It was the day that the House was supposed to resume operation, had Harper not prorogued in order to reset his moribund agenda. The Liberal caucus made a point of being back on the Hill, and arranged for a roundtable discussion on wireless issues in order to showcase how their caucus was engaged in stakeholder affairs. The NDP, however, held a couple of press conferences – one to showcase a (non-binding) opposition day motion that they would eventually table to talk about the government’s communications policies as it deals with scientists, the other to announce that they would be holding “Twitter Question Periods” by which their caucus would tweet questions to the government as though they were in Question Period. And lo and behold, they declared success for tweeting twenty-six questions and briefly making their chosen hashtag trend (though they seem to have forgotten that trending map algorithms are dependent on your followers, so if everyone on your followers lists are retweeting the same thing, your trending map will reflect this). Twenty-six questions thrown into the void – such a high bar for success. That James Moore sarcastically responded that once they have a wireless policy he’d bother debating with them raised it even further. One wonders to what measure of success they’ll consider the very same exercise later today. Oh boy.
Author Archives: Dale
Roundup: Victory for the Media Party
Toronto Centre Liberals and New Democrats have spoken, and the Media Party has won out! Journalists Linda McQuaig and Chrystia Freeland have won their respective nominations for the NDP and Liberals respectively. As both have written about income inequality, and both want to muscle in on the debate over the “plight” of the middle class (which may not really exist, if the economic data is to be believed, but shh, don’t tell anyone because you’re trying to win those votes), but it will set up for an interesting by-election once it is finally called, and it will make for even more of an interesting 2015 when Toronto Centre gets split into two, and their challengers can try to claim one of the other nominations in the redistribution. Pundit’s Guide looks when those by-elections might be called, especially now that the Conservatives have set themselves up for acclaimed candidates in up to three of the ridings up for grabs.
Roundup: The GG makes it official
Parliament has officially been prorogued until October 16th after the Prime Minister advised the Governor General to do so. Aaron Wherry gives a bit of an explainer on the whole thing, but fails to explain the reasons for the pageantry of having the PM sit there while the GG reads his speech. (Hint: It is a reminder that the Crown holds the power while the political executive wields it for the day-to-day governing of the country, and that the Crown is the formal source of authority). Sonya Bell looks at some of the party plans during the prorogation period. Independent MP Brent Rathgeber says that he will spend the time on a “Broken Democracy” tour speaking at various universities, while also updating his website to be more transparent with his expenses.
Roundup: The ostracism of Maria Mourani
The Bloc Québécois has expelled one of its few MPs – and it’s only woman, visible minority, and Montreal representative in caucus – over her criticisms of the Quebec “Charter of Values.” Maria Mourani ran for the leadership of the party and lost to Daniel Paillé, who doesn’t have a seat, and her expulsion leaves them with a caucus of four white male MPs. And it’s too bad, because Mourani was one of their best MPs. I doubt, however, that she will join up with the NDP as some have speculated, because she remains a sovereigntist. Meanwhile, an Ontario hospital is releasing ads targeting doctors in Quebec who are from religious minorities, trying to attract them to move to Ontario instead. Justin Trudeau writes that he knows that Quebeckers are better than the divisive politics that Pauline Marois proposes with the “Charter.” Paul Wells traces more of the roots of this particular “Charter” and the anxieties that lay behind it, while Andrew Coyne says that Quebeckers can no longer content themselves that this legislation isn’t offensive – but that the rest of Canada can’t pat themselves on the back either, given that in Ontario, Dalton McGuinty won an election on very nearly the same grounds. Michael Den Tandt looks at how this latest move could backfire on Pauline Marois.
Roundup: We have a date
Word has been given – Parliament shall resume on October 16th. That means that about three-and-a-half weeks of sitting days will have been missed, as the week of the 14th was supposed to have been a constituency week owing to Thanksgiving. Also factor in that there is an APEC Summit in Indonesia the week before, so that also affected the timing of an October return. Mind you Harper could have simply prorogued and still returned on September 16th as planned, but what can you do? (Well, withdraw confidence in the government, if you really want to be technical about it).
Fair Vote Canada’s intellectually bankrupt “evidence-based” argument
Our good friends at Fair Vote Canada have decided to adopt the new buzz-word of “evidence-based” as part of their new campaign for electoral reform. The “evidence” in this case is the summary of study by Arend Lijphart that compares thirty-six democracies. Immediately, this should be a red flag right there – comparing democracies that use different models of governance is pretty much like comparing apples, grapefruits, bananas and goats – which this study pretty much confirms. The study also glosses over actual substantive issues like responsibility and accountability in favour of focusing on the act of voting itself. This is not a surprise given the particular ideological bent of Fair Vote Canada, for whom it’s the act of voting that is important, rather than what the vote means, and how that act works in the broader context of the system as a whole.
Roundup: Outrage over the “Charter of Values”
The PQ government in Quebec unveiled the details of its proposed “Charter of Quebec Values,” to universal condemnation from the federal parties. It proposes to limit the religious accommodations made for public servants – in other words, you can wear a small cross or Star of David ring, but nothing larger or more obvious, and no, your boss doesn’t have to give you time off for religious holidays or a prayer space. Jason Kenney immediately promised that they would go to the courts to find the new law unconstitutional if Quebec presses ahead (though Quebec does have the option of using the Notwithstanding Clause of the Charter if they felt it necessary to do so). Oh, and because it shows you just how well they thought this through, they didn’t have an answer about whether people would still be swearing on Bibles in a court room. Oops. For a bit of history on how the party got to this point, it bears reminding that electing an urbane, metropolitan gay leader got them nowhere, so now they’re resorting to the more xenophobic end of the spectrum to try and make headway. John Geddes compares the way each of the federal parties reacted. Martin Patriquin looks at the history of backtracked proposals that Marois’ government has put forward to date, and predicts that this Charter won’t see the light of day in its current form.
Roundup: Flaherty’s EI premium freeze
Jim Flaherty announced a “good news” economic measure of freezing EI premiums for the next three years – you know, like the Liberals have been hounding him to do for the past couple of years. Only, to be clever, the Liberals were calling them “job-killing payroll taxes” either, and despite the freeze, there will still be some rate increases. It also makes one wonder about the utility of the arm’s length board set up to advise on things like rates if the government continues to undermine them and set the rates anyway. Aaron Wherry notes that this was the subject of one of Justin Trudeau’s “crowd-sourced” questions during QP in the spring. When you crunch the numbers, however, the freeze isn’t worth all that much – about $24 per year for the average person, and $340 for the average business.
Roundup: The commitment to transparency in the Commons
The Procedure and House Affairs held a rare emergency meeting yesterday to declare – unanimously – that they are committed to the ongoing study of ways to increase the transparency in the Commons, and voted to ensure that the House Leader commits to keeping said committee study going once Parliament resumes, and committed to a report on the topic by December 2nd. This allows the committee clerks to start to schedule hearings and lining up expert witnesses during the prorogation – a time when the committee is technically dissolved.
Roundup: More humanitarian aid for Syria
At the end of the G20 conference in Russia, Canada is pledging another $45 million in humanitarian assistance for Syrian refugees, while Harper had more harsh words about Putin and the fact that it was unacceptable that he has a veto on Security Council taking action. But Harper also put distance to the notion that we’ll be making concessions on the Canada-EU Free Trade Agreement, and said that “significant gaps” remain. Okay then. And then the biggest news of all – that Harper has basically asked Barak Obama to dictate what emissions regulations targets he wants us to set in order for the Keystone XL pipeline to be approved. It’s likely an attempt to get a firm set of numbers rather than the nebulous talk that we’re currently mired in, but so much for setting our own sovereign environmental goals and policies.