Tag Archives: Procurement

Roundup: Brown’s creepy town hall

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A story out of Brockville yesterday is a bit disconcerting, where local Conservative MP Gord Brown held a town hall in the community about the Omar Khadr settlement, saying that he wanted to get people’s views because everywhere he went, it was all people would ask about. He also claimed that it “wasn’t a partisan issue,” but I would be willing to bet actual money that the way in which Brown presented the case was through a deeply partisan lens, regurgitating the party’s disingenuous talking points and legal prevarications that distort the crux of the matter. And what disturbs me the most is that listening to the reactions in the write-up of the event, it starts sounding an awful lot like a Two Mintues Hate than anything, where people recited the completely wrong tropes about Khadr’s situation and situation as it regards the rule of law. It was at least heartening that a local lawyer turned up at the event, brandishing a copy of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and laying down the law about why there was a settlement, and it’s quite the photo that ran with the piece – but I doubt that it would change very many minds, considering the distortions that are continually spread by the partisans (on all sides, to be completely fair, given that many a Liberal partisan conveniently forgets the roles that Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin played in this). Nevertheless, the fact remains that holding a town hall on this issue is deeply creepy.

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Roundup: The Canadian pathology meets Rolling Stone

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Justin Trudeau was on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine yesterday, which set off the Canadian Twitter sphere along its usual predictable paths. Journalists sniffed at the overly fawning tone of the piece (dismissing it as “political fan fiction”), while also pointing out the factual errors in the piece (apparently, Trudeau leads the “Liberty Party”) and ranking its cringe-worthy moments. The woke crowd railed about how Trudeau really isn’t progressive and how much of a terrible promise-breaking failure he is. And the Conservatives, predictably, acted with usual partisan disdain, so much that it strained credulity (Lisa Raitt in particular took the bizarre track of insisting that this was more damaging to coming NAFTA negotiations than her fellow MPs racing to American media outlets to decry the Khadr settlement). So, really, it was a fairly standard day of social media faux outrage.

https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/890284884283060229

This all having been said, the one thing that kept going through my head while this was all going on was just how perfectly this whole thing fit into the particular Canadian pathology of demanding approval from the Americans – especially when it comes to our artists or actors. Until they’ve decamped for the States and make it there, we largely tend to treat them with disdain, that they’re some kind of Podunk bush leaguers who obviously aren’t successful enough to have left Canada yet. And yet, the moment they do go to the States and make it big, we turn around and go all tall poppy syndrome on them and tear them apart for thinking that they’re better than us, and how dare they. And this whole Trudeau-Rolling Stone thing smacked of that entirely. The Americans are noticing him, so yay, we’re on the world stage, let’s mark the occasion by writing wire stories about the story and magazine cover, but how dare he seek the spotlight, and how dare they comment on his looks, and how dare they write a puff piece, etcetera, etcetera. Same pathology entirely. It’s boring, guys. Get a grip.

Meanwhile, here’s Robert Hiltz to throw some more cold water on the whole thing.

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/890217322966904832

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/890217785137274880

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/890218700128874496

Trudeau, incidentally, also appeared on the West Wing Weekly podcast, and John Geddes dissects Trudeau’s responses and what they all portend.

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Roundup: A sudden demand for subsidies

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Something that went largely unremarked yesterday was a somewhat bizarre press release that Andrew Scheer put out, bemoaning the lack of cellphone coverage in one region of Quebec, and then wondered why the government had all kind of money to spend on other things but not this, and then lumped it in with softwood lumber and Supply Management as a Quebec priority.

https://twitter.com/journo_dale/status/889841610665730048

While the fact that the Conservative leader was in essence demanding subsidized cellphone coverage in one particular region is strange in and of itself, it should be a reminder that this is no longer a party of actual fiscal conservatism – it’s a party of economic populism that just happens to chant about balanced budgets for the sake of it. To be certain, this is the first time I’ve seen cellphone coverage being listed as a top priority from Scheer or the Conservatives, and as many of my Twitter followers pointed out, there are plenty of places in this country with poor or non-existent coverage, especially along the TransCanada highway – somewhere one might expect that it might be some kind of national priority. But I’m also curious as to what exactly Scheer proposes to do about it that government deficits aren’t taking care of – language that seems to imply that they’re not simply going to demand that companies provide this coverage through regulatory means. Add to that, they were in power for almost a decade and did nothing about these kinds of coverage gaps, so it makes one wonder why it suddenly became a priority unless it just happens to be somewhere that Scheer is hoping to pick up some votes. Crass politicking? Perish the thought!

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Roundup: The great Alberta merger

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Following 95 percent results on both Progressive Conservative and Wildrose Alliance party referendums, it looks like the new United Conservative Party in Alberta is a go, with the big question being who will be the interim leader while they formalize the process and start an actual leadership selection process. And hey, that could mean some internecine warfare right off the start. The death of the PC party in that province is a bit of an odd thing, but not entirely out of keeping with Alberta’s political history of single-party dynasties for long runs that eventually peter out and die, but what is left in the wake will be the big question.

Where the more centrist voters will go is the big question, because I’m not entirely certain that they’ll all migrate to the UCP, especially with the Wildrose component playing such a big role in it. While Jason Kenney spent the last year trying to convince people that a PC and a Wildrose vote would equal two against the NDP, I’m not sure the math is actually that solid. Why? Aside from the fact that it glosses over some of the history of the last provincial election, what the merger papers over in particular is the growing gap between rural and urban voters in the province, where riding redistribution has meant that the gerrymandered rural ridings no longer hold the weight that they once did. Make no mistake, there was a very big urban/rural divide between the PC and Wildrose parties, and much of that is along the social conservatism issue. Wildrose voters weren’t only outraged about the fiscal profligacy of later PC governments as they were about the fact that they capitulated on social issues, particularly around LGBT rights that they remain firmly opposed to. It’s why they pushed Danielle Smith out of the party (leading her to cross the floor to Prentice’s PCs at the time), and Jason Kenney and Brian Jean are going to have a hell of a time trying to square this particular circle when they try to build their “free enterprise coalition” as though the social conservative issues won’t rear their heads. What this merger may end up doing is regenerating the centrist parties in the province (take your pick between the Alberta Liberals, who have a new, credible leader, and the Alberta Party) now that the amorphous, centrist PC party is no more.

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Roundup: Taking it to American media

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This wailing and gnashing of teeth going on about whether or not the Conservatives may have damaged NAFTA renegotiations by going to the American media to bellyache about the Omar Khadr settlement is kind of tiresome, but I have to wonder if some of the angst or even analysis on this isn’t misplaced. While sure, there are points to be made about how going there is a bit of hypocrisy going on, where Andrew Scheer insists that it’s totally different for the Conservatives to go down about Khadr while at the same time saying it was “treasonous” for Thomas Mulcair to go to Washington to decry pipelines doesn’t pass the credibility test, I also don’t think that Scheer can credibly claim that If the Khadr payment hurts NAFTA that it’s Trudeau’s fault because it comes off as petulant.

Roland Paris gave some additional thoughts here:

https://twitter.com/rolandparis/status/888034179056840705

https://twitter.com/rolandparis/status/888037607019610113

https://twitter.com/rolandparis/status/888038959632314369

https://twitter.com/rolandparis/status/888043257300738048

There was an additional comment (that I can’t find to cite) that what’s more suspicious is the fact that the Conservatives had to go to the States to drum up outrage over Khadr because they weren’t getting much traction on it in Canada, as they were already preaching to the converted. I think that’s a fairly trenchant observation, and I have to wonder if it’s also because they chose particular American outlets that won’t offer pushback to their points that are factually wrong, which they wouldn’t get in Canada. Certainly Rosemary Barton wouldn’t abet the same kind of disingenuous commentary that Michelle Rempel pushed, and I think that’s also part of what we should take away from the exercise, beyond the fact that this performative outrage could backfire and cause problems with NAFTA in the age of the Uncertainty Engine taking more cues from Fox & Friends than he does with his officials.

Meanwhile, Paul Wells sees little trouble for Liberals in the polls post-Khadr settlement, so it seems like there’s little backlash (as those who were against Khadr seem unlikely to change their votes). Kady O’Malley meanwhile wonders if dragging the Americans into the Khadr file isn’t going too far.

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Roundup: Caretakers and emergencies

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The situation in BC, where there is an emergency situation of wildfires and evacuations in the midst of a change of government, can be pretty instructive as to how our system of government works. Right now, as with during an election period, the machinery of government goes into “caretaker” mode, and because Christy Clark remains the premier until the moment John Horgan is sworn in, she is able to respond to the situation as she is doing now.

https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/884468259185209344

This is why, after Clark’s visit to the lieutenant governor, the statement from the LG was that she “will accept her resignation,” not that Clark has resigned on the spot.

Why is this important? Because the Crown must always have someone to advise them, especially in circumstances like this. Add to that, we have a professional, non-partisan civil service means that they are already in place, and don’t need to have a massive new appointment spree to fill the upper layers like they do in the US. That means that they can respond to these kinds of situations, and while the caretaker government gives the orders, the incoming government’s transition team is being briefed so that they can handoff the files when they form government. It’s an elegant system that we’re lucky to have.

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Roundup: Principle over circumstance

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After a weekend of yet more wailing and gnashing of teeth about the Omar Khadr settlement, and despite detailed explanations from the ministers of justice and public safety, and Justin Trudeau reminding everyone that this is not about the individual circumstances of Khadr himself but rather the price of successive governments who have ignored the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, we’re still seeing a number of disingenuous talking points and facile legal analysis from players who know better. Here is some of the better commentary from the weekend.

https://twitter.com/aaronwherry/status/883736382602194944

https://twitter.com/aradwanski/status/884024742826696704

https://twitter.com/cforcese/status/884031425862828032

https://twitter.com/stephaniecarvin/status/884031824783126528

A number of people over social media have insisted that treatment of Khadr, including the “frequent flier” sleep deprivation technique used to “soften him up” before CSIS agents arrived to question him, or the fact that he was strung up for hours to the point of urinating himself (and then used as a human mop to wipe it up) or being threatened with gang rape didn’t constitute torture.

https://twitter.com/cforcese/status/884047890003505152

https://twitter.com/cforcese/status/884051777850617856

https://twitter.com/cforcese/status/884052141417037825

There was some particularly petulant legal analysis from former Conservative cabinet ministers that got pushback.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/884078867006320640

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/884091668940677120

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/884214974809296898

https://twitter.com/InklessPW/status/883432269976940544

And of course, the broader principle remains.

https://twitter.com/stephaniecarvin/status/884029627546599424

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Roundup: Challenging an unconstitutional law

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The saga of Steven Fletcher in Manitoba continues to fascinate and enrage me. The now-former member of the province’s PC caucus, and one-time federal Conservative cabinet minister, has not only run up against a very problematic expulsion from caucus because he dared to have differing opinions (which I wrote about in my column), but now it appears that Fletcher is planning to challenge the province’s law that bans floor-crossing. Not that he wants to cross the floor, but the fact that the law is on the books.

In case it’s not clear, the very notion of a legislated ban on floor-crossing should be unconstitutional. Apparently, Manitoba’s not the only province to have this either – New Brunswick has a law on the books that requires floor-crossers to reimburse their former party for election expenses, which is also legally dubious. The history of these laws is also circumspect at best – in Manitoba, it was allegedly cashing in on the anger around David Emerson crossing the floor to become a federal Conservative cabinet minister in 2006, while in New Brunswick, it was the angry response to a husband-and-wife MLA couple crossed from the provincial Conservatives to the Liberals. The Manitoba case has the added factor that it was an NDP government at the time, and the NDP are particularly hostile to floor-crossers, which one suspects has to do with the fact that they are a party that is big on solidarity and being in constant lock-step, and they aren’t very tolerant of their members stepping out of line. They’re also much more wrapped up in their party identity, which is part of why these laws are such a problem.

The thing with our electoral system is that it gives individual agency to MPs. They are elected as individuals, to fill a single seat in the House of Commons in a separate election. That’s why a general election is 338 separate elections federally, or however many seats are in that province’s legislature during their elections. MPs are not elected a party vote which then gets allocated to that seat, and this is important. Because we elect MPs as individuals, regardless of whatever party colours they may be wearing, it empowers them to make their own decisions in Parliament (or their provincial legislature), and that includes the ability to cross the floor when their conscience is so moved. It’s not a bug in our system – it’s a feature because it means that the individual is more powerful than the party. The NDP doesn’t like this line of thinking at either level of government, and apparently the provincial Liberals in Manitoba are also under the misguided notion that it’s “unconstitutional” (which it most certainly is not). I’m glad that Fletcher is planning to challenge the law, because it is an affront to Westminster democracy. And when it does get struck down, I hope it serves as a warning to other provinces, or the federal NDP in their perpetual quest to enact such laws.

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Roundup: PBO’s platform peril

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Now that the budget implementation bill has passed, the Parliamentary Budget Officer is in the midst of transforming into yet another unaccountable Officer of Parliament that will have a broad mandate and few checks on his actions, given that the government backed down on their attempts to limit the scope of his work. What they didn’t limit was the giving the PBO the mandate to cost election promises by other parties, despite his objections to doing so, and so now his office is being forced to figure out just how they’ll do it. The legislation does make it clear that he’s only to cost individual promises, not their whole campaign, but it’s going to be an enormous amount of work that will be used even more as a cudgel than his work already is, and we can expect an election period being filled with taunts of “See, the PBO says that your plans will cost more than you say and he’s independent,” with the unspoken “Nya, nya!” in there. Oh boy. Anyway, Jennifer Robson has a few more thoughts on the issue.

The bit about a common baseline is possibly important, given that economist Stephen Gordon has been trying to match Liberal election promises to the current budget framework and has found the task to be nigh impossible.

Enforcing common costing baselines may sound like a good idea, but it does make me nervous about campaigns devolving into accounting exercises at the expense of other considerations, including accountability, and that we’ll have repeats of 2008, when we had clear platform commitments shrugged off by reporters going “it’s just so complicated” when a) it wasn’t, and b) it reinforces this “math is hard” narrative that does nobody any favours. But maybe that’s just me.

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Roundup: Demanding ATIP perfection may be the enemy of the good

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I find myself torn about the government announcement on new legislation to amend the Access to Information Act because on the whole, they made most of the changes that they promised to, but they failed to uphold one promise, which was to make the Act apply to the PMO and minister’s offices. And yes, We The Media let them know how displeased we were about it.

Part of the problem here is that like so many of their other election promises, it may have been a stupid one – kind of like their promise around electoral reform. Why? Because it was always going to be problematic to promise access to cabinet documents, and there’s a very good reason for that, because much of that information should remain private because it will otherwise damage the ability for there to be unfettered advice to ministers or between cabinet colleagues, and they need to have space to make these kinds of deliberations, otherwise the whole machinery of government starts to fall apart.

https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/876947458118623234

Like Philippe Lagassé says, the better discussion would have been to have specific proposals as to what falls under cabinet confidence. Currently the Information Commissioner has some determination around that, and with the changes in this bill, the onus will be reversed – the government will need to convince her (and if that fails, the courts) that information should remain secret, as opposed to her having to take the government to court to get that access. That’s significant.

https://twitter.com/cforcese/status/876900009605820416

There is a lot of good in these changes, but I fear that it will be lost amidst the grumbling that it didn’t go far enough. And let’s face it – sometimes We The Media are our own worst enemies when we use Access requests for cheap outrage stories rather than meaningful accountability, and then wonder why the government suddenly clamps down and turns to message control, and worst of all, nobody wants to talk about that problem. That may wind up making things worse for everyone in the end.

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