Over in the Globe and Mail, Andrew Coyne points to Hogue Report’s comments on party nomination races as a possible vector for foreign interference, and declares that they need to be cleaned up, but declines to say how. He disputes that parties are entirely private clubs, because “Their sole purpose is to seek and wield coercive power over the rest of us. How they go about it is therefore a matter of vital public concern, and regulation in the public interest – at the least, transparency – is entirely justified.”
But how exactly does one propose to do that? Involve Elections Canada with all internal deliberations of these parties, whether it’s a nomination contest, leadership race, or policy convention? While I get the temptation, we have to ask ourselves if any of this is practical, not only because when an election happens, there are a tonne of last-minute nomination meetings, but there are hundreds of registered political parties. Should they only concern themselves with parties that have seats in the Commons? Would they create disparate sets of rules for the big four parties than any others? Could they get away with that in the courts? I’m not sold that this is a solution because it would involve a massive expansion of their powers and bureaucracy, and because they are ultimately reporting to an Independent Officer of Parliament who has no real accountability, the potential for abuse if enormous.
This isn’t to say that things don’t need to change, because they do, but it’s not exactly something that external monitors can fix. In fact, the solution on its face is much less mysterious than it might sound, but it goes back to the original sin of Canadian politics—the decision to remove leadership selection from the caucus to the party membership. Restore this to caucus selection, and you can start separating the parliamentary and constituency party powers again, so that the parliamentary party leader can’t exert outsized influence on the nomination races, and the constituency party is motivated to keep a closer eye on the nomination races, particularly because that’s their job rather than the parliamentary leader trying to stuff the races with its parachute or hand-picked candidates. I would also note that the number of races that would be vulnerable to foreign interference is actually very small, given that you’re not going be able to find diasporic communities in most rural ridings, so again, we should beware what we’re talking about here. I think we need to better appreciate the scope of the problem, and ensure that the right incentives are there for the parties to clean up their own messes rather than involving Elections Canada.
Ukraine Dispatch:
Russian infantry has been trying to breach local defences in the Kharkiv region, but so far, Ukraine has been holding them off. Ukraine is due to start receiving their first F-16s by summer.
Today, Russian forces attempted to expand their operations against Ukraine in the Kharkiv region. We know the size of the occupiers' forces and their intentions. Our warriors, artillery, and drones are fighting back against the occupier.
I thank each soldier, sergeant, and… pic.twitter.com/K46QtL9qtz
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) May 10, 2024
#Kharkiv Oblast stands at the forefront among all regions in terms of the number of cultural heritage monuments damaged or destroyed due to Russia’s military actions, with a total of 299 affected sites.
Photo of the destroyed Hryhorii Skovoroda Museum via Kharkiv Today pic.twitter.com/tRw4rf2KBw
— UkraineWorld (@ukraine_world) May 10, 2024