Tag Archives: Canadian Forces

Roundup: MyDemocracy survey says…

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The results of the MyDemocracy.ca survey got published yesterday, and it’s full of some fairly contradictory results about people generally being reasonably satisfied with our system (or at least not wildly dissatisfied), preferring constituency connections and accountability (but also co-operation, which makes accountability difficult), while also wanting more diversity of views (unless it lets in radicals and extremists). Also, no mandatory voting, online voting, or lowering the voting age. (Full report here). So yeah. And already you’ve got Nathan Cullen sore that it doesn’t say “Canadians want PR” because that’s not what it was asking. Anyway, Philippe Lagassé is best positioned to weigh in on it, so here we go:

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Reading through the methodology and the reasoning behind the questions was fairly illuminating and something the detractors of the survey should probably want to actually do before they scroll ahead to where they go “Why doesn’t it say that Canadians really want proportional representation? Stupid biased survey” because we know that’s what they want to hear.

Of course, if you ask me, this should provide enough justification for them to smother this whole thing in the cradle and wash their hands of it, saying it turns out that Canadians aren’t too concerned with reform and hey, it turns out it’s way more complex than we thought so yeah, bad promise, we’ll do better next time, and then move onto some actual topics of importance than just trying to appease a few sore losers.

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Roundup: The “dangerous” Senate

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Remember last week when John Ivison had that ridiculous column about the Senate apparently becoming such a terrible beast that the finance minister was being forced to change his upcoming budget to placate them, and then Andrew Coyne got the vapours about it? Yeah, well, over in the Vancouver Sun, they found a couple of people for whom that Ivison column made them utterly hysterical that they made it the BC angle. And as much as I like Peter O’Neil, who wrote the piece, it was really terrible and didn’t appear to challenge any of these so-called experts at all, or even what Ivison wrote – it took Ivison as gospel and went to town with it, despite the fact that it was torqued and wrong.

The “experts” consulted were a former BC Liberal leader, a law professor, and a recycled quote from the current BC premier. Said former BC Liberal leader spins conspiracy theories that because BC only has six senators, it means that the other senators are going to sneakily start amending bills to funnel BC’s wealth eastward.

No, seriously. He actually said that.

The law professor? He asserts that, apparently based on the Ivison column, that the “half-reformed” Senate is emboldened to exercise its powers without correcting the institution’s “considerable faults,” which aren’t. Never mind that we haven’t actually seen much in the way of them being so “emboldened” other than the fact that they’ve found legitimate flaws in government legislation and insisted that it be either corrected or removed. You know, like they’re supposed to because that’s the whole raison d’etre of the institution. And Christy Clark? She simply asserts that the Senate doesn’t work now. Erm, except that it actually seems to be considering that they’ve catching flaws in government legislation and dealing with it. Seems to be working to me.

Part of the problem with the framing of the article as well is the fact that it is coming from this particular grievance-based claim that BC is underrepresented in the Senate because it only has six seats when Ontario and Quebec each have 24. The flaw in this argument is that it ignores the regional construction of the Senate – it is not designed for provincial representation, but rather regional blocks – Ontario, Quebec, the Maritimes, and the West, with the territories and Newfoundland and Labrador each being additional regions unto themselves. The reason why it was designed with regional rather than provincial equality in mind was to provide a counterbalance to the representation-by-population of the House of Commons, and if you look at the populations of each regional bloc (Newfoundland & Labrador and the territories excepted), they are roughly analogous. That’s not a bad thing, but BC is acting a though the Senate was designed in another way, which it was not.

The problem with pieces like this one is that the important facts and context are left out. We are left with a few tantalizing quotes that crank the hysteria up to eleven, but there is no actual civic literacy to counter any of it, whether that’s out of ignorance or by design I can’t say. But it’s not edifying. It’s cartoonish, and in fact promotes an ugly cynicism about our institutions that creates bigger problems of perception that are not based on fact, and that’s a problem.

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Roundup: Entering the Trumpocalypse

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So, this is the Trumpocalypse. I didn’t really want to write anything about it, but that’s all anyone can talk about, so here’s the roundup. There have been a few different looks at how Trudeau’s cabinet shuffle was supposed to retool for the Trump era, but I will say that Maclean’s has one of the best ones, particularly because it doesn’t just focus on the shuffled ministers but also how Trudeau is redeploying his other ministers based on fascinations that the Americans have.

While people like Newt Gingrich have been saying that Canada will be “least affected” by changes to trade, what he seems to forget is that we’re as much a part of NAFTA as Mexico is, and that we’re likely to be hit with all manner of unintended blowback from other changes – especially on things like the “border tax” that Trump keeps talking about, and in places like our energy sector. Mind you, given the complexity of the problem, economist Jack Mintz doesn’t think that Trump’s border tax will actually end up happening.

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And then there was the speech, with its talk of “American carnage” and “America First.” Colby Cosh questions some of the reviews given how terrible most inaugural speeches tend to be as they are geared more toward political signalling rather than oration. Andrew Coyne was struck by how paranoid and inward-looking it was. Scott Feschuk, meanwhile, gives you his satirical annotation of the speech.

Meanwhile, Stephen Saideman looks at how Trump’s real-estate agent behaviour will have great consequences internationally, while Ian Brodie reminds us that America had better do well under Trump or Canada will suffer. Patricia Treble finds a number of curious (if disturbing) parallels between Trump and Edward VIII. Paul Wells notes that the genius of the American Republic is that it won’t let one person accumulate too much power and that may yet save us all, while Scott Gilmore reminds us that America already went through this in the 1850s with populist demagogues, and that it will endure again.

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Roundup: “Prominent” Canadians demand unicorns

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Yesterday, the “Every Voter Counts Alliance,” which is a proportional representation umbrella group that includes our friends at Fair Vote Canada got a group of “prominent Canadians” to call on the government to implement a “made-in-Canada” PR system. And while most of these “prominent Canadians” are the usual suspects, they got a few added names including a former Chief Electoral Officer (whom I will note has tried promoting a “rural-urban proportional system” that the Supreme Court would immediately frown upon). Meanwhile, here are a few reminders about just what a “made-in-Canada” PR system is referring to.

Handwavey. Nonsense.

The reason why people like these keep going back to his notion that there’s a “made-in-Canada” system that we can somehow devise that will somehow manage to overcome the constitutional obstacles and at the same time providing their precious proportionality and will somehow deliver all of the supposed goodness that comes along with it despite the fact that we’re a vast country with a sparse population and fairly entrenched regional divisions, is because they don’t actually know how it will look. They just expect someone to figure it out and then present it to them, and it will be so wonderful that there will be no unintended consequences, we won’t wind up with thirty splinter parties, that it won’t give rise to far-right parties like pretty much every other PR system has, that it will lead to stable coalition governments that won’t have big policy “swings” every few years, and there will be no problems. No actual trade-offs. Just a new golden age of democracy.

But if they’re trying to pin their hopes on the Electoral Reform committee and its work, well, I wouldn’t hold my breath. As I’ve discussed elsewhere about why it’s a bad idea from a governance and accountability point of view, and as Kady O’Malley reminds us that the committee never actually came to any kind of consensus, and as I will remind you yet again, their report was a steaming pile of hot garbage. It’s not going to happen. What they’re asking for is magic. Unicorns and gumdrops, and not reality.

It’s time to let the demands for proportionality go. They won’t actually improve governance or representation, because it’s built solely on the emotional response of sore-loserism. We have a system that functions (and would function even better if we undid the “reforms” that were supposed to improve things but only made them worse). Trying to break it even further to satisfy this emotional need for perceived “fairness” which is not actually a Thing is only going to do just that – break it. Time to grow up and actually learn how the system works.

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Roundup: Butchered applause lines

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Now that the French “debate” has passed, it looks like today is the day that Kevin O’Leary will announce his candidacy for the Conservative leadership – something most of the other candidates will probably welcome given that it will divert everyone’s attention from the embarrassing debacle that was the “debate,” and I do use the term loosely. As with previous events in this contest, there was no debate, just a line-up of talking points, only this time it was mostly in mangled French, some of which was utterly incomprehensible.

Not to say that there wasn’t some artificial drama during the horror show. Kellie Leitch in full butchered French and Steven Blaney both had their sight set on Maxime Bernier and attacked him out of the gate (while Erin O’Toole, in very slow sentences, pleaded with them not to fight), and for the first 45 minutes at least, all anyone could talk about was supply management, before the moved onto softwood lumber – because apparently dairy and forestry are Quebec’s only two industries. And then when it came to questions of national security, it was all manner of fumbled pearl-clutching (and it was like you could watch them grasping for that strand of pearls and missing it every time) as a number of them insisted that they were for immigration but wanted to ensure that they weren’t letting in terrorists. Brad Trost decided to go full-Trump and declare that we ban immigration from “pro-radical Islamist” regions (but don’t worry, he doesn’t hate all immigrants – he married one!).

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If you’re looking for a professional evaluation of everyone’s proficiency in French, CBC assembled an expert panel to grade everyone, and based on my own personal observations, Lisa Raitt did better than most expectations (but was still mostly reading her responses), and Chris Alexander, for all of his other weaknesses in this race, had one of the best grasps of the language of any of them. Rick Petersen, the other also-ran who doesn’t have a seat, also had a really great grasp of French and was one of the only people speaking off the cuff – doubly impressive given that he’s an Anglo and not Francophone. And as for Deepak Obhrai, people keep saying “points for trying!” or “At least he showed up, unlike O’Leary!” well, there were actual times when he was just uttering phonetic gibberish – and pointing while doing it.

But, as Martin Patriquin writes, none of this is going to matter after a few hours today because once O’Leary is in the race, none of it is going to matter.

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Roundup: Housakos vs Harder

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It took a couple of weeks, but I will say that I was encouraged to read that Senator Leo Housakos was in the press pushing back against Senator Peter Harder’s comments that the Senate hasn’t been implementing changes to its processes as recommended by the Auditor General. As chair of the Internal Economy committee, Housakos has corrected the record to point out that yes, a lot of changes have happened (and in fact were happening since long before the now infamous audit happened), and also hit back at the issue of an audit committee. Harder it seems has bought into the AG’s wrong-headed notion that an external audit body be formed, which I will reiterate is absolutely an affront to parliamentary democracy. The Senate is a parliamentary body, and parliament is self-governing. It needs to be, full stop. Making senators answerable to an outside body puts a stake in the ability to be self-governing, and pretty much says that we don’t deserve to be a self-governing country anymore, and should just hand all of the power back to the Queen. That Harder can’t see that is blind and a little bit gobsmacking. While the Senate does plan to announce an audit body soon, it will be of mixed composition, and if they’ve paid attention to Senator McCoy’s proposal to mirror the House of Lords’ body – basically three senators and two outside experts – then we’ll be fine. But make no mistake – such a body must be majority senators and be chaired by a Senator. Otherwise let’s just start the process of shuttering parliament, and no, I’m not even being dramatic about it.

While we’re on the topic of the Senate, I just wanted to give a tip of my hat to now-retired Senator Nancy Ruth (who was on Power & Politics yesterday at 1:49:00 on this link). Nancy Ruth (that’s one name, like Cher or Madonna) was one of my early entry points into political journalism, when I came to the Hill writing for GLBT publications like the now-defunct Outlooks and Capital Xtra. As the only openly lesbian parliamentarian, and the only openly LGBT member of the Conservative caucus who wasn’t media shy, she was my point of contact into that caucus and that particular political sphere. The relationship I built there gave me my first by-line for The Canadian Press, and I eventually moved into more mainstream outlets. She was an absolute joy to cover, and I will miss her terribly.

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Roundup: Not offering excuses

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Justin Trudeau has been making the media rounds over the past few days, and some of the highlights of yesterday’s interviews were how he warned the now-former Italian prime minister that referendums were a bad idea because they give people a licence to lash out at institutions – and they did in that case, and said PM resigned. He also spoke about his “friendly-ish” phone conversation with Donald Trump, the inedible lunch served at a Paris climate conference event, and that he hasn’t yet decided if RCAF001 will be replaced anytime soon. And then there are the fundraising questions. His response was that he’s followed all of the rules, and that this hysteria (my word, not his) is largely a result of opposition and media frenzy than anything substantive. And he’s not really wrong.

And as if summoned, former advisor to Stephen Harper, Tom Flanagan, appeared in the Globe and Mail to remind everyone that these kinds of fundraisers are the exact same thing that Harper and company did when they were in office. The problem, of course, is that Trudeau promised not to have the “appearance” of conflict, but I always bring it back to defining what the appearance is, because I am still waiting for any evidence that would lead one to actually think there is an appearance of conflict and I remain unconvinced. Indeed, when the Globe came out with yesterday’s screaming headline that Liberal donors were invited to a dinner for the Chinese premier, I’m not seeing any evidence that they were invited solely because they were donors – indeed, most of the names highlighted seemed to be invited because they have business interests with China than there being proof of quid pro quo. And as someone else pointed out on Twitter, did anyone thought to compare how many of the people that Stephen Harper took on his trip to Israel were Conservative donors? Or do they not count because when Stephen Harper rode into power in 2006 on the white horse of accountability that he didn’t make the promise of “appearance” of conflict that is being generously interpreted? Have we not finished hoisting Trudeau on his own petard long enough, or do we need to go full Yellow Peril with all of the insinuations about Chinese connections, while continuing to poison the well when it comes to our faith in political institutions?

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Roundup: Items left undebated

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With the Commons now having risen for the holidays, there is another day or two left of work left in the Senate before they too head off for their holidays, but as Kady O’Malley points out, they are having a bit of a problem getting any bills that aren’t supply-related passed in any reasonable timeframe. The extent to which this is an actual problem just yet is up in the air – yes, fewer bills have passed to date in this current parliament, but some of them have been pretty major issues (like assisted dying), while we’ve also seen far less use of procedural tools like time allocation to ram through bills without sufficient time for debate or committee study. (We’re also not seeing massive omnibus bills being rammed through either, so points for that).

Part of the problem is simply that senators are letting items stand on the Order Paper in their name for weeks at a time, which is not uncommon in the Senate, but there has been little effort to move some of these pieces forward, and I’m not entirely sure why. In my own estimation, part of it has to do with the new normal in the Senate, where there is no longer a government caucus, and the Government Leader – sorry, “government representative” thus far hasn’t really been communicating much urgency on any particular bills so far as I can tell. Maybe I’m wrong, as I’m not privy to any discussions that he is having with other caucus leaders. Some of it I would imagine is delay engineered by some Conservative senators because they feel that measures were adopted too quickly by the House of Commons without what they would consider to be adequate scrutiny (which I would imagine the ostensible reason on holding up debate on the trans rights bill would be), while some of it is partisan stubbornness (like the bill to undo changes the previous government made to unions or citizenship revocation). Senator Peter Harder could start to invoke time allocation on those bills if he so chose, and with there now being enough non-aligned senators having been appointed to surpass the votes of the Conservatives in the Chamber, he may now be in a position to convince them that this is the way to go.

Time allocation is a tricky beast in the Senate, however, and while the previous government did not hesitate to use it in the Senate when they felt they needed to, it is a blunt instrument and Senators need to be careful that they’re not putting themselves in a position of being treated like backbenchers in the Commons. Part of what needs to happen is clear lines of communication between the government and senators who want to speak to bills so that they have timelines in mind (and to be fair, some of them may have a lot on their plates right now). But there shouldn’t be an expectation that bills need to be sped through the Senate just because they’re government bills – they already get priority in all aspects of the Senate process, but if there is a sense of urgency, that needs to be communicated.

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QP: One last kick at the can for 2016

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While the PM was present for caucus in the morning, and was slated to be at his caucus Xmas party later in the day, he was not, however, present for QP. Go figure. Rona Ambrose led off with lamentations about tax raises, to which Bill Morneau reminded her that they reduced taxes for the middle class, and gave them an enhanced child benefit. Ambrose then worried that Trudeau was spending too much time with the “out-of-touch elite” with fundraisers and not those out of work. Bardish Chagger recited the new talking points about being focused on working for the middle class. Ambrose worried about the billionaires — especially Chinese billionaires — looking for favours from fundraising, but Chagger responded with a combination of the hard work talking point with the one about the rules. Ambrose refereed to the PM as a bagman for the party, and Chagger returned to the talking point about working for the middle class. Ambrose demanded an end to cash-for-access fundraisers, and Chagger returned to the rules talking points. Thomas Mulcair was up next, asking about Canada 2020 being a wing of the Liberal Party, but Chagger stuck with her talking points about the middle class. After another round of the same, Nathan Cullen stood up to moan about electoral reform, and Maryam Monsef said they were proud to hear from Canadians before coming up with legislation, and there was another round of the same.

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QP: Not just the rules, but listening to Canadians

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With just a couple of QP session left in the year, all of the leaders were present today, interim or otherwise. Rona Ambrose led off, worrying that the prime minster was bragging about being the target of illegal lobbying — which was not what he said, but whatever. Trudeau said that wherever he is, he talks about growth for the middle class and all of those wonderful things. Ambrose wondered when money became more than ethics. Trudeau insisted that he has the same message everywhere he goes, about taxing the one percent more to cut taxes for the middle class. Ambrose asked the same again, got the same answer, and then she worried that his true priority was fundraisers and that he’s left the impression that he can be bought. Trudeau reiterated that they raised taxes on the wealthiest to cut taxes for the middle class. Ambrose accused the Trudeau Foundation of laundering influence to the PM, and demanded that he tell them to stop accepting foreign donations. Trudeau assured her that he severed his connections shortly after he became party leader and they advance the cause of the humanities in a non-partisan manner. Thomas Mulcair was up next, also concern trolling about fundraising, and Trudeau repeated his same points about their priorities. Mulcair demanded support for the NDP bill to “give teeth” to ethics rules, but Trudeau repeated his same points. Mulcair moved onto marijuana legalisation and demanded immediate decriminalisation. Trudeau reminded him that their objectives were to keep it out of the hands of children and the profits from the hands of organised crime, and that until the law was changed, it stands. Mulcair pivoted again to the situation of Stelco workers, and Trudeau said that they were engaged in the challenge.

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