Tag Archives: Appointments

QP: The documents have been sent to NSICOP

Posted on by

It was one of those days in the Chamber where the benches seemed particularly thin, and once again, only Mark Gerretsen was present for the Liberals. Erin O’Toole led off, script on his mini-lectern, and wanted a new commitment to the Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Report around the graves around former residential schools, and Mark Miller assured him they are working with communities so that they can come up with their own processes and that the federal government was there to support them and with funds when they were ready. O’Toole repeated in French, and Miller gave him the same answer. O’Toole then switched back to English and the issue of the National Microbiology Lab, raising redacted documents that have been released to date, tying it to the lab in Wuhan, for which Patty Hajdu assured him that they were cooperating with any investigation and that the correct place for Parliament to deal with the matter was NSICOP, which has been provided with documents. O’Toole insisted that they weren’t being given enough to hold government to account for a security breach, but Hajdu repeated her assurances with a warning not to play games with national security. O’Toole repeated the calls in French, and Hajdu repeated herself.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and demanded that Quebec’s Bill 101 be extended to federally-regulated workplaces, and Mélanie Joly gave her assurances that they would ensure that French would be a language of work and service. Therrien wanted government support for their bill to make the extension formal, but Joly deflected with talking points about the government’s forthcoming Official Languages Act reforms.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and in French, demanded support for their Supply Day motion on ending litigation around Indigenous children — litigation that is about a bad precedent by the Tribunal and not the compensation order. Miller assured him they were working toward proper compensation. Singh repeated the question in English, and gave a more clear response on the substance of the action around the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, and that discussions around compensation are ongoing.

Continue reading →

QP: Demanding a show of urgency on Calls to Action

Posted on by

For Wednesday, proto-PMQ day, Justin Trudeau was present with his one other MP, Mark Gerretsen, because of course he was. Erin O’Toole led off, script on his mini-lectern, and he mentions the Kamloops mass graves, and wanted urgent action on several of the Calls to Action in the Truth and Reconciliation report. Trudeau had a script to read that they accepted all of the calls to action, and are working with Indigenous communities to fulfil those calls, including millions of dollars from Budget 2019. O’Toole insisted that this wasn’t good enough and wanted “urgent” action, for which Trudeau insisted that they have been taking it seriously, and that they are working with the communities, but mentioned that this fresh sense of urgency comes from non-Indigenous Canadians, but Indigenous people have been living with this. O’Toole tried to sound somber in saying that the families deserved a precise roadmap to achieving these calls to action, and Trudeau slowed down to annunciate that they were working in a culturally appropriate and trauma-informed way, and then slammed the Conservatives for not giving funding when the Commission asked for it in 2019. O’Toole insisted that they needed to “show urgency” and that this wasn’t time for political rhetoric — and yet that was all he was offering. Trudeau repeated that they are moving forward and put the boots to the Conservatives for fighting the UNDRIP bill. O’Toole then switched to French to repeat his first question about the renounced funding, and Trudeau reiterated that they are taking action and allocated funding.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he wanted time allocation on Bill C-10, musing that perhaps the government wanted the bill to fail so that they could blame the Conservatives, and Trudeau condemned the games the Conservatives were playing in committee to delay the bill while praising the aims of the bill. Blanchet then meandered about protecting French, before returning to C-10 as a mechanism to do so, and Trudeau thanked him for recognising the cultural protections in the bill, which was why they were trying to get it passed.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he returned to the topic of the mass grave, and once again raised the court cases against Indigenous children and survivors (though, as a lawyer, Singh should know that narrow points of law do need to be contested when they create bad precedents). Trudeau somewhat sharply reminded him that they support compensation and moving forward in culturally appropriate ways. Singh repeated the question in French, and got much the same reply.

Continue reading →

QP: Saving our forestry sector from the Americans

Posted on by

For a Monday in the shadow of the discovery of that mass grace of Indigenous children in Kamloops, and there was once again but a single Liberal in the Chamber, and yes, it was once again Mark Gerretsen. Candice Bergen led off in person for the Conservatives, and she raised the discovery of the mass graves, and wanted an update on plans to find the identities of those children. Gary Anandasangaree responded after a delay, citing the funding commitments already made and made mention of work done with Indigenous leaders. Gérard Deltell repeated the question in French, and this time Marc Miller responded, saying that they are standing with the communities and will deliver the support they need. Bergen was back up, and she accused the government of being silent on American predations in the forestry sector, for which Seamus O’Regan expressed his disappointment in American actions, and his desire for a negotiated solution. Bergen derided the government’s actions on this as well as pipelines, for which O’Regan assured her they were looking out for all workers, including energy workers. Deltell then repeated the lament about softwood lumber in French, and O’Regan repeated his earlier response.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he demanded that federal workplaces in Quebec make French the language of work — and being very particular about it — and Pablo Rodriguez gave the flattering falsehood about French supposedly declining in Quebec (it hasn’t), and stated their commitment to protecting the French language. Therrien railed that the federal government simply wanted to extend bilingualism, which Rodriguez reassured him that they have worked to strengthen French across the country.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and in a somber tone, raised the mass grave in Kamloops and demanded the government drop their lawsuits against Indigenous children and survivors, and Marc Miller assured him they have committed to compensation, and that they are committed to continuing the search for truth and devoting resources for doing so. Singh repeated the question in French, and Miller repeated his response in French.

Continue reading →

Roundup: An errant tweet begets irresponsible reporting

Posted on by

As I reserve the right to grouse about bad journalism, I’m going to call out a particularly egregious CBC article that appeared over the weekend about a deleted tweet about a judicial appointment, and the way in which the story was framed, being that said potential judge was a donor to the justice minister’s nomination campaign and later to the riding association. The fact that a tweet was made and quickly deleted because the appointment process was not completed is bad form, and embarrassing for the minister’s office, but it need not be a sign that there is anything improper going on if you look at the facts in their totality. But that’s not what happened. Instead, the article omitted any context about how the appointment process is made, framed it like the minister is appointing his donors out of patronage, and got quotes from the Ethics Commissioner to “prove” that the conflict of interest rules are too lax.

The minister does not get to appoint anyone he wants on his rolodex. I mean on paper he has that ability, and constitutionally it’s his responsibility, but in practice it’s not how it works. The judicial appointments process – and I have written extensively about this – starts with lawyers applying to Judicial Appointments Committees in provinces, who then vet them and those which are deemed “Recommended” and “Highly Recommended” are forwarded to the minister’s office. At that point, there is a political vetting process because the government is politically accountable for these appointments if they go bad, but this particular process has been routinely mischaracterised both by media and the opposition – so much so that they have dragged in others on this point. In this case, it is likely that the candidate in question had passed the JAC and was forwarded to the minister’s office as either Recommended or Highly Recommended, and it was in the process of the political vetting when the errant tweet was made, but by deliberately omitting the role of the JACs in these appointments, the CBC article deliberately created a false impression for the sake of building their narrative.

It’s a problem when the media refuses to report this particular situation properly, with context of how appointments work, because they are more interested in a narrative that there is either rampant patronage, or that any lawyer who wants to be a judge should never donate to any party ever for fear of somehow tainting themselves. Political donations are part of how our system works, and it’s not a sign that someone is either a rampant partisan, or that they are trying to buy a judgeship – as the CBC seems to be alleging – especially given the donation limits in this country. Whether that is because there is an element of American political envy here, where we want to feel like we have the same problem of money in politics like they do (seriously, we do not), or whether there is a particular streak of misplaced moralism, in either case the reporting is tainted, and it’s completely irresponsible.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Sending in the wrong minister

Posted on by

The shenanigans at committees on all sides are severely testing my patience, as things continue to spiral toward a potential contempt of Parliament charge, never mind that what’s being demanded is exceeding what is generally acceptable parliamentary norms.

The demands that staffers appear at committee are clearly outrageous and in violation of the sacrosanct notion of ministerial responsibility, but the Liberals are nevertheless pushing the bounds of what is acceptable in and of itself. Instead of sending staffers, they were offered the chance to send the prime minister instead – a bit of a long shot, but sending the Government House Leader was clearly testing the committee’s bounds. For them to then send the Minister for Middle Class™ Prosperity® on a second appearance is definitely pushing buttons, and they should know better. If you’re going to invoke the principle of ministerial responsibility, then gods damned well respect it and put the actual minister forward, and for PMO staff, then the prime minister is the responsible minister. Sending Mona Fortier is a deliberate slap in the face.

At the same time, I am also particularly at the end of my rope with the constant demand for unredacted documents, and the insistence that the House of Commons’ Law Clerk be the one to do any redactions. His office is already buried under the literal millions of documents that the Health Committee demanded, and now the Foreign Affairs committee also wants a piece of him and his time to do even more redactions when the non-partisan civil service is normally the body that does this work. This is generally beyond the scope of what the Law Clerk should be doing, and he’s already stressed his resources and staff to do work they shouldn’t be doing, and yet more MPs keep making even more demands. That’s not how this works, and not how this should work, and yet they keep hand-waving about “cover-up!” as though that’s some kind of talisman. I’m not sure what the solution here is other than telling MPs from all sides to grow up, but that’s where we are.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Chalk up a couple of own-goals

Posted on by

Political own-goals can be painful but also hilarious, and we saw two of them happen yesterday. The first was courtesy of the federal Conservatives, whose intended shitpost went awry when they wound up praising the Liberal government. It was obviously deleted within an hour or so, but the damage was done, and the day was spent with Liberals tweeting that the Conservatives told the truth for once. Oops.

The other was in Alberta, where a committee was examining the Energy Department’s budget, and questions arose about the spending on the province’s “war room,” whose job is supposed to be pushing back against the supposed “falsehoods” about their energy sector. You may have heard that last week, said war room decided to do battle against an obscure Netflix film called Bigfoot Family that shows a battle against an oil magnate seeking to blow up an Alaskan wildlife preserve. As a result of the war room’s ham-fisted campaign, the movie made the top ten streamed films, and had pretty much the opposite effect of what was intended. Nevertheless, the province’s energy minister, Sonya Savage, defended the attack against the film, and some UCP MLAs were praising the war room’s ability to make a film reach the top ten to be “pretty awesome.” Erm, they achieved the opposite and had more people watch the film they wanted to censor, guys. It’s so mind-numbingly dumb, and I just cannot even.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Announcing the process to find the next GG

Posted on by

Yesterday afternoon, the government finally announced the process by which they will be selecting the next governor general, and it is the return of an advisory panel – but not really the old vice-regal appointment committee process that Stephen Harper initiated. For one, minister Dominic LeBlanc co-chairs the committee along with the interim Clerk of the Privy Council, which is a big change because LeBlanc’s inclusion means it is no longer arm’s length and won’t be able to claim that it can avoid the appearance of considerations being made through a political lens. As well, the Canadian Secretary to the Queen is nowhere to be seen in this process, whereas the previous CSQ chaired the previous committee process. (There has been some disagreement with this over Twitter, which is their prerogative but I would not consider the creation of a short list to be “political advice” any more than any other options presented to a government as compiled by the civil service).

What concerns me is the timeline of this process, which the government claims to want to be “expeditious” because they don’t want to keep the Chief Justice in the Administrator position for long, particularly if we are in a hung parliament that could theoretically fall at any time (if you discount that the only people who actually want an election right now are bored pundits). Nevertheless, it took them a month-and-a-half after Payette’s resignation to just announce the committee. The old committee process took an average of six months to conduct a search and compile a short-list for a vice-regal position, which is really not tenable in the current situation.

If anyone wants to read more about the old process and the role of the Canadian Secretary of the Queen in it, it was part of the focus of my chapter in Royal Progress: Canada’s Monarchy in the Age of Disruption, which was the product of presentations made at the last conference by the Institute for the Study of the Crown in Canada.

Continue reading →

Roundup: A nuanced conversation post-interview? Hardly.

Posted on by

I’ll say right off that I did not watch That Interview last night because I was trying to have what little life I have available to me in these pandemic times, but judging from the reaction over the Twitter Machine, I have a feeling that we’re in for a week full of boneheaded op-eds and “tough questions” about being a constitutional monarchy, or whether we should abandon the monarchy. Well, good luck with that, because we’d need to rewrite the constitution from top to bottom, because the Crown is the central organising principle, and good luck deciding on just what we would replace the monarchy with. No, seriously – good luck, because that exercise went so poorly in Australia that not only did their republican referendum failed, but support for the monarchy has been on the rise since.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1368770788128620544

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1368771249464348677

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1368771778047262727

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1368772293552267270

And lo, some of our country’s Serious Journalists are already Asking Questions™. And it’s going about as well as you can expect.

So, yeah. That’s what we can look forward to this week. I can’t wait, because I’m sure it’ll be even dumber than we expect.

https://twitter.com/tomhawthorn/status/1368818526564229121

Continue reading →

Roundup: A slacktivist declaration

Posted on by

The Conservatives’ non-binding Supply Day vote went ahead yesterday on declaring that China is conducting a genocide against the Uyghur population, and it passed unanimously – without anyone in Cabinet voting. Well, Marc Garneau was there to performatively declare that he was abstaining – which you can’t actually do, because Commons votes are strictly yay or nay (the Senate has an abstention option), but no one else in Cabinet was there, for what it’s worth.

Immediately, news outlets everywhere started declaring that “Parliament declared a genocide,” which, no, did not happen. It was a non-binding vote in the House of Commons – which is not Parliament – that essentially expressed an opinion. There is nothing official about said declaration, which is important, because an official declaration would have consequences. Essentially, the House of Commons voted to put a black square on their Instagram and call it action against genocide.

And there will be consequences, such as China attempting to impose further sanctions upon Canada in an attempt to try and warn other Western countries from making a similar declaration, because China doesn’t want to lose face. This is precisely why the government has been working with allies to do – ensure that all of their ducks are in a row before they make a formal declaration of genocide, so that they a) have a united front against China’s retaliation, b) that they can uphold the obligations under the Genocide Convention around preventing genocide and punishing those responsible – something that the Americans have opted themselves out of because they refuse to respect the authority of the International Court of Justice, which means that America declaring a genocide is largely a symbolic act, whereas Canada doing the same is not. (And it would be great if media outlets could actually articulate this point rather than ignoring it, because they all have. Every single one of them).

But the opposition parties – and apparently the backbench Liberals as well – are more concerned with making a statement and the kind of preening that comes with “showing leadership” rather than doing the actual hard work of getting our allies on-side so that we have a meaningful declaration and that we aren’t cheapening the term “genocide,” which is literally the worst crime against humanity. But political leadership in this country is decidedly unserious, so this is the kind of clown show we’re getting, complete with a cartoonish understanding of foreign policy. Go us.

Continue reading →

Roundup: A lack of will is not an emergency

Posted on by

With the spread of variants on the rise, and certain provinces still insistent on relaxing public health restrictions, we’re going to get another round of reporters demanding that the federal government invoke the Emergencies Act to force provinces to maintain lockdowns – which they can’t actually do. No, seriously – they can’t do it.

https://twitter.com/TurnbullWhitby/status/1363486802674352130

I cannot stress this enough – the federal government cannot just invoke the Act on a whim. It needs to meet the threshold – which I am hard-pressed to see how this situation does – and it needs provincial consent, and if it doesn’t it is essentially declaring war on the provinces, and is going to poison the well of federalism. And even more to the point, keeping the focus on the federal government continues to give premiers who aren’t doing their jobs a free pass when we should be holding them to account for their failures.

Speaking of which, the math on these variants is scary, and premiers need to so something about it rather than feigning helplessness, which is what they’re oh so good at. They have the power to do something about it, rather than shrugging and blaming the federal government for not making vaccines appear out of thin air. But that’s what they’re doing, and that’s what the vast majority of the media are letting them get away with. We shouldn’t let them.

https://twitter.com/moebius_strip/status/1363532149832310784

https://twitter.com/moebius_strip/status/1363533026559332355

https://twitter.com/moebius_strip/status/1363534914046500865

Continue reading →