Tag Archives: Justin Trudeau

Roundup: Threats from the Senate

Posted on by

There are a couple of issues arising out of the Senate right now, both of which deserve a bit of exploration. The first is over the selection of the party’s interim leader – the party president has indicated that the Commons caucus would make the selection (per the provisions in Michael Chong’s lamentable Reform Act). Senator David Wells says that no, the party constitution says that an interim leader would be chosen by the Parliamentary caucus, which would include senators. Why is this important? Because right now, the party has no East Coast MPs, nor any from the GTA or Montreal, whereas they have Senators from those regions who can provide some of that input. (In fact, it’s yet another reason for why the Senate is valuable – for years, it used to mean that the only Albertans in the Liberal caucus were from the Senate, until of course Trudeau’s Great Expulsion). And as Wells points out, this is an issue in the party’s own constitution, which makes the party president’s position that much more untenable. The other issue is certain Conservative senators trying to flex their muscles and saying that they’re under no obligation to pass Liberal legislation, much as in 2006, Liberal senators were giving the Conservatives a hard time with some of their bills. This whole thing is problematic for a number of reasons. First of all, this is likely someone talking out of their ass (and I have my suspicions as to who it is). With Harper no longer leader, and no longer PM, any leverage that he had with the Senate has pretty much evaporated. Newer senators no longer have someone to feel beholden to, and there is no longer the emotional blackmail of “You want to support the PM, don’t you?” Those non-existent levers of power that the PMO was trying to exercise (per Nigel Wright’s complaints) no longer have anything to back them up when it comes to threat or reward. And then there’s the matter of 2006 that these oh-so-brave “senior senators” are referencing, particularly the Accountability Act. The problem was that it was a bad bill that had all kinds of problems and loopholes, but they didn’t get fixed on the Commons side? Why? Because the Liberals of that era were so cowed by their election loss that they left the fight up to the Senate rather than take the blowback themselves, while Pat Martin was the Conservatives’ accomplice, giddily rubber-stamping the whole affair in order to punish the Liberals some more. So the Liberals in the Senate did the battling for the needed amendments, most of which they actually got. I’m going to be optimistic and say that the legislation coming from this crop of Liberals is likely to be of higher calibre because they’re not opposed to listening to civil service advice for kneejerk reasons. On top of it all, there has to be enough shreds of self-awareness in the Conservative senate caucus to know that if they start playing games, they’ll damage themselves and the Chamber’s reputation as Trudeau tries to rehabilitate it, and everyone will lose as a result. So you’ll excuse me if I don’t take these threats too seriously.

https://twitter.com/cmathen/status/657348537873735682

Continue reading →

Roundup: Campaign autopsies in full swing

Posted on by

Not that we’ve had a day to catch our breaths (more or less), the campaign post-mortems are beginning, especially from the Conservative camp. Things are starting to leak out, such as this gem from the Conservative camp, which tells about their considering and ultimately rejecting the Hail Marry pass of having Harper say that he wouldn’t run after this campaign. It also tells of the Conservatives trying to offer advice to the faltering NDP campaign about how to attack the Liberals, lest the Liberals win out over both of them, and lo and behold, they did. Ron Liepert – a former provincial cabinet minister who turned federal to take out Rob Anders at the nomination race – talks about a campaign where the central party wasn’t respecting the local candidates or listening to their concerns on the ground. Andrew Coyne writes that the party defeated itself with a “deep, unrelenting, almost poisonous cynicism.” Not surprisingly, Conservatives like Michelle Rempel are questioning the tone of the campaign. As for the NDP, they are starting their own process, but some, like now-former MP Craig Scott, are less gracious in defeat.

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/657050622504472576

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/657050927812075520

Continue reading →

Roundup: Setting a new tone

Posted on by

The first day “on the job,” as it were, and Justin Trudeau was out to set a different tone from his predecessor from the get-go. While he and his cabinet won’t be sworn in until November 4th, the job of transition started today, but that didn’t stop Trudeau for being at the Metro station in his riding first thing to thank the voters there, and to pose for photos – something that Harper is pretty much loathe to do if it’s not in a controlled space. (One imagines that Trudeau’s RCMP detail is going to start freaking out really shortly). From Montreal, he flew back to Ottawa for a rally with supporters and local winning candidates (who pretty much swept the region here, with Pierre Poilievre’s riding being the sole exception), and then up to Parliament Hill to make some calls with international leaders including President Obama, where talk ranged from the ISIS mission to pipeline projects, with the message to the world being that “Canada is back.” Well, with a number of high-level international conferences coming up, Trudeau has high expectations being placed on him by those other world leaders. There is also a great sense of optimism with the premiers as well, so that looks like it could be a changing tone there as well. From there, Trudeau held a press conference in the National Press Theatre – something Stephen Harper hasn’t done since 2009, when he was trying to strike a deal with Michael Ignatieff not to topple his government over the summer (resulting in that Blue Ribbon panel on EI reform, which ended up collapsing thanks to the antics of Poilievre). He also walked there from the Hill as opposed to taking a motorcade. (Harper will take his motorcade across the street from 24 Sussex to Rideau Hall). Trudeau took questions for about 25 minutes – including follow-ups, and then promised that he would be back for more. It’s a completely different way of running things that most of the younger journalists on the Hill (myself included) aren’t used to. Not only that, but he promised that these would be regular appearances. It’s resetting the tone with the media, and it’s a hopeful signal that the tone really will start to change around here, and maybe we’ll start getting back to the way things used to be, before the dark times.

Continue reading →

Roundup: An unprecedented majority

Posted on by

I’m not going to write too much about the election because I already filed a late story, and I’m still processing everything, but I’m not sure that anyone saw this result. A Liberal majority. Harper resigning as leader but intending to stay on as MP for the time being. The NDP decimated, but Mulcair staying on – for now. The Liberals sweeping the entirety of Atlantic Canada and much of Quebec in seats that they hadn’t held in decades. The Bloc had a bit of a resurgence, but not much, and Duceppe didn’t keep his own seat. Liberals elected in Edmonton and Calgary. I will say that we are likely to see an era of fewer constitutional challenges and a greater respect for parliament and its institutions – which hopefully means a restored relationship with the media. Hopefully there will be fewer bills that will be subject to Charter challenges because the new government will have a better respect for civil service advice. The one thing that I do worry about is the fact that there are so many rookie MPs in this new parliament – some 140 or so of the newly elected Liberals don’t have federal experience, and that always leaves openings for the party to start exerting more control than it should. That said, most of these new MPs have impressive résumés going into the job, so that may suit them in good stead, but we’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime, the next couple of weeks are going to be a whirlwind of transition, and with any luck, we’ll see Parliament summoned within a few weeks in order to get the ball rolling on the Liberals’ ambitious legislative agenda (along with taking care of things the Conservatives left too long, like the assisted dying legislation). With any luck, it’s going to be a lot of fun…

https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/656307070224826368

https://twitter.com/scottfeschuk/status/656320029911203840

Continue reading →

Roundup: Endorsing a unicorn

Posted on by

It was newspaper endorsement time yesterday, and it was a pretty baffling scene all around. Postmedia’s papers had a centrally-dictated series of endorsements for Harper – in spite of all of his myriad of woes and abuses – because economy. Never mind that I’ve written pieces talking to economics professors who’ve said that the Liberals are probably the better party when it comes to the markets because of the lacklustre performance of the Conservatives and their willingness to engage in protectionist behaviours and shut down foreign acquisitions and the like while preferring regulation to carbon pricing – but the management decision of the chain is this reflexive nonsense that the Conservatives are best for the economy. As if that weren’t enough, we got a baffling incompetent endorsement from the Globe and Mail that the Conservatives deserve re-election, but not Harper, so by all means elect them but he should step down immediately after. Because that will totally happen. It’s as incompetent as the time that there was an endorsement for a minority government – because Canadians can totally choose that option on their ballots. What’s also mystifying about the Globe endorsement is that it seems to be endorsing the Progressive Conservative party of yore rather than the modern party, which is neither progressive nor even really conservative, but rather is more of a right-flavoured populist party. It is also wholly the creation of Harper and shaped to his vision. He has so marginalised and pushed out the majority of leadership contenders that it becomes an exercise in futility to promote the party minus him because he is the glue holding the party together. And does the Globe have a successor in mind that they would prefer? Would they prefer an equally divisive figure like Jason Kenney instead? It’s sad that instead of engaging in a reasoned analysis, we got that instead. Way to go. Elsewhere, former Globe and Mail editor William Thorsell pens the editorial he would have written if he were still in the business, and Robert Hiltz offers some thoughts on the endorsement game.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Trudeau’s troubling QP pledge

Posted on by

In an interview with Huffington Post, Justin Trudeau mused somewhat about his proposed changes to Question Period, where he is looking to institute a once-weekly Prime Minister’s Questions Period, akin to Prime Minister’s Questions in the UK, but wouldn’t commit to showing up any more days than that. Under Harper’s time in office, he went from three days to one or two, and only answering the questions of the other leaders when he did show up. Even if a theoretical Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were to show up once a week and answer all of the questions put to him, I’m a bit sceptical because it does limit availability. Part of what’s been the beauty of our QP as we have structured it is that the PM can be called upon to answer any question on any day, with no advance notice. That’s not the way it works in Westminster, where the PM is given questions in advance. Trudeau is also talking about staying out on the road to connect with Canadians, but insists that it’s not a diminution of parliament but rather the opposite, because he’ll have a capable cabinet that can handle things in his absence and it not be a one-man government. Fair enough, but anytime politicians insist that their time is better spent away from Parliament Hill is diminishing the role of parliament. We have a representative democracy, which means that people send their representatives here to debate and make the decisions. If those representatives decide they have better things to do, then what’s the point? I do find it a troubling sentiment because parliament matters. Pretending it’s a distraction from “the real issues” or just a “bubble” ignores that the work that does go on here is important and needs to be accorded with some actual respect. There is more to governing a country than doorstep issues, and it might behove a future Prime Minister to acknowledge that.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Crafting an image

Posted on by

The National Post had an interesting feature looking at the construction of Justin Trudeau’s image over the course of this election, with his carefully chosen images like the boxing, or the canoeing, and so on. Of course, Trudeau had this set out since he began the leadership contest, with an official photographer who has followed him around everywhere since. And yes, there is a deliberate crafting of the image he has been putting forward – vital, positive, authentic, all chosen to look natural and not artificial. This is nothing new, and what the piece didn’t mention was that Stephen Harper has been busy doing the same thing for the past number of years. Harper has a team of photographers and videographers on staff who have similarly been engaged in crafting an image of Harper that he has been trying to build, albeit it’s one of him being leaderly but not glamorous or robust. Where the divergence has been is the way in which Harper has crafted this image to such a controlling extent that he has gradually been shutting out legitimate news media and photojournalists and then distributes handout photos from his own photographers instead. Which, as we know, is not journalism but stenopgraphy. It’s gotten to the point where he has been self-generating “news” videos (the 24/Seven series) in order to bypass the press. Trudeau, to his credit, has not yet begun engaging in this kind of behaviour, and has been far more open to media availabilities and photojournalism, where media cameras are at the same events where his photographer is. That remains an important distinction – sure, he may have some great shots as part of his campaign media, but the real media is still there too, and that’s an important distinction.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Boil-water promises need a grain of salt

Posted on by

Some First Nations issues have finally been getting some play in the past couple of days in the election, after the early reiterations of positions by the parties with regards to things like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the issue of missing and murdered Aboriginal women. While Trudeau and Mulcair in recent days made repeated promises around closing funding gaps with First Nations, particularly around education, Trudeau this week made a pledge around the boil-water advisories on some 93 First Nations reserves, and said that he wants those eliminated within five years (though that number could be larger as the federal list doesn’t include BC). The question that Kady O’Malley asked, quite reasonably, is how big of a hole that puts in Trudeau’s other spending promises around infrastructure spending, as previous estimates have pegged water and wastewater systems needed on 571 First Nations around $1.2 billion. What could be more concerning to Trudeau and company is this conversation that Maclean’s had with an expert in this particular field, who said that dealing with this problem in five years is unrealistic given that the reasons for the advisories on so many communities is varied and that there can’t be a simple top-down fix for the issue. It is a complex problem that involves more than one level of government, and while the promise may be laudable, it may be necessary to temper expectations (albeit, as openly and transparently as possible) while still pushing ahead on the file, fixing as many as possible in five years but noting that eliminating the problem may take longer.

Continue reading →

Roundup: A baffling public service pledge

Posted on by

In a bid to win over the public service vote in the Ottawa region, the NDP have pledged a “code of conduct” for ministers and their staff, as well as an end to cuts to the public service, a Public Appointments Commission to end patronage appointments, a restoration of collective bargaining rights, and putting an end to contract staff. Oh, and an end to muzzling “scientists and other public service employees.” And that sends off my alarm bells because it’s a massive reorientation of the role of the public service. While the NDP thinks that they’re trying to remove the politicization around the public service that has been developing, empowering public servants to speak against the governments that they are supposed to serve is mind-boggling. The issue of just what we’re muzzling in terms of scientists was thoroughly hashed out a few months ago when Andrew Leach went against the countervailing wisdom and challenged the “white coat” privilege that these kinds of pronouncements assume, that it’s all a bunch of benevolent climate scientists who can’t speak about their work. What it ignores is that there are other kinds of scientists – like economists in the Department of Finance – for whom this is not even a consideration. Just because it’s politically convenient to think that we want these white coats to denounce the government’s environmental policies, does that mean it should be okay for government economists to denounce fiscal policy? Or government lawyers to denounce the government’s justice policies? (It’s also why their candidate, Emilie Taman was denied a leave to run – the Public Prosecution Service was created to remove the perception of political bias from Crown prosecutions, and having one of your prosecutors running for office defeats that purpose). Public Servants serve the Queen and carry out their duties in a neutral fashion. Making it easier for them to start denouncing the government is a mystifying promise. Also, the promise to bar temps is short-sighted and makes it harder for young people to get civil service jobs. Those temp jobs are often the best way to get one’s foot in the door in the public service and get some experience that can translate into a job, considering how byzantine and nigh-impossible the outside competition process is if one wasn’t lucky enough to get bridged in through a school programme. Conversely, getting new staff in a timely manner or for a specific project is also a ridiculous process for managers. Banning temps makes no actual sense.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Munk debate a success

Posted on by

The Munk Debate on foreign policy was actually really well done – probably the best and most substantive debate we’ve had so far during this election, with a good format, good moderation, and bilingualism that more or less worked out (though there could have been a bit more effort into the French). (Kady’s liveblog here). We also started to see a bit more of a change in the leaders. Harper was more or less his usual self, and in foreign policy, well, he’s got ten years of experience, but he also has a record to defence. Trudeau stepped up his game in this debate, and was the most confident and self-assured he’s been of any debate. The improvement was marked, and given the low expectations going in, where people figured that foreign policy was his weakest area (especially as it’s where most of his notable gaffes going into the election were), but those fears were largely put to rest. As for Mulcair, people expecting a statesmanlike performance were largely dashed as he tended to more personal attacks and swipes, while avoiding a number of answers – possibly because his party’s foreign policy platform is the thinnest of the three. Trudeau also defended his father’s record from attacks by Mulcair, and seemed to have a few of his best moments doing so, and it did get notice over the Twitter Machine. (It was also, he noted the fifteenth anniversary of his father’s death, so that certainly did weigh on his mind at the time). Here is some debate reaction from Michael Den Tandt, the Ottawa Citizen’s panel, and over Twitter, Bob Rae (who was subject of another of Mulcair’s swipes on stage). Oh, and audience polls seem to indicate that Trudeau was the big winner. Make of that what you will.

https://twitter.com/carbonexplorer/status/648663698819694592

https://twitter.com/kateheartfield/status/648657546933325824

Continue reading →