Roundup: Tiresome cheap shots

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Oh, look – there’s the Senate bat-signal and oh, it’s because a couple of pundits have decided to be completely tiresome about it. I see. Up first is CBC’s Terry Milewski, who has once again decided to use Mike Duffy to paint the whole of the Senate with his disreputable brush. Never mind that the vast majority of senators don’t abuse the system, or that they have made vast improvements on financial controls and transparency (and remain far more transparent than the House of Commons in most respects), apparently the whole system is an unfixable morass because Duffy. Um, okay. And to cap it off, Milewski tries to make some wrong-headed point about representation in the Senate, ignoring that representation is along regional and not provincial lines, and no, Newfoundland is not part of the Maritimes and is a region unto itself, but hey, conflating its seats is fun and deliberately misleading! Apparently nobody has taken a basic civics or Canadian history course, because the whole point of why the Senate was constructed the way it was, was precisely because it wasn’t supposed to be representation-by-population. The Commons is, and the Senate had to rebalance the representation to keep Ontario from swamping the minority provinces. Oh, but those are “bizarre” and “absurd imbalances” apparently, because Milewski has decided that ignorance is the effective bully tactic. It’s a series of cheap shots that should be beneath the journalistic establishment, but alas no, it’s become par for the course these days. And then there’s Andrew Coyne, who decided to deliberately over-complicate the situation in the Senate in order to misconstrue what’s happening and sow confusion to make a point, that it’s not the kind of reforms that he would prefer (never mind that he’s never quite articulated why it’s preferable to have an elected Senate that would compete with the Commons, or to remove the Senate’s veto powers when they’re necessary to thwart a majority prime minister who is overstepping his or her bounds, other than the saying “democracy!” while hand-waving). But clearly, some clear-eyed critical thinking about our parliamentary institutions is a lot to ask, particularly when there are cheap points to be scored.

https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/676603993049690112

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Roundup: Early committee shenanigans

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The brief sitting of Parliament last week saw some committee shenanigans already underway, despite the new era of hope and optimism. Because of political considerations, as in not having enough members for official party status, the Bloc were denying unanimous consent to form new committees as they won’t have a voice on them. While they relented on the creation of the special joint committee on assisted dying – which they nevertheless still want a voice on even if they can’t vote – they continued to deny the formation of the Finance Committee, which means that it now can’t hold any pre-budget consultations. So while rules are the rules around who can sit on committees, and we were reminded when these tactics were going on that the Bloc themselves were adamant that they be followed to deny NDP and PC MPs seats on committees back in the nineties, times change apparently, and now they want to throw their weight around. As for the Liberals, they’ve already undermined their promise not to have parliamentary secretaries sit on committees by assigning the House Leader’s parliamentary secretary to the Procedure and House Affairs committee, but he insists that he won’t vote – just assist other members. That sounds suspiciously like the PMO still trying to bigfoot the committees, and exert undue influence on what should be independent operations that have a duty to hold government to account – something that becomes more difficult when you have a someone charged with assisting the government in the ranks. One hopes that they come to their senses and knock it off before things really get underway, but it is a disappointment that they are not living up to the spirit of that promise, if not the letter. (Also, Charlie Angus is lamenting the partisanship on committees? Has he looked in a mirror lately?)

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Roundup: The Senate steps up

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In their very first piece of legislation passed, the House of Commons ballsed it up. Quite badly, in fact. In rushing through a supply bill, they didn’t include a necessary schedule for where the money that was being authorised would be spent, which is a pretty big deal. And so, when it reached the Senate, this was caught and the bill had to be sent back before the Senate could deal with it and pass it so that it could get Royal Assent and everyone could go home for the holidays. The Senate, however, was not amused. This is not the first time that defective bills have made it to the Senate, be it when they sent an earlier unamended version down the hall, or when their due diligence wasn’t done and they had to make some kind of excuses to get the Senate to pass it anyway with the promise of adding a clause in a future bill to retroactively fix it. And the patience of the Senate is wearing thin. In the words of Speaker Furey:

“While it is not our place to look into the functioning of the House of Commons, I am appalled that we received a defective bill. If it is the wish of the house, I would be prepared to write to my counterpart in the House of Commons to seek his assurance that this will not happen again.”

Liberal Senator Terry Mercer was even less forgiving and deservedly so:

“It galls me, Mr. Speaker, that they talk about an administrative error. That’s passing the error off onto the staff. I’m sorry; the Members of Parliament voted on this; it is their fault and they alone take the blame… To give us this BS about administrative error, passing the buck off to someone in the administration of the House of Commons, doesn’t wash with me, and it shouldn’t wash with anybody, and it shouldn’t wash with Canadians. I want this to be notice to the Minister of Finance and to our colleagues in the other place that this place will not put up with this anymore.”

Senator Fraser suggested that the Commons needs to examine their system and perhaps even apologise to the Senate, while other Senators noted that this is government legislation and not a private member’s bill, and that perhaps the Senate should not always be as patient and perhaps rise without granting Royal Assent in the future. Part of the root of this is that that the Senate, yet again, did its job while the Commons didn’t. In their haste to get this passed so that MPs can leave, MPs spent a grand total of fifteen minutes on the Supply bill, including Committee of the Whole. That’s right – fifteen minutes to examine and authorise the spending of money by the government. The Senate Finance Committee held three days of pre-study on the bill so that they would know what the issues were, and lo and behold, when the bill arrived in defective form, they could spot it immediately. And as noted before, this keeps happening with increasing frequency. And yet, when we send MPs to Ottawa to “be our representatives,” we seem to forget that they have a job to do – to scrutinize bills, and most especially spending, and they’re not doing it. They leave it to others to do, be it the Auditor General, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, or the Senate – all while bitching and moaning about how terrible the Senate is even though the Senate is actually doing their jobs when MPs aren’t. And the next time I hear someone give me the line about how the Senate has no function in a modern democracy, I can give them yet another object lesson about how the Commons is the real dysfunctional chamber in our democracy. I’ll repeat Speaker Furey’s admonition – it’s appalling. Shape up, MPs. You’re embarrassing yourselves.

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Friday QP Recap: A few bad habits creeping in

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I’m generally not in the habit of writing up Friday QP recaps, but I wanted to make a few observations of how Friday QP unfolded under the new Liberal government. Fridays, as most people know, are generally B-team days, with leaders rarely present, and only ever a small number of ministers, meaning one tends to generally get deputy critics quizzing parliamentary secretaries. It had been my hope that the Liberals would phase out the practice of letting said parliamentary secretaries answer questions in QP, because it ultimately have issues with the accountability role of QP – questions are asked of the government, which means cabinet, because they have access to the answers. Parliamentary secretaries, despite getting some briefing notes, don’t have those actual answers, so it generally becomes much more about the show than anything else. Over the past number of years, the scene has degenerated so that the painful scripted performances from either side of the aisle are unbearable to watch. Sure, you had a handful of parliamentary secretaries who could outshine their own ministers because they had learned their files while their ministers still read from the prepared talking points in front of them, but it also reached the point where parliamentary secretaries became the human shields for their ministers, absorbing the blows from bad media stories by taking fire on their behalf during QP. It’s why Paul Calandra became the spokesperson for all things unpopular on Harper’s plate. It’s a perversion of our system.

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Roundup: Demanding a referendum

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The issue of electoral reform has boiled over into what could be seen as the first major disagreement of the 42nd Parliament. The Conservatives have become quite vociferous in demanding that any change to the electoral system be put to a referendum – no doubt out of selfish considerations, knowing that most forms of alternative voting would be seen to disadvantage them, and secure in the knowledge that every time that such alternative ballots have been put to a vote either in Canada or the UK, that the existing First-Past-the-Post system ends up winning out. (Kelly McParland and the Maclean’s editorial are also in favour of a referendum). Even in Canadian polls on electoral reform, there remains a preference for a simple ballot that can deliver a stable government – something that most forms of alternative voting won’t deliver. While some pollsters have had fun with the numbers, trying to build models of what the election results would have delivered under different systems, the truth is that we can’t know what would have happened because there’s no guarantee that we would have had the same parties or configurations thereof in the election – particularly under a proportional representation system that encourages fringe parties, and given the country’s geographical, linguistic, and cultural diversity, a system that rewards smaller parties could very well fragment the “big tent” parties that currently exist. While people insist that we wouldn’t turn into Israel or Italy, the real worry is turning into Belgium, where the linguistic divisions in their PR system were so fragmented that they couldn’t form a workable government for over a year. While the government (and in particular Dominic LeBlanc) say they will engage in a broad consultative process and try to come to a consensus, I’m pretty sure that political consensus with the other parties won’t happen – the NDP favour one form of MMP, the Greens favour a PR system of some variety, and the Conservatives favour the status quo while the Liberals are more keen on ranked ballots, it’s hard to see how consensus will be built out of that. And at least LeBlanc concedes that consultations may show that the status quo ends up being preferable, and if there is an argument for that, it’s that our system right now allows you to throw the bums out – something that becomes all but impossible in PR systems where coalition partners get shuffled around but the central party remains in power for decades. It’s hard to see how that can in any way be preferable in a robust democracy.

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QP: The scattershot attack

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The week slowly drawing to a close, more desks started to empty out in the Chamber, but hey, Justin Trudeau was there for a fourth day in a row — I’m not sure that ever happened under Harper, ever. Rona Ambrose led off, lectern still on desk, and she read a question in French about the size of the deficit. Trudeau rose and stated that they had pledged to be open and honest about budget figures, and they would reduce the net debt-to-GDP ratio. Ambrose then accused the government of doing nothing for the plight of Albertans with dropping oil prices. Trudeau reminded her that the previous government did nothing for them. Ambrose changed topics again, and trolled for support for their opposition day motion to maintain the CF-18 bombing mission. Trudeau reminded her that the Americans were just happy with the Canadian position, and that he was even just invited for a state dinner at the White House, something Harper never got. Denis Lebel was up next, and asked the same question to get the same answer. Lebel then asked why Trudeau thought that the 1982 patriation was a good template for electoral reform, but Trudeau reminded him of the promises made during the election.Thomas Mulcair was up next and noted the RCMP Commissioner’s admission that there were racists in his force and asked what the government was doing about it. Trudeau lamented it, but basically said that it was up to the RCMP to deal with their members. Mulcair asked about boil water advisories on First Nations reserves, to which Trudeau noted they were working with those First Nations. Mulcair changed topics again to Canada Post, and got the very same response he got the past three days. Mulcair gave one last change of topic, asking about which refugees where getting health funding for refugees, which Trudeau said they would be doing.

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Roundup: Winds of change in the Senate

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Interesting things are afoot in the Senate, with a number of new motions and bills introduced that could change the way it operates in the future, as well as debates on operations. It’s been pretty fascinating so far, and so far we’ve had:

  • Senator Housakos’ point of privilege on the lack of a Leader of the Government in the Senate;
  • Senator Carignan’s motion to call ministers to answer questions in the Chamber;
  • Senator Mercer tabling a bill that would amend the constitution to allow Senators to elect their own Speaker (and yes, this is the easiest amending formula);
  • Senator Wallace leading a debate on committee memberships and how they’re determined.

It’s all very interesting, and there has been some spectacular pushback on the facile notion by some senators that only partisan senators can be effective. There will have to be a great number of rule changes that will have to be debated by the Senate, and in particular the Rules, Procedures and Rights of Parliament committee, whenever it is formally struck (which should be very shortly). Some of those changes will have to be the determination of funding for the Senate Liberal caucus as they are not the government caucus, nor are they the opposition caucus (no matter that they currently sit on the government side, more out of convention than anything). Part of the discussions that were had in response to Senator Housakos’ point of privilege are that Question Period did not enter into the Senate until 1979 (ETA: This is disputed. Senate rules dating to 1969 include it, as does a 1916 edition of Bourinot. Thanks for the corrections), and that independent Senators have chaired committees in the past. These are all matters that will remain up for discussion, but the process of internal change in that Chamber is already upon them.

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QP: A few verbal warnings

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Normally Wednesdays, being caucus days, are the most well attended in the Commons, but considering that it’s the first week and everyone has been here the whole time, the attendance was not much changed. Rona Ambrose led off in French, lectern on desk, asking about the promise of electoral reform and whether the government would hold a referendum on it. Justin Trudeau noted that they have committed to engage in broad consultations with Canadians to have a more representative system. Ambrose retorted that when you change the rules of democracy, everyone gets a say, and noted that sixty percent of Canadians didn’t vote Liberals. Trudeau noted that her party did not consult with the Fair Elections Act, but he would. Ambrose again demanded a referendum he had a system in mind. Trudeau reminded her of the previous government’s disrespect for democracy. Denis Lebel gave another round in French asking for a referendum. Trudeau again didn’t promise to hold one, simply on holding consultations. Thomas Mulcair was up next, wondering why the government didn’t agree with their motion to cut the lowest tax rate instead. Trudeau said that their plan was what Canadians had asked them to do because it helps the middle class. Mulcair asked again, throwing in some Christmas allusion, got the same answer, then changed to French to ask about Canada Post home delivery. Trudeau reminded him of the moratorium on new community boxes, and noted the plan for more consultations. Mulcair changed topics again, asking about the tax credit on labour sponsored funds. Trudeau reminded him the mandate letters spelled out the priorities, which included that promise.

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Roundup: Imposition and breaches of privilege

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The Senate sat for the first actual sitting of the new parliament yesterday, and already the new era is being felt as they had to do away with Senate Question Period as there was no one there to answer questions on behalf of the government. You may not think this is an issue, but it does blow a hole in the accountability role of the Senate. Conservative Senate leader Claude Carignan moved a motion that would invite ministers to appear before the Senate to answer questions instead, and couched it in the language of urgency for regions like Atlantic Canada, who have no Conservative representation in the Commons, and they would have questions to ask that need answers. Of course, that would require going into Committee of the Whole and calling those ministers to the bar, rather than being able to do it as a regular Senate QP, which presents logistical challenges, but we’ll see what the government has to say in response. Meanwhile, former Senate Speaker Leo Housakos is moving a point of privilege that the government’s refusal to appoint a Government Leader is interfering in the operations of the Senate, which infringes on their privileges as a result. I don’t think he’s completely wrong there, particularly that the government is forcing changes to the way the Senate operates by circumventing things like Senate QP from functioning properly without anything in the way of consultation. It remains to be seen if the new Speaker will deem it a prima facia breach and put it to the Senate rules committee to determine if the breach is real, but this could be setting up a conflict between the two chambers, which could have been avoided if Trudeau had been a bit more thoughtful in the way he’s handled the whole situation. (As for other Senators complaining that “partisan” is being treated like a dirty word, and that the future “non-partisan” appointments will all be Liberals, and claiming that having senators in national caucus makes them more accountable, well, I think they need to take a breath and get a grip, because there are better ways to argue their points than the way they’re going about it).

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QP: TFSA concerns

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Tuesday’s QP followed on the announcement of the design phase of the inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women, and counter-programmed Mike Duffy’s testimony in his fraud trial, so plenty going on. When QP got underway, Rona Ambrose had her mini-lectern on her desk, and read a question about the reduced limit for Tax-Free Savings Accounts. Justin Trudeau, without script, noted the plans to help vulnerable seniors with things like an increase in the GIS. Ambrose switched to French, and wondered what else the government would do to get cash, such as eliminating TFSAs altogether. Trudeau snapped back that trying to intimidate seniors wouldn’t work. Ambrose quoted Bill Morneau’s company’s praise for the increased limits, but Trudeau responded that the Conservatives were out of touch with Canadians. Denis Lebel asked another question on TFSAs in French, to which Trudeau replied that they were making concrete actions to help seniors. Lebel switched to the new deficit figures, to which Trudeau said that they would continue to update the numbers as they became available. Thomas Mulcair was up next, and welcomed the establishment of the inquiry process, but wondered about the timeline for action. Trudeau responded that they were making sure that the inquiry was properly informed, which is what they were committed to doing. Mulcair then turned to the question of Trudeau’s definition of middle class if people under a certain threshold didn’t benefit from the tax cut. Trudeau reminded him that they were getting more help through the Canada Child Benefit. Mulcair asked again in French, and got the same answer. For his final question, Mulcair demanded a clear answer on the home delivery. Trudeau reminded him that they had a moratorium in place, and they had a commitment to keep.

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