Tag Archives: Ethics Commissioner

Roundup: Angst over a poor metric

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A lot of ink (or, well, pixels, I supposed) has been spilled over the past week about those leaked documents where Justin Trudeau allegedly told NATO leadership privately that Canada will never reach the two percent of GDP defence spending target, which shouldn’t be a shock to anyone who has paid a modicum of attention. And while we get these kinds of analysis pieces that try to dig more into the two percent target and its significance, we have to remember that it’s a lousy metric. Greece has been above it for years because of a stagnant economy and including military pensions in their calculations—and you can easily get to 2 percent of GDP by tanking your economy, while growing your economy makes that spending target increase impossibly. The other thing that the two percent metric doesn’t capture is engagement—Canada routinely steps up to meet its NATO commitments even without reaching the spending target, while certain European countries may meet the spending target but don’t participate in these missions (again, looking at you, Greece, but not just Greece).

Part of the problem is that while this is a conversation that requires some nuance, the two percent target is too easy for journalists to focus on, and that becomes the sole focus. It’s a problem because We The Media keep reducing this to a single binary “are we meeting/not meeting that two percent” rate, which doesn’t help advance the conversation in any way, but most of us refuse to learn because a simple binary is easier to understand/convey.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Fighting continues in the western part of Bakhmut, as Wagner Group mercenaries are worried about the coming Ukrainian counter-offensive. Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation says that new technologies are going to help them win the war, particularly as they enhance the accuracy of modern artillery.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1649397099300093954

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QP: A special kind of incompetence to read the same script over and over

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Neither the prime minister nor his deputy was present today, but neither were any of the other leaders, so that didn’t necessarily bode well from the start. Pierre Paul-His got things started in French, and he repeated Pierre Poilievre’s lead talking points from yesterday—that the prime minister has a “special kind of incompetence” for increasing the cost of the bureaucracy while still allowing them to go on strike, and demanded he fix what was broken. Mona Fortier praised the work of civil servants, and that they continue to bargain in good faith for a fair agreement. Paul-Hus demanded to know why the prime minister wasn’t answering, speculating that it was because he was too busy planning his next vacation, to which Mark Holland somewhat crankily responded that for the third day, yes the prime minister took a vacation with his family, and they stayed at the home of a family friend. Jasraj Hallan took over in English, and repeated the same “special kind of incompetence” talking points with an angrier tone, and Fortier repeated her same points about praise and good-faith negotiations. Hallan then insisted that the only people getting ahead are “crony insiders,” blamed the government for inflation, and turned this into a rant about the “scam” of the carbon price. Holland noted a lot of hypocrisy in the question, then listed the ways in which the leader of the opposition avails himself of government funding—house, car, office, staff—before he talks on the phone with American billionaires to try and destroy the CBC, and wondered if Poilievre should have a Twitter label that notes he’s 99 percent government-funded. Hallan got indignant, and said that nobody believes the government, before he completely mischaracterised the PBO’s report on carbon prices, and Holland needled back and wondered how the Conservatives are trading in conspiracy theories on Reddit and 4chan.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he tried to insist that appointing people who have connections to the Trudeau Foundation could mean that the prime minister has nothing to do with it. Holland got up and recited that Trudeau has not been associated with the Foundation for ten years. Therrien went on a tear about Beijing-backed donations and demanded a public inquiry. Holland insisted that foreign interference is concerning for everyone in the Chamber.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and ranted about contracts to consultants rather than giving civil servants a good deal. Helena Jaczek stated that there is a need for flexibility but they are keeping an eye on contracts. Gord Johns repeated the same accusation in English, and Jaczek stated that the budget had plans to reduce that kind of consultant spending.

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Roundup: Impressing the Scots

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The Speaker of the Scottish Parliament paid a visit to Ottawa’s Parliament earlier in the week and was apparently so impressed with our Question Period that she plans to write a report to take suggestions from it. I’m frankly a little dumbfounded, because our QP is pretty gods damned terrible in pretty much every respect, but let me first take what her observations are.

One of them is that ours operates bilingually fairly seamlessly. Well, she didn’t see the seams, in any case. In Scotland, they have translation available for those who speak Gaelic, but it’s not automatically provided like English/French is here. But she didn’t seem to see the stress that the pandemic has caused our simultaneous interpretation abilities, from the injuries to interpreters, or the strains to resources that are now severely limiting the function of our Parliament because MPs didn’t care enough about those interpreters as they abused them over Zoom, and lo, we’re staring down a crisis.

She was impressed with the “brevity” of our QP, where it operates in thirty-five second questions and answers. I’m not sure that’s a good thing, frankly, because it has largely just created a demand for talking points, both in asking and answering questions, and so much of the exercise is useless—the questions must contain key phrases (and that’s getting worse), while the answers are frequently non-sequiturs or just bland pabulum that is disconnected from what has been asked. I’m not sure what she saw that was so impressive. The fact that it happened at a rapid pace and bilingually looks impressive from afar, but spend more than a day here, and the uglier underside quickly becomes apparent. Yes, ours can be more dynamic than Westminster’s because we don’t require questions be asked in advance in order for briefings to be prepared, so the PM must be nimble when answering, but again, most of those answers are going to be vague and superficial.

It’s kind of flattering that they’re seeing the good we have to offer, but these days, our rules and system has given rise to an increasingly unserious Chamber, and that’s not something we should be exporting to anyone.

Ukraine Dispatch:

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the border with Poland and Belarus, citing a need to be ready in case Belarus became another invasion route for Russia.

https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/1648688637670830083

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Roundup: An abuse of parliamentary privilege

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I’m going to start off with the caveat that I don’t know a lot of what is happening in Nova Scotia politics, but I came across this story yesterday that is pretty concerning for the practice of parliamentary democracy across Canada. During debate on a bill around use of non-disclosure agreements in sexual assault cases, an independent MLA (formerly a Progressive Conservative but was ejected from caucus in 2021) tabled a document that she claimed was a non-disclosure agreement that a former female staffer had been coerced into signing with the PC Party. (To make things more interesting, said staffer died last year, and was working for this MLA at the time, and she says the document was found in the staffer’s effects—and, the party’s former leader was forced out over inappropriate behaviour toward a female staffer, so I’m not sure how many of these factors actually connect).

A government minister has since moved a motion to force her to retract her comments about the incident, and if she doesn’t, that she should be ejected from the Chamber until she does. And that’s a capital-P Problem. Said independent MLA has since complained to the province’s justice department that the move is unconstitutional…but the justice department can’t do anything about it, because this is clearly a matter that is within parliamentary privilege. But it absolutely violates all of our constitutional norms, and should be a warning sign about the lengths to which parties will abuse their majorities in legislatures to silence or bully opposition members. It sounds like the provincial Liberals and NDP will be opposing this motion, but the PCs do have a majority, so they may not be able to do much in the long run. I would not be surprised if the Speaker finds that the motion is out of order, but this is genuinely frightening about how much they are willing to abuse process and parliamentary privilege like this.

Don’t get me wrong—parliament or the legislatures do have the power to eject members, but it needs to be for very serious wrongdoing, such as being convicted of a serious crime, and if the member refuses to resign gracefully, then they can order the seat vacated. But those are extreme circumstances that have yet to be actually tested (because in virtually every case, sanity prevails and they resign with a shred of dignity still intact). But this is an unconscionable abuse of that power, an abuse of a parliamentary majority, and sets a very dangerous precedent for the future, and the PC members who thought this was at all appropriate should not only be ashamed, but should probably consider tendering their resignations for this debacle.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces say they repelled 45 Russian attacks around Bakhmut over a twenty-four-hour period, continuing to grind down the Russian forces while they await more arms from allies like the US in order to begin the spring counter-offensive.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1643326962226585604

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Roundup: Ford blames Trudeau for his failures (again)

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You’re seeing a lot of blame being placed at the federal government for the rising crime rates, and a tonne of disinformation about the so-called “catch and release” bail system, which is not catch-and-release, and in some cases is pure distraction. Case in point was around the murder of a teenager at a Toronto subway station. Doug Ford is making noises blaming the federal government for this incident, demanding immediate changes to the bail system—changes that would no doubt be unconstitutional, since the changes they have agreed to with provincial counterparts are very narrowly targeted.

But the real problem is in the provinces. It’s provinces under-resourcing courts, and mostly underfunding social programmes that would keep these kinds of people out of the criminal justice system. In this particular case, the accused has a long history of interactions with the justice system because he has been failed at every turn, and was in dire need of rehabilitation and mental health supports. And you know whose responsibility that is? The province. Ford has been under-funding the system for years, most especially healthcare, which he deliberately underfunds and then cries poor in demanding more federal money, with no strings attached (which he then puts on the province’s bottom line to reduce his deficit, like he did with pandemic spending). Locking these people up in jail doesn’t solve the problem, and only makes it worse in the long-run, and yes, Ford’s predecessors are also guilty of underfunding the system (though I don’t seem to recall them underspending their healthcare budget—merely cutting it to the bone in the name of “efficiencies.”)

The problems we’re seeing are broader, more systemic societal problems, and removing the presumption of innocence and the right to bail doesn’t change that. In fact, it just creates more problems, and political leaders need to start recognising this fact rather than just blaming the federal government for codifying a number of Supreme Court of Canada decisions.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces destroyed 14 out of 17 Iranian-made drones launched over Ukraine, mostly around Odessa. Over in Bakhmut, Ukrainian forces are mocking the Russian claims they captured the city, saying that the Russians raised their flag over “some kind of toilet.” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be visiting Warsaw this week to meet with leaders, as well as Ukrainians taking shelter in that country.

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Roundup: The thing about the interim ethics commissioner

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The issue with the appointment of Dominic LeBlanc’s sister-in-law as the interim ethics commissioner has been nearly inexplicable, until you actually look at the position itself. The optics are absolutely bad, and a very real problem because of the whole issue around perceived conflicts of interest. The problem, however, is that they may not have had much choice in the matter given how the role is structured legislatively. While LeBlanc had no role in the decision, the PMO told CBC that the Privy Council Office—meaning the non-partisan civil service—is responsible for the decision, which no member of the government has stated to date, and you think they would have, if they could communicate their way out of a wet paper bag.

The legislated criteria for who can be the ethics commissioner is very restrictive—you need to be either a former judge, the formal head of a quasi-judicial administrative tribunal, or the former Senate Ethics Officer. Unspoken qualification is that you would also have to be bilingual, which limits your field even further, particularly for former judges. And while the salary was commensurate of that of a federally-appointed judge, the posting for the new commissioner cuts that by a third to bring it in line with other officers of parliament, which is going to make it all the more unattractive, particularly to former judges who are going to take one look at it and decide that they don’t need the aggravation for the amount of money they’re being offered.

There’s a reason why Mary Dawson’s term needed to be extended two or three times while they looked for a replacement. There’s a reason why they pretty much had no choice but to go with Mario Dion when he applied, because there was nobody else (and Dion was not the best choice on offer). And when Dion resigned the post suddenly (two years early) for health reasons, they were pretty much screwed because they couldn’t extend him until a replacement could be found. The solution was the most senior person in the office—said sister-in-law of Dominic LeBlanc—who has been there for ten years. And there is already an ethics screen in place regarding LeBlanc, to keep her out of any conflicts. It’s likely that PCO’s determination was that this was the best of a bad situation, but it’s not good. The interim commissioner doesn’t qualify to become the permanent commissioner, so this situation is temporary. But ultimately, this is a failing of the legislation, because MPs were trying to play tough when they brought it in, and wound up shooting themselves in the foot over it. And now there is an untenable situation because they boxed themselves in. Good job, guys. Your posturing has really paid off.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces report that the Russian advance on the outskirts of Bakhmut has been “halted—or nearly halted.” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy marked the one-year anniversary of the liberation of Bucha, and the discovery of the horrors left in the Russians’ wake, making another call for justice for war crimes.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1641810694852026369

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Roundup: No political interference, and an incompetent commissioner

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The final report of the Mass Casualty Commission, arising from the Nova Scotia mass shooting, was released yesterday, and it is wholly damning on the RMCP, as well as on the state of gun control measures. While I have a column about RCMP reform coming out later today, there were a couple of other threads that I wanted to pick up on here. One is that Trudeau says that they’ll make changes to the RCMP, but I’m dubious. Like the column will point out, there’s almost nothing left to save, and I fear that inertia will carry the day—especially when Saskatchewan starts bellyaching about recommendations to phase out training at Depot in Regina, and provincialism will win the day.

The other is that the whole drama around allegations of political interference in the investigation have been resolved, and unsurprisingly, there wasn’t any. “[Commissioner Brenda] Lucki’s audio recorded remarks about the benefits to police of proposed firearms legislation were ill-timed and poorly expressed, but they were not partisan and they do not show that there had been attempted political interference,” the report concluded. Because the claims never made any sense. The gun control changes were not drawn up on the back of a napkin in the wake of the shooting—they had been worked on for months at this point, and were being finalised, and Lucki would have known that because she would have been consulted the whole way through. And there was no reason for the local detachment not to release that information because they knew where the guns came from, and there was no investigation to jeopardise. The report had a lot of things to day about the RCMP needing to be more transparent, and to learn how to admit mistakes, and yes, it did call out that they were actively lying to the public throughout the incident and its aftermath.

One of the other aspects yesterday that deserves to be called out even more is that the interim RCMP Commissioner was given the report the day before, and he couldn’t be bothered to read it, or to have an adequate briefing on its contents, before he went before the media. It’s rank incompetence, and all the more reason why the Force needs to be disbanded.

Ukraine Dispatch:

At least six Russian missiles hit the city of Kharkiv yesterday. Here is a look at Bucha, one year since its liberation.

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QP: Ignoring the Mass Casualty report

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The prime minister was away in Truro, Nova Scotia, for the release of the Mass Casualty Commission report, while his deputy was on the west coast getting a head start on selling her budget to the public. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he accused the government censoring debate on a bill that would censor what people can watch online—which is a complete fabrication, because closure is not censorship, and Bill C-11 is about making web giants pay into CanCon funds and has nothing to do with censorship—saying that the bill would give “woke” Ottawa control over Quebeckers’ media, called out the Bloc for supporting the bill, and instead that only the Conservatives stand against censorship. Greg Fergus got up and insisted there is a consensus in Quebec that artists deserve to be paid, and only the Conservatives are offside. Poilievre insisted there was no culture without freedom of expansion, accused the government disinformation, said that Margaret Atwood opposes the bill (note: she did not understand what was in it, but was taken in by misinformation), he called the CRTC a “woke agency” (which is risible), said they could use algorithms to censor debate (false), and insisted that Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was not an instruction manual. Fergus insisted that these were just the same talking points of Big Tech, and that the Conservatives won’t stand against them. Poilievre insisted that the bill would shut down any voices they don’t like, and demanded to know why the prime minister was shutting down debate. Fergus insisted that web giants are not paying their fair share, and wondered why the opposition was against that. Poilievre tried to insist this was about free speech, and tried to use a prop before he got warned about it by the Speaker. Mark Holland got up this time, and used his sanctimonious tone to admonish the Conservatives for pretending that anyone in the Chamber doesn’t believe in free speech, and that they have the free speech enough to go around the country spreading misinformation. Poilievre insisted that he would keep beating the government in debate, before switching to the topic of carbon prices, and the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s report on carbon prices and insisting it “proved” the Liberals were wrong (never mind they cherry pick figures and butcher the statistics and distributional effects). Terry Duguid recited the good news talking points about rebate in return. 

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he raised the money for countering foreign interference in the budget, and demanded a public inquiry. Maninder Sidhu read talking points about those line items. Therrien insisted that this was proof that they already had concluded what David Johnston would find and demanded a public inquiry, and this time, Mark Holland got up to sing Johnston’s praise.

Peter Julian rose for the NDP, and he raised the conclusion of Mass Casualty Commission report and demanded immediate funds for victims of domestic violence. Pam Damoff recited that they will examine the report and come back with actions in due course. Alexandre Boulerice took over in French, and demanded the government copy Joe Biden’s green industrial policy. Seamus O’Regan insisted that the projects will be built either by union jobs or paid prevailing union wages, which was proof they were on the right track.

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QP: Facile questions about the deficit

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While the prime minister was in town and in his office, he was not available for QP on Wednesday as is his usual practice, as he was instead speaking virtually at the Summit for Democracy, before he and his deputy whisked off to a photo op. That’s right—the day after Budget Day, and the finance minister was also absent from the Chamber. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and both gave several falsehoods about deficits and inflation before complaining there was no path to balance in the budget. Randy Boissonnault pointed out the measures to help, and that this was a budget about hope. Poilievre listed four things that Chrystia Freeland said last year that he deemed false (to varying degrees of veracity), and wondered how anyone could trust anything this government says. Boissonnault listed the declining deficit and low debt-servicing charges. Poilievre returned to French to complain the government has “lost control” of finances, and this time François-Philippe Champagne said that it was the Conservatives who were disconnected because the government did the three things that Canadians were asking of them. Poilievre switched back to English to worry about people living in their parents’ basement while the country “goes broke.” (It’s not going broke). This time Karina Gould got up to decry that the Conservatives had already declared they were going to vote against things like the grocery rebate and supports for families. Poilievre denounced the budget as “tax and squander,” and once again, Gould reiterated the things the Conservatives were voting against.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he listed measures that were not green, and wanted an admission that money was going to oil companies. Steven Guilbeault said that this was not the case, and quoted the David Suzuki Foundation’s praise. Blanchet complained the budget was anti-Quebec because it meddles in provincial jurisdiction on things like dental care, but Guilbeault just kept reading praise for the budget.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, patted himself on the back for the things in the budget he liked, and said that if the government needs more ideas, they can tackle the housing crisis. Ahmed Hussen recited the elements of the National Housing Strategy that he trots out. Singh repeated his backpatting in French, and this time, Irek Kusmierczyk read their plans about reforming EI, and that it is on the way.

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Roundup: The frustrated Commissioner was part of the problem

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The outgoing Ethics Commissioner is starting to do exit interviews, and he’s expressing frustration that these kinds of ethics violations keep happening, despite the law being in place for 17 years now. To that I say two things:

1) No matter how many rules you put in place, it won’t matter because the Liberals under Trudeau fundamentally believe that so long as they mean well, the ends will justify the means, and that it’s better to simply apologise after having broken rules than it is to scrupulously and slavishly adhere to them in the first place. You can’t just put new rules to stop them from that particular belief, and no amount of training from the Commissioner’s office is likely to shake them from such beliefs.

2) Our ethics regime sucks, in large part because so much of it is predicated on the whims of the Commissioner, and this Commissioner had a lot of whims. His predecessor had a habit of reading her mandate so narrowly that nothing ever applied, except for a small handful of cases, one of which was Trudeau’s vacation with the Aga Khan, in which she made up rules around what a family friendship entails. The current Commissioner has been the opposite, reading his mandate very, very expansively so that things it should not encompass, it does (like the SNC-Lavalin issue). He has made up statutory interpretation from whole cloth, such as the definition of what constitutes “family” under the Act, and capturing relatives through marriage that no other statute in the country captures in its definitions (the issue with Dominic LeBlanc). There is no consistency, and even when they believe they are within the law, he will make up a rule that says they’re not.

I’m not suggesting the Liberals are blameless, because they’re not (see the part about them not caring about rules), but the statue itself is a problem, as are the perceptions around it, and the apocalyptic language being used to describe minor transgressions. They keep talking about the transgressions making it hard to have trust in politicians, but when the system itself fails them because it’s poorly designed and poorly administered, it’s just one vicious circle that nobody wants to show a way out of.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 359:

Russia launched 36 missiles early in the day and struck the country’s oil refinery, while also shelling two dozen settlements in the east and south of the country.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1626479351045804032

https://twitter.com/denys_shmyhal/status/1626151901686337538

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