Tag Archives: Supreme Court

Roundup: Enter the QP scolds

Posted on by

With the return of Parliament comes the inevitable return of the sanctimonious commentary around the behaviour of MPs in the House of Commons. Already we had Scott Gilmore insisting that MPs “not be assholes,” and this eyeroll-inducing plea from Tamara Miller that goes on about grade eight students. What Miller seems to forget is that the House of Commons is not a classroom. Question Period is not a lecture or a seminar course where all sides discuss this week’s assigned reading. It’s political theatre, and it’s an exercise in holding government to account, and that isn’t always done with dry recitations of scripts and polite golf claps.

The other thing that I keep needing to drill into people is that Question Period is not the totality of what happens in the Commons. The rest of the day you are more likely to be in danger of narcolepsy than you are of hearing heckling or other boorish behaviour. Committees are generally fairly well behaved, but if there’s a contentious issue then parties will send in their ringers to put on a show when they know people are watching. It’s political theatre. Is it always pleasant? No. But most of the hours of the day aren’t anywhere near what happens in QP, and that’s fine. There is also nothing wrong with heckling per se – some of it is very legitimate, whether it’s cross-talk when ministers are saying things that aren’t true, or when they’re not answering the question but rather just reading non sequitur talking points – as happens too often. I don’t think that MPs should just sit on their hands and be silent when they’re being spun or insulted to their faces by some of what governments – regardless of stripe – pull. Does this mean that all behaviour is acceptable? No – there is a lot of behaviour that is more akin to jeering, hooting baboons than to parliamentarians, and yes, some of it is sexist and bullying, but not all of it, but it should be incumbent upon parties and the Speaker to police the excesses, but the constant tut-tutting about any heckling is frankly gag-inducing.

This having been said, should MPs behave better in QP? Sure. The clapping ban the Liberals instituted helps tremendously (when it’s obeyed – it had pretty much broken down toward the end of the last parliament), and frankly, it makes Scheer and Singh look terribly insecure by comparison if they require ovations every time they stand up to speak when Trudeau doesn’t. But honestly, I can’t think of anything worse than the way that these scolds imagine that QP should be.

Continue reading →

Roundup: The call is coming from inside the caucus room

Posted on by

The hits just keep coming for Andrew Scheer, as one of his MPs came out vocally against his leadership yesterday. In the wake of the fairly low-key announcement of his Shadow Cabinet, it was quickly noticed that Ed Fast was not on said list, and Fast himself said that he was asked to be part of it and he declined, saying that Scheer should be surrounded by people loyal to his leadership, while Fast has concerns about it. Up until this moment, Scheer’s loyalists were dismissing those vocally and publicly calling for Scheer to step down as being Toronto elites and sore losers that go back to leadership rivals. Fast’s public denouncement puts a lie to this narrative.

Let’s face it – public dissent in caucus is rare because we have virtually eliminated all of the incentives for it. Our bastardized leadership selection process has leaders claiming a “democratic legitimacy” that they use to intimidate MPs into not challenging them, because it goes against the “will of the grassroots” (and to hell with that MP’s voters, apparently). We gave party leaders the power to sign off on nomination forms with the purest of intentions and it quickly got perverted into a tool of blackmail and iron-fisted discipline. Pretty much the only time MPs will speak out is if they have nothing to lose, and Fast is in that position – he could retire tomorrow and be all the better for it. And it’s when the dissent goes public that leaders really need to worry because that means that it’s happening by those inside the caucus room who aren’t saying anything out loud. Provincially, we’ve seen instances of it taking only one or two MLAs coming out publicly for leaders to see the writing on the wall and resign. The caucus may be bigger in Ottawa, but the sentiment is increasingly out in the open – that can’t be sustainable.

Scheer later went to the annual UCP convention in Calgary, where he was predictably given a fairly warm welcome– but he shouldn’t rest on this applause because he doesn’t need to win Alberta – he already has their votes, and they’re not enough to carry the country, no matter how much they increase their vote share. He needs seats in Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic Canada, and he is having a hard time cracking those areas, in particular because of his social conservatism and the UCP convention isn’t going to be the place to go to get honest feedback about that problem. It’s a bubble, and a trap that becomes too easy to feel that there is nothing wrong if he stays in it too long.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Middle Class™ is a state of mind

Posted on by

I don’t really want to engage in a pile-on, but the fact that the new Minister of Middle Class™ Prosperity® was doing the media rounds and imploding on trying to offer a definition of just what is Middle Class™ was not a good start to her ministerial career – not to mention an indictment of the comms geniuses in the PMO who sent her out there unprepared. You would think that actually having a working definition of what is “middle class” would be an important thing to equip a minister with when you give her the portfolio – particularly when you wrap up an otherwise sober role of Associate Minister of Finance with this ridiculous title. And there are a couple of very serious points to make here – if you can’t actually define what “middle class” means, then you have no actual way of measuring your success in dealing with the perceived issues of income disparity – which this government has been using Middle Class™ as a code for without trying to sound like they’re engaging in class warfare. But as a branding exercise, when you rely on the fact that everyone thinks they’re “middle class” or about to be – particularly people who are well over what is actually middle class in this country – it’s one of those things that tends to flatter people, but becomes meaningless – essentially that Middle Class™ is a state of mind. Mona Fortier did, over the course of the day, transition from “it involves your kids being in hockey” to “there’s no one definition” because of regional variations and disparities, but it was a bit of a trial by fire, and hopefully a lesson that she – and the comms geniuses in PMO – will take to heart.

All of this talk of being Middle Class™ does bring me back to this scene from the early noughties UK sitcom Gimme Gimme Gimme, where being Middle Class was a Thing.

Meanwhile, Chris Selley makes the very salient point that this government has moved the needle on poverty in this country, but the problems we’re facing aren’t with the Middle Class™, and perhaps they should put a focus on those areas instead.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Big numbers for hate clicks

Posted on by

I’m not a big fan of pieces that construct data in a way to give the worst possible reading, with the intention of making readers angry, because it’s not only bad journalism but it’s irresponsible because our job should be about providing context – not weaponizing it for hate-clicks. And yet, here is a shoddy piece from the National Post designed entirely for the purpose of stoking the fires of the supposed anger in Western Canada right now, by producing a piece which purports to show how Alberta is basically funding Quebec. Oh, they’ll say – this is all Statistics Canada data! But as with any statistical data, it is dependent upon how it is contextualized and presented, and in this case, it’s in terms of “net fiscal transfers” without breaking out what that entails, nor does it actually explain equalization in any way. The most nuanced the piece gets is citing economist Trevor Tombe who reminds people that Albertans pay more in taxes because they have the highest incomes in the country – but it doesn’t then explain that those taxes go to federal general revenues, which then get distributed in programs, which can include equalization. There is no talk about equalization being about the fiscal capacity of a province and ensuring that they can have an equal level of service compared to other provinces, and how that is impacted by their provincial tax rates, or the fact that Alberta has chosen to keep its provincial taxes artificially low and making up the shortfalls with the revenues from their non-renewable resources. The favourite figure is how much Quebec gets in equalization payments, ignoring that on a per capita share, Quebec’s equalization is actually below most other provinces. These are all figures and context that matters – simply throwing big figures around is only designed to make people angry. It’s shite journalism, and yet here we are, yet again.

And speaking of fiscal transfers, here’s a look at how the $1.6 billion that the federal government has been using to bail out Alberta after their last oil crash has nearly fully been paid out, while the province keeps insisting that Ottawa has been “indifferent” to their situation.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Judicial review and missing nuance

Posted on by

There was a development regarding a First Nations court challenge, which I’ll discuss in a moment, but first up, the campaign news. Jagmeet Singh was in Saskatoon to essentially re-announce his plans to “immediately” implement dental care – again, omitting that it’s provincial jurisdiction and he has no way of forcing provinces to do the heavy lifting – before he headed to Thunder Bay.

Justin Trudeau didn’t announce anything but met with voters at a restaurant in Quebec City, followed by a media availability where he assured everyone that his views have evolved from when, in 2011, he said he was personally against abortion but was pro-choice. He says he’s now totally pro-choice because his previous stance didn’t really make any sense – something he probably felt he needed to make clear when it was remarked that his position and Scheer’s were very similar in personally opposing abortion. Later on, he was at a tree planting with a candidate in Saint-Anaclet, Quebec, where he addressed the lawsuit issue (and again, more on that in a moment).

Andrew Scheer was in Etobicoke, where he re-announced the party’s platform as regards gun control and gangs – and much like his foreign aid announcement, this one was also based on a series of lies about bail and sentencing. More to the point, Scheer pledged more mandatory minimum sentences – which the courts keep striking down – and pledging to fight for them in court tooth and nail, so he wants to spend millions of taxpayer dollars to fight for unconstitutional laws for the sake of symbolism, apparently. But this was overshowed by yet more questions about his dual-citizenship, including his need to file US taxes, and being registered for “selective service,” meaning the draft.

But back to the court challenge, which was news that the government had applied to the Federal Court for judicial review of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal decision that would award compensation to every First Nations child who had been apprehended by child and family services. Immediately there was a hue and cry, and plenty of outrage (some of it performative), and a lot of hot takes from journalists who failed to understand the nuances in legal stories. And while I’m not a lawyer, I have been on the law beat for several years now, and I can say that oftentimes, these kinds of appeals are made on technical grounds because in the law, precise wording matters, particularly when one is concerned about the precedents it sets. Both Seamus O’Regan and Trudeau did address this in the media saying that they agree that the government failed these children and that they are owed compensation, but they need time to determine how to do it right, but they can’t do that during a writ period (which is appropriate, given the Caretaker convention, especially as this is worth billions of dollars). Ah, but these clever reporters said, the documents say that they are opposed to the compensation award. Now, I haven’t had a chance to read the application because it’s not online, but the CBC describes it thusly:

The application says Canada acknowledges the finding of systematic discrimination and does not oppose the general principle of compensating First Nations individuals affected by a discriminatory funding model — but it argues awarding compensation to individuals in this claim is inconsistent with the nature of the complaint, the evidence, past jurisprudence and the Canadian Human Rights Act.

Now, there are clues in here as to what the government is arguing, primarily that the Tribunal exceeded its authority to make this kind of compensation order based on the kind of human rights complaint that was brought before it, including exceeding their statutory authority. So that’s not a small thing if that’s the case. And it’s a hell of a lot of nuance in the story that deserves to be explained. Any government is going to be concerned if a Tribunal exceeds its authority to make these kinds of orders, because that will impact future cases with future governments – no matter that they feel this case is deserving of compensation. But this very important detail has been completely glossed over in the search for outrage takes, which means that the reporting is doing a disservice to all parties involved.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Foreign aid announcement a house of lies

Posted on by

On what was supposed to have been the date of the Munk debate, Andrew Scheer was in Toronto to have a big press conference about his foreign policy plans, which were conveniently leaked to the Globe and Mail Monday night so that they could dominate the news cycle first thing in the morning – much to the ire of everyone on the campaign bus who pay for the privilege of being there. Scheer’s big headline was his plan to slash foreign aid spending – a blatant pander to the nativist sentiment that falsely has people claiming we should take care of our own before sending “so much money” abroad. After a lengthy diatribe that distorted, misconstrued and outright lied about the Liberal record on foreign policy, Scheer then laid out his four priorities – the slashing of legal aid (allegedly to focus on children in war-torn and poor countries while using more of the money to spend on their other domestic programmes); strengthening our alliances with our “traditional allies” (I’m guessing that means the UK, Australia, and New Zealand) and sending more military aid to Ukraine; targeting regimes like Iran with Magnitsky legislation; and “depoliticizing” military procurement. (Oh, and securing a UN Security Council seat isn’t going to be a priority for him either). But as it turns out, Scheer’s figures about what we are spending on foreign aid right now was one giant lie (and more context in this thread), and one notable example where Scheer couldn’t get a handle on his facts was that money that was sent to Italy was for relief after an earthquake there. His whole part about “depoliticizing” military procurement was just a wholly fictional accounting of the Mark Norman affair and the procurement at the heart of that situation (which was initially a highly political sole-source contract that was designed to save Steven Blaney’s seat). And to top it off, it was clear from this press conference that Scheer has an adolescent’s understanding of foreign aid – and foreign policy in general. But it should be alarming to everyone that someone who is running on “trust” went to the microphones and lied his way through an entire press conference on a policy platform that is in itself a house of lies. This election is getting worse with every passing day.

In Richmond Hill, Justin Trudeau met with some suburban mayors in the GTA to talk about gun control, but just reiterated their existing platform promises around banning assault rifles and finding a way to let cities further restrict handguns (even though these very same mayors all wanted a national handgun ban – so, own-goal there, Liberals).

Jagmeet Singh, meanwhile, remained in Vancouver to talk childcare some more, and this time pledged to let new parents retain full benefits if they take less time for parental leave than is usually allotted.

It’s the TVA debate tonight, so expect a quiet day on the campaign trail in advace of that.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Capitalizing on the climate strikes – or not

Posted on by

It was a slightly less ridiculous day on the election campaign for a change, and first up of the day was Jagmeet Singh was in Ladysmith, BC, to announce that he would spend $40 million to protect the coast line, which includes protecting salmon stocks and clearing derelict vessels, as well as cancelling Trans Mountain and stopping that tanker traffic. He then went to the climate strike march in Victoria.

In Montreal, in advance of the Climate Strike, Justin Trudeau met with Greta Thunberg before announcing that he would ensure that two billion trees would be planted over the next decade, which would also create 3500 seasonal jobs (and it includes urban forests), and it would be paid for by the profits of the Trans Mountain pipeline.

Andrew Scheer went to Coquitlam, BC, to announce more infrastructure plans for roads and bridges, cancelling the Infrastructure Bank calling it a “boondoggle” (reminder: These kinds of things take time to get up and running, and they did more than the Conservatives’ P3 Canada in its entire existence). Of course, on a day where everyone else was focused on climate change because of the strikes and protests, Scheer was pushing for more traffic infrastructure, and had the utter gall to say that it would help reduce pollution because people wouldn’t be in traffic as long. This of course is completely wrong, because traffic fills the available volume – it would create more traffic, and higher emissions (and congestion would be just as bad within a short period of time).

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1177669904566292480

Continue reading →

Roundup: Trying to draw in the Supreme Court

Posted on by

If this election could get any stupider, it did yesterday. Justin Trudeau started the day off in Sudbury, and after arriving by canoe, he promised not only to further expand the areas of land and waters that are protected areas as part of ongoing roll-out of green policies in advance of today’s “climate strike” rally, Trudeau also promised an expansion of the “learn to camp” programme, including bursaries of up to $2000 for low-income families. As someone who hates camping, this is borderline offensive – but it’s also one of the whitest of white people policies in the book. (Seriously – ask a person of colour how they feel about camping). I get that the idea is that it promotes connecting people with nature and the importance of conservation, but this was probably one of the dumbest campaign promises to date.

Andrew Scheer was not much better. From Trudeau’s riding of Papineau in Montréal, Scheer tapped into the Trumpian “Lock Her Up!” mentality by promising not only a judicial inquiry into the Double-Hyphen Affair, but also to pass a cartoonishly named No More Cover-Ups Act, which would empower the RCMP to go directly to the Supreme Court of Canada for access to Cabinet documents – all of it predicated on the lie that the RCMP are investigating the PMO (they’re not) and that they can’t get access to documents (because the Clerk of the Privy Council said no to a fishing expedition). It’s all very gross and unseemly. Not only do we not demand that the police investigate our political rivals (this isn’t a banana republic, and if the Liberals lose, then they will have faced political consequences for the Affair), but politicising judicial inquiries is a Very Bad Thing. Dragging the Supreme Court into one’s political vendettas is even worse (and I have a column on that very topic coming out later today about that very issue).

As for Jagmeet Singh, he was in Campbell River, BC to reiterate his promise to build half a million housing units, but to also flesh out his promise for income supports of up to $5000 per year for low-income renters. But again, this is provincial jurisdiction so the rental income supports will have to be a carefully designed policy, while he has yet to explain how he’ll rapidly build all of this social housing when the cities where it’s most needed are very tight labour markets, which means there likely aren’t enough construction workers to do the job, and that will drive up the costs of building these units by a lot. (Singh also completely mischaracterised the output-based system on carbon pricing as part of his trying to downplay the current government’s record, because he’s doing politics differently).

Continue reading →

Roundup: Red tape and legislating targets

Posted on by

It was a fairly boggling day on the campaign trail, starting with Andrew Scheer in St. Catharines, Ontario, to push his small business promises. Scheer pledged to reduce “red tape” regulations by 25 percent – a completely meaningless figure which means nothing when it comes to the value of regulation, and then told a completely misleading anecdote about a girl with a lemonade stand who needed to fill out all kinds of forms because of “bureaucracy.” (The real story is that said girl opened up her lemonade stand on National Capital Commission land, which is why she needed a permit, and has absolutely zero to do with small business regulations). Pledges about two-for-one rules around red tape (getting rid of two old regulations for every new one) has been federal practice since the Harper years, and his notion of a Cabinet-level “red tape reduction minister” like Alberta has is basically promising a job to someone for uselessness as Alberta has proven. (Seriously – the current government has a division in Treasury Board not only having success in streamlining regulations, but they have been working with the provinces on harmonizing regulations so as to eliminate non-tariff barriers). Scheer also complained that the tax code was too complex for these small business owners – apparently lacking any self-awareness that he’s the one who keeps proposing ever more tax credits that further complicate the tax code, so well done there. Then, after repeating the lie that Trudeau called small business owners “tax cheats,” he promised to undo the Liberals’ small-business tax changes, which has absolutely nothing to do with actually helping small businesses and restores a loophole for the wealthiest who create personal corporations to avoid paying taxes. There was a verifiable problem that the Liberals worked to solve (somewhat ham-fistedly because Bill Morneau is incapable of communicating like a human being) and Scheer has pledged to undo it for no apparent reason – certainly not one that benefits the everyday people he claims to be helping trying to get ahead. (Read through this epic thread from Justin Ling).

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1176532629039894528

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1176533727775617025

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1176536740187664384

Scheer later skipped a planned campaign event in Cambridge as there were protesters at the site (while denying that the protesters were the reason).

Jagmeet Singh was in Winnipeg to reiterate elements of his party’s climate plan, promising an east-west energy corridor (never mind the prohibitive costs or the fact that line loss is a real thing and much of that “green energy” wouldn’t survive the vast distance between Manitoba and central Ontario), a $15 billion “climate bank” and electrifying public transit.

The Liberals had a two-part environmental rollout, starting with Catherine McKenna in Ottawa to promise that a Liberal government would get to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, and that there would be five-year legislated climate targets to get there (but wouldn’t give any details on how, or what the consequences for failing to meet said targets would be). Later in the day in Burnaby, BC, Justin Trudeau promised to half the corporate tax rate for companies that develop or produce zero-emission products as a way to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. Because apparently there are no other mechanisms than to continue to dicker with the tax code.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Gun control theatre

Posted on by

While there was suspicion that the announcement was timed as a pivot from the past two days of bad press – Liberals insisting that his has been planned for days – Justin Trudeau was in Toronto yesterday for a morning of meeting people on the streets before he announced his long-awaited additional gun control measures which are guaranteed to please nobody – a total ban on semi-automatic assault rifles (never mind that there’s no actual definition of an “assault rifle”) with a buy-back programme, and the ability for cities to make additional regulations around handguns (as in, allowing them to attempt to ban them), plus some additional offers around licensing and the ability to forbid the purchase of new weapons after certain red-flags. The measures are not enough for those who want a national handgun ban, too far for certain gun enthusiasts, and almost certainly going to be useless because the problem of illegal guns is that the vast majority of them are smuggled from the US, which these measures largely won’t address (I didn’t see any promise for more resources for CBSA in the backgrounder). In other words, it’s a political play, trying to balance the need to be seen to be doing more about gun control for big cities where it’s a problem, while not alienating their rural voters (again), while also being hemmed in by jurisdictional considerations (Doug Ford, for example, has said he won’t go along with any kind of handgun ban that would fall under provincial jurisdiction). Nevertheless, the symbolism of banning AR-15s is something they hope to capitalise on, while they castigate Andrew Scheer for his promise to relax some gun control regulations, so that may be enough for them in the election in any case.

https://twitter.com/CochraneCBC/status/1175047467265642497

Speaking of, Andrew Scheer was in Saint John, New Brunswick, to promise that a Conservative government would spend $1.5 billion to get provinces new MRI and CT machines in an effort to reduce wait times (structural issues? What structural issues?) – never mind again that it’s provincial jurisdiction and he may have a hard time getting them to actually spend dollars that he’s earmarked for said purchases. Scheer also clarified that oil and gas subsidies would not be part of those he plans to eliminate – try to look surprised, everyone!

Jagmeet Singh was in Windsor to talk up the party’s pharmacare plan, and answer yet more questions on the Blackface issue, citing that he didn’t want to be complicit in Trudeau’s public exoneration. (And yet, the media is demanding this kabuki theatre to play out).

Continue reading →