Tag Archives: Pierre Poilievre

Roundup: Bemoaning members’ statements

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Over in the National Post, Tristin Hopper despairs at how much of Hansard is taken up by ridiculous and ultimately meaningless members’ statements, not to mention the plethora of petitions. And while the notion of members’ statements used to be kind of sweet and noble, it’s largely degenerated into a daily dumpster fire in the Commons, with a handful of feel-good statements followed by a number of increasingly nasty partisan attacks. Petitions, however ridiculous many may be, is a measure of political engagement so we shouldn’t discount them just yet – and we’re about to see a whole bunch more of them now that they’re going to all electronic petitions. Hopper suggests we follow the European example and put Members’ Statements at the end of the day. I tweeted some thoughts on that.

Bottom line: Pretty much all of Parliament is terrible right now with speeches because we’re electing a cohort who has largely lost the ability to think for themselves on their feet, whose greatest skill now is reciting the lines that are given to them. (Not all are like this, but most are, and I will note that the Liberals seem to be the least scripted from the leaders’ office these days). While I can sympathise with Hopper, it’s not the rules that are the problem – it’s the fact that we have apparently stopped valuing MPs who can speak or think for themselves in favour of ciphers for the leader.

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Roundup: More documents and arguments

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With more Duffy-related documents being filed and their separate proceeding going ahead in trying to get that secret internal report on residencies going ahead, there is a flurry of stories in the news related to the ongoing expenses issue in the Upper Chamber. Those new documents filed show that the steering subcommittee of the internal economy committee – meaning particularly Senators Carolyn Stewart Olsen and David Tkachuk – altered the section of the report on Mike Duffy seven times to tone down the criticism of his residency and travel patterns after he repaid the $90,000 (as it turned out thanks to Nigel Wright). It does seem mystifying that other Conservative senators are not insisting that Stewart Olsen and Tkachuk be removed from that committee to clear the air, but these kinds of decisions tend to rest in the Senate leader’s office, and well, the current Leader of the Government in the Senate is a yes-man for the PMO, and those two senators did the PMO’s bidding. It does stink, and one would think that the rest of their caucus would take issue – but then again, they may be but it would be happening behind closed doors. And the current rumour is that the Auditor General is going to recommend that the RCMP look at 10 senators’ expenses, but said rumour also says that most of those 10 have seen retired. I guess we’ll see what happens when the report is released, but the Senate Speaker has said that they will send files to the RCMP if that is what is recommended. As for that internal report that the Senate refuses to turn over to Duffy’s lawyers, they seem to be making the argument that Duffy has been treated unfairly by having his expenses turned over to the RCMP but others haven’t – which isn’t true, considering that Patrick Brazeau and Mac Harb also had theirs turned over and had charges laid, while the RCMP continue to investigate Pamela Wallin’s expenses. And they may have more company on the way, but the Senate is in the process of making its rules more stringent, and hopefully the next time appointments are made, they will be vetted a little better than those of the Class of 2008.

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Roundup: Poilievre’s egregious video problem

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It’s egregiously partisan, and Pierre Poilievre won’t apologise for it. He released a pair of YouTube videos featuring himself talking about the government’s new tax measures, never mind that they still haven’t passed into law yet. Most of all, he filmed them on a weekend, using public servants on overtime. He says it was only two hours (but rules are they need to be paid a minimum of three), and not unsurprisingly, the public sector unions consider it an abuse of resources. Because it is. Liberal MP David McGuinty is hoping to leverage it into support of his bill to limit this kind of nonsense, much in the way that Ontario created an advertising commissioner in the Auditor General’s office to vet ads so that things like party colours, or the faces or voices of politicians are outlawed from government advertising. The funny thing is that the current Conservative government rode into power on the white horse of accountability, waving the banner of outrage over partisan advertising and polling by the previous government – never mind that their advertising was never this blatant or nakedly partisan. But apparently that doesn’t matter because this government can justify and rationalize absolutely anything, no matter how much they end up looking like hypocrites.

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Roundup: Tales of internal audits

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The issue that dominated Question Period and the headlines yesterday – that the PMO was trying to direct the Senate’s Internal Economy Committee to protect Duffy from internal audits – is one that needs a bit of a deep breath before we freak out about it. For starters, we need to be aware that Duffy and his lawyer are deliberately stoking this in order to direct the attention toward Harper and the PMO as their way of exculpating Duffy. Number two, that any “conspiracy” within the Senate to protect Duffy has largely been limited to a couple of players and not the chamber as a whole. In this case, it seems to be largely three key players – then-leader Marjory LeBreton, Harper loyalist Carolyn Stewart Olsen, and David Tkachuk. That Stewart Olsen might be doing Harper’s bidding is no surprise, and while Tkachuk should have known better than to take PMO direction, he has been playing his own power games within the Senate (including a few nasty leaks to the media designed to undermine people). The other thing that should be pointed out is that Senate administration – the Clerk and a senior staffer conducting an internal audit – were trying to point to the nebulous rules around residency and were getting pushback from Stewart Olsen and Tkachuk, and in Stewart Olsen’s case, the motives were likely self-interested given her own problematic residency situation at the time. That internal audit was not killed, in part because of legal action threatened by the Clerk, but it does point to the fact that while rules could be nebulous, the staff was trying to ensure that there was some due diligence, and Duffy would have been caught up in that exercise. That the PMO was trying to take the heat off of Duffy with a later external audit is concerning, but should be for the rest of the Senate. They have institutional independence for a reason, and they are betraying their role when they take that kind of direction. Of course, Harper created the situation where a number of senators would take direction by flooding the chamber with so many pliable rookies at once who wouldn’t hesitate to take orders. It’s one of the things that the late Speaker Nolin was trying to change – getting senators, particularly those in his own caucus, to take their roles more seriously. None of this should detract from the fact that Duffy still bears responsibility for his own actions, and that senators themselves should be telling the PMO to shove off. We shouldn’t let Duffy and his lawyer play us to confirm those facts.

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Roundup: Some questionable justifications

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Yesterday, Jason Kenney went on a charm offensive to lay out the legal position on extending our bombing raids into Syria, most notably saying that we have authority under Article 51 of the UN Charter, with Iraq asking us to help them defend their borders while the Syrian government is unwilling or unable to. It’s pretty thin ice under international law, but if the Americans are doing it, apparently that’s good enough for this government. More dubious was Kenney saying that we’re acting in the “spirit of” Responsibility to Protect, to which Trudeau later made the point that one of the tenets of R2P is that you don’t make the situation worse, which could be the outcome if our bombing ISIS in Syria ends up solidifying Assad/ And what about Syrian air defences? Do we not need to coordinate with them so as to not get shot down? Kenney says there’s no ground radar in that part of the country, and that ISIS doesn’t have weapons capable enough of taking down our fighter jets. Kenney also made the claim that only the smart bombs that Canada and the US posses in the alliance are capable of doing the job, but experts are disputing that fact, pointing out that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also have the capability. In other words, this sounds like Kenney embellishing the truth again, which puts the veracity of his other statements into question as well. As for Harper, he started joking that we didn’t have to worry about ISIS’ lawyers taking us to court, when the bigger concern is actually other world leaders. You know, like Putin, for whom we are accusing of breaking international law for annexing the Crimea. Oh, wait a twisted little world it is.

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Roundup: The Adams nomination

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Day three of the Eve Adams floor crossing fallout, and once you wade through some of the sexist columns and tiresome Biblical references, a few things start to emerge. Adams had a very interesting interview on CP24 yesterday, and the host pressed her on a lot of issues and Adams seemed to have some coherent answers about changing her mind about income splitting when Flaherty came out with his objections, and that she was a loyal foot soldier for the Conservatives so their excuses about being happy to be rid of her are ringing hollow. She also said that she would be moving to riding she plans to run in, Eglington Lawrence, and that has already begun reaching out to the community there. The riding president says she’s welcome to run, but reminds everyone that it’s an open nomination. Trudeau told the media while in Winnipeg that he gave some reflection to accepting Adams into the fold, and said that it was Adams’ willingness to do the tough slog to win a difficult riding was what convinced him – and I think that’s borne out it in the fact that it’s going to be an open, contested nomination, and that Adams is going to have to do the hard work of convincing the grassroots members that she is the leopard who has changed her spots. And it’s going to be tough – here is one of the nomination candidates that she will be running against, and it’s going to be tough for her to beat someone of his credentials. I also believe that having Adams lose in a fair fight is part of Trudeau’s actual plan, where he gets the news value of her embarrassing the PM and then saying that the open nomination system worked. The fact that she was slotted into the riding’s nomination race without consultation seems to fit with that fact. But then again, what do I know?

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Roundup: All About Eve, Part 2: The Revenge

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It was a move that shocked pretty much everyone – Conservative parliamentary secretary Eve Adams crossed the floor to the Liberals, and called out Stephen Harper as “mean-spirited” and a bully. Of course, Adams is not without controversy, with her botched nomination and allegations of shenanigans, and the news from the Conservative Party that she was denied a further attempt to contest a nomination – not that it impacted her parliamentary secretary role or duties, which they apparently still had confidence in her carrying out. This makes her look to be self-serving in her decision to approach the Liberals, though it sounds like she approached Trudeau before the final no from the Conservatives. There are also suggestions that her relations with Harper started to deteriorate after a meeting last month, but it’s all still unclear at this point. For the Liberals, Adams played up her roots in the Progressive Conservatives – a party which is no longer and whose bona fides are fading from the modern Conservative Party (which, to be fair, has also tossed social conservatism in favour of base populism). Trudeau is trying to re-capture those blue Liberal voters who voted Conservative in the past couple of elections, as well as to get the Red Tories who still exist, particularly in Ontario but also in Alberta, to vote Liberal instead. Now she’s going to try and contest one of the still open seats in the GTA, but if any Liberals want to send a message that she’s not welcome in the party for her past Conservative sins, well, this is their chance to let their displeasure be heard. As for Adams, she leaves from a prestigious position with the government to the third party, and she goes from strict message control to a place where she’s going to have to do a lot more heavy lifting as she takes on a critic portfolio. Maybe she can make something of it and prove herself. She’s got about 14 sitting weeks to make something of her change. Then there’s the question of Adams’ spouse, Dmitri Soudas, former right-hand-man of the PM and former director of the Conservative Party. He says he supports her move, and has already made threatening tweets to Conservative MPs who have tried to be too snarky about it, but the Liberals have stated that he will have no formal role in the campaign other than supporting Adams with her nomination. It was, however, pretty rich of the Liberals to cast questions about this dynamic as sexist, because they were a “power couple” and that makes it relevant. I personally am curious about some of the wider-ranging implications, such as how the Soudas-Leo Housakos power structure will carry on, as that is currently part of the cabal at the centre of Senate leadership. The loss of Soudas from the Conservative fold could resonate there as well. Paul Wells offers some snarky – but entirely deserved – comments on the whole affair.

https://twitter.com/d_soudas/status/564867569836765184

https://twitter.com/d_soudas/status/564910542037319680

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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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Roundup: Skills shortages versus wages

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After Jason Kenney suspended the temporary foreign workers programme for restaurants, Alberta restaurants are warning that they are going to have to start closing due to labour shortages, given that they already have a hard enough time retaining staff when the oil and gas sector snaps up relatively unskilled labour in short order. Kenny has said that more employers should try to hire Canadians, but that will likely mean raising wage rates. But will people accept the increase in how much it’ll cost them to eat out? We have become a culture that worships on the altar of cheap, after all.

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QP: 39 options!

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Every leader was finally present in the House today — promised to be the only day that will happen this week. Go grand inquest of the nation! Thomas Mulcair started off by reading an old Stephen Harper quote about using time allocation on an electoral reform bill. Harper, unfazed, noted that the NDP opposed the bill without reading it. Mulcair wanted to know if Harper still stood by those sentiments of old, but Harper refused to take the bait and insisted that the current elections bill was subject to ongoing debate and that they would all eventually arrive at the conclusion that it was a good bill. Mulcair asked if Harper could yet name any expert who supported the bill. Harper insisted that the NDP had nothing on offer in the next election. Mulcair wondered if Harper stood behind some of Pierre Poilievre’s questionable assertion that the Chief Electoral Officer made false statements. Harper insisted that the NDP were not focused on the substance of the bill, even when pressed on the matter. Justin Trudeau got up for the Liberals, and after denouncing the elections bill and the government’s tactics, demanded that Conservatives be given a free vote on the bill. Harper dodged, and said that 99 percent of Canadians produced ID at the last election and needed far more rigorous forms of ID for the less important activities. Trudeau asked again in French, got the same answer, and in English once again, listed the groups concerned about the changes. Harper stuck to that same answer, and brought back his “secret votes, not secret voters” quip.

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