Tag Archives: Bill Morneau

Roundup: Procedural secret ballots?

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Suggestions for improving the way things work in the Commons are relatively common, and mostly a load of nonsense, but then Kady O’Malley comes along and pitches a new idea that I’d never heard of before, so I figured I’d deconstruct it a little. Essentially, she takes a never-before-used-but-on-the-books procedural tactic and looks to expand it – in this case, secret votes in the Commons on procedural matters. The one on the books is an appeal mechanism for MPs to use when their piece of private members’ business is deemed non-votable by both the subcommittee and the full committee that determines these things. Why this hasn’t been used before is because MPs generally know to keep their PMBs within the rules – federal jurisdiction (which they try to get around with the creation of national strategies) or by creatively trying to ensure that they don’t spend money (though some of those suggestions are too-cute-by-half, and yet they try anyway *cough*That NDP climate change bill that they won’t let die*cough*). O’Malley argues that this secret ballot process, extended to other procedural votes on things like time allocation and splitting complex bills into smaller parts, will somehow embolden MPs and ensure that House Leaders have to convince their caucuses rather than crack the whip. And while this sounds great in theory, I’m not buying it. For starters, even if we think that secret ballots for MPs under limited circumstances will somehow miraculously embolden them (and I’m highly doubtful about that one), it also takes them off the hook when it comes to voting for unpopular things like time allocation or keeping omnibus bills intact. Their voters should see them do it so that they can hold them to account for it. The larger problem, however, is that this is a suggestion that largely re-litigates the last parliament. The issue of omnibus bills this government has promised to amend the Standing Orders to prevent (and that’s a promise that we can hold them to account for), while the issue of time allocation is almost certainly to be handled differently, because frankly, we’re not seeing a return to the days of an incompetent House Leader, like Peter Van Loan most certainly was. And frankly, even it that wasn’t the case, I doubt we would see too many outliers on contentious bills being put before a procedural vote because they tend to buy their party’s decision on matters and will find a justification if it ever comes to that. So while it’s a nice idea in theory, I just can’t see this as anything other than yet another well-meaning bit of tinkering that will only serve to eventually make things worse through its unintended consequences. No thanks.

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Roundup: No place for Trump

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In one of her year-end interviews, Rona Ambrose said the Donald Trump is “far off the spectrum,” and “not a voice that is welcome in our party.” Um, except that she can’t really get off that quickly or easily on this one. While Ambrose may not be saying it, her party is one that dumped any pretence of actual ideological conservatism long ago, and simply became right-flavoured populists who loudly championed all manner of non-conservative ideas and plans, all for the sake of appealing to enough micro-targeted groups that they could cobble together a base of support that they rose to power once, but which fell apart in 2015. Remember too that in the dying days of the election, Harper willingly embraced the Ford brothers in Toronto in order to cash in on their populist appeal, which are two very Trump-like voices that apparently have been welcomed into her party with open arms. And as for charges that her party is not doing enough to combat Islamophobia as Syrian refugees start arriving in the country, we’re seeing a lot of concern trolling out of her party that makes it sound like they’re supportive of the idea when in fact they are arguing or agitating for indefinite delays to refugee arrivals. Put all of this together, and it’s hard to see how Ambrose is arguing for any kind of principled conservatism, or that she rejects the populism of Trump while she has not moved to distance herself or her party from the Ford brothers. That’s a worrying sign, and when the Conservative leadership does get underway, we’ll see if Doug Ford makes that leap. If he does, we’ll see if Ambrose continues to insist that those kinds of voices are welcome in the party or not.

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Roundup: Alberta and the first ministers

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The talk of the week will fall into two categories – climate change, and refugees, but for today, climate change is going to be the big topic of discussion, given Alberta unveiling their momentous climate change plans yesterday, followed by the First Ministers Meeting on the subject today. Alberta’s plan is ambitious and courageous – carbon pricing that matches BC’s by 2018, phasing out coal-fired electricity (the vast majority of the province’s grid) by 2030, absolute emissions caps on the oilsands that are a little higher than where they stand today – and lo and behold, the energy sector didn’t freak out, but rather embraced the changes (given that they’ve been demanding a price on carbon for years anyway). In fact, there was commentary that these kinds of changes may be necessary in order to allow them to grow (though if the idea is the gradual phase-out of fossil fuels entirely, I guess we’ll see how that goes). And with this new plan in place, Alberta premier Rachel Notley can come to that First Ministers meeting later today and have something to put on the table, which may indeed help to put pressure on other lagging provinces to start making changes they may be hesitating to do. Jason Markusoff has more on the Alberta plan, and the questions that it raises.

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Roundup: A really new cabinet

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So, that’s the new cabinet. For all of the concern trolling over “merit” when it comes to women being appointed in such numbers, Trudeau and the Liberals found an impressively credentialed group of Canadians that will do the country well. There is no one on that list that one could reasonably say got there for the sake of tokenism, which is not something you could argue with the previous government, where there was a lot of dead weight that was simply there to tick some boxes (and quite obviously so). The full list is here, and the Maclean’s annotated group photo is here. While they all did some quick media scrums after their first cabinet meeting, there weren’t a lot of answers yet because they haven’t had a chance to get their departmental briefings. Within a week or two, hopefully we’ll start getting some scrums with some answers (another huge change from the previous government). There may be some entrails to be sorted through in terms of those who didn’t make cabinet, but given that cabinet making is a delicate art, and there are many factors to consider, I would hope that nobody reads too much into the so-called “snubs,” particularly given that the commitment to parliament mattering more should prove that there are plenty of great roles for each of those “stars” that didn’t get a seat at the cabinet table. Maclean’s even went so far as to build a whole second cabinet out of those who didn’t make it this time. As for reaction, Susan Delacourt looks at what messages the picks send, while Andrew Coyne notes that despite the pledge for gender parity, that was not demonstrated in the make-up of cabinet committees.

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