First it was the Liberals offering their amendments to C-51 on Thursday, and yesterday it was the NDP. Monday we will get a laundry list from the Green Party, and now we hear that on Tuesday, the government will have amendments of their own, demonstrating that they’ve listened to at least a few of the criticisms on the bill, in particular removing the word “lawful” from demonstrations, and clarifying that CSIS won’t have arrest powers – changes that they hope will tone down the hysteria from activist groups who have been proclaiming that they would soon find themselves on terror watch-lists for dissenting against the government. Not so, the government insists – they want to keep the focus on the real terrorists. But they’re not doing anything more for oversight, and as far as they’re concerned, parliamentary oversight is a dead letter. What strikes me in all of this, however, is the way in which this is playing out like it did with amendments to the Fair Elections Act. Then, as with C-51, the government is making a few minor amendments that won’t have a very big impact on the bulk of the bill and its powers, but by at least proposing those small changes, they can turn around and look like they’ve been reasonable about listening to their critics. That way, they’ve barely put much water in their wine, but still try to come out looking like heroes, and letting politics once again triumph over good policy.
Tag Archives: Ethics
QP: OMG Jihadi Terrorists!
Monday after a break week, and attendance was pretty scare, particularly among the leaders. In Mulcair’s stead, David Christopherson shouted a denunciation of Bill C-51. In response, Stephen Blaney calmly explained that terrorists were targeted by the bill, not lawful protesters. Christopherson shouted about the Canadian Bar Association opposing the bill, to which Peter MacKay assured him that they were listening to experts, and touted the provisions for judicial warrants in the bill. Christopherson then changed topics, and shouted a question of when the Iraq mission extension motion would be tabled. Jason Kenney said that a motion would be tabled “soon,” and then denounced ISIS. Nycole Turmel asked the same again in French, got the same answer in French, and for her final question, Turmel noted the opposition of the government of Quebec to C-51. Blaney responded that he had already met with his counterparts. Marc Garneau led off for the Liberals, and noted the weak job numbers and wondered where the plan for permanent job creation was. Pierre Poilievre insisted that the only job plan the Liberals had was to raise taxes. Ralph Goodale asked about the cuts to infrastructure funds, but Candice Bergen gave a non sequitur response about family tax cuts. Goodale demanded more money for Build Canada, to which Poilievre repeated his red herring about higher Liberal taxes.
QP: Questions on combat and friendly fire
Tuesday in the Commons, and all of the leaders were present, making it a question of whether everyone would be tiptoeing around the friendly fire question again. Thomas Mulcair led off by asking why Kurdish forces weren’t aware of the presence of Canadian troops on the front lines. Stephen Harper responded that it was not a combat situation but friendly fire, and that the spoke with the Iraqi prime minister about it, while investigations were ongoing. Mulcair pointed out that previous friendly fire deaths on a training mission were counted as combat deaths, and why not this incident. Harper noted that there are risks but they were not expecting to come under fire, and noted that it was better we fight them over there than over here. Mulcair tried to insist in a pair of questions why Canadian soldiers were on the front line, which wasn’t was voted on in Parliament, and Harper retorted that Parliament voted for it because it was the right thing to do. Mulcair repeated words that Harper said prior to the vote to prove his point, but Harper claimed there were “falsehoods” in that question and noted that the forces were acting according to their guidelines. Justin Trudeau was up next, and noted some of Jason Kenney’s many Twitter gaffes of late — including when he tweeted about the death of Nathan Cirillo — and wondered if he had been repremanded. Harper insisted that Kenney had taken over a difficult portfolio, and was doing well. Trudeau retorted about the recent statements by Chris Alexander and John Williamson dividing Canadians when they should be dealing with the economy — and when would the budget be tabled. Harper noted that Trudeau was playing games of his own with division. Trudeau repeated the question in French, and Harper went after him for pandering to the “anti-woman” culture that gives rise to the niqab.
Roundup: Danielle Smith’s problematic tales
The Danielle Smith/Wildrose drama continued yesterday, as details about her decision to defect to the ruling Progressive Conservatives started spilling out, and Smith herself started giving interviews. Interviews that, well, didn’t offer a whole lot of clarity to the issues at hand. The shift in tone from when two of her former MLAs crossed the floor just weeks ago, the statements about the party culture of the PCs, about leadership changes not being the answer – all blown out of the water as Smith equivocated about all of it. There were some tantalizing hints, however, in some of what she said, talking about how the party was already self-destructing, as the grassroots membership voted against policies that would have moved them into the social mainstream rather than keeping them squarely as a protest movement of cranks and what Heather Mallick dubs “angry pyjamas.” As a leader who was increasingly disconnected from her party, she had choices of her own to make. Then comes in revelations about talks with the centrist Alberta Party to merge – in Smith’s estimation to help get an urban base for a rural protest party – and that Preston Manning had a hand in convincing the other Wildrose MLAs to cross the floor. It’s incredible to read, but I still find myself unmoved by this notion that it’s a kind of “reunification,” and that it’s all about the conservative movement as a whole. The problem with that is that it’s hard to consider the PC party as conservatives to a great extent because they’re more populists than anything, and that’s what allows them to remain as amorphous as they are and keep reshaping themselves to allow the One Party State™ to continue carrying on. That it merely absorbs the more strident fiscal conservatism of the Wildrose members is merely a sign of the times. By that same token, the federal Conservatives are also more populists than they are conservatives, if you judge by their fiscal policies, so it’s hard for me to swallow this narrative around the merger. It’s also hard to see how nine MLAs would cross out of the sake of careerism, but again, I go back to Smith’s comment about the party in a state of self-destruction. I’m sure more stories will continue to tumble out, but it’s a lot to try to wrap your head around. Kathleen Petty offers some thoughts, while Jen Gerson pitches for the leadership of the merged party – in 2042.
If Danielle Smith quit as Opposition Leader to get that sweet, sweet cabinet-minister salary, she’s in for a disappointment: they’re equal.
— Colby Cosh (@colbycosh) December 19, 2014
Roundup: Frosty relations
Jennifer Ditchburn remarks on the frosty state of relations between the Liberals and the NDP on the Hill these days, with each side accusing the other of playing dirty politics around the harassment allegations, and from what I’ve heard behind the scenes, even dirtier politics were being attempted but got blunted along the way. The NDP have tended to always have a particular loathing for Liberals, and recent events seem to have made everything worse. That said, I’ve also noticed a certain intensification of enmity toward the Liberals from both the Conservatives and the NDP in venues like Question Period of late. While Harper will respond to NDP questions by chiding them about something or being simply dismissive, with the Liberals he throws out accusations and dredges up irrelevant history. The NDP have increasingly tried to tie the Liberals into questions that are supposed to be directed toward the government, or to invent credit for the good things the Liberals are doing. It’s almost as if both see where the real threat to their fortunes lies.
Roundup: Misplaced corruption claims
I find myself troubled by this study that shows that a third of Canadians think that politicians routinely accept bribes, because I can’t think of a claim that could be further from the truth, but it’s also something that I think that We The Media need to have a long, hard think about as well. On the face of it, Canada does pretty well when it comes to running clean governments – what corruption there is, is pretty small change, and spending scandals tend to be isolated and low-key. The Sponsorship Scandal was pennies, really, in the grand scheme of things, but it’s been made out to have been a giant kleptocratic conspiracy by both political opponents of the Liberals, and some media talking heads for dramatic effect. Senators padding their expenses? Again, small change and most of it was caught by Senate administration before it hit the media. So where is this perception coming from? I think the preponderance of American scandals is rubbing off on our own politicians a lot, where they don’t have campaign spending limits or limits on corporate donations. So when people here think that the oil and gas lobby has bought off our politicians, I ask “How, exactly?” $1100 doesn’t really buy you a whole lot. And perhaps We The Media need to do a better job of putting scandal into context so that we don’t create this perception that our government is conducting graft at the kind of Third World levels that they’re made out to be. There is a line between accountability and hyperbole, and it’s disappointing to see how often it gets completely ignored.
Roundup: The Tabulator gong show
Over in the New Brunswick election last night, their new Tabulator machines which were supposed to deliver election results faster all pretty much fried and turned into a big gong show, with missing ballots and unreadable results, while the company who was contracted out to run the machines didn’t answer calls. With no results being trustworthy, parties began demanding manual recounts, and with a virtual tie result, the final results likely won’t be clear in the morning. And so, let this once again be a lesson that paper ballots should always be used with manual counts because that’s the only tried and true way with actual accountability.
Roundup: An emergency debate, such as it was
The Commons had their “emergency debate” on the situation in Iraq last night, using debate loosely, of course. After all, “debate” these days tends to largely mean reading monotonous speeches into the record that were all pre-written and don’t actually debate what has already been said. The NDP hammered away at demanding a vote on deployment, never mind that military deployment is a Crown prerogative and thus not subject to a vote, and in fact, shouldn’t be because it launders the prerogative and the accountability. But if Mulcair wants to give Harper political cover so that he can, in the future, say that the Commons decided on the matter and that they are culpable when things go wrong because there was a vote, well, it makes it kind of awkward for the opposition, no? It’s part of Responsible Government – the Commons has given the government the authority to govern, and if they don’t like it, then they can withdraw confidence. Voting to “make decisions” is not actually their role – accountability is. The NDP were also childishly mocking the Liberals for largely not being there for the debate – except that they only got two speaking slots the whole night, which they used near the beginning, and as we’ve established that it’s not a real debate, it does seem fairly pointless to have a bunch of people there to simply endure repetitive prepared speeches – and make no mistake, they are repetitive – with no real ability to respond or add to what’s been said. But this is the state of our parliament these days.
Roundup: Four new workers!
It’s a special kind of desperation for a good news story when the government holds a press conference to announce four new jobs being filled. Specifically, four jobs on the Irving shipyard refurbishment in Halifax, which will be filled by Aboriginals. I’m still not sure the point of the announcement other than Peter MacKay saying “Look, we’re being diverse!” only they’re not even government positions (though they are getting a lot of government money). Sure, it’s nice that Irving has an Aboriginal employment strategy as part of its contracting procedures, but this was worthy of a government press conference? Sorry, but the news cycle isn’t that slow.
Roundup: Clarity for First Nations titles
The Supreme Court has given a unanimous ruling granting a title claim to the Tsilhqot’in First Nation in BC, over a large area of land in the south central part of the province, ending a 25-year court battle over forestry claims and a 150-year dispute between that First Nation and the Crown. Because most of BC’s First Nations don’t have treaties yet with the government, this ruling impacts them in particular, and will make sure that the government has a greater role to play in fulfilling its consultative duties to First Nations as more resource and pipeline projects come up. The ruling also declares that provincial governments have regulatory authority over land obtained by First Nations people through court cases or land claim negotiations. While the ruling has been said to give clarity to negotiations, it also raises the possibility that some First Nations will abandon their negotiations with the government in favour of turning to the courts to establish title or land claims, which should be a red flag seeing as treaty negotiation is a Crown prerogative, and we should be careful about delegating it to the courts. Terry Glavin gives the backstory to the whole dispute dating back to 1864 here.