Tag Archives: Fundraising

Roundup: An unconstitutional promise

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Over in the francophone media, Thomas Mulcair has been talking about his promise to never ever appoint senators ever if he were to become PM and form government. Of course, that kind of talk is beyond ridiculous and is in direct contravention to the constitution – the same sections that the Supreme Court gave a whole lot of clarity on in the recent Senate reference decision. Mulcair claims he would try to push the provinces to abolish the institution, but good luck with that – all of which tends to put a lot of doubt into just how seriously Mulcair would take is constitutional obligations should he ever assume the position. The interview did give rise to this post, which speculated on the conditions by which a Governor General might reasonably start appointing senators without waiting for advice from the PM, if said PM was obstinately refusing to put forward names for appointment. While we are going to start hearing from the courts on this matter sooner than later, with an active challenge now underway in BC, I’d have to agree with both Emmett Macfarlane and Philippe Lagassé on this one – having the GG make direct appointments would put us into a constitutional crisis because it would violate the principles of Responsible Government, but said GG could also note that the PM was refusing to act within his or her constitutional duties, and dismiss them, inviting someone else to form government instead. It would still be a bit of a crisis, mind you, and there would be all manner of wailing and gnashing of teeth in the media about it, but it would be much more in line with the principles of Responsible Government than making the appointments without advice. Let’s just hope that it doesn’t come to that, and that our current and future prime ministers start taking their jobs of making these appointments far more seriously.

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Roundup: A surprise trip to Iraq

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John Baird quietly took a trip to Iraq along with is opposition critics, Paul Dewar and Marc Garneau, to meet with officials there and to pledge aid. James Cudmore looks at what Canada could contribute if we take the fight to ISIS, which could include special forces or aerial reconnaissance and support, but unlikely boots on the ground, as it’s politically unpalatable in an election year. Whatever we do, Harper has stated that it’ll be done on a tight budget because we really want to be cheap about fighting the kinds of grave threats that Harper is making them out to be.

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Roundup: “Stolen” land for a memorial

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An Ottawa architect is raising the alarm about the plans for the site of the “Victims of communism” memorial, saying it’s been “stolen” by the current government. The site, between the Supreme Court and Library and Archives, was supposed to be the future site of a building to house the Federal Court, but the current government has quietly scuppered those plans. That Federal Court building would have completed a triad of national buildings – the Justice Building, the Supreme Court, and the Federal Court building (which had approved designs and was ready to go before the Liberal government delayed the plans). The fact that the plans for that building to have been disappeared without explanation deserves explanation, but none are forthcoming. That such a prominent site is going to host a memorial (and one that is politically driven and is fairly controversial) rather than a significant national building should be concerning, however I fear this is going to be shrugged off like so many of the ways in which the national capital is being constantly denigrated and undermined by the current government.

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Roundup: Hacker concerns and delays

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The National Research Council had concerns about their IT security before the hack attack happened, and some of those concerns delayed their move to join Shared Services Canada. What the article doesn’t mention is that NRC also has a lot of legacy computer systems that wouldn’t integrate easily, and that was part of the concern with amalgamation. That said, amalgamation creates its own security risks because everything is in one place, so a well-placed hack there would have far broader implications than the current “federated” model, where individual systems can be isolated. Meanwhile, the Privacy Commissioner’s officer has confirmed that the attack breached a system that contained personal information, and they’re still assessing the damage.

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Roundup: Conflating sex work with trafficking

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The hearings into the prostitution bill wrapped up yesterday, and clause-by-clause consideration of the bill, along with amendments, will take place on Tuesday. Yesterday’s testimony included warnings not to confuse prostitution with human trafficking, which are different and human trafficking already has laws in place to combat it (though there have not yet been many charges). Of course, Conservative MP and booster of the bill, Joy Smith, says that the two are “symbiotically linked,” but again, separate regimes – just like talking about child sexual exploitation has nothing to do with adult sex work, and is a separate provision in the Criminal Code. Amongst the other nonsense that Smith went on Power & Politics to talk about included her assertion that maybe there are “one or two or three” sex workers who do it willingly, despite that being in complete contravention to testimony heard. It just didn’t fit with her established narrative, and as she often does, she rejects it outright. Surprisingly, a group of Anglican clergy have come out against the bill because of the effect it will have on those sex workers when it forces the trade further underground. And then, once the hearings wrapped, Conservative MP Stella Ambler sent out this gem, which pretty much shows you her belief that there is apparently only one side to this whole debate:

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Roundup: Harper’s silence on Fahmy

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There were reverberations around the world as an Egyptian court sentenced three journalists to lengthy prison sentences, including Canadian Mohamed Fahmy for his work with Al Jazeera. While other world governments had their leaders or foreign ministers express condemnations or set up calls to the new Egyptian president, Canada’s response was kind of tepid, with Minster of State for consular affairs, Lynne Yelich, putting out a press release to express “disappointment.” Apparently we didn’t want to be too harsh so as to offend them. Fahmy’s brother tweeted out that he holds the government responsible for his brother rotting in jail because Harper couldn’t be bothered to make a public statement. It does make one wonder about why Harper couldn’t be bothered, considering the number of condemnation press releases that we already get in our inboxes. Is it because Harper has his own difficult relationship with the media? Who can say?

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Roundup: Sweeping, questionable changes

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The House and Senate have both risen for the summer, but as they did, Jason Kenney and Chris Alexander unveiled their massive overhaul of the Temporary Foreign Workers Programme. It proposes to try and make the programme harder to use, with ever-diminishing caps on the number of workers (who were a fraction of one percent of the total workforce in the country, incidentally) with the aim of getting more unemployed Canadians, as well as Aboriginals, new immigrants and people with disabilities into these low-wage jobs. But Kenney seemed tone deaf to some of the massive labour challenges in Alberta, to demographic issues, to incentivising labour mobility, to the problems of aging populations in rural regions that are depopulating, but most especially to the attitude change that needs to happen if they think that university graduates will think that low-wage jobs in the food service industry or even higher-wage jobs in processing jobs like meat packing are going to be the answer to their labour shortages. The NDP condemned the changes without actually reading them, and all of their objections were addressed, not that it mattered. The Liberals made some pretty salient comments about the implausible changes to inspections and the giant loophole going unaddressed through the youth labour exchange programme. The restaurant and small business associations are really unhappy with the changes, which hamstring their ability to find workers in tough markets. John Geddes starts picking out the flaws in Kenney’s case, including demographics and the notion that it’s likely that non-Canadians made for cheaper and more reliable hires. Andrew Coyne says that the changes are simply bad policy, which punishes the service sector where a government goes out of its way to prevent a manufacturing job from offshoring. Coyne notes that if Canadians don’t want to take these jobs, then they shouldn’t be artificially shoehorned into them, but rather to spend their efforts creating value elsewhere in the economy while those who do want those jobs should be made to be Canadians by using the TFW programme as a pathway to citizenship.

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Roundup: Peter MacKay’s “special bonds”

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Peter MacKay ignited yet another firestorm by making comments to the Ontario Bar Association that there isn’t enough diversity in federal and federally-appointed courts because not enough women are applying since they have a special bond with children. No, seriously. And when called out on it, MacKay insisted that his comments were “misconstrued,” and then went on say law schools need to do better – never mind that female enrolment is already outpacing males. And no, there was nothing in his explanation about visible minorities, just women. Naturally, this turned into a parade of accusations about the regressive social attitudes during Question Period, laced with all of aggravating qualifications from all sides, MacKay included, about being parents. MacKay also gave a litany of appointment figures, all of them out of context, like how there was only one woman out of the thirteen appointments made last week. There was some great fact-checking over Twitter which pointed out just how ridiculous or outright wrong MacKay’s justifications are.

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QP: Bluster versus script cards

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Possibly the last QP of the year — one can hope — and tempers continued to fray throughout the Precinct. None of the main leaders were present, which wasn’t going to improve the mood either. Peter Julian led things off, where he blustered about Northern Gateway decision, and Kelly Block was the sacrificial lamb sent up to read her talking points about how projects only move forward if they are proven to be safe after a rigorous, scientific review process, and that the proponent has more work to do. When Julian noted that consulting with First Nations was the government’s job, Block read that the government was working with First Nations. Nathan Cullen followed on to carry on the sanctimonious bluster, and Block read yet more of the same talking points. Chrystia Freeland led off for the Liberals, denouncing the justice minister’s sexist comments about female judges, to which Peter MacKay accused her of mischaracterizing his comments and that they only made judicial appointments made on merit. Carolyn Bennett and Scott Brison followed along, Brison characterising it as the Conservatives’ war on modernity, and after MacKay gave another embarrassing qualification, Leitch answered Brison by claiming that the number of female Governor-in-Council appointments is on the rise.

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Roundup: The Sona trial commences

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Michael Sona’s trial in the case of the misleading robocalls gets underway in Guelph, Ontario, today, Sona has long maintained that there is no real evidence against him other than some questionable testimony that would have occurred at a time when he was out of the country. That said, it is hoped that with other players on the stand that this trial may be the only hope for getting the real story of what happened in Guelph out there. Sona could face five years in jail and a fine of up to $5000 if found guilty.

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