Tag Archives: Justin Trudeau

Roundup: A curious set of leaks

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There was an interesting bit of news out yesterday in that the husband of Trudeau’s Chief of Staff, Rob Silver, was accused of having lobbied officials in Bill Morneau’s office as well as the PMO about making changes to the emergency wage subsidy legislation so that the company he worked for would qualify for it (which they don’t as they are majority-owned by Quebec’s pension plan). Apparently, he was turned down and those officials said that they felt “uncomfortable” by it all, but it’s nevertheless raising questions, and the Lobbying Commissioner is going to review the incident (but it’s likely he fell within the rules of not registering because it falls under the 20 percent threshold). There’s also no suggestion that said PM’s Chief of Staff, Katie Telford, was associated in any of this, nor the PM, but that’s not really what’s interesting about it.

https://twitter.com/mattgurney/status/1296947674046959617

https://twitter.com/mattgurney/status/1296952196022571009

For the past two weeks, as the leaks about Bill Morneau started coming out in advance of his departure, we also saw a number of warnings over social media about Liberals being their own worst enemies and that now was really not a good time for a civil war within the party. The fact that there were anonymous leaks to both VICE and the National Post about this incident shows that someone is suddenly awfully keen to talk, hoping to possibly embarrass PMO in some way, and considering that the leakers are showing how virtuous they were in standing up to Silver might make one assume that those leakers are loyalists of Morneau who are trying to, if not burnish his reputation, then certainly tarnish his detractors. I do wonder if this is a limited screw-you to Trudeau, because I haven’t yet seen camps loyal to Chrystia Freeland and François-Philippe Champagne forming and trying to oust Trudeau so that one of them can take over just yet. That said, this year has proven to be full of surprises, so we’ll see.

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Roundup: Freeland precedes a prorogation

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The fallout from Bill Morneau’s resignation yesterday culminated in a brief Cabinet shuffle that saw Chrystia Freeland appointed to replace him as finance minister, and Dominic LeBlanc taking over her intergovernmental affairs responsibilities. This makes Freeland the country’s first woman federal finance minister, and there was much back-patting over that particular glass ceiling being shattered. The bigger news, however, was the fact that prime minister Justin Trudeau decided to prorogue Parliament to return on September 23rd – the same week they were intended to return anyway – for a new Speech from the Throne that would outline a new set of priorities for the government in order to focus on rebuilding the economy. Trudeau said that it was the time to move forward rather than revert to the status quo, and that we need bold new solutions rather than being held back by old ways of thinking. He also said that the pandemic was an “unprecedented opportunity,” a chance to build a more resilient Canada, which is healthier, safer, more competitive, more welcoming, and fairer. “This is our moment to change the future for the better,” he declared, adding that the window of opportunity wouldn’t be open for long.

During the Q&A, Trudeau only had praise for Morneau and wouldn’t elaborate on the leaks that happened up to his resignation. Regarding the Governor General, he said that he had confidence in the third-party investigative process launched by PCO. On his children going back to school, he said that they were discussing the matter “actively.” Regarding Freeland’s previous writing on taxing the super-wealthy, Trudeau said that he has been having this conversation with Freeland since he recruited her to politics, which is why the first thing they did was raise taxes on the top one percent, and that they wouldn’t raise taxes at this time. Regarding prorogation, Trudeau tried to differentiate his move with Harper’s 2008 prorogation by saying that while Harper was trying to avoid a confidence vote, he was instead putting one on the table with the Speech (err, except the logic falls apart when you realize that Harper also had a confidence vote following that prorogation, which he survived). He said that they continue to cooperate on any WE investigations, and that they released those thousands of pages of documents to the committee so that they can study them over the next month of fallow period, and that the opposition can keep asking questions when Parliament resumes. And when asked if he would be on the ballot next election, Trudeau said he would be and that he was “excited about the opportunity and the responsibility.”

We also got an extended response from Freeland, beyond her praise for Morneau, both about breaking the glass ceiling around women in the finance portfolio, and the government’s feminist agenda, which was important because of how this crisis has disproportionately affected women. Regarding her own disagreements with Trudeau – because of the narrative being promulgated about Morneau’s ouster – Freeland said that she and the PM had recently reflected “with good humour” on times they disagreed, and that she felt that having those different points of view, with the ability to have open, respectful, candid conversation about them (behind closed doors) brought government to a better decision. So there’s that.

On the subject of prorogation, this is vastly different from 2008, and anyone who tries to compare the two is either being disingenuous or has a comprehension problem. The WE Imbroglio is hardly a scandal – yes, it highlights the PM’s poor judgment, and that should be the cue that it’s time for him to leave, but that’s about it. The attempts by the various committees to find a smoking gun haven’t been able to find one, and several of them are exceeding their mandates in trying to force more investigations. Prorogation won’t end any ongoing committees, but delay them, though I’m really not sure there’s much more to be gained by continuing them, for what it’s worth. This being said, Trudeau proroguing now instead of waiting until the eve of his scheduled Throne Speech is not exactly a smart move given the current pandemic context, because if there is a need for an emergency recall of Parliament for a new legislative measure as a result of said pandemic, they will need to have a Throne Speech before that can happen. While I’m sympathetic to those former staffers who said that the government needs to focus on their Throne Speech and budget, and that the WE stuff was a real distraction from that, I would say too bad – the government made its bed and needs to lay in it. It was unnecessarily provocative and only increases people’s cynicism about Trudeau breaking his promise not to use tactics like these for political gain.

Meanwhile, Heather Scoffield makes note of the juggling act that Freeland will need to employ in order to balance the goals she’s facing, but notes her experience as a working mother will help. Susan Delacourt points out that Freeland is the only “star candidate” of Trudeau’s that is still standing and hasn’t been tarnished along the way.

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Roundup: An investigation into Rideau Hall

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It was announced at the end of the day yesterday that the Privy Council Office would be launching a “thorough, independent and impartial” investigation into the claims of harassment and verbal abuse at Rideau Hall, and that this would be done with the cooperation of the Secretary to the Governor General, Assunta Di Lorenzo – whom these same complainants say was Payette’s abusive tag-team partner. Payette later tweeted that she takes workplace harassment “very seriously,” for what that’s worth.

Meanwhile, Philippe Lagassé explains why Governors General need to be uncontroversial and above reproach – which extends to how they comport themselves in office, which this current situation is certainly an example of. He also makes the very salient point that the prime minister needs to be directly involved in fixing this situation one way or the other, which can mean encouraging Payette that it’s time to “spend more time with her family.” Chris Selley longs for the days of a boring GG in office, citing David Johnston as the ideal when compared to the current example (and there is a good chapter on the criteria for selecting a GG in Royal Progress, written by Senator Serge Joyal, with the observation that the women selected for the roles have largely had media presences as opposed to governance experience).

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Roundup: The toxic environment at Rideau Hall

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The big news last night was that the CBC had staff on the record about the climate of harassment and verbal abuse that has emerged at Rideau Hall since Julie Payette became Governor General, and her friend Assunta Di Lorenzo her Secretary. It’s not actually surprising – there are three years of stories coming out of Rideau Hall about the atmosphere getting increasingly toxic and that Payette’s behaviour has been mystifying at times – that she doesn’t want to do some of the ceremonial aspects of the job, and wants to have an active hand in portions of the job where she shouldn’t. My own sources have been saying that Payette and Di Lorenzo are “erratic,” and that most people can’t deal with them. Staff has left Rideau Hall in droves. All of the indications are that it’s a sick workplace – but Payette put out a press release saying that this is all news to her because nobody has complained through the official process (which isn’t really a complaint mechanism because it all goes back to Di Lorenzo and ultimately Payette). And if you need convincing, here are three years of stories (thread), including some of my own.

Ultimately, this is Justin Trudeau’s responsibility because he appointed her without due diligence that she would be suitable for the role. The fact that he did away with the vice-regal appointments committee in order to listen to his own inner cadre about Payette as a choice is pretty much the exact kind of thing we’re seeing with the WE Imbroglio playing out right now – nobody bothered to exercise critical judgment, and instead all went along nodding and drinking more of the Kool-Aid, and lo, a bad decision was made – and one that ultimately damaged one of our parliamentary institutions. It also is now up to Trudeau to do something about the situation, whether it’s managing Payette and Di Lorenzo and working on a plan to transition them out, or if they won’t go, calling up the Queen and asking her to dismiss Payette (which is a last resort because the first rule of constitutional monarchy is you don’t get the Queen involved). Any way you look at this, it’s not good, and it’s yet another black mark on Trudeau’s record.

Here’s Philippe Lagassé on the options available to dealing with Payette. And if you want to know more about the former vice-regal appointments commission and the role of the Secretary to the Governor General, and why Di Lorenzo’s appointment has been a problem from the start, read my chapter in Royal Progress: Canada’s Monarchy in the Age of Disruption, and learn more about it.

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QP: Trying to single out ministers to divide the Cabinet

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The prime minister was finally present for the second day of the mid-July sitting, after his inexplicable absence the day before. Andrew Scheer led off, mini-lectern on desk, where he insisted that Canadians had enough of his scandals, and demanded he appear before committee. Trudeau stated that he was considering the invitation, that he was happy to be here today and tomorrow, and that he should have recused himself when the suggestion was made by the public service. Scheer spun a tale of WE’s alleged schemes, and again demanded that Trudeau appear at committee. Trudeau responded by listing the aid they have given students. Scheer then ranted about his disgust with the Liberals and didn’t have a question, to which Trudeau chided him about the things that he should be asking about, like the aid package under debate. Scheer got increasingly breathy as he again spun out a conspiracy theory around WE, wondering on what basis the civil service could have recommended WE, to which Trudeau stated that the civil service looked at the government’s plans and decided WE was best placed to fulfil it. Scheer quoted a charity watchdog on WE’s ability to fulfil the programme, and the asked Chrystia Freeland what it would take for her to lose faith in the prime minister, but Trudeau rose once more to praise the efforts they have made to engage students and support them. Yves-François Blanchet was up next for the Bloc, and he meandered around the problems Trudeau is facing, to which Trudeau insisted that they were focused on helping Canadians through the pandemic. Blanchet quipped that Trudeau couldn’t buy his way out of a crisis, and a suggested that Trudeau temporarily step aside and let Freeland replace him, and Trudeau praised the Safe Restart agreement with the provinces. Up next was Jagmeet Singh for the NDP, and he wondered why Trudeau didn’t recuse himself when the WE contract came up, and Trudeau stated that he followed the recommendation of the civil service. Singh insisted that apologies mean nothing if the Liberals help their “wealthy friends,” and worried why they didn’t just use another program instead, to which Trudeau said it was a shame that the NDP was so cynical about measures for students.

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Roundup: Taking a personal day

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Of all the possible misplays for Justin Trudeau to make at the height of a controversy around his poor choices, ethical blind spots, and insistence that he’s being open and transparent, the first day of a two-day recall of the House of Commons saw him absent with the only excuse on his daily itinerary being a “personal day,” which sent the opposition into a frenzy. It’s not like Trudeau chose this day for the Commons to be recalled and for there to be a proper Question Period – erm, except he did. And then wasn’t present. Way to read the room.

Andrew Scheer had his own attempts to make hay, insisting that if the Liberal backbenchers don’t oust Trudeau (without a mechanism to do so, it should be noted), that they were signalling that they were okay with his “corruption” – never mind that a conflict of interest is not actually corruption, and he’s not exactly someone who should be throwing stones considering that he was forced to resign his own leadership after it was revealed that he was helping himself to party funds to the tune of almost a million dollars.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives are also pushing back against the bill being debated, objecting to the “complexity” of the wage subsidy changes, despite the fact that for there to be a proper phase-out and to ensure it’s more broadly encompassing than the programme was initially, there needs to be added complexity. Their objections won’t matter for much, considering that the Bloc has agreed to support the bill regardless so there are enough votes to go around, but it is a change from bills being supported unanimously at all stages, and something that resembles a sense of normalcy slowly returning to Parliament, which is a good thing.

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Roundup: Some strings attached

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Prime minister Justin Trudeau wound up holding an irregular presser yesterday, mid-afternoon instead of late morning, and with a specific purpose in mind – to announce that the federal government had finally come to an agreement with the provinces over the Safe Restart Plan, now pegged at $19 billion rather than the $14 billion initially put on the table. What is noteworthy is that there were still federal strings attached for this money, though some premiers noted that the strings were not as tight as before. The money is to go toward municipalities, transit, contact tracing, personal protective equipment, childcare, and ten days of paid sick leave (so now Jagmeet Singh can pat himself on the back, even though this was BC premier John Horgan’s initiative), and is to last for the next six to eight months, at which point there will be a re-evaluation of where everyone is at. Trudeau also made it official that the Canada-US border will remain closed to non-essential travel until August 21st.

During the Q&A that followed, Trudeau expressed optimism around the vaccine candidate being held up by Chinese customs, and said that in spite of the Russian hacking story, it was important to work with everyone to develop a vaccine and that they were working to get the balance right. When asked if he would appear before committee as invited around the WE Imbroglio, that his House leadership team was looking at the possibilities, but that he also looked forward to taking questions in the Commons next week during the scheduled special sitting day. Chrystia Freeland was asked about what she knew regarding the WE Imbroglio, and she gave a fairly lengthy response about how everyone accepts responsibility for what happened, and apologized, saying that “clearly we made a mistake and we’re going to learn from it,” adding that everyone knew that the PM was connected to WE but didn’t know of his family’s specific financial arrangements, and then added that she still supported the PM and that it was a privilege to serve in his Cabinet. When asked if Quebec had no problems with the strings attached to the billions on the table, Freeland said that they agreed to it like everyone else, and that it was actually a Really Big Deal to get all thirteen provinces and territories to sign onto a deal that includes the municipalities and covered several ministries, saying that it showed that Canadians have understood that we need to work together in this time of crisis.

Shortly after the presser ended, Bardish Chagger and her officials appeared before the Finance committee to discuss the WE Imbroglio. Chagger insisted that nobody in PMO directed her to make an arrangement with WE, but she kept deferring to her officials, which…isn’t really how ministerial responsibility works. There was also talk about how WE had sent an unsolicited proposal to several ministers about a youth programme before this was announced, which WE later came out and said was a youth entrepreneurship programme which had nothing to do with what became the Service Grant programme. This having been said, the senior bureaucrat on the file said that they had three weeks to come up with a programme, and that WE fit the bill for its requirements, which is why they were recommended – and pointed out that potential conflicts are for public office holders to deal with, not bureaucrats (which is true). Up today, the Ethics Committee will begin their own examination into the Imbroglio, so we’ll see if that goes any better.

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Roundup: A curious case for declaratory legislation

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A curious story showed up on the CBC website yesterday, wherein justice minister David Lametti stated that if it looked like pandemic delays were going to cause criminal trials to essentially “age out” of the court system as a result of the Jordan decision – meaning that once they reach a certain point, they are deemed to be stayed because they took too long and have become unconstitutional – that he would introduce legislation to “clarify” how the Supreme Court’s Jordan decision was to be clarified. It’s curious because it seems to be a bit of a made-up issue – the Jordan decision already stated that the 30-month timeline allowed for exceptional circumstances, and we can all agree that a global pandemic is by definition an exceptional circumstance. This isn’t to say that declaratory legislation isn’t a valid exercise, because it can be – but it just seems wholly unnecessary in this case, when there are other ways that the government could be better dealing with the criminal justice system and juries than worrying about the Jordan timelines.

In any event, here is defence lawyer Michael Spratt with some thoughts on the story:

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Roundup: An apology on the second attempt

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It was prime minister Justin Trudeau’s first presser since the WE Imbroglio blew up over the revelations of his family being paid speakers for the charity, and there was a definite note of contrition this time. After hinting that the government would extend the wage subsidy until December with details coming later in the week, a mention of his call earlier in the morning with Donald Trump that touched on tariffs, Black Lives Matter, and China, and a promise on further updates on the Safe Restart Plan with the provinces to come later in the week, Trudeau turned to his mea culpa on the Imbroglio. “I made a mistake in not recusing myself from discussions, and I’m sincerely sorry about not having done that,” Trudeau said. He praised how the government got creative with designing programmes during the pandemic, and how they had worked with a range of partners to make it happen, but he was sorry that he didn’t remove himself from the discussions with WE, and that he was frustrated that youth would have to wait longer to do their party to serve because of the mistakes he made. (I would argue that WE’s plans raised a lot of red flags too, for what it’s worth). When asked if he would appear before committee to discuss what happened, Trudeau was non-committal, but in a hung parliament, he doesn’t have the votes to shield himself this time.

During the Q&A, he said that he pointed out to Trump about the disruptions to the aluminium supply chains and hoped that they wouldn’t see tariffs that would only slow down the economic recovery; he also mentioned that there were ongoing discussions around the border, but the rest of the time was spent reiterating, over and over, that he didn’t have the details on what his family members had been paid by WE and that he should have, and that he did seem to have some reflection that he needed to be careful on this file because of his past activity with the charity but that he didn’t go far enough and should have removed himself entirely from the conversation. Later in the day, Bill Morneau sent out his own apology for his own failure to recuse himself given his daughters’ activities with WE.

For what it’s worth, there seems to be some kind of learning curve because it only took the second try for Trudeau to give an apology rather than stick to talking points aimed at deflection until the conclusion of the Ethics Commissioner’s report, at which point there would be either an apology or admission of some kind of wrongdoing and a promise to do better next time. This time, we managed to skip weeks of such failed damage control, so that’s something, I guess.

Meanwhile, Susan Delacourt finds herself wanting when it comes to Trudeau’s explanation for how the whole thing went down, and hopes that he’s saving it for his discussion with the Ethics Commissioner. Matt Gurney gives credit where credit is due for Trudeau learning enough to make a rapid admission and apology rather than dragging things out for months. Paul Wells is unimpressed with the apology and wants a full accounting of what happened, particularly as it is increasingly evident that things were wrong with the WE contract outside of the apparent conflict of interest, and how those decisions were made need to be aired.

Good reads:

  • Ruh-roh! It looks like the federal government wasn’t enforcing the rules around temporary foreign workers, which allowed outbreaks to occur on farms.
  • Here is some number-crunching on the PM’s daily pressers in the first phase of the pandemic and lockdown, including on his choice of verbs and phrases.
  • The RCMP have charged a Quebec man with calling for Justin Trudeau’s death and the eradication of Muslims.
  • Former Liberal MPs who lost their seats in the last election are waiting to hear about nomination contests so they can be ready to run again.
  • Leona Alleslev has resigned as deputy leader of the Conservatives to more vocally back Peter MacKay, who says that no promises were made for her support.
  • Maclean’s has a profile of Conservative leadership candidate Leslyn Lewis.
  • Jason Kenney is accusing the federal government of preventing Apple from fixing the province’s contact tracing app, which requires iPhones to be unlocked to work.
  • Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column looks at the options for calling prime minister Trudeau to committee to testify on the WE Imbroglio.
  • Heather Scoffield is frustrated by the vague answers being given on the extension and amendments to the wage subsidy programme.
  • Colby Cosh recounts how Alberta has abolished its last vestiges of prohibition, by allowing liquor sales in Mormon-centric towns that were still “dry.”

Odds and ends:

For the CBA’s National Magazine, I wrote about Friday’s Supreme Court decision on genetic privacy, and what the broader implications of the ruling are.

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Roundup: Calling the PM to committee

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As the WE Imbroglio continues to roll along in the absence of much other news, there are a couple of new developments – one is that both Seamus O’Regan and Katie Telford, both of whom are subject to the Conflict of Interest Act, also have past histories of raising funds for the WE group of charities pre-government formation, which could complicate things as for whether or not they should have recused themselves from any decision-making over the Student Grants programme contract. The other is that the Conservative are proposing to summon prime minister Justin Trudeau before the finance committee to answer questions about the decision to grand that contract – with the added show of having him do so under oath (which is a bit of extraneous showboating – lying before committee would mean that he would face charges of contempt of parliament, and he has already sworn oaths of office which make demands to testify under oath at committee to be unnecessary). Suffice to say, summoning the prime minister to committee is more fraught than you may think, so here’s professor Philippe Lagassé with some perspective.

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1282376899512107008

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1282377930405027840

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1282382362593067008

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