Tag Archives: RCMP

Roundup: A petulant motion

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The degradation of Supply Day – otherwise known as “opposition day” – motions continues apace as the NDP have chosen to be completely petulant about their day today, using their motion to get the House to say that the government misled them on their promise to end First-past-the-Post and call on the government to apologise. It’s petty and cheap, and it’s going to be no fun for the Liberals on House duty to have to eat some of their own words on the need for electoral reform, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that this is not what an opposition day motion is supposed ot be doing.

As a quick refresher, the purpose of Supply Days is for the opposition to demonstrate why the government should be denied supply – meaning the money that they want to spend to run the government. In other words, the day is to be spent arguing about why the government shouldn’t be spending money they’re asking taxpayers for. It’s part of the job of the House of Commons in holding the government to account by controlling the purse strings, which government can only spend with their approval. But that’s not how it works anymore. Now, it’s any topic under the sun.

The Conservatives have been engaging in their own shenanigans with supply days, arguing one this week that was supposed to be about getting the government to agree not to tax health and dental benefits, but because they wanted it to be defeated, they got cute with the wording so as to proclaim that Canadians were too burdened with taxes and so on, knowing the government wouldn’t support it. And when they defeated it, they took to Twitter and QP to decry the government not ruling out taxing these benefits despite the fact that they had stated clearly that they would not. But hey, why not play silly buggers with parliament’s time?

Even worse than motions designed to get the government to vote it down by using cute language are the “mom and apple pie” motions designed to get the government to support them in the hopes of embarrassing them into taking action on a file, and as happened so often during the Conservative years, the government would support the motion, pat themselves on the back, and then do nothing while the NDP howled about it to little effect. It was a government that had no shame, but it was a too-cute-by-half motion to start with.

https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/829344479958142980

https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/829347208063483904

Like Philippe Lagassé says, less theatrics, more accountability. And that’s exactly what we’re not seeing in any of these motions, when it’s the fundamental job of every MP in the Commons.

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Roundup: Dealing with disappointment

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As the tears and recriminations continue over Justin Trudeau’s decision to scrap his electoral reform pledge, we’re seeing a number of pretty dubious messages emerging from those doing the wailing and gnashing of teeth. For as much as Elizabeth May shed tears about how this was a betrayal of youth voters, Justin Trudeau went before a crowd of university students yesterday and nary a word was spoken from those “betrayed” youths about electoral reform. Oops. I’m also a little disturbed by the point that has been made repeatedly by the likes of May, and Ed Broadbent on national television, that somehow the feminist Trudeau was shoving young women ministers “under the bus” over his broken pledge. One has to point out, however, that there is a bit of a sexist undertone to that bit of concern trolling, implying that neither minister was capable of handling themselves on this file, and it ignores that Maryam Monsef was effectively promoted for her performance, going from a make-work office out of PCO to a line department with a big agenda along with added responsibilities for assisting the minister of heritage, while Karina Gould was handed a pretty big new file to tackle in the democratic institutions portfolio, being the very real concerns about cyber-security in our electoral system. And if you don’t think that’s a problem, look at the fact that the BC Liberals suffered a major data breach over the weekend that compromised the files of countless voters.

And then there’s the cynicism argument. Not only have the youth been betrayed by this move, but this breeds cynicism because the rug has been pulled out from those who were engaged in the process, and we have studies that show that people get disengaged when they have bad experiences. But I’m going to challenge that a bit, because as much as you had a group of people that were engaged by the process, the vast majority who have been vocal about it have been selective in their reading about what went on. People insist there was consensus in the report, but the fact that every party walked back on what it said shows that it was not actually consensus. PR advocates not only stacked the witness lists, but most over-read the mandate of the committee and gave some particularly creative interpretations of just what Trudeau’s electoral promise was, deciding that it meant that their preferred system was the only acceptable outcome – in other words, they have only been hearing what they want to hear. When they don’t get it, they blame others for breeding cynicism. As for the disengagement brought on by disappointment, I’ve read those studies too and the common denominator that I found was that much of that disappointment is brought on by the fact that people don’t know how the system works. They get discouraged because they approach the wrong level of government to deal with a particular problem, or that they are simply impatient to deal with the waiting lists caused by limited resources. I get that unrealistic promises might be disappointing when they don’t happen, but people need to be better educated to know when promises are disappointed so that their expectations can be tempered (though politicians should know better than to make stupid promises in the first place).

Meanwhile, I will point you to a must-read, which is a post by UBC political scientist Christopher Kam, who writes a spectacular takedown of an NDP ten-percenter extolling the virtues of proportional representation. It not only takes it apart piece by piece, but provides a good fact-check on some of the PR talking points that were circulating during the electoral reform committee hearings, including debunking some of the studies that were cited continuously to “prove” the points about how great PR governments are.

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QP: No responsible path forward

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After the prime minister spent his morning hearing from youth about their issues (and, interesting enough, electoral reform was not brought up), he was in QP, ready for the grand inquest of the nation. Rona Ambrose led off, bringing up the Globe and Mail investigation on “unfounded” sexual assault complaints in the country, and about ensuring that the RCMP have sufficient training to deal with it. Trudeau said that they were working to address gender-based violence and sexual assault and making changes at the institutional level. Ambrose changed topics to fears that jobs would end sent south for lower taxes and slashed regulations, to which Trudeau pointed out their record of tax cuts and enhanced child benefits. Ambrose pressed the topic on trade issues, and Trudeau pointed out how many American jobs depended on trade with Canada. Denis Lebel went for another round in French, got the same answer, and for his last question, Lebel worried about softwood lumber. Trudeau noted that he has talked about it with the Americans constantly, and that they remain engaged on the topic. Nathan Cullen led off for the NDP, wailing about proportional representation. Trudeau reminded him that there was no consensus and no responsible path forward. Cullen railed about broken promises, and Trudeau pointed about other progress on the democracy file before reiterating that there was no consensus. Alexander Boulerice picked up to give the angry denunciations in French, and Trudeau hit back by talking about working in the best interests of the country. He then tried to insinuate that the PM was lying and got cautioned by the Speaker for it, not that Trudeau’s response changed.

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Roundup: Tragedy to pull MPs together

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The aftermath of the Ste-Foy mosque shooting was not atypical for when things go horribly in this country. MPs and political leaders of all stripes band together and make a show of solidarity. There are solemn speeches, and a moment of silence, and for as much as everyone decries the level of partisanship that permeates the hallowed halls of our democratic institutions, they all do put on a united front, that this is our country and we won’t allow it to succumb to violence and darkness based on the actions of a lone few.

As for the facts of the incident, what we know is that the suspect is a 27-year-old white male whose social media history has a lot of far-right connections. He was charged with six counts of first-degree murder, five counts of attempted murder, and there may yet be terrorism-related charges once the RCMP and the Quebec police forces complete their investigations. Talk of a second shooter or suspect turned out to be a witness on the scene who called 911 and was trying to help the wounded when he fled at the sight of police guns.

And then comes the aftermath. In a scrum following QP, Ralph Goodale offered assurances of police vigilance and noted that he wasn’t increasing the terror threat level from its current reading of “medium,” for what that’s worth. There is also speculation that this will be added impetus for the Commons to pass that private members’ motion on a study of Islamophobia in Canada – something some Conservatives like Kellie Leitch are opposed to, calling it “special status” for Muslims. And then there was the White House, cravenly using the incident to justify their “Muslim ban,” even though the suspect is an alleged white supremacist.

https://twitter.com/stephaniecarvin/status/826239354997727236

In commentary, John Ivison notes that moments like those today were when the Commons is at its best. Chantal Hébert noted that Trudeau has been silent about Trump’s “Muslim ban” while this has been going on. Deepak Obhrai, however, made the explicit link between the two. Michael Chong has also been vocal in drawing links between this incident and the rise in demagoguery, which he wants more politicians to stop engaging in. Robyn Urback looks at how the first twelve hours after the shooting were a giant exercise in confirmation bias as people struggled to fit the facts with their personal narratives.

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Roundup: A two-fingered fix for fundraising

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After months now of interminable questions about the perfectly legal fundraising practices of the Liberals, it was let known that they will be a tabling a bill in the near future to…do something about it. Not really clamp down. Not really stop. Just add more disclosure, and ensure that events don’t happen in private homes, which many people argue is not really the point, but I think is more of the government giving two fingers to their critics and making some cosmetic changes to shut people up.

Kady O’Malley rather astutely observes that this is really setting a trap for opposition parties, particularly with the proposed provisions around party leaders and leadership candidates being subject to the same new rules, waiting for them to oppose it so that they can be accused of hypocrisy. I would add that there’s an element of payback in here for the way in which the Conservatives and NDP got together in 2006 to screw the Liberals in the middle of their leadership contest by changing the fundraising rules right in the middle of it, meaning that some of those candidates were unable to raise enough money to pay back debts that they would have had little problem doing beforehand.

Of course, it all goes back to the fact that this whole story has been overblown from the very start. These fundraisers were never really “cash for access” as they were billed – they were only termed so because the journalists at the centre of this were trying to piggyback on the kind of mess that was happening in Ontario where cabinet ministers were largely blackmailing companies that were trying to lobby them for tens of thousands of dollars in order to get a hearing, which is absolutely not what was happening in this context, nor, and this bears repeating again and again, can you buy meaningful influence for $1500. And even if you get your five minutes with the PM and want to give your pitch to him, do you honestly think that it would really sway his opinion when he’s got people who want pitch him all the time? I’m not convinced. And, as they’ve said (and as this “listening tour” has again demonstrated), they’ve shown a remarkable degree of openness to regular Canadians and are constantly consulting. It’s not like the only time you can see them is at a fundraiser. But ooh, scary Chinese businessmen! Anyway, I’ll let Howard Anglin take it from here.

Oh, and one more reminder about how overblown this has all been: Transparency International has us as one of the cleanest, least corrupt countries in the world. Given the pearl-clutching you hear from our commentariat, you wouldn’t actually know that.

Incidentally, the Conservatives are already howling at the moon about this, and the NDP’s Alexandre Boulerice says it’s not enough and he’ll table his own bill – except that’s an empty threat since he’s so far down the Order of Precedence that it will never see the light of day.

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Roundup: “Prominent” Canadians demand unicorns

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Yesterday, the “Every Voter Counts Alliance,” which is a proportional representation umbrella group that includes our friends at Fair Vote Canada got a group of “prominent Canadians” to call on the government to implement a “made-in-Canada” PR system. And while most of these “prominent Canadians” are the usual suspects, they got a few added names including a former Chief Electoral Officer (whom I will note has tried promoting a “rural-urban proportional system” that the Supreme Court would immediately frown upon). Meanwhile, here are a few reminders about just what a “made-in-Canada” PR system is referring to.

Handwavey. Nonsense.

The reason why people like these keep going back to his notion that there’s a “made-in-Canada” system that we can somehow devise that will somehow manage to overcome the constitutional obstacles and at the same time providing their precious proportionality and will somehow deliver all of the supposed goodness that comes along with it despite the fact that we’re a vast country with a sparse population and fairly entrenched regional divisions, is because they don’t actually know how it will look. They just expect someone to figure it out and then present it to them, and it will be so wonderful that there will be no unintended consequences, we won’t wind up with thirty splinter parties, that it won’t give rise to far-right parties like pretty much every other PR system has, that it will lead to stable coalition governments that won’t have big policy “swings” every few years, and there will be no problems. No actual trade-offs. Just a new golden age of democracy.

But if they’re trying to pin their hopes on the Electoral Reform committee and its work, well, I wouldn’t hold my breath. As I’ve discussed elsewhere about why it’s a bad idea from a governance and accountability point of view, and as Kady O’Malley reminds us that the committee never actually came to any kind of consensus, and as I will remind you yet again, their report was a steaming pile of hot garbage. It’s not going to happen. What they’re asking for is magic. Unicorns and gumdrops, and not reality.

It’s time to let the demands for proportionality go. They won’t actually improve governance or representation, because it’s built solely on the emotional response of sore-loserism. We have a system that functions (and would function even better if we undid the “reforms” that were supposed to improve things but only made them worse). Trying to break it even further to satisfy this emotional need for perceived “fairness” which is not actually a Thing is only going to do just that – break it. Time to grow up and actually learn how the system works.

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Roundup: Divorcing commentary from policy

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So, it’s now official that Kevin O’Leary is throwing his hat in the race (though, it should be said, he still hasn’t filed his paperwork and paid his entry fees). And already, he’s making outrageous statements like how all of his previous commentary doesn’t count because it was just commentary and not policy that he’ll be judged on (not sure it works that way). But he keeps saying “That was good television but it’s not policy.”

Or there’s already the bald-faced wrong numbers he’s pushing, whether it’s around the country’s fiscal situation, certain programmes like defence spending, or even growth figures.

https://twitter.com/cfhorgan/status/821802645514027009

And while that’s all well and good, Chris Selley makes some very good points about the places where O’Leary diverges from the party’s base, whether it’s on CBC, peacekeeping or not being concerned about terrorism. That could make him a tough sell with them, particularly on issues that they’ve been vocal about for the past couple of decades.

But despite that, I have to say that it’s not only his name recognition that gives him and advantage in this race, but the fact that he’s going to appeal to a particular demographic in the party that fetishizes businessmen in politics (as though the skillsets were remotely similar, which they’re not), and particularly brash businessmen are swelling everyone’s trousers of late, especially when they boast about things like the “language of jobs” or being able to “read a balance sheet” (which O’Leary has yet to provide concrete evidence that he can, given that he apparently couldn’t read the actual context of that fiscal projection that got him so alarmed that he just had to join the race).

https://twitter.com/lazin_ryder/status/821863599245115395

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/821708589316325377

He’s also been playing his cards right, as Adam Daifallah points out here, whether it’s with the “phony war” by staying relevant while “thinking about” his decision, his social media execution, his upstaging the French debate and lowering those expectations for himself. And more than anything, the race, with its 14 candidates, most of them dull and beige, has been a bit of a snooze (Kellie Leitch’s constant nonsense aside), and O’Leary is going to shake that up. The other candidates have been telegraphing that they’re afraid of him for a while (hello Lisa Raitt’s “Stop Kevin O’Leary” website), and that means something. We’ll see just how much it means sooner than later.

https://twitter.com/inklesspw/status/821728909280550912

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Roundup: Housakos vs Harder

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It took a couple of weeks, but I will say that I was encouraged to read that Senator Leo Housakos was in the press pushing back against Senator Peter Harder’s comments that the Senate hasn’t been implementing changes to its processes as recommended by the Auditor General. As chair of the Internal Economy committee, Housakos has corrected the record to point out that yes, a lot of changes have happened (and in fact were happening since long before the now infamous audit happened), and also hit back at the issue of an audit committee. Harder it seems has bought into the AG’s wrong-headed notion that an external audit body be formed, which I will reiterate is absolutely an affront to parliamentary democracy. The Senate is a parliamentary body, and parliament is self-governing. It needs to be, full stop. Making senators answerable to an outside body puts a stake in the ability to be self-governing, and pretty much says that we don’t deserve to be a self-governing country anymore, and should just hand all of the power back to the Queen. That Harder can’t see that is blind and a little bit gobsmacking. While the Senate does plan to announce an audit body soon, it will be of mixed composition, and if they’ve paid attention to Senator McCoy’s proposal to mirror the House of Lords’ body – basically three senators and two outside experts – then we’ll be fine. But make no mistake – such a body must be majority senators and be chaired by a Senator. Otherwise let’s just start the process of shuttering parliament, and no, I’m not even being dramatic about it.

While we’re on the topic of the Senate, I just wanted to give a tip of my hat to now-retired Senator Nancy Ruth (who was on Power & Politics yesterday at 1:49:00 on this link). Nancy Ruth (that’s one name, like Cher or Madonna) was one of my early entry points into political journalism, when I came to the Hill writing for GLBT publications like the now-defunct Outlooks and Capital Xtra. As the only openly lesbian parliamentarian, and the only openly LGBT member of the Conservative caucus who wasn’t media shy, she was my point of contact into that caucus and that particular political sphere. The relationship I built there gave me my first by-line for The Canadian Press, and I eventually moved into more mainstream outlets. She was an absolute joy to cover, and I will miss her terribly.

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Roundup: Senators get their funds

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In case you missed the news, the new Independent Senators Group got core funding to hire staff to help coordinate independent senators’ activities and logistics. This came around the same time that they managed to strike a deal when it comes to getting more independents on committees without waiting for a prorogation to hit the reset button as the rules would otherwise dictate. Why this matters is because it allows the ISG to effectively organise their own members, to help them hire staff and do things like that – efforts which Government Leader – err, “representative” Senator Peter Harder has been attempting to bigfoot with his own offers to help these senators get staffed up and offering briefings and assisting in legislative coordination and so on. The fact that he represents the government and has been sworn into the Privy Council – regardless of his protestations that he’s independent because he’s actually not (you can’t be both an independent and represent the government – it’s like being half-pregnant) – makes this a blow to actual independence that these senators are supposed to be exercising. Giving the ISG the funds to do that on their own is an important step. Of course, the same piece mentions that Harder plans to move motions in the Senate in the spring related to his ability to restyle his title as he wishes, and that I have a problem with. This particular semantic game that he and the Trudeau government are playing around his role is a very big problem when it comes to how the chamber operates in our Westminster system, and Harder playing silly buggers with what he calls himself in order to cloak his role with the government is a problem. He and this government need to drop the charade and just come clean – Harder should be a cabinet minister in keeping with the role, and be the point of contact for accountability in the Senate. Playing games around it weakens accountability and the duty of the Senate in that role.

Meanwhile, with the appointment process for six upcoming vacancies having been announced, we also got the release of the report on the statistics from the previous round (highlights here). Maybe this time we’ll see an appointment from Southwestern Ontario, a new LGBT senator or even someone from outside of the social sciences!

Finally, Senator Denise Batters appears to have broken the rules to record a video in the Senate Chamber, accusing Trudeau of authoritarian tendencies in trying to destroy opposition in the Senate. While her basic premise – that there is a movement to shut down the position of Official Opposition in the Senate – is correct and concerning, Batters cranked it up to eleven in being completely overwrought about it, and does more harm than good to the issue. I’m not sure how much the move to weaken Official Opposition in the Senate comes from Trudeau or from Harder and his particular vision of Senate “independence” where he can co-opt the independents to his causes, but that remains a concern that I’ve heard from not only the Liberals and Conservatives in the Senate, but a couple of the independents as well. But this kind of stunt doesn’t help.

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Roundup: For fear of Mary Dawson

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It was a day of juvenile finger-pointing as the big headline from the Globe and Mail was that the Ethics Commissioner said that she plans to speak to Justin Trudeau and Bill Blair about allegations that certain fundraisers may have breached conflict of interest laws, based entirely on innuendo from the Globe (which then gets repeated in Question Period, and that gets written up, and when the Globe adds another new piece of unproven innuendo the next morning, the cycle starts over again). Trudeau’s response? Bring it on – I’ve done nothing wrong.

So where are we? Because I’m not sure at this point. Do we insist that the PM and ministers no longer fundraise? Because that’s happening is that the party is capitalising on their “celebrity” for higher-level fundraisers, which is basic economics. They’re more in demand, so you send them to the higher-priced fundraisers. Should they be disallowed because someone would try to talk to them about their particular hobby-horses? As though they wouldn’t if they met them in the grocery store or on the street? Because I’m not sure that it’s actually lobbying activity, despite the label that has been slapped onto it by the bulk of the media and the opposition, looking to score some points on this. Does this mean that the whole of cabinet should be encased in these bubbles where nobody can talk to them? If the fear is that they get “exclusive” access, the government is quick to point out that they’ve accused of consulting too much and that there are plenty of other opportunities. If the worry is that it’s because they’re rich that they get access, again I’m not seeing the issue because you’re not buying influence for $1500. “Oh, you’re buying good feeling and they’ll think to pick up the phone and call you the next time something comes up” is the latest excuse I’ve heard, and I rolled my eyes so hard that it almost hurt. Honestly? Especially with the accusations that they’re buying the influence of “good feelings” donating to the Trudeau Foundation, which the PM severed his connections to and which provides scholarships? And if the charge is that because many of these rich business people are of Chinese descent, again, I’m not actually seeing any real issue here. They accuse one businessman of donating who had interests in canola that the Chinese government restricting and then Trudeau got it resolved. Conspiracy! Err, except that was the concern of every single gods damned canola farmer in this country so singling out one Chinese-Canadian starts to smack of veiled racist sentiment.

Once again, I’m waiting for someone to show me where there’s smoke, let alone fire. I mean, other than that sickening smell of people who’ve lit their own hair on fire over this. And I would be willing to bet that Mary Dawson is going to shrug and say “they haven’t broken any rules, but I want you to turn over more power to me” like she does all the time.

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