It sounds like deliberations in the Commons justice committee are going about as well as expected, as they reject dozens of amendments related to the medical assistance in dying bill. It should be noted that they’re rejecting amendments from all sides – both the Conservative ones aimed at introducing further restrictions (which should probably just invoke the Notwithstanding Clause along with them because of how they further impede the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Carter), and those NDP, Bloc and Green amendments that would make the legislation more permissive, and it sounds like only a couple of minor amendments have been accepted – one Liberal, one Conservative, both fairly technical. All of this is making be believe that we may be headed for a showdown with the Senate, as it sounds increasingly like they are unhappy with the current state of the bill and have grave concerns that it doesn’t meet the constitutional tests laid out in the Carter decision. This could make for a very interesting few weeks ahead if senators decide to dig in their heels – particularly Senate Liberals, who are likely to very clearly demonstrate their independence from the Liberals in the Commons as they take opposition positions on this government bill. We’ll see how far they’re willing to push it, whether they will amend the bill and send it back to the Commons, and if the government decides to push back or not, or accept the judgment of the Senate in its more independent state (as Trudeau has insisted he’s looking to make a reality). More likely, we’ll be subjected to weeks of pundits baying at the moon because how dare the unelected Senate dare to challenge elected MPs even though that’s the whole point of the institution in our constitution. I can hardly wait for that fun to start. Meanwhile, Aaron Wherry looks at how MPs are dealing with this issue in terms of consulting with their constituents for the upcoming free vote, and how their own religious convictions play into it. Of course, MPs always like to say all manner of things about what their constituents say and believe (and it almost always just happens to line up exactly with their party’s talking points, as if by magic), and given how completely spineless most MPs tend to be on tough issues like this, we’ll see how they wind up deciding when the final vote comes down.
Tag Archives: RCMP
Roundup: Peter Harder’s ham-handed problems
First it was the curious announcement from long-time Liberal Senator (and one-time leader of the provincial Liberal party) Grant Mitchell was stepping away from the senate caucus to sit as an independent. For someone as nakedly partisan as Mitchell, it was a curious move that raised a number of questions for me. Then, later in the evening, news came down that Peter Harder, the “government representative” in the Senate, will be naming a deputy and a whip, and that whip was to be Mitchell. (The deputy was named as Diane Bellemare, who was a Conservative senator who quit that caucus a couple of months ago and became a founding member of the Independent Working Group). In amidst a number of smartass remarks going around the Twitter Machine about how an independent whip was supposed to work, I will offer again the reminder that in the Senate, the job of the whip is more about logistics and administration with things like assigning offices and parking spaces, and with organizing committee assignments and seeing that absences are filled on committees than it is about telling senators how to vote. Likewise, deputy leaders in the Senate are much more equivalent to House Leaders in the Commons, where they help determine scheduling of debates on bills and so on. But given that Justin Trudeau was looking to shake up the way the Senate operates, thus far it has mostly been about rebranding the office of Government Leader in the Senate under a new name and maintaining the “not a minister in name only” fiction that Harper employed when he wanted to put distance between himself and the Senate. Add to that the odd insistence that Peter Harder sit as an independent while taking on this role, which is problematic at best. But if his job is just to represent the government, and to shepherd legislation through the Chamber, then why does Harder need a second person to do the House Leader-equivalent work, or a whip for the independents – particularly when the Independent Working Group has been working on developing a system of administrative representation for those unaligned senators. It smacks to me that Harder, whether with the blessing of Trudeau or not, is trying to impose a top-down organisation for unaligned senators in the chamber rather than letting the bottom-up process that the Working Group is engaged in run its course. While I’m not indulging the conspiracy theories that this is all a crypto-Liberal charade playing out, I do think that Harder is overstepping here by a great degree. Sure, it looks greatly symbolic that he got a Conservative and a Liberal with him to do these tasks, but it does look like he’s trying to impose something on the new independent senators that currently goes against what the Senate rules allow (being of course a caucus organisation that is not tied to an existing federal political party). As with Harder trying to get an inexplicably big staff for the job he says he plans to do (as opposed to the old job of Government Leader), this new move is problematic. It could very well be that Harder doesn’t know what he’s really doing and how the Senate operates, which was always the going to be a problem when Trudeau insisted that his “representative” would come from the first batch of independent appointments. But these ham-handed moves are making that problem all the more glaring. This is an increasingly obvious example of Trudeau not thinking through his Senate plans and ballsing it up as he goes along because he doesn’t understand the institution either, and that is a problem.
Very interesting: @SenMitchell, who was…pretty partisan, has decided to sit as an independent. #SenCA pic.twitter.com/7BitzkvDH3
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) May 2, 2016
Roundup: No appetite for back pay
With parliament resuming this week, all attention is on whether or not Senator Mike Duffy will resume his duties. After all, there have been a few signs of activity in his office, with computers being updated and such, but there remains a question as to whether his health will allow it, but we’ll see. As for the question as to whether he will be getting any back pay for his time suspended without it, well, senior senators are not so keen. In fact, the phrase “no appetite” is continually used, and they are quick to point to the fact that the Senate’s internal discipline – which the suspension was part of – was based on the Deloitte audits and not criminal findings of guilt or innocence, thus his acquittal by the courts makes it largely an irrelevant issue as far as they’re concerned. I would also add that should Duffy decide to press the issue, well, there are a few well-placed senators who around this issue who are known to leak things to the media, and who will undoubtedly start doing so about any other skeletons in Duffy’s closet that they are aware of. Meanwhile, there remain questions back in PEI about whether Duffy remains qualified to represent the province, as there is still a level of distrust that he is actually a resident (and given that it sounds like he spent the bulk of his time on suspension in Ottawa, well, that doesn’t help matters much). Meanwhile, some Conservative senators are grousing a little bit that Senator Peter Harder isn’t really providing much in the way of answers during regular Senate QP (as opposed to ministerial versions thereof). I think they’re being a bit unfair, considering that he’s been on the job only a couple of weeks and hasn’t yet staffed up his office, nor really had a chance to get proper briefings from the Privy Council Office (because yes, he has been sworn into the Privy Council to take on this job, making him a quasi-minister) on the files that he is likely to be asked about, or had much in the way of a briefing binder prepared, but it does put him on notice that they do expect him to step up his game in the role of “government representative,” particularly when it comes to being the conduit for holding the government to account. These are things that are important, especially as there are no opposition voices in the Commons from Atlantic Canada or the GTA, making the Senate’s role in asking those questions all the more important.
QP: We thank the PBO
Caucus day, and all of the leaders were present for the only time this week, Trudeau heading to New York for the rest of the week after things wrapped up. Rona Ambrose led off, mini-lectern on desk, and quoted the PBO’s report yesterday, accusing the PM of misleading Canadians on basic facts. Trudeau thanked the PBO for his report, and noted their commitments to things like a larger tax-free child benefit for nine out of ten Canadians. Ambrose wondered how Canadians could have confidence that the government could protect their jobs, and Trudeau reeled off his list of promises of investments. Ambrose then wondered why the BC LNG projects weren’t moving forward. Trudeau reminded her that they couldn’t get the job done because they didn’t care about the environment at the same time as the economy. Denis Lebel got up to repeat the PBO questions in French, got much the same answer in French as before. Thomas Mulcair was up next, and raised the problem of veterans who have to fill out forms every year to prove that their limbs have not grown back. Trudeau reminded him of the promise to make record investments in veterans. Mulcair snidely called out the talking points and demanded an answer for this particular case. Trudeau reminded him of the mandate letter to his minister on the sacred obligation to veterans and that they were cleaning up the mess left by the previous government. Mulcair demanded marijuana decriminalisation immediately in the lead-up to legalisation, and Trudeau first remarked that it was always a surprise which position Mulcair held on marijuana on every given day, and noted that decriminalisation was a pipeline to profits for criminal gangs. Mulcair thundered about it one last time, and Trudeau repeated that legalisation was all about protecting children and starving criminal gangs.
Roundup: Checking Hansard
There was an interesting read over on Policy Options yesterday that all MPs should be paying attention to: a reminder that they should watch what they say in when speaking about bills, because the courts (and most especially the Supreme Court of Canada) are checking Hansard. When it comes to challenging laws, particularly Charter challenges, the issue of legislative intent is often raised, and the courts are forced to determine what it was the government intended to do when they passed these laws, and that can matter as to whether those laws will survive a Charter challenge. And if MPs – and most importantly ministers – give speeches full of bafflegab and meaningless talking points, it muddies the record that the courts rely on. The example here was the bill eliminating time-served sentencing credits, by which the court examined Rob Nicholson’s statements and tested them against the results of the law and found that no, eliminating the sentencing credits didn’t enhance public safety or confidence in the justice system. I would also add that it’s yet another reason why Senate committees have particular value, particularly when it comes to contentious bills that perhaps shouldn’t pass but do anyway under protest. Because their findings are on the record, when those laws inevitably wind up in the courts, those same objections can be read and taken into consideration. So yes, your speeches and work in parliament does matter, probably more than you think. Just be sure to use your words wisely, because they will come back to haunt you.
Roundup: Monsef’s problematic principles
I was set to delve into the eight principles that Maryam Monsef laid out as part of what she plans to work on the electoral reform proposals around, when it turned out that Peter Loewen went ahead and tracked which of the three most likely voting systems corresponded to each principle. Suffice to say, not one system fit with each, which gives rise to the notion that Monsef will have to treat some principles more than others. Now, the NDP were outraged in QP yesterday that proportionality was not on this list of principles, though one could argue that the first principle, that votes are translated into election results without significant distortions, could be an endorsement of proportionality, except of course that it’s a perception problem based on a logical fallacy, which makes its inclusion as a principle to be a problem. I also have a problem with the inclusion of the third principle of using the system to increase diversity. That’s not a problem of the electoral system so much as it’s a problem of how parties seek out and nominate candidates. Most parties are getting better at this, but we should beware that including this principle would give rise to list systems, which in turn give rise to unaccountable token MPs in a two-tiered system. Monsef’s eighth principle, that the system needs to build consensus, is also problematic. Why? Because our system is built to hold people to account, and consensus makes this problematic. If everyone is accountable, then no one is accountable. Of course, I would remind everyone that there’s nothing actually wrong with our system as it is – what’s wrong is our crisis of civic literacy, which means that people don’t understand how the system works, leading them to assume that it’s broken – particularly if they succumb to sore loser tendencies and complain about things like “wasted votes.” If I may be so bold, Monsef is probably better off tinkering with the existing system to encourage greater participation (as we saw examples of in the last election, such as campus polling stations) and education rather than this attempt to rethink the system which will please no one and ensure that everything is worse off than it is now. We don’t have to break the system even further. We can stop this train before it goes off that cliff.
Roundup: Harder’s budget request
Peter Harder is asking the Senate for a budget of $800,000 to hire nine people to assist in his “government representative duties.” While I’m not opposed to the dollar figure, I’m a bit curious about why nine staff, but let’s back up first to the precedent that is guiding this whole exercise, being Stephen Harper’s fit of pique when Marjory LeBreton resigned as Government Leader in the Senate. By that point, Harper was being badgered and hectored daily about the ClusterDuff incident, as well as Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau, and he decided that his next Government Leader, Claude Carignan, was not going to be put into cabinet so as to give the appearance of distance. Of course, it was only the appearance, as Carignan was a minister in every respect but name, including being sworn into the Privy Council (necessary to get the briefing books to answer on behalf of the government in Senate QP). But because he wasn’t a minister, he couldn’t get funding from PCO for staff and needed activities, so Carignan went to the Senate and asked for a bigger budget, and he got it, hiring a staff of 14. With Trudeau now being fairly cute with the way he is handling the “government representative” file – Harder being sworn into Privy Council and able to attend cabinet meetings – the government decided that with the Carignan precedent, Harder can simply ask the Senate for the budget he needs. Now, he is getting some pushback about getting a budget without attendant responsibilities, such as answering in QP. They referred the decision to a subcommittee (that still hasn’t been filled), but I do wonder why nine. I can understand an admin staff, a policy person or two, a comms person, but without a caucus to manage, what exactly is so labour intensive about “shepherding the government’s agenda”? That’s a bit of time management, introducing the odd debate on government legislation, but what else would he be required to do? So perhaps we’ll get some answers, but it does seem a bit odd to me.
Roundup: Slight mandate confusion
The effort to turn the delay in André Pratte’s formal Senate appointment while he finalizes the purchase of property in the right Quebec senatorial district into some kind of controversy continues to be weak sauce, but it did expose a bit of a schism between what the advisory board believes their job to be – finding names to be recommended, leaving the PMO to do the final vetting – and the PMO’s communication around their expectations – that the board should only recommend qualified persons (which, let’s be honest, is a little bit of buck-passing). I’ve seen what purports to be the application form, and it did have the seven vacant districts listed, but that doesn’t mean that Pratte filled that form out as a self-applicant, but may have been approached, which could be why the issue of property was not entirely sorted before he was recommended. Regardless, it remains a bit of a damp squib in terms of a controversy or conspiracy, as Conservative MP Scott Reid would have us believe. Does this mean that there will likely be more vetting the next time around? Probably. Is this a fatal blow to the process? Hardly. Growing pains at the very least, which is why they had the interim process that generated these seven names first, so that they could work the bugs out of the system. That said, I will repeat Emmett Macfarlane’s note that the bigger problem with this process is people applying. That way is almost certainly the way that madness lies, as every egomaniac and self-professed “top minds” in their field will apply (and I know of at least one person who is wholly unqualified but believes himself to be who is trying to get support for a self-nominated Senate application). This should be a process where people are identified and nominated by others in recognition for a lifetime of good work, not a means of ego-stroking and self-congratulation without having to go through the rabble of the electoral process. It defeats the whole point of the Senate as being a place where people who would not otherwise seek office can be given an opportunity to contribute. If you are seeking a Senate appointment, your motives should be immediately considered suspect, and should almost certainly be disqualifying. After all, did we learn nothing from Mike Duffy’s decades-long campaign to get himself appointed? Let’s not do that again.
https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/713744433011953666
https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/713746943277735936
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.