Category Archives: Political Roundup

What’s going on in Canadian politics

Roundup: A new NAFTA

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Apparently, we have a NAFTA deal. Or “USMCA,” as Trump wants to call it, because that’s so much better. After a weekend of negotiations and a 10 PM emergency Cabinet meeting last night, everything was The “senior sources” are saying that dairy access will be around what was negotiated for the original TPP (or maybe a little more) along with eliminating the “Class 7” pricing, but we managed to keep the cultural exemptions and dispute resolution mechanisms, so that’s something. What we apparently didn’t get were any new guarantees around those steel and aluminium tariffs, so that’s less of a good thing. More details are due to be announced this morning, for what it’s worth.

And now for the Conservative shitposts to begin, and Michelle Rempel has offered us a taste of what’s to come. Because remember, they’re the “grown-ups” in the room.

https://twitter.com/MichelleRempel/status/1046611767185440768

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Roundup: Dissent without disloyalty

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Yesterday on Power & Politics, we saw something that is far too rare in Canadian politics, but should be the norm. In response to the government signing on the US’ recent initiative at the UN to basically renew the “war on drugs,” Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith went on the show to publicly disagree with his party and the government that his party forms, and more to the point, we didn’t see anyone clutching their pearls about this, or higher-ups in the party make threats. Shocking, I know.

The civics refresher here is that all MPs are supposed to hold government to account, whether they’re in the opposition or in the government’s backbench. Holding the government to account is the very raison d’etre of Parliament, but you wouldn’t know it given how many government backbenchers think it’s their job to be cheerleaders, to give unquestioning support, and possibly to suck up in the hopes of a Cabinet posting or parliamentary secretary position. I also know that this isn’t quite as true behind the caucus room door, but we see very little dissent in public. We see even less dissent in other parties – the NDP enforce solidarity and uniformity in all positions, and have been known to punish MPs who step out of line, while we’ve seen the amount of tolerance that the Conservatives have for dissenting opinions with Maxime Bernier’s post-leadership experiences (though I will grant you, there is still some diversity of thought in there, but it’s rarely expressed publicly). And while I don’t praise Justin Trudeau for many things, I will say his openness to dissenting voices is unquestioningly a good thing in Parliament.

And this brings me back to Leona Alleslev’s defection to the Conservatives last week, and the statements she made about how she didn’t think she could openly criticize the government and not be perceived as disloyal. This is one of those statements of hers that I called bullshit on at the time, and I will call bullshit on it doubly today given this latest incident where Erskine-Smith broke ranks and nobody is calling him disloyal for it. He’s doing the job he’s supposed to do, and which not enough MPs take seriously (and this is also because the lack of proper civics education and training for MPs when they’re elected). I’d like to see him setting an example that others will hopefully follow.

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Roundup: A (likely) electoral false alarm

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There were a few eyebrows raised in the Parliamentary Precinct yesterday when news came from the Procedure and House Affairs committee that the Chief Electoral Officer said that they intend to be ready for an election by the end of April, never mind that the fixed election date is October, and suddenly there was a renewed (but brief) round of election speculation fever (which was then suffocated by the Kavanagh hearings south of the border). Stéphane Perrault noted that they can basically run an election anytime under the previous contest’s rules, but they need lead time for future changes, which puts a clock on the current bill at committee if they want to have a chance for any of the changes to be implemented by next year’s election – and that assumes fairly swift passage in the Senate, which they may not get (particularly if the Conservatives are determined to slow passage of the bill down in committee as it stands).

Of course, I’m pretty sure that a spring election is not going to happen, simply because Trudeau’s agenda still has too many boxes without checkmarks – which is also why I suspect that we haven’t had a prorogation. And looking at how Trudeau has organised his agenda, so much of it has been backloaded to the final year, with plenty of spillover for him to ask for re-election in order to keep it going. (Things are also delayed, one suspects, because NAFTA talks have derailed things in the PMO, and sucked up much of the talent and brainpower. Suffice to say, I’m not taking any talk about an early election with any seriousness.

Meanwhile, more eyebrows were raised when Conservative MP Michelle Rempel claimed that she was being told to prepare for a fall election, which we’re 99 percent sure is just a new fundraising ploy, for what that’s worth.

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Roundup: Harder’s charm offensive

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There’s a charm offensive in the works, led by the Government Leader in the Senate – err, “government representative,” Senator Peter Harder, and his staff, to try and showcase how they’re transforming the Senate. In a profile piece of the “Government Representative Office” for the Hill Times, the three members of the office gave lovely little explanations of their duties, and how they’re doing things differently, like Senator Mitchell talking about how he doesn’t have a caucus to whip, so he’s focused on counting votes for upcoming bills, and arranging briefings and such. Bless.

What didn’t get answered in the piece is just why Harder needs his $1.5 million budget, since he isn’t managing a caucus, he isn’t doing his job of negotiating with other caucus groups for the passage of bills, he isn’t doing any heavy lifting in terms of sponsoring bills on behalf of the government, and as we saw during one of his melodramatic moments in the spring, doesn’t appear to be counting votes either. So why he needs that big of a budget, and that many staff, remains a mystery that has gone unsolved. Harder also remained evasive as to just how often he meets with Cabinet, which continues to be problematic because he’s supposed to be the link between the Chamber and the Cabinet, where Senators can find accountability for the actions of the government (which is why he’s supposed to be a full-blown Cabinet minister and not just a member of Privy Council). They did say that he wasn’t at the recent Cabinet retreat, which raises yet more questions, especially when it comes to how he plans to get their priorities through the Chamber as the Order Paper in the Senate is full, and he’s been in no mood to negotiate timelines (which I know for a fact that other caucus groups are willing to do).

Part of the problem with this charm offensive is that it’s preying on the lack of knowledge that members of the media have with how the Senate works, so they don’t know how things have and have not changed – and for the most part, the only thing that has changed are the fact that Harder and company insist on renaming everything and not doing the jobs they’re supposed to be doing, shifting that burden to the other players in Senate leadership. My other worry is that this is the first stage in the push to start making changes like the demand for a business committee, which would have a hugely detrimental effect on the Chamber and its operations. And I would caution any journalists reading to beware of what Harder plans to propose, and how he plans to charm other journalists into writing feel-good stories about his planned rule changes without understanding how they will damage the Senate.

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Roundup: Hung legislatures vs basic civics

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New Brunswick had an election on Monday night, and it resulted in a 22-21-3-3 hung legislature, and wouldn’t you just know it, there’s been some really awful reporting about it, because apparently people who report on politics in this country can’t be arsed to learn the basics of how Responsible Government works. Hence, we got reporters saying that people “don’t know who the premier is” – which is wrong, because it remains Brian Gallant as he hasn’t resigned – or that he would “get first crack to try and form a government” – he already has a government, but rather he will try to test the confidence of the Chamber – or another heinous offender was framing his meeting with the lieutenant governor as getting “permission” to test confidence, which is again wrong because the LG doesn’t grant permission. I’m also not crazy about framing the election as “inefficient votes” for the provincial Liberals because that implies that the popular vote is a real thing, when it’s a logical fallacy – it was not one election, but rather 49 separate elections that happened at the same time. This is basic civics, and yet our media is failing Canadians, so well done everyone.

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1044537682427170817

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1044539629687328768

What makes this particular election result interesting is the fact that there are two “third-parties,” each with three seats – the Green Party, and an anti-bilingualism populist party – that will have to prop up either the incumbent Liberals or the PCs, who won one more seat (so far as we know – there are several recounts now underway). That means that the election of a Speaker will be crucial, and word has it that the government is making offers to PC winners to try and get one of them to take up the post. Of course, one particular quirk of New Brunswick is that, well, their Speakers tend to be fairly partisan. So that could make things doubly interesting for the way things will play out in the weeks and months to come.

https://twitter.com/SkinnerLyle/status/1044762695554269184

Meanwhile, Paul Wells accurately describes the dynamics of the post-election period and how the LG will discharge her role, which is not to give permission. Susan Delacourt tries to tease out the effect of populism on this election, but along the way grossly mischaracterises the LG as having “waded into” the results and giving Gallant “the right” to stay on as premier, when that’s not how it works, and it’s disappointing that these myths keep getting traction.

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Roundup: A quixotic UN quest

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It’s time for the United Nations General Assembly, and while prime minister Justin Trudeau won’t be making an address at the Assembly this year, he did give a speech yesterday about Nelson Mandela, and how other should follow his legacy, and later in the day, announced a $20 million contribution to a global infrastructure hub.

The other thing that everyone is talking about is Canada’s (possibly quixotic) quest for that temporary Security Council seat in 2020, which means a lot of schmoozing and diplomatic niceties during the General Assembly – and it’s going to be an uphill battle, for which Canada has so far…deployed a logo. Add to that, the government hasn’t really articulated why exactly this is important to our foreign policy other than to stick it to the Harper years when they decided that they wouldn’t bother going for the seat again in a fit of pique.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1044218706937696257

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1044218710519623685

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Meanwhile, this session of the General Assembly will see the adoption of the Global Compact on Refugees, which Canada had a hand in crafting.

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Roundup: Leniency for chronic offenders

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There was an interesting piece about document security lapses within the federal government, which is something that speaks to me as someone who spent time doing records management within a federal department back during my early days in Ottawa as I was building up my freelance career (before I started on the Hill). The report cited 3075 lapses in the past year at Public Services and Procurement, with six employees being cited as chronic offenders.

During my time doing this kind of document work, there were a rash of news stories about secret documents being left unattended, or being thrown out and found on street corners, and much of it boils down to a culture within the public service of not caring about document security – in part because people aren’t trained to care about it. It was also because, in my department’s experience, every time they would train an admin assistant in document management, she would go on mat leave, then her replacement wouldn’t be trained to the same level, and she would go on mat leave or another assignment, and her replacement not trained, and on it went. So records went unattended, and people in the department stopped properly dealing with their records, including those who were supposed to be kept secret. And you’d see people in the Tim Horton’s downstairs from the office with Protected of Secret file folders on them, despite the fact that they weren’t supposed to leave the office area. And nobody seemed to care about that fact – all of which reinforced the notion that there isn’t a culture of responsibility around these kinds of things.

Which brings me back to the article. With those chronic offenders, they are being treated leniently, despite the fact that they are supposed to be subjected to tough sanctions, including demotion or termination. But as with so many things in the public service, where there are so few instances where there are consequences for transgressions, it seems to reinforce the notion that document security doesn’t need to be taken seriously, and then we get more security and privacy breaches. If there were actual consequences, that might start making an effort at reducing the number of breaches.

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Roundup: Her Excellency’s many issues

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The floodgates have opened, and stories about the difficult first year that Her Excellency Julie Payette has been having as Governor General have been fast and furious. From concerns that she’s still living at Rideau Gate rather than Rideau Hall despite there being renovated living quarters now available, to concerns about her not telling her security detail where she’s at, the concerns on the ground that she’s breaking convention by not visiting every province in her first year, were all warm-ups for this wide-ranging piece in the National Post that compiles a lot of the things we’ve been hearing unofficially in Ottawa, about what a struggle the year has been. While some of it is growing pains, and some of it are potentially unfair comparisons to having previously appointed Governors General who were superhuman in their ability to take on a volume of work (and in the case of someone like Adrienne Clarkson, write all of her own speeches for 500+ engagements in a year), I was particularly disturbed by the fact that the Liberal Research Bureau was doing the background checks and vetting for the appointment when Trudeau should have kept the Vice-Regal Appointments Committee in operation (and the only reason anyone can think as to why he disbanded it was that it was Harper’s creation and it was simply an act of pettiness). The fact that they didn’t properly prepare her for the role is also a big red flag as to the seriousness with which they undertook the process and the decision. I hope that these are just growing pains and that they’ll sort themselves out, but given how badly this government has managed its appointment processes so far, it really leaves one questioning some of the competence of the senior ranks of this government.

If there’s a silver lining to all of this, I would say that I hope it means that it might encourage some of these charities and organisations that the GG used to be the patron of might look instead to members of the royal family. This could very well be a golden opportunity to start re-forging some links with our monarchy, and getting more royals on our shores to have a lot more face-time and remining both royals and Canadians that we have bonds that need to be strengthened, lest they atrophy. It’s also a particularly good time given the addition of Megan, Duchess of Sussex, to the family, and the fact that she spent that much time in Toronto gives her that connection already, and we should be capitalising on it (not to mention the fact that Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, has Canadian ancestors including a pre-Confederation Prime Ministers, and we should be milking that connection for all it’s worth too).

Meanwhile, here’s a look at Payette finally getting to Humbolt, Saskatchewan, six months later, and the fact that she’s been reluctant to visit other sites of tragedies, like Fredericton after the recent shootings there.

Special note: If you’re concerned about the tornado that hit this area, they were to the west of Ottawa, and across the river in Gatineau, and nowhere near the Parliamentary precinct. I wasn’t affected, and my power didn’t go out (hence why you’re getting this morning’s roundup).

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Roundup: Carbon backstop bolstered

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News of the forthcoming report on the benefits of carbon taxes (and the associated rebates) to individual Canadians has been ricocheting through the Hill, from Liberals cheering on its results – found to be bulletproofed by the fact that they come from Stephen Harper’s former policy director – to Conservatives who are trying to insist that it’s really all a scam, and that these rebate cheques will never actually appear because they want to preserve the narrative that it’s all one big tax grab to pay for Trudeau’s “out of control” spending, and so on. But as economist Kevin Milligan points out, it’s going to be pretty tough for them to ignore

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1042973291089035264

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https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1042987858552795136

It’s almost like the federal government had this in mind when they gave provinces the directive to design carbon pricing programmes that fit their local economies, with the federal backstop being in place if they chose not to. And has been pointed out, it’s going to be hard to run against the programme if people are getting cheques in the mail from the federal government.

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Roundup: Triumphalism after a defection

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Andrew Scheer took the occasion of caucus day yesterday to give another lap of triumphalism in order to crow about Leona Alleslav’s defection to his party, calling her a symbol of “misplaced trust” by Canadians in Justin Trudeau. And, feeling his oats, he told Trudeau to “bring it on” when it comes to defending a carbon tax in the next election. Now, cheerleading films aside, Scheer may want to be very cautious about his plan to go full-bore on the carbon tax attack, given that those provinces who have decided to fight the plan and have the federal government impose their backstop price instead may find that instead of their citizens benefitting from lower income taxes or provincial rebates, they’ll instead be getting their rebate cheques from the federal government, which is a pretty visceral thing for most people. Add to that, a study coming out next week says that it’s likely that people will be getting more back in those rebate cheques than they paid into carbon taxes because of dividends from industrial emitters being returned to individuals, which could be a blow to the message that Scheer is trying to send about affordability.

In amidst this, Scheer has been trying to press the case for Energy East, demanding that Trudeau bring Trans Canada back to the table in order to discuss reviving the project. The problem, of course, is that there is no economic case for Energy East. At one point, it was seen as a viable route to tidewater with no others in the works, but that changed with the approval of Trans Mountain (err, temporarily delayed right now), and Keystone XL, which Trans Canada also is the proponent of, and there wasn’t enough product to fill both KXL and Energy East, so they focused on the more viable project – KXL. Scheer has also tried to insinuate that Energy East would displace Saudi oil in Eastern Canada, but that’s also not true, given that the whole point was for it to be a pipeline to tidewater. Saudi oil is cheaper to import than for Alberta oil to ship by pipeline, not to mention that there are no upgraders or refineries in the East capable of handling heavy crude from Alberta (again, unlike KXL, where those kinds of refineries line the Gulf coast). The Irvings themselves said that Energy East wouldn’t stop the flow of Saudi oil to Canada, but Scheer is trying to play the economic nationalism card, and is stretching the truth along the way.

Meanwhile, Chantal Hébert warns Scheer that if he plans to make immigration an issue over the coming year, he may want to pay attention to what’s going on in Quebec, where it’s turning out to be something of a poisoned chalice for the CAQ in the provincial election.

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