Over in the National Post, Ashley Csanady found that the student council at the University of Waterloo has taken to abusing the concept of “safe spaces” to try and move their council meetings behind closed doors. Apparently student leaders have argued – with a straight face – that these closed-door meetings would foster a “safe environment, and less scrutiny results in better decision-making.” All of which is complete and utter nonsense because as political actors, they have obligations to transparency in order that they may be held to account. If they’re uncomfortable being challenged in public, then they shouldn’t run for office (which is an issue I have with people who run for office at any level of government, particularly federally – if you can’t so much as ask or answer a thirty-second question in QP without relying on a script and having your hand held, why are you there?) Now, there is a time and a place for closed-door meetings, and in camera discussions in grown-up politics, but it’s not all the time, and it’s not so that they can feel “safe.” Sometimes it takes a while to come up with suitable language when you’re putting together a report, and there is a case that some of the Board of Internal Economy’s decisions do happen better behind closed doors because some MPs can actually behave like adults when no one else is around, and I’m not sure it helps when they’re not using it as an excuse to play up the partisan drama for the cameras – again. (Also, BOIE deals with a lot of personnel issues that have legitimate privacy considerations). Yes, there has been an alarming trend in federal politics to move all considerations of committee business behind closed doors, likely because the Conservatives on the committee don’t want to be seen being irrationally partisan when they deny opposition motions, but they’re not using – or rather abusing – the notion of a safe space, or saying that they feel threatened by the exposure. Not wanting to look like jerks on TV is not a reason to meet in camera, and yet they do it anyway, and we the public should hold them to account for said behaviour. Hopefully the students at Waterloo will also see thought this charade, and vote this council out next year as well.
Tag Archives: Elizabeth May
Roundup: The Senate should strangle Chong’s bill
There has been a sudden flurry of concern regarding the state of Michael Chong’s Reform Act, currently in the Senate, because the bill is likely to die there. In fact, if there were any sense in the world, it would, but not before the pundit class starts wailing and gnashing their teeth about how terrible it is that the unelected Senate would defeat a wildly popular bill from the Commons. Of course, that’s immediately where my head hits the desk, because that’s exactly why we have the Senate we do – because sometimes MPs overwhelmingly vote in dumb things, and cooler heads in the Senate can talk them down and defeat them without fear of electoral repercussion. You know, sober second thought, the raison d’etre of the Upper Chamber. And let’s face it – the Reform Act is a spectacularly terrible bill that will undermine Responsible Government and our system of Westminster-style democracy pretty much permanently. And if you think the gong show that just happened with the leadership review in Manitoba was an exception, well, Chong’s bill would see to it that those become somewhat more the norm across the country. The bill will do nothing to “empower” MPs. It will do the opposite by disincentivising them from rebelling against their leaders, as has successfully overturned bad leaders in many instances (most recently Alison Redford comes to mind). What will empower MPs is for them to actually stiffen their spines and do their jobs, because they have all the power that they need already – a lesson that Senator Fraser reiterated in her speech against Chong’s bill. But contrary to Andrew Coyne’s assertion, the Conservative leadership in the Senate has been inclined to pass the bill, but there are a number of Conservative senators who have wised up to the fact that the bill is terrible and they would do well to kill it in one way or another. Other senators are keenly aware that even MPs who voted for the bill know it’s terrible but didn’t think they could be seen to vote against it, so they sent it to the Senate, where it could be killed there, and they could use it as political cover (and denounce those terrible, awfully, unelected and unaccountable senators for killing a bill that passed the Commons even though MPs knew it was terrible). The “pass it off to the other chamber” game is not a new phenomenon (second only to “let’s pass it off to the Supreme Court”), but it’s another sign of how spineless MPs have become. Not that Chong’s bill would do anything about that spinelessness, ironically. Instead, it looks like it will be up to the Senate to save MPs from themselves yet again, and MPs won’t learn their lessons about taking their responsibilities seriously.
The Senate always sits later than the Commons to finish passing bills. With so many on their plate, they will likely sit into July. 2/2
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) May 12, 2015
With another omnibus budget bill on the way, they will hold more hearings on it than the Commons will. But you know, "leisurely."
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) May 12, 2015
Also wondering how many senators @acoyne spoke to about the Reform Act. His take doesn't match conversations I've had with them.
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) May 12, 2015
I don't agree with all of her points, but she gives Chong a good kicking for his disingenuous use of terms in the bill. 2/2
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) May 12, 2015
Roundup: Speaker Housakos’ telling silence
It was with some interest that I listened to the first major interview with new Senate Speaker Leo Housakos over the weekend, and in it, there was the requisite amount of tough talk with regards to the recent spending allegations that some senators face. To wit, Speaker Housakos spoke of recognising their problems internally, bringing in the Auditor General on their own, the willingness to name any names that the AG does in his report, and as far as the three suspended senators are concerned, those suspensions are likely to continue into the next parliament until their legal situations have been resolved one way or another. Where Housakos did not talk tough, but instead shied away from answering, was regarding questions of the complicity of some senators in changing the internal audit to protect Mike Duffy. Housakos mumbled about it being before the courts, but as the Speaker and the new head of the Internal Economy committee, he had an opportunity to make a statement about past practices that will no longer be tolerated, or the staking a claim about Senate independence and severing the ties to the PMO, or anything like that. He didn’t, and it’s not too surprising to me because Housakos is known as someone who is close to the PMO, in with a tight cabal that surrounds the current Government Leader in the Senate, Claude Carignan. In other words, Housakos is no Pierre-Claude Nolin, who had some fairly high-minded ideals about the Senate and its independence, particularly after the Supreme Court’s reference decision. The fact that Housakos did not make any claims for institutional independence is telling, and reminds us that he bears watching so as to ensure that he personally does not become implicated in more of the PMO machinations into the Upper Chamber and its workings. The Senate needs an independent Speaker, and I’m not sure that Housakos is it. Meanwhileback in the Commons, the government refuses to answer questions on residency requirements for appointing senators.
Roundup: Nolin’s passing a blow to the Senate
The passing of Senate Speaker Pierre-Claude Nolin leaves the institution in a pretty vulnerable place. In light of the Duffy/Wallin/Brazeau affairs, Nolin was on a mission to bring some internal reform to the Chamber, both in terms of financial controls and the like, but also with ensuring that senators themselves were better educated as to their own roles. When Nolin was first named Speaker, he invited reporters to the Chamber for a Q&A, and before he took questions, he gave us a little talk, brandishing a copy of the Supreme Court reference decision on Senate reform, and made note of some key passages about the roles of a Senator. His message to his fellow senators was pretty frank – here are some things that you’re not doing, and we need to improve on that. Long-time readers of mine will know the root of some of these problems – not just a few poor appointments by the current Prime Minister, but the fact that appointments happened in large numbers. The Chamber works best absorbing one or two new members at a time, and they can find their feet and generally get on with feeling out their sense of institutional independence. When a fifth of the chamber is brought in all at once, they are more pliant and susceptible to control from the top, which is what happened. Nolin, always an independent thinker and someone not afraid to go against the current government, whose caucus he was a member of, wanted more of that from his fellow senators, and he probably would have done a lot to get them to a better place, institutionally speaking, if he’d had more time. Now, I’m not sure who will be able to take his place. The Speaker Pro Tempore (equivalent of the Deputy Speaker in the Commons) is not exactly an independent thinker, and is part of a cabal of players around the Senate Leader’s office, who in turn are supine to the PMO for a variety of reasons. That group is not going to continue Nolin’s work of trying to make the chamber a more independent place. We’ll have to see who the PM will ultimately choose, but Nolin has set a high bar that will be difficult to match. Elsewhere, here are some highlights of Nolin’s career. On Power Play, Mercedes Stephenson spoke to the man who appointed Nolin, Brian Mulroney (and a correction to Stephenson – Nolin was not elected to the Speaker position, as it’s a prime ministerial appointment. The praise for him was unanimous, however).
https://twitter.com/dgardner/status/591589139079892993
Roundup: Laying out their C-51 positions
Not that it was any surprise what they were, but the opposition parties laid out their explicit positions on the new anti-terror bill in advance of the start of debate yesterday – the NDP firmly opposed, the Liberals walking the line by listing the things they support in the bill and the things they don’t, and vowing to make it an election issue if the Conservatives don’t make the necessary amendments. But while it’s certainly within the right of the NDP, as official opposition, to call for the bill’s defeat, if you scratch beneath the surface a little, much of their messaging on it is a mess. At his press conference yesterday, Mulcair was simultaneously saying that they want the bill defeated writ large and voted down at second reading (agreement in principle), while saying that it needs more debate and amendments at committee, and then reiterating that it’s beyond saving, that there were no amendments that could make them live with it. From a procedural standpoint, that’s all over the map. And then there’s the conspiracy theory aspect, where Mulcair is going on about how a government could use CSIS to spy on their political adversaries under these broad definitions, and then to the Francophone media, he goes full-bore on re-fighting 1970, and it’s all October Crisis and the War Measures Act. That, of course, has to do with his Quebec voter base, which is polling its support for stronger anti-terror measures, discomfited by the terror-inspired hit-and-run last October, and probably the Charter of Values xenophobia around Muslims that is still an undercurrent. Suffice to say, the scattershot of arguments against make it hard to follow the plot. For her part, Elizabeth May is going full-on conspiracy theory, insisting the bill will turn CSIS into a “secret police” – err, except that they have no arrest powers, and then tried to say that such a bill would basically turn Rosa Parks into a terrorist in CSIS’ eyes. I’m not sure that’s helpful. Terry Glavin makes the point that while there are alarming things in the bill, hysteria doesn’t really help the debate. As for Peter MacKay, whose use of “cultural” causes with relation to the not-really-would-be-terror-attack in Halifax, when asked what he thought the definition of terrorism was, MacKay told reporters to “look it up.” He’s all class.
Roundup: Some context around the defection
While Danielle Smith continues to declare victory as she defends her defection, insisting that the Wildrose had held two premiers to account and that they had managed to shift the PCs to their position under Prentice, there are one or two things worth noting. While I spoke to other day about the problems with calling this defection a “reunification” of conservatives in the province, I think there are a couple of other facts to consider that the pundit classes keep overlooking in their handwringing about the state of democracy in Alberta now that the official opposition has been decimated. The first is that even in a Westminster democracy, there are no guidelines about the strength of the opposition. We’ve even had cases (New Brunswick, I believe) where there were no opposition parties elected, and they had to find a way of including that balance. The other fact is that nowhere in the country is there an opposition so closely aligned ideologically with the government of the day, where you have a nominally right-wing government and an even more right-wing official opposition. That puts a whole lot of context into the unprecedented move of an official opposition leader crossing to join the government ranks, as there is less of a gap to actually cross.
Roundup: A largely fictitious distinction
While the battle over what’s happening at Veterans Affairs continues to rage, we are continually reassured by both the Prime Minister and the Original Series duotronic computer system known as Julian Fantino that we shouldn’t worry – that any cuts that have been made are all “back office” bureaucrats, and that front-line services haven’t been affected. Really! And while the example of cutting 12 photocopy clerks by moving to digitised medical records may be an example of those “back office” cuts, we should stop kidding ourselves – there is no neat dividing line between what is a front-line service position and a back-office bureaucrat because it’s the job of those bureaucrats to process the work of the front-line providers. If anything, this notion that back-office positions are being eliminated means anything, it’s that it forces more front-line workers to do the processing work themselves, essentially increasing their workload and making them less able to help veterans because they’re the ones busy processing the paperwork rather than focusing on the service aspect. Using the excuse of it being “back office” is largely a fictional distinction made for the sake of optics – but then again, that is the way that this government likes to operate, by photo op and announcement rather than by actual results, so this really should surprise nobody.
Roundup: Refusing to appoint senators
Stephen Harper says that he’s in no rush to appoint senators because legislation is still getting passed, so no big deal, right? The question arose because the new Senate Speaker, Pierre-Claude Nolin, remarked that there are concerns about regional representation becoming unbalanced, and I’ve heard from other Conservative senators who are not-so-quietly complaining that they are being overloaded with committee work because they’re having to sit on several committees given that we’re soon to be at seventeen vacancies – almost one-fifth of the Chamber. It’s a significant figure, and the added danger is that a Prime Minister – either Harper, or a new one post-2015 – would appoint a big number at once, stressing a system that is designed to absorb two or three new ones at a time. It also demonstrates a kind of contempt that Harper is showing toward the system and the specific role that the Senate plays within it, preferring instead to treat it as a rubber stamp that he is ramming legislation through. Nolin pointed to several passages from the Supreme Court’s reference decision during his presentation, and noted one of the roles of the Senate is to provide reflection to legislation that passed the Commons in haste. In this era of time allocation, that would seem to be more needed than ever – and yet, the government’s senators are doing their own best to rush things through, which Nolin quite blatantly called out today, saying that he aims to remind all Senators of their obligations as laid out in that decision. Nolin also said that he thinks the worst of the Senate’s spending woes are behind it, as we wait for the AG’s report next spring, and offered his own take on what happened on October 22nd.
#SenCA Speaker Nolin meets with Press Gallery journalists in Senate Chamber #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/eb8zhdN6dW
— Senate of Canada (@SenateCA) December 4, 2014
Conservative Sen. Leo Housakos confirmed as deputy Senate speaker. #cdnpoli #SenCA pic.twitter.com/aqhjwjRqvT
— Jordan Press (@jpress) December 4, 2014
I wrote about the problem of Harper not appointing Senators nearly a year ago. The situation is now worse. http://t.co/KjxBZQ19er #cdnpoli
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) December 5, 2014
Roundup: A registry that’s not a registry
To the utter delight of the Conservatives, the NDP have pledged to reinstate the long-gun registry, with Mulcair uttering the line that duck hunters would only need assault rifles if they were hunting pterodactyls. But wait – an NDP aide later took issue with the characterisation that the NDP want to reinstate the registry itself – they just want to be able to track every gun. Which…pretty much implies a registry, whether there are criminal sanctions applied to it or not, so well done with that bit of cognitive dissonance. And if memory serves, the Liberals needed to have the criminal sanctions if they wanted to make the registry fit under federal laws, as it would otherwise have been provincial jurisdiction, so that may be an additional hurdle. (In case it bears reminding, the Liberals have eschewed reviving the registry).
Roundup: An upcoming rounding error surplus
Joe Oliver delivered his fall economic update in Toronto, and as expected, the government is still technically in deficit until next year, at which point they are expected to turn out a modest $1.9 billion surplus, most of which is pretty much spent on their suite of “family” tax measures including the income splitting tax credit – all of it a challenge to the opposition parties and specifically Justin Trudeau, daring them to cancel the “tax cuts” (most of which aren’t really cuts). And it’s not a surplus plan without risks. Thomas Mulcair immediately called the figures a “mirage” because they depend on spending cuts, while Justin Trudeau referred to the tax measures as “unfair” because the income splitting measure in particular disproportionately benefits the wealthy. Andrew Coyne notes that Harper has put the opposition in a box with his tax cuts and expenditures unless those parties are willing to raise the GST. Paul Wells notes that this falls squarely within Harper’s re-election plans – that he doesn’t need to promise anything other than the fear that his opponents’ plans are ruinous. Stephen Gordon provides some context to Oliver’s pronouncements.
If not before Diefenbaker RT @InklessPW: Joe Oliver: Not since Diefenbaker has federal tax burden been this low. pic.twitter.com/Ov1ptUdYko
— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) November 12, 2014
If you're buying into the CPC surpluses, you're buying into their austerity as well. Federal direct program spending: pic.twitter.com/RaFFuUUwBu
— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) November 12, 2014