Tag Archives: Justin Trudeau

Roundup: Populist myths and the lies they tell themselves

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The Nobel prize has been awarded to economists working on issues of climate change, who point to the need for carbon pricing to get markets to come to a consensus about finding solutions, and what do we get in Canada? Doug Ford going on tour to see Scott Moe and Jason Kenney to decry carbon taxation, and to lie to people about the efficacy of carbon taxes. They work, despite what Ford, Kenney, Scheer, et al. say, and we have the data to prove this.

The Ford/Kenney rally was apparently quite something, a demonstration of partisanship over politics, and a demonstration about what how this all relates to our recent discussions over populism, with the carbon tax as a wedge issue. But while this is being put against this notion that Stephen Harper is trying to put forward in his new book about how “conservative populism” is somehow trying to weed out the worst instincts of populists, but that can’t actually be true if the dog-whistling still goes on. In her piece about the Ford/Kenney rally, Jen Gerson relayed the anecdote about people attending the rally being asked to cover up their MAGA hats with oil sands stickers – but the MAGA hats are still there, even if they’re being literally papered over. Kenney and Ford still play semantic games around the same terminology that the xenophobes use (such as the use of “illegals”), and it’s still a dog-whistle. And it can’t be any surprise that because of all the dog-whistling that the Soldiers of Odin have started posing with UCP candidates in Alberta while wearing their badges and vests. You can’t simply say “Oh, it’s unacceptable these people show up to our events” when you keep inviting them with the dog-whistle language. (There’s a lesson in here for Maxime Bernier as well).

Meanwhile, John Geddes went through that excerpt of Harper’s book and deconstructed his arguments and his analysis about populism, and his nonsense construction of “Somewheres” and “Anywheres.” Aside from the fact that it’s deeply ironic that Stephen Harper, strong friend of Israel, is using the same “rootles cosmopolitan” argument used in Soviet propaganda to vilify Jews, it’s just trading on baseless mythology and trying to build an argument around it that doesn’t actually hold any water. But it also goes back to what Ford, Kenney and others are pandering to – they’re denying that problems exist, and then undermining the institutions that can help solve them. Such as with the looming climate crisis. We need a wake-up call.

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Roundup: Not appealing, just consulting

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First thing yesterday morning, the federal government announced that they were proceeding with restarting consultations with First Nations affected by the Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline, and that they had tasked former Supreme Court of Canada justice Franc Iacobucci to oversee the process. Iacobucci has done a great deal of work around the Duty to Consult in recent years, as this report that he wrote with law firm Torys LLP demonstrates, along with work he’s done with Ontario over the underrepresentation of Indigenous people on juries in the province. Indigenous groups in the region have responded with some optimism, but are also warning that these consultations can’t come with a predetermined outcome if they’re to be meaningful (which may be too far to go given that the government has stated that this project will go ahead). Some of those Indigenous communities are also looking at the fact that this process could allow them to talk more amongst themselves.

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Meanwhile, Rachel Notley and Jason Kenney (among others) are bellyaching that the government has opted not to appeal the Federal Court of Appeal decision to the Supreme Court of Canada, and yet not one of them has articulated what the error in law they are looking to contest would actually be, which is kind of a big deal if they think the Court will hear it. It’s also not clear that an appeal would get them any clarity anytime soon, given that the Court usually gives about six months between granting leave and hearing the case in order to provide time for submissions, and then a decision could take another six months at least – possibly more if it’s a contentious issue, like this one is.

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Roundup: Harder’s charm offensive

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There’s a charm offensive in the works, led by the Government Leader in the Senate – err, “government representative,” Senator Peter Harder, and his staff, to try and showcase how they’re transforming the Senate. In a profile piece of the “Government Representative Office” for the Hill Times, the three members of the office gave lovely little explanations of their duties, and how they’re doing things differently, like Senator Mitchell talking about how he doesn’t have a caucus to whip, so he’s focused on counting votes for upcoming bills, and arranging briefings and such. Bless.

What didn’t get answered in the piece is just why Harder needs his $1.5 million budget, since he isn’t managing a caucus, he isn’t doing his job of negotiating with other caucus groups for the passage of bills, he isn’t doing any heavy lifting in terms of sponsoring bills on behalf of the government, and as we saw during one of his melodramatic moments in the spring, doesn’t appear to be counting votes either. So why he needs that big of a budget, and that many staff, remains a mystery that has gone unsolved. Harder also remained evasive as to just how often he meets with Cabinet, which continues to be problematic because he’s supposed to be the link between the Chamber and the Cabinet, where Senators can find accountability for the actions of the government (which is why he’s supposed to be a full-blown Cabinet minister and not just a member of Privy Council). They did say that he wasn’t at the recent Cabinet retreat, which raises yet more questions, especially when it comes to how he plans to get their priorities through the Chamber as the Order Paper in the Senate is full, and he’s been in no mood to negotiate timelines (which I know for a fact that other caucus groups are willing to do).

Part of the problem with this charm offensive is that it’s preying on the lack of knowledge that members of the media have with how the Senate works, so they don’t know how things have and have not changed – and for the most part, the only thing that has changed are the fact that Harder and company insist on renaming everything and not doing the jobs they’re supposed to be doing, shifting that burden to the other players in Senate leadership. My other worry is that this is the first stage in the push to start making changes like the demand for a business committee, which would have a hugely detrimental effect on the Chamber and its operations. And I would caution any journalists reading to beware of what Harder plans to propose, and how he plans to charm other journalists into writing feel-good stories about his planned rule changes without understanding how they will damage the Senate.

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Roundup: Leniency for chronic offenders

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There was an interesting piece about document security lapses within the federal government, which is something that speaks to me as someone who spent time doing records management within a federal department back during my early days in Ottawa as I was building up my freelance career (before I started on the Hill). The report cited 3075 lapses in the past year at Public Services and Procurement, with six employees being cited as chronic offenders.

During my time doing this kind of document work, there were a rash of news stories about secret documents being left unattended, or being thrown out and found on street corners, and much of it boils down to a culture within the public service of not caring about document security – in part because people aren’t trained to care about it. It was also because, in my department’s experience, every time they would train an admin assistant in document management, she would go on mat leave, then her replacement wouldn’t be trained to the same level, and she would go on mat leave or another assignment, and her replacement not trained, and on it went. So records went unattended, and people in the department stopped properly dealing with their records, including those who were supposed to be kept secret. And you’d see people in the Tim Horton’s downstairs from the office with Protected of Secret file folders on them, despite the fact that they weren’t supposed to leave the office area. And nobody seemed to care about that fact – all of which reinforced the notion that there isn’t a culture of responsibility around these kinds of things.

Which brings me back to the article. With those chronic offenders, they are being treated leniently, despite the fact that they are supposed to be subjected to tough sanctions, including demotion or termination. But as with so many things in the public service, where there are so few instances where there are consequences for transgressions, it seems to reinforce the notion that document security doesn’t need to be taken seriously, and then we get more security and privacy breaches. If there were actual consequences, that might start making an effort at reducing the number of breaches.

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Roundup: All about Alleslev

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As the fallout from Leona Alleslev’s defection to the Conservatives continues, the comments from her former colleagues have remarkably tended not to be bitter or angry, but more bewilderment as she didn’t express any concerns to them beforehand, though there was understandably some shock from her riding association. That’s a bit shocking considering the pure vitriol that we’ve heard from Conservatives when they had defections in the past (particularly when women defected, if you recall the misogyny lobbed at Belinda Stronach after her floor-crossing). Of course, that also hasn’t stopped the Liberals from leaking effusive emails of praise that Alleslev sent them, and speeches she gave that completely contradict everything that she told the Commons on Monday when she made the decision. I remain struck by this insistence that the current government isn’t offering the “foundational change” she claims to be looking for, yet is aligning herself with a party whose recent policy convention was pretty much dominated with resolutions to simply turn back the clock to the Harper era, which was apparently a golden age. If she wanted “foundational change” from that, I’m not sure that going back to reinforce it is what she’s looking for.

Meanwhile, here’s a look at some of the history of floor-crossings in Canada, and the trends for when it goes well for those MPs, and when it all goes down in flames.

Bernier blindsided

Maxime Bernier’s team is finding it hard to keep up with online groups pretending to act on his behalf but have no actual associations with him, and which are posting offensive material and items that he says are contrary to his positions. I have two things to say about this: 1) It’s hard to believe that his team are such rank amateurs that they didn’t secure these domain names in the first place, which bodes ill for the kind of logistical knowledge they would need to run a national campaign; and 2) Bernier has brought much of this on himself. By winking to white nationalists, and by not even dog-whistling, but rather playing these tunes with a tuba, he’s invited the very xenophobes that he claims aren’t welcome in his party (as he keeps playing their tunes on his tuba while staring wide-eyed as they keep flocking, like he’s the Pied Piper of racists). This credulous, naïve act he’s putting on is getting a bit tiresome. If he doesn’t understand how his message plays out, that’s another strike against him being ready for the prime time of leading a credible political party.

Please note: I’ll be hosting a live chat today at 7 PM Eastern for $10 subscribers to my Patreon, to answer your questions about the return of Parliament. Subscribers have access to exclusive content not available elsewhere.

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Roundup: A melodramatic floor crossing

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So there was a bit of drama in the House of Commons yesterday as Liberal MP Leona Alleslev gave a speech that served as her rebuke to her own party and her signal that she was crossing the floor to the Conservatives. It’s unusual that this was done on the floor of the Commons as opposed to the usual manner of a surprise press conference where the leader comes out with his or her new MP, and they give a repudiation of the deserted party along the way. And while Alleslev told Power & Politics that she hadn’t made her mind up until the last minute, when she was giving the speech, she had reached out to Andrew Scheer in August and had conversations with him then. But considering that Scheer had already called a press conference for just before QP far earlier in the morning (after Candice Bergen already gave a press conference on the party’s plans of the fall), I’m calling bullshit on that explanation.

While I will defend the rights of floor crossers with my dying breath (and I have a column to that effect coming out later today), there’s something else in Alleslev’s speech that sticks in my craw:

“The government must be challenged openly and publicly. But for me to publicly criticize the government as a Liberal, would undermine the government and, according to my code of conduct, be dishonourable.”

This is ridiculous and wrong. Plenty of Liberal MPs have openly criticized the government. Some have faced minor punishments for it, others not, but I have yet to hear anyone saying that Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, for example, undermined the government. It’s the role of backbenchers to hold government to account, just as much as it is the opposition – they’re not supposed to be cheerleaders (which is especially why it’s frustrating that they treat their QP questions as suck-up opportunities, with the exception of Bill Casey). Government backbenchers get the added ability to have no-holds barred discussions behind the caucus room door with the PM and cabinet, which can be even more effective than opposition questions under the right circumstances. And her former caucus members have expressed some disbelief in her excuse that she’s said that – particularly that there were no warning signs (and I’ve heard this from numerous MPs).

I’m also a bit dubious with the reasons she’s given for why she’s decided to cross the floor, particularly because she recited a bunch of Conservative talking points that don’t have any basis in reality, such as the apparent weakness of the economy (seriously, the gods damned Bank of Canada says our economy is running near capacity and unemployment is at a 40-year low), and her concern about military procurement (she does remember the Conservative record, right?). Never mind the fact that she’s suddenly reversing positions she publicly held just weeks ago, as people digging up her Twitter history are demonstrating.

There is also a question of opportunism here, not only for what she thinks she may get by switching her allegiance to Scheer, but she may have read the tea leaves from the provincial election and gotten spooked. Whatever the reason, she made her choice as she has the agency to do, and her constituents will get to hold her to account for it, which is the beauty of our system.

Meanwhile, Susan Delacourt wonders if Alleslev’s defection means that Trudeau isn’t keeping pace with the rapid change of pace in politics (though I disagree with her on the calculations around prorogation).

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Roundup: Self-inflicted leadership wounds

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There was a fairly damning piece out about the state of the NDP yesterday, as they began their caucus retreat in Surrey, BC, and how the party basically put itself on hold for two years after they turfed Thomas Mulcair but left him in place for two years while they engaged in an overly long leadership process, only to let their fundraising collapse and their outreach stagnate. I do have vague recollections about how they were totally going to use the two-year!leadership contest to totally re-energise the party, and it would totally bring in all kinds of new fundraising and members, and so on. Turns out, none of that happened, Mulcair being left in place slowly poisoned the well, and at the end, they wound up with a leader without a seat, and who has been largely absent both from Ottawa and the national stage (leaving another defeated leadership candidate in his place in Ottawa). I’m hoping that the entire Canadian political scene takes this as an object lesson that the way we’re running leadership contests is very bad, and that we need to get back to the sensible and accountable caucus selection (and removal) of leaders. The pessimist in me, however, sees this very likely reality that they won’t take the lesson, and we’ll continue stumbling along.

Also in NDP news is the damage control about the Erin Weir debacle, and they’re getting out activists and pet columnists to come to their defence and to insist that Weir is the worst person imaginable, ignoring that he took to the media to defend himself after a campaign of leaks started against him as part of the Mean Girling around him, and they’ve offered nothing to substantiate that he is a harasser in any meaningful sense of the word. Jagmeet Singh even proclaimed that he wouldn’t be intimidated by “elites” from the party’s own grassroots – their own current and former MPs and MPPs in Saskatchewan – into changing his mind. It’s actuall a bit stunning.

Notwithstanding

Because this is still Very Big News, there is talk coming out of PC circles in Ontario that Doug Ford is willing to use the nuclear option to show that he’s tough against the courts where Trudeau isn’t, and then uses the false notion that the Notwithstanding Clause could have been used on the Trans Mountain ruling – which it couldn’t, because the Clause only applies to certain sections of the Charter, for which Section 35 is not a part of. But since when to facts matter when you’re pursuing a private grievance in a big, public way? Worse was the fact that people were trying to get Ford to bring up the fact that Justice Belobaba refused to freeze Omar Khadr’s $10 million settlement and turn it over to the widow of his putative victim. Justin Trudeau, meanwhile, continues to say that this is a political issue for Ontarians to deal with, not for him to swoop in and do something about, and he’s right.

Meanwhile, here’s Paul Wells snarkily congratulating Ford’s government for embracing the extremism it too Stephen Harper a decade to find and for making the Notwithstanding Clause easier for any other government to use in a fit of their own pique. Law professor Vanessa MacDonnell thinks that Ford should clearly articulate why he is invoking the Notwithstanding Clause, while Susan Delacourt wonders why Trudeau left it up to Brian Mulroney to forcefully denounce the invocation.

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Roundup: Keeping up with vacancies

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Of all the places where the current government seems to have lapsed in their basic competencies, the most obvious tends to be their appointments process, and most especially when it comes to making judicial appointments. I’ll grant you that it’s more difficult than it can seem, especially when you are not only balancing the need for new judges with specific skillsets and linguistic capabilities (because you do need a certain number of minority-language speaking judges in every province), before you get to the issues of diversity, and the laudable goals of getting more women and visible minorities on the bench. What has made it more difficult is a process that relies on application rather than nomination, and this continues to be an ongoing saga. And while the courts have been adapting in the post-Jordandecision landscape by ensuring that criminal trials are getting precedence, it means that civil trials are falling to the wayside, and that has its own set of problems.

The Star delves into this problem, with a particular focus on Toronto-area vacancies, where they are chronically behind the number of judges they should have, and where the number that just got appointed will be offset by retirements within weeks. (As an aside, there is a push to get the complement of judges in the GTA increased further, because the total number has been deemed to be insufficient by the local bar). And what is perhaps most disconcerting here is that the minister keeps insisting that there needs to be broader culture change in the court system, not just more judges (when seriously, they’re looking for a full complement to start). I’m not sure that anyone disputes that culture change needs to happen, but the appointments are a pretty low bar that a government should be able to meet. And yet.

This having been said, there is some talk now that we may see more frequent appointments being made as cabinet starts meeting more regularly as Parliament resumes, given that Cabinet needs to approve these names for appointment. So maybe that will happen. But given the pace at which these things have happened, you’ll forgive my skepticism.

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Roundup: No magic wands or Senate public bills

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Prime minister Justin Trudeau went to Edmonton yesterday, and amidst his many media appearances, made a few key points – that getting approval for Trans Mountain was a priority, that while considerations like an appeal or legislation were part of the “all options on the table,” he also made the point that he won’t use “legislative tricks” to get it through, and made some pointed comments about the Conservatives demanding that he wave a magic wand that doesn’t really exist to get it built. If you listened to what he was saying through the layer of pabulum that wraps all of his statements, the core point was that they will comply with the Federal Court of Appeal decision and find the best way to fulfil the roadmap to approval laid out therein.

And oh, what legislative tricks are being proposed. In a particularly boneheaded move, Independent senator Doug Black insists that passing his Senate Public Bill on the Trans Mountain pipeline will declare it in the national interest, and poof, problem solved. (He also suggested giving the NEB four months to redo the portions of the assessment related to marine tanker traffic, when credible people who know these processes say that’s a six-month process, so score another win for Black’s credibility). The problem of course is that there is no actual legislative solution to the issue – the certification is a Cabinet decision, and while some people suggest retroactively changing the legislation to keep the NEB scoping as it was in the report Cabinet based its decision on that the courts found to be flawed, that’s a prospect that will only engender more litigation and will cause further delays – which is why Trudeau has been making the point that they need to ensure long-term solutions so that there will be investor confidence (as Suncor’s CEO announced that they would halt any expansion of their operations until there is a firm pipeline in the ground). Oh, and no piece of legislation can get around Section 35 obligations for the duty to consult, and while I can see some political merit in getting the Supreme Court to weigh in on what exactly constitutes meaningful consultation, it sounds an awful lot like passing the buck to them in order to take the heat off of a political issue, which they really don’t appreciate, and frankly they’ve ruled enough times that governments should have a good idea about what constitutes meaningful consultation.

To add fuel to this fire, Jason Kenney has started making pronouncements about how this recent Court decision is “fuelling separatism” in the province, which really irks me because this wasn’t some bureaucratic decision out of Ottawa – it’s about the rule of law (and if you really want to be technical, the bureaucratic decisions of the NEB came out of Calgary, which is where their headquarters are located). Kenney is being a bad actor and is holding out lighters for arsonists to grab, only to turn around and say “Who, me? I wasn’t inflaming anything! I’m just relaying what I hear,” which is a very dubious denial, and he’s playing with fire in order to score some cheap political points. Add to that, his agitating against the rule of law has darker authoritarian tones, as Colby Cosh pointed out last week, given that this notion about Canada not being “open for business” because the courts protect peoples’ rights. He should be called out on this, rather than being encouraged to keep making these points by credulous journalists (just like those same voices who let Senator Black go unchallenged in that piece).

Meanwhile, Andrew Coyne makes that very point – that this ruling is about the rule of law, and that’s a good thing. Too many actors in this are trying to muddy the waters or accuse the judiciary of some kind of activism that they’re not actually doing (while encouraging their own type of activism that would ignore the rule of law in favour of perceived economic benefit), which is a very worrying sign.

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Roundup: Setting a trap at committee

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The use of Commons committees for performative outrage continued in fine tradition yesterday as an emergency meeting of the natural resources committee was convened, during which the Conservatives demanded that the ministers of natural resource and finance appear before them no later than Thursday with “concrete” plans for the next steps of the Trans Mountain pipeline. This, of course, is a bit of a trap, and unrealistic for any government to comply with, and yet here we were. Why it’s a trap, of course, is that when they inevitably refused and the Liberals con the committee voted it down, Andrew Scheer and his caucus could rush to the media about how outrageous it was that Trudeau was avoiding accountability for his “failure” when their demand was utterly unreasonable in the first place. But why should facts or context matter?

Now, don’t get me wrong – I do think that these ministers should absolutely appear before committee, but not for another couple of weeks, until they’ve had time to digest the Federal Court of Appeal decision, at which time they should answer for why they considered the flawed NEB report, and why they did not engage in an adequate consultation process that would meet the requirements of Section 35 of the Constitution. You know – to hold them to account like a committee should.

As for next steps, there have been boneheaded demands for a “legislative solution” that people keep tossing around, and it’s so stupid – the FCA decision specifically stated that this is a Cabinet decision to approve the licence, so you can’t legislate it into existence, nor would trying to retroactively change the legislation that the NEB was operating under when it didn’t properly scope the marine safety aspect of their report be a feasible option, because it opens all manner of cans of worms. And you most especially can’t legislate away the duty to consult under Section 35, so good luck there. The Conservatives won’t say what they’d do, let alone do differently, while the NDP continue to demand that Trudeau cancel the expansion, and have been giving this ridiculous line that they wanted a Supreme Court reference in the first place and nobody listened to them. The problem was their reference was about jurisdiction, which this decision has nothing to do with, which makes their talking point especially specious.

Meanwhile, Chris Turner has a spectacular piece in Maclean’sabout the history of the pipeline and how it got to be the dumpster fire of an issue that it is today, and I’d encourage you to take the time to read it.

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