In the past couple of days of Senate revelations, we find that Senator Pamela Wallin has an Ontario health card and not a Saskatchewan one, which raises the question about her residency – no matter that she spent 168 days in Saskatchewan last year. Wallin also apparently repaid a substantial amount in expense claims before this whole audit business started, which is also interesting news. Senator Mike Duffy, meanwhile, could actually end up owing $90,000 plus interest on his living expense claims rather than the $42,000 that was cited over the weekend. Oops. Tim Harper looks at the sideshow that is Senator Duffy’s non-apology and smells a deal made to save his job. Senator Cowan says that repayment doesn’t answer the questions – especially not the ones about residency, which means he may not be up to protect Duffy – or Wallin and Patterson’s – seats. And those Senators who’ve been silent on their residency claims are now being called before the Senate Internal Economy committee to explain themselves. Terry Milewski goes through the entire housing claims allegations and fixes an appropriate amount of scorn on the idea that two ticky-boxes are “complex” on the forms.
Tag Archives: Jason Kenney
Roundup: Knee-jerk populism vs. the Charter
In another stunning bout of knee-jerk populism, Jason Kenney has seized on the story of a Canadian dual-citizen blowing up a bus in Bulgaria, coupled it with a dubious Private Member’s Bill about stripping the citizenship of dual-citizens who engage in acts of war against the country, talked about amending it to include terrorism, and viola – ready for the media. How predictable, and how so very, very flawed. For one, it’ll never stand up to the Charter, because Canadians, no matter where they may have been born, are all equal under the law. Also, it shows contempt for process because he’s trying to hijack a PMB that probably shouldn’t have been voteable in the first place. It’s worse that Kenney wants to try and ram through unconstitutional measures into the PMB process, which would get a mere couple of hours of committee study before heading back to the Chamber for a mere two more hours of debate. Yeah, he may need to rethink this whole proposition.
Roundup: Succession and Senate consequences
University of Ottawa professor Philippe Lagassé writes the definitive look at the Crown succession bill the government introduced last week, and proves how the government and its arguments are entirely wrong about it. Australian constitutional scholar, and the authority on succession issues, Anne Twomey, writes about the bill and how it de-patriates our constitution back to Britain, as well as is a telltale sign about the lengths the government will go to avoid dealing with the provinces.
Speaking of the lengths that Harper will go to in order to avoid the provinces, regarding last week’s other big news – the Senate reference – Paul Wells notes that Harper’s plan seems to have been to try to destabilise the legislative equilibrium by pushing what small changes he could and take advantage of the resulting free-for-all – which sounds about right. Over in the Globe and Mail, there is a look at what an elected Senate under the current proposal means regarding provincial parties running candidates in a body dominated by federal parties. The result is almost certainly chaos that would be largely unworkable, reduced to issue-by-issue coalitions, grinding the legislative process to a halt. Free-for-all that a PM could try to work some additional executive powers out of in order to “break the logjam”? Don’t discount the possibility.
Roundup: Whistle-blowing potentially illegal instructions
A lawyer in the Department of Justice is taking his own department to Federal Court because of what he deems to be illegal instructions with drafting bills that could contravene the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but without notifying Parliament. Think about all of the court challenges to those “tough on crime” mandatory minimum sentences, and how they’re being struck down. And for his efforts at transparency and accountability, he’s been suspended without pay. Because it’s not like this government is trying to politicise the civil service or anything – right?
Speaking of which, the Liberals want the Government Operations committee and the Clerk of the Privy Council to look into the issue of the M-4 Unit – err, Julian Fantino’s partisan letters on the CIDA website, even though CIDA staff insist it was all a mistake, that these letters were mixed in with a large volume of material they were uploading. Not that the Liberals are buying it.
Roundup: Page takes aim at the real problem of Parliament
iPolitics‘ Colin Horgan had a good talk with Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page, who breaks down some of the key concerns that his office has – that the political executive is now steamrolling budgets through without due diligence and telling MPs to trust them and check their work afterwards, when the Public Accounts come out, because the process is so convoluted. And he’s right – it is broken, but not only because the executive has gamed the system, but because MPs have decided to abdicate their responsibility to scrutinise the estimates because they have other priorities, like their eleventieth Private Members’ Bill that won’t see the light of day, or scoring political points in the scandal of the day, or pet hobby projects that yes, they may care about and may be important, but ultimately at the cost of their actual job of scrutiny. Add to that how they’re using their staff to shepherd through passports and immigration files rather than assisting them in the actual analysis work. Yes, the system needs to be fixed, but I will caution that the changes need to come from the ground up. Voters need to demand that their MPs do their due diligence, and MPs need to take that job seriously and not fob it off onto the PBO, as they have been doing, often under the rubric that his numbers can be trusted because he’s non-partial. Meanwhile, there is insufficient pushback – especially from the government backbenchers, who aren’t supposed to just parrot mindless slogans – and we wind up with a situation like we have today. At least Page is talking about the actual problem and laying the blame where it needs to be laid, rather than just pouting about the current government being mean (as so many others are doing).
QP: Pursuing peace and human rights
It was all hands on deck in the Commons today, for the first time in what seems like ages. Even the Bloc leader, Daniel Paillé was present – albeit from his perch in the diplomatic gallery, as he doesn’t actually have a seat. Thomas Mulcair kicked things off by reading off a question about the leaked proposed foreign policy plan, whereby the government would be abandoning their pledge not to sacrifice human rights on the altar of the almighty dollar. Harper stood up and in his usual shrugging manner, said the document wasn’t official policy and that his government always works to pursue peace and human rights. Mulcair went on to talk about the violence happening in the Congo, and the fact that Harper was just there talking about trade in the region. Harper disputed that characterisation, however, by saying that he did meet with opposition groups and expressed his concern over human rights abuses while at the Francophonie Summit in that country. Peggy Nash was up next, and wondered why Harper didn’t want to meet with the premiers when they were going to be discussing the economy. Jim Flaherty took this question, and pointed out that Harper regularly meets with the premiers. Bob Rae was up for the Liberals, and asked if Harper would consider doubling the flow of the gas tax to the municipalities by the next budget, so that they can engage in some long-term planning for infrastructure. Harper pointed out that they are consulting, but it was his government that made the gas tax transfers permanent, before the two of them had some back-and-forth over who can take credit for the gas tax revenues flowing to the cities.
Roundup: Alerted to mischief days before the vote
Uh oh. Access to Information documents show that the public were raising concerns about misleading robo-calls to Elections Canada before the election took place, and that Elections Canada was already in contact with the Conservative Party’s lawyer about said mischief. These new clues fit in with the testimony given by the owner of that one phone bank company regarding the calls they were making for the Conservatives in the days leading up to the campaign.
Some 11,000 jobs have been cut so far in the public service, 7500 of them by attrition, says Tony Clement.
There has been some drama in the Senate over amendments to the Cluster munitions treaty.
Roundup: Another year of deficits
Jim Flaherty delivered his fiscal update yesterday, and what do you know? All of that global economic uncertainty and lowered commodity prices means that we’ll be in deficit for an additional year. Looks like all of those “wait until the budget is balanced” promises from the last election won’t happen before the next one. Meanwhile, Macleans.ca’s Econowatch explains the difference between the $5 billion and $7 billion deficit figures (which boils down to choosing optimistic or pessimistic forecasts), while economist Stephen Gordon says that Flaherty should pretty much stay the course (thanks in large part to the thicker cushion left to him by the debt reduction efforts of Paul Martin and company).
Embattled minister Peter Penashue didn’t hold a meeting yesterday as promised to explain the irregularities with his campaign spending and donations. Constituents were told they could write him if they have questions, while a one-question phone survey has been going around the riding about whether or not people would vote for him again. It’s all a bit odd. Penashue did put out a letter on his website, in which he pretty much blames his former Official Agent for everything, which is convenient, and would show negligence on his own part for not keeping an eye on things as the candidate who is ultimately accountable.
Roundup: Long-term damage and hidden changes
The former Chief Electoral Officer has big concerns about what Thursday’s Supreme Court decision on Etobicoke Centre means for future elections – especially when it come to people trying to vote at polls they’re not assigned to, and the future court challenges around those rules. Meanwhile, here are five of the outstanding issues that remain from the last election.
CBC delves in the Omnibus Budget Bill 2: The Revenge and finds 22 changes in the fine print to things like public sector and military pensions, changes to environmental legislation, eliminating boards, changes to the Indian Act, and so on. It’s definitely worthwhile reading. Oh, and those changes to the Navigable Waters Protection Act? Are about navigation because of changes made to the bill through the back door four months ago when the government gutted the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act in the first omnibus budget bill.
Roundup: Opitz keeps his seat
In a 4-3 decision, the Supreme Court upheld the election result in Etobicoke Centre, allowing Ted Opitz to remain as the MP. It’s a difficult decision, because it leaves open some questions as to how many procedural errors we bother to enforce so long as we ensure that people can vote, whether or not it is actually proper for them to do so in that manner, rather than see anyone’s right to vote taken away. Here are the reactions, from Opitz, Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Bob Rae, and others. Paul Wells parses some of the meaning of the split decision, the players on both sides, and throws some cold water on those conspiracy theories of stacked courts (and if anyone believes them, then they obviously haven’t paid any attention to the Supreme Court of Canada in the past). Emmett Macfarlane, who has literally written a book on the Court, discusses what he believes would have happened if they had ruled the other way. Adam Goldenberg uses this decision as a reminder about how our Supreme Court is not partisan, unlike the one in the States.