Tag Archives: Andrew Scheer

Roundup: A new breakaway Senate caucus

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Expect some drama in the Senate coming up, as a group of Senators plan to break away from their existing caucuses – a couple of Conservatives, but most of them currently sitting in the Independent Senators Group – in order to form a new caucus that will concern itself with regional representation (and I have had independent confirmation of the reporting in this story). It’s expected that the formal application will be made this morning, and then the work of organizing starts, and because there are some ten to twelve senators in this group, they will have sufficient numbers for an official caucus under the current Senate rules (and will have even more right to salaries once the Parliament of Canada Act changes that Justin Trudeau promised will go through).

While I will be writing more about this later in the day, the names on the list aren’t too much of a surprise because they haven’t necessarily been playing well with the current ISG leadership, and many have bristled with some of the heavy-handed strictures in the ISG about party membership and so on. I have definite questions about how they plan to put more focus on regional issues as part of this group, and I’ll be making some calls over the day to get some more answers, but it’s going to be a very interesting next few weeks, and Justin Trudeau come to rue the day that he kicked his senators out of his caucus in order to avoid any audit revelations and pretend it was high-minded principle.

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Roundup: Waiting – or not – for a Cabinet call

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One of the more interesting stories that was out first thing Friday morning was that of new NDP MP Heather McPherson, the party’s only Alberta MP, who mused openly to the CBC that she would be willing to take on a Cabinet position if prime minister Justin Trudeau offered it – but she wouldn’t cross the floor for it. Hours later, she backtracked on Twitter, saying that she obviously wouldn’t take a Cabinet position – likely because it was pointed out to her what that would entail. While this is obviously a rookie mistake, it might be worth delving into a bit more for the sake of everyone’s edification.

First of all, having an opposition MP in Cabinet – who remains an opposition MP and who hasn’t crossed the floor – is pretty much a coalition, even if you don’t want to call it that. Being in Cabinet, she would be bound to Cabinet confidentiality and solidarity, meaning that she would have to vote with the rest of the Cabinet, even if the rest of the NDP were opposed; and confidentiality could be a very sticky issue if they want to ensure that she’s not going to divulge Cabinet secrets to her caucus colleagues behind the closed doors of the caucus room (which in and of itself has its own confidentiality convention that, like Cabinet confidentiality, is intended to let the members have free discussions without then being picked off by media when their views are off-side from the rest of the Cabinet or caucus, as the case may be). Now, there are exceptions to how this can work, such as in New Zealand where they have developed a system where they could swear her in as a member of the Privy Council and bring her into Cabinet discussion where appropriate by not make her a full member of Cabinet (as they do with Green MPs in that government), but I’m not sure what the utility would be in this case, when there are better options available to Trudeau (such as appointing a Senator, which is more in keeping with our own traditions and one of the reasons why our Senate exists in the way it does). Regardless, the point is moot, and that’s as far as the thought exercise extends.

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1190232873477058562

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1190247532246556672

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Roundup: Encana and illogical anger

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The big news yesterday was that oil and gas company Encana decided to decamp their headquarters and head to the US under a new name to try and attract more investors there, and Jason Kenney and his ministers freaked out. They railed that this was Trudeau’s fault – despite Encana’s CEO saying otherwise, and despite the fact that there are to be no job losses in Alberta or loss of existing investments – and Kenney upped his demands on Trudeau (including the ludicrous demand that Trudeau fire Catherine McKenna as environment minister). And while the Trudeau blaming gets increasingly shrill and incoherent, there are a few things to remember – that Encana’s stock price has hewed pretty closely to the price of oil, that it lost more value under Harper than it did Trudeau, and that even bank analysts are mystified by the move. Perhaps Kenney’s blame is misplaced – imagine that.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1189992947615289345

There have also been a number of voices making the absurd comparison that governments are quick to help companies like Bombardier and SNC-Lavalin but won’t offer it to oil companies – which ignores that the Harper government also helped those same kinds of companies, while Trudeau bought a pipeline in order to de-risk it and ensure that it gets completed, not to mention that other companies usually asking for loan guarantees and aren’t reliant on oil or commodity prices. There is a lot of false comparison going on in order to nurse this sense of grievance, because that’s what this is really all about.

Meanwhile, here is some additional context on the economic situation in Alberta and Saskatchewan that we shouldn’t overlook as part of this conversation.

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Roundup: Performative or procedurally correct?

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The NDP held their first post-election caucus meeting yesterday, saying goodbye to departing MPs and welcoming their rookies and returning MPs, and when they met the press afterward, Jagmeet Singh announced that he is going to press for pharmacare and for the government to abandon their application for judicial review the Human Rights Tribunal compensation for First Nations youth. But there are problems with both – on the former, he is proposing the party’s first private members’ bill be taken up with the matter, and on the latter, the substantive problems with the Tribunal likely exceeding its statutory authority to make that kind of compensation order is kind of a big deal and as a lawyer, you would think he might have an appreciation for bad jurisprudence while still pushing for the government to go ahead with the compensation that they said they would honour. But you know, performative outrage.

Which brings me back to the notion of pharmacare legislation. The whole promise is built on both bad practice and bad procedure. Remember that when it comes to private members’ bills, they are allocated by lottery, meaning that it’s random as to who gets what slot, and Singh is not proposing as leader to take away the slot of the first NDP MP whose name comes up so that he can dictate what bill will be presented. That’s not only heavy-handed, but it actively removes the independence of that MP (which the NDP is used to doing while pretending they don’t, but let’s call a spade a spade). So much for any of the issues that MP cares about – the leader demanded their spot. The second and more important aspect is that private members’ bills can’t initiate government spending, and pharmacare is provincial jurisdiction, meaning that it’s depending on negotiating with premiers. The bill, essentially, is out of order, unless it becomes an exercise in demanding a national strategy, which the NDP love to do, but one of their MPs went on TV last night to say that they intend to use it to lay out the framework they want to implement. I can pretty much guarantee you that it means the bill will be dead on arrival, and that the committee that decides on what private members’ business is voteable will decide that it’s not. (The sponsor who was forced to give up their spot for this bill will then demand that the Commons vote to override the committee, and when they don’t, the NDP will wail and gnash their teeth that the Liberals don’t care about Pharmacare, which is a script so predictable it might as well be a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie).

https://twitter.com/BradWButt/status/1189643457444417536

What the NDP could do instead is use their first Supply Day to debate a motion on Pharmacare, which would then have a vote and let them scream and moan if the Liberals don’t adopt it for the reason that they’ve already committed to the implementation plan in the Hopkins report (which the NDP decry as not being fast enough), but at least that would be procedurally sound. But their apologists have been telling me on Twitter that all private members’ bills are theatre and only exist to make a point (untrue), or that they could simply get a minister to agree to it in order to spend the funds (never going to happen), but hey, it’s a minority parliament so the NDP can pretend to dictate terms as though they actually had bargaining given the seat maths. It’s too bad that they can’t be both performative and procedurally correct.

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Roundup: It’s the same government and words matter

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Concern for civic literacy in this country took another blow as numerous media outlets started reporting that prime minister Justin Trudeau was meeting with Governor General Julie Payette to “signal his intention to form government.” They took this obviously wrong line directly from the PMO press release, but let me reiterate that it is wrong. Worse, Power & Politics said that Trudeau went to Payette to ask permission to form a government, which is so wrong that it should make the walls bleed with anguish. Payette doesn’t give permission. Trudeau is already the prime minister and the election doesn’t change that. Government doesn’t change – it merely carries over into a new parliament. What Trudeau was really doing was meeting about his intentions for the upcoming parliament, including when he would like her to summon it – but this was not actually or accurately communicated to Canadians. And true, he could have theatrically resigned and got sworn in again, but that would be both counterproductive and dumb, but again, this is the language that we’re using to describe this routine bit of government business.

Shortly thereafter was news that Trudeau had tapped Canadian ambassador to France, Isabel Hudon, and Anne McLellan, for his “transition” to his “second term,” at which point my head exploded because there is nothing to transition, and we don’t have “terms” in Canada. He may be shuffling his Cabinet, and there may be shakeups in PMO or in their Machinery of Government shop, but it’s the same ministry. There is nothing to actually transition to or from. It’s just a Cabinet shuffle. And again, this was not accurately communicated nor explained to Canadians.

There are clear concepts in Westminster parliaments that are not being accurately described, either by the hapless fools in Trudeau’s PMO, or by any of the media bureaux, who should know better. We are inundated with Americana politically, and there are so many people – both politicians and journalists – who want to playact American politics in Canada because it’s “fun” or “sexy,” when we’re a different country with a very different system, and “borrowing” terms or concepts (or in the case of the NDP, entire election planks that don’t make sense) that don’t actually translate here don’t help anyone. Instead, they create confusion that bad actors exploit to their own purposes, who know that they won’t be corrected when they deliberately misconstrue things. This is a problem, and would that our media outlets could see that this is a problem that they have the power to fix – but they don’t, and here we are. Do better, everyone. Seriously.

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Roundup: Brad Wall’s basic nonsense

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Former Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall penned an op-ed for the National Post yesterday that, amidst quoting some classic rock lyrics, repeated a bunch of debunked mythology about pipelines that never happened, the federal price on carbon, Bills C-48 and C-69, and even pulse exports to India. (Seriously – does Wall not read anything?) But amidst this pile of false narratives, Wall decided to make a few “suggestions” about how to mollify Alberta and Saskatchewan, which included the non-starters of letting the provinces set their own carbon price on heavy emitters (effectively ignoring the whole point of the national price is to ensure that provinces don’t undercut one another in a race to the bottom), an “equalization rebate” which is not actually equalization – and worse, wants to offload the environmental liabilities of orphan well clean-up to the federal government under the guise of said “equalization rebates.” (Seriously, the Supreme Court just months ago said that the responsibility for orphan wells can’t just be offloaded because of bankruptcy, and companies need to be responsible for remediating them, because we have a polluter pays principle in this country). Wall also demanded that Trans Mountain be completed and privatized with a significant portion going to First Nations interests (why the privatization matters to him I’m not entirely certain), and amendments to C-48 and C-69 to ensure that pipelines can get to the West Coast – even though that would seem to undermine the fact that all projects need to undergo a proper assessment. Suffice to say, the demands for a “fairer deal” with the federation are generally built on false premises, such as lies about how equalization works, and a sense of grievance that no amount of capitulation will actually solve. (Ask Brian Mulroney about that one).

For a reality check, the Hill Times consulted with professor Andrew Leach about all of the claims that Trudeau single-handedly destroyed Alberta’s economy – complete bunk, of course – but it has some good facts in here about the context of the oil price crash, and the demands for MOAR PIPELINES! when there won’t be enough production capacity to build yet more pipelines once the TMX expansion, Enbridge Line 3 and Keystone XL all finish construction.

Meanwhile, Wall’s successor, Scott Moe, is warning that the separatist talk is “alive and happening.” I’m going to call bullshit – only a few loudmouths and swivel-eyed loons are talking about it, and not seriously. Ordinary people simply vent frustrations because they’re being fed a diet of lies and snake oil, which is what Jason Kenney and Moe want – people to be angry at Justin Trudeau, so that their attention can be safely elsewhere.

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Roundup: Considerations on Trudeau’s Alberta problem

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Talk about what Justin Trudeau is going to do about his Alberta/Saskatchewan problem continues to swirl, with few answers so far. Alison Redford says she’s willing to help in some capacity – not that she’s been asked yet – but I guess we’ll see if there has been enough time and space from her aura of power problem that led to her ouster. Meanwhile, here’s Philippe Lagassé with some important thoughts about the issue:

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1188550490084257792

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Meanwhile, Carla Qualtrough says all options are on the table which can include some changes to equalization, but as this piece explains, there is so much misinformation about how equalization works that it’s important we separate facts from lies about it – and there are a whole lot of bad actors, Jason Kenney chief among them, lying about the programme in order to stir up anger that he hopes to use to his advantage.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1188507654605430785

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Roundup: Judicially-determined science

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One of the lesser-reported stories yesterday was the fact that a group of youths “launched” a lawsuit in Federal Court against the government to claim that their Charter rights to life, liberty and security of the person are being violated by the lack of climate change action, and want the courts to mandate the government implement a climate plan “using the best available science.” Well, it wasn’t really the youths themselves, but a group of lawyers and activists who are using a group of children and teens as the face of their campaign, because teen climate prophetesses are so hot right now.

The problem with this tactic, however, is the two-fold – one, that it’s going to be an exceedingly difficult argument that just because these specific youth had contracted ailments that could be climate-related (such as Lyme disease), it’s hard to make a generalized Section 7 argument as it relates to climate change; and two, this is public policy and should not be justiciable in the same way that Criminal Code provisions are where they touch social issues. Why? Because it shouldn’t be up to the courts to determine whether or not the government is living up to their climate change obligations. Are judges also climate scientists, or economists specializing in this area? The whole “best available science” line sounds good, but it’s hugely subjective as to how you reach those goals mandated by “science,” particularly when it comes to not devastating the economy and the livelihoods of millions of Canadians. How does a judge determine what the correct public policy should be? They don’t, but that’s what is being asked of them to determine here.

More to the point, this is yet another example of people trying to going to the courts when they lose at politics. Why I’m not surprised by this tactic being used by climate activists is because that Extinction Rebellion group is demanding the suspension of democracy to deal with the climate crisis, which should be alarming to anyone who follows their rhetoric. Trying to get judges to make policy determinations is just as much of a problem, and I eagerly await the Federal Court telling them to go drop on their heads.

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Roundup: Finding that Alberta voice

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The questions about how prime minister Justin Trudeau will get Alberta and Saskatchewan voices into his reshuffled Cabinet continue to swirl about, and we’re already hearing some fairly crazy theories being bandied about – particularly that Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi is going to be tapped for Cabinet, either as an appointee to Cabinet who is not a parliamentarian, or as a Senator. Oh, but there aren’t any vacancies? Well, there is always the emergency provision in the Constitution that the Queen can appoint four or eight additional senators in order to break a deadlock, as Brian Mulroney did to pass the GST. Would this count as a deadlock? Probably not, and the Queen may privately warn Trudeau that this would likely be construed as an abuse of those powers for his political convenience.

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1187454644315983872

Naming senators to Cabinet is actually routine – in fact, the Leader of the Government in the Senate is supposed to be a Cabinet minister, and while Stephen Harper ended the practice in a fit of pique over the ClusterDuff Affair, needing to give himself more distance from the Senate; Justin Trudeau carried over the practice in his bid to make the Senate more “independent” while appointing Senator Peter Harder to the sham position of “government representative,” while Harder maintains the half-pregnant façade that he is both independent and represents the Cabinet to the Senate and vice-versa (which is bonkers). There should be no issue with Trudeau appointing one of the existing Alberta senators to Cabinet (more from David Moscrop here), or appointing someone to the existing vacancy in Saskatchewan (and Ralph Goodale has already said he has no interest in it).

As for the notion of appointing someone who is not a parliamentarian, the convention is generally that they will seek a seat at the earliest opportunity – usually a by-election to a relatively safe seat. Jean Chrétien did this with Stéphane Dion and Pierre Pettigrew, so there is recent enough precedent. The hitch is that there are no seats in Alberta or Saskatchewan that they could run someone in during a by-election, and the closest would be a promise to appoint someone to the Senate seat from Alberta that is due to become vacant in 2021 (lamenting that it will be the mandatory retirement of Senator Elaine McCoy). It’s not very politically saleable, however. Nevertheless, Trudeau has options, but some of them involve swallowing his pride. (I have a column on this coming out later today).

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1187536180017061889

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1187547076470755328

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Roundup: Trudeau’s first minority steps

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Justin Trudeau met with the press yesterday and offered a few bits of post-election news – namely that he was not going to seek any kind of formal or informal coalition (not that he would need to, given how the seat maths work out), that the new Cabinet would be sworn in on November 20th, and that yes, the Trans Mountain pipeline is going ahead, no matter how much huffing and puffing certain opposition parties may try to engage in (for all the good it will do because it’s not something that would come before Parliament in any meaningful capacity in any case). Not that there should have been any doubt – he has expended so much political capital on the project that not doing so would make no sense. The November 20th date is later than he took to decide on a Cabinet after the last election, and Trudeau remarked that he has a lot of reflection to do with the loss of all of his Alberta and Saskatchewan seats, and that is no doubt part of the task ahead.

To that end, Trudeau didn’t give any indication whether he would appoint a senator or two to Cabinet to fill those geographic holes (and I will be writing more on this in an upcoming column) – but did say he was going to introduce changes to the Parliament of Canada Act to make the “independent” Senate more permanently so (not that he can legislate the new appointment process, but rather it deals operationally with salaries for caucus leaders). The “facilitator” of the Independent Senators Group is already decrying that any plan to put senators in Cabinet would be somehow “counterproductive” to the whole independent Senate project, which is of course ignorant of history and Parliament itself. I do find myself troubled that Trudeau singled out the mayors of Calgary and Edmonton as people he would be consulting with as part of his “reflection” on how to rebuild trust with Alberta and in terms of how to somehow include them in his Cabinet-making process, because they have agendas of their own, and it would seem to just exacerbate the whole urban-rural divide that the election results are so indicative of.

Trudeau has some options for getting that Alberta and Saskatchewan representation in Cabinet, from Senators, to floor-crossers, of simply appointing non-Parliamentarians to the role (which is permissible, but goes somewhat against the convention that they seek seats as soon as possible). Here’s Philippe Lagassé explaining some of the options and dynamics:

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1187081027254194183

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1187081821948915717

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