Tag Archives: Charter

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: Alberta on the edge

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It’s election day in Alberta. Will the desire for change lead to an even more right-wing “libertarian” government of inexperienced rookies? Or will institutional inertia and one party state-ism that has otherwise defined the province carry the day? I guess we’ll have to stay tuned to find out.

Today’s Senate “nominee elections” in Alberta are likely to split along party lines – as in, PC and Wildrose, who have both pledged to sit as federal Conservatives in the Senate. Which is just one reason why this whole exercise is so problematic – there is no sense in provincial parties running candidates when those candidates will sit in different federal caucuses once they arrive in Ottawa down the road – assuming of course that they do make it to Ottawa. In fact, it makes the vote that much more disingenuous.

Vic Toews admits that Omar Khadr is a Canadian and he’s coming back, so he’s now in damage control mode – he won’t be a danger to Canadians, and at least if he serves his sentence here we can better monitor him and his activities upon release than if he’d served his entire sentence in the States and suddenly showed up on our borders.

There are thousands of buildings owned by the federal government that are crumbling, some of them in states of total system failure.

Despite the ongoing battles between the chief of Attawapiskat and the federal government, it seems that not everyone in her community are pleased with her leadership. Not only that, some members of the community are also tired of NDP MP Charlie Angus using them to score political points.

Susan Delacourt looks at a grand national project like the Charter 30 years later, and fears that such a feat couldn’t be accomplished in today’s political landscape.

What’s that? The Conservatives are dismissing more expert testimony with those court challenges to overturn the election results in seven ridings? You don’t say! Meanwhile, in the battle to overturn the results in Etobicoke Centre, the Elections Canada factum says that mere clerical errors shouldn’t be enough to invalidate an election result.

Liberal Party brass were meeting in Ottawa this weekend to determine the rules for their (eventual) leadership contest, which they’ll have more firm rules on by June.

Here’s a look at Ruth Ellen “Vegas” Brosseau, one year after her election.

Here’s a timeline of the history of the Kingston Penitentiary.

And here’s a little bit about the Queen, as Saturday was her 86th birthday (not that we’ll celebrate it here in Canada until Victoria Day).

Roundup: Communications in the New Order

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It’s a tale of a media request gone horribly, horribly wrong – in the tragicomic depths of communications groups in the bureaucracy comes this incident where the Ottawa Citizen asked a simple question, and the tangled email chain that resulted. The request was late, the information he requested was pared down to nothingness, and one can tell that even the comms officers were frustrated when the information got edited down to nothing by the senior officials. It is an awful incident, especially when compared to the fact that it took the same reporter 15 minutes to get answers from NASA. While some people will point to this and say “Look! Culture of secrecy!” I’m not entirely convinced. Rather, it seems this is more indicative of the culture of fear and intimidation that the Harper government has instituted as they have centralised communications and messaging to such a degree that not only has the process been so bogged down by doubt that nobody wants to say anything lest they get slapped down, but even if they did provide an answer, the overseers in PMO are just as likely to not approve said message, and pass along a weak “approved” version, several hours later.  Such is life in the New Order, unfortunately.

Here are the statements in the House from Jean Chrétien and others at the 20th anniversary of the Charter. Also not to be missed are Thomas Mulcair’s statements two years ago about the Charter and the “imposition” on Quebec – sentiments he echoed today in his party’s own release. The Conservatives, meanwhile, sent out a press release co-signed by the ministers of heritage and justice, in which they talked about John Diefenbaker’s Bill of Rights. Kady O’Malley rounds up the various statements and plaudits here. Here’s a look at laws that the Charter impacted, and how the courts dealt with them before and after the Charter’s inception. And here’s a look at how Harper used to decry the Charter as giving the Courts the power to make “arbitrary” decisions – even though that’s exactly what the Supreme Court smacked his government down over with the Insite decision.

Despite Elections Canada moving to investigate Conservative Headquarters in connection to the Guelph robo-calls, the party still insists they’re not under investigation (which is technically true, if you’re going by the “isolated incident” defence).

Bev Oda defends cuts to foreign aid saying it’s more about accountability than the amount of dollars spent.

There was a massive corruption sweep in Quebec yesterday. The meaning of the arrest of Tony Accurso is discussed here.

And here’s a look at the Communications Security Establishment – the agency that is tasked with intercepting terrorist communications and cyber-security in Canada. They’re growing up as their own independent agency after being hived off from DND, but there remain concerns about just how much oversight they’re subject to.

Up today: “Tom”/Thomas Mulcair moves into Stornoway.

Roundup: Happy Birthday, Charter!

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As it is now the 30th anniversary of the patriation of the Constitution, and the adoption of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, we can expect some words of congratulations from the Prime Minister, right? Well, no. You see, Harper has decided that the Charter is too linked to the “divisive” issue of patriation, and how Quebec didn’t sign onto the Constitution, so he’s going to keep quiet. Which is pretty interesting, considering that he’s just feeding into the myth that Quebec didn’t support patriation (much like the so-called “Night of the Long Knives” myth, perpetuated by separatists). So not only does he appear to be spiting the Charter out of partisan considerations, terrible Liberal document that it is – despite it being more of a libertarian document than anything else – but he feels needs to feed the separatist rhetoric. (Paul Wells shares his views here). Not that either Jean Chrétien or Thomas Mulcair go blameless here either, if you cast your eyes back ten years ago and what both said back then.

Still on the Charter front, from Britain’s National Archives comes a tale from the cabinet minutes of Thatcher’s government, who were considering rejecting the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as part of the constitutional patriation process. Closer to home, former Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour looks at the impact of the Charter 30 years later.

On the Robocon file, it seems that Elections Canada’s investigation into the Guelph robo-calls has taken them to Conservative Party headquarters, and they’re looking into missing log-in information on the CIMS database, considering that the contact list provided by RackNine matches the CIMS list entirely. Meanwhile, NDP MP Pat Martin has apologised for unfairly maligning the calling firm RackNine over the whole Robocon affair – the second apology he’s had to make in the course of this issue (the previous one being to campaign research). And yes, it was almost certainly to avoid a lawsuit, though it’s not clear that this was enough to ward it off. This is why I keep questioning the wisdom of the NDP putting Martin out in front every time a story like this happens – yes, they know he’ll light his hair on fire in outrage, and he’s even aware that it’s why people come to him for quotes, and he says something outrageous, and the party gets press, but it almost always ends up badly. You’d think that the NDP would learn eventually, but I guess not.

Here’s an excellent breakdown – complete with coloured charts – about the “differences in accounting” when it comes to the cost of those F-35s. Meanwhile, here is a look at the mess that is the procurement process for the Cyclone helicopters, which should serve as a cautionary tale for what could very easily go wrong (and already appears to be going wrong) with the F-35s.

The government is axing a prison rehabilitation programme designed to help lifers who get parole, and has been able to claim success. But since their plan seems to be throwing more people in prison for longer with fewer programmes available to help them rehabilitate, axing this kind of programme makes perfect sense in their twisted logic.

And Bob Rae’s resolve not to run for the permanent leadership of the Liberal Party seems to be slipping, if this timeline of quotes is any indication.

Roundup: Questions about online voting

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Experts in online voting have questions about the way that the NDP vote and cyber-attacks were handled, and raise some real doubts about online voting in general, because it means we outsource our most basic democratic rights to small contractors with almost no oversight, and no way of checking the veracity of the votes cast. (Possible paywall). Not to mention, all of the work we’ve done to ensure secret ballots are for naught anyone can set up their own “internet polling station” and watch as people cast ballots, and reward them accordingly. Hello, rum bottle politicking.

Remember how they took Rob Anders off of Veterans Affairs committee for falling asleep and snapping at those veterans making the presentation? Well, they stuck him over on the joint Senate-House committee on the scrutiny of regulations, where he’s decided to start going after regulations concerning gun control.

As previously mentioned, at the Summit of the Americas this weekend the topic of legalising drugs was on the agenda, although funnily enough, many Central American countries are saying they have no choice because America can’t control its consumption of narcotics. And so, both Canada and the US were singled out over the issue, as well as the insistence on keeping Cuba out of the summit. Harper did admit that the current issue wasn’t working, but didn’t offer up any solutions other than that drugs are bad. Okay, then.

Also while in Colombia, Harper continued to insist that the different F-35 figures were just differences in accounting, and that they’ve known the full costs for some time. So he’s admitting that they low-balled the public figure and just told the public the more palatable version? Really? Nothing to see here, move along?

Stephen Harper’s Labour Day trip to New York to attend a baseball game and Broadway show with his daughter cost the public purse $45,000. Oh, but don’t worry – he reimbursed us for the “equivalent commercial cost,” but wouldn’t say what exactly that was, which leads me to believe it was his usual tokenism of paying the economy fare (unlike say, when Paul Martin made it a policy to take the highest rate and then double that). And normally I don’t care that a PM has to take his jet to do stuff that most other people could do because of security – so long as you treat it as a matter of fact, and don’t give insulting reimbursements like economy fares. But also, did he really need to take his staff photographer, press secretary, and executive assistant with him? Really?

There are new explosive allegations of political corruption with the construction industry in Quebec. I’m sure that Thomas Mulcair will be “profoundly saddened” by the reporting of these events.

And here is a reminder that the patriation of the Constitution, which we’re celebrating the 30th anniversary of on Tuesday, is about more than just the adoption of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, while Philippe Lagassé looks at the way Crown Prerogatives interact with the Charter in light of the 30th anniversary of its inception, plus a tale about the document itself, and attempts to preserve it from the ravages of time.