Tag Archives: G20

Roundup: No more human resources to spare

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I believe we are now in day thirty-seven of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russian forces are believed to be leaving the area of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant after their soldiers soaked up “significant doses” of radiation while digging trenches in the area. (You think?) There were also plans for another humanitarian corridor to evacuate people from Mariupol, but it doesn’t appear to have been honoured.

Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that he had sacked two high-ranking members of the security services, citing that they were traitors. As for the Russians, the head of CGHQ in the UK says that they have intelligence showing that some Russian soldiers in Ukraine have refused to carry out orders, sabotaged their equipment, and in one case, accidentally shot down one of their own aircraft. There are also reports that Russian troops have resorted to eating abandoned pet dogs because they have run out of rations in Ukraine, which is pretty awful all around.

Closer to home, the Senate was debating their orders to extend hybrid sittings yesterday, as the sixth wave has been picking up steam, and one point of contention are the resources available to senators to hold sittings and committee meetings. In particular, they have a Memorandum of Understanding with the House of Commons about sharing common resources, and that MOU gives the Commons priority when it comes to resources available. This has hobbled the Senate, but even if they did try to come up with some way to add resources, the biggest and most constrained resource of them all is the finite number of simultaneous interpreters available, and we are already in a problem where as a nation, we’re not graduating enough of them to replace the attrition of those retiring, or choosing not to renew their contracts because of the worries that those same hybrid sittings are giving them permanent hearing loss because of the problems associated with the platform and the inconsistent audio equipment used by the Commons. These hybrid sittings exacerbated an already brewing problem of not enough new interpreters coming into the field, and Parliament is going to have a very big problem if they can’t find a way to incentivise more people to go into the field. We rely on simultaneous interpretation to make the place function, and if the number of interpreters falls precipitously low—because MPs and senators insisted on carrying on hybrid sittings in spite of their human cost—then we’re going to be in very big trouble indeed.

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Roundup: Using the invasion of Ukraine for crass domestic gain

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We are now on day seven of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Kyiv still stands, in spite of the convoy of Russian vehicles headed in its direction. Russians bombed Kyiv’s main television tower, as well as a Holocaust cemetery, which really bolster’s Putin’s claim that he is trying to “de-Nazify” the country. In fact, Russia is bombing more cities and inflicting more damage, and killing more civilians, which led to a response by the International Criminal Court to indict Putin for war crimes. Oh, and to compound the humanitarian crisis, some of Ukraine’s neighbours aren’t accepting non-white refugees who were in Ukraine, which is a big problem.

Here in Canada, yet more incremental sanctions were announced, along with more aid and supplies being sent, and new measures include ships that are of Russian origin or registry being denied entry into Canadian waters. Chrystia Freeland is warning that more severe sanctions will hurt Canadians as well, which people keep forgetting is a reason why sanctions can be so tough to implement, but here we are.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, are making a number of demands which are not necessarily reasonable, such as their continued insistence that the Russian Ambassador be expelled, and the recall of our Ambassador in Moscow. Expelling ambassadors should be the absolute last case situation, because we need channels to talk, especially when the going gets tough. It was more justified with the Iranians because they were running an intimidation ring from their embassy, which does not appear to be the case with the Russians. The fundamental problem is that the Conservatives have adopted this mindset where they treat diplomacy as a cookie you get for good behaviour, which is not the point of diplomacy. That’s why we have diplomacy—to do the hard stuff, and you can’t do that if you keep kicking out opposing ambassadors every time you get in a huff about something. It’s poor practice, and is frankly a specious understanding of how the world works. Even more to the point, their continued insistence that this crisis is a good idea to push their “ethical oil” nonsense and to make the case for “drill, baby, drill,” no matter that it is a literal impossibility to meet Europe’s energy needs any time before the end of the decade, by which point we should be into rapid decarbonisation. But they have narratives that they are wedded to, no matter how crass or inappropriate, and they’re going to stick with them.

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Roundup: Enter the new Whip

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Newly-appointed Chief Government Whip Steve MacKinnon had a conversation with CBC over the weekend, and there are a few interesting bits in there. For one, I didn’t actually realise that the term came from 18th-century hunting slang for “whipper-in, as the rider who keeps hounds from straying from the pack. So it’s not about any kind of literal or metaphorical whipping of MPs to vote a certain way, and now we’ve both learned something new today.

What I did know before is that there is more to the whip’s job than just ensuring MPs vote in certain ways, particularly if there’s a confidence vote upcoming. Rather, the whip and his or her office has a lot of work in juggling assignments – who is on what committee, who can stand in for that MP if they are away, and to an extent, who has House duty. And because the whip is largely the person in charge of MPs’ attendance (even if said attendance is not made public), I have it on very good authority that the Whip spends a lot of time listening to MPs as they unburden themselves, and talk about what is going on in their lives as to why they can’t attend a committee meeting or vote. The whip also becomes responsible for the staff in a riding office if that MP resigns or dies in office. And then comes the discipline part, which is different between each party. Some parties are very strict about it, some have unofficial ways of enforcing discipline – largely through in-group bullying – and some are fairly relaxed over the issue provided it’s not a matter of confidence.

The other thing I would add is that at the advent of the era of “Senate independence,” as Justin Trudeau and others would have you believe, the whip in the Senate was equivalent to in the House of Commons, and they instructed senators how to vote – or else. This was simply not true – the whip in the Senate was always rather illusory, and the Whip’s office was more about doing things like committee assignments, finding alternates for those who were absent, and assigning things like office space or parking to incoming senators who joined the caucus. They had little to no leverage of senators and their voting patterns because of institutional independence, and I heard a former Liberal senate leader once remark that on one occasion when the leader’s office on the Commons side called them up and said they’d really like it if senators could vote for a certain bill, that these senators turned around and voted the other way, just to prove a point around their independence. So there is a lot more to the role than people may expect from the outside, and best of luck to Steve MacKinnon as he takes on this new role.

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Roundup: Kenney’s dereliction of duty

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I find myself increasingly concerned for my native Alberta as COVID cases continue to skyrocket, to the point where the province is now recording more cases than Ontario, despite having a third of the population. As this is happening, the premier and health minister have been nowhere to be seen, not showing up at press briefings, and leaving the Chief Medical Officer of Health to deal with this herself – likely as a first step in shifting blame to her once the death rate starts to follow infections. Because nothing is ever Jason Kenney’s fault.

One of Kenney’s junior Cabinet ministers apparently let slip that they’re waiting for hospitals to reach capacity before they take any additional measures, but he quickly backtracked and said that wasn’t what he meant at all, and so on. But considering the trajectory of things, and the fact that the provincial government refuses to consider an actual lockdown and instead just tut-tuts at people and tells them to knock it off – while simultaneously telling them to go socialize in restaurants and bars because they’re a “structured setting,” is it any wonder that the trajectory hasn’t altered. Albertans like to think that the rules don’t apply to them at the best of times (and yes, once again, I am from there, and this is the mindset that we are taught from childhood), so the fact that the most the government can do is give them vague guidelines and tell them to exercise their “personal responsibility” means that they plan to do as little as possible. And seriously – this is the province that is so into “personal responsibility” that they brought back tertiary syphilis. It’s a dereliction of duty, but I despair that nobody will wind up punishing Kenney and company for it when the next election comes around, because they are all indoctrinated into believing that the province is a one-party state, and that anything less is treasonous.

Meanwhile, here’s Susan Delacourt on the fact that Justin Trudeau is still trying to keep measures voluntary across the country, and attempting to use the art of persuasion, even though that’s getting increasingly difficult in the current climate.

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Roundup: Proving the SCC’s point

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It was only a matter of time after Alberta premier Jason Kenney announced that he was reviving his province’s sham Senate “election” laws that the two so-called “elected” senators from the province started chiming in, and lo, Senator Tannas did just that on the Alberta Primetime politics show on Alberta’s CTV affiliates this week. During the hugely uncritical interview, Tannas proclaimed that getting an “endorsement” from the public gives him the right to speak up “more forcefully,” and that he and fellow “elected” Senator Black are “listened to differently” because they of their special status.

Let me remind you what the Supreme Court of Canada said when it comes to consultative elections – that it would give the Senate a popular mandate, which would change the constitutional architecture of the institution, and you can’t do that without a formal constitutional amendment. In other words, Tannas is proving the Supreme Court’s point – that his “election” (which was a sham, let’s be clear) confers upon him some kind of special authority, which is whole point. Now, Tannas did try to couch some of his criticisms for his nominally appointed colleagues from Alberta because he has to work with them, but amidst the myths about Bills C-48 and C-69 and the complete self-aggrandisement, there was virtually no pushback at Tannas about what the Supreme Court said, or the fact that the process that got him “elected” was a sham worthy of a People’s Republic.

There seems to be almost nobody pushing back against Kenney and his unconstitutional legislation and the sham that these “elections” really are. Why, here’s Don Braid with a lazy garbage take that lauds the farce that Kenney puts on because he’s swallowed the rhetoric about those bills whole, along with the fairytale nonsense about a “Triple E” senate and what it purports to do (never mind that the only thing it would do is create 105 new backbenchers with an overinflated sense of self). Repeat after me: Kenney is only doing this to invent a future grievance, while he lies about those two bills. It would be great if someone could be bothered to call him out on it.

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Roundup: Sensation over nuance

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The big headline over CBC yesterday was that five of the six most recent federal judicial appointments in the province of New Brunswick all had some kind of ties to Dominic LeBlanc – never mind how tenuous those ties were. This of course led a bunch of Conservative apologists to compare this with the Dean French/Doug Ford situation in Ontario, which is absurd given that judicial appointments have a more rigorous merit-based system around them (more rigorous than it was under the Conservative era), and many of the French/Ford appointments had to do with whether someone was connected to French by family or lacrosse, many with no obvious competences in the roles they were appointed to. The Conservatives also declared that this was somehow related to both Loblaws winning a competition around fridge refits (no, seriously), and that this was reminiscent of the Arctic surf clam contract that LeBlanc was involved in wherein the definition of “family” used by the Ethics Commissioner differed from that in other statutes. (Not mentioned was the time when the Conservatives appointed most of Peter MacKay’s wedding party to the bench in Nova Scotia).

Reading deeper into this story, I found that some of the connections that were being highlighted were a bit dubious. The most dubious was the fact that one of the judges named was not actually someone that was recently named, but rather promoted to the Chief Justice of province’s Court of Appeal by Trudeau, though she was originally a Conservative donor and had been first named to the Bench by Harper. The fact that she bought a property from LeBlanc next to his summer cottage was deemed to be curious in this. Likewise the fact that two of them were part of a group that paid off LeBlanc’s leadership campaign debts a decade ago (each would have donated a few hundred dollars) is a pretty dubious link between them. The only one that might raise eyebrows is the fact that one of the five is married to LeBlanc’s brother-in-law…but even then, at what point do we start disqualifying someone whose relation is by marriage twice-removed?

The other bit of nuance that we can’t forget here is that New Brunswick is a very small province with a very small population, and legal circles in a province like that would be very tight – especially when you consider that the provincial political culture is far more nepotistic than the federal culture is. While the CBC piece cites a paper that says that people with political connections get judicial appointments at a rate double that in other parts of the country, but one has to remember that it can be harder to avoid, which is why fighting nepotism in those places can be much harder. And this is the point where people will bring up the fact that Jody Wilson-Raybould objected to the fact that names that were short-listed needed to be sent to PMO for vetting by the Liberals’ database, but again, it needs to be stressed that they need to go through all sources to check for red flags because the prime minister is politically accountable for those appointments. It’s called Responsible Government. Does that mean that these five appointments didn’t have some influence from LeBlanc tapping the justice minister and saying he wanted them appointed? Anything is possible, but it’s unlikely given the vetting process and the fact that most of these connections are tenuous at best. But it’s also regrettable that this kind of journalism strives for sensationalism and an attempt at being gotcha than it is with nuance.

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Roundup: The menace of ignorant premiers

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Occasionally a politician will say something so blindingly wrong and stupid that it makes me incandescent with rage, and yesterday the honour went to PEI’s new premier, Dennis King, who believes that because he’s in a hung parliament that he’s “not the government,” but that “we’re all the government.”

And then my head exploded.

King is the premier, which means he’s the government. And for him to try and abrogate his responsibilities in the face of questions from the opposition is a sickening lack of civic literacy and frankly spine. Trying to shame the opposition into “collaborative government” is frankly trying to avoid accountability. After all, when everyone is accountable, then no one is accountable, and that’s not how our system works. He’s the premier. He is responsible to the legislature for the decisions that the government makes, and while he’s trying to launder them through the opposition in the name of “collaboration,” that’s not how the system works. It doesn’t matter if it’s a hung parliament – that only means that he needs to work harder to secure the support of the opposition, not that they are in government with him. And yes, I’m enraged by this because he and everybody else should know better.

Alberta extremism

On another topic, this story out of Edmonton about extremist billboards calling for civil war against the rest of Canada, and promoting conspiracy theorism and outright lies about Justin Trudeau is extremely concerning because this is how illiberal populism happens. And Jason Kenney has a direct hand of responsibility in this, both by selling lies about the province’s situation and about what Trudeau is and is not doing, and by selling them snake oil in a bid to keep them angry because that’s how he gets votes. But as the anger won’t dissipate now that he’s in charge, he’s forced to try and keep the anger going in one way or another and hope that it doesn’t blow up in his face – hence why he’s inventing new grievances by things like his sham Senate “elections” – because unless he keeps trying to point that anger to new enemies, it will turn on him. I really don’t think he appreciates the monster he’s created, and these billboards are a warning sign that needs to be heeded.

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Roundup: Nepotism versus Responsible Government

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As the nepotism scandal in Ontario picks up steam, with revelations that there were appointments made to lacrosse players and an MPP’s father, and more demands that there be a more independent review of the appointments that have been made, I think it’s time for a bit of a civics and history lesson about patronage appointments. In many ways, patronage appointments are how we wound up with Responsible Government in the colonies that became Canada in the first place – the local assemblies wanted control over who was being appointed to these positions rather than them going to people from the UK who would then come over to carry them out, and eventually we won that right as part of Responsible Government. It was also understood at the time that it was fine if the party in power put their friends into patronage positions because when fortunes turned and their rivals formed government, they would be able to do the same with their friends. That particular view we have, fortunately, evolved from.

Regardless of this evolution, the core fact remains – that under Responsible Government, it is the first minister and Cabinet who makes these decisions as they are the ones who advise the Governor General/lieutenant governor to make said appointment. It also means that they are accountable to the legislature for that advice, which is where the current nepotism scandal now hangs. There are going to be all kinds of Doug Ford apologists who say that this was all Dean French, that Ford didn’t know what was going on – even though he signed off on it. And that’s the thing. It doesn’t matter if this was French hoodwinking Ford because Ford is the one who advises the LG about the appointments, and Ford is responsible to the legislature for making those appointments (and for hiring French, when you think about it). And if his party gets too embarrassed by this particular scandal, well, there could be a loss of confidence in the offing (likely from within party ranks than the legislature, but stranger things have happened).

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1143639086231633920

On that note of accountability, we should also point out that with the appointment of yet more ministers and “parliamentary assistants,” there are a mere 27 MPPs left in the back benches who don’t have a role, which means that they will see themselves as one screw-up away from a promotion (and this is more salient in the provinces, where regional balances are less of an outright concern, and this government in particular seems less interested in other diversity balances). That does erode the exercise of accountability by backbenchers. So does, incidentally, a chief of staff who would berate MPs for not clapping long enough, but maybe they’ll grow a backbone now that French is gone. Maybe.

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Roundup: Principle over circumstance

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After a weekend of yet more wailing and gnashing of teeth about the Omar Khadr settlement, and despite detailed explanations from the ministers of justice and public safety, and Justin Trudeau reminding everyone that this is not about the individual circumstances of Khadr himself but rather the price of successive governments who have ignored the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, we’re still seeing a number of disingenuous talking points and facile legal analysis from players who know better. Here is some of the better commentary from the weekend.

https://twitter.com/aaronwherry/status/883736382602194944

https://twitter.com/aradwanski/status/884024742826696704

https://twitter.com/cforcese/status/884031425862828032

https://twitter.com/stephaniecarvin/status/884031824783126528

A number of people over social media have insisted that treatment of Khadr, including the “frequent flier” sleep deprivation technique used to “soften him up” before CSIS agents arrived to question him, or the fact that he was strung up for hours to the point of urinating himself (and then used as a human mop to wipe it up) or being threatened with gang rape didn’t constitute torture.

https://twitter.com/cforcese/status/884047890003505152

https://twitter.com/cforcese/status/884051777850617856

https://twitter.com/cforcese/status/884052141417037825

There was some particularly petulant legal analysis from former Conservative cabinet ministers that got pushback.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/884078867006320640

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/884091668940677120

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/884214974809296898

https://twitter.com/InklessPW/status/883432269976940544

And of course, the broader principle remains.

https://twitter.com/stephaniecarvin/status/884029627546599424

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Roundup: Virtue signalling over Khadr

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It’s official – Omar Khadr got his apology and settlement, but the terms of which are confidential (as is par for the course in most settlement offers), and now the Conservatives are really steaming mad. For his part, Khadr says that he hopes the apology and settlement will restore a bit of his reputation and help people take a second look at his case to see that there was more going on, but also notes that he is not really profiting from his past. While the ministers where quite neutral in their tone, when the parliamentary secretary accompanying them translated in French, he took the partisan shots that the government didn’t, which was odd. Later in the evening, the government put out further clarifications, no doubt bombarded with accusations of bad faith.

https://twitter.com/inklesspw/status/883357354187685889

https://twitter.com/cochranecbc/status/883477490399928321

Later in the afternoon, Andrew Scheer took to the microphones to offer a take so utterly disingenuous that it borders on gob-smacking. Essentially, he argued that a) they should have spared no expense in fighting Khadr’s suit, and b) that the remedy for the Supreme Court of Canada decisions around Khadr was his repatriation, which is a complete and utter fabrication. And there’s a part of me that would have like to see them argue that case before the Supreme Court, if only to watch the justices there flay them before laughing them out of the room.

https://twitter.com/aaronwherry/status/883381110285225985

https://twitter.com/aaronwherry/status/883385583233531906

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/883385763634831360

https://twitter.com/aaronwherry/status/883410380277645312

And then the rest of the weighing in, including Stephen Harper, who wanted to pin the blame on the current government, while Conservatives continued to virtue signal that no expense should be spared to give the appearance of fighting terrorists, never mind that this decision is about Khadr’s Charter rights being violated. For a law-and-order party to decide they want to cherry pick which Charter rights don’t apply to people they consider icky, well, that’s a pretty big problem right there.

https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/883467740325052416

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/883468432578097152

Here are some further legal opinions on the settlement, while Craig Forcese offers a reminder of some of the legal points at play, including where successive governments screwed up and made this settlement necessary where they could have repatriated him earlier and put him on trial here, an opportunity now lost. There is also a reminder that the government didn’t disclose the details of earlier settlements with former terror suspects who were cleared of wrongdoing. Terry Glavin has little patience for how this was handled on all sides, while Susan Delcarourt sees signs that people are still open to being convinced about Khadr.

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