As the Conservatives grasp their diminishing influence in the opposition benches, their threats of using the Senate to get their way seem to be increasing. Yesterday, as the Liberal government announced their bill to repeal two of the anti-union private members’ bills that passed in the last parliament, at least one Conservative MP was beating his chest and threatening that the Senate would be used to defeat the bill. The problem? That he’s unlikely to find allies in the Senate to carry out this threat. You see, one of these bills badly fractured the Conservative Senate caucus in the last parliament, which is almost certainly what led to Marjory LeBreton tendering her resignation as Government Leader early, and her threats to the caucus very nearly provoked a revolt. Given how much trouble they went through to pass the bill in June, and how much they had to crack the whip and still have dissenters, those who abstained or who just refused to show up for the vote, I really doubt that they would have any fight left in them on this bill. It makes the insistence from their MP caucus that they will somehow be a rearguard action to stop bills they don’t like from being passed as not only fanciful, but actually pretty insulting to that Senate caucus, who they’re treating as just another group of backbenchers that they can push around, and with a leadership contest soon to get underway, they’re going to find that their senators are about to start getting a lot more independent, as the guy who appointed them is no longer around and his influence has almost faded entirely as even his MP caucus swallows themselves whole to reverse their previously held positions now that he’s gone. If they think that they can still wield that influence to preserve this unpopular and contentious bill, well, they may soon find themselves getting a rather rude awakening. (Meanwhile, the Conservative allegation that the repeal of those bills was somehow repayment for an illegal union donation that the Liberals didn’t even know about, and which was repaid as soon as it was uncovered, is laughable considering that the repeal of these bills was in the bloody platform).
Tag Archives: Euthanasia
Roundup: Speaker Regan’s futile vow
The Speaker’s lecture about heckling versus ideas on Tuesday continues to make the rounds, alongside the Samara study that I wrote about the other day, but as Nick Taylor-Vaisey concludes, the vows to end heckling won’t last, which is just as well. What gets me are the constant head-shaking about how heckling wouldn’t happen in any other workplace, so why should it be acceptable in parliament. My response would be, and will always be, is that parliament is different, and that it shouldn’t be like any other workplace. Consider it a kind of by-product of parliamentary privilege that keeps the institution self-governing and in its own particular bubble against some of the laws and regulations that apply to other people. Parliament is special because nowhere else does this kind of debate happen, is there an accountability function to be had in open and on public display, and nowhere else is the exchange of ideas both vigorous, theatrical, and relevant to whether or not that MP will continue again past the next election. Once again, I will offer the caveat that yes, there is boorish and sexist heckling that should be called out and stamped down, but that is not necessarily representative of all heckling, and really, we haven’t seen the likes of a “calm down, baby” that made the John Crosbie/Sheila Copps exchanges so much a part of our collective memory. We don’t have MPs singing the national anthem to drown out the other side, or setting off firecrackers. And it’s a safe bet that the vast majority of MPs aren’t showing up for debates inebriated – something that could not be assured during the days of martini lunches and copious alcohol all around the Hill. This is probably the calmest our QPs have been in a generation, and yet we are still faced with these constant admonitions that it’s still somehow terrible. No, it’s not. If Elizabeth May can’t hear, that’s as much a function of the terrible acoustics in the Chamber, where you can’t often hear what’s being said even during the dullest of regular debates, than it is the reactions of those around her. If there is an issue that should be tackled, it’s the constant applause and standing ovations, and the use of scripts that has destroyed the debating ability of our MPs. Heckling is honestly the least of our worries.
Roundup: A faux national unity crisis
Energy East is going to be a new crisis of national unity, comes the overwrought cries of the Conservatives in response to the opposition of several Quebec mayors, including Denis Coderre, to the pipeline. And you just have to sigh a little and shake your head, because what else can you do, particularly because you’ve got two fairly powerless mobs yelling at one another and shaking their fists? The Alberta government, mind you, isn’t stirring things up, and the Quebec government, who has more of a say in this than the local governments do, is not making the same bellicose noises against the pipeline. Instead you’ve got Brad Wall stirring the pot, trying to score points for his upcoming election, and Rona Ambrose making patently ridiculous statements about how this is supposedly like the National Energy Programme of the early 1980s, which boggles the mind. And never mind the fact that Trudeau has indicated general support for the pipeline (predicated on a proper environmental assessment and getting the requisite “social licence” from the communities that is passes through), apparently that’s not good enough either for Ambrose and the Conservatives, who continue to insist that all government positions be bellicose statements – because that worked out so well for them when they were in power. Trudeau has a meeting with Coderre this morning, and no doubt it’ll be discussed, but the fact that you have groups who aren’t involved in the decision-making trying to pit Alberta and Quebec against one another just makes it look like the two kids in the backseat who are hollering “Mom! He’s touching me!” It’s tiresome and infantile, and if they’re trying to make Trudeau look like the reasonable grown-up in all of this, well, they just might get their wish.
Roundup: “Elected” senatorial whinging
One of Alberta’s “senators in waiting” is grumbling about the current Senate appointment process, believing that the people of Alberta “have spoken” when they chose his name from a list to one day fill a Senate seat for that province. The problem, of course, is that the Supreme Court declared that whole process – which was a bit of a farce from its very inception – unconstitutional. If one wants Senate elections, they need a constitutional amendment with the seven-provinces-representing-fifty-percent-of-the-population amending formula. And don’t give me the “but it’s a non-binding election” line either, as Justice Cromwell very rightly pushed back during the Senate Reference hearings, “why not hold a consultative auction then? Is that any less valid?” The thing with the excuse for Senate elections as they have existed in this country so far is that they don’t actually provide any form of accountability is because they are for a non-renewable term. With an election, the re-election is where the accountability comes in. Anyone can get elected, no matter how terrible – we’ve seen untold number of examples of this in the past, and with the process that Alberta put into place, most of their Senate “elections” were just names on a ballot – most of the time, there was little advertising, there were no televised debates, and generally only one party participated as the Liberals boycotted the process and the NDP had no interest seeing as they want the Senate abolished anyway. At least when you have MPs who more or less accidentally get elected, you can judge them the next time around to see whether they did a good job or not (and we got a taste of this with the demise of many of those NDP MPs who got elected in the “Orange Wave” in 2011). Complicating the process in the Alberta conception of Senate “consultative elections” was the notion that they were based on provincial party nominations which don’t necessarily correspond to the federal parties that Senators caucus in (or at least used to until a couple of years ago), and what would one’s platform be anyway? It’s pretty hard to make legislative promises as a Senator, and promising transparency in spending is a sideshow compared to the actual legislative duties that they are expected to perform. And if memory serves, none of the “elected” Senators that Harper appointed have put forward any bills in the Senate either. One of them is also now concern trolling about the new “independent” senators as not being accountable to a party caucus, which makes one wonder why the big fuss about electing a Senator if one simply expects them to follow party lines despite the fact that the place was created with institutional independence for the very sake of pushing back against the government. Nevertheless, the Conservatives’ democratic reform critic has decried the new Senate appointments process as an “insult to Alberta” (erm, what part of unconstitutional don’t you understand?) and now we get these demands that the results of this sham election be considered regardless of the process or the Supreme Court’s judgment. The Senate was not designed to simply create 105 new backbenchers for the Commons. It would be nice if people stopped insisting as though that were the case, which is precisely what these “elections” have given us.
Roundup: Heckling the delicate flowers
Oh, those poor delicate flowers that dwell in the House of Commons. Their poor nerves are so affected by all of the terrible heckling during Question Period that they all need to collapse on a divan, and get out the smelling salts, and blah, blah, blah. Samara just released a report on heckling, and wouldn’t you just know, everyone is aghast by all of the heckling that goes on. Why, it’s just terrible. But here’s the thing – every MP says they hate it, and insists that they don’t do it, except they do. They’ll even deny it when caught on camera. Heckling of course comes in a broad variety of taunts, jeers, and outright boorish behaviour, but really, sometimes it’s more instructive than what passes for debate. Yes, some heckling is sexist and boorish and should be called out, but not all heckling is sexist and boorish. And when there are complaints that women get heckled more, sometimes it’s because of how they’re reading scripts – one of the things about heckling is that it’s trying to knock people off of their talking points. Sometimes it’s clever and witty, and sometimes it’s not. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t value in knocking people off of their message tracks. And if anyone thinks that simply having more women in the place would change that, well, the most vigorous (and indeed some of the best) hecklers in my experience have been the women. And honestly, I can’t think of anything more dreadful than a QP that lacks it. Why? Because we need an injection of theatre into the sitting day, lest we all develop narcolepsy. Has anyone who moans about heckling sat through the rest of the day’s debates? Probably not. I’ve learned more about some issues by the heckling than I have in the scripted responses by ministers. Can it be too vigorous at times? Sure. Can people take it too far? Of course, and it should be dealt with when that’s the case, but this constant pearl-clutching about it is ridiculous, disingenuous, and in most cases, hypocritical. I’d rather a commitment to improving the quality of heckling than to see its elimination, and we’d be better off for it.
Roundup: Prairie drama queens
Finance minister Bill Morneau was in Calgary yesterday as part of his pre-budget consultations, and while listening to the questions during his televised press conference after the meeting, I am forced to wonder if Albertans aren’t trying to be Confederation’s biggest drama queens about their current economic woes (and yes, I say this as a former Albertan). You’d think that the province was actually disintegrating, but if you look at their numbers, their unemployment rates are only now reaching the national average (around 7 percent), and those that are employed (being the vast majority) are making more money in those jobs than the national averages. Yes, their provincial budget has a huge hole blown through it with the fall in oil revenues, but it’s nothing compared to what Newfoundland & Labrador’s budget hole is looking like with their own oil shock. Meanwhile, I don’t hear the pundit class bemoaning the job losses in that province, or people threatening their premier (though he’s been on the job only a couple of months). People were asking Morneau about extraordinary funding mechanisms outside of equalisation, and while he demurred on answering most of it, I am reminded of the usual Twitter snark of some economists like Mike Moffatt, who quite rightly point out that nobody would have even contemplated the kinds of bailouts for southwestern Ontario when their manufacturing centre crashed the way you hear about what they’re demanding for Alberta. The other problem that the loudest of critics (especially Kevin O’Leary) can’t seem to grasp is that there is a global supply problem with oil – there’s too much in the market, which has depressed prices. What exactly can Alberta’s provincial government do to prop up the sector when there’s already too much supply in the market? Even getting that oil to tidewater would just be adding even more to the global supply chain, which one would imagine wouldn’t help with the depressed prices. Supply and demand, and all of that. Yes, it’s a challenge, and it’s a long-term one that’s rearing its head now. Yes, there is a need for some bigger transformation initiatives, and the provincial government is looking to make changes, and I’m sure the federal government will try to get in on that action, but transitions are difficult things. There are going to be hard periods ahead, but simply demanding federal handouts and calling for Rachel Notley’s head aren’t helping matters.
Roundup: Procedural secret ballots?
Suggestions for improving the way things work in the Commons are relatively common, and mostly a load of nonsense, but then Kady O’Malley comes along and pitches a new idea that I’d never heard of before, so I figured I’d deconstruct it a little. Essentially, she takes a never-before-used-but-on-the-books procedural tactic and looks to expand it – in this case, secret votes in the Commons on procedural matters. The one on the books is an appeal mechanism for MPs to use when their piece of private members’ business is deemed non-votable by both the subcommittee and the full committee that determines these things. Why this hasn’t been used before is because MPs generally know to keep their PMBs within the rules – federal jurisdiction (which they try to get around with the creation of national strategies) or by creatively trying to ensure that they don’t spend money (though some of those suggestions are too-cute-by-half, and yet they try anyway *cough*That NDP climate change bill that they won’t let die*cough*). O’Malley argues that this secret ballot process, extended to other procedural votes on things like time allocation and splitting complex bills into smaller parts, will somehow embolden MPs and ensure that House Leaders have to convince their caucuses rather than crack the whip. And while this sounds great in theory, I’m not buying it. For starters, even if we think that secret ballots for MPs under limited circumstances will somehow miraculously embolden them (and I’m highly doubtful about that one), it also takes them off the hook when it comes to voting for unpopular things like time allocation or keeping omnibus bills intact. Their voters should see them do it so that they can hold them to account for it. The larger problem, however, is that this is a suggestion that largely re-litigates the last parliament. The issue of omnibus bills this government has promised to amend the Standing Orders to prevent (and that’s a promise that we can hold them to account for), while the issue of time allocation is almost certainly to be handled differently, because frankly, we’re not seeing a return to the days of an incompetent House Leader, like Peter Van Loan most certainly was. And frankly, even it that wasn’t the case, I doubt we would see too many outliers on contentious bills being put before a procedural vote because they tend to buy their party’s decision on matters and will find a justification if it ever comes to that. So while it’s a nice idea in theory, I just can’t see this as anything other than yet another well-meaning bit of tinkering that will only serve to eventually make things worse through its unintended consequences. No thanks.
My reaction to @kady’s latest? https://t.co/nKKqjBfyqh pic.twitter.com/xbav36ddPi
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) January 12, 2016
Roundup: Fledgling government delays
Delays seem to be the word of the day for the fledgling government – delays in getting the refugees here (but that’s happening), delays in getting committees up and running (thanks in no small part to NDP and Bloc wrangling) – though they did finally name the assisted dying committee members today, and it looks like there are now delays in getting the new Independent appointments committee for naming new senators up and running. This means that those promised five new “independent” senators won’t likely be chosen before Parliament comes back, nor will the new government “representative” be chosen from one of those five as intended. That could start being a problem for the government as they start looking to outline their agenda and figure out what they’re going to start sending over to the Senate in terms of legislation. Mind you, it’s not too late for the government to do the right thing and appoint an existing senator to the post (because it makes absolutely no sense to put someone with no Senate experience into the role – it really doesn’t), and then figure out how to keep the relationship as arm’s length as possible while still letting parliament function as it should, with government and opposition sides that help keep debate and accountability going. Oh, and while we’re on the subject, can We The Media please stop this whole “The Senate has traditionally been a partisan dumping ground” line? It’s a gross exaggeration of the truth, and it neglects the fact that a lot of eminently qualified people who weren’t just party hacks were appointed. Yes, some of them chose to behave a bit unfortunately once appointed because they thought they had do (particularly true of the way that Harper’s poor appointment process corrupted a generation of senators), but on the whole? We had some pretty great appointments on both sides for a lot of years. Stephen Harper and his PMO upsetting the balance should not be held up as the norm of the chamber’s history any more than the small number of senators with questionable expenses should be treated as a reflection on the vast majority who didn’t. But by all means, keep repeating the received wisdom (and in some cases mendacious gossip) about the Chamber and its denizens. It’s really helping us live up to our role of educating the public as to what goes on in Parliament.
Roundup: Airfare obsessions
Oh, the things we obsess over in this country – like the Prime Minister’s air travel. Perpetual source of media copy, as are the strange figures that get attached to it. As previously mentioned, Justin Trudeau and family went on vacation to the Caribbean island of St. Kitts-Nevis, and apparently rented a villa there (which they paid for out of pocket), and got a bit of tabloid attention, because why not? Also, apparently there was a bit of diplomacy as he met with the country’s prime minister and foreign minister, but that’s beside the point. The point is that while Trudeau has promised to reimburse the public purse for the equivalent of economy fares for the trip, the media continues to bring forward the dollar figure of $10,000 per flying hour to operate the Challenger jets, which the PM is obligated to take for security reasons. The problem with using that $10,000/flying hour figure is that it never places it in the context of it being a military aircraft, and it’s not just sitting around waiting to shuttle the PM around – they’re in use for other operations, and even when they’re not, they still get flown empty because those military pilots need to keep up flying hours aboard them. It’s a Thing, but nobody ever mentions it. Instead, when the PM wants to go somewhere on personal business, we drag up the $10,000/flying hours figure because we want a bit of cheap outrage, and if there’s anything that Canadian media loves, it’s cheap outrage. It is a little curious that Trudeau is reimbursing at the economy fare rate, but I guess we’ll see what that rate looks like once it’s repaid. While Paul Martin made it the practice to repay double the going business-class rate, Stephen Harper would occasionally reimburse it at what was alleged to be the lowest possible economy fare, though most of the time when reporters tried to find equivalent flights for what Harper repaid, well, it couldn’t be done. I would say that if anything, repaying less than the economy fare is almost more insulting than not repaying anything and saying “I’m Prime Minister, I can’t fly commercial, so deal with it” because it almost looks like you’re showing contempt than respecting the taxpayer (which is the born-again motto of the Conservative Party post-election). So really, we should suck it up (provided that the trips aren’t egregious) but I see little chance of that happening anytime soon.
Roundup: The problem with private members’ bills
I’ve written a lot about the problems with private members’ bills, and in my column this week over at Loonie Politics, it came up again given that the lottery for the Order of Precedence was posted. I wrote about it back in the spring when there were a number of problematic ones that the Senate was possibly going to kill (and in some cases did when the clock ran out on them) for good reason – because they were bad bills. While interviewing Liberal Senator George Baker yesterday for a story I was writing, he offered this, which I unfortunately wasn’t able to include in the piece, but every MP should nevertheless read it and take it to heart:
“Here’s a real problem with these private member’s bills: if there’s a fault in the bill, if there’s a word out of place, if there’s an error in the wording or in the intent of a sentence of paragraph – if it’s a private member’s bill, then the Senate is in a quandary because if they amend the bill, then they will in all likelihood be defeating the bill. If you amend a bill in the Senate, if it’s a private member’s bill, it goes back to the Commons and it goes to the bottom of the list for consideration, and then the private member will come to the Senate committee and say you’re going to pass this bill. We had it happen three times in the past two years. They say you’re going to defeat the bill, so the Senate turned around and passed the bill, given the tradition of not defeating something that’s legitimately passed in the House of Commons, and Senate ignored the necessary amendments and they passed bad legislation.”
Baker is absolutely right in that there is a problem – MPs don’t have them drafted very well, and then don’t do their due diligence because these bills are automatically time-allocated by design. That a number of these bills died on the Order Paper in the Senate one hopes might be an object lesson to MPs that they need to do better, but unfortunately, the lesson too many MPs took is that the “unelected and unaccountable Senate” didn’t just rubber-stamp a bill because it passed the Commons. Except, of course, it’s not their job to rubber stamp, and we’ve had an increasing number of bad bills getting through the cracks based on these emotive arguments, and not a few hissy fits along the way *cough*Reform Act*cough*. And now we have bad laws on the books because of it, apparently content to let the courts handle it instead. It’s sad and a little pathetic, to be perfectly honest. We should be demanding out MPs do better, and when they screw up, they need to take their lumps so that they’ll do better next time. Otherwise they won’t learn – or worse, they will take the wrong lesson, and our system will be worse off.