Tag Archives: Elections Canada

Roundup: Robocall recommendations under advisement

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The Minister of State for Democratic Reform is finally getting around to drafting a bill on reforming electoral laws to prevent things like fraudulent robocalls. While Elections Canada is coming with a report on said calls this week, with recommendations about how they would like to see the laws changed, Tim Uppal says that he won’t limit himself to those recommendations. So what kinds of changes is he considering? Well, I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Peter Kent has ordered that the soon-to-be-defunct National Round Table on Environment and the Economy to stop posting on their website, and to turn over all of their files in relation to said site over to his department. While he says this is about transferring those contents to Library and Archives, where they will remain accessible to the public, it is a bit odd that he is actively seeking to keep things like a farewell message from the Governor General from being posted on said site in its final days.

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Roundup: Redefining status

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The Federal Court has ruled that non-status Aboriginals and Métis should be classified as “Indians” under the constitution, and that the federal government has a fiduciary responsibility towards them. This opens up a major can of worms in terms of the way that policy and duty to consult will have to happen going forward, as well as resources for those individuals based on what the government is obligated to provide, and this will be complicated more because the ruling does nothing to settle how the government will need to exercise this jurisdiction. This will doubtlessly be headed for the Supreme Court, so it may be some years before it is fully settled.

Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence’s boyfriend invites a forensic audit of the band’s finances to prove that there wasn’t any misspending – even though it’s been his job to provide the documentation that’s missing. He also defends his relationship and insists that he reports to the band council as a whole and that Spence doesn’t vote on conflicts of interests. Meanwhile, when Global News sent a crew up to Attawapiskat, they were kicked off the reserve and threatened with arrest – under Spence’s orders – while Spence’s camp on Victoria Island has also banned the media under the rubric that they are “printing lies.”

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Roundup: Avoiding the House – again

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Jim Flaherty will be delivering the fall economic update today – you know, while the House isn’t sitting. And he’ll be doing it in Fredericton. Which, as it so happens, is also not the House of Commons. Because, as this government’s history shows, they totally respect Parliament and what it stands for.

MPs are talking about how there will be a higher onus on Elections Canada during the next election to make sure that the kinds of errors creeping into the system – as demonstrated in the Etobicoke Centre case – don’t keep happening.

The Hill Times profiles parliamentarians who have military experience.

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Roundup: Paying back union sponsorships

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It appears that Elections Canada has forced the NDP to pay back $344,468 in union sponsorships for their conventions since 2003. This is the figure that Thomas Mulcair has been refusing to disclose to date, and which the Conservatives will use as more ammunition in the days and weeks to come.

Liberal MP Frank Valeriote stands by his campaign decisions with the robo-calls in his riding – but would simply have followed the CRTC rules of having the proper tags on the end had he known.

The Canadian Forces’ Arctic exercises last week offered us a glimpse of the secretive and mysterious JTF2 unit.

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Roundup: Missed non-binding deadlines

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The government is going to miss the six-month deadline the House gave it when it passed a non-binding motion about amending the Elections Act vis-à-vis robocalls. Hands up anyone who’s actually surprised. Meanwhile, other experts say that Elections Canada already has all of the tools they need, but their problem is actually enforcement, in that they’re not doing enough of it. Meanwhile, Kady O’Malley takes a look at that Paul Calandra fundraiser that people have been talking about, and breaks down what kind of money we’re talking about, and it’s more than some people would think.

In a similar vein, the Conflict of Interest Act is overdue for its five-year review, and given the committee calendar it likely won’t be reviewed until closer to the holidays. And hey, maybe they’ll think about doing more about the mandate of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, which is pretty limited and limiting.

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Roundup: Redford vs Clark

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The brewing battle between premiers Christy Clark and Alison Redford went up a notch yesterday as Clark fired back at Redford’s suggestion that her demands for a portion of the royalties meant rewriting Confederation. Clark, not unsurprisingly, called Reford’s comments “silly” and unreasonable to suggested that she was trying to destroy Confederation. Clark’s point is that BC is taking a disproportionate share of the risk with regards to the length of the pipeline and the marine consequences, but isn’t guaranteed an adequate proportion of the revenues. She also steadfastly says that she is neither supporting nor objecting to the pipeline at this point considering that the environmental review process remains incomplete. On a side note, here’s a look at how the upcoming elections in BC and Quebec may play out at the Council of the Federation Meeting that starts today.

The head of Peter Penashue’s campaign says he’s sorry for exceeding the limits and for his lax bookkeeping. Well, so long as he’s sorry, that makes everything better, right? (Todd Russell, the former MP, who lost by a mere 79 votes, doesn’t plan to challenge the results given the recommendations, for the record). Meanwhile, Elections Canada was not interested in offering Dean Del Mastro “immunity” in exchange for more information about the funding irregularities.

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