Tuesday, and only two of the three main leaders were all in attendance, possibly for the only time this week. Rona Ambrose led off, mini-lectern on neighbouring desk, and raised the subject of that Torys fundraiser that Jody Wilson-Raybould attended. Justin Trudeau noted that the rules were followed, the Conservatives were convicted of election fraud, and Conservatives had been convicted of election fraud. Ambrose said that when their government had a similar issue “from a mistake” that they paid it back — not actually true, as Shelly Glover attended a fundraiser with people who were looking to her for grants, and thus was not a similar situation. Trudeau noted that they only paid the money back when they got their hands caught in the cookie jar. Ambrose gave it one last shot but got the same response. Denis Lebel took over, and railed about the figures in the budget, and raised quotes from the parliamentary budget officer. Trudeau insisted that no, his government was being open and transparent. Lebel then raised the old bill C-377 and now it was all about union transparency. Trudeau reminded him that it was actually about using transparency against their rivals, which was not what his government was about. Leading for the NDP, Hélène Laverdière asked about the signing of the Saudi LAV export permits, and Trudeau said that he would not renege on a deal and he had confidence in Dion. Laverdière demanded the contract be made public, but got the same answer. Nathan Cullen then decried the lack of new GHG targets, for which Trudeau reminded him that they are working with the provinces. Cullen asked again in English, and got the same response.
Tag Archives: Procurement
Roundup: Minimizing blame
The NDP’s election debrief has been released just days before their big policy convention, in which Thomas Mulcair will need to convince delegates there to let him stay on the job. Little of what was in the report was new, other than name-checking all of the various internal bodies, committees and commissions who were consulted and who have work ahead of them. There were a couple of things that did stand out for me, however. The big one was about communication:
There were many frustrations shared about our internal communications during the campaign. Members, particularly local campaign managers, felt that the reporting from the ground had no effect on the strategic decision-making happening in the central campaign. What was being felt door-to-door was not being communicated, being miscommunicated, or went unheard. Members feel this impeded the ability of the central campaign to shift strategy when necessary.
The party has centralised a whole lot since 2011, and that was certainly reflected. That said, with everyone in the report saying that their local campaigns went great, it does smack a little bit of buck-passing to the central campaign. There were a few other points raised, such as the lack of a Quebec-specific offer, that they were not nimble enough in reacting to attacks from other parties, and that they didn’t adequately prepare for the niqab debate (but everyone was proud of their principled position, which confuses me a bit since the position wound up being that this was a court decision rather than the fact that we don’t tell women what to war in Canada). Glaringly absent in the report was the share of blame placed on Mulcair. In fact, he was barely mentioned at all. This was the closest it got:
We heard disappointment from members who felt that decisions about the strategy employed in the debates led to a situation in which our leader’s full capabilities — as demonstrated in the House of Commons over the previous years — were not on display. Across the country, we heard that our party activists did not understand why we refused to participate in some national debates.
While he wrote the big mea culpa letter taking responsibility, that’s not reflected in their actual debrief, which makes me a bit suspicious. And let’s face it – he had a big part in that, from his demeanour, to his inept slogan of “good, competent public administration,” to his poor debate performance, to the fact that his lack of the same kind of charisma that Trudeau exhibited did weigh in on people’s decisions. I’m left to wonder if the fact that they didn’t include criticisms of his performance in the report because it goes against the party’s solidarity mindset, or if it’s a kind of whitewashing of the record in advance of the leadership review vote. Suffice to say, it doesn’t make the report feel as forthcoming as it could or should be.
QP: Easter Theatre
It was Friday-on-a-Thursday QP in the Commons, in advance of the two-week Easter break. Justin Trudeau was away, as were many ministers, starting to fan out across the country to sell the budget to Canadians, but Bill Morneau was present, and expects to be the star of the show. Rona Ambrose led off, mini-lectern on neighbouring desk, and she railed about the “betrayal” of the middle class. Morneau insisted that there were plenty of measures to help families. Ambrose bemoaned the size of the deficit, and Morneau returned with a dig about the previous decade of low growth. Ambrose asked which taxes the government planned to raise, but Morneau didn’t bite, praising the measures therein instead. Denis Lebel took over, lamenting the lack of a plan to balance the budget. Morneau praised the plan to grow the middle class. Lebel closed by repeating the question on the size of the deficit, but got the same response. Thomas Mulcair was up next, recalling Air Canada breaking the law regarding their maintenance contracts, and now the government was retroactively changing that law. Marc Garneau responded that the situation had evolved, and Air Canada had made new commitments to create new jobs in Quebec and Manitoba. Mulcair read some condemnation that the deal was “Orwellian,” and that the Liberals were letting the rich get off the hook, but Garneau repeated his answer about changing situations and competitiveness. Mulcair thundered about the government not respecting a Human Rights Tribunal on equal investment for First Nations children. Carolyn Bennett said that they were making investments, but the systems had to change as well. Mulcair then failed about a plan to outsource Shared Services jobs, but Judy Foote responded that the publicized report was from 2014, which they did not intend to follow.
Tom Mulcair straight yelling in question period like his job depends on it.
(Which it might)
— Paul McLeod (@pdmcleod) March 24, 2016
Roundup: A surprisingly packed budget
And that was the budget. It was full of interesting things, but you wouldn’t know it based on the fact that absolutely everybody was fixated on the deficit figure, and barely even that it was built on a super cautious, pessimistic framework that basically presented a worst-case scenario in terms of assumptions, meaning that the only place it really could go was up, and yes, if the economy grows enough, then the budget will start to balance itself. The child benefit changes are the big news, and as for reaction, the Conservatives call the budget a “nightmare” while the NDP rail about all of the promises that it didn’t keep (because everything should have happened immediately).
Roundup: Process questions and straw men
Because it was making the rounds yet again on the Sunday morning politics shows, I figured I should reiterate a few points, plus make a couple of new ones, concerning the new Senate appointments, and the role of the new “government representative.” The first point is that yes, the Senate is going to have to change a few of its rules, and that is a process that has already started and probably won’t be concluded for a few more weeks or months. That we have a name and a face to go with this new role may accelerate the process rather than it being nebulous with Dominic LeBlanc and Maryam Monsef just shrugging and declaring that they were confident that the Senate could work it out. With Peter Harder now in the picture, with an idea about how he wants to tackle his role, there is something a little more concrete in terms of how he wants to shape the new rules to suit his purposes. His budget as “government representative” as opposed to Leader of the Government in the Senate is also up for some debate, particularly within the Internal Economy Committee, just as they are going to have to take up what to do with the new “Independent working-group” and how they want to organise and style themselves so as to give a voice to the independent senators who are currently being frozen out of decision-making processes. (This goes as well for the Rules Committee, which has already been undertaking the question of how to better allow independent senators onto committees, as that process is mostly done behind closed doors by the caucus whips). Harder’s decision to remain officially an independent while taking on this role does complicate things, but nothing is so difficult that it cannot be solved with a little more diligence, and hopefully it won’t be too impeded by some of the more partisan senators on either side of the aisle whose feelings have been bruised by the talk of independence being an improvement on the way the Senate operates. The final point is this constant concern trolling that somehow the budget won’t get passed, or that the government won’t be able to get its agenda through if nobody is there to crack the whip. It’s a lot of specious reasoning predicated on a number of straw men, ignorant of history and civic literacy. Apparently every time the governing party in the Senate was in the minority there was some kind of constitutional crisis, which is false, and no, budgets were not held up or defeated. The Senate is very reluctant to stop any bill because they are aware of their democratic legitimacy (and yes, they do have it by virtue of Responsible Government so don’t even go there), and when they have defeated legislation, it is generally for good reason, such as constitutionality, the legislation being out of bounds, or the fact that the country was not on side with it, and it needed to be put to a test (such as with free trade in the 1980s). They have a job to do. I’m particularly galled at those concerned that the Senate is going to suddenly be empowered to use their constitutional veto powers if they are more independent and less beholden to the government of the day, never mind that the Senate has not abused its veto in decades. They were given those powers for a reason, and yes, sometimes elected legislators get things wrong and there needs to be a mechanism to stop their legislation. But this pearl-clutching about the new state of affairs really needs to stop.
Roundup: McQuaig’s “lessons learned”
Former NDP star candidate Linda McQuaig penned a column in the Toronto Star about her “lessons learned” after two unsuccessful attempts at running for office (and no plans to run again), and as one could expect, it’s a little self-serving. In it, she bemoans her loss of freedom to discuss topics thanks to party discipline and central messaging, and the fact that she knowingly walked into a trap about oil sands staying in the ground despite the fact that it went against the party line. Her takeaway: that the rush to avoid complexity and controversy infantilises voters, and somehow the NDP’s apparently popularity over their position on C-51 (despite the fact that it too was facile and unworkable, according to the very same security experts they cited over the bill’s problems) must somehow be an indication of they’re actually hungry to be treated like citizens. It’s a bit of a leap in logic because part of what the issue was when she went against the party line was that after it happened, she went into lockdown and didn’t really talk her way out of what she said, and the spin machine of “you want to destroy the energy industry” filled that silence. It was a self-inflicted wound that could have been managed, but wasn’t. As for her contention that voters are looking for adult conversations on issues, that may very well be true, but the NDP weren’t offering it while the Liberals certainly were better suited for it with their comprehensive platform. What we got from the NDP were some platitudes about “competent public administration” and promises to balance the budget based on fuzzy numbers (and recall that their first “costed” platform document was little more than buzz-words with dollar figures attached that meant nothing). So really, if you think that voters want an adult conversation then provide them with one, not what the disingenuous platitudes being offered (that C-51 could be repealed wholesale, that the NDP “only needed 35 more seats,” word games over the “federal minimum wage,” the aforementioned fuzzy costing documents). Voters aren’t as stupid as the campaign was treating them. Michelle Rempel responds to McQuaig here, while Rob Silver had a few other comments over the Twitter Machine.
1. She started as a reporter 42-years ago. How is it possible that she didn't pick up how elections work (for better or worse) in that time?
— Rob Silver (@RobSilver) March 18, 2016
2. Is her argument that if Mulcair had "let" her say what she really believed (party platform be damned) the NDP would have done better?
— Rob Silver (@RobSilver) March 18, 2016
3. If the answer to #2 is yes, does she have any evidence for that beyond "the NDP was doing well in the summer…because C51" because…
— Rob Silver (@RobSilver) March 18, 2016
4. If her personal views are political winners (per her), what would have happened to her if she had expressed herself freely all campaign?
— Rob Silver (@RobSilver) March 18, 2016
5. Given that she knew that "party discipline" is a thing (again, for better or worse), why did she decide to run not once but twice?
— Rob Silver (@RobSilver) March 18, 2016
6. It's not like Mulcair kept it a secret that he was running on a platform that diverged pretty clearly from her lifetime of writing.
— Rob Silver (@RobSilver) March 18, 2016
Roundup: Revolving door alarmism
Oh noes! Civil servants take positions in ministers’ offices! How terribly partisan of them! Yes, it’s time for another head-shaking column from some of our more alarmist media friends, bemoaning sweetheart deals and revolving doors, but as usual, it lacks all pretence of nuance or much in the way of a reality check on the way things work. I find it mystifying that someone would rather have a twenty-something fresh out of university, whose only real qualification is loyalty to the PMO, filling those ministerial office positions rather than professionals with years of experience in the department. Because while yes, some civil servants went to work in ministers’ offices in the Conservative years, there were a lot of these twenty-somethings on power trips, trying to play power games with departmental officials, which one presumes that people who have civil service careers would be less likely to do. And yes, they get good salaries in those positions, but they’re also a) quite ephemeral given the nature of party politics, and b) enormously stressful jobs that have some people working eighteen-hour days, and they should be compensated for it. And the “revolving door” back to the civil service afterward? Again one asks why they shouldn’t be able to translate government experience into the civil service, particularly if they’ve gained some policy expertise? So long as they perform their duties in a neutral fashion once back in the civil service, I’m not seeing why this is a problem. We need good people doing public service in this country, and we have already set up so many barriers that make recruitment a real challenge for anyone not being bridged in from school, and the growing list of restrictions makes work in ministerial offices increasingly unattractive because their post-political opportunities have become increasingly limited. If we’re not careful, all of our political staffers will be twenty-somethings trying to get experience rather than established people of substance, and I’m not sure that’s a situation that anyone relishes.
Roundup: Mulcair losing steam and support
The wheels are starting to come off Thomas Mulcair’s continued leadership of the NDP, as more and more voices are starting to come out to question the direction of the party under his leadership – not that many of them will say that directly, but the implication is certainly there, considering that the whole point of Mulcair’s leadership was in large part for them to occupy more of the centre of the spectrum in their haste in believing that the Liberals were a spent force whose days were numbered. And it’s more than just the fringe socialist wing of the party that’s calling for his head. Yesterday, some thirty-seven NDP members from Quebec, including three former MPs, published an open letter calling for the party to renew itself, and one of those MPs was one of Mulcair’s biggest boosters during the leadership. Most damning was when he went on Power & Politics yesterday to say, and I quote, “I haven’t really heard a compelling reason for him to stay on.” During a press conference, Niki Ashton was asked repeatedly whether she supported Mulcair’s leadership, and she evaded every time, insisting instead on talking about the “team” rather than the individual. Given how much importance that the NDP place on solidarity and showing a united front, and how they treat any kind of public dissent as being unseemly (and sometimes even subject to punishment), Ashton’s silence was actually quite deafening. These new calls from the grassroots that the open letter was showcasing is showing the cracks in Mulcair’s mea culpa, and in the outreach efforts he’s made so far. The message is that he’s still not listening, and that could cost him. And on top of the questions we already had about his continued leadership – in no small part whether he can still be part of the generational change taking place in this country’s political ranks – it seems like the party also has to ask itself if they can really ask Mulcair to be a leopard who can change its spots. They brought Mulcair into the party for a reason, and gave him the leadership for a reason, and those reasons are no longer reflected on the political landscape, particularly if the Liberals keep outflanking them. People ask who are in the wings, and despite Nathan Cullen’s grand protests that he doesn’t want the job, I’m pretty sure he does, and I’m sure there are a few people who are still interested, even if they didn’t win their seats in the last election. Leadership hopefuls will emerge – that’s not the question. The question is whether the party’s grassroots will decide to give Mulcair one more chance, or if they’ve decided that he’s run out of chances.
Roundup: Bruised feelings helping nobody
In yet another write-up of the creation of the new Independent Working-Group in the Senate, we’re seeing a repetition of certain themes, and an omission of some other, more fundamental issues at play such as privilege and Independent senators running their own affairs, in part because you have a group of journalists who aren’t quite sure what to look for and what questions to ask – and it’s not helped by some of the senators at the centre of the issue feeding into those narratives instead of talking about the other issues at play. The narratives, of course, have to do with partisanship in the institution. Those senators who have left caucuses are quick to talk about the blind partisanship eroding the credibility of the Senate, and media observers who are unfamiliar with the Senate outside of the salaciousness of the ClusterDuff affair glom onto this kind of talk because it confirms all kinds of notions that they’ve held without much in the way of actual challenge. Meanwhile, senators who are still proud party members are proving particularly thin-skinned about the whole thing.
Sen. Dagenais told The Hill Times that after reading the six Senators’ press release, he was “upset” and “disappointed” that they questioned the “credibility” of the parliamentary work of Conservative and Liberal Senators because they’re affiliated with political parties.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t accept this,” said Sen. Dagenais.
I won’t deny that there has been a certain tone of moral superiority by some of those senators who have left their caucuses, and it can feel like a bit of a slap in the face to others. At the same time, I think that some of the counter-protestations, that senators who leave their caucuses should resign (per Senator Tkachuk) or that that the notions of a non-partisan Senate are an inherent breach of privilege and would render the Chamber non-functional (per some of the arguments of Senator Housakos, among others) are also way beyond the pale. And yes, some of this has been fed by Justin Trudeau’s talk about how wonderful a non-partisan Senate would be, as though it’s partisanship that’s the problem rather than a question of degrees. No, partisanship is not a bad thing – in fact, it’s fairly healthy in a democracy, and the Senate reflecting that diversity of political opinion is a good thing. What has been a problem are the degrees to which senators, particularly new ones, have taken their partisanship, and it cannot be understated that nearly all of the Conservative senators took it a little too far in demonstrating their loyalty and commitment to putting forward Stephen Harper’s agenda, but they were also very poorly trained upon appointment, and they took the wrong lessons to heart. That is not the fault of partisanship – it’s the fault of a party leadership that was trying to exercise levers of power that didn’t exist in the Senate, and they tried to create some using sentiment and a sense of personal loyalty to the man who appointed them. Now, things are swinging violently in the other direction and babies are being thrown out with bathwater. Partisanship doesn’t make the chamber a bad place, nor does a group of senators looking to try a new way of doing things make their efforts illegitimate. This is a bold new era, and both sides need to stop this constant state of upsetting each other. There is room in our parliament for parties and independents, and the sooner they stop this game of offending one another, the faster we can proceed with a credible modernisation process.
Roundup: The cheapest ploy
If there is one last bastion of desperation for political parties trying to play the populist card, it’s the “too many politicians” line. We’ve seen it before, with Ontario eliminating seats under the Mike Harris years (eventually aligning provincial and federal ridings with the exception of splitting the Northern Ontario mega-riding in two provincially). We saw the Alberta Party trying to play this card in the last Alberta election. In the previous parliament, we saw the federal Liberals trying to play this card as they argued against increasing the number of MPs as part of seat redistribution. Now, we’re seeing this again courtesy of the Saskatchewan NDP, promising that if they win the election, they’ll reduce the number of provincial seats from 61 to 55. It’s a stupid policy idea, and it’s one that fits into the kinds of populist noise that gives us “tough on crime” policies that generally only exacerbate problems. Why is it stupid? Aside from being desperate, it generally is a signal that you have no other practical ideas for improving any aspect of governance, but rather falls into the narrative trap of “politicians are the problem.” The problem is, is that you can wind up with too few politicians to do what is required of them – particularly in smaller provinces. One of the biggest problems is that when you start reducing the number of backbenchers, you have fewer members to hold the government to account. We’ve seen a few places where the government has tried to go with a smaller cabinet (Alberta, for example), only to wind up having to appoint more ministers to share the workload better. If you reduce the number of total seats, it means that you tend to wind up with a government that has the majority of its seats in cabinet, which is terrible for both governance and for allowing backbenchers to voice dissent – especially if it means that they’re one scandal or screw-up away from a substantial promotion. It means there are fewer bodies for committee work, for dealing with constituents’ issues, and when you’ve got a lot of rural ridings – particularly in places like Saskatchewan – making those ridings bigger to accommodate fewer members becomes impractical, as does the idea of reducing the number of urban members so that they have more population within them so as not to drown of the rural seats (which explains part of the gerrymandering that places like Alberta were terribly adept at for years provincially, and Saskatchewan federally, with no urban seats until this last election). Politicians have important work to do, and having more of them spreads the work around and can make them more effective as they do the job that they were elected to do. Trying to claim that there are too many of them is cheap populism, and in the end, everyone loses as a result of it.