in power. Thomas Mulcair was up next, decrying a Bill Morneau fundraising event in Halifax which he called “cash for access.” Trudeau insisted that the rules were already the most stringent and they followed them. Mulcair moved onto healthcare funding and the lack of an accord with the provinces, and Trudeau reiterated his previous answer about ensuring dollars are properly spent. Mulcair then moved onto a pair of questions on electoral reform and demanded a proportional system. Trudeau recalled when Mulcair was afraid the Liberals would ram though a new system, and that it was curious that Mulcair was demanding they do just that.

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Roundup: A gimmick doomed to fail

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With yesterday being Persons Day in Canada – the anniversary of women being declared legal Persons by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the UK, then the highest court of appeal, thus allowing women to serve as senators – NDP MP Kennedy Stewart made an impassioned plea to MPs to support his private member’s bill on encouraging gender parity among parties. The theory is that by providing a financial incentive to parties – namely reducing their election rebates – if they don’t nominate at least 45 percent women candidates, that we’ll magically get more women in to Parliament, and everything will be better. And then to make everyone feel bad, they provide a list of all of these other countries that have more women in their parliaments as proof that we’re terribly behind on the issue without any kind of qualitative analysis to know if women in those parliaments have any actual power, or if they’re just filling out quotas or party lists and have little actual agency or authority.

There’s a problem with Stewart’s bill, which is that it’s largely a gimmick. The way to get more women involved in politics is for parties to make a more concerted effort in the nomination process, and to remove barriers at that stage that prevent women from running. The Liberals figured out that trick before the last election, and looked at the research that said that women need to be asked to run an average of five times before they’ll accept (unlike men, who will accept usually on the first try), and so that’s what the Liberals did, and lo, they dramatically boosted their nomination rate with a lot of women of diverse backgrounds, and they did it without needing a gimmicky incentive. The NDP often like to tout their “affirmative action” nomination rules that require that someone from an “equity-seeking group” be part of the nomination race, but historically it means they have largely nominated the bulk of their women candidates in unwinnable ridings, with the exception of the 41st Parliament, they have tended to be a very, very white party, which means that their affirmative action plan only worked when they accidentally elected a swath of MPs in a sentimental wave. (They also have a habit of acclaiming white male candidates in ridings they think they can win under special loopholes, claiming that they couldn’t find a woman or minority candidate in ridings like Dartmouth Cole Harbour or Trinity Spadina. No, seriously). And that’s really the danger of a gimmick like the one that Stewart is proposing – that parties will stack a bunch of women candidates in ridings they have little or no hope in, just to get their rebate (and yes, all parties have a habit of nominating or selecting a number of paper candidates for the sole purpose of padding their roster in order to get the maximum allowable spending limit), and this just incentivizes them to tweak those nominations without putting in the effort on the ground that it takes to get more women involved.

“Oh, but it works in Ireland!” Stewart and his defenders will say. Sure, but they have a different voting system, and possibly a different nomination system. That doesn’t mean it will translate here very well, and I remain unconvinced that it does the hard work of changing the party culture rather than simply imposing a quota. Maryam Monsef has said that she’s not voting for the bill, citing that it doesn’t help women win, which most of her party’s backbenchers will take as a signal. The Conservatives won’t vote for it, citing meritocracy. And Steward vows to blame men if it dies – because that’ll help change the party cultures.

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QP: Woe be the small business

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While nearly all of the leaders were present today, it was the Prime Minister who was absent today (though he did show up for votes afterward), so when Rona Ambrose led off with another disingenuous questions about taxes, Bill Morneau stood up to remind her that they lowered taxes on millions of households. Ambrose then decried Trudeau meeting with billionaires and demanded that he instead reverse tax increases on small businesses. Morneau reminded her that those taxes went down, and that those meetings were bringing investment to Canada, such as with Thompson Reuters opening that new tech centre in Toronto. Ambrose closed with another overwrought lament about the plight of families, while Morneau responded with a list of the measures they implemented to help families. Denis Lebel took over, and lamented that the federal government was getting too involved in provincial jurisdiction around healthcare. Carolyn Bennett took the question, and reminded him that Jane Philpott was meeting with her provincial counterparts and they waned results for their transfers. Lebel tried again, and Bennett hit back with Maxime Bernier’s plan disband all health transfers. Thomas Mulcair stood up for the NDP, and decried “cuts” to healthcare — despite the fact that there aren’t any. Bennett noted that there was no cut, and reminded Mulcair that his election promise of increased health transfers with a balanced budget would have resulted in cuts across the board. Mulcair tried again, got much the same reply. Mulcair tried to insist that the government was confusing competence with jurisdiction with health spending, and Bennett laid out the divisions. Mulcair demanded that the Prime Minister meet with the premiers to discuss health funding, to which Bennett said there would be a meeting soon.

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