Tag Archives: Richard Wagner

Roundup: Backlash from the tape

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Following Friday’s release of the documents and audio tape provided by Jody Wilson-Raybould, and now comes the backlash. Which at this point I think is the backlash to the backlash to the backlash to the backlash, or something. It’s like they’re ships firing broadsides at one another endlessly, and they’re all taking on water, but nobody will stop, and it’s just so exhausting. But here we go (again).

To begin with, Bill Morneau’s office is disputing the characterisation of conversations their staff had with Wilson-Raybould’s staff, and Gerald Butts tweeted that he’s submitting more of his documents to the committee, which will be released publicly when they too are translated. Michael Wernick’s lawyers are saying that Wernick didn’t brief the PM on the call with Wilson-Raybould because of holidays and the fact that Scott Brison’s announced resignation consumed matters subsequently, and that they didn’t talk about SNC-Lavalin until the Globe and Mail story came out (which one former staffer says is entirely plausible, though not everyone is buying it). Patty Hajdu went on television to say that Wilson-Raybould’s recording of that conversation was unethical, and that she doesn’t think she can trust her in caucus not to record their private conversations any further, though she’ll leave any decisions about ousting her to the caucus itself. And then there was a whole tangent arising from those documents about whether Brian Mulroney directed Kim Campbell as justice minister regarding the David Milgaard case, which led to competing versions of what happened in Mulroney’s memoir’s versus Campbell’s (and she tweeted out more clarifications over the weekend).

As for Wilson-Raybould, she says she’s “absolutely ready” for whatever happens next, and insists she was doing her job and “speaking her truth.” She also stated that Jane Philpott didn’t resign for her benefit, but because of Philpott’s own sense of integrity (which may be a way of trying to shield Philpott from the inevitable calls to have the pair of them booted from caucus, which will only intensify after the revelation of the recording). But a lot of things will now circle back to that recording, something that BC’s former Attorney General says speaks to a “deep fracture” at the heart of the Liberal Party. And he may be right, and it may also be a consequence of doing politics differently, given that one former national director of the party says has a lot to do with Trudeau’s refusal to put any heads on (metaphorical) spikes, which may now cost him in the long run.

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Roundup: Equalization, feigned outrage, and outsourced research

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Apparently, we’re talking equalisation again after it was “revealed” that the current formula was renewed for another five years in the budget implementation bill and nobody cottoned on to the fact. Err, except that it was right there for everyone to see. And so you have a bunch of performative outrage from the likes of Jason Kenney about how this was the “deceitful scrapping of Equalization Renegotiation talks,” which is of course, utter bullshit but he need to create outrage that will drive his base – because if there’s anything that will be guaranteed to drive outrage in the West, it’s the deliberate lies being spread about how equalisation works in order to make themselves look like the victims in all of this (never mind that even in the depths of the recession they had the highest fiscal capacity in the country, and the fact that they have a deficit because they made the political choice to keep taxes low and not implement a PST in Alberta). But why be truthful and talk about the system honestly when you can foment outrage with lies? Way to go there. Sure, you can make the point that there could have been more public discussions around it, but there were discussions at the federal-provincial level, despite what Kenney claims.

Which brings us back to the issue of whether or not this change in the budget implementation bill was done underhandedly. Obviously the fact that it was a) in the budget; b) in the budget implementation bill for all to see; and c) raised at committee, clearly it wasn’t being hidden very well if that was the intention. Add to that, there have been ongoing consultations at the ministerial level for months, which again, not exactly being done sneakily. Paul Wells dug into the paper trails and found all of the receipts. And yet it’s being decried as having been done in some underhanded fashion. Why? Because the Globe and Mail reported that this was done “quietly.”

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If this is indicative of any problem, it’s the fact that our opposition parties are not doing their jobs. The Conservatives have long-since outsourced their opposition to the Globeif their QP questions are anything to go by (and confirmed by this latest “outrage”), not to mention the outsourcing of yet more homework to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, and more to the fact, rather than doing their jobs of scrutinising the legislation and the budget, they spent the entire spring session railing about the India trip, inventing much (though not all) of the outrage out of whole cloth, and demanding the “costs” for the carbon tax where much of the data is already publicly available or does not exist where provinces have not yet come up with their plans. But instead, they spent their time trying to invent smoking guns that would “prove” that this government is out to raise taxes to pay for their deficits (again, ignoring that the funds from carbon prices all get returned to the provinces). If you’re the Official Opposition and can’t do your own homework, then what exactly are you doing? You’re in parliament to do a job – not to generate outrage clips for social media. And yet here we are.

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Roundup: Romanticizing a political “success” story

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It’s not a secret that Globe and Mail editorials have a tendency to be terrible, but one yesterday was particularly misinformed to the point of being criminally negligent. The subject? That politics needs more Ruth Ellen Brosseaus. The thrust of the piece is that politics doesn’t need more lawyers or titans of industry, but plucky individuals with a common touch. What they completely ignore is how much support the party gave Brosseau to turn her from the assistant manager of a campus bar who spent part of the campaign in Vegas (who never actually went to her riding during the campaign) into the eventual NDP House Leader that she is today.

To wit, after the 2011 election, the party sequestered Brosseau, put her through intense French immersion to get her proficiency in French back up to an acceptable level for the francophone riding that she was accidentally elected into during the Orange Wave, and then carefully kept her away from the media except for select clips to show how great her French was. Her early interventions in the Commons were brutal – I recall one particularly memorable nonsense question in QP about how, as a busy single mother, she didn’t have time to worry about all of the Conservatives scandals. Riveting stuff. She was given a deputy portfolio that kept her very constituency bound, and again, she was largely kept away from the media spotlight for four years, and when she was in the media, it was for personality pieces and not policy. During the last election, the party put her forward to every outlet conceivable to showcase her personality and endear her to voters, and she did win again. And good for her.

But what the Globe piece misses entirely is that plucky everywoman Brosseau was given a hell of a lot more support than any other candidate or MP gets, because they wanted to rehabilitate her image, and to demonstrate that they didn’t make a mistake in putting her name on the ballot in the manner that they did. And sure, maybe we need plenty of everyperson candidates, but we also do need lawyers and corporate types who have policy experience as well, because part of the danger of just nominating your everyperson candidate is that it puts them in the position to be the puppets of party apparatchiks run out of the leader’s office. We already have too much central control in politics, and there is a real danger that candidates who are unprepared for political life will become fodder for those machinations, which will do no favour to our political system. So sorry, Globe editorial board – maybe you need to do a little more homework before you file a piece like this.

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Roundup: More dubious Senate suggestions

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Over the weekend, there was a piece on Policy Options from University of Manitoba professor emeritus Paul Thomas about the “new” and improved Senate. While most of the piece was a recounting of what brought us to the current set of circumstances in the Upper Chamber, it ended with a series of recommendations of what Thomas thought the Senate should adopt going forward as it enters into this uncharted territory. But I’m not entirely convinced by his particular reasoning. To wit:

  1. The Senate should only engage in “judicious combativeness” by rarely seeking to defeat or fundamentally alter legislation, but use more subtle means of altering policy over the medium and long term. Which is fine on the surface, but legislation is contextual, and the Senate has long engaged in long-term policy development through committee studies that are usually of some of the top caliber in the country, doing more than Royal Commissions could on a more cost-effective basis. This suggestion is not much of a change from the status quo.
  2. More pre-study of regular legislation. I’m a bit dubious of this because while pre-study makes sense with some bills that are more complex or time-sensitive, it defeats part of the purpose of the Senate to do the work after the Commons has in order to look for things that the Commons missed and addressing it then, rather than trying to run committee processes in parallel. Meanwhile, there was a time when the Senate did a lot more pre-study of bills, and were subsequently accused of just rubber-stamping legislation when it made its way to the Senate, and bitter feelings erupted.
  3. Including timetables with legislation. Nope. Nooooope. This is the kind of nonsense that Senator Peter Harder is trying to bring in with his business committee nonsense, and it goes a long way to defeating the purpose of the Senate. Sometimes sober second thought takes time. Sometimes it takes a while for senators who see problems with legislation to convince the rest of the chamber, and including timetables from the start not only create a largely unnecessary sense of haste (and the Senate generally passes legislation more swiftly than the Commons, with few exceptions already) means that you’re applying unnecessary pressure that gives the message that you would rather a rubber stamp than sober second thought. And like I said – legislation is contextual, and no two bills are the same, so to have someone come in from the start and start assigning timetables lacks any sense.

I get that there’s a mood to pre-emptively start reining in a more activist upper chamber, and I have my own concerns with some of the newer appointees and their sense of self, which is all well and good. But to start demanding rule or process changes is foolhardy, and will almost certainly result in unintended consequences. The “new and improved” Senate is working, and they’re responding to the signals that the government is sending them when it comes to their willingness to accepted amended bills. There’s no problem to fix, and I wish that people would leave well enough alone.

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Roundup: Cyberwarfare oversight concerns

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The University of Toronto’s CitizenLab issued a report on Bill C-59, and the powers that it gives the Communications Security Establishment to engage in offensive cyberwarfare operations, rather than just sticking to being on the defensive. According to their report, these kinds of activities wouldn’t require any kind of judicial oversight – just the sign-off from the ministers of foreign affairs and national defence – and will have little other oversight other than the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. And as Stephanie Carvin explains below, that’s actually not a bad thing, because offensive capabilities are not the same as intelligence gathering – one of CSE’s other activities.

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And this is pretty much the point – a Crown prerogative doesn’t require the same kinds of oversight, and does not necessarily bind the activities to being Charter compliant because it’s not directed at Canadians, thus is not concerned with their particular rights and freedoms. And as Carvin points out, these kinds of operations have their own particular oversight mechanisms, which are simply different than the once that CitizenLab identifies. It’s perfectly fine to wonder if CSE is really the agency to be doing this kind of work, but that also means asking who else would be doing it, and if the answer is to build new capabilities within the Canadian Forces, is that the best use of scarce resources? Perhaps, perhaps not. It’s certainly a topic worthy of debate, but “no judicial oversight” is not right argument to be making in this case.

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Roundup: A new Chief Justice

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The justice minister announced yesterday morning that the prime minister would be naming Justice Richard Wagner as the new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, thus both respecting the tradition of alternating between a Common Law and a Civil Law judge as the Chief, as well as picking an accomplished jurist who has 15 years left on the bench, ensuring that there is a long enough period of stability on the Court. Wagner is well respected in the Quebec courts, where he hailed from, and it is noted that he doesn’t really fit into the left-right divide – something that is not only indicative of our Canadian system, but is one of those things that people point to when they note how a Liberal PM can elevate a judge chosen by his Conservative predecessor.

A trip to the Maclean’s archives finds this piece by Paul Wells on the day that Wagner was named to the Supreme Court was also the day that Justin Trudeau threw his hat into the ring for Liberal leadership, and that both men had famous fathers in political circles. Tasha Kheiriddin notes the choice of Wagner is a safe one.

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It’s also worth noting that Wagner also becomes Deputy Governor General with his elevation to Chief Justice, and he can grant royal assent to bills in the event that the GG herself is ill or absent; he opens Parliament before a Speaker is elected; and he will head the committee in charge of nominating people to the Order of Canada. The practice since 1939 also used to be that the Chief Justice would close a session of Parliament instead of the Governor General following some particular manoeuvring by Mackenzie King while the GG was out of town, until the government stopped with prorogation ceremonies. (If you ask me, they should restore the ceremonies, but with the GG doing them).

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