It was Audrey O’Brien Day in the Commons, as the Clerk Emeritus sat at the head of the table as a farewell to her time serving MPs. Rona Ambrose started off by paying tribute to O’Brien before she got to her question about pipelines, and how there was now a tanker ban on the west coast after Northern Gateway was approved (only it wasn’t really approved, as there were 200+ conditions attached). Trudeau also paid tribute to O’Brien before reminding Ambrose that they didn’t get any pipelines built. Ambrose demanded to know if Trudeau would let Energy East or Transmountain go through if they were approved, but Trudeau stuck to generalities. Ambrose tried again, but got a reminder that her government didn’t get pipelines to tidewater in ten years. Denis Lebel was up next, worried about the lack of information in the budget. Trudeau reminded him of the promises that they made to families in the election. Lebel tried to burnish his government’s record, but Trudeau’s answer didn’t change. Thomas Mulcair was up next, and after a brief homage to O’Brien, lambasted the government for approving the Saudi LAV deal. Trudeau reminded Mulcair of statements he made regarding the jobs in question and not cancelling agreements. Mulcair then accused Trudeau of using numbered companies to avoid taxes, but Trudeau insisted that all taxes were paid. Mulcair pressed, and Trudeau reminded him that he has been open about his financial holdings. Mulcair asked again in English, and Trudeau stood by his disclosures.
Author Archives: Dale
Roundup: Enter Peter Harder
Those seven new independent senators are now sworn in and installed, and it seems the Conservative spared no time in trying to insist that they were all secretly Liberal partisans, particularly the new “government representative,” Senator Peter Harder. In response to questions during a restored non-ministerial Senate QP, Harder said that he was recommended for appointment by the Institute for Research on Public Policy, and that he had no communication from the government about it. He also claimed he didn’t intend to be partisan, but be a kind of bureaucratic presence who could field questions on behalf of the government, while relaying concerns to cabinet on occasion. Harder also said that the new practice of bringing ministers to the chamber to answer questions would continue, and be expanded to 40 minutes, which is not a bad thing. What I am a bit more concerned about is the fact that Harder is talking about making amendments to the Parliament of Canada Act to start formalizing some of these changes that Trudeau has imposed on the Senate, but I’m not seeing much in the way of collaborating this with the other efforts to modernise the Senate’s operations. That this would be a discussion around the cabinet table and not involve senators themselves, based on Harder’s statements, is concerning because it does seem like meddling in the way the Senate operates – something Trudeau has already been doing with little regard for the consequences – despite the fact that none of them are in the Senate, particularly under this new regime. I don’t want to go so far as to say that he’s meddling in the Senate’s privilege, but it’s getting close to the line in some cases. The Senate is the institutional memory of parliament, and is supposed to have a longevity for a reason, which is why Harder insisting that it’s not unusual for governments to tinker with the Act to reflect stylistic preferences rubs me the wrong way. I also have some sympathy for the concern that “government representative” is a fairly American term that’s not really reflected in our Westminster traditions (though perhaps Australia’s “Washminster” system may find a more analogous term. We’ll see what Harder starts implementing soon enough, but I do retain a sense of scepticism.
QP: Déjà vu from Monday
While new senators were being sworn in down the hall, all of the leaders were present for QP in the Commons, and everyone was raring to go. Rona Ambrose led off, reading from her mini-lectern, asking about how the budget numbers don’t add up. Justin Trudeau stated, matter-of-factly that they were putting money in Canadians’ pockets. Ambrose listed people who felt the budget lacked transparent, but Trudeau was undaunted in lauding the good news of the budget. Ambrose accused him of blocking projects like pipelines, and Trudeau hit back a little more pointedly about how “shouting pipelines into existence” didn’t work. Denis Lebel was up next, worried that the infrastructure envelope was thin, and Trudeau lauded the funding. Lebel launched a paean about how great the infrastructure funding was under their government, but Trudeau reminded him that their arguments failed to convince Canadians in the fall. Thomas Mulcair was up next, and got an ovation from the whole of the Commons. He repeated the false equivalency of that Shelly Glover fundraiser with the Jody Wilson-Raybould fundraiser, to which Trudeau listed all of the rules and said that they were being followed. Mulcair switched to the Panama Papers and the story that CRA officials went to work for KPMG, and Trudeau recalled the new funds for CRA in the budget. Mulcair repeated a bunch of dubious accusations and demanded an investigation into KPMG, and Trudeau repeated the funds for CRA. Mulcair closed the round with a question on EI reform, and Trudeau listed the reforms made so far.
The party that changed the accounting rules every year worries that we can't trust the numbers now. #QP
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) April 12, 2016
Roundup: The demise of Mulcair, part deux
Plenty of more reactions to Mulcair’s demise and the party’s direction, so let’s get to it. Matt Gurney figures that the party is once again one of protest, while Jon Kay suggests that the party has outlived its usefulness with its embrace of the Leap Manifesto, and that Canada now effectively only has to parties. Gerry Caplan recalls the party’s hey days of 20 percent voter shares, and wonders if they can ever be taken seriously electorally. Andrew Coyne tries to look at the broader cause of Mulcair’s demise, while Jen Gerson says that Rachel Notley’s party that is getting things done is the one the federal party membership really threw under the bus, not Mulcair. David Reevley says the party can’t rebuild while “Zombie Tom” is still at the helm, while Emilie Taman insists that everything’s fine, that the Leap resolution gives the party a “path forward,” which I sincerely doubt. Colby Cosh takes the more existential take of the gradual demise of meaningful political parties writ large, and that if the NDP is but a shell then so is everyone else. He also takes on the notion that the political left is also largely meaningless anymore, which is something else to consider.
Tom Mulcair prepares for his caucus meeting on Wednesday. https://t.co/mcBwLop12b pic.twitter.com/rUxCzZPAhL
— David Reevely (@davidreevely) April 11, 2016
QP: Trying to trip the justice minister
Following the surprise upset of Thomas Mulcair’s leadership yesterday, it was not difficult to see why he was absent for the first QP after the Easter break. As for the prime minister, he was also absent but we’re not quite sure why. Rona Ambrose led off, script on lectern, asking about a particular kidnapping case, for which Omar Algabra assured her that they were willing to meet at any time. Ambrose shifted to the “betrayal” of small business taxes, for which Bill Morneau insisted that their other measures would help small businesses. Ambrose wondered if Trudeau still believed that small businesses were just ways for the wealthy to shelter taxes, to which Bardish Chagger insisted that wasn’t the case at all. Denis Lebel took over in French, asking about infrastructure spending, for which Amarjeet Sohi listed the various infrastructure funds. Lebel insisted that the funds were already committed by the previous government, but Sohi noted that it wasn’t getting spent. Peter Julian led off for the NDP, asking about the minister of justice’s fundraising. Jody Wilson-Raybould assured him that she cleared the activity and there was no conflict. Julian kept up, to which Dominic LeBlanc to repeat the answer with a little more scorn poured on. Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet worried about a CRA employee going to work on the KPMG board while they were under investigation, for which Diane Lebouthillier recited the new funding for the agency to go after tax cheats. Boutin-Sweet raised the Panama Papers and asked the question again in French, and Lebouthillier noted that there were rules around those who leave the Agency.
Roundup: Mulcair’s political demise
Well, that was unexpected. After the NDP voted to adopt a resolution that would see them take the Leap Manifesto back to their riding associations for further discussion – much to the protests of their Alberta delegates – Thomas Mulcair took to the stage to give a lacklustre speech that was basically a rehash of his election speech for the past, oh, ten months, with the whole laundry list of applause lines and nothing about why he deserves to stay at the helm. And when the party voted, they voted 52 percent in favour of a leadership review. Mulcair indicated that he plans to stay on as interim leader until a new one can be chosen, which may be a process of up to two years, but we’ll see how long that lasts once the caucus and national council have had their deliberations. Suffice to say, there has been a tonne of reaction. Jen Gerson digs into the events a little more including some local reaction to the Leap Manifesto resolution adoption, while Jason Markusoff discusses that adoption on the Alberta NDP. Markusoff and John Geddes enumerate eleven signs that showed that Mulcair wasn’t going to win the review vote. Here are the five steps the party needs to take next regarding the leadership, and a look back at the results of leadership reviews in years past. CBC looks at some possible contenders for the leadership contest, while Don Braid advises Rachel Notley to divorce her party from the federal NDP. Chantal Hébert notes that the writing was on the wall for Mulcair from the start of the convention, while Michael Den Tandt says that the Leap Manifesto will sink the NDP permanently. Paul Wells delivers a tour de force with the questions that the party now has to grapple with as they choose that new leader, and the divides that future leader will have to straddle.
Roundup: To Leap or to cleave?
There are some interesting dynamics shaping up at the NDP convention in Edmonton, which is less about the current tensions over the leadership review vote that Thomas Mulcair will undergo on Sunday, but rather the fact that there appears to be a split developing between the Alberta NDP (and to some extent the New Brunswick arm of the party) and the federal party when it comes to debating the Leap Manifesto. Mulcair himself is in self-preservation mode as he talks about the Manifesto, and promises to live up to it if the membership decides on it, which seems to go back to his particular issues with authenticity because there is no sense of what he believes around it (though he once praised the policies of Margaret Thatcher, so perhaps one could extrapolate from there). Mulcair is now insisting that no, the Manifesto isn’t about shutting down the oil sands or forgoing pipelines, except it pretty much is, with the promise to decarbonise the economy by 2050 – as well as shutting down mining and other extractive industries and tearing up trade agreements under the rubric that they hurt local economies. Mulcair has retreated to the statement that the Manifesto doesn’t explicitly say to leave oil in the ground, but after musing to Peter Mansbridge that he would do everything in his power to go that route if it’s what the party decided, well, the damage has been done, as the Alberta party is distancing themselves, the province’s environment minister calling the federal party’s environmental plan a “betrayal,” and Rachel Notley took to the airwaves to tell Albertans explicitly that she is working to get a pipeline built. The Manifesto’s proponents, however, insist that this is necessary, and that a hard-left turn can win, and cite Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn – never mind that neither has actually won an election, and likely never could given the personal dislike for them among even their own respective parties. (Seriously – Corbyn had a caucus enemies list drawn up). So will a hard-left turn save the party? It all depends on what they want to do, whether they want to return to being only about principle and the “conscience of parliament,” pushing the Liberals to do the right thing, or if they want power and the compromises that come with it. We’ll have to see what the membership decides, and whether Mulcair fits that vision.
Roundup: Fair Vote Canada’s shambolic release
It’s not everyday that you get a completely unhinged press release in your inbox, but holy cow did Fair Vote Canada come out with a doozy yesterday. It’s hard to know where to start with such a work of “shambolic genius,” as Colby Cosh put it.
No, Fair Vote Canada, proportional representation is NOT a Charter Right. Cripes. #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/X6NTPkGfOC
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) April 7, 2016
You see, according to the geniuses at Fair Vote Canada, they have cleverly parsed that when Trudeau pledged to “make every vote count” (a boneheaded statement because every vote already counts), he was referring to their slogan, and therefore he must really advocate for Proportional Representation, and because Trudeau has said he has no pre-conceived ideas about what the outcome of the consultations on electoral reform would be, he must really mean that he’s just trying to figure out which proportional representation system to use, because that’s what he’s signalled by using their slogan. Genius, I tell you. Genius!
But Wait… There’s More!™
While referring to Parliament as “the law factory” (Seriously? Seriously?!), they started invoking the Charter to claim that “equal treatment and equal benefit under the law” must mean that Canadian citizens are entitled to having their votes represented in direct proportion to the votes cast. Which is insane and ridiculous because that’s not how our system works at all, and is completely wrong when it comes to jurisprudence. You see, the Supreme Court of Canada has already rejected this line of reasoning, both in terms of the deviation of voting power (i.e. unequal riding sizes) for the purposes of better governance, but also with attempted challenges to the First-Past-The-Post system in the Quebec courts, which were roundly rejected and which the Supreme Court of Canada refused to grant leave to appeal. That means that as far as they’re concerned, the law is settled, and for Fair Vote Canada to try and advance this line of argument is futile and wrong. Because the law is settled. But considering that the whole basis for their advocacy of PR is rooted in sore loserism at the ballot box, it makes complete sense that they are also sore losers when it comes to the judicial system as well.
Moral of the story: Fair Vote Canada has long used falsehoods and logical fallacies to advance their case. This ridiculous and completely specious release is just one more in a dishonest string of arguments they’ve made and will continue to make as this debate heats up in the coming months.
If we put just enough words in Justin Trudeau's mouth, he'll HAVE to implement PR! https://t.co/THOcnwHCyB
— Chris Selley (@cselley) April 7, 2016
Roundup: Fundraising moral panic
In case you missed it, the moral panic over the past week or so is ministerial fundraisers, first in Ontario (and to a certain extent BC), but that’s bled over in to the federal sphere, because apparently we were afraid of missing out. And don’t forget, the federal rules are already pretty strict, with corporate and union donations already been banned and the contribution limit is pretty small (and when it comes to leadership contests, the Conservatives and NDP conspired to screw the Liberals, who were mid-contest at the time, but that’s beside the point). The point is that there’s a lot of unnecessary tut-tutting, particularly around a perfectly legal private fundraiser that the Minister of Justice is holding at a Toronto law firm. “Oh,” they say. “Some of these lawyers may want to be judges one day.” And this is the point where I look at people who say that straight in the face and ask if they really think that a federal judicial appointment can be bought for $500. Really? Seriously? Even on the issue of legal contracts, the minister can recuse herself if said law firm bids. There are processes around this kind of thing. The Ethics Commissioner said that there is no apparent conflict of interest here, but that doesn’t stop people from crying “money for access!” And when you have people like Duff Conacher going on TV and decrying that limits should be $100 because that way it’s equal for everyone, you have to wonder if that logic extends to not everyone can have nice things, so we should ban them so that it’s fair for everyone. Also, if you lower the limit too low, then people start looking for other ways to raise money, and all you have to look to is Quebec, where their strict donation regime became quickly susceptible to corruption. Of course, Conacher won’t be satisfied by any ethics regime unless he’s in charge of the parliamentary thought police, and frankly, anyone who quotes him in one of these stories becomes suspect because it means they’re going for cheap outrage. Are there bigger problems of perception in places like Ontario, where there aren’t any donation limits? Yes, indeed. But that’s not the case federally, and the minister is following the rules. Frankly, I’m not fussed that the PM is shrugging this off because honestly, this isn’t something that we should be lighting our hair on fire about.
Senator Cowan talks about the move to independence
As the Senate moves into the Great Age of Independence™, Senate Liberal leader James Cowan reached out to talk more about where he’s at in terms of this move. We had a fairly wide-ranging conversation, elements of which are recorded here.
“It’s interesting to see how this thing is evolving now,” Cowan said. “I did have a meeting with [future] Senator Harder – he called when he was appointed. We had a very friendly lunch, but I didn’t get any sense from him as to exactly how he sees the universe unfolding.”
That of course remains a question as to whether anyone can see at this point. Cowan has noted that there have been efforts to reach out to some of the other independent senators in the Chamber, but he remains wedded to the notion that despite still being Liberals, they are independent as far as the Senate goes because they have no affiliation with the party or the Commons caucus.