Tag Archives: Corrections

Roundup: Expulsion isn’t rocket science

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All day, we’ve been told that Senate clerks are “scouring the constitution” to find a “loophole” that will allow them to expel Senator Don Meredith, and even when they get former law clerks on television who’ve said clearly that yes, the Senate can do this, they still try to go “a ha, but they never did with…” name a scandalous former Senator, and in those cases, they resigned before the Senate had a chance to expel them. Suffice to say, a whole lot of reporters are being deliberately obtuse in order to create a false sense of drama around this.

The simple fact of the matter is that Parliament is self-governing, and it has the powers it needs to expel members if need be. Those are parliamentary privileges, and they have been exercised in the past in the Commons, as James Bowden’s research has shown, and those privileges would indeed extend to the Senate. It’s not sexy or rocket science, but people need to calm down and let the process work itself out.

https://twitter.com/jwjbowden/status/841804745123745792

https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/841790455163564032

Adam Dodek says that the Senate needs to move quickly on dealing with Meredith if they hope to regain the public trust. And that may be the case, but we also don’t want to be too hasty, given the ham-fisted and poor manner in which the suspensions of Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau were handled, and the truth of the matter is that the Senate is on March break. The ethics committee is coming back a week early to deal with the matter, so they are moving quickly but they can’t simply act rashly and in the heat of the moment, which I think will be the danger in order to keep from invoking the ire of an impatient public, egged on by a media demanding that the story move ahead quickly before people lose interest.

Meanwhile we’re also seeing a lot of second-guessing about the role that Meredith played within the Independent Senators Group, and how he was described as having a “leadership position” within it. Indeed, Meredith was elected to one of four “coordinating positions” within the nascent quasi-caucus, in its early days after the first round of independent appointments when the group was still getting on its feet and Meredith had more legislative experience than most of the members of the group. That being said, he had very little actual standing within the group and was certainly not viewed as any kind of actual leader by anyone I’ve spoken to. I have sympathy for their position that he was innocent until proven guilty and that it took the Senate Ethics Officer two years to reach her conclusions, but on the other hand, we could still see this train on the tracks. It’s too bad the ISG didn’t insulate themselves a little better from this, but in all, I don’t think the damage looks as bad from out here.

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Roundup: Cullen’s silver-tongued swindle

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It should not surprise me, but Nathan Cullen’s capacity for deceptive stunts continues to both amaze and gall me at the same time. Previously it was conning Maryam Monsef into his “proportional” electoral reform committee composition (which was not proportional, but a racket that was designed to merely look more “fair” but was in fact a calculated gambit to give the opposition a disproportionate say in the process), for which we got a report that was a steaming pile of hot garbage. With Karina Gould now in the portfolio again, Cullen now proposes that they “co-draft” an electoral reform bill.

No, seriously.

I cannot stress how bad of an idea this is for both of their sakes. For Gould, this is Cullen trying to swindle her like he did Monsef. He played her – and the public – in trying to push proportional representation and ended up recommending (along with Elizabeth May’s whole-hearted endorsement) one of the absolute worst possible electoral systems possible. And now he’s trying to ensure that she puts it into legislation for his party’s benefit. This has nothing to do with bills being drafted secretly “backrooms” (otherwise known as the Department of Justice under the cone of Cabinet confidence) or with the spirit of bipartisanship. This is about Cullen trying to manipulate the process.

If that weren’t bad enough, what is especially galling is that he’s undermining his own role as an opposition critic in the process. He is not a minister of the Crown. His role, therefore, is not to govern, but to hold those to account who do (–William Ewart Gladstone). This is an important job because parliament depends upon accountability. That’s the whole purpose behind having a parliament – to hold government to account. And it would be great if our opposition critics would actually take that job seriously rather than pretend they were ministers with their faux-bipartisanship and private members’ bills that cross the line when it comes to acceptable bounds of setting policy. It would be great if MPs actually did their jobs. Perhaps most troublesome in all of this is that Cullen is his party’s democratic reform critic. If he can’t grasp this most basic fundamental point of Responsible Government, then can we actually trust him on attempting to find a different voting system? I’m pretty sure the answer to that is no.

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Roundup: Senators get their funds

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In case you missed the news, the new Independent Senators Group got core funding to hire staff to help coordinate independent senators’ activities and logistics. This came around the same time that they managed to strike a deal when it comes to getting more independents on committees without waiting for a prorogation to hit the reset button as the rules would otherwise dictate. Why this matters is because it allows the ISG to effectively organise their own members, to help them hire staff and do things like that – efforts which Government Leader – err, “representative” Senator Peter Harder has been attempting to bigfoot with his own offers to help these senators get staffed up and offering briefings and assisting in legislative coordination and so on. The fact that he represents the government and has been sworn into the Privy Council – regardless of his protestations that he’s independent because he’s actually not (you can’t be both an independent and represent the government – it’s like being half-pregnant) – makes this a blow to actual independence that these senators are supposed to be exercising. Giving the ISG the funds to do that on their own is an important step. Of course, the same piece mentions that Harder plans to move motions in the Senate in the spring related to his ability to restyle his title as he wishes, and that I have a problem with. This particular semantic game that he and the Trudeau government are playing around his role is a very big problem when it comes to how the chamber operates in our Westminster system, and Harder playing silly buggers with what he calls himself in order to cloak his role with the government is a problem. He and this government need to drop the charade and just come clean – Harder should be a cabinet minister in keeping with the role, and be the point of contact for accountability in the Senate. Playing games around it weakens accountability and the duty of the Senate in that role.

Meanwhile, with the appointment process for six upcoming vacancies having been announced, we also got the release of the report on the statistics from the previous round (highlights here). Maybe this time we’ll see an appointment from Southwestern Ontario, a new LGBT senator or even someone from outside of the social sciences!

Finally, Senator Denise Batters appears to have broken the rules to record a video in the Senate Chamber, accusing Trudeau of authoritarian tendencies in trying to destroy opposition in the Senate. While her basic premise – that there is a movement to shut down the position of Official Opposition in the Senate – is correct and concerning, Batters cranked it up to eleven in being completely overwrought about it, and does more harm than good to the issue. I’m not sure how much the move to weaken Official Opposition in the Senate comes from Trudeau or from Harder and his particular vision of Senate “independence” where he can co-opt the independents to his causes, but that remains a concern that I’ve heard from not only the Liberals and Conservatives in the Senate, but a couple of the independents as well. But this kind of stunt doesn’t help.

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Roundup: An unexpected reversal

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So, after the somewhat unexpected reversal of last night, I looked back to something from the past few days to help explain this bit of insanity that we’ve all witnessed. Michelle Rempel heard this from Republican officials late last week when she asked them how this all happened:

Here’s a look at what a Trump presidency is going to mean for Canada:

As the numbers tightened, we saw this going around:

https://twitter.com/kfile/status/796206974652321794

Meanwhile, a reminder about the underlying attitudes:

https://twitter.com/james_j_gordon/status/796200489918623745

I’m going to wait before I can have much else to say about the power of nativism, and this “drain the swamp” ethos that has taken over so much of the rhetoric in the campaign, and the part that civic ignorance feeds into the politics of resentment that in turn fuels this kind of thing. But wow.

I will say how glad I am once again to live in Canada, with a constitutional monarchy and a system of Responsible Government, with a Supreme Court that isn’t partisan, and with a neutral civil service. Because we’re probably going to be reminded about how important that is in the next few years.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau will be stopping in Cuba and Argentina on the way to the APEC meeting in Peru, and everyone is recalling his father’s frienship with the Castros.
  • The government has named a five-person panel to make recommendations regarding overhauling the National Energy Board.
  • Here’s a look at the latest round of Order Paper questions, with questions on alcohol on government flights, classified documents and ministerial swag.
  • Here is your look at ministerial expense repayments for various and sundry reasons.
  • The Victims of Communism memorial is now up for a new design from five different bidders, to go with its new location. The original design is out of the running.
  • Correctional Investigator Howard Sapers is leaving the job and will be leading a review of segregation in Ontario prisons.
  • Conservative MP (and former sportscaster) Kevin Waugh thinks that female athletes are treated better than their male counterparts, and is being criticised for it.
  • The first Conservative leadership debate is tonight.
  • The premier of PEI is (rightfully) expressing some scepticism over the province’s electoral reform plebiscite results, and reformers are howling as a result.
  • My Loonie Politics column looks at whether the instances of Liberal backbenchers voting against the government are really signs of independence showing.

Odds and ends:

The Yukon Liberals won the territorial election on Monday night, and Trudeau congratulated prospective new premier Sandy Silver.

Both women candidates in the Alberta Progressive Conservative leadership race have dropped out citing harassment and intimidation.

QP: Wounded by your cynicism

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The Liberal front bench was pretty empty as QP got underway, and Thomas Mulcair was the only leader present today, for whatever the reason. Trudeau in particular had no real excuse as he was just at an event with students in the precinct just a couple of hours before. Candice Bergen led off for the Conservatives, lamenting the lack of new jobs produced by the previous budget. Scott a Brison responded, lamenting the lack of attention the Conservatives were paying to the international investment that they had drawn, such as Thompson Reuters and Amazon. Bergen moved onto fundraising issues and Bardish Chagger gave her usual “federal rules” replies. Bergen demanded the Ethics Commissioner police this issue (not really per place to, which is an issue), and Chagger repeated her response. Gérard Deltell lamented the lack of a date for a return to budgetary balance, but Brison reminded him of their middle class tax cuts and the Canada Child Benefit. Deltell then demanded to know which other tax credits the government planned to eliminate, but Brison dodged and praised their investments in economic growth. Thomas Mulcair was up next, demanding to know which electoral system that the Minister of Democratic Institutions favoured, but with Monsef absent, Brison praised their consultative process and to let the committee do its work. Mulcair decried that those statements undercut the committee’s work, and Brison lamented Mulcair’s cynicism. Mulcair then changed topics and demanded to know now how many journalists were being signed on at the federal level, Ralph Goodale said that the situation in Quebec wasn’t applicable to the federal level but he wouldn’t comment on any ongoing operations. Mulcair pressed, and Goodale reminded him that the Commission told a committee that the answer was zero.

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Roundup: Approval voting and numbers with meaning

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While everyone has been enthralled with the electoral reform debate (no, not really), and been gripped with substance over process (no, not really), there was an op-ed in the Citizen last week that I never really had a chance to talk about amidst a number of other things going on, so I thought I’d take a moment now to address it. The issue: the electoral system known as “approval voting.”

So what is it? Basically you take the same ballot you have now, and you mark it for as many people as you want to. Supposedly this discourages strategic voting because you can vote more than once and can vote for both the person your heart wants to vote for, as well as the one you hope to defeat the person in there now. And okay, sure, it’s simple, and sure, it gives you that emotional thrill about being able to vote for more than one person (which I don’t think is that big of a concern for most people, but maybe I’m wrong), and if you do something silly like vote for everyone on the ballot (because they’re all winners for participating?), then it basically cancels out the vote and doesn’t come out any worse off. But I keep going back to the basic question: what problem is this trying to solve?

If that problem is the emotional dissatisfaction with electoral outcomes, then I’m not sure that this is the problem that we should be addressing, and I also have to wonder about the unintended consequences of picking such a system. And what could those be? Really, the quality of the data that an election produces, and what that data tells us about the election. Because believe it or not, that actually matters. What percentage a candidate received matters a lot. It gauges support, it sends a message about how solid or tenuous their support is, and about how much support their rivals have, which could mean clues for them as to how to better organise in the following election, and who to target. If the number of votes cast is divorced from the number of electors, what kind of message are we able to send? That would seem to be a pretty important consideration to me, and to a lot of people running, I would imagine.

I also have an issue with how this portrays what a vote means. In our system currently – and yes, this electoral system purports to keep the system otherwise intact, along the lines of “one simple trick to make the system more emotionally satisfying!” – when you cast a ballot it is to decide who will sit in the seat that represents your geographic area. And this is where a lot of electoral reform nonsense falls apart – it becomes about feelings rather than the fact that there is one seat and you have to help decide who fills it. How casting votes for multiple people to fill that one seat seems to defeat the purpose in many ways, and admission that it’s too difficult to make a decision so let’s cop out and muddle it so that I don’t feel so bad when I do it. But democracy is about making choices, and we should make it clear that it’s what it is, and just what that choice is (i.e.: Who is filling this one seat, rather than who is going to form a government, because that is decided once a parliament has been assembled). We’re not making that clear, and we’re constantly talking in terms of horse race numbers and leadership politics, and not about the actual choice that faces people, and I think this is something we should be paying more attention to, and being more vocal and precise about, so that we don’t wind up with yet more pie-eyed schemes that are designed to make us feel better while not actually doing what we’re supposed to. And this isn’t something that I’m seeing in the discussions on electoral reform – just a lot of pouting about “fairness” based on made-up numbers that don’t actually mean anything, and approval voting would make the numbers that do mean something, mean even less.

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Roundup: Modest changes suggested

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When its release was announced, I approached it with trepidation – based on the discussions to date, it was bound to be a horror show. Surprisingly, however, the report on how to make the House of Commons more “family friendly” was less ambitious than it could have been – so far, at least. There were many issues left unresolved for the future, and I’m sure that they plan to address some of those issues in a future report, which could indeed be that report that I’m dreading. Overall, however, they decided against the four-day workweek, and haven’t done anything particularly ridiculous like electronic voting or Skyping into committee meetings. Recommendations did include:

  • Maintaining the motion to keep most votes after QP, but not changing the Standing Orders so as to keep flexibility in the system
  • Not holding votes after Thursday QP so as to let MPs be flexible with travel arrangements
  • Moving the date up for deciding on next year’s calendar for better planning
  • Having House Administration provide flexible childcare options at the Members’ own hourly cost
  • Letting MPs’ families have access to their calendars
  • Better flexibility with the shuttle bus service on the Hill
  • Looking at amending the travel point system with regard to families.

While the worst of the previously discussed options were not recommended going forward, and some of the more nonsensical issues like decorum in the Chamber (which has to do with family friendliness how?) had no recommendations, I still think that some of these recommendations have problems. In particular, demanding that House Administration provide childcare options is an issue because uncertainty of usage is costly – do you have childcare workers essentially on standby? How does that work for them, exactly? As well, I find the demand that the Commons provide this service to be a bit rich because these MPs should be able to find solutions on their own. After all, they make $170,000 base salary per year – they can afford to find their own childcare options, whether it’s a nanny or whatnot. The recommendation around travel points is also a little unsettling because it amounts to reducing the transparency around travel so as not to discourage family members from travelling to Ottawa by opening themselves up to criticism. While I do think that we have a problem with petty, cheap outrage when it comes to reporting on MPs’ expenses, I also think that we should use the opportunity to have a discussion with Canadians about the effect of travel on MPs and their families rather than just shaming them without any pushback. After all, we should address these issues rather than just letting the cheap outrage narrative carry the day.

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Roundup: A precipitous climbdown

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In an attempt to head off a day full of useless circular discussion around the process of the electoral reform discussion, the Liberals offered an epic climbdown and accepted the NDP’s gamed committee configuration, giving up their perfectly legitimate committee control and then patting themselves on the back for looking reasonable for backing down. Trudeau went so far as to say that they felt like they were looking too much like the previous Conservative government, and decided to take a different tone, with all of the usual platitudes about working together and cooperation and so on. Which is a nice sentiment, and they get all of these plaudits for looking reasonable and like grown-ups, but I wonder if they haven’t given up their ability to put their foot down in the future when they need to, lest the process spin out of control, as these things are wont to do. Nevertheless, I will reiterate that this is not any kind of reasonable compromise. In fact, there are a few reactions that sum up my feelings pretty well.

https://twitter.com/inklesspw/status/738384990463918081

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/738409956865642496

And Hiltz is bang on. The Liberals have walked into the NDP’s trap, and this whole process, already a gong show, has just become an even bigger one. The Conservatives are completely apoplectic with outrage, claiming that there was a “backroom deal” to get this deal (when that really doesn’t seem to be the case if you look at how it was unveiled and how the NDP were just as surprised by it). So while the howls for a referendum will continue, and the bogus “proportional” arguments will ring through the back-patting on this whole sordid affair, I will just reiterate this particular sentiment.

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Roundup: Checking Hansard

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There was an interesting read over on Policy Options yesterday that all MPs should be paying attention to: a reminder that they should watch what they say in when speaking about bills, because the courts (and most especially the Supreme Court of Canada) are checking Hansard. When it comes to challenging laws, particularly Charter challenges, the issue of legislative intent is often raised, and the courts are forced to determine what it was the government intended to do when they passed these laws, and that can matter as to whether those laws will survive a Charter challenge. And if MPs – and most importantly ministers – give speeches full of bafflegab and meaningless talking points, it muddies the record that the courts rely on. The example here was the bill eliminating time-served sentencing credits, by which the court examined Rob Nicholson’s statements and tested them against the results of the law and found that no, eliminating the sentencing credits didn’t enhance public safety or confidence in the justice system. I would also add that it’s yet another reason why Senate committees have particular value, particularly when it comes to contentious bills that perhaps shouldn’t pass but do anyway under protest. Because their findings are on the record, when those laws inevitably wind up in the courts, those same objections can be read and taken into consideration. So yes, your speeches and work in parliament does matter, probably more than you think. Just be sure to use your words wisely, because they will come back to haunt you.

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Roundup: Scott Reid’s Senate conspiracy

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There is a certain level of obtuseness that eventually has one seeing conspiracies where none exist. I am forced to conclude that Conservative MP Scott Reid has reached said level in his QP performance yesterday, with regards to the Senate appointment process, and in particular how it applied to future senator André Pratte, and his holding property in the designated Quebec senatorial district that he is due to represent. Pratte has not yet purchased property in that district, and thus, his swearing-in will be delayed until it happens. Reid, however, sees collusion and conspiracy in this. In QP, he phrased it as such:

If Mr. Pratte was on the list, the Quebec board has broken its requirements to only nominate qualified persons. If any of the seven was not on the lists, then the prime minister has broken his promise to rely upon independent advice. And if there was any communications between the prime minister and the advisory board to smooth out these wrinkles, then talk of the advisory board being independent is a farce. One of these three scenarios is what actually happened. Which one is it?

It’s not surprising that Maryam Monsef evaded in her answer, because the question is wholly unreasonable. The qualifications for appointment mirrored the constitutional requirement, but because Pratte has not been sworn in yet, the district question is not yet triggered – he has time to hold the property in that district until he is sworn in. The independent board very likely identified him as otherwise qualified, and asked him about his ability to purchase property in the identified district when he was contacted as part of the process. Pratte himself told the media that he was contacted by the committee and submitted a kind of form to say why he felt he was qualified to them. There is no indication that the Prime Minister had any part in that, and if Pratte says that he was contacted by the Board, it’s quite obvious that he would have been on their short list submitted to the PM. And if the Board recommended him and said “He’s working on the property requirement in the district we’re slotting him into,” that is not collusion or making a farce of their independence – it’s being reasonable with regards to the Quebec requirements. If the Board had to limit their search to qualified candidates who already owned property in said district, it would have needlessly limited them for something that has been common practice for Quebec senators for over a century. That Reid is trying to make a conspiracy out of this is galling, particularly when you consider the issues of other Senators that Harper appointed who had residency issues upon appointment – Mike Duffy, Carolyn Stewart Olsen, Dennis Patterson, and possibly even Pamela Wallin. They were sworn in before they had their own residency issues sorted, Pratte has not been. One shouldn’t be surprised, considering that Reid has been similarly obtuse in his reading of the Supreme Court reference decision on Senate reform, and his demands that short lists be made public (despite the fact that they are not for any other Governor-in-Council appointment). It would be one thing if Reid were simply doing is duty in holding government to account, except that this isn’t it. This is inventing accusations out of whole cloth, and he should know better.

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