Tag Archives: Justin Trudeau

Roundup: Danielle Smith’s problematic tales

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The Danielle Smith/Wildrose drama continued yesterday, as details about her decision to defect to the ruling Progressive Conservatives started spilling out, and Smith herself started giving interviews. Interviews that, well, didn’t offer a whole lot of clarity to the issues at hand. The shift in tone from when two of her former MLAs crossed the floor just weeks ago, the statements about the party culture of the PCs, about leadership changes not being the answer – all blown out of the water as Smith equivocated about all of it. There were some tantalizing hints, however, in some of what she said, talking about how the party was already self-destructing, as the grassroots membership voted against policies that would have moved them into the social mainstream rather than keeping them squarely as a protest movement of cranks and what Heather Mallick dubs “angry pyjamas.” As a leader who was increasingly disconnected from her party, she had choices of her own to make. Then comes in revelations about talks with the centrist Alberta Party to merge – in Smith’s estimation to help get an urban base for a rural protest party – and that Preston Manning had a hand in convincing the other Wildrose MLAs to cross the floor. It’s incredible to read, but I still find myself unmoved by this notion that it’s a kind of “reunification,” and that it’s all about the conservative movement as a whole. The problem with that is that it’s hard to consider the PC party as conservatives to a great extent because they’re more populists than anything, and that’s what allows them to remain as amorphous as they are and keep reshaping themselves to allow the One Party State™ to continue carrying on. That it merely absorbs the more strident fiscal conservatism of the Wildrose members is merely a sign of the times. By that same token, the federal Conservatives are also more populists than they are conservatives, if you judge by their fiscal policies, so it’s hard for me to swallow this narrative around the merger. It’s also hard to see how nine MLAs would cross out of the sake of careerism, but again, I go back to Smith’s comment about the party in a state of self-destruction. I’m sure more stories will continue to tumble out, but it’s a lot to try to wrap your head around. Kathleen Petty offers some thoughts, while Jen Gerson pitches for the leadership of the merged party – in 2042.

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Roundup: Strong feelings following defections

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In the wake of fairly stunning defections in both the federal NDP and the Wildrose party in Alberta are leaving a lot of hurt, angry and shaken people in their wake. With Glenn Thibeault leaving the federal NDP, his old riding association president says she feels like their work has been diminished, and a number of Thibeault’s former caucus colleagues say they’re feeling “hurt” by the departure. Over in Alberta, the Wildrose Party’s president has stepped down and a past president stepped into his place for the time being, and they insist they’re not defeated. I’m sure it will be a question as to how they decide to move forward, and what kind of leadership process they put in place in order to try and staunch the haemorrhaging that they’re feeling at present. Someone suggested that it’s something that Rob Anders could take on seeing as he’s been defeated in his quest for federal re-nomination twice, but still insists he wants to get that small-c conservative message about lower taxes out there. Then again, Alberta may be getting too liberal for Anders, which is what he blamed his lost nominations on. For many federal Conservatives, it’s more of a feeling of relief, no longer having their voter base split provincially (though how long said unity lasts is a question). The most incredible reaction to date, however, was NDP MP Linda Duncan, whose riding is in Edmonton, when she said that people in the province may be so disgusted that they’ll consider the NDP instead. I think this reaction says it best:

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Roundup: Challenging the empty seats

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A Vancouver lawyer has decided to launch a constitutional challenge about the fact that the Prime Minister has refused to fill the 16 vacant seats that are currently in the Senate, and it’s about time. In some provinces, half of their allotted seats are vacant, which has a real impact on their representation, all because Harper is both smarting from his string of poor appointments in 2008 when he elevated Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau to the chamber, but also because he’s petulant and is pouting after the Supreme Court gave him and his reform proposals a black eye (and with very good reason). And because of the pace at which justice unfortunately moves in this country, this challenge may not even be heard until after the next election happens, and a new government may be in place that will actually make appointments – imagine that! But either way, it would ne nice to get some kind of jurisprudence on the record, so that if other future prime ministers decide to be cute and not make appointments, there will be some common law in existence to show how it’s a constitutional obligation and not an option.

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Roundup: Partisan government tweets

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The government continues their questionable communications strategies, as they are now asking federal departments to tweet favourable messages about the government’s new “family tax cut” programmes using hashtags like #StrongFamilies. You know, a slogan that Harper debuted at a party event back in the summer. And these tax measures? Not actually adopted by Parliament yet, so advertising about them is premature (not that it stopped them with the Canada Job Grant, and they’re doing TV ads already on the basis of these unapproved tax measures). Despite what Tony Clement will tell you about how this is important messaging from the government to let people know about their new programmes, it all smacks of partisan advertising – just like those terrible marijuana ads that use torqued and demonstrably false claims (like 400 percent stronger marijuana). Getting public servants to start bombarding social media with these kinds of partisan messages further degrades the neutrality of the civil service, and shows the government to be treating it as their own personal ad agency, which they should not be doing.

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Roundup: An interim process

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The Commons Board of Internal Economy met yesterday and adopted the House of Commons administration policy on harassment as an interim measure going forward, but noted that they didn’t have any mandate to deal with the harassment incidents in question, and that they should be referred to the Procedure and House Affairs Committee instead (as only MPs can discipline themselves. Parliament is self-governing after all). That leaves the two suspended MPs in limbo for the time being. The NDP meanwhile are saying that one of the incidents may have actually been sexual assault and not harassment, according to Craig Scott who was in one of the meetings with one of the complainants. But the NDP’s justice critic, Françoise Boivin, said that Trudeau should have delivered a verbal warning to the two MPs and left it at that, because they didn’t want to lay charges or file a formal complaint. So they could then turn around and claim that Trudeau didn’t do anything about the incidents once he was made aware of them? Especially if they waited until the election to make that particular reveal? Trudeau maintains that he had a duty to act, which he followed up on.

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Roundup: Two Conservative holds

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The Conservatives held both ridings in the two by-elections last night, Jim Eglinski winning in Yellowhead and Pat Perkins in Whitby–Oshawa. That said, the Liberal numbers are probably the ones to keep an eye on, because they increased a whole lot between last night and the last election. In both cases, they went from third-place to second – from something like two percent to 19 in Yellowhead, and from 14 percent to 42 in Whitby–Oshawa, taking the lead at some points in the evening. (Note: Both figures were before all polls had reported in). Liberals will tell you that it means that they have momentum in two ridings that they didn’t previously hold, while the NDP will dismiss these as unimportant by-elections in Conservative ridings, but it does seem to complicate the narrative that they’ve been trying to tell of New Democrats being the only ones who can defeat Conservatives. Their numbers didn’t tell that story once again.

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Roundup: Leave it to (yet another) Officer

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Thomas Mulcair has written to the two other main party leaders about establishing a process to deal with MP-to-MP harassment, and proposes a clear definition in the Standing Orders, an independent Officer of Parliament to deal with complaints, training for MPs and staff, and to ensure that the process protects the rights of victims including to privacy. While some of this sounds reasonable on the surface, there are a few flags to my eye, some of it centred around the creation of yet another Officer, which gives the impression that this kind of thing is commonplace enough that you would need someone to deal with it full-time, rather than amending the mandate of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, for example, to deal with these kinds of issues as well. The proliferation of these Officers is actually a problem, and much like the NDP’s desire to blow up the Board of Internal Economy to create a new bureaucracy to deal with the administration of the Commons, it’s a problem that seeks to remove the self-governing powers from MPs. This is an issue that needs actual debate – if the message is that we can’t trust MPs to manage their own affairs, then what does that say about their ability to manage the country’s affairs? In a way it’s almost infantilizing them, and that should be concerning. Liberal colleagues say that they want the investigations taken care of quickly, and it was noted that there had been discussion of a harassment policy arising from a 2012 document by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and that members of all parties were to take it back to their caucuses to discuss the matter, but it hadn’t moved forward since. Paul Wells looks at these harassment allegations in the broader picture of the sad place that the capital finds itself in at the moment.

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Roundup: Shrugging off other harassment allegations

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A suit was filed in Ontario Superior Court yesterday alleging harassment by an NDP MP Sylvain Chicoine, according to a former staffer – but it’s not quite the same as the other allegations that have gripped the Hill this week. Instead, it was another staffer in that office that harassed the female staffer who filed the suit, while she alleged that nothing was done because Chicoine acted in a sexist and misogynist manner by doing nothing about it, until he eventually fired her. The party closed ranks around Chicoine by saying that the staffer’s union had investigated and found nothing to be amiss, but were silent about the fact that they offered her a lesser data-entry job in the leader’s office if she agreed to drop her suit. Mulcair tried to claim that it had nothing to do with Chicoine but was simply a dispute between staffers – not true, according to the suit – and even went so far as to opine that as a lawyer, he thought her case was without merit – a rather unusual move for someone who was so concerned about re-victimization of other complainants just a day before. The change in tone between the two incidents is quite something.

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Roundup: Little hysteria in the face of a gunman

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The brief recap of yesterday’s madness here in Ottawa – a gunman identified as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau shot and killed Corporal Nathan Cirillo at the National War Memorial before he headed up to Parliament Hill, made it into the building and injured one guard before he was eventually taken down. (Timeline)

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Roundup: A few answers and a fuzzy line

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The RCMP gave a lengthy press conference yesterday on the “domestic terror” incident in Quebec, and laid out several more facts to the case – that they were aware that the person of interest was being radicalized, that they had been in contact with his family and the Imam at that local mosque after concerns were raised that they arrested him back in July and seized his passport after he expressed a desire to head to Turkey in order to join the fighting in Syria, but that they seemed to be making progress and that he appeared to want to turn his life around just a few weeks ago. And then the incident happened, but there wasn’t much that they could have done to prevent it because it’s not illegal to have radical thoughts, or to drive a car. One of the two soldiers that he ran down died of his injuries yesterday, the other’s injuries are minor. The whole incident raises questions about passport seizures – especially as it means that they might be more likely to commit an act of violence here in Canada – and also highlights the fact that the threshold for where an act of violence becomes an act of terrorism is a subjective one. Defence Minister Rob Nicholson said that the death of that soldier will strengthen the resolve of our CF-18 pilots headed to Kuwait. Stephen Saideman offers some perspective sauce on the whole issue. Michael Den Tandt says that Canada can’t pretend to be immune to the threat of terrorism any longer, but it depends how the government handles the next steps that will be the most telling.

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