The Auditor General was making the media rounds yesterday, largely combating the cheap outrage journalism about the supposed spending issues of his office (which wasn’t a story but hey), and confirmed that about 30 senators would be facing some kind of repayment, fewer than 10 serious enough to merit being forwarded to the RCMP – but of course, ten became the headline number when he said it would be fewer, and the number of five to eight has been suggested by other media outlets, which seems more in line with what he claims. The total number of senators examined was 117 current and former, and it certainly sounds like the majority of cases will be fairly minor in terms of repayments. The Senate announced that they are retaining former Supreme Court Justice Ian Binnie as the independent arbiter on expenses, so that they have a process by which to dispute the AG’s findings if they so choose, and that may be necessary considering the complaints emerging about the lack of knowledge on the part of auditors as to parliamentary functions. This raises the question of fairness – is it fair that these senators will have a process in place, whereas Senators Duffy, Brazeau and Wallin did not, and were suspended without any kind of due process? The answer of course is that no, it’s probably not fair, but this was a fairly consuming crisis at the time, and they were sacrificed on the altar of expediency. Politics is messy business, particularly when you were high-profile appointments and had become a political liability. I’m not sure that it should be reason to forgo having a process going forward, but if all three are found guilty on the charges laid by the RCMP, then will it really matter in the end?
Author Archives: Dale
QP: Shoehorning in the Duffy issue
Despite it being a Tuesday, only two leaders were present — Thomas Mulcair, and Elizabeth May. Alas. Mulcair led off, asking about the destruction of records on the long-gun registry despite the Access to Information requests. Stephen Blaney insisted that the RCMP respects all laws and the will of parliament — which, you know, hadn’t been recorded because it was simply a bill at the time. Mulcair demanded to know who ordered the records deleted, and Blaney didn’t deviate. Mulcair tried to stretch it to the audit on Senate residencies, and Blaney insisted the NDP should be given a free vote on an upcoming gun bill. Mulcair insisted that the PM release the statement that Duffy apparently signed about his residency, to which Paul Calandra stood up and reminded the NDP about their satellite offices. Mulcair kept trying to tie the Duffy affair into things, and Calandra repeated his demanded that the NDP pay back the money from those offices. Dominic LeBlanc led off for the Liberals, decrying the focus on TFSAs instead of focusing on those who need help. Pierre Poilievre listed a couple of scenarios where seniors use the accounts. Scott Brison hammered on the TFSAs and the PBO’s statements on them, and Joe Oliver actually answered, listing some figures about them as a kind of non sequitur. Brison noted the GIS payments affected by TFSAs, but Oliver quoted some people who support their moves.
"We know they're having a bad question period," Mulcair says, and then reads his question. #QP
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) May 26, 2015
"Let's put a stop to the chanting in the Chamber. It's unbecoming," Speaker Scheer admonished. #QP
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) May 26, 2015
Roundup: Cheap outrage against the AG
The Auditor General is in the news for a couple of reasons, both of which start bordering on the ridiculous. The first is the news about the price tag of the Senate audit, which is said to be approaching $21 million. The AG himself didn’t want to start talking numbers out of context, and to wait for the final report, but this likely has to do with the fact that a number of outside contract staff were brought in to do the audit – which is also what a lot of the process complaints are, particularly since these outside auditors have no idea about what constitutes parliamentary functions, or the bounds of propriety in some cases. (Incidentally, the numbers of senators affected being leaked in this story is far less than those in other reports). The other story is more egregious, but not for the reason you might think. CTV reported that the AG’s office has spent $23,000 over four years on team-building exercises. Mind you, that’s over 600 staff, which basically amounts to an annual pizza lunch, and it’s in the context of a $90 million annual budget, but look – a big number with little context! Scandal! And thus we get to the egregiousness of the cheap outrage that apparently fuels out political media in this country. Who doesn’t love a story where a big number gets presented with inadequate context, and calling it a scandal? Why can’t we be a country that is so cheap and flinty that we are the Ritz-crackers-and-ginger ale crowd? Why should we spend money on anything at all? But no, it’s all OH NOES PIZZA LUNCH and lighting our hair on fire. And then of course, the perennial bugaboo of the Challenger jets, where every time the GG flies somewhere we need to get the CTF on the line to decry how terrible it is that we go and do diplomacy. Sometimes I wonder if we’re really a grown-up country after all.
@robert_hiltz I worked it out to $38 per employee over four years on team building.
— Paul Vieira (@paulvieira) May 26, 2015
QP: Talking points on a list
Monday in the Commons, and true to form, none of the leaders were present — never mind that there are a mere four weeks left. Megan Leslie led off, asking about the GHG emissions targets announced by the government. Leona Aglukkaq got up and read a statement about their sector-by-sector approach, and that they wouldn’t implement a carbon tax. Leslie raised the use of offset credits, which the government used to decry, and Aglukkaq simply read the next non sequitur talking point on her list. Leslie then moved onto the PMO interference in the audit of Mike Duffy, to which Paul Calandra reminded her that it was before the courts. Peter Julian asked the same again in French, and got the same response from Calandra in English, and brought up the NDP satellite offices. Julian tried to bring the rest of the Senate into the mix, but Calandra gave a pro forma response about cooperation, and reminded them about the satellite offices. Emmanuel Dubourg led for the Liberals, and asked another youth unemployment as a way of touting the Liberal plan. Pierre Poilievre touted the government’s plan in response. Ralph Goodale was up next, and slammed the government’s growth record, to which Poilievre repeated his Tax Cuts, Training and Trade™ talking point. For his final question, Goodale decried the government’s child tax plans, to which Poilievre insisted that he was wrong, and that even the PBO said the government plan was okay.
Roundup: Eroding financial controls
Talk about the “permanent campaign” has been around for much longer than most people credit it for. In fact, the earliest mention I’ve seen was in a letter that then-PC youth leader Joe Clark sent to then-party leader John Diefenbaker warning about the implications of the permanent campaign, and well, things have only gone downhill from there. The advent of the “fixed election date” did nothing to temper the permanent campaign – instead of fearing an election that could come at any time, we are instead treated to a fixed date that everyone builds their campaigning around, and year-long campaigns are certainly now the norm, following in more of an American example than we have traditionally had in this country. Amidst it all, the former Chief Electoral Officer, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, is warning that the fixed election date is eroding the campaign rules that we’ve developed over years, and in particular, campaign finance rules. Those rules, built for the era of when a campaign could come at any point, have no sway over the election spending limits that happen outside of the writ period, which means that they can spend as much as they want, particularly on advertising, and don’t have to report it. When the writ does eventually drop, people will have been bombarded by this messaging over the summer, and it’ll get pretty tired. But Kingsley is right – we have developed the best system in the world for election spending controls, and the permanent campaign of the fixed-election date is undermining that. There is a bill in the Senate that has stalled at committee for years that would see the same caps from an election apply to the writ period also apply to the pre-writ period, so that if you do a blitz of pre-writ advertising, well, it’ll deduct from your total spending cap in the writ period. It’s a novel idea, but it’s no surprise that nobody has picked up on it. It goes to reinforce that while fixed election dates sound swell on the face of it, if you look a little bit deeper, you’ll find that all of their supposed good aspects are in fact swamped by the unintended bad ones, which is what we seem to have completely taken over. Time to pull the plug on them.
Roundup: More documents and arguments
With more Duffy-related documents being filed and their separate proceeding going ahead in trying to get that secret internal report on residencies going ahead, there is a flurry of stories in the news related to the ongoing expenses issue in the Upper Chamber. Those new documents filed show that the steering subcommittee of the internal economy committee – meaning particularly Senators Carolyn Stewart Olsen and David Tkachuk – altered the section of the report on Mike Duffy seven times to tone down the criticism of his residency and travel patterns after he repaid the $90,000 (as it turned out thanks to Nigel Wright). It does seem mystifying that other Conservative senators are not insisting that Stewart Olsen and Tkachuk be removed from that committee to clear the air, but these kinds of decisions tend to rest in the Senate leader’s office, and well, the current Leader of the Government in the Senate is a yes-man for the PMO, and those two senators did the PMO’s bidding. It does stink, and one would think that the rest of their caucus would take issue – but then again, they may be but it would be happening behind closed doors. And the current rumour is that the Auditor General is going to recommend that the RCMP look at 10 senators’ expenses, but said rumour also says that most of those 10 have seen retired. I guess we’ll see what happens when the report is released, but the Senate Speaker has said that they will send files to the RCMP if that is what is recommended. As for that internal report that the Senate refuses to turn over to Duffy’s lawyers, they seem to be making the argument that Duffy has been treated unfairly by having his expenses turned over to the RCMP but others haven’t – which isn’t true, considering that Patrick Brazeau and Mac Harb also had theirs turned over and had charges laid, while the RCMP continue to investigate Pamela Wallin’s expenses. And they may have more company on the way, but the Senate is in the process of making its rules more stringent, and hopefully the next time appointments are made, they will be vetted a little better than those of the Class of 2008.
Roundup: A court challenge goes ahead
It’s a court challenge that is probably understated in its importance and its longer-term implications, but the attempt to challenge Stephen Harper’s refusal to appoint new senators got a boost as the Federal Court rejected the government’s attempt to have it struck down before being heard. That means that the challenge can go ahead, and we’ll get a ruling from the Federal Court (which may possibly even make its way up to the Supreme Court) as to the constitutional requirement that a Prime Minister has to advise the Governor General on Senate appointments. The common retort about the obligation is that the constitution doesn’t specify when appointments need to be made – simply “from time to time,” but the plain reading of that text is that because there are no fixed dates as to when seats become vacant, there can be no fixed times as to when they are to be filled. That vacancies are allowed to pile up also goes against the representative nature of the Senate – those regions are entitled to their representation, and it should be as unconscionable that those seats are left vacant as it would be if they were seats in the Commons. This argument is being made in the challenge, “When shall a vacancy be filled? When it happens, not at the pleasure of the Prime Minister.” While the courts may make a declaration as to the constitutionality, it is unlikely they will be able to make a declaratory order that it be enforced, however, because it is in relation to a constitutional convention as opposed to a statute, but it still matters. Why this is important is not only for the obligation that Harper has made his decision not to appoint any more senators known (at least not in the current political climate), the NDP have also declared that they wouldn’t make any appointments either were they ever to form government, but good luck getting the unanimous consent of the provinces to make that constitutional amendment. They too would be bound by a positive declaration by the courts – that they are obligated to make the appointments. That Harper and Mulcair are on the same side of an issue, even if it’s for different reasons, is a curious state of affairs, and it’s very telling that the government tried to get it thrown out of court.
Roundup: Trying to politicize the GG
In a move so stunningly boneheaded that I can scarcely believe it, the NDP have gone to Rideau Hall to ask the Governor General to wade in on the Senate residency issue – because there’s nothing like trying to politicise the GG to show that you mean business about a petty issue. It’s like Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition doesn’t have a clue about what Responsible Government – the central organising principle of our democratic system – actually means. Here’s a refresher for their edification – the Governor General acts on the advice of the Prime Minister because the Prime Minister holds the confidence of the House of Commons, which is the chamber elected for the purpose of granting or withholding said confidence. The entire history of the struggle for Responsible Government in the colonies that became Canada, back in the 1830s, was because they wanted to control the appointments made by the Crown, rather than leave it up to the colonial masters in the UK. The entire history of Canadian democracy rests on the fact that it’s the elected government that advises the Crown on who to appoint, and not the other way around. And yet the NDP seem to suddenly think it’s cool to ask the GG to weigh in on which appointments he thinks are okay or not. Charlie Angus may tell you that he’s asking for an explanation and that he’s not trying to draw the GG into the “scandal,” but with all due respect, that’s a load of utter horseshit and he knows it. He’s trying to get the GG to tell him that the PM is wrong so that he has “non-partisan” authority to make the claim for him; that’s never going to happen. Ever. It is assumed that the advice the PM gives the GG is legitimate because the PM has the confidence of the Commons. That means that the quality of that advice is a ballot box issue – if we don’t like it, we get to hold that PM and that government to account by voting them out. It is not up to the GG to veto it unless it’s so egregious that it’s a blatant violation of the constitution, at which point he refuses the advice and the Prime Minister is forced to resign. But as much as Charlie Angus might like to think that Mike Duffy is some unprecedented scandal that rocks the very legitimacy of the Upper Chamber (which they don’t believe is legitimate anyway, so this is grade-A concern trolling on his part), it’s not a constitutional crisis. It’s just not. Even if Harper’s advice was dubious, it was up to Duffy to ensure that he lived up to the terms of that appointment, and ensuing he was a proper resident of PEI – which essentially would have meant a hasty house sale in Ottawa, buying a year-round residence on the Island (and not a summer cottage) tout suit, and then maybe renting an apartment or buying a small condo near Parliament Hill as his Ottawa pied à terre, being a legitimate secondary residence. Duffy did not do that. He instead got political opinions to ensure that he was okay with the summer cottage and a driver’s licence and that’s it, when clearly that was not enough. He bears as much culpability in this as the PM for making the appointment – not the GG. Charlie Angus should be utterly ashamed for this blatant attempt to politicise the GG, but I’m pretty sure he’s incapable of shame.
@InklessPW Oh p-lease. So the NDP opposes the Senate because it is undemocratic but is ok with the GG vetoing the PM? #cdnpoli
— Adam Dodek (@ADodek) May 20, 2015
Roundup: Calling in the OPP
It took MPs long enough to respond, but one supposes that it’s about time they did. On Thursday of last week, the Information Commissioner issued her damning special report on the RCMP destroying records that were under Access to Information requests, related to the long-gun registry, and the government is now proposing legislation to make it retroactively legal (more in my column here). No MP other than Wayne Easter bothered to actually say something until yesterday – five days later – at which point the committees decided to get involved. The NDP are moving a motion in Ethics committee, which has jurisdiction over Access to Information policy, while the Liberals are proposing similar hearings in the Public Safety committee where they can haul the RCMP Commissioner before them. Still, it’s another week’s delay, and there’s no guarantee they’ll get the hearings given the limited number of sitting days left, and the fact that government MPs can block their request in camera. That having been said, it looks like Suzanne Legault’s recommendation that charges be laid for the destruction of those records might actually come to fruition, as the Attorney General’s office did forward the request on to the Director of Public Prosecutions, who in turn has asked the OPP to investigate. We’ll see if the government proposes to still go ahead with retroactively changing the law while there is an active police investigation, but if they stick to their guns, that they’re just “closing a loophole” (which is not true), then they just might.
Roundup: On official birthdays
It should not be unexpected that on Victoria Day, you would get some usual trite releases by the Prime Minister and the Governor General about the importance of Canada’s relationship with the monarchy, and so on. We got them. What we also got was a bunch of ignorant backlash.
Today, Laureen & I join Cdns to officially celebrate the birthday of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada. http://t.co/kDokPviYF8
— Stephen Harper (@stephenharper) May 18, 2015
The GG wishes us a happy Victoria Day, and Her Majesty a happy official birthday in Canada. #MapleCrown pic.twitter.com/4rSTzN8PRk
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) May 18, 2015
Immediately a bunch of geniuses started to tweet back that it was celebrating Queen Victoria’s birthday, not Queen Elizabeth’s, and that Harper was an idiot, and so on. Err, except that those people were the ones in the wrong because since 1957, it was decided that the Official Birthday of the Canadian Sovereign would be Victoria Day, not the April birthday of the current Queen of Canada, Elizabeth II, nor the same official birthday as the Queen of the United Kingdom, which is in June. It’s like we have our own monarchy or something! Also, it has to do with the distinction between the legal person of the Queen of the Canada, and her natural person.
https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/600350515633979393
https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/600350878269313025
https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/600354856294047744
Suffice to say, it’s a pretty sad statement as to the current state of civic literacy in Canada that this basic celebration of our Head of State has been completely lost to your average person. Granted, the PM’s tweet could have been better phrased, such as “official birthday” instead of “officially celebrate,” but still, the point stands. It’s time to take this basic education more seriously, Canada. Yesterday was pretty embarrassing.
https://twitter.com/lopinformation/status/600334009944645633