Tag Archives: Canadian Forces

Roundup: Accountability that never was

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It feels like a while since I’ve had to go to bat for the existence of the Senate, so Robyn Urback’s column in the National Post yesterday was pretty much the bat-signal shining in the sky. To wit, Urback somewhat lazily trades on the established tropes of the Senate, and takes what was a joke on the part of Senator Nancy Ruth about airplane food (cold camembert and broken crackers was a joke, people! Senators are allowed to have a dry sense of humour, last I checked) to clutch her pearls about how terribly elitist and entitled our senators allegedly are (when really, the vast majority are very much not).

Urback’s big complaint however is that despite Justin Trudeau’s promises of change to the institution, giving it more independence is apparently all a sham. There are a few problems with this hypothesis, however, and most can pretty much be chalked up to the run-of-the-mill ignorance of the institution, its history, and its proper function in our parliamentary system. Her complaints that the rules that allowed Senator Mike Duffy to claim all of those expenses is wrong, because rules have tightened since, and the fact that he can still claim for his Ottawa residence is the reality that comes with what we are asking of Senators. The problem with Duffy is that he never should have been appointed as a senator for PEI, and he was shameless enough to claim the expenses for his Ottawa residence without actually making a legitimate point of having an actual full-time residence on the island and a small condo or apartment in Ottawa for when the Senate was in session. Complaints that the Senate Liberals are simply declared to be independents while still remaining partisans ignores the substance of how they have behaved in the time since Trudeau made the declaration, and the fact that they have been kicking the government just as hard, if not harder, than the Conservatives in the Senate since Trudeau came to power. This is not an insignificant thing. But then there is Urback’s ultimate complaint, revolving around a canard about who senators are accountable to.

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The Senate was never made to be accountable to parties or party leaders. The whole point of the institution, and the very reason it was constructed with the institutional independence that it has (non-renewable appointments to age 75 with extremely difficult conditions for removal) is so that the Senate can act on a check for a prime minister with a majority government, and they have numerous times since confederation. It needs to have the ability to tell truth to power without fear of reprisal, and that includes the power to kill bad bills – because they do get through the Commons more often than you’d like to think. They have never been accountable to a party or leader, and that’s a good thing. Sure, they can act in lockstep with a party out of sentimentality (or ignorance, if you look at the batches appointed post-2008), but this was never a formal check on their powers, nor should it be. If Urback or anyone else can tell me how you get an effective check on a majority prime minister any other way, I’m all ears, but the chamber has a purpose in the way it was constructed. Getting the vapours over a more formal independence is ignorant of the 149 years of history of the chamber and its operations.

Where Urback does have a point is in noting that the independent appointments board made their recommendations on the short-list without having conducted any interviews or face-to-face meetings. That is a problem that undermines the whole point of the appointment process, because it leaves the final vetting up to the PMO. One hopes that this will be corrected in the new permanent process that is being undertaken now, but there are still worrying signs about how that is being conducted. Self-nominations and people getting letters of recommendation seems like a poor way to get quality people who aren’t driven by ego and status, and we can hope that this isn’t all they’re replying on.

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QP: Doomsaying and expense obsession

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Caucus day, and with Trudeau back from the UN, we had a full leadership deck today (minus Elizabeth May, who is travelling with the electoral reform committee). Rona Ambrose led off, mini-lectern on desk, doomsaying the economy and the looming catastrophes of a carbon tax and a CPP increase. Trudeau reminded her that they have lowered taxes for the middle class and noted that the previous record of not raising them on the wealthy didn’t work. Ambrose moved to the possible extradition treaty with China and that country’s human rights record. Trudeau noted that the dialogue they have established means they can raise difficult questions as well as investment opportunities, while they won’t lower the standards on extraditions. Ambrose worried about Chinese cyber-attacks, and Trudeau noted again that the dialogue allows them to raise difficult issues. Ambrose asked about the extradition treaty again in French, got the same answer, and ended her round asking about a peacekeeping missing in sub-Saharan Africa. Trudeau noted the responsibility that Canada has to the world, and said that they were considering the mission carefully in order to determine what the mission would be, but assured her they would be transparent. Thomas Mulcair was up next and demanded a vote on a peacekeeping mission. Trudeau noted this appreciation for the capacity of parliamentarians to raise issues, but didn’t deliver the necessary civics lesson about why a vote would undermine the role of the opposition. Mulcair touched on the extradition treaty with China, got the same answer that Ambrose got, and Mulcair moved onto a pair of questions about the climate targets not being more robust than those of the Conservatives. In both cases, Trudeau reminded him of their commitment to working with the provinces as they agreed to price carbon.

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QP: Pawns on a chessboard

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While Trudeau and a good number of ministers remained at the UN General Assembly, things carried on back in Ottawa. Rona Ambrose led off, reiterating her line from yesterday about our troops not being pawns on the political chessboard of getting a UN Security Council seat. Harjit Sajjan reminded her that nothing was decided about where they would be deployed and they were still gathering information, and then patted himself on the back for how transparent they were being about it all. Ambrose asked a pair of questions about why there was a sudden change of heart on an extradition treaty with China while they still have the dealt penalty, Sajjan said that they were pushing China on that issue. Ambrose then changed topics to the planned CPP increase, and Bill Morneau said that they still planned on keeping TFSAs and that the rate would increase with the Consumer Price Index, and then they went one more round in French. Thomas Mulcair concerned trolled about the Liberals still using Stephen Harper’s GHG targets, and Jim Carr said that they were planning to increase the targets as they went along. Mulcair went another round in French, and Carr reminded him of the pan-Canadian targets being negotiated. Hélène Laverdière asked if the government would repeal the ministerial directive that allows information obtained by torture to be used. Ralph Goodale didn’t make a firm commitment, only noted that they were giving the whole national security apparatus a thorough review and that legislation on a parliamentary oversight body was before the House. Laverdière then returned to the issue of the extradition treaty with China, but got much the same response from Sajjan that he gave before.

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QP: Back in the saddle

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Everyone’s back, and raring to go, and how I’ve missed them all! Well, okay, not everyone’s back — the PM and several of his ministers are off at the UN General Assembly (where Canada’s Back™), but these things happen.

Rona Ambrose led off, mini-lectern on desk, decrying tax increases along with a potential carbon tax and CPP increases. Bill Morneau stood up to lament the challenges facing Canadians, and noted the reduction in middle-class taxes and the Canadian Child Benefit. Ambrose gave the doom statistics, and Morneau reminded her that investments and not austerity were geared toward future growth. Ambrose changed tactics and sounded the alarm about a peacekeeping mission in sun-Saharan Africa. Harjit Sajjan reminded her that it was dangerous, and that was why he was doing the necessary homework beforehand. Ambrose worried that troops were being used as pawns on a political chessboard in a bid for a UN seat. Sajjan reminded her that it was not just about troops, but a whole-of-government approach to peace operations and stability. Ambrose switched to French to demand a debate and vote on a deployment. Sajjan said they welcomed a healthy debate, but did not commit to a vote (as is proper). Thomas Mulcair was up next, decrying the “cuts” (read: changed escalator) to health transfers. Jane Philpott said she was talking with the provinces, but didn’t commit to restoring the old escalator. Mulcair asked again in English, got the same answer, and then Mulcair demanded that the government vote in favour of nuclear disarmament at the UN this week. Sajjan said that the best way was a pragmatic step-by-step approach. Mulcair demanded GHG reduction targets, and Catherine McKenna said that they were being transparent in their approach.

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Roundup: Productivity has context

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Parliament resumes today, and it’s going to be the start of a heavy legislative agenda, as the government’s months of consultations start wrapping up and decisions get to start being made. And if you needed a reminder about everything on everyone’s plates, here’s a handy piece about the priorities and challenges for the three main parties this autumn, and Kady O’Malley’s list here too. That said, a Huffington Post article was circulating over the weekend that set my teeth on edge, “proving” that the spring session was the least-productive in decades.

Why this is a problematic measure is that it’s focusing solely on the number of bills passed over those ten months (really, only about five of which was when Parliament was sitting). It’s a purely quantitative analysis that says absolutely nothing about the context of what happened, or about the bigger picture of what the government accomplished. And really, I will be the first person to say that the decision to pull the plug on the Friday they did was about forcing the Senate to pass the assisted dying bill, when they were actually scheduled to sit for a couple of more days, during which time they could have passed two more bills that were ready to go, but they didn’t, and that does deserve mention, but that’s not in there at all. What we get are Conservatives cherry-picking trips and “photo ops” – because who needs multilateral engagement, am I right? – rather than on some of the additional hurdles that the session faced. One of the biggest hurdles was around that assisted dying bill, and the fact that the opposition parties demanded far more hours of debate at second reading than the bill deserved (remember, second reading is about the principle of the bill, not the specifics), and they got huffy when the government tried to push those additional (useless) hours of debate into late nights to keep the agenda going, and when they tried to bring in a procedural hammer to move bills through, the Opposition blew their tops and we wound up with The Elbowing and the subsequent fallout from that. Let me remind you that the Conservatives fully participated in the days of psychodrama that followed, and now they have the gall to say that the government didn’t get enough done? Seriously? They were equal participants in determining the Commons’ schedule of what took place (especially the demands for more second reading debate on that assisted dying bill), and I shouldn’t have to remind anyone that when they were in government, they sat on that bill and didn’t move it despite its deadline. So yes, I find this whole accusation to be the height of cheek, and the analysis should have included far more context around the events of the spring.

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Roundup: Nuance versus brand damage

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As the Conservatives head to Halifax for their caucus retreat, the Kellie Leitch/Canadian Values question is threatening to expose some of the caucus rifts – particularly as Leitch feels a bit put out that Rona Ambrose decided to distance herself and the party from Leitch’s proposal, and Leitch has been musing openly about filing a formal complaint with the party that Ambrose has essentially involved herself in the leadership campaign in this way. There are a couple of things that I would note from all of this – one is that we place way too much emphasis on caucus solidarity on all things in this country, and blow any disagreement between party members out of all sense of proportion, usually with some variation of “Is [insert party leader here] losing control of their caucus?!” It’s hyperbolic and it’s nonsense, and it enforces the perceived need for everyone to always be in lock-step, which is terrible for democracy. The other thing I would note is that this is that Ambrose was scrambling to prevent damaging the Conservative brand, and Leitch’s inability to grasp nuance is apparently also a sign that she isn’t able to grasp the magnitude of this floodgate that she’s opened. The fact that she keeps insisting that this isn’t what it clearly is – directed toward certain Muslim communities (remember kids, a dog-whistle is a coded message, while this one is right out there in the open) – while saying that it’s about trying to find a “unified Canadian identity” and not about identity politics (no seriously, she said this – you can check the video), continues to highlight that she is completely and utterly tone deaf. Ambrose is being left to pick up the pieces of Leitch crashing around like the proverbial bull in the china shop, because Leitch is too tone deaf to see what she’s doing to the party brand. So sure, there are rifts in the caucus being formed as a result. While we shouldn’t try to pretend that parties need to be uniform in all things, Leitch should also realise that some rifts are bad for the brand you’re trying to build and probably shouldn’t be papered over.

And while we’re on the subject of Leitch, John McCallum calls her anti-Canadian values screening proposal “Orwellian.”

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Roundup: Stop demanding deployment votes

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While Harjit Sajjan is off in London at a meeting of defence ministers, his critics are back in Ottawa grousing about the shift of focus from peacemaking to peacekeeping – never mind that Sajjan has already said that any upcoming mission is unlikely to be “peacekeeping” in the traditional sense as opposed to what he’s terming “peace operations.” That aside, the other emerging bit of drama is the fact that Sajjan is indicating that the government is unlikely to put such a deployment to a vote in the House of Commons – which is of course the way that things should work, but the Conservatives under Stephen Harper started saying they were going to hold votes starting with the Afghanistan mission extension under the guise of being “more democratic” when their whole point was to publicly divide the Liberals, and hey, that happened. (Remember when Harper crossed the floor to shake Michael Ignatieff’s hand after that vote? Because that wasn’t about trying to put a skewer in the brewing leadership contest, no sir). But beyond the reasons why the practice started, it’s antithetical to the whole point of parliament, which is to hold the government to account. When you put decisions like this to a vote – even if it’s non-binding and worded as “supporting a decision,” it gives the illusion that you’re giving parliament a role in the decision, when that’s not their job. When they are implicated in the decision making, they are not able to effectively hold the government to account because they can turn around and say “the House voted on this,” and shrug it off – and yes, the Conservatives did this on a number of occasions as well. So yes, have debates. Have committees scrutinize the missions as they happen, but don’t insist on votes, even if it’s for symbolic reasons, because that poisons the well.

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On a related note, at the meeting of defence ministers, some of the shortages facing peacekeeping operations in Africa were noted, and one of them is the need for more female peacekeepers on the ground.

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Roundup: Questioning Mulcair’s absence

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The fate of Thomas Mulcair and whether he will continue to stay on as interim leader of his party are suddenly the topic of discussion, as whisperings from the party seems to be that his virtual absence over the summer – particularly from events like St. Jean Baptiste, Canada Day and Pride – is not conducive to staying on as interim leader, and that there is some sort of ultimatum that if he doesn’t start showing up, he’s out. It’s a bit funny that they’re talking that way because there’s not much that they can do to him at this point – he’s already on the way out, slowly but surely, but one has to wonder what they hope to accomplish – except to maybe jumpstart their moribund leadership campaign process. Peter Julian denies there are rumblings (as is expected), and Mulcair insists there’s no problem, but he’s just taking some time off for the first time in nine years, and while I would normally buy that excuse, the fact that he’s missed so many of the big things that MPs are expected to attend (particularly if they’re things, like Pride, that their party purports to stand for), it does make one wonder a little about how seriously they plan to take the job, especially after convincing the party to let him stay in an interim capacity for that long. (In case you’re wondering, the correct answer to all of this is that party caucuses should be doing the selecting, and we would avoid these drawn-out contests and lame-duck interim leadership intervals).

In the midst of this is a “bring back Mulcair” campaign organised by some party members online, who think that the way he was treated in the Edmonton convention was “unfair and unethical.” Erm, really? That’s novel. He ran a disastrous, largely tone-deaf campaign, and was just as tone-deaf when it came to how to convince the membership that he should stay on the job as leader. He failed to do that, and he is paying the consequences. That’s politics. There is nothing “unfair” or “unethical” about that – he was defeated in a membership vote. How that’s unethical boggles the mind.

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Roundup: Leitch keeps digging

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So many hot takes on Kellie Leitch and her need to keep digging when it comes to her “Canadian values” test proposal. Leitch continued to insist that this is a topic worthy of discussion, and proposed yet more “Canadian values” to back up her claim, and this time, those values include “equality of opportunity, hard work, generosity, freedom and tolerance,” with a focus especially on the tolerance part. She also denies that this targets Muslims in any way and doesn’t think that characterisation is fair. So there’s that. Oh, and you can add Deepak Obhrai to the list of leadership candidates opposing Leitch’s position, and Maxime Bernier gave a somewhat muddled response that he believes there are Canadian values but you just can’t test for them.

In terms of pundit reaction, Michael Den Tandt seems to think that Leitch is going nativist for the sake of deepening her fundraising coffers, while Matt Gurney sees Leitch’s proposal as unworkable, but not really offensive per se. Susan Delacourt sees problems for Leitch from the perspective of a party that doesn’t seem to want to embrace a young female leader, though she may have tapped into an anti-immigrant sentiment within the ranks, while Madeline Ashby looks at the inherent contradictions in Leitch’s position. My own Loonie Politics column on Leitch’s campaign looks at the ways in which she and some of her fellow campaigners are picking and choosing which intolerances to run on, and her own tone-deafness about it (which, given today’s added comments, seem to really fit the bill).

In other Conservative leadership news, Brad Trost thinks that he can unite the party around his economic ideas while still running as a social conservative, and Deepak Obhari has filed his papers and is officially in the race.

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Roundup: Party fault lines

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With social conservatives trying to stake out turf, along with Kellie Leitch’s “Canadian values” testing, Michael Chong’s Red Toryism and Maxime Bernier’s Freedom!-crying Libertarian-ish-ism, the question has been posed as to whether the Conservative leadership is opening up old schisms in the party. And the answer I would surmise is that probably, and it’s almost inevitable that it would. The party is a fairly big tent with some big divisions that got patched over by Stephen Harper in his quest to take down the Liberal party, and at the time, he was able to get enough disaffected factions together to do just that and keep them together while they achieved power, because power is its own reward. But now that they’re no longer in power, with Harper no longer at the helm, and the conditions that predicated his leadership have moved on, it’s not surprising in the slightest that these factions are now getting restive and trying to find different leadership camps to rally around. It’s not uncommon, and I have to wonder if there is anyone with enough personality and charisma to keep the factions together, given that there seems to be little appetite for another Harper (not that one could really be found among the current crop of leadership candidates). One could add that it should be a warning to Jason Kenney that the same conditions that allowed for the Conservative unification federally may not exist in Alberta given the history and challenges of the separate parties there. I would also note that given the diversity of views to be found in that big tent, this is likely not a discussion that we would be having if Canada were to adopt a Proportional Representation voting system. There, each faction would be more likely to splinter off into its own party in the hopes of forming an external coalition with more leverage for trying to achieve their goals rather than the internal coalitions that exist in big-tent brokerage parties currently, which moderate the excesses of the various factions in the hopes of achieving government. It’s one of those reasons why we need to be sceptical of those poll analyses that would show how the election might have gone under another system, given that it’s not likely that our parties would continue to exist in the same way under a different system.

Meanwhile, in case it was keeping you up at night, Kevin O’Leary continues to say he’s waiting to see who else is running before he announces if he’ll make a leadership bid of his own.

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