Author Archives: Dale

About Dale

Journalist in the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery

Roundup: The Economist Party fact-checks

Posted on by

With the Liberals casting the NDP federal minimum wage proposal as a mirage, and the NDP insisting that they haven’t deceived anyone (never mind that the Huffington Post did a piece asking ordinary people about what they thought of the pledge, only to learn it applies to federally-regulated industries, which won’t affect most people, and lo and behold, the people asked felt deceived. Imagine that!) While the NDP claim it will affect over 100,000 people, the Economist Party crunched the numbers, and found them lacking.

https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/632627804119547904

https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/632627978648731648

https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/632629540762685440

https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/632629836889001984

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/632640839819264000

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/632641381207404544

https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/632642099620376576

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/632642436439736320

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/632645758894735360

https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/632654353233383424

https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/632654456883036160

https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/632942778721284096

https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/632943035039420417

https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/632951157674086401

Continue reading →

Roundup: Tolerating Ray Novak’s deception

Posted on by

If there was one exchange on the campaign trail yesterday that speaks volumes for the way the current government is operating, particularly the lying about who knew about the cheque as opposed to Duffy himself repaying, it was between Hannah Thibedeau and Stephen Harper while in Hay River, and it goes thus: “You just mentioned in that answer a vast majority of staff believed that, but there were staff and very high profile staff that knew otherwise. For a few days, you have been evading that question about the deception done by many of your senior staff in the Duffy case including Mr. Ray Novak – he’s your current chief of staff, and he was told about Mr. Wright’s cheque in emails directly with Mr. Wright. So why have you tolerated Mr. Novak’s lying and even promoted him to current chief of staff who’s travelling with you right now?” Harper, predictably, rejected the premise of the question and insisted that only Wright and Duffy were responsible and they were being held accountable, which is clearly not the case. This was the party that rode into government on the white horse of accountability. It’s funny how that horse is nowhere to be seen these days.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Delving into Wright’s emails

Posted on by

Nothing too explosive in the Duffy trial yesterday, but more those emails from Monday are certainly creating a bit of a stir, showing the PMO ignored the scandal for the first while, how Harper’s lawyer ended up disagreeing with Harper on the residency questions, and how Duffy didn’t want to repay anything because it would have made him look guilty, which he certainly didn’t think he was. Most of those players in the emails are still around Harper today. Incidentally, Pamela Wallin’s travel claims also come up in the emails. Andrew Coyne meanwhile has sorted through them and come to a conclusion on his own, so I’ll let him:

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/631986747455471616

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/631986757727334400

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/631986770817732608

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/631986779369902080

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/631987013223325696

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/631987971177058304

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/631988803641716736

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/631990423058284544

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/631994776401903616

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/631994906102374408

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/631996316156063745

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/631996679747731460

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/631997695675211777

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/631997702117703680

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/631997707570311169

https://twitter.com/jenditchburn/status/631888561139286016

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/631998561178161152

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/631999339955666944

Continue reading →

Roundup: The PMO’s invisible levers in the Senate

Posted on by

One of the big things that emerged from the Duffy trial yesterday was a raft of new emails released from Nigel Wright, along with Wright’s testimony. While none of it was particularly damning to the prime minister, a number of pundits and journalists were baying over the Twitterverse and elsewhere that “this proves that the PMO is controlling the Senate! Where’s the independence?” and so on, I’m going to get everyone to take a deep breath and calm down. Yes, the PMO has been playing the Senate leadership – not the Senate itself – like its own private pawn. I’m not going to dispute that fact. But I am going to offer some context. First of all, Stephen Harper broke the Senate with his petulant refusal to make appointments from 2006 to 2008, and then made mass appointments, which damaged the chamber. (Refresher read here). He had a Senate leader who did his bidding without question, which is a problem. Because said Senate leader had so many newbie senators under her wing who did her bidding without question, it set up a power dynamic that allowed the PMO to exercise power levers that don’t actually exist. Wright complained about this lack of levers at times in his correspondence, and we also know that the Senate staff, including committee clerks, were pushing back against this PMO control, even to the point of threatening legal action. (And to that point, this BuzzFeed headline is wrong – they weren’t “rogue staffers,” they were Senate staffers instead of political ones). This makes it a problem of actors instead of institutions. As it is designed, the Senate is already a bastion of institutional independence – appointed Senators have absolutely nothing preventing them from speaking truth to power, because they are protected right up to a retirement age of 75, which in turn protects them from needing to curry favour with the PM to get a post-Senate appointment to a board or tribunal. The system is designed to ensure that they can be fully independent – the problem is that the current crop of Conservative senators has chosen not to be, whether it’s out of ignorance of their role, sentimentality for the prime minister who appointed them, or the fact that they sincerely believe he knows what’s best, so they’ll do what he asks. I can’t think of any way to tinker with the system to prevent that. As a rule, senators get better with age, and when a party leadership changes, they tend to get really independent in a hurry, but until that point, this remains a problem of political actors instead of institutions.

Continue reading →

Roundup: A marginal, ineffective drug announcement

Posted on by

A pattern is quickly emerging from the Conservatives as they roll out policy in this election – it’s all marginal, and it’s all populist, with little to no actual sense in the real world. First it was peanuts worth of tax credits for home renos (with zero economic justification), then a promise to ban “terror tourism” (with no real workable way to do it that would meet the Charter test). Yesterday was little different, with a lame announcement about tough-on-drugs, claiming that their anti-drug strategy is “working” (Really? How?), misrepresenting the issue of legalisation (with rhetoric that suggested that if they criminalise smoking that’ll help stop the problem), and throwing a bit or money at a fairly useless measure while ignoring proven steps like safe-injection sites, which not only reduce harm but do help get addicts into treatment. So with that, I’ll leave it to Dan Gardner to eviscerate this proposal:

https://twitter.com/dgardner/status/631237498203561984

https://twitter.com/dgardner/status/631238055802736640

https://twitter.com/dgardner/status/631243919854964745

https://twitter.com/dgardner/status/631244615224569857

https://twitter.com/dgardner/status/631245901890199552

https://twitter.com/dgardner/status/631246164130566145

https://twitter.com/dgardner/status/631247495054671872

Continue reading →

Roundup: Challenging Responsible Government

Posted on by

Last week, a group of lawyers wrote an op-ed in the Globe and Mail, calling for a constitutional challenge to judicial appointments, bemoaning the political process and concern trolling over an apparent declining lack of public confidence in the system – never mind the fact that no such lack of confidence is being expressed anywhere. Leonid Sirota writes an excellent takedown of the proposal here, but there is another concept that this group of lawyers ignores entirely, which is that of Responsible Government. Under our system, a prime minister and cabinet can legitimately make appointments so long as they enjoy the confidence of the House of Commons. Being as we’re a democracy and not a technocracy, it’s a system that allows the government to carry on its necessary business while having a mechanism to be held to account, not only at the ballot box but at any time, the House can withdraw its confidence if they feel the government has abused its powers. It cannot be understated that the whole reason we gained Responsible Government in the colonies pre-confederation is that we wanted control over our patronage appointments, so that they weren’t coming from London. It’s one of the foundational cornerstones of our whole democratic system. That this group of lawyers wants to undermine it with no actual evidence that there’s a problem – rather, what seems to be some fairly partisan sour grapes because they don’t agree ideologically with a small minority of appointments – is troubling. They should know how our system of government works. That they apparently don’t is a very big problem.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Dubious travel bans

Posted on by

As a new policy announcement yesterday, Stephen Harper said that if the Conservatives were to continue to form government after the election, they would introduce legislation to curb “terrorist tourism,” all of which is an entirely ridiculous plan, whether it’s as an issue of mobility rights, of letting the RCMP or CSIS determine who is a “professional journalist” or humanitarian organisation, or the fact that this betrays any shred of libertarianism that the Conservatives profess to hold. (But then again, we already knew that they’re not an ideological party, but rather right-flavoured populists, right?) Justin Trudeau says this is just a distration from economic issues and that Harper has to answer more questions about limiting rights, while Thomas Mulcair doubted the move’s efficacy (while continually repeating that they’re not going to be against any move that reduces terrorism). Anyway, Paul Wells demolished the whole thing in a series of tweets.

https://twitter.com/inklesspw/status/630499372606877696

https://twitter.com/inklesspw/status/630499578689814529

https://twitter.com/inklesspw/status/630500563919204352

https://twitter.com/inklesspw/status/630502075395346433

https://twitter.com/inklesspw/status/630503234944241664

https://twitter.com/inklesspw/status/630505023206752256

https://twitter.com/inklesspw/status/630509157045661700

https://twitter.com/inklesspw/status/630509646487359488

Continue reading →

Roundup: So long, Eve Adams

Posted on by

Some six months after crossing the floor, Eve Adams’ time as a Liberal is at an end as she was defeated in her nomination race in Eglington-Lawrence. Marco Mendicino, a former federal Crown prosecutor who put away terrorists in the “Toronto 18” plot, handily won the riding, and will go on to face Joe Oliver in the upcoming election. Of course, now comes all of the pundits who will question whether Adams’ defeat will also damage Justin Trudeau, but I will say that I’m unconvinced by those arguments. While Scott Reid wrote in the Citizen on Friday that loyal Liberals should hold their noses and vote for Adams to avoid damaging their leader, I think that he entirely misread the situation. When Trudeau accepted Adams into caucus, the reaction was pretty muted. When he did it, it was to take a boot to the Conservatives, and to have Adams talk about how the Conservatives were no longer the party of the Progressive Conservatives (never mind that she never was one). It was about playing up that Red Tories had a home in the Liberal Party. But after that, she faded to the background. Instead of putting her up in QP the next day to great applause, Adams didn’t even show up in the House for days. When she did, she stuck to the background, wasn’t given slots in QP or during Members’ Statements, and was pretty much kept out of the limelight. Trudeau, for his part, stuck to his line of open nominations and didn’t endorse her. And when the process played out and Mendicino won, Trudeau’s hands were clean. Yes, he accepted her into caucus, but that was it. He let the grassroots decide without any interference, and that says a lot, in an age of a lot of bellyaching about the rougher edges of the open nomination process (and seriously, people, the people who have complained about being red-lighted have pretty much proven why that was the case). If anything, things played out in the very best light for Trudeau – he has a strong local candidate that won in a fair race, and he still got in a few punches at the Conservatives when Adams crossed the floor. I have a hard time seeing how this is a negative for him in any way. Meanwhile, BuzzFeed Canada collects your tweets in response to Mendicino’s win.

Continue reading →

Roundup: A moratorium courting constitutional crisis

Posted on by

Without going too deeply into this (something I’ll save for later), Stephen Harper decided that his best way to “differentiate” himself on the Senate was to flout the constitution, and declare a moratorium on any future appointments. There are already 22 vacancies in the Chamber – a full fifth of its complement, and more than any in history. It’s unconscionable, because there are supposed to be 105 senators, and not a maximum of. It’s a complete abrogation of the compromises made by the Fathers of Confederation, and furthermore, it’s also flouting the decision of the Supreme Court who said explicitly that the Senate has a role with sober second thought. That role is already being compromised because they’re having trouble filling committee seats, and this is a very serious problem. On the one hand, this official declaration of a moratorium is a gift to Vancouver lawyer Aniz Alani, who has launched a challenge in Federal Court to get a declaration that the Prime Minister is obligated to make appointments as they happen. It’s also courting problems with federal-provincial relations for a couple of reasons – one is that Harper is now attempting to do through the back door what he won’t do from the front door (again), and he’s using a childish tactic of throwing this problem into the laps of the premiers to come up with some kind of solution without him. It also highlights that there is again a choice for voters in the election – you can vote to keep in a party whose leader flouts the constitution and the Supreme Court; one who promises to do the very same while chasing the pipe dream of Senate abolition; and one who has promised concrete and constitutional measures to reform the appointment process in the same way that Harper did with vice-regal appointments. Oh, and in case you were wondering, if the courts declare that a Prime Minister has a constitutional obligation to make appointments as they happen – and that’s pretty much guaranteed – and the PM still refuses to, we’re into constitutional crisis territory where the Governor General will have the very real need to dismiss said PM. This is what we’re courting here. It’s not a trivial matter.

https://twitter.com/aaronwherry/status/624675200358055936

https://twitter.com/inklesspw/status/624675923984576512

https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/624676159687671809

https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/624676449245638656

https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/624676790179655680

https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/624677092953858048

Continue reading →

Roundup: Giving terrorists what they want

Posted on by

Because they’re totally not trying to use public service resources for electioneering purposes, it has been revealed that the Foreign Affairs minister Rob Nicholson wanted his department to produce a minimum of three media statements per week regarding the security threats posed by terrorism. While they would draw from events around the world, the statements would have been a steady stream delivered to media inboxes in the hopes of getting some kind of traction. Fortunately, the civil servants in the department realised this was ridiculous and pushed back, saying it wasn’t a priority for them to fulfil these requests, and good on them for doing so – it’s not their job to try and help the party build a narrative for their election campaign. And no doubt, we’ll likely hear a lot more about the security question from the Conservatives going forward, because it’s not like their economic record is doing them any favours right now. Of course, the irony in all of this is that it would appear to feed directly into the aims of terrorists, which is of course, to create fear. If the government is going to deliver nothing but a stream of statements saying “Ooh, terrorists! Be very afraid!” then doesn’t it mean that they’re letting the terrorists win? Even if they follow it up with the chest thumping about how awesome the government is by taking such a strong stand against them, etcetera, etcetera? I’m at a bit of a loss as to how this is a brilliant strategy in the bigger picture.

Continue reading →