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 John McCallum did note yesterday that many of the details that have been leaked to the media are outdated, so as to manage the expectations around them.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.
Tag Archives: Canadian Forces
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.
Roundup: Warning about possible Senate frustration
There’s the Senate bat-signal, so here we go again. On Evan Solomon’s radio show, Liberal Senator David Smith suggested that if Trudeau does not appoint a Government Leader in the Senate that it will create frustration in the Chamber if they have no means by which to hold the government to account, and that they could – if it got that far – start to stall or even vote against the government’s legislation as a protest. Mind you, as these things do, the headlines hype it up, but it does point to problems that I outlined in my National Post piece earlier this week. And because I know that some people have suggested it, no, just calling ministers before committee is not enough as it robs the daily exercise of accountability that is Senate Question Period of meaning (as Smith suggested), and those appearances might happen every couple of months. The existing protocol is for the Government Leader to have access to the same briefing books as the Prime Minister. If senators are to do their job of sober second thought and accountability, they need access to information on a timely basis, and the government leader, if he or she can’t provide that answer immediately, takes it under advisement and gets a written response as soon as possible. They have a job to do and they need information to do it. The threats over the past couple of weeks, as overhyped as they have been, have awakened Andrew Coyne’s concern trolling over the Senate’s veto powers, because he apparently doesn’t believe they should have enough power to push back against a majority government when necessary, and would rather the courts do it years down the road. Meanwhile, Senate Speaker Housakos has said that he plans to propose the creation of an arm’s length spending oversight body to give guidance to the Internal Economy Committee, but we have no details on this yet. I would once again caution that we need to ensure that the Senate remains self-governing for the sake of parliamentary supremacy (argued here). I would still like to see Senator McCoy’s proposal for a Senate audit committee comprised of three senators, an auditor and a former judge as the best solution, but I guess we’ll wait to see what Housakos’ proposition is.
Roundup: Assisted dying heating up
The issue of doctor-assisted dying is heating up the closer we get to Trudeau and cabinet being sworn in, seeing as there’s a looming February deadline on the horizon. Trudeau signalled that he plans to ask the Supreme Court for an extension to their decision to strike the existing laws down, but that too poses its own challenges. The federal government had initially asked the Court for eighteen months, and they gave them twelve, at which point the government sat on it for several months before creating what looked to be a stacked advisory committee to study the issue. That committee is also in the crosshairs, as advocacy groups say that it should be abolished because of its stacked nature. The chair of said committee said that its members’ former positions against assisted dying are no longer relevant because the Court has ruled and they now have to come up with a system that will work to protect the vulnerable while enabling those Canadians who wish to die with dignity to do so on their own terms. It certainly couldn’t hurt Trudeau to let them report and see what they have to say, and then choose to accept or disregard it at that time. The very fact that he’s now forming government should also be a signal that he expects this consultative process to be something other that the one the government engaged in around the prostitution question, in that he is not expecting them to give one response in particular but to have a more thoughtful result in the end. I guess we’ll see. Meanwhile, advocates of religious communities came out against assisted dying again, insisting instead on more resources for palliative care, as though they were mutually exclusive, never mind that the Supreme Court has also made a clear ruling. (And one would think that if they allowed people who wanted to die on their own terms rather to do so, it would free up those resources that were otherwise needlessly prolonging their suffering that could be applied to palliative care, but maybe I’m wrong on that one).
https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/659187808322605056
https://twitter.com/cmathen/status/658299297897824256
Roundup: May already has a job
In the wake of Monday’s election results, a number of people have been trying to circulate a few petitions calling on Justin Trudeau to appoint Elizabeth May as environment minster. It’s so ridiculous I barely know where to begin. First of all, why would she cross the floor? There is no need for a coalition government, and for her to abandon the Green Party to join the Liberals would be a bit of a repudiation of what she stands for. It also demonstrates a lack of awareness of what it means to be in a cabinet, which means solidarity with the government’s decisions as a whole. If you don’t agree with all of the cabinet’s decisions, you resign, because cabinet solidarity is part of our system of government. With her many strident positions on various policy files, it’s hard, if not impossible, to see May agreeing with the Liberal positions on so many files. Most of all, this call demonstrates a complete inability for people to appreciate the role that the opposition plays in our system of government. It’s vital, because it holds the government to account – and why wouldn’t you want May to be holding the government to account over their environmental policies? Why would it be a lesser job for her to be doing the holding to account? In the romantic notion that people have that everything should somehow be done by consensus, they don’t appreciate that there is a role for accountability when there is disagreement. It doesn’t need to be nasty – which is unfortunately where we’ve wound up in recent years because of the kinds of culture that has been allowed to breed in parliament – but it can be principled and fair, and certainly May is providing that kind of opposition. Trudeau is making other inroads, such as inviting her and other opposition members to the Paris climate summit – former practice that Harper abandoned when he decided that only his ministers should be allowed to attend these kinds of things. Can May play a role in the system? Absolutely, and she does? That doesn’t mean that she needs to be given a seat at the cabinet table. That’s just ridiculous.
Roundup: Unrest in the ranks
There appears to be some unrest in the Conservative ranks, we’re starting to hear – both in the caucus and the party machinery itself. While it’s not unthinkable for a party that has just lost an election, they seem to be doing some questionable things. Things like trying to bar defeated candidates from one last caucus gathering that’ll allow them to vent and hug it out behind closed doors. Denied of that, they’ll likely start talking to the media, their muzzles loosed. It’s started, even with some that were not defeated (but more on that in a moment). Behind the scenes, there’s some rancorous finger-pointing going on with Jenni Byrne in the centre of it all. And while this takes place, Diane Finley stepped forward to make it known that she is officially interested in becoming interim leader, as Rob Nicholson has so far unofficially. What was curious was the way in which Finley went onto Power & Politics to make her case about needing to transition from a more “authoritarian” PMO to a “collaborative” OLO, and basically shrugging off her participation in said authoritarianism. She touts her management experience, but what I heard from civil servants during Finley’s first go-around as minister of Human Resources was that she walked into the building and told everyone that they were all Liberals and she was going to fix the joint up. Collaborative! (She later went to Immigration and broke the system, creating massive backlogs by refusing to make appointments to the Immigration and Refugee Board until she had re-jigged the selection process. Management skills!) Word also has it that both Jason Kenney and Kellie Leitch have their leadership teams assembled, so that race could easily kick off right away. Whether they wait to hash out what happened over the election that led to their demise, or they discuss what kind of reorganization the party needs before they get into the leadership process, doesn’t seem to be a concern yet at this point. We’ll see if that’s a problem going forward.
Diane Finley makes it official re: interim leadership bid. #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/fO5J2AbOS3
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) October 23, 2015