The NDP spent an inordinate amount of time crowing over social media yesterday about how they scored a “procedural coup” and “forced” a debate on the report of the special committee on missing and murdered Aboriginal women. The problem is that it’s not really true. Yes, they moved a concurrence motion during Routine Proceedings after QP on Friday, as is their right – but they didn’t surprise the government or catch them off-guard, as Romeo Saganash said during QP that they would be moving such a motion. Giving 20+ minutes notice is not “catching the government off-guard.” And when they forced a 30-minute vote and proceeded to this concurrence motion, the government voted with them and agreed to the debate, which again, puts the “forced” or “coup” narrative to the test. The report itself doesn’t recommend a national inquiry, seeing as it was a Conservative-dominated committee, and while the NDP wanted to highlight their dissenting report appended to it, it still gave the government side plenty of time to discuss their version of said report. So with these facts in mind, you will forgive me if I find the social media triumphalism a bit much.
Tag Archives: Democratic Reform
Roundup: Lost ship found
At long last, part of the mystery of the Franklin Expedition has been solved, as we have located one of the two sunken ships, and relatively intact as well, meaning that we can likely send divers there within the next few days. It’s caused a bit of a global buzz, and even Her Majesty sent congratulations on the find, which is lovely. While Harper is pleased as punch, and his detractors bemoaning that he’s spending resources on this and not other issues, it bears reminding that this is also part of our bid to map the ocean floor as part of obligations we face under the Arctic claims process before the UN. Not to mention, the Franklin Expedition has captured our imaginations for a few generations now, and it’s nice to see some answers will finally be found.
Roundup: Everyone on board the energy strategy
At the final (for real this time) press conference of the premiers in PEI, they announced that everyone was on board for a national energy strategy. What that all means is up in the air, but it’s nice to know that everyone’s aboard – especially Quebec, who is also joining in with the other province to start bulk-buying their prescription drugs. BC and Saskatchewan made a side deal about wine and spirits between their provinces, while Alberta and Nova Scotia signed a labour mobility agreement around apprenticeships and credentials recognition (giving rise to the question of whether they’re making it easier for Nova Scotia to lose its young workers). Paul Wells writes about the changed tone of the meeting now that the PQ presence was gone, and both Kathleen Wynne and Philippe Couillard both are secure in strong majority governments, while he also has conversations with four of those premiers. Andrew Coyne remains thoroughly unimpressed by the whole affair, and the inability of the premiers to make trade concessions while they demand money from Ottawa when they have the ability – and room – to raise their own taxes for what they need.
Roundup: Tepid pipeline approval
At long last, the government has made its decision on the Northern Gateway pipeline, and it’s not wholly unexpected, but surprising in other ways. For one, it sent it out as a press release rather than making a formal announcement. For another, it gave a half-hearted and somewhat mealy acceptance of the proposal, but only if Enbridge can meet all of the National Energy Board’s 209 conditions, plus having them get the First Nations all on-side, plus getting BC on-side as well. As economist Andrew Leach noted, it’s like the government is trying to distance itself from the regulator, the proponent, and any responsibility to get the pipeline built. After all, they do have a tremendous penchant for absolving themselves of responsibility wherever they can, and in this case, there is almost a sense that they’re inviting it to fail. Reaction was swift from the NDP, who declared that if they form government in 2015, that the pipeline would be cancelled immediately, and warned of “social unrest” in the meantime. The Liberals, however, took a slightly more nuanced approach – while they called for the rejection of this particular pipeline (they do support Keystone XL), but Justin Trudeau made the observation that the Crown – basically the government – has the obligation to consult with First Nations, not companies like Enbridge, so that throws yet another wrench into the plans o f the government. There are questions as to whether the decision will hinder Conservative re-election chances in the province, but I have a hard time seeing how it would with the “Bible Belt” ridings in the southern part of the province that the Conservatives hold quite comfortably. Enbridge says the decision gives them the time they need to get it right. Here are five other pipeline projects to keep an eye on. John Geddes notes the amount of work that Enbridge is being asked to do, while remembering that BC is the home to some memorable environmental protests. Paul Wells looks at the electoral calculus of the decision, while Leach has a Twitter conversation with Elizabeth May about her comments, and how they don’t actually make sense.
Roundup: Fantino’s bungled meeting
Oh Julian Fantino – you’ve really done it this time. When a group of veterans came to meet him about the closure of eight service facilities, Fantino was an hour late, sending his parliamentary secretary and two MPs who are also veterans to assure them that the changes won’t really impact them, which just incensed the veterans. And when Fantino did show up, things got heated, and he stormed out saying that he wasn’t going to be finger-pointed to as one of the veterans was emphatically saying “You’re going to promise me that I won’t see any changes in service,” at which point said veterans filed down to the press theatre and denounced Fantino and the government. And it was quite the press conference to watch. To cap it off, Fantino put out a press release to highlight the “roundtable” held and to express his disappointment with PSAC, who brought the veterans to the Hill. Yeah, good job there. On a similar note, Fantino’s department is demanding repayment for $581 from the family of a soldier who committed suicide. No, seriously.
Roundup: Budget date set
Jim Flaherty has announced that the budget will be delivered on February 11th, in the midst of the Olympics. Because remember that Canadians would be too distracted by the last Olympic games to even have Parliament sitting? Apparently that’s no longer a concern, and Flaherty is confident that Canadians can pay attention to both the games and the budget at the same time. Well, that and he apparently has a few measures that are important to pass sooner than later. John Geddes notes that Flaherty’s tone has changed lately to one of striking informality of late, where he seems to be freelancing some opinions and hinting that others may be to blame if there is added spending in the upcoming budget.
Roundup: Missing Perrin emails found
The Privy Council Office has found those emails from former PMO legal advisor Benjamin Perrin after all, despite previously telling the RCMP that they had been deleted.Oops. And yes, they promise to turn them over to the RMCP right away. It’s also probably just a coincidence that the advisory was sent out at 9 PM on a Sunday while the Prime Minister was wowing the crowd at a certain Jewish fundraising dinner as well, right? Meanwhile, Tonda MacCharles reconstructs that fateful February day when Nigel Wright made the decision to repay Duffy and tries to figure out where it all went wrong. CBC finds out what happened to Chris Montgomery, the Senate staffer who objected to the PMO interference with the Duffy audit report.
Roundup: Michael Chong’s attempt to save Parliament
The story that grabbed everyone’s attention yesterday was the fact that maverick Conservative MP Michael Chong is set to table a bill that would amend the Parliament of Canada Act in order to give riding associations the power to control nomination races instead of the party leader, while giving the party’s National Council the ability to have a veto in place in the event of a hijacked nomination race. This would eliminate the party leader’s ability to threaten MPs that he or she would refuse to sign their nomination papers if they step out of line. It’s the kind of reform that many people have been advocating for some time now, and would remove a substantial lever that the leader currently wields. The bill is also rumoured to contain clauses that would require that caucus chairs be elected and have rules for expelling and re-admitting MPs from caucus, and that the party by-laws must allow for the caucus review of a leader. Those are more problematic suggestions, and the caucus review is especially problematic for a couple of reasons. Number one is that unless leadership selection rules are changed so that it is the caucus that elects the leader, the argument will be that they don’t have the democratic legitimacy to remove said leader – one of the biggest problems with moving to the “more democratic” system whereby the party membership elects the leader (or as the Liberals recently demonstrated, anyone who totally swears that they don’t belong to another party), because that system obliterates accountability. As well, the power to challenge a leader already exists within our system of Responsible Government, whereby all anyone needs to do is declare a loss of confidence in the Prime Minister, and if they can get enough caucus support in the vote – along with the opposition – that leader will go down to defeat. It just requires enough MPs to have the backbone to follow through on it. Paul Calandra insists that his party already allows MPs to have direct input into legislation, which I’m not sure is the point of the bill. Andrew Coyne thinks this bill can save Parliament, and I agree that the first portion would go a long way, but the other portions are more problematic and we should treat them cautiously.
Roundup: Wright’s animosity toward Duffy
As we continue to sort through the entrails of the RCMP affidavit on the ClusterDuff investigation, Kady O’Malley tries to make more sense of just what kind of information that Senator Irving Gerstein was trying to get from Deloitte about the status of the audits. Despite those early assertions that Nigel Wright was a great friend of Mike Duffy, which was why he helped him out, those RCMP documents show that there was no love lost between Wright and Duffy, and that Wright was beyond frustrated with Duffy and had reached the limits of his patience and was ready to simply communicate with Duffy lawyer-to-lawyer. I still remain somewhat suspicious that the Wright’s motivation to repay Duffy’s expenses was simply “noblesse oblige,” and that there may have been some other reason that we remain unaware of. The PMO, meanwhile, continues to sideline Wright and is intimating that he gave misleading information in one of the memos that was turned over to the RCMP. Here are a few more interesting tidbits about Wright that are revealed from the documents. Rosemary Barton talks to former Commons law clerk Rob Walsh about the possible charges, and what is likely to stick and what won’t. Glen McGregor looks at the curious way in which the RCMP investigator took the extraordinary steps of releasing the ITO to the public. Stephen Maher has a look at Senator Gerstein, Canada’s single best political fundraiser. John Ivison looks at the damage to Harper’s brand that the ClusterDuff affair is doing, the effect it’s having in the Brandon-Souris by-election, and the fact that there is talk now in the party of replacing him if things continue. Andrew Coyne tries to ascertain just what it is that Mike Duffy was doing as he continually changed his demands every time they came to some kind of agreement.
Bruce Hyer and his contradictory “solutions” for democracy
Last week newly independent MP Bruce Hyer took to the blog rolls of the Huffington Post to talk about what he sees as the ills of our democracy while giving a partial explanation for why he left the NDP – and that mostly amounts to party discipline. Nobody is denying that excessive party discipline is a problem with our system at present, but simply saying all party discipline is bad is reductive and doesn’t give proper consideration to its proper role within the Westminster system.
As a quick refresher, party discipline exists because a government needs to command the confidence of the House of Commons, and when matters of confidence are put before the Chamber, they crack the whip to ensure the survival of the government. It is also used along with brokerage politics to keep individual MPs from demanding that governments give special considerations for their ridings in exchange for their votes. Observe the number of “bridges to nowhere” that happen in systems where there is almost no party discipline. Obviously the legitimate uses for discipline have been increasingly abused on both sides, and We The Media don’t help when we suddenly start salivating at the prospect of internal division within a party. Nevertheless, it does exist for a valid reason that needs to be acknowledged before one can denounce the concept in its entirety.