After a number of press conferences and stats on the situation in Fort McMurray, there was a bit of a somber mood in the House. It was also Star Wars Day (“May the 4th be with you”) so there’s that.
For #StarWarsDay, I'll try to spice up my #QP tweets a little. pic.twitter.com/nllNzH9ldB
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) May 4, 2016
Rona Ambrose and the opposition are ready to go. #QP pic.twitter.com/xqzed8AmKf
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) May 4, 2016
We heard confirmation yesterday from Duffy’s lawyer that he does indeed plan to return to the Senate despite some serious health concerns, not that he’ll find many friends there, which could make things more awkward than they’ll already be. In talking with one senator yesterday, I heard largely that he had few friends there to begin with, and because he spent his time fundraising for the party instead of doing actual Senate work, he never really got to know or ingratiate himself with his actual Senate colleagues, so it’s not like he’ll have a long list of people looking to welcome him back with open arms. And, because it’s unlikely the party will welcome him back, Duffy may continue to find himself on the outside. His lawyer also suggested that perhaps he should be paid back for the time in which he was suspended without pay, but you will find that argument will quickly go down in flames as senators will remind you that their internal discipline process is separate from the criminal trial, and his suspension without pay was internal discipline. And we’ll get a bunch of pundits lazily declaring that the Senate is still lax in its rules and processes, which it isn’t (and I would argue really wasn’t when Duffy was taking advantage of it), and oh look – Scott Reid did just that. Kady O’Malley admits her surprise in the ruling, while Andrew Coyne takes umbrage with “not criminal” as a standard that seems to be emerging. The Winnipeg Free Press editorial board notes how the new, better appointments could help to restore the Senate’s credibility, while CBC looks at what effect the Duffy verdict could have with future prosecutions of other senators’ questionable conduct.
It was rather a stunning result, where Senator Mike Duffy was acquitted of all 31 charges against him for fraud, breach of trust and bribery. The judge ruled that he found Duffy to be a credible witness, and said largely ruled that Duffy followed what few rules there were in place at the time, a fact that many would contest – there were rules that Duffy indeed skirted, but not to the degree of criminality, according to the judge. In fact, it goes against the very ruling of former Justice Ian Binnie in his arbitration report, who noted that there were rules and there was also common sense in determining the eligibility of expenses, and while he didn’t rule on criminality, it does contradict some of the judge’s reasoning in the Duffy verdict. That the judge singled out the PMO for scathing words is of very little comfort, particularly because of his belief that they somehow overrode Duffy’s free will in “forcing” him to accept that $90,000 cheque. Duffy is now free to return to work in the Senate, but he may not find it a very welcoming place, given his direct culpability to the hits on the institution’s credibility. That, and there will be eyes on his spending at all times, particularly by those senators who knew that there were rules in place – despite what Bayne and eventually the judge felt – and those rules have only become more stringent since. More from Köhler, Harper and Reevely, while Reevely had a few other thoughts over Twitter that also bear repeating.
After a full day in court, bits and pieces come back to you later. Right now it’s the assertion that Mike Duffy had no motive for fraud.
— David Reevely (@davidreevely) April 21, 2016
He and his wife Heather had money, exhibits showed. Not a ton, but enough cash and access to credit for all their needs.
— David Reevely (@davidreevely) April 21, 2016
Also, Duffy pocketed no cash from any of his impugned transactions. No deposits went into his account. No kickbacks.
— David Reevely (@davidreevely) April 21, 2016
I don’t really get how that would mean he’d have no motive to put tens of thousands of dollars in trips, etc., on the taxpayer.
— David Reevely (@davidreevely) April 21, 2016
Like, I can afford to buy my lunch. But if I find a way to bill the $8 to my employer, I still have $8 more for whatever I want.
— David Reevely (@davidreevely) April 21, 2016
It was a headshaker for me when Don Bayne argued it, and a headshaker again to hear the judge repeating it.
— David Reevely (@davidreevely) April 21, 2016
One thing that counted in Duffy’s favour, when it came to both residency and expense claims, was that he checked with other people.
— David Reevely (@davidreevely) April 22, 2016
He was concerned about his residency status in PEI when he was first appointed. The Ctown Guardian ran an op-ed saying he wasn’t resident.
— David Reevely (@davidreevely) April 22, 2016
So Duffy went and asked some people. The PM, Marjory LeBreton, David Tkachuk, the Senate Tory “guru” on such rules.
— David Reevely (@davidreevely) April 22, 2016
He was assured it would be fine, and acted on those assurances, and that helps his argument that he had no guilty mind.
— David Reevely (@davidreevely) April 22, 2016
All those people, of course, had a powerful interest in reassuring Duffy that it would be fine, and then in suppressing criticism.
— David Reevely (@davidreevely) April 22, 2016
I was all set to write about the Liberals invoking time allocation on the Air Canada bill, when I saw this story and it pissed me right off: Thomas Mulcair thinks that the assisted dying bill needs to be referred to the Supreme Court to ensure that it meets the tests set out in the Carter decision. And it set me off, because this is completely ridiculous. The bill hasn’t even been debated yet, and already they want to demand that the Supreme Court start weighing in? Are you serious? Oh, but of course it’s serious – it’s part of this ongoing pattern of a lack of moral courage that MPs are oh so good at demonstrating, where they don’t want to be seen to have to make any tough decisions, so they fob it off onto the courts to do it for them. And here, before he’s even spoken to the bill in the Commons, he wants the court to do the heavy lifting for him. And it’s an endemic pattern. Usually, it involves the officers of parliament, for whom MPs have so successfully fobbed off all of their work that those officers are de facto the official opposition these days, holding the government to account and doing the heavy lifting because MPs won’t. Oh sure, they’re happy to make snide remarks and to manufacture a bunch of fake outrage in QP, but they won’t scrutinise estimates anymore, and barely scrutinise bills. Hell, their very first bill in this parliament got sent to the Senate in an incomplete form because they couldn’t be bothered to actually check it, but rather passed it at all stages in 20 minutes. And now they want the Supreme Court to do even more of that homework for them. And just like with other homework, where MPs use officers of parliament as their partisan shields (witness the number of questions in QP predicated with “The PBO says…”), Mulcair is looking to use the Supreme Court to do just that for this bill. Before it’s even had a minute of debate. Rather than just stand up and say “In my analysis, this bill doesn’t meet the Carter decision,” no, he needs to hide behind the Supreme Court so that it doesn’t look like the criticism is coming from him. That MPs do this is ridiculous and infantile. You’re elected to do a job – so actually grow up and do it.
There was an interesting read over on Policy Options yesterday that all MPs should be paying attention to: a reminder that they should watch what they say in when speaking about bills, because the courts (and most especially the Supreme Court of Canada) are checking Hansard. When it comes to challenging laws, particularly Charter challenges, the issue of legislative intent is often raised, and the courts are forced to determine what it was the government intended to do when they passed these laws, and that can matter as to whether those laws will survive a Charter challenge. And if MPs – and most importantly ministers – give speeches full of bafflegab and meaningless talking points, it muddies the record that the courts rely on. The example here was the bill eliminating time-served sentencing credits, by which the court examined Rob Nicholson’s statements and tested them against the results of the law and found that no, eliminating the sentencing credits didn’t enhance public safety or confidence in the justice system. I would also add that it’s yet another reason why Senate committees have particular value, particularly when it comes to contentious bills that perhaps shouldn’t pass but do anyway under protest. Because their findings are on the record, when those laws inevitably wind up in the courts, those same objections can be read and taken into consideration. So yes, your speeches and work in parliament does matter, probably more than you think. Just be sure to use your words wisely, because they will come back to haunt you.
I was set to delve into the eight principles that Maryam Monsef laid out as part of what she plans to work on the electoral reform proposals around, when it turned out that Peter Loewen went ahead and tracked which of the three most likely voting systems corresponded to each principle. Suffice to say, not one system fit with each, which gives rise to the notion that Monsef will have to treat some principles more than others. Now, the NDP were outraged in QP yesterday that proportionality was not on this list of principles, though one could argue that the first principle, that votes are translated into election results without significant distortions, could be an endorsement of proportionality, except of course that it’s a perception problem based on a logical fallacy, which makes its inclusion as a principle to be a problem. I also have a problem with the inclusion of the third principle of using the system to increase diversity. That’s not a problem of the electoral system so much as it’s a problem of how parties seek out and nominate candidates. Most parties are getting better at this, but we should beware that including this principle would give rise to list systems, which in turn give rise to unaccountable token MPs in a two-tiered system. Monsef’s eighth principle, that the system needs to build consensus, is also problematic. Why? Because our system is built to hold people to account, and consensus makes this problematic. If everyone is accountable, then no one is accountable. Of course, I would remind everyone that there’s nothing actually wrong with our system as it is – what’s wrong is our crisis of civic literacy, which means that people don’t understand how the system works, leading them to assume that it’s broken – particularly if they succumb to sore loser tendencies and complain about things like “wasted votes.” If I may be so bold, Monsef is probably better off tinkering with the existing system to encourage greater participation (as we saw examples of in the last election, such as campus polling stations) and education rather than this attempt to rethink the system which will please no one and ensure that everything is worse off than it is now. We don’t have to break the system even further. We can stop this train before it goes off that cliff.
Peter Harder is asking the Senate for a budget of $800,000 to hire nine people to assist in his “government representative duties.” While I’m not opposed to the dollar figure, I’m a bit curious about why nine staff, but let’s back up first to the precedent that is guiding this whole exercise, being Stephen Harper’s fit of pique when Marjory LeBreton resigned as Government Leader in the Senate. By that point, Harper was being badgered and hectored daily about the ClusterDuff incident, as well as Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau, and he decided that his next Government Leader, Claude Carignan, was not going to be put into cabinet so as to give the appearance of distance. Of course, it was only the appearance, as Carignan was a minister in every respect but name, including being sworn into the Privy Council (necessary to get the briefing books to answer on behalf of the government in Senate QP). But because he wasn’t a minister, he couldn’t get funding from PCO for staff and needed activities, so Carignan went to the Senate and asked for a bigger budget, and he got it, hiring a staff of 14. With Trudeau now being fairly cute with the way he is handling the “government representative” file – Harder being sworn into Privy Council and able to attend cabinet meetings – the government decided that with the Carignan precedent, Harder can simply ask the Senate for the budget he needs. Now, he is getting some pushback about getting a budget without attendant responsibilities, such as answering in QP. They referred the decision to a subcommittee (that still hasn’t been filled), but I do wonder why nine. I can understand an admin staff, a policy person or two, a comms person, but without a caucus to manage, what exactly is so labour intensive about “shepherding the government’s agenda”? That’s a bit of time management, introducing the odd debate on government legislation, but what else would he be required to do? So perhaps we’ll get some answers, but it does seem a bit odd to me.
With so many things going on this morning — that Supreme Court decision on Métis and non-status Indians and the assisted dying bill being tabled — it was almost surprising that there weren’t any leaders (save Elizabeth May) present for QP today, but there we have it. Denis Lebel led off for the Conservatives, worrying about government transparency around the budget. Scott Brison responded by insisting that they have been transparent, including turning that information over to the PBO when asked. Lebel insisted that it wasn’t true, then went on to challenge Trudeau’s personal holdings. LeBlanc insisted that Trudeau was transparent as soon as he ran for the leadership. Andrew Scheer was up next, and recycled Rona Ambrose’s scripts from yesterday around transparency, for which Scott Brison repeated praise for the investments in the budget. Scheer tried to asking a too-cute-by-half question regarding the pipeline regulatory process, for which Jim Carr pointed out that the Bloc just yesterday insisted that Energy East was being imposed on them, hence they were going to take the time to get it right. Scheer repeated another script from the day before about oil tankers with Saudi oil, and Carr repeated that they were getting the process right. Charlie Angus led off for the NDP, demanding immediate action on mental healthcare funding for First Nations, for which Jane Philpott assured him they were working on it. Angus insisted it be done today, and Philpott noted the actions they have taken already. Brigette Sancoucy repeated the questions in French, and got the same answer, not surprisingly. Sansoucy then demanded more funds for palliative care, for which Philpott noted the bill tabled this morning, and assured her that they were doing so with the participation of the provinces.
The caucus meeting ran well overtime as Thomas Mulcair met with his MPs – assuming you call them “his” any longer, given the vote on Sunday – and when they did all finally emerge and faced the media, they put on a big show of solidarity, where they all got behind him in the Foyer. Mulcair announced that he was staying put for the time being, that they were united in this decision, and he was going to remain the caretaker until the new leader is chosen. Not that every MP felt quite the same, and perhaps none of them was more courageous than Don Davies, who bucked the trend of solidarity and it being unseemly to dissent in public, who openly said that while they were united, it wasn’t uniform. And here we are – Mulcair continues to be abrasive and snide in QP, and probably will for the foreseeable future, since he no longer has to care about appealing to anyone as he is on the slow departure. Meanwhile, Jason Markusoff writes about the party’s existential crisis in the wake of the convention, while Paul Wells reminds us that the NDP has been in existential crisis for years. John Geddes writes that the party had pretty much found its new leader – Megan Leslie – but she doesn’t want the job, and it doesn’t look like she’ll be convinced otherwise. (I would of course add that while Leslie ticks most of the requisite boxes, she also lacks enough of a killer instinct for political leadership, which would likely hobble her eventually). So we shall see how this all transpires going forward, but for now, Mulcair is digging in for the long haul, whether his caucus likes it or not.
MP Don Davies says he expressed his position on Monday and that hasn't changed – ie would be difficult for Mulcair stay on for year & half.
— Laura Stone (@l_stone) April 13, 2016
"We're a democratic Party. Unity doesn't mean uniformity," MP Davies says. #NDP
— Laura Stone (@l_stone) April 13, 2016
Well, that was unexpected. After the NDP voted to adopt a resolution that would see them take the Leap Manifesto back to their riding associations for further discussion – much to the protests of their Alberta delegates – Thomas Mulcair took to the stage to give a lacklustre speech that was basically a rehash of his election speech for the past, oh, ten months, with the whole laundry list of applause lines and nothing about why he deserves to stay at the helm. And when the party voted, they voted 52 percent in favour of a leadership review. Mulcair indicated that he plans to stay on as interim leader until a new one can be chosen, which may be a process of up to two years, but we’ll see how long that lasts once the caucus and national council have had their deliberations. Suffice to say, there has been a tonne of reaction. Jen Gerson digs into the events a little more including some local reaction to the Leap Manifesto resolution adoption, while Jason Markusoff discusses that adoption on the Alberta NDP. Markusoff and John Geddes enumerate eleven signs that showed that Mulcair wasn’t going to win the review vote. Here are the five steps the party needs to take next regarding the leadership, and a look back at the results of leadership reviews in years past. CBC looks at some possible contenders for the leadership contest, while Don Braid advises Rachel Notley to divorce her party from the federal NDP. Chantal Hébert notes that the writing was on the wall for Mulcair from the start of the convention, while Michael Den Tandt says that the Leap Manifesto will sink the NDP permanently. Paul Wells delivers a tour de force with the questions that the party now has to grapple with as they choose that new leader, and the divides that future leader will have to straddle.