Tag Archives: Citizenship

Roundup: Postcards for values

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Yesterday the National Post reported that the government is planning on sending a postcard to every household in the nation and asking them to head to a website to answer questions about their democratic values. Immediately the Twitter-verse went into full-snark mode, wondering why the government would do this rather than hold a referendum, and wondering at the cost of such an exercise, but there were a few phrases that struck me as I read it, and that goes back to the fact that they’re asking Canadians what values they’re looking for in their voting system as opposed to asking them to choose a system. Why does that matter? Because it basically allows the government to justify whatever decision they end up making by selling it as living up to the greatest number of the “values” they got feedback on. And when the committee report comes back a deadlock with several dissenting reports (as it inevitably will), the government will be further empowered to finally suffocate the whole ill-fated enterprise and list all of the ways the current system conforms to the majority of the “values” that they polled Canadians on, and lo, we shall never speak of this again. Or something like that.

Meanwhile, PEI had their plebiscite on electoral reform and with a stunningly low voter turnout of 36 percent even with several days of voting, lowering the age to 16, and giving people a myriad of options to vote including online, it came down to several preferential rounds where Mixed-Member Proportional won a very narrow 52 percent win. This again translated into two very different sets of reactions – elation from the PR crowd for whom this validates their crusading on the topic, never mind that the mandate for said system is really, really weak (between the low turnout and the fact that it took several drop-off rounds to get that bare majority vote), or the fact that the plebiscite was by definition non-binding and there is more than enough opportunity for the government to get out of it (and really, I’m not sure that such a low vote is mandate enough to make such an important change). The other reaction was a sense of somewhat smugness from proponents of a referendum on electoral reform at the federal level, basically telling their opponents (who insist that such a referendum would favour the status quo) that they’re wrong. But if you think about it, such a low turnout and the fact that MMP barely squeaked past may indeed be an indication that there was more of a desire for the status quo than is being acknowledged. Nevertheless, both groups are going to be insufferable for days to come.

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Roundup: Walking out on Wallonia

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Talks to save the Canada-EU trade agreement broke down yesterday, and after more than two days of direct talks, trade minister Chrystia Freeland walked out of the meeting and basically declared that it was now impossible for the EU to come to an international trade deal. And really, this was about the Walloons in Belgium who weren’t letting this go through. Wallonia’s president tried to sound an optimistic tone, and said that “difficulties remain” around largely the investor-state dispute resolution mechanism and wanted Justin Trudeau to hold off on his planned trip to Europe next week to finalize the deal so that the Walloons could have more time.

While Freeland said she was ready to get back on a plane and go home to see her kids, it looks like the EU president managed to keep her around for more talks, which may have been the whole point of Freeland’s exit – so that the rest of the EU could pressure Wallonia to come to their senses. While Belgium’s ambassador to Canada also said that the deal wasn’t dead, we did see some of the usual suspects line up to applaud the potential demise of the agreement, like Elizabeth May, the NDP, and the Council of Canadians.

Throughout this, however, I will admit to more than a little distaste at the snide tone of the Conservatives throughout all of this. In QP yesterday, Candice Bergen laid this at the feet of Freeland personally and declared that she would have to “wear it.” Gerry Ritz said that Freeland should have “rolled up her sleeves” and stayed at the table (which she had already been doing), and Rona Ambrose demanded that Justin Trudeau get on a plane and smooth this over himself. And there is this overall tone that the deal had been “gift wrapped” for the Liberals (after Harper had already done two symbolic signings of the agreement before it had been ratified), which is specious and facile. The Liberals have countered that the deal was essentially dead before Freeland resurrected it, largely through reopening some of the negotiations and through declaratory statements to clarify the language in the provisions of the deal, so it’s not like they didn’t do nothing. Quite the opposite, in fact. And one fails to see how it’s Freeland’s fault when pretty much everyone agrees that this is now an internal EU matter that Canada really can’t do anything about. Then again, the Conservative message around other trade deals like softwood lumber are equally fantastical (how they could have forced the Americans to come to an agreement when they clearly aren’t interested is beyond me, and there was a lot of unhappiness with the deal they signed when they first got into office that gave the Americans a victory). Sure, they signed a bunch of deals with small countries with small economies. Sure, they got CETA and TPP off the ground, but they still protected a lot of industries that didn’t necessarily deserve it, nor did they seal those deals either. Trade is a difficult business, and I’m not sure they have the moral authority to be as frankly abusive as they have been on the file.

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Roundup: Fundraising fears

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It’s been a curious thing the last few days, watching in QP as the Conservatives are tearing their hair out over this Bill Morneau fundraiser in Halifax and raising the spectre of the wealthy contributing to politics, and calling Bill Morneau a millionaire like it’s a bad thing. As though suddenly the Conservative Party of Canada has become overrun by socialists or something. Really, it’s just their cheap populism run amok, trying to cast themselves as champions of ordinary Canadians (never mind that their policies disproportionately aided wealthier Canadians during their decade in power), and if they really were the champions of the working class, you would think the rest of their policies to date would be different (such as around labour unions or the Canada Pension Plan, or anything like that), but no. And if you think this is really a question about ethics or conflicts of interest, well, no, the Ethics Commissioner herself has stated that this fundraiser was above board, but hey, if they wanted to tighten the rules around fundraising, she’s been asking them to do that for years and after a decade in power, they wouldn’t do that either. So here we are, with a desperate attempt to frame perfectly above-board fundraising as “cash for access” and somehow comparable to the situation in Ontario, which it’s not. Meanwhile, Howard Anglin had a perfectly apropos tweet storm on this, so I’ll let him finish off here.

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Roundup: About those revocations…

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Everyone has been making a big deal about citizenship revocation lately, particularly post-Maryam Monsef birthplace revelation, but as it turns out, the situation is not as black-and-white as presented, particularly in some media depictions like this one from CBC. So the former chief of staff for the department sent out a tweet-storm of context and correction that is worth reading, and shows why it’s wrong to conflate that issue with the other revocations that are taking place. This is also interesting context to add to the questions that John McCallum faced in Senate QP last week where he stated that he’d look into a moratorium on these revocations that are happening without much in the way of due process or an appeal mechanism, but it does shape the issue in a different fashion, so again, it does give pause as to what the moratorium being demanded is really asking for. It’s something to keep an eye on, but for now, here’s that boatload of context for consideration.

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Roundup: What free market mechanism?

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The Conservative reaction to the imposition of a federal minimum carbon price has been fascinating, in part because of just how counterfactual it would be to how an actual conservative party would behave. You would think that an actual small-c conservative party would believe in market principles and would think that imposing price incentives (the carbon price) would be great because it would force the market to innovate to reduce the costs associated, hence reducing the carbon emissions in the least onerous way possible with the costs being fully transparent.

But no. We don’t actually have a small-c conservative party in this country, we have right-flavoured populists who would rather rail about “taxes on everything” and give sad homilies about how hard done by the workers of this country are, and how carbon taxes are just letting millionaires claim tax credits on the backs of the ordinary people of this country. No, seriously – these are things that the Conservatives have said in QP. And Rona Ambrose then goes on TV and says that the government should be regulating major emitters in a way that won’t cost consumers (never mind that regulations are the most costly mechanism available and it simply hides the true costs). It’s mind-boggling.

And so we now have all but one leadership candidate railing about carbon taxes, and the only one who agrees with carbon pricing, Michael Chong, insists that this is the wrong way to do it, that it should be revenue neutral for the taxpayer (never mind that provinces could institute that if they want, but they are given the flexibility to do with as they choose). Meanwhile, Paul Wells takes a torch to Lisa Raitt’s overwrought homilies about the poor people suffering under carbon taxes, and applies a little math to the analysis, which doesn’t fare well for Raitt. Likewise, Andrew Coyne laments the lack of a serious discussion on carbon pricing as the cheapest and least onerous way to reduce emissions. But this is currently the state of conservative politics in this country.

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QP: Everything is overwrought

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Thursday before a long weekend, and not a single leader was present in the Commons for QP. Denis Lebel led off for the Conservatives and he lamented the imposition of a carbon tax on the costs on groceries. Jim Carr answer for the government, praising the ratification of the Paris Agreement. Lebel asked again in English, prompting Carr to chide Michelle Rempel for her attacks on those job creators for their support for carbon pricing. After another round of the same in French, Candice Bergen railed about how uncaring the government was about Canadians suffering under the carbon tax, for which Jean-Yves Duclos reminded her that they had programs to help poor Canadians. Bergen went on a second overwrought round, and a Marc Garneau noted that the minister of infrastructure was at this moment meeting with municipal leaders in Alberta regarding infrastructure commitments. Brigitte Sansoucy led off for the NDP, railing about the imposition of health transfers on the provinces, to which Jane Philpott reminded her that they were still discussing with provincial and territorial counterparts on priorities and funding. After a second of the same, Don Davies asked the same again in English, falsely calling changed escalators a cut, and Philpott reminded him that more money was not the answer, but priority investments were.

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QP: The Giorno angle

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With all of the leaders in the Commons today, the hope was that the show would be a little less awful than it was yesterday. On the whole, it was. Rona Ambrose led off, mini-lectern on desk, reading a plea that the government approve the Pacific Northwest LNG project, and Justin Trudeau dissembles about the choice between the environment and the economy. Ambrose lamented that too many pipeline projects were languishing and getting people back to work. Trudeau reminded her that their pipeline plans didn’t work because they didn’t get community buy-in, added that the Conservative voted against middle-class tax cuts. Ambrose changed topics, concerned about discussions with China that included cyber-security regardless of how many times Chinese hackers attacked Canadian targets. Trudeau stated that previous discussions were always ad hoc, while these new high-level discussions provided a more permanent framework. Ambrose expressed confusion about any extradition talks with China, and Trudeau returned to the same response about high-level dialogue. Ambrose asked again in French, and got the same answer. Thomas Mulcair was up next, asking if the Great Bear rainforest was no place for a crude oil pipeline, but wondered if it would also be one for natural gas. Trudeau didn’t give a clear response, mentioning analyzing various projects. Mulcair then lamented the adoption of Harper-era healthcare “cuts” (note: it’s not a cut, because the funds are still increasing), but Trudeau shrugged it off with talk of consultation with the provinces. Mulcair went another round in French, got the same answer, and then Mulcair moved onto labour rights and demanded that the government support their anti-scab bill. Trudeau spoke about the need for a better collaborative approach.

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Roundup: Say no to a Charter Rights Officer

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The Canadian Civil Liberties Association is leading a push for the creation of an independent Charter Rights Officer for Parliament, and that sound you hear is my head hitting my desk over and over again. Because no. We don’t need yet another officer of parliament. We really, really don’t.

What we need is for MPs – particularly the opposition – to stand up and actually do their jobs, rather than fobbing off their homework onto yet another officer, who is accountable to nobody, whose reports they can then wield like some kind of a cudgel while not actually fulfilling their own responsibilities as parliamentarians (which, I will remind you once again, is to hold the government to account). The proliferation of officers of parliament has so diminished the capacity of the opposition to do their gods damned jobs in this country that it’s embarrassing, and since the inception of the Parliamentary Budget Office, it’s only become so much more egregious because now they can ignore the Estimates cycle entirely (despite controlling the public purse being the inherent definition of what MPs are supposed to do, and how they hold governments to account).

Oh, but it’s hard! Oh, but why not cede this to subject matter experts like lawyers and judges? Oh, why don’t we just start pre-referring all bills to the Supreme Court of Canada while we’re at it and turn the dialogue between the Court and Parliament into a game of “Mother May I?” Honestly, would it kill MPs to actually debate policy, which Charter compliance is a big part of? Parliament has responsibilities to fulfil. Why don’t we actually make them do their jobs rather than finding yet another excuse for them to avoid doing it?

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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: Making up titles

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Senator Peter Harder made it official yesterday – the announcement of a Deputy Leader and Whip – err, sorry, “deputy government representative” and “government liaison” as he wants them styled, and it erupted in a bit of a fight in the Chamber that he can’t just make up names for people because the Parliament of Canada Act doesn’t work that way. I also have concerns with the job descriptions that Harder has given them (and these were provided to me from a Senator).

For his deputy, Senator Bellemare:

Assists the Government’s Representative to process the legislation coming from the House of Commons (government, private members’ bills and government bills in the Senate) in a transparent, impartial, constructive and non-partisan manner;

In the context of an evolving modernized Senate, assists the Government’s Representative so that all bills (including bills coming from Senators) receive a fair and non-partisan treatment;

Assists the Government’s representative to provide Canadians with a clear understanding of the treatment by the Senate of the bills coming from the House of Commons;

Assist the Government’s Representative in the Chamber, to make sure that due process is provided to Government legislation and all other bills and businesses,

Follow the legislative work of Committees,

Assist Committees to provide more substantive reports on their specific study of bills,

Assist informally Senators with rules and procedures.

And for his whip – err, “liaison,” Senator Mitchell:

It is the role of the Government’s Representative group in the Senate to facilitate the passing of government legislation and to contribute to the effective functioning of the Senate in a non-partisan and open way. The Government Liaison position will be responsible for administrative and management roles and for liaison with all Senators. Specific responsibilities will include:

-Working with the caucuses’ Whips and with independent Senators to help organize the business of the Senate, including, for example, the coordination of Senate Committee placements;

-Supporting sponsors of bills by ensuring that they receive the required input, briefings, and material from Ministers and government officials to present bills effectively;

-Assisting sponsors of bills to identify and deal with the issues and concerns raised by Senators in the debate and review of legislation.

The Government Liaison will exercise these responsibilities in a collaborative and non-partisan fashion.

The problem with these descriptions is that they are largely comprised of buzzwords. Throwing around terms like “due process” and “non-partisan” is hard to square with the fact that these are government representatives, and government is inherently partisan. While I can grudgingly agree that having a Deputy makes some sense out of pure logistics, the “liaison” role is largely nonsense. The existence of the Independent Working Group means that there was no need to have a Whip to organise committee assignments for non-aligned senators, and senators are grown-ups and should be able to arrange getting materials from Ministers and government officials. They have phones and emails, and assistants who can make arrangements. And “assisting sponsors of bills to identify and deal with issues and concerns,” which purported will including helping senators draft amendments? Again, they’re grown ups who can do their own jobs and talk to the Law Clerk if they need to. Aside from bigfooting the Independent Working Group – and making this move without consulting them – what is most striking is that Harder made this move for largely the sake of optics – he wanted both a Conservative and a Liberal by his side to make a big show of being bi-partisan, even though the role he gave Mitchell is ludicrous, and heaven forbid that Harder just have Bellemare by his side, because that would give the impression that he is really a Liberal, and he couldn’t have that. So instead Harder is making things worse for everyone with this particular move, angering both the Conservatives and the Senate Liberals, while still acting outside of the Parliament of Canada Act and the Senate Rules. It’s undermines his credibility, the work of the independents at pushing for meaningful reform, and is going to make getting anything accomplished in the Senate difficult for the foreseeable future.

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