With the benches mostly full, the Chamber was ready to begin the grand inquest of the nation. After a moment of silence for an RCMP officer who lost his life in a car accident in Quebec, Rona Ambrose led off, asking whether the PM had answered questions from the Ethics Commissioner on his Christmas holiday. Trudeau simply stated that he was happy to answer the Commissioner’s questions. Ambrose pressed on the accountability angle, and Trudeau expounded upon the responsibility to Canadians and openness and transparency, but that was all. Ambrose pivoted to the lack of judicial appointments affecting the criminal justice system, for which Trudeau noted the appointments have been made, and noted the new process that was ensuring that more women, visible minorities and Indigenous get appointed. Ed Fast was up next, back from recovering from a stroke, and he demanded the government’s figures on the costs of carbon pricing. Trudeau welcomed him back but chided him for not understanding the new economy. Fast brought up hydro rates in Ontario, but Trudeau was unmoved, taking shots at the previous government’s record. Thomas Mulcair was up next, demanding action on tax havens, and wondered when the budget was. Trudeau noted the commitment to tax fairness, by didn’t give the date. Mulcair railed about KPMG and different rules for the rich, and Trudeau reminded him that they were engaged on the file. Mulcair demanded criminal charges, and Trudeau again reminded him that the file was still being investigated. Mulcair worried about CRA-funded advertorials, for which Trudeau reminded him that they employ a broad range of ways to communicate to Canadians.
Tag Archives: CRA
Roundup: Worst instincts for second-choice votes
As the Trumpocalypse serves up another “totally not just Muslims” travel ban south of the border, immigration references in the Conservative leadership race are certainly starting to pick up steam. Maxime Bernier started dropping not-so-coded references to “radical proponents of multiculturalism” who want to “forcibly change” the cultural character of the country (no, seriously), while Kellie Leitch offers up some of the questions her “values test” would include. Because you know, it’s totally not like people aren’t going to lie about the obvious answers or anything. Meanwhile, Deepak Obhrai says that statements like Leitch’s is creating an environment that could get immigrants killed, in case you worried that things aren’t getting dramatic. Oh, and to top it off, Andrew Scheer has a “survey” about terrorism that he wants people to weigh in on, and it’s about as well thought-out as you can expect.
2/ …as radical proponents of multiculturalism want.
Read my immigration proposal: https://t.co/3asYe3tB5y— Maxime Bernier (@MaximeBernier) March 6, 2017
Why not just be transparent and say "hey Kellie Leitch supporters, I'm one of you. List me second". At least that's honest. https://t.co/CFrmjIHpm2
— Rob Silver (@RobSilver) March 6, 2017
I'm looking for your opinion on terrorism (and how the government should address different policy questions): https://t.co/LvNynzzqdE
— Andrew Scheer (@AndrewScheer) March 6, 2017
https://twitter.com/stephaniecarvin/status/838798221501673473
While John Ibbitson writes about how the Conservative leadership candidates’ anti-immigrant rhetoric is a path to oblivion for the party, I would also add this Twitter thread from Emmett Macfarlane, which offers up a reminder about how our immigration system in this country actually works, because facts should matter in these kinds of debates.
https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/838879309829967874
https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/838879524888670208
https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/838879901725900800
https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/838881353940750339
QP: Take it up with UNHCR
It being Monday with many desks across the Chamber vacant, Rona Ambrose was absent, despite the Prime Minister being in attendance. Denis Lebel led off, worrying about pension income splitting in the budget, and Justin Trudeau accused him of trying to sow fear, before listing off the many measures they put into place to help vulnerable seniors. Lebel worried about the fates of other tax credits, and Trudeau listed other investments the government has made to lead to good jobs and economic growth. Lebel then asked if small business taxes would be cut to create jobs, and Trudeau countered with the broad-based tax cuts and Canada Child Benefit cheques that put more money in people’s pockets. Candice Bergen was up next, and dredged up the helicopter ride to the Aga Khan’s island, and Trudeau succinctly told her that it was a personal family vacation and he was answering the Ethics Commissioner’s question. Bergen asked again, and got the very same answer. Thomas Mulcair was up next, worrying about the new executive order signed by Donald Trump regarding Muslim immigrants and refugees, and demanded to know if the government still considered the United Stated was a safe country for refugees. Trudeau deflected by talking about what Canadians expect of the government’s relations with the States. Mulcair raised the case of a Canadian woman turned back at the border, but Trudeau insisted that they were working with Americans to ensure that the border remained open for Canadians. Mulcair moved onto the issue of tax havens and the recent journalism investigations into KPMG, and Trudeau said that they expected people to pay their taxes and they invested money in the CRA to investigate. Mulcair pressed in English, and got much the same reply from Trudeau.
Denis Lebel leads off with the misquote about budgets balancing themselves. #QP
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) March 6, 2017
How many times can Mulcair say "racist" in a single question? #QP
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) March 6, 2017
Roundup: Tracking the dissenters
The CBC’s Éric Grenier has posted an analysis of free votes in the Commons in the current parliament, determining which party’s MPs dissent the most often. Part of this kind of analysis bothers me in part because it’s quantitative rather than qualitative, in part with how it was carried out. Rather than actually going through each vote to see a) what kind of vote it was, and b) the substance of the vote, he relied on the measure of how the cabinet voted to determine if it was a whipped vote or not, which is a poor measure, seeing as this would capture all manner of procedural votes (albeit, there haven’t been nearly as many in the current parliament as there were in the previous one). I’m not sure that there are any particular surprises in here in that the Liberals have been given a freer hand with their free votes, which was largely the case with the Conservatives in the previous parliament as well – having a majority usually lets a give their backbenchers a little added room to blow off a bit of steam when necessary. It’s also not unexpected in the fact that the Liberals are a party that doesn’t have a core ideology that they feel compelled to adhere to in the way that most Conservatives and the NDP most certainly do. It also shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that leadership candidates in the Conservatives are breaking ranks more often, given that they’re trying to put their own stamp on the party, so this is their latitude to start doing that. And as for the top “dissenting” voters, the top two are Liberals Nathaniel Erskine-Smith and Robert-Falcon Ouellette, who have a history of being a bit…naïve, if I may be blunt, in some of the positions they’ve taken to date. Erskine-Smith, if you recall, recently got pulled from a committee because his attempts to do more consensus-building wound up getting him manipulated by Tony Clement into voting against his own party’s interests when it came to amendments to a government bill, and Ouellette is often seen saying…not terribly thought-out things in the media. So, does it surprise me that they’re the two who voted against their party the most? No, not really. But Grenier doesn’t have any kind of context around this numbers, and that’s all he does – post numbers because he’s the numbers guy, which can be interesting in reporting, but it also only tells a fraction of the actual story, which is why stories like these do rub me the wrong way.
QP: Praise for border communities
After a Family Day off, the bulk of MPs were back on the Hill, ready for the daily inquest of the nation. Rona Ambrose led off, raising the sentencing of Douglas Garland in Alberta thanks to their consecutive sentencing laws the previous government implemented, and wanted a guarantee that they would not touch them as part of their sentencing reviews. Justin Trudeau assured her that they were reviewing the system broadly, and that he had confidence in the justice minister. Ambrose wanted clarity on that answer, but Trudeau repeated his statement. Ambrose worried that the government planned to nickel-and-dime Canadians to get any bits of cash they could out of them, but Trudeau reminded her that that her party voted against their middle-class tax cut. Ambrose listed off the usual disingenuous examples of raised taxes, but Trudeau reminded her that the previous government was more interested in tax breaks for the wealthy as opposed to help for those who needed it. Ambrose repeated the question in French, and Trudeau repeated his own answer in the other official language. With Thomas Mulcair off in Sweden, Hélène Laverdière led off for the NDP, demanding the suspension of the safe third country agreement, to which Trudeau reminded her that while they accept refugees, they can only do so if Canadians have confidence in the system, which was why they were trying to strike a balance. Jenny Kwan wanted more support for border communities and those refugees, but Trudeau repeated his answer. Kwan raised Brian Mulroney’s serenade and demanded Trudeau to denounce Trump, while Trudeau reminded her that Canadians expect him to have a strong working relationship with the American administration given the economic ties. Laverdière said the government was putting their head in the sand on the issue, but Trudeau’s answer didn’t change.
Roundup: Smothering Rosemary’s Baby
In case you missed the news, and all of the howling earlier in the day, Justin Trudeau confirmed in a new mandate letter to Karina Gould that electoral reform is now a dead letter. And thank all of the gods on Olympus that they’ve smothered this Rosemary’s Baby because it was a stupid promise that he never should have made in the first place. I argue that much in a column for Loonie Politics, and it had the very real danger of undermining Trudeau’s ability to get anything else done for the next three years.
While people have wondered why Trudeau didn’t just promise to put this off until the next election, I think that would have been a worse outcome, and the issue would have grown like a cancer that would undermine the perception of that election’s legitimacy, as the demands of each party on that file continued to consume more and more time and oxygen. A swift death was better. Others have wondered how Trudeau could have declared there to be no consensus when he didn’t actually ask which system people preferred, but that misses a few key points. For one, there were some clear messages from the committee and from the MyDemocracy survey, some of which were that people didn’t want MPs elected off of lists (which severely limited the kinds of systems available) and that some of the systems out there would not have been constitutionally valid. Meanwhile, when the government did ask about outcomes (through the MyDemocracy survey), that was more informative than asking which system people preferred because people tend to think of electoral systems like they do wanting a pony, when they also need to be asked if they want to spend their time mucking out the stables. I’m sure you’d find that the answers would change right there. There have been accusations that Trudeau didn’t show leadership by not trying to forge some kind of consensus, but I’m pretty sure that would have been impossible. He had a preferred system that the opposition parties didn’t like and maligned for completely false reasons, and no matter what he did, it would have been viewed from the lens of self-interest and dismissed. In other words, it was a no-win scenario.
And then there’s Nathan Cullen, with his angry words and his big show of pretending that he wasn’t trying to be cynical about the process when Cullen’s whole modus operandi the entire time has been fuelled by cynicism. His manipulation of the formation of the special committee was a cynical con job wrapped up in moral outrage. His selective reading of the committee’s report, as well as the MyDemocracy survey, was self-serving to the extreme. But he presents an earnest face to the media, and people buy it. I get it. That doesn’t mean that he hasn’t been cynically playing this whole affair, because rest assured, he has been.
And now the myriad of hot takes. Chantal Hébert calls the promise a cheap electoral prop, which she’s not wrong about. Andrew Coyne goes for the full sarcasm in blaming voters for believing Trudeau’s promise. Tasha Kheiriddin says that Trudeau will wear this failure (though I suspect that only a small percentage of Liberal voters will actually care by 2019). Jonathan Kay takes the correct (in my opinion) take in that reform was never going to happen because our system doesn’t need to be fixed. John Geddes doesn’t think that Trudeau lied – just that the impetus waned as people were no longer discontent with a system that didn’t give them a Harper government (and I suspect he is also right). John Ivison agrees that Trudeau hasn’t demonstrated the level of mendacity for this to have been a lie from the start, but those who sincerely believed him will feel betrayed. Chris Selley goes a bit darker, and pre-emptively counted this as the kind of broken promise that makes people cynical about politics and gives rise to the likes of Rob Ford or Donald Trump. And he’s got a point, but honestly? Politics is what makes people cynical about politics.
https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/826863475003629568
Roundup: Asking for an electoral pony
It was entirely expected to happened, and lo and behold, Nathan Cullen stepped in front of some microphones today to cherry-pick the results of the MyDemocracy survey to declare that it told him just what he wanted to hear. Or rather, the whole survey was a failure except for the one table that proved his point.
https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/824378237853769728
That single table was the index that said that Canadians want parties to work together. Obviously, that means proportional representation, right? Never mind the other responses that disprove that with Canadians saying that they want simple ballots and having single parties to hold to account when things go wrong – you know, things that are more hallmarks of a First-Past-the-Post system. Of course, PR advocates have a long history of hearing what they want to hear, like how our friends at Fair Vote Canada very creatively interpreted the Liberals’ platform promise about ending FPTP to “prove” that it obviously means a PR system and only a PR system. Because that’s what they wanted to hear. And then there was Cullen’s rhetoric around it. “The idea that the Liberals, having heard all this evidence in favour of proportional systems, would then turn their backs on that promise and try to bring in a ranked ballot, alternative vote system, would be the equivalent of nuclear war in politics,” he said. That’s right. Nuclear war. Cripes.
How about we tone down the rhetoric, ok? Nuclear war is nuclear war. A voting system change is not. I'm sure you can find another metaphor. https://t.co/tOF41liSi9
— Andre Beltempo (@AndreBeltempo) January 25, 2017
Here’s the thing about the whole “Canadians want parties to cooperate” thing. It’s like moms and apple pie. Of course people want parties to cooperate. That’s a no-brainer. The problem of course is that decisions need to be taken, and people need to be held to account for those decisions. Our system is very much built on accountability, because that’s really the whole point of parliament. It’s to hold the government to account for the decision that it makes. When parties cooperate to make decisions, it makes accountability harder because when everyone is accountable then nobody is accountable, which is a problem for our system of government. Add to that, under our system of Responsible Government, it requires competition between parties for that power to govern. The tension between government and opposition is crucial not only for the exchange of ideas, but to both ensure that there is accountability and a suitable replacement waiting in the wings if the government should lose confidence. You can’t do that if you’re all working together.
The other part about insisting that “Canadians want parties to work together” is that it’s a wish that has about as much depth as people wanting a pony. It assumes that there are no trade-offs or downsides, and that you can simply ride or pet that pony at your leisure and not have to worry about feeding it, housing it, cleaning it, or shovelling out the barn. It’s far less glamourous, and sometimes ponies are mean, and they kick and bite. Sure, a voting system that you think will encourage parties to work together sounds like sunshine and rainbows, but it also means smaller parties holding larger ones hostage to try and gain outsized influence on decisions, and the inability for a government to speak with one voice, which is another one of those crucial things in our system that helps keep things accountable. So sure, people will answer on a survey that they want cooperation. It sounds like a wonderful thing. Reality of course is different, and people need to be very aware of that.
Roundup: “Prominent” Canadians demand unicorns
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.
Constitutional requirements around provincial seat allocations is a hurdle that is not easily met w/o lists and lots of added seats. 2/n
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) January 19, 2017
The #ERRE report said that lists were not very well liked, so that doesn’t leave a lot of options to work with. 4/n
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) January 19, 2017
So please, explain how we can magically make a “made-in-Canada” system that will give us gumdrops and unicorns. They can’t. 6/6
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) January 19, 2017
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.
Roundup: Questions about fundraising
This whole fundraiser headache just won’t go away, and at this point, I just want to bang my head against a wall because all sides are just making this whole situation way more needlessly gross than it needs to be. At his end-of-year press conference yesterday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that at fundraisers, people do talk to him about stuff and he listens, but that doesn’t really influence his decision-making. And I’m a little queasy about everyone labelling this as “lobbying” because that has a fairly specific term and any actual lobbyists need to be registered, which the party makes an effort to screen them out of these events. According to the opposition, this was “bragging” as opposed to the reality that when you’re the PM, people will want to tell you stuff all the time, so unless the suggestion is that he doesn’t attend fundraisers any longer, then I’m not sure how you stop people from taking that opportunity to try and tell the PM their great idea/issue they’re passionate about that he could totally do something about/etc. The NDP are vowing to introduce a bill to put the government’s ethical guidelines into legislation, but how do you legislate the “appearance” of conflict of interest? It’s a subjective measure that the media and the opposition have been torqueing with no actual demonstrated quid pro quo (and no, insinuation based on coincidental timing is not actually proof of quid pro quo), and I’m not sure what they’re exactly suggesting they give the Ethics Commissioner power to do when it comes to regulating said appearance of conflict, but giving yet more power to an unaccountable officer of parliament rankles on me even more.
And then there’s the Trudeau Foundation. After they embarked on new fundraising efforts because of low interest rates were hitting their ability to do their work, and lo, they suddenly have new donors, some of them Canadians with foreign connections. This apparently is a sign of a conspiracy that people are somehow trying to curry favour with the Prime Minister, despite the fact that he has severed his ties to the Foundation before this happened. (Apparently this too goes into “appearance” of conflict where none actually exists). Oh, and it’s also apparently suspicious that some companies have increased their lobbying of a new government. Because it’s not like you want to get your points to the new people in charge when you’re looking to change policies that the previous government implemented (or refused to). That’s kind of how lobbying works. It’s not necessarily nefarious.
And to tie this all off, the Globe and Mail ordered polling on “cash for access” fundraising (never mind that what happens at the federal level bears no resemblance to what went on in Ontario), and wouldn’t you know, most people don’t like it. And half of respondents think that you can buy government influence for $1500? Honestly? This is the media not doing our jobs to show how government works, but is just reinforcing stereotypes about crooked politicians being on the take. It’s kind of gross, and we should be better than this.
QP: These are not the fundraisers you’re looking for
The PM was present for a second day in a row, the benches were starting to empty out, with stacks of holiday cards on the desks of the other MPs present. Rona Ambrose led off, noting the visit of Joe Biden later in the day, but worried that with Trump about to slash taxes, and that Trudeau was too busy with photo ops and fundraisers. Trudeau responded by listing off the various things that this government has done to lower taxes and help families. Ambrose demanded a “real” low-tax plan, and Trudeau noted more things his government did like getting pipelines to tidewater approved. Ambrose switched to French to ask again, and Trudeau listed the many investments that he has attracted to the country. Ambrose changed back to English to pivot to the fundraising question, and Trudeau fell back to the rules talking points. For her last question, Ambrose accused him of breaking conflict of interest laws, and Trudeau assured her that he followed the rules. Thomas Mulcair was up next, accusing the PM of having become what he accused the Conservatives were doing, and Trudeau returned to his talking points on the rules. Mulcair wondered where the PM was last night, and when Trudeau only answered with his points about the rules, Mulcair prefaced his next question by saying that Trudeau was at a “cash-for-access” event. Mulcair moved onto the electoral reform file and worried that the government would unilaterally impose a system that would benefit their party. Trudeau responded with a plug for for MyDemocracy. Mulcair asked about the banking provisions in C-29, but Trudeau deflected with talks about tax cuts and benefits.