There are days when the Senate bat-signal shines in the sky, and I’m likely to sigh and say “Oh, you again.” And it’s one of those times, wherein the Hill Times writes a screaming headline about Liberal senators saying they’ll oppose an appointed Government Leader, only for the story to be about one unnamed Senate Liberal source (not even necessarily a senator) saying that they might objet to an appointment, but no one really knows because it’s all up in the air. So, chalk another one up for hyperbole without any real basis for it. Now, it does seem like there are some issues that need to be sorted, such as whether they count as a Recognized Party for budget reasons when it comes to leadership, but that would seem to me to be an issue that they could solve internally as the Senate is self-governing. And for sure, the sense of uncertainty amongst Senate Liberals is likely getting frustrating because I’m sure they’d like to know if there will be things like Senate Question Period still carrying on without a member of the government to hold to account, or how they will shepherd government bills through the Chamber, or even how they will organise seating (as there really isn’t a government and opposition side any longer), but again, it’s all up in the air. One does hope that the Liberals on the Commons side will start getting more communicative about what’s going on, seeing as having a functioning Parliament would be a good thing to get sorted, but it seems that we have to remain patient a little longer. Hyperbolic headlines don’t help.
Tag Archives: Canadian Forces
Roundup: Action on assisted dying
We’re now less than a week away from the opening of Parliament, and there’s a lot for the Liberals to do. One of those things is deciding what to do about the assisted dying file, and it looks like the Liberals have planned to strike a special joint committee of MPs and senators to quickly examine the issue and provide some legislative recommendations to the government. Remember that the deadline the Supreme Court gave the government is February 6th, and they haven’t decided if they will as the Court for an extension – one they may not be granted, and one where that extension will be a burden to those on the ground who may actually need the law in a timely fashion. There are a couple of reasons why the inclusion of senators in the process is noteworthy – one is that it can help to speed up the process of passing the inevitable legislation, because it can be like a bit of pre-study, getting them involved earlier in the process in order to speed up their own deliberations on the bill when it arrives. The other reason is that the Senate was debating a bill on doctor-assisted dying in the last parliament, which had been sponsored by Conservative Senator Nancy Ruth, based on her consultations with former MP Stephen Fletcher, and had workable solutions to some of the issues raised in protecting the vulnerable. That bill was debated over several days at second reading, but never was voted on to send to committee, likely because of some foot-dragging, but that debate happened, and those same senators are still there. If it’s something that can help speed the process, it’s not a bad idea that they’re in the loop and participating in solving the problem, which could potentially get legislation in the system before that Supreme Court deadline, and with a little luck, they won’t need to ask for an extension.
Roundup: Nonsense parliamentary suggestions
It’s not just the Senate bat-signal I see in the sky, it’s also the Parliament bat-signal as a whole. Starting with the Senate, one of those so-called “Senator-elects” in Alberta writes a baffling column about “restructuring” the Senate to better reflect regions, while moaning about how Alberta’s oil industry isn’t getting the same help as the auto industry would when being faced with job losses. I’m not quite sure what he’s trying to get at, but the thing with the traditional moans about “Western alienation” and hoping that cockamamie schemes like a “Triple E” Senate is that it would do precisely zero to counter the problem, particularly as the problems they’re trying to fix generally can’t be solved by the Senate in the first place. Moving along, former NDP MP and former democratic reform critic Craig Scott pens a gong show of an op-ed about changing the Office of the Speaker in the Commons, supposedly to better insure its independence but it comes off pretty much as the sour grapes of third party grumbling that it really is. Giving the Speaker all kinds of new powers with no real checks on them? Giving him or her the independence to rule with an iron fist despite the real threats inherent within Responsible Government? Plus a bitter kick at the protocol position of the Senate Speaker? It’s incoherent nonsense. Speaking Speakers, outgoing Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer has some thoughts about reforming Question Period, most of which make more sense than what Scott had to say. I have a column out later today that picks up on these points, and I promise you it’ll make far more sense than Craig Scott’s rambling.
#WBIT https://t.co/ZeGazy0jnY pic.twitter.com/81pmkXXtuS
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) November 24, 2015
Because seriously, if this is the state of the democratic reform debate, this is pretty much the state of play: pic.twitter.com/IeeA3oaYnO
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) November 24, 2015
Roundup: Alberta and the first ministers
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.
Roundup: Waiting for details on Tuesday
As things are being finalised, the government has said that they will announce the final details for the Syrian refugee plan on Tuesday – including full costs – leaving some to wonder about the government’s communications strategy throughout the whole thing so far. It’s true that in most cases, the ministers ‘ offices still haven’t been staffed yet and it’s making it difficult for them to effectively handle their media requests. It’s also worth asking if it’s entirely fair to criticize them for waiting until there were actual announcements before they went ahead and announced them, instead of giving a bunch of half-answers that could change because things haven’t been finalized. John McCallum did note yesterday that many of the details that have been leaked to the media are outdated, so as to manage the expectations around them. It does seem a bit odd to be demanding answers that don’t exist yet, or that to keep harping on the self-imposed deadline rather than to acknowledge that there is a process being followed – and one that has been relatively transparent in terms of what we’ve come to expect over the past decade, where you have ministers talking almost daily about aspects of what’s going on, where we can see the heads of CSIS and the RCMP meeting with said cabinet ministers and talking to the media about issues related to the refugees (including giving blanket reassurance that no, the security screening is not an issue despite what concern trolls may say), and where we can see the tenders going out as the military looks to rapidly winterize some of their facilities. All of this is being done in the open. Do we have all of the answers right now? No. But we have constant updates as to process and as of Friday, a date when the answers will be given. That’s not something we would have seen from the previous government, so it’s worth giving credit where credit is due.
Roundup: Senate drama a hopeful sign
Drama in the Senate! Conservative Senator John Wallace quits the Conservative caucus over what he calls irreconcilable differences with the current leadership and fellow Conservative senators over their constitutional role. Will this streak of independent thinking spread to more Conservatives as the iron grip of the former Prime Minister weakens? (Note: Please read those preceding sentences in Clone Wars newsreel voice). In all seriousness, this was bound to happen, and it may not be the last we’ll see either. You see, Senators generally get more independent the longer they’re on the job, and historically that independence goes into overdrive once the Prime Minister that appointed them is no longer in charge, and it gets even more pronounced during a leadership contest. Wallace was part of the Class of 2009 in the Conservative Senate caucus, making him one of the longer-serving members, and he’s starting to feel his independence much more now. With Harper out of the way, and the inappropriate attempts by the PMO to exercise invisible levers of power within the Senate now over – attempts which only succeeded because mass appointments created a situation where those newbie senators were given the false notion that they could and should be whipped, alongside a sense that they needed to go along with what they were being told to do in order to “support the prime minister.” That pressure is gone, and things that have been bothering Wallace for the past couple of years – things like the shabby treatment of those formerly suspended senators who were not given an appropriate chance to address the accusations made about them, or the ways in which deeply flawed Conservative private members bills were passed without amendment “because amending the bill would kill it” they were constantly told (never mind that it should be an object lesson to MPs to do their jobs of due diligence instead of passing bills blindly). From the sounds of it, the current Senate leadership is looking to try and keep up some of their heavy-handed practices, and Wallace has had enough. There have been other Conservatives who bucked the party line on a number of other bills in the last parliament (the revolt over C-377 the first time around being a good example, and those holdouts who kept up their objections the second time around being ones to watch), so we may start seeing more Conservative senators ready to do their jobs more diligently. Nevertheless, Wallace’s stand this week is a good sign.
DRAMA! Conservative Senator John Wallace resigns from caucus out of "irreconcilable differences." #senCA #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/40mplO2z1w
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) November 18, 2015
Roundup: The hinted appointment process
Programming note: I really have nothing to offer on the situation in Paris, so I’ll leave that to those better suited to comment, which is better for all involved.
Look up there – it’s the Senate bat-signal, with news that we may have an idea what the new appointment process is likely to look like. According to the Citizen:
- An independent advisory body will be created that is composed of Canadians who are people of “stature” and who have public credibility. It will consider people who would be good senators and then refer the names to the prime minister, who keeps the ultimate authority (in accordance with the Constitution) to make the appointments.
- There will be a public input component to the process, so that Canadians have a way of recommending themselves, or others, as future senators.
- There will be a consultative role for the provinces, given that Trudeau wants the Senate to regain credibility as a representative of the regions.
If you said that this looks a fair bit like the vice-regal appointments committee, you’d be right, not that the article stated that anywhere. In fact, it went to great lengths to talk about what the House of Lords Appointments Commission in the UK, and meanders to the boneheaded suggestion by Greg Sorbara that we get members of the Order of Canada to choose senators. Also, nowhere in the piece does it seem to acknowledge that the new Canadian process could let these new senators chosen by an independent process choose which Senate caucus they want to sit in or remain independent, with a full understanding of the additional pressures that independent senators actually face. So while it’s good to get some more hints on what we’re likely to see, it might be great if we had reporters who could actually uses useful Canadian comparisons, and who actually understood how the Senate operates rather than engaging in more of the pointless speculation about the supposed chaos that we’re supposed to see in there in the brave new era.
Roundup: No ideological obstruction
There’s the Senate bat-signal again. Conservative Senate leader Claude Carignan says that his caucus won’t abuse their majority in the Senate to thwart Liberal legislation that comes forward, to which I say “Um, yeah. Of course.” Because wouldn’t you know it, Senators have a job to do, and they know it. Of course, I’ve never bought into the conspiracy theory that Conservative senators would be the puppets of Harper, trying to influence things beyond the political grave, or even the theory that they would be extra dickish just because they were Harper appointees. Then again, most people seem to forget that senators of any stripe suddenly get a lot more independent when the PM who appointed them is no longer in office, and they get really, really independent once leadership races kick off. So far we’re at the first of those two, and with the Conservatives as a whole allegedly experimenting with a less command-and-control style of leadership, we may see the yoke they unduly placed over their Senate caucus lifted. Mind you, we’re still waiting for a signal to see what Trudeau will do in terms of both the Speaker of the Senate and the Leader of the Government. Without a Leader, they might as well just cancel Senate Question Period, which would be a loss because it’s quite instructive for how QP in the Commons should be run. Some senators have floated the idea of just having Senate QP be about asking questions to committee chairs (which, incidentally, they already can do), but it’s not a good idea because those committee chairs aren’t going to have a lot to say about issues of the day, they won’t have access to briefing materials, and they aren’t conduits by which the government can be held to account, which is the whole point of QP – not asking details about committee work. But seriously – can we please stop worrying about fantastical hysteria about what the Senate is going to do? 99 percent of it is based on false assumptions and ignorance of the chamber, and it’s so, so tiresome. They have jobs to do. Let them.
Roundup: Mandate letters a good step
Within a few days, we’re going to see another first on the federal scene – the mandate letter sent to every cabinet minister are going to be made public. We’ve seen this in a few provinces before, but not federally, and when Trudeau talks about this being a step in open, transparent and accountable government, he’s right. These letters, personalised to each minister, lay out responsibilities and expectations, and perhaps even timelines, when it comes to what they have on their plate. So why make them public? Because it’s a way of showing what was expected of them so that they can be held to account based on those particular metrics. It also gives the civil service an idea of where the government is going so that they can tailor their efforts accordingly. It does set the more open and transparent tone that Trudeau has been looking to set for his government, and changes the kinds of black boxes that we’re normally used to seeing. Not that there aren’t reasons for some of those closed-doors – cabinet meetings in particular, the caucus room as well – because there do need to be spaces for closed-door discussions in order for consensus to be achieved or for positions to be hashed out without fear of the press making a big deal about divisions that may or may not exist. But even with cabinet secrecy being a good and important thing, I’m having a hard time seeing how mandate letters could be justified under that rubric. It’s not about the discussion leading up to a decision – it’s about setting the government’s direction, and that is something that should generally be out in the open. It’s a move we should applaud, and hopefully it will continue to be an indication of the direction this government is taking in terms of its commitment to actual transparency.
Roundup: Still no Senate decisions
Amidst all of the activity yesterday, one of the things we did learn was that the new Prime Minister has yet to decide what he plans to do with regards to the Senate. It did not go unnoticed on Wednesday that there was no Leader of the Government in the Senate named to cabinet, but as we found out, it’s because he simply hasn’t decided what he’s doing yet, and that’s the same with regards to the Speaker. It raises all kinds of questions about how things are going to be managed with regards to the Senate, and Government House Leader Dominic Leblanc has been named the person to be the liaison between the two chambers, as is fair. What concerns me, however, is that in all of the talk of making the Senate more independent, what isn’t being considered is how it will do its job in holding the government to account if there is nobody in the chamber for them to do so (not to mention that it really is a problem if there is no member of cabinet in the chamber to shepherd government bills through either, which the Conservatives have been fudging for the past year or so). Some senators have been musing about cancelling Senate Question Period altogether, or having it simply focus on asking questions of committee chairs, but that seems particularly short-sighted, considering that they tended to ask far better quality questions of the government as compared to the Commons. Yes, the last couple of government leaders were not exactly great at responding to questions, but neither were ministers down in the Commons, and that era is hopefully over. The loss of the accountability function would be a huge blow to our parliament as a whole, and I hope that the Liberal government is considering this problem. Meanwhile, John Pepall urges caution with appointing too many good-hearted experts to the Senate, as it may empower them to challenge the democratically elected government too often as is starting to happen over in the UK, with the Lords starting to push back against their own limits. Food for thought in that there are consequences even for well-intentioned acts.