Tag Archives: Refugees

QP: Women ask the questions

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It being International Women’s Day, one expected that all questions posed would be by women MPs. Rona Ambrose led off, trolling for support for her bill on training judges in sexual assault law (which, incidentally, I wrote about for this week’s Law Times, and the legal community was pretty clear that they felt this wasn’t the right way to go and this bill could impact on judicial independence). Justin Trudeau spoke about the importance of supporting survivors of sexual assault, but would not commit to supporting it. After another round of the same, Ambrose wanted support for Wynn’s Law on bail applications, to which Trudeau said that the justice minister spoke to Constable Wynn’s window but would not commit to supporting it. Ambrose asked about a bill on human trafficking and why it eliminated back-to-back sentencing provisions, but Trudeau responded in his condemnation of those crimes but not in backing down on the provisions in the bill given their commitment to the Charter. Ambrose asked about helping women come forward to report sexual assault, and Trudeau noted that this was a concern and they have a ways to go. Shiela Malcolmson led off, heralding Iceland’s work on pay equity legislation, to which Trudeau said they were working on legislation. Brigitte Sansoucy asked another pay equity question in French, and got much the same answer. Sansoucy moved onto tax evasion and demands to end amnesty deals, and Trudeau noted that they were working on ending tax evasion by investing in the CRA’s capacity to do so. Tracey Ramsey asked the same again in English, and got the same answer.

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Senate QP: Freeland digresses

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Senate ministerial Question Period this week hosted special guest star Chrystia Freeland, the foreign affairs minister, and there would be no shortage of questions for her to field. Senator Carignan led off, asking about international treaty obligations with regard to the question of legalizing marijuana. Freeland first gave effusive thanks to the chamber for their invitation and their work on CETA before turning to the question at hand, saying that they were considering it in consultation with partners, given that several US States have legalized marijuana, and some countries like Uruguay were also considering the issue.

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QP: Take it up with UNHCR

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It being Monday with many desks across the Chamber vacant, Rona Ambrose was absent, despite the Prime Minister being in attendance. Denis Lebel led off, worrying about pension income splitting in the budget, and Justin Trudeau accused him of trying to sow fear, before listing off the many measures they put into place to help vulnerable seniors. Lebel worried about the fates of other tax credits, and Trudeau listed other investments the government has made to lead to good jobs and economic growth. Lebel then asked if small business taxes would be cut to create jobs, and Trudeau countered with the broad-based tax cuts and Canada Child Benefit cheques that put more money in people’s pockets. Candice Bergen was up next, and dredged up the helicopter ride to the Aga Khan’s island, and Trudeau succinctly told her that it was a personal family vacation and he was answering the Ethics Commissioner’s question. Bergen asked again, and got the very same answer. Thomas Mulcair was up next, worrying about the new executive order signed by Donald Trump regarding Muslim immigrants and refugees, and demanded to know if the government still considered the United Stated was a safe country for refugees. Trudeau deflected by talking about what Canadians expect of the government’s relations with the States. Mulcair raised the case of a Canadian woman turned back at the border, but Trudeau insisted that they were working with Americans to ensure that the border remained open for Canadians. Mulcair moved onto the issue of tax havens and the recent journalism investigations into KPMG, and Trudeau said that they expected people to pay their taxes and they invested money in the CRA to investigate. Mulcair pressed in English, and got much the same reply from Trudeau.

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Roundup: The phantom lobbying menace

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You can already hear the grumblings over social media over the headline: “As senators become more independent, meetings with lobbyists hoping to take advantage tripled in 2016.” And immediately most people go “Ooh, lobbyists are bad, so this sounds like a terrible thing.” It’s not actually true, but it’s something we’re probably going to have to unpack a little better rather than cause some mass panic (once again) about how the newly “empowered” Senate is going to be the death knell for democracy in this country, or some other such nonsense.

For starters, not all lobbying is bad. With strict rules in this country around reporting and gifts, this isn’t like the free-for-all that we’ve seen in places like Washington, where lobbyists were meeting with Congressmen in the steam room of the Capitol Hill gym, or taking them on private plane rides and giving them holidays, or showing up on the floor of the House to watch them cast votes, all while funnelling money into their re-election campaigns. While I believe they tightened some of those rules down south, we simply don’t have that kind of lobbying culture here in Canada, so get that out of your minds first of all. Secondly, Senators in Canada don’t have re-election campaigns to finance, so the influence that lobbyists can try to gain with financial incentives of one variety or another are also non-existent here, so once again, don’t try to map an Americanism onto the process here. Third, lobbying is not all corporate influence. A lot of lobbyists represent charities or non-profits, so best to keep that in mind when you see the numbers grouped together.

Meanwhile, as for what they hope to achieve, well, remember that despite the newfound “independence” of the Senate, its powers are still fairly limited. Those hoping to use this newfound power to amend more bills or delay others will find that when it comes to any amendments, they would still need to be accepted by the House of Commons, and there has been very little acceptance so far of most amendments sent back by the Senate unless it’s a glaring error. And as for delays, if it’s a government bill there are tools like time allocation and closure to force them through the system. Just because Government Leader in the Senate – err, “government representative” – Senator Peter Harder hasn’t yet availed himself of those tools doesn’t mean he can’t or won’t. So really, your mileage with how effective lobbying efforts will be will certainly vary.

The uptick in lobbying is not unexpected now that the usual central channels for information flow have been disrupted. That’s to be expected, so this increase is hardly nefarious. I’m more concerned with cabinet ministers lobbying individual senators than I am actual lobbyists, to be honest, since those meetings are less open and transparent, and they have a lot more power to grant political favours. So really, let’s stay calm about this headline, but keep an eye on things nevertheless. Trudeau’s plans for a “more independent” Senate are certainly proving the rule around unintended consequences.

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Roundup: A commissioner’s overreach

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Forgive me for going super parliamentary wonk for a minute, but this Colby Cosh column in the National Post has me a bit inspired. The issue (and I suggest you read the piece first) is about how interim PC leader Ric McIver was fined by the province’s ethics commissioner for asking a question in QP that could be seen to relate to his wife’s business and basically asking the government for things that could benefit said business. It was later pointed out that only the Speaker can censure a member for things they’ve said, and McIver is launching a court challenge to that effect.

As an officer of parliament, can the commissioner punished an MLA when he’s protected by parliamentary privilege? I’m not actually sure that she can because typically such a commissioner’s ambit is the behaviour of a sitting member when it comes to things like accepting gifts, or ensuring that there are no conflicts of interests in dealings, but I have yet to hear a reasonable case why speech in the Chamber would be covered under that. After all, if he’s asking questions that relate to his wife’s business, then it should be the job of the government to point that out in their responses. This is why they have research departments, after all ­– to fight fire with fire when necessary. Having the premier point out that he seems to be asking for his wife’s benefit would likely embarrass him out of pressing the matter, no? No need for an independent officer of the assembly to step in there.

But I’m also bothered by the fact that this is going to a court challenge, because that’s straying awfully close to that line around interfering in the operations of the legislative branch of government, and parliaments are self-governing. That’s kind of the point – subjecting them to the courts would basically put the Queen back in charge of things, which is not what anyone is after. I’m not sure that a judge should be figuring out the rules of the assembly when it comes to the powers of the commissioner on their behalf. If there is a grey area around what the commissioner’s powers are, it should be up to the assembly – whom the office of the commissioner is a creature of – to make that determination. Anything less is unacceptable when it comes to the supremacy of parliament, which is kind of a big deal, especially when we’re seeing the Auditor General federally trying to over assert his own power in regards to the Senate. We don’t need a bad precedent being set in Alberta that would have terribly ricochet effects elsewhere in our confederation.

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Roundup: A reasonable plea for restitution

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Retired Senator Sharon Carstairs is looking to be reimbursed for some $80,000 in legal fees after being caught up in the Auditor General’s report on expenses, and it’s a tale that exposes how shabbily many senators were treated in the wake of that report. To recap, that AG report essentially made up a bunch of rules that did not exist, particularly around how many days a year constituted “primary residency,” which Carstairs got caught up in. And in a rush to show the public that they were taking this report seriously, the Senate turned over the report directly to the RCMP, and Carstairs was left trying to keep her reputation intact, hence retaining counsel and trying to explain that she hadn’t broken any rules.

What needs to be repeated again with this story is just how problematic that AG report was. When the Senate later retained its own counsel to go over that report to see if they should try to sue any of the senators who had refused to repay or seek arbitration for the identified sums (which included Carstairs), that legal review laid bare the arbitrary rules that the AG imposed as part of his review, and essentially how shoddily it was done. And I know several senators who simply opted to pay back the sum rather than keep fighting it because they wanted it to go away – Carstairs refused, and it looks like she’s going to be punished for it, whether financially with the loss (the maximum reimbursement for legal fees under Senate rules is generally $25,000), but also with the loss of reputation. I would hope that the Senate has had enough time since the audit that they can now revisit this case and offer the apology and what restitution they can, and admit that they were hasty in their actions because they were trying to appease a public that was baying for blood post-Duffy, for what good it did them. I would also hope that more of my media colleagues would also start calling out the AG for the problems in his report when cases like Carstairs’ come up again in the media, but I suspect that won’t happen, as we pay far too much deference to him as being untouchable and infallible, when clearly that’s not the case.

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Roundup: Nomination shenanigans?

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It looks like there are some shenanigans in Liberal nomination races for a couple of those upcoming by-elections, and as many a pundit has been saying today, Liberals gonna Liberal. And you can pretty much chalk this up to one more great big disappointment between the lofty Liberal rhetoric about valuing open nominations and then doing shady things like they have with the nominations in both Saint-Laurent and with Markham-Thornhill.

Part of what doesn’t make sense from an optics perspective is the sudden rush to call the last two by-elections for the two most recently vacated seats. In both Ottawa-Vanier and the two Calgary seats, there has been plenty of lead-time and nominations happened with nary a peep, but in the last two, the sudden rush has meant problems. With Markham-Thornhill, they retroactively cut off membership sales, which is presumed to help the “chosen” candidate, former PMO staffer Mary Ng. Ng’s campaign says they lost hundreds of registered members too, but again, this is about optics. Meanwhile in Saint-Laurent, a current Montreal borough mayor was declared not to have passed the green-light committee but they refuse to say why, which is seen as clearing the path for “star candidate” Yolande James (though there is still one other candidate, so it’s not an acclamation). But while they may have reasons for not greenlighting said borough mayor, the fact that they refuse to say why is again a nightmare for optics when this is supposed to be the party of openness, transparency and open and fair nominations.

Part of why this is such a disappointment is because we really need to push back from party leaders’ interference in nomination races if we want to restore the balance in our politics. That’s not to say that there shouldn’t be safety mechanisms in the event of hijacked nominations (because there absolutely should be), but those mechanisms shouldn’t be the leader’s office. A strong grassroots is essential in our system, and with every time that the leaders and their offices interfere (because they feel emboldened to thanks to the bastardized system of leadership selection that we’ve come to adopt and go full-bore on at every single opportunity), we choke off the most fecund part of our democracy. Shenanigans and the apparently hypocrisy of proclaiming open nominations while appearing to play favourites undermines the bottom-up practice of politics, and it’s something we as Canadians need to push back against in every party.

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Roundup: A jobs crisis report rooted in fancy

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The Conservatives released their Alberta Jobs Taskforce report yesterday – a make-work project to make it look like they were paying attention to the plight of the province’s resource-driven downturn, never mind that it wasn’t going to actually do anything because they’re not in government. The eleven recommendations that it came up with were…ambitious. I won’t say magic (such as the Ontario NDP’s Hydro plan, also released yesterday, relied on), but I will say that it relies a lot on wishing and hoping instead.

To start off with, the top recommendation is to eliminate the proposed carbon tax – which is provincial jurisdiction, not federal, to be clear – and to reduce corporate and small business taxes along with reversing CPP contribution increases. These are typical Conservative bugaboos, so it’s not a surprise we would see these recommendations. “Reducing red tape” for resource projects? It’s like the Conservatives forgot that when they tried to do that when they were in office, it backfired on them and created even bigger headaches as the lack of due diligence, particularly around dealing with First Nations, landed them in court numerous times. Encourage retraining? Provincial jurisdiction. Review EI to “improve efficiency”? You mean like their ham-fisted attempt at doing that a couple of years ago that cost them every Atlantic Canadian seat that they had? Recommendation five is particularly interesting because it calls on both a) reducing red tape for starting small businesses while b) creating tax credits to hire unskilled workers. Ask any small business and they’ll tell you the worst red tape is the complex tax code, so asking for the creation of yet more tax credits is to work against the first demand. Coherence! Implement programs to encourage hiring of recent graduates (sounds like big government), while increasing financial literacy across Canada? Erm, how does that actually help youth? I don’t get the connection. Lower interprovincial trade barriers? Well, considering that every government has tried doing that since 1867, and that the Conservatives didn’t make any tangible progress in their nine years in office, I’m not sure that Alberta hurting now is going to suddenly fixate everyone to solve that problem. Adjust domestic policy to the new Trumpocalypse reality? Seriously? There is no policy coherence coming from the States, so how can Canada “adjust” to it? Reform credentials-matching for new immigrants and the Temporary Foreign Workers Programme? Again, if it were easy, the Conservatives would have done it when they were in power. And finally, balance the budget? How does this solve Alberta’s job woes? Oh wait, it doesn’t. It’s just yet another Conservative bugaboo that they’re trying to hit the government with, using Alberta’s jobs crisis as the cudgel.

I’m sure that they spent time on this, but honestly, I’m less than impressed with the suite of recommendations. The lack of coherence and insistence that nigh-intractable problems should be solved now when they haven’t been for decades is more than fanciful.

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Roundup: The “good parts” of populism?

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I will confess that the eleventy different appearances on every conceivable political show over the past week by Preston Manning to coincide with his eponymous institute’s networking conference over the weekend has had me a bit preoccupied. Everyone is eager to talk about the rise in populism, and whether Trumpism will make its way to Canada in a more visible form (not that we haven’t seen in here before already, with Rob Ford as the most obvious example), but what gets me is when Manning starts waxing about harnessing the “good parts” of populism rather than the ugly side that has led to things like Brexit and the Trumpocalypse, and he goes on at length about history of prairie populism and how he perceives that to be a positive thing. Granted, his particular perspective on that is more than a little biased, considering that his father’s brand of prairie populism made him premier of Alberta for a number of years, and Manning’s crafting that into the Reform Party got him to Ottawa for several more years. But reading some of the accounts of some of that prairie populism years later – in particular this account of the rise of the CCF in Saskatchewan and how they became another craven political party by the time of Tommy Douglas’ provincial demise – makes me think of growing up gay in Alberta, where that “prairie populism” left its mark in a province that was far less socially progressive and with parties that were less willing to be so, being dragged kicking and screaming to the Supreme Court of Canada. I didn’t grow up seeing the “good” side of prairie populism, which is why I struggle to reconcile with Manning trying to find the good parts of populist sentiment to embrace. I am having a hard time trying to find the “good parts” of breeding cynical distrust in institutions, and this narrative of “pure” people versus “corrupt elites,” and in waging wars against the media that follows that narrative’s lead. You wouldn’t think that politicians would want to play with the fire that is distrust, and yet they keep reaching for the lighter. I think Manning may be playing things a bit too optimistically, and may be a bit too naively, for my comfort level.

Chris Selley looks at the Manning Conference and some Conservative behaviour in recent weeks, and wonders if the party no longer stands for anything other than a series of shared grievances as opposed to some actual policy or ideology. (One could argue that they ditched ideology a while ago and have simply become right-flavoured populists, made most especially manifest when they went ahead with the GST cut that every single economist told them not to do). Kady O’Malley leaves us with a warning about drawing too many conclusions based on the Manning Conference’s schedule alone rather than the discussions that people were having on the floor of the event, which not only saw some of its biggest draw ever, but also seemed to be very much more about the leadership race than it was about those panels about “radical Islamic terrorism” and so on.

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Roundup: Manning and the Populists

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It’s the Manning Centre conference here in Ottawa, which is the “conservative Woodstock,” as they say, and is pretty much were all of the small-c conservatives come to network, only this year, in the midst of the Trumpocalypse happening south of the border, the flavour of this year’s conference has changed, with much more pandering to the fringe elements, catering to overblown fears of Islamic terrorism and the kinds of populist demagoguery that are suddenly in vogue. Oh, and all fourteen Conservative leadership candidates are also there, and hey, they had a little debate, which allowed them a bit more freedom to actually debate in small groups, but most of it was still their canned talking points, so take it for what it’s worth.

As for conference programming, here’s Kady O’Malley’s recap of the first half including Preston Manning’s speech, and her assessment that fears of a Trumpist takeover appear to be more overblown, as many of the demagogic panels have had less than spectacular attendance. John Geddes recaps the moments of the leadership debate that had the biggest sparks. Geddes also has a conversation with Manning about populism and how it’s shaping debates right now.

Andrew Coyne warns Conservatives at the Manning Conference about the siren song of populist demagoguery. Chris Selley looks at that demagoguery up close in the panel on the “Islamist extremist menace” at the Conference, calling it bonkers. John Ivison looks at the dynamic Kevin O’Leary is bringing to the Conference and the race, and the outsized role he is starting to play, building an “Anyone but O’Leary” vibe. Paul Wells notes the changes in the Conference’s tenor over the years as a result of the political culture of followership, eager to imitate the perceived leaders of their pack.

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