Tag Archives: First Nations

Roundup: Chagger vs Bergen

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The big news yesterday was Rona Ambrose shuffling up her shadow cabinet after the summer of leadership announcements, and naming Candice Bergen as the new Opposition House Leader in the place of Andrew Scheer. What is of particular interest is that you have two fairly inexperienced people in the role in both the government and the official opposition, which could make for some very interesting times going forward.

To refresh, the role of the House Leader is to basically determine the agenda of the Commons (deputy leaders fill this role in the Senate), when it comes to determining what items will be up for debate on what days, the scheduling of Supply Days for opposition parties, and basically doing the procedural management. Why the fact that two relatively inexperienced MPs will be doing this is interesting is because we’ll see what kinds of ways that they prioritise things. (Bergen does have experience as a parliamentary secretary and minister of state, but little in the way of procedural experience as far as I’ve been able to determine). What everyone will be paying attention to in particular, however is tone. The fact that for the first time in history, it’s two women in the role is going to have people waiting to see just how that affects tone (as Rosemary Barton gave as her item to watch in this week’s At Issue), because we have been fed a number of gender essentialist narratives that women do things differently and without as much of the partisan acrimony – not that I necessarily believe it, given that Bergen herself is a pretty die-hard partisan. The added spoke in this wheel is the NDP’s House Leader, Peter Julian, whom I have it on good authority is unreasonable to work with at the best of times. When the tension between the House Leaders boiled over into Motion 6 in the spring (and the subsequent The Elbowing that broke that camel’s back), I have little doubt that it had a lot to do with Dominic LeBlanc losing his patience with both Scheer and Julian (who totally insisted that they weren’t even being obstructionist, which I find a bit dubious). So will they be able to work together to push through what promises to be an extremely busy legislative agenda? Or will Bardish Chagger need to start resorting to procedural tactics to ensure that bills can get passed without endless Second Reading debates that the opposition refuses to let collapse so that they can get to committee (which was constant in the previous parliament when the NDP were official opposition). I’m not going to make any predictions, but it is something that I am very curious to watch as the era of “openness and cooperation” rolls along.

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Roundup: Stop demanding deployment votes

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While Harjit Sajjan is off in London at a meeting of defence ministers, his critics are back in Ottawa grousing about the shift of focus from peacemaking to peacekeeping – never mind that Sajjan has already said that any upcoming mission is unlikely to be “peacekeeping” in the traditional sense as opposed to what he’s terming “peace operations.” That aside, the other emerging bit of drama is the fact that Sajjan is indicating that the government is unlikely to put such a deployment to a vote in the House of Commons – which is of course the way that things should work, but the Conservatives under Stephen Harper started saying they were going to hold votes starting with the Afghanistan mission extension under the guise of being “more democratic” when their whole point was to publicly divide the Liberals, and hey, that happened. (Remember when Harper crossed the floor to shake Michael Ignatieff’s hand after that vote? Because that wasn’t about trying to put a skewer in the brewing leadership contest, no sir). But beyond the reasons why the practice started, it’s antithetical to the whole point of parliament, which is to hold the government to account. When you put decisions like this to a vote – even if it’s non-binding and worded as “supporting a decision,” it gives the illusion that you’re giving parliament a role in the decision, when that’s not their job. When they are implicated in the decision making, they are not able to effectively hold the government to account because they can turn around and say “the House voted on this,” and shrug it off – and yes, the Conservatives did this on a number of occasions as well. So yes, have debates. Have committees scrutinize the missions as they happen, but don’t insist on votes, even if it’s for symbolic reasons, because that poisons the well.

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On a related note, at the meeting of defence ministers, some of the shortages facing peacekeeping operations in Africa were noted, and one of them is the need for more female peacekeepers on the ground.

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Roundup: Fear change of government!

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Another day, another round of completely objectionable things heard regarding electoral reform that need to be countered. Most egregious of all today was Elizabeth May’s musing about the nature of government under current and PR systems.

And then my head exploded.

It sounded for a moment there like May was advocating for a system of basically permanent governments that don’t change, and that basic accountability – i.e. “throwing the bums out” – was a bad thing. It boggles the mind that this would be considered a good thing. Is it a good thing that countries like Germany, Austria and Sweden have basically had one-party rule for decades, where coalition partners get shuffled and that’s that? That hardly sounds like a healthy democracy because longevity can certainly breed complacency and to a certain degree corruption. May also assumes that the “consensus building” of coalitions would somehow produce superior governance without looking at the effect it has on accountability (when everyone’s responsible, then no one’s responsible), or that the watered-down outcomes and lack of ability to govern effectively in many cases is really better than a system that allows for decisive action but also the ability to hold those who take action to account for those decisions. Seriously, though, this dislike of accountability mechanisms is very concerning. Also, this notion that the “right parties” will always be in power to get these mythical better outcomes.

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And then there’s Andrew Coyne, who again cherry-picks his railing against the arguments to keep the status quo with regards to the arguments about stable governments (as though other PR countries operate on a system of responsible government), or that our current system has been riddled with regional parties that we warn about in PR countries (ignoring that regional parties don’t last long in our system precisely because they can’t get power), and buying into Ed Broadbent’s ridiculous revisionist mythologizing about the NEP.

I’ll end on one good note, which was Samara’s call for better civic education. That should be what the government spends its time, energy and resources on rather than this ridiculous quest for a new electoral system, but it’s a start that people are calling out for it.

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Roundup: Reporting the terror threat

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The government released their 2016 Public Report on the Terrorist Threat to Canada yesterday, and there are a few items of note, particularly that there are more Canadians who are suspected of travelling abroad to engage in terrorist activities, more women are joining the cause, and more of them are returning to Canada after some time abroad, all of which needs to be monitored. The biggest threat remains those lone wolves who are “inspired” by terrorist ideology rather than being directed from abroad, because quite obviously it’s much harder to detect and monitor. Apparently it’s also news that Ralph Goodale is calling ISIS “Daesh” in the report, but some terror experts will note that this is just a bit of name-calling. On a related note, RCMP are talking about their roadblocks in the fight against terrorism, which is a lot about the difficulty in turning evidence gathered from partners like CSIS into something they can admit to the courts, which is apparently harder than it seems. I’m not really sure that I’ve got a lot to add on this one, just that despite the various howls from both the Conservatives and the NDP in how the Liberals have been handling the terror file – the Conservatives insisting that the Liberals have given it up and are running away from the fight (objectively not the case), and the NDP caterwauling that C-51 needs to be repealed full stop – that the Liberals do indeed seem to be taking this seriously. While experts have been praising them on their go-slow approach rather than legislating in haste, I think it’s also notable that they are making reports like these public in order to give a realistic picture of what is going on, rather than relying on hysteria in order to try and build public support that way. We’ll no doubt see a lot more from them in the next couple of months as the new national security committee of parliamentarians is set up, and consultations on the state of our anti-terror laws transition into legislation, but this was a good reminder that things are in the works. In the meantime, here are some more thoughts from a real expert on these kinds of things, Stephanie Carvin.

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Roundup: Begrudging a day off

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There was a good piece in Policy Options yesterday from Jennifer Ditchburn which talked about the problem of “vacation shaming” politicians, in light of Justin Trudeau making his first public statements about the Aaron Driver case almost a week after it happened, as part of Trudeau’s Atlantic Canada tour. There is a problem with expecting the PM to be on call for cameras at a moment’s notice, as the Conservatives certainly seem to be demanding, decrying his absence when bad economic numbers came down a few weeks ago, or when the Driver incident happened. But relevant, competent ministers stood up when those things happened, and it’s not like the Prime Minister could have said or done anything that would have added to the situation other than to be the face of it, when he’s made it clear that his is a government by cabinet, and that means that the responsible ministers get to be the ones that get in front of the cameras when things in their bailiwick happen, and guess what – they did.

Ditchburn also makes the very apt points that for everyone who says that they want better work-life balance, especially for MPs, demanding that they be every present fro the media goes counter to that desire, particularly when we badmouth them for being open about taking a day or a week off. The wailing and gnashing of teeth over the day off he took during the visit to Japan was outsized and ridiculous, and we’re seeing much the same thing here, compounded with the beating of breasts over the international coverage that people catching a glimpse of said PM with his shirt off. It’s excessive and it’s only fouling the well. Politics is close to being a 24/7 job as it is, and that can be a problem for all sorts of reasons (high divorce rate among politicians being a chief one), and it becomes just one more outlet for cheap outrage when we demand that our politicians now must forgo vacations, as well as forgo the bulk of their salary, pensions and benefits, and expenditures, as so many clueless wannabe pundits will declare over social media. Let’s grow up about our expectations and not begrudge them a vacation or a day off. We’re better than that.

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Roundup: Petty, unhelpful suggestions

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The fact that Mike Duffy’s expenses have reignited an old and frankly tiring debate on whether Senators should be able to claim for their legitimate work expenses, or whether it’s this particular shameless senator whose expenses, however legitimate, are forever tainted. We can look and see competing editorials from the likes of Robyn Urback, who is justifiably dubious about the whole thing given the history and cloud that remains around Duffy’s primary residence, and Kady O’Malley, who notes that Duffy’s current expense claims are entirely legit so we should stop begrudging them (while not forgiving past transgressions either). But of all the commentary that I’ve seen in the past week, the least helpful comes from within the Senate itself.

When asked about the whole Duffy ordeal, the Conservative Senate leader, Claude Carignan mused about how the Senate’s rules may still need to be updated, which I’m not quite sure how much more stringent they need to be at this point considering how much they’ve come in the past two years (and for years before that), and it sounds a lot like he’s trying to play along with the attempts at cheap public outrage over the whole thing, while simultaneously ignoring the fact that Duffy’s residency issue remains a problem from the manner in which Stephen Harper appointed him, and a Harper loyalist, Carignan is almost certainly loathe to criticise that decision. But it got worse. Carignan then basically dumped the problem into the lap of Senator Peter Harder, the “government representative” as though he were somehow able to do something about it. As Carignan, a former Government Leader himself should know, it’s not up to the Government Leader to shepherd rules changes considering that Senate Rules are the domain of the appropriately named Senate Rules committee, and that expenses are the domain of the Internal Economy Committee, and last I checked, Harder is not a member of either committee, nor does he have a caucus that has senators who sit on those committees. In other words, he has no senators that he can use to exert any kind of influence over in order to make those changes. With these facts in mind, I’m not sure why Carignan would suggest that rules changes need to be spearheaded by Harder except that it’s more petty politicking, trying to undermine his (already shaky) legitimacy, while looking to absolve himself of any responsibility event though Carignan controls the largest caucus in the Chamber. If we need to have a discussion about how the residency rules need to continue to evolve, then great, let’s do that. But to try and play this particular game about it is really beneath Carignan’s position and he should know better.

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Roundup: A deal 149 years in the making – maybe

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After some last-minute negotiations at the very end of the Council of the Federation meeting in Whitehorse, the premiers finally came to an agreement – well, an agreement in principle – about interprovincial trade. It only took 149 years of confederation to reach this point, and we’re trying to be optimistic about it, but its full virtues remain to be seen as the list of exclusions has yet to be published, and we don’t know how extensive it is, or what the process for standardising regulatory hurdles between provinces is going to be (and this is things like trucking regulations that change at provincial borders, or the sizes of milk cartons, and so on). There is a great deal of pessimism in some corners about this whole thing, and it’s hard not to get caught up in it, particularly when Alberta was the holdout over local infrastructure projects, and the first question asked of the Yukon premier (who chaired the meeting) from his local press was how it would affect local jobs, playing directly into the kinds of protectionism that a trade agreement is supposed to break down. But again, we await the actual details to be delved into.

Otherwise, the other outcome of the meeting was that surprise, surprise, the premiers want to meet with the Prime Minister in the fall about healthcare funding, because they’re largely opposed to targeted spending (saying that it’s too “temporary” and not “long term”) and want the federal government to cough up more funding overall instead – 25 percent of each province’s expenditure, which seems to me that it makes it easy for a province to ramp up their spending with the assurance that Ottawa would fill that gap, again with little in the way of accountability for how those dollars are spent, or for ensuring that there is equitable access to things like homecare across the country, which is what the federal government is looking to achieve.

Meanwhile the beer spat between Saskatchewan and Alberta had some impact on the interprovincial trade talks, but for all of Brad Wall’s complaints about how terrible the changes being made to Alberta’s system would be for his province, here’s a look into how Saskatchewan’s system isn’t all that open either. But hey, a deal on wine was reached between Ontario, BC and Quebec, so that’s progress, right? Well, considering that it’s about online ordering, it’s a half-measure at best.

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Roundup: Not a grown-up party

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There is an interesting piece in yesterday’s Hill Times about the policy process of the Green Party as it struggles to grow from an activist movement into a serious political party. Despite the heavy reliance on commentary from the one non-party voice in particular, there are some interesting lessons therein about ways in which their current process is causing problems with resolutions around things like the BDS movement, which put it at odds with the leader. If you recall during the last election, it came to light that some of their platform policies around things like divorce laws were MRA propaganda, forcing them to do quick disavowals to go along with the shrugs of “hey, we’re a very open party” and “grassroots democracy!” And don’t get me wrong – grassroots engagement is a good and necessary thing in politics, but there does need to be framework around it that ensures that grown-ups are in charge and that really problematic contributions can be weeded out rather than thrown into the “open-chalkboard” approach that sets too low of a threshold for some of the more odious policy ideas to make it through without a really proper vetting. (Conversely, there needs to be enough power at the grassroots level so it’s not just the leader’s office deciding policy without any accountability for doing so, which the Liberals seem to be moving toward). What’s more concerning is that the attempts to move to some form of a proportional representation system that would allow for these more fringe views to gain seats without the party having matured into a credible political force that can deal with its crazies. Believe it or not, there is such a thing as being too open and too “grassroots” in politics, and it’s part of what is causing the implosion of the Republicans in the States, where the lack of controls in favour of more “direct democracy” primaries – alongside with this narrative that government is corrupt or illegitimate – has caused it to become completely unhinged. Some of these same messages are being echoed by the kinds of people within the Green Party, coded in language around the current electoral or party systems. It does become concerning, and it’s why these kinds of too-open endeavours start to make me nervous.

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Roundup: Not really elected, not really a betrayal

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Alberta Conservative Senator Doug Black announced yesterday that he was going to sit as an independent, and a bunch of tongues started wagging because Black is one of the “elected” (and I do use the term loosely) Senators. A number of people also said a bunch of boneheaded things about the move, and we’ll get to that in a minute, but first, a refresher on the “election.”

For those of you who were unaware, Alberta has run a series of nonsense “consultative elections” for “senators in waiting” a few times, and it’s a process that has been problematic on a number of levels, not to mention the fact that the whole thing is unconstitutional. I mean if you want to elect Senators, then there’s a process, which is the general amending formula of the constitution, meaning seven provinces that represent 50 percent of the population. That didn’t happen, however Stephen Harper appointed from this list. Among the quirks of these “consultative elections” is that the candidates were largely running on the tickets of provincial parties – you know, ones that don’t exist on the federal level, not to mention the fact that the provincial Liberals boycotted an unconstitutional process, and the NDP refused because they want to abolish the Senate altogether. So this last time around you Senators running under the provincial Progressive Conservatives and the Wildrose Party, both of whom were pledged to sit as federal Conservatives, never mind that the two parties are different and don’t actually stand for the same things. And did we mention that this is an unconstitutional process? Because it is – you can’t do through the back door what you can’t through the front, never mind that Harper and the Alberta government at the time figured you could.

So what does this have to do with his decision to leave caucus? Well, people like Senator Don Plett are angry, calling this a “betrayal,” while his fellow “elected” Senator Scott Tanas was passive aggressive in his “disappointment” with the move. Plett went so far as to start saying that this was Black’s way of avoiding the whip as he apparently has a terrible attendance record (note: this could be verified, if one actually wanted, and I’m not sure that I care enough to go digging), and moaning that these “votes” have been “deprived of a Conservative representative.” And this is all very much like the floor-crossing debate, which is ridiculous. MPs are elected on an individual basis – our first-past-the-post system gives them enormous agency because they are elected as an individual, even if they are running on a party ticket. They are not there because their party won votes and they are apportioned the seat off of a list (which empowers the party, not the MP). For a senator, however, they are appointed with a great deal of institutional independence, because that is what their job requires of them if they are to be able to push back against a majority government when required, or speak truth to power without fearing for their jobs. And no, Black was not “elected” – he was appointed, despite it being on the basis of a sham “consultative” process. So guess what – with that institutional independence, he can choose whether he wants to sit in a caucus or not. It’s why a Prime Minister should be very careful in the vetting process before they appoint someone (and no, an election is not necessarily a good vetting process, particularly given the way that the Alberta process was run, and gosh, it’s not like bad apples have ever been elected before). So really, the fact that he claims to be “elected” is of little consequence with this move, other than as a kind of “fun fact.” If he wants to sit as an independent, then more power to him.

Meanwhile, Senator Patrick Brazeau’s suspension is now over and he’s back to work, vowing to “clean up” the Senate – which gives one flashbacks of an acquitted OJ Simpson vowing to catch his wife’s killer. And no, Brazeau’s legal troubles aren’t over.

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Roundup: Corrosive myths about mandates

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It’s official – Theresa May is now the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom thanks to being selected by her party caucus, and thanks to her rival dropping out (after a spectacular media implosion) and she was left with no rival to take to the party membership. (See her first speech here). But that has already started the general nonsense about her being “unelected” or not having a “mandate,” all of which is complete and utter nonsense, as though anyone making those claims doesn’t understand how the Westminster system works – and yes, I’m looking at you, CBC, who used the term in your reporting on her being appointed by the Queen yesterday to the job.

One of the most incomprehensible piece on the subject so far was published in the Guardian, written by Tim Farron, leader of the Liberal Democrats, who seems to be utterly mystified with the way that governments are formed in our shared system of government, or the fact that we don’t elect prime ministers. (He also advocated a bunch of proportional representation nonsense, which didn’t help his arguments any either). Now, while it’s likely that the whole piece was simply his attempt at trolling for the government to call a general election (somehow bypassing the Fixed Term Parliaments Act as though it were no big deal), hoping to reverse their devastating losses from the previous election while running on a pro-Remain ticket, it’s nevertheless shocking just how civically illiterate the leader of a major political party is in print.

There was a great rebuttal to Farron’s nonsense by Robert Hazell, which offers some clarity on the way that Westminster parliaments work, but he makes the very salient point that all of this talk about needing a democratic mandate “has a corrosive effect on public understanding of our parliamentary system, and on legitimacy and trust in government.” And he’s absolutely right, which is why I am especially outraged that media outlets like the CBC are repeating this bilge rather than reporting on our shared system of government as it exists and how it’s supposed to work. Civic literacy should not be a high bar to clear when it comes to reporting on politics, and yet here we are.

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