I’m starting to feel like a bit of history repeating again as I get cranky over yet more clutched pearls about so-called “cash for access” or “pay to play” fundraisers, which are nothing of the sort. Cabinet ministers are not soliciting stakeholders for tens of thousands of dollars of donations to meet fundraising targets. This is a government whose penchant for consultation means that there are multiple avenues of access for said stakeholders that they need not pony up to ministerial shakedowns in order to get meetings. And this latest allegation, that somehow “communist billionaires” from China got preferential access for $1500 (they didn’t pay as they can’t donate since they aren’t Canadian citizens) stretches credulity, and taking the cake is this hysteria about a donation made to the Trudeau Foundation. You know, a foundation that the Prime Minister is not a part of, and is a registered charity, which the PM sees no enrichment from in the slightest. That wealthy donors also contributed to the foundation, a statue of Trudeau’s father (again, where is the actual enrichment?) and to law school scholarship at McGill (Trudeau did not go to McGill law school) doesn’t have any particular relevance to him or government business, so even on the face of it, where is the conflict of interest? And don’t tell me that there’s a “perception” because if you actually look at the facts and not just go “Hmm, Justin Trudeau…Trudeau Foundation… Yup, sounds fishy to me,” then you’d realise that this is bunk. But no. Here we are, yet again, trying to make hay over activities that are reported, above board, and not actual conflicts of interest beyond people yelling “smell test!” and “appearance!” with no actual facts. And let me again remind you that the Chief Electoral Officer himself noted that our current donation levels are fine, and lowering them will mean money starts to move underground, which we do not want. And if you bring up the Ethics Commissioner calling these events “unsavoury,” let me also remind you that she wants all gifts to MPs registered at an extremely low threshold, meaning a massive amount of more compliance paperwork which MPs themselves have balked at, and the Lobbying Commissioner’s investigation is because people have brought this to her attention, and it doesn’t mean that she has found anything amiss. Honestly, stop lighting your hair on fire over innuendo. You’re currently crying wolf, and when any real impropriety happens, you risk it being shrugged off after any number of previous false alarms.
Tag Archives: NDP Leadership
Roundup: Partisan crybabies and skewered straw men
As machinations and protestations go, the current drama in the Senate is starting to try my patience, particularly because so many of the players seem to be getting drawn off onto silly tangents at the expense of the bigger picture. In particular, the Conservative senators continuing to push this conspiracy theory that all new independent senators are just Liberals in-all-but-name is really, really throwing them off the message that Senator Peter Harder is trying to destroy the Westminster traditions of the Senate, and has a stated goal of removing any sense of official opposition from the Chamber. But when the complaints about Harder’s machinations are drowned out by their conspiracy theorizing, they’re only harming their arguments by making themselves look petty. And it is concerning what Harder has been up to, his latest move being a closed-door meeting for all senators to “discuss short-term and long-term government business.” Add to this are a number of the more established independent senators, who previously felt shut out, excusing Harder’s actions because he’s trying to bring them in, oblivious to the fact that this is how he’s trying to build his little empire.
Add to this conversation comes former senator Hugh Segal who penned an op-ed for the Ottawa Citizen, bravely skewering straw men all around him about those darned partisan senators not giving up committee spots to independent senators (when he knows full well that it’s an ongoing process and that committees don’t get reconstituted until after a prorogation), and coming to the defence of Harder, with whom he worked together all of those years ago during the Mulroney government before Harder transitioned to the civil service. Poor Peter Harder, whose budget has been cruelly limited by all of those partisan senators and how he can’t get the same budget as Leaders of the Government in the Senate past (never mind that Harder has no caucus to manage, nor is he a cabinet minister as the Government Leader post is ostensibly). Gosh, the partisan senators are just being so unfair to him. Oh, please.
So long as people are content to treat this as partisan crybabies jealously guarding their territory, we’re being kept blind as to what Harder’s attempts to reshape the Senate are going to lead to. His attempts to dismantle the Westminster structure are not about making the chamber more independent – it’s about weakening the opposition to the government’s agenda. Trying to organise coherent opposition amongst 101 loose fish is not going to cut it, and Harder knows it. The Senate’s role as a check on the government is about to take a serious blow so long as people believe Harder’s revisionist history and back-patting about how great a non-partisan Senate would be. Undermining parliament is serious business, and we shouldn’t let them get away with it because we think it’s cute that it’s making the partisans angry.
Roundup: A warning or a betrayal?
Justin Trudeau made some comments to Le Devoir about the reduced sense of urgency around electoral reform, and a bunch of people – notably the NDP – freaked out. Trudeau said:
Under Stephen Harper, there were so many people unhappy with the government and their approach that people were saying, ‘It will take electoral reform to no longer have a government we don’t like’. But under the current system, they now have a government they’re more satisfied with and the motivation to change the electoral system is less compelling.
And then comes the parsing of the rhetoric – is he trying to walk back on his election promise that 2015 was the last election under first-past-the-post, or is he trying to give signals to the electoral reform committee as they begin to draft their report after their summer of consultations across the country? To the NDP (and Ed Broadbent of his eponymously named Institute), Trudeau’s comments are a betrayal because to them, he can only deliver proportional representation or bust. Their working premise is that Trudeau was saying that because the system elected Liberals it’s fine, but when it elected Conservatives, it was broken. But I’m not sure that’s what Trudeau was actually saying, because the prevailing popular discussion pre-election was that reform was needed because any system that delivered Conservative majorities was deemed illegitimate – one of those kinds of talking points that gives me hives because it presumes that electoral reform needs to be done for partisan reasons. And to that extent, Trudeau is right, that the sense of urgency has decreased because the Conservatives are no longer in power, so there’s less clamour for it to happen. There is also the theory that what Trudeau was signalling was that there are degrees of acceptable change, and that without as much broad support that smaller change like ranked ballots could be something he would push through (seeing as we all know that the committee is going to be deadlocked).
https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/788788763854077952
https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/788789074228371457
Kady O’Malley, on the other hand, thinks that Trudeau is signalling to the NDP and Greens that they should be willing to compromise on PR during the committee deliberations, or he’ll deem it a stalemate and either walk away or put it to a referendum, where it would almost certainly be doomed. Rona Ambrose says that it could signal that Trudeau is backing down, which the Conservatives would like (and to be perfectly honest, I would too because the system is not broken and electoral reform is a solution in search of a problem). That he may have found the excuse to back down and admit this election promise is a failure – and then move on – would be the ideal move in my most humble opinion.
Roundup: A new Supreme Court appointment
The government announced their new pick for the Supreme Court of Canada, and lo and behold, it’s Justice Malcolm Rowe of the Newfoundland & Labrador Court of Appeal. It’s a little unexpected considering what they were signalling in terms of looking for more diversity on the bench, but they managed to find a bilingual justice in Newfoundland & Labrador, and they get to pat themselves on the back for making the first appointment to the top court from that province, so they’ve made history! Also, they’ve respected the constitutional convention around the regional composition of the court, and for that, the Conservatives have declared victory – because it was totally their non-binding supply day motion that forced the government’s hand! (Also, appointment panel head Kim Campbell seemed pleased that this was the choice from the short list that they submitted).
The very best official opposition tactic: declare victory with decisions that almost certainly had nothing to do with their criticism. pic.twitter.com/RkVYo1q80a
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) October 17, 2016
Smiling to think of joy in Newfoundland & Labrador over Justice Malcolm Rowe's appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada! Congratulations!
— Kim Campbell (@AKimCampbell) October 17, 2016
So Atlantic Canada is happy, and the government is making a big deal out of its new process including transparency by publishing the application form that Rowe submitted with his answers to a number of questions around his thoughts on significant decisions that he has been a part of, and his thoughts on the role of the judiciary in the legal system, which is unprecedented. As well, next week both the justice minister and Campbell will face a parliamentary committee to explain their choice (thus preserving the committee role of holding cabinet to account), to be followed by a Q&A session with Rowe to be led by a law professor with both MPs and Senators asking the questions. So transparency without devolving into an American-style “confirmation” process. At this rate, Rowe should be on the top court by early November, which means he’ll have missed about half of the fall session of the court (which isn’t as bad as the vacancy issue caused by the Nadon appointment where the court sat 8 in a number of cases). Of course, Rowe’s answers are already provoking some criticism, though it’s not necessarily shared by all members of the legal community. (Incidentally, you can see Carissima Mathen’s Power Play interview on the appointment here).
https://twitter.com/cmathen/status/788201168585560064
So what of the signals the government was sending that they wanted an Indigenous judge, preferably a woman? Well I do think reality did set in when they faced pressure from their Atlantic caucus and the premiers to ensure that the seat remained an Atlantic one. It may well have been them floating a trial balloon about abandoning the convention, but it may also have been a warning. There are two more seats opening up in the next few years (barring deaths or retirements), being Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin (a Western seat) and Justice Rosalie Abella (an Ontario seat), and in both of those cases, the government is saying to the legal community that there had damn well better be some more diverse, bilingual candidates ready to fill those seats when the time comes – something that was more difficult to find in Atlantic Canada owing to their demographics. We’ll see in the next few years, of course, but I think the warning has been delivered.
Roundup: Productivity has context
Parliament resumes today, and it’s going to be the start of a heavy legislative agenda, as the government’s months of consultations start wrapping up and decisions get to start being made. And if you needed a reminder about everything on everyone’s plates, here’s a handy piece about the priorities and challenges for the three main parties this autumn, and Kady O’Malley’s list here too. That said, a Huffington Post article was circulating over the weekend that set my teeth on edge, “proving” that the spring session was the least-productive in decades.
Why this is a problematic measure is that it’s focusing solely on the number of bills passed over those ten months (really, only about five of which was when Parliament was sitting). It’s a purely quantitative analysis that says absolutely nothing about the context of what happened, or about the bigger picture of what the government accomplished. And really, I will be the first person to say that the decision to pull the plug on the Friday they did was about forcing the Senate to pass the assisted dying bill, when they were actually scheduled to sit for a couple of more days, during which time they could have passed two more bills that were ready to go, but they didn’t, and that does deserve mention, but that’s not in there at all. What we get are Conservatives cherry-picking trips and “photo ops” – because who needs multilateral engagement, am I right? – rather than on some of the additional hurdles that the session faced. One of the biggest hurdles was around that assisted dying bill, and the fact that the opposition parties demanded far more hours of debate at second reading than the bill deserved (remember, second reading is about the principle of the bill, not the specifics), and they got huffy when the government tried to push those additional (useless) hours of debate into late nights to keep the agenda going, and when they tried to bring in a procedural hammer to move bills through, the Opposition blew their tops and we wound up with The Elbowing and the subsequent fallout from that. Let me remind you that the Conservatives fully participated in the days of psychodrama that followed, and now they have the gall to say that the government didn’t get enough done? Seriously? They were equal participants in determining the Commons’ schedule of what took place (especially the demands for more second reading debate on that assisted dying bill), and I shouldn’t have to remind anyone that when they were in government, they sat on that bill and didn’t move it despite its deadline. So yes, I find this whole accusation to be the height of cheek, and the analysis should have included far more context around the events of the spring.
Roundup: Leitch the desperate, hollow shell
Apparently we’re still talking about Kellie Leitch and her “anti-Canadian values” screening, because why not? The Canadian Press kicked off the day by putting Leitch’s assertion that it would be akin to “asking some simple questions” to their Baloney Metre™, and lo and behold, the experts they spoke to pretty much laughed it out of the room, earning Leitch’s supposition a rare “full of baloney” rating. It seems that “a few simple questions” just teaches people how to lie to give the “right” answers, and that proper interviews with people trained to know whether people are lying is so prohibitively expensive that it’s never going to happen. So there’s that. Much later in the day, Jason Kenney decided to weigh in from Alberta, and pretty much eviscerated Leitch by saying that this position is a new one for her that she never articulated before in cabinet or caucus, and that she doesn’t understand the nuance around the issue. But then again, we’ve pretty much established that Leitch lacks any real semblance of emotional quotient or self-awareness, so her inability to grasp nuance should not be a surprise to anyone.
Meanwhile, Peter Loewen reminds us that we’re not as perfectly tolerant as we like to believe, and he has the data to prove it, which is why Leitch’s message will find a home in places. Scott Reid looks over the record of Leitch’s campaign manager, who helped Rob Ford get elected, and notes that by this point, Leitch is less of a candidate than a strategy in human form (which is kind of what Jason Kenney is hinting at when noting that this position is all new for Leitch). Paul Wells notes the low ceiling for the kind of rhetoric that Leitch is now taking on, and while he sees the strategic value in such a position, he also offers some ideas for better choices than Leitch. Tabatha Southey offers her particular acid take on the Leitch situation, and her insistence on digging so much that she is in danger of becoming a mole person. And of course, there’s the At Issue panel looking at Leitch as well.
Roundup: Online voting scare
There was a story on Blacklock’s Reporter yesterday morning that used Access to Information documents to suppose that Elections Canada was moving ahead with electronic voting, despite the fact that the electoral reform committee hadn’t even made any recommendations around it. As it turns out, that’s not what they were up to, but it nevertheless touched off a discussion over Twitter about reasons why electronic voting is still a bad idea, and why never is still too soon to even start contemplating it.
We have no plans to introduce electronic/online voting. We are seeking info on managing voters list & poll book electronically
— Elections Canada (@ElectionsCan_E) August 15, 2016
A profoundly bad idea. You won't find support for this among people with a deep understanding of computer security.
— Jonathan Skrimshire (@jskrimshire) August 15, 2016
There remain very real security issues with online voting, mostly on the client side of the transaction.
— Jonathan Skrimshire (@jskrimshire) August 15, 2016
Online banking is workable because the client can later look at a record and say "Hey! I didn't make that transaction!".
— Jonathan Skrimshire (@jskrimshire) August 15, 2016
So even if the system is defrauded, the fraudulent action can be detected and reported.
— Jonathan Skrimshire (@jskrimshire) August 15, 2016
There remain very real security issues with online voting, mostly on the client side of the transaction.
— Jonathan Skrimshire (@jskrimshire) August 15, 2016
But the basic issue is the inability to implement a system that is simultaneously secure, anonymous, and verifiable.
— Jonathan Skrimshire (@jskrimshire) August 15, 2016
Roundup: To give or not to give Sophie resources
At his session-ender press conference, Trudeau highlighted three carefully chosen accomplishments, gave no additional clarity on the missing and murdered Indigenous women file, and didn’t commit to an open process for fighter procurement. All of that was par for the course, given that it was a lot of back-patting, but also a reminder that there is still a lot of work ahead, and he doesn’t want to look like he’s patting himself on the back too much. What I found more curious was in response to a question that he said that his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, should be able to have resources to carry out the duties that she has set about to undertake, but that he also doesn’t want to create a formal role for prime ministerial spouses going forward so that there is no obligation for the future. There is a certain amount of sense to this position, but it’s a very fine line to walk. Currently, she has one assistant and is given help from PMO staff on an ad hoc basis, as needed. Speculation with the staffing changes made to the household, particularly around nannies, has to do with creating space on the staff for an additional assistant for Grégoire Trudeau, but we have yet to see that materialise. None of it answers the specific existential question however on the role that prime ministerial spouses play. The reluctance to create an official position is a good instinct to have, especially because it bears reminding again and again that we are already a constitutional monarchy, and we have a royal family to take on these particular roles. In fact, the GG and his spouse also take on these kinds of feel-good roles in the absence of a more present royal family, which leaves very little room for a prime ministerial spouse to take it on. What they have to trade in – particularly Grégoire Trudeau – is a kind of celebrity status, especially as the previous few prime ministerial spouses haven’t had much in the way of a career of their own, and for Grégoire Trudeau, it has become her career to be a public speaker at events and for particular charity groups – and there’s nothing wrong with that. It nevertheless makes for a sticky situation with who pays for the help that such a career entails, particularly if it becomes an important optical consideration that she not be paid for the work (and if she were paid, even on a cost-recovery basis, one can already imagine people hissing “how dare she!” on accepting money from charities no matter that it’s the cost of doing business and standard practice). So we are between that proverbial rock and hard place. I don’t have a solution to offer either than to say that there is no winning, and it now becomes a way of finding the least unpalatable option, and that may wind up being what Trudeau is signalling – resources but the explicit rule that this is not formalising the role in any way. His reminding people that we have a royal family for these kinds of things wouldn’t hurt either so that we can stop this constant “First Lady” talk.
Roundup: Two bills heading back
It looks like the Senate has nearly finished with two of the contentious bills on its plate, and both are headed back to the Commons with amendments. The first is the obvious one, Bill C-14, where the biggest change has been to drop the requirement that a condition must essentially be terminal for the law to grant a medically-assisted death, but other amendments such as allowing for advanced directives failed in part because Senator Murray Sinclair made a compelling case that the language in the amendment was sufficiently unclear. The challenge there is that while the government promises further study in the language of the bill, there is little guarantee that will actually happen, or if it does, that legislation will follow, because MPs are terribly spineless about these sorts of things and they require being “forced” by the courts.
The other bill is C-7, the RCMP unionization bill, where the list of exclusions that the government had put into the bill has been removed, and somewhat inexplicably, a provision that a union certification vote has to be done by secret ballot was inserted (though I suspect the latter was a compromise with the Conservatives to get them to pass the more important amendment of striking down the exclusions). In that case, the government has a hard time justifying those exclusions, particularly as they both make little sense, and perpetuate the problems of the Commissioner’s office already having too much power, while it would continue to give him even more.
So what’s next? Once those bills head back to the Commons, we’ll see how much the government plans to dig in its heels, and how tough senators can talk about insisting that those changes be in the bills, particularly as they have the weight of the Supreme Court of Canada behind them in both cases. The biggest problem the Senate will face is splintering resolve – enough senators are not willing to stand up to the elected Commons even in the face of a bill that is likely not to pass constitutional muster because the Commons is the elected chamber. Never mind that the Senate was created as an appointed body so that it could do just that – stand up to the elected chamber when need be, because their lack of a need for re-election allowed their reflection on bills to be more “sober,” and this is a case where that particular “sobriety” is needed in the face of pressure from religious and disability groups. But, as I maintain, it remains likely that the Commons is looking for an excuse to be “forced” to accept these changes, and the Senate threatening to use their veto would be excuse enough for MPs to make the needed changes in a way that allows them to hide behind the Senate and skirt responsibility, as they did the courts before them. We’ll have to see.
Roundup: Further conversations on constitutional conventions
In response to my blog post yesterday on the our unwritten portions of our constitution being just as important as the written parts, I had a lot of response over the Twitter Machine, many trying to argue that parties were not an integral part of the system, but historian Christopher Moore took the time out to chastise me for the use of the term “constitutional conventions” when it comes to Responsible Government. But the problem is that Moore is actually wrong in what he tried to argue. To wit:
Smith should look at Section 54 of the Constitution Act, 1982, which sets out in plain language that only the cabinet can make and propose the raising and spending of money. That is what defines the role of the cabinet of ministers. It budgets; it plans the getting and spending. But then there is Section 53, which bluntly states that only the House of Commons can give approval to the cabinet’s proposals for getting and spending.
A few problems with this. First of all, he’s citing the Constitution Act, 1867 and not 1982, and looking at Section 54, there is no mention of cabinet at all:
It shall not be lawful for the House of Commons to adopt or pass any Vote, Resolution, Address, or Bill for the Appropriation of any Part of the Public Revenue, or of any Tax or Impost, to any Purpose that has not been first recommended to that House by Message of the Governor General in the Session in which such Vote, Resolution, Address, or Bill is proposed.
As is consistent in our constitution, there is no mention of a PM, or cabinet, because they are part of Responsible Government, which as I pointed out yesterday are part of the unwritten conventions that we inherited from the UK. As is consistent with the rest of the written constitution, only the Governor General is mentioned. And here’s the kicker: the unwritten constitutional convention is that under Responsible Government, the Crown – by way of the GG – acts on the advice of ministers, and for that to happen, ministers must hold the confidence of the Chamber. Ministers via the convention do all executive government in the Queen’s name. It’s not written because it’s a convention, per the preamble, as a constitution being similar in principle to that of the UK. Moore’s contention that it’s not a convention and that it’s embedded in the text does not hold. So while I’m happy to be corrected when I get it wrong (and it happens), this is not one of those times. Also, if you’re going to quote the constitution at me, then quote the constitution. And as for those people on the Twitter Machine insisting that Responsible Government can function without parties, well, it’s possible in a theoretical world with vampires and unicorns, but it will never happen in real life, so trying to disprove it to make a point is pretty much moot. The practice of parties developed for a reason. Maintaining confidence without them is a fool’s errand.
With many thanks to Philippe Lagassé for talking this issue through with me.