Author Archives: Dale

About Dale

Journalist in the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery

Roundup: C-10 keeps stumbling

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If there is any bill in recent history that is an object lesson in fucking around and finding out, it’s bill C-10, on amending the Broadcasting Act. Indeed, after the government, with Bloc support, moved time allocation while the bill was in committee, the five hours allotted to finish clause-by-clause consideration was apparently not enough, as it seems yet more MPs on the committee wanted to waste time fighting about things this bill doesn’t actually do. And lo, amendments that were passed after the five hours were up were deemed null and void by the Speaker, so once again, MPs found out.

This doesn’t mean that those amendments are necessarily gone for good – they can certainly be moved at report stage, where the bill is currently, though that may require extending the time allocation that was imposed on the current stage in order to be able to move and vote on said motions – and that leaves yet more opportunity for dilatory actions such as slow-voting and another point-of-order-palooza around remote voting. Barring that, the government can move them in the Senate, though that will be very uncomfortable as it will probably mean having to recall the Commons in a couple of weeks to pass the amended bill, which will be a gong show all around. Or, with any luck, it will be stuck on the Order Paper over the summer, and possibly smothered if the election call that the pundit class is so hell-bent on getting happens. Nevertheless – there is plenty of blame to go around for this state of affairs, not the least of which belongs to the minister for his singular failure to offer coherent communications around this bill at every opportunity, and most especially at committee.

I would add, however, that I have no patience for this notion that the bill saw “no real debate,” as certain individuals are claiming. It got more debate than most budget implementation bills – more than any bill I can remember in recent memory. Granted, we have no guarantee of the quality of debate, and considering that this bill has been the subject of a campaign of conspiracy theories (Internet Czar, anyone?), straw men, red herrings, and outright lies, while substantive and existential problems with the bill have largely gone unremarked upon, I can see a critique that the months of debate were short on substance. That said, I’m not sure how even more debate would have helped, other than to prolong the agony.

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QP: Green Lanterning the price of houses

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With the prime minister still in Belgium, there were a lot more Conservatives than usual in the Chamber, which made for a louder day. As for the Liberal ranks, Mark Gerretsen was joined by Kate Young for possibly the first time since the Hybrid sittings began, but the imbalance between both sides of the Chamber was very noticeable. Erin O’Toole in led off in French, and from his script, he read about how Trudeau was apparently so preoccupied with becoming the “Dean of G7” and apparent celebrity meetings (of which there haven’t been any) while he ignored the job losses back in Canada. Chrystia Freeland replied by pointing out that the Conservatives have been using procedural tactics to delay debate on the budget implementation bill. O’Toole switched to English, to decry that a Toronto developer snapped up housing, thus driving up prices, for which Ahmed Hussen reminded him that the current government was doing more for affordable housing than the Conservatives ever did. O’Toole demanded that the government somehow lower housing prices before the summer — maybe using a Green Lantern ring? — and Hussen repeated that he had no lessons to take from the Conservatives. From there, O’Toole started slamming Harjit Sajjan, accusing him of stolen valour, and of being “buddies” with General Jonathan Vance, and Sajjan brushed off the allegations. O’Toole put on a performance of theatrical anger to demand Sajjan’s resignation, and Sajjan hit back by reminding O’Toole that his government still appointed Vance while he was under active investigation. 

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he demanded support for a motion to validate Quebec’s plan to unilaterally amend the constitution, for which David Lametti noted there are amending formulas and their proposal needed to ensure other rights were protected, which he got assurances about. Therrien railed about Section 45 — which is what the Quebec government has largely proposed — and Lametti spoke about clarifying the motion about Quebec being a nation in a United Canada.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP in French, and he demanded that the government not cut pandemic supports, to which Carla Qualtrough reminded him that the budget implementation bill will extend benefits. Singh switched to English to rail that there was still a cut to supports, and Qualtrough noted there are other supports available.

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Roundup: Time allocation in perspective

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There seems to be both a sense of amnesia and of performative wailing and garment rending as the government – with the cooperation of opposition parties – has moved time allocation on its budget implementation bill, and extended sitting hours for the final few days of the sitting. The sense of amnesia is that this kind of thing happens every June, every single year (and usually again in December), and that’s how things work. There is absolutely nothing unusual about this state of affairs, and its’ very strange that certain media outlets are making this out to be something unusual. It’s not – if anything, what’s unusual is that there are so few bills that they are trying to get over the finish line in the face of opposition that has spent an extraordinary amount of effort fighting these bills with lies, red herrings, concern trolling, and a complete lack of proportionality.

The fact that the government has imposed time allocation on its budget implementation bill is not unusual, and the fact that it’s ten hours – five at report stage and five more at third reading – is also a fairly generous amount of time, especially when considered in parliamentary terms. It’s essentially two more full days of debate for a regular Tuesday or Thursday sitting day. It’s also not really “debate,” and frankly Elizabeth May’s concerns here are a bit precious – it’s MPs reciting pre-written speeches into the record, with little interaction between them, and when it comes to report stage and third reading, there is specific purpose. The bill already had seven allotted days at second reading, which is bananas – second reading should take a single afternoon because it’s supposed to be where you discuss the overall principles of the bill, and then send it off to committee. It spent thirteen hours at committee of clause-by-clause consideration – which, again, is a fair amount considering that most committee sittings are two hours – where they heard from 65 witnesses in pre-study sessions. Five hours at report stage, to discuss whether or not to adopt the amendments agreed to at committee, is an awful lot of parliamentary time. Same again with third reading, where you are giving final consideration before final passage to the Senate, is more than generous – you are no longer debating the principle, or the details – those have all been agreed to.

This narrative that it’s a “gag” and “cutting debate” is overblown in the context of what is being offered here. This isn’t an abuse of time allocation, like we saw in previous parliaments – it’s a legitimate tool in the face of procedural obstruction, and given that this is a hung parliament, the fact that at least one opposition party is agreeing to the use of this tool makes the narrative a bit silly. But that seems to be the way these things get written up, because there is a general ignorance of procedure and what it all means.

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QP: Just pass the budget bill

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While the prime minster was in Brussels for the NATO summit, his deputy was attending virtually. Candice Bergen led off in person, scripts before her, and she decried that there were photos of the prime minister at the G7 meeting without a mask (because they have been testing rigorously), and complained he wouldn’t be quarantining upon his return (untrue – he will be quarantining, but at a hotel in Ottawa and not Toronto or Montreal, because he doesn’t fly commercial), and accused him of not paying attention to job losses in our economy. Chrystia Freeland suggested the most important thing they could do to show they care about the economy is to pass Bill C-30 on the budget implementation. After a lengthy issue with translation volumes, Bergen accused the government of a litany of sins including corruption, cronyism and cover-ups, and insisted that the prime minster wasn’t able to focus on the economy — but didn’t really ask a question. Freeland said the government was working hard to pass the budget implementation bill that would extend supports to Canadians, but the Conservatives were playing partisan games in delaying it. Bergen raised the golf game between senior members of the Canadian Forces with General Jonathan Vance while was under investigation, to which Harjit Sajjan read a statement about culture change, and how the new chief of defence staff was dealing with this. Gérard a Deltell took over in French to accuse the government of appointing partisan judges, based on the moral panic of an irresponsible news piece, and David Lametti read some cheery talking points about the merit-based process without explaining it. Deltell took some swipes at Lametti, and Lametti read a piece from the Globe and Mail about the Conservative criteria for appointments based on donor lists.

Claude DeBellefeuille led for the Bloc, and she demanded the government make the language of work in federal offices in Quebec to be French, and Mélanie Joly repeated the demonstrably false notion that French is in decline in Quebec, before saying that in places with a strong francophone presence, they will have a right to work and be served in French. DeBellefeuille repeated the demand, and Joly insisted that there government has committed to doing more, and would have a future bill on official languages.

Peter Julian led for the NDP, and decried that pandemic benefits were being cut, while he accused the government of giving money to oil companies and banks (which is not really true). Freeland suggested that he support the budget implementation bill which would extend those income supports until the end of September. Lindsay Mathyssen returned the Vance golf game, and Sajjan read his statement on institutional culture change and the role of the chief of defence staff once again.

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Roundup: Not just a golf game

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The top brass of the Canadian Forces shot themselves in the foot – metaphorically – yet again this weekend as both the outgoing vice-chief of defence staff and the head of the Royal Canadian Navy both went golfing with former CDS, General Jonathan Vance, while Vance is under active police investigation. To call it tone-deaf is an understatement – rather, it highlights the old boys’ club mentality that still pervades the upper ranks of the Forces, and sends the wrong message to the victims of sexual misconduct, who remain the subordinates of these officers. And to make the optics even more nightmarish, the vice-chief technically has the power to issue orders to the Provost Marshall, who controls the military police.

https://twitter.com/leahwest_nsl/status/1404114717405286401

https://twitter.com/JessMarinDavis/status/1404192298905264128

You can get that there was an outcry, including from numerous Cabinet ministers, and in short order, there were apologies from those involved, while the minister of defence, Harjit Sajjan, said that he would be evaluating “next steps” in this particular situation.

https://twitter.com/leahwest_nsl/status/1404262974504812545

To the point that West (who was drummed out of the military because of the double standard around sexual misconduct) is making in her tweet, there is very much a growing trend of professionally-crafted apologies going around given where things have gone over the past year or so, and I have to agree with this take that we need to take this into account as yet more of them are delivered over the coming days.

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Roundup: C-10 shenanigans have poisoned the well of our parliament

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Because things around Bill C-10 couldn’t get any more ridiculous, we now have news stories about Michael Geist getting the vapours about how amendments are being rushed through committee in a “secretive” manner, as though he’s never witnessed a clause-by-clause debate before. And to an extent, what has happened with that committee is the result of a complete breakdown of how it should be operating, forcing the government to impose time allocation on the process – a rare manoeuvre at the committee stage – because it has become so toxic. And with the whips intervening, this turned into essentially a forced meeting that the chair himself objected to, but again, this whole process has become so toxic because of partisan gamesmanship.

First things first ­– Geist’s vapours are more or less melodramatic, because there are still several other opportunities to see what amendments have been agreed to – the final committee report, which goes to Report Stage debate in the Chamber, where the full Commons can vote to accept or reject those amendments. And then there is third reading. If anything, particularly egregious is in there, it can still be caught and amended, and while rare at those stages, it is possible. And then there is the entire Senate process, where they can hear from yet more witnesses in their own committees on the amended version of the bill, and given that this particular iteration of the Senate is far more activist and interventionist, we can bet that there will be more impetus for amendments there (which could force an awkward contest of wills around those amendments given that they’d have to go back to a Commons that has risen for the summer, and at a time when nobody in this city can shut up about election speculation). Nevertheless, the point stands that there are several avenues yet for more amendments to this bill than what happened at the Commons committee.

The bigger point here, however, is that the reason this process became so toxic was because the Conservatives took a fundamentally – nay, existentially – flawed bill, and decided that instead of engaging its actual flaws, they would invent a whole litany of straw men and red herrings, and try to get the country up in arms over fictional provisions that they pulled out of their asses and held them up as effigies to be burned in protest. It’s a bad bill – it never should have placed under the Broadcasting Act because that statute deals with the assumption of the limited bandwidth of TV and radio, and trying to apply it to the internet is largely unworkable. This is a legitimate criticism that should have been debated, but instead, we got this fabrication of an Internet Czar who is going to be vetting your tweets and Facebook posts, and dark visions of Orwellian censorship at the hands of the CRTC, which is not even remotely plausible. But they went full-tilt with this insanity, and just completely poisoned the well of parliament along the way.

The government is not blameless here either – the minister’s communication around the bill has been nothing short of a disaster in English Canada, and his stumbles have been extremely damaging, but he’s been given a long leash because this is playing well in Quebec (where discoverability is a huge vote-getter because they do have difficulty finding Quebec and Canadian content in French – pointing to how the debate on this bill has been hugely built on what I’m going to dub “Anglophone privilege.”) We could have had a constructive debate around this bill. But we didn’t. A mountain of lies was countered by communications incompetence, and after six weeks of absolute shenanigans at committee, the government had enough and brought the hammer down. None of this needed to happen, but apparently we don’t have enough grown-ups in our parliament, and that’s just a sad, sad state of affairs.

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Roundup: Atwin crosses to the Liberals

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There was a somewhat shocking turn of events yesterday as Green MP Jenica Atwin suddenly crossed the floor to the Liberals, after weeks of turmoil within the party over the policies around Israel. When Atwin made comments about Israel being an apartheid state, one of leader Annamie Paul’s advisors threatened her position, and she decided it was time to go. Remember also that the NDP have a Thing about floor-crossing, and wouldn’t have accepted her, leaving her with just the Liberals as a potential home rather than staying an Independent – no doubt increasing her chances at re-election. She insisted that all of her previous comments and votes stood, no matter that she was now a Liberal, so perhaps she will remain among the more “maverick” MPs in the caucus who don’t all toe the line in the same way.

https://twitter.com/DavidWCochrane/status/1403096836383166465

Of course, with any floor-crossing, we get the same tired chorus of voices demanding that anyone who does cross must immediately resign and run in a by-election, which is nonsense in the broader context of how our system works. We elect MPs – we don’t elect parties, even if that’s your calculation when you go into the voting booth. Why this distinction matters is because we empower MPs to act on our behalf, regardless of the party banner, and then we get to judge them for their performance in the next general election. Sometimes MPs will need to make decisions to cross the floor for a variety of reasons, but usually because it’s intolerable in their current situation, and they make the move. We empower them to do so because our electoral system gives them agency as an individual – they’re not a name off of a list because the party got x-percentage of a vote.

This absolutely matters, and we need to enshrine their ability to exercise their ultimate autonomy if we want our system to have any meaning. Otherwise we might as well just fill the seats with battle droids who cast their votes according to the leader’s wishes, and read pre-written speeches into the record that the leaders’ office provided. The trained seal effect is bad enough – we don’t need to erode any last vestiges of autonomy to please the self-righteous impulses of a few pundits who think that this kind of move is heretical or a betrayal, or worse, to appeal to the desire by certain parties (in particular the NDP) to have their power structure so centralized that they see their MPs as a mere extension of their brand rather than as individuals. Parliament means something – the ability of MPs to make ultimate decisions needs to be respected in that context.

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QP: Security breach and securities regulators

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While the prime minister was off to the G7 meeting in the UK, the only Liberal in the Chamber was Francis Drouin, though Mark Gerretsen would replace him later in the hour. Erin O’Toole led off, accusing the government of hiding a security breach at the National Microbiology Lab. Jennifer O’Connell warned that O’Toole was playing a dangerous game, and that redacted documents were provided to the Canada-China committee and the unredacted documents went to NSICOP. O’Toole accused her of participating in a cover-up, and O’Connell accused O’Toole of not caring about national security. O’Toole scoffed, noting his military service, and worried there was a Chinese “infiltration” at the Lab, which O’Connell countered with a prof at the Royal Military College praising NSICOP. O’Toole then repeated his first question in French, got the same answer as before, adding that she used to be a member of NSICOP so she could vouch for its security. O’Toole repeated his allegation of a cover-up in French, and O’Connell, exasperated, noted that she wasn’t sure how many more times she could say that they turned over the documents in the appropriate way.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, accusing the government of trying to create a new pan-Canadian securities regulator which Quebec opposed. Sean Fraser noted that the office cooperated voluntarily with provinces. Therrien tried again, and Fraser repeated that Quebec was not bound to work with that office.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and he condescended to the government about the WE Imbroglio, and demanded that the government respect the Ethics committee’s report. Bardish Chagger thanked the committee for the work, but accused them of being more interested in partisan games. Charlie Angus then repeated the demand in English with added sanctimony and stretched the credulity of the allegations, and Pablo Rodriguez batted away the insinuations.

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Roundup: Ford turns to the Notwithstanding Clause – again

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The sudden comfort with which premiers are deciding to invoke the Notwithstanding Clause is getting a bit uncomfortable, as Doug Ford decided he needed to invoke it after a court struck down his attempts to limit third-party spending in provincial elections in a somewhat arbitrary fashion (given that unions get together to form American-esque political action committees in this province). While you can find a great explainer on Ford and his particular legal challenge in this thread, the more alarming part is the apparent need to reach for the “emergency valve” of the Clause before even appealing the decision to the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court of Canada.

There is a perfectly legitimate reason why the Notwithstanding Clause exists, which as to do with keeping a certain amount of parliamentary supremacy in lawmaking, and it gives governments an avenue of recourse if there is a fundamental disagreement with a court’s interpretation of legislation. But lately, it’s being invoked by premiers who know they are trying to push through objectionable legislation – François Legault did it with Bill 21, which the courts have essentially said blocks their ability to strike down any portion of the law, and he’s doing it again with his Bill 96 on trying to obliterate any bilingualism in the province (the same bill that seeks to unilaterally amend the federal constitution). Ford had threatened to invoke it to ram through his unilateral changes to Toronto City Council while they were in the middle of an election, but ultimately didn’t because of a court injunction, and his decision this time is similarly dubious. This willingness to invoke the Clause at the first sign of court challenge or on the first defeat is a very big problem for our democracy, and we should be very wary about this abuse of power, and punish these governments appropriately at the ballot box during the next elections for these decisions.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1402715067083280387

In the meantime, here’s Emmett Macfarlane with more thoughts on the court decision that led to this turn of events.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1402711628978720772

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1402712563960455173

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1402713058913525761

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QP: Alleging a national security breach

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For what was possible the last time in person for the spring sitting, Justin Trudeau was present in the Chamber, with only Mark Gerretsen on the Liberal benches with him. Erin O’Toole led off, and he immediately launched into the National Microbiology Lab firings, accusing the government of hiding the truth. Trudeau refuted this, and said that they we looking to share the information in the right way, which was why they were asking NSICOP to look into it, and that unredacted documents had already been provided to it. O’Toole tried to make the case that the government broke national security laws around the Lab, but Trudeau repeated his response. O’Toole threw out a bunch of possibly non-sequitur facts about the Wuhan lab in China and tried to tie them to the Winnipeg lab, and Trudeau chided the Conservatives for ignoring oversight of national security, which is why they created NSICOP. O’Toole tried to accuse Trudeau of advancing China’s interests, and Trudeau gave the somewhat tired response that the Conservatives were focused on political games while he was working for Canadians against foreign threats. O’Toole then repeated his first question in French, and Trudeau repeated his response about NSICOP.

Yves-François Blanchet was up for the Bloc, and he complained that Trudeau mused about COVID masks and Quebec’s “secularism” law, and Trudeau remarked that he supports Quebeckers’ rights to challenge that law in court. Blanchet was irate that people were linking Bill 21 with the rise in Islamophobia, but Trudeau instead spoke about the importance of the Court Challenges programme, which was why his government restored its funding.

Jagmeet Singh appeared by video for the NDP, and in French, demanded an end to the lawsuits related to Indigenous children. Trudeau said it was false, they were not suing the children, but acknowledged that they deserve compensation and were negotiating it — but didn’t explain the purpose of the litigation. Singh repeated the question in English, and Trudeau repeated his answer, and once again did not explain the litigation.

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