Jennifer Ditchburn remarks on the frosty state of relations between the Liberals and the NDP on the Hill these days, with each side accusing the other of playing dirty politics around the harassment allegations, and from what I’ve heard behind the scenes, even dirtier politics were being attempted but got blunted along the way. The NDP have tended to always have a particular loathing for Liberals, and recent events seem to have made everything worse. That said, I’ve also noticed a certain intensification of enmity toward the Liberals from both the Conservatives and the NDP in venues like Question Period of late. While Harper will respond to NDP questions by chiding them about something or being simply dismissive, with the Liberals he throws out accusations and dredges up irrelevant history. The NDP have increasingly tried to tie the Liberals into questions that are supposed to be directed toward the government, or to invent credit for the good things the Liberals are doing. It’s almost as if both see where the real threat to their fortunes lies.
Tag Archives: Supreme Court
Roundup: Leave it to (yet another) Officer
Thomas Mulcair has written to the two other main party leaders about establishing a process to deal with MP-to-MP harassment, and proposes a clear definition in the Standing Orders, an independent Officer of Parliament to deal with complaints, training for MPs and staff, and to ensure that the process protects the rights of victims including to privacy. While some of this sounds reasonable on the surface, there are a few flags to my eye, some of it centred around the creation of yet another Officer, which gives the impression that this kind of thing is commonplace enough that you would need someone to deal with it full-time, rather than amending the mandate of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, for example, to deal with these kinds of issues as well. The proliferation of these Officers is actually a problem, and much like the NDP’s desire to blow up the Board of Internal Economy to create a new bureaucracy to deal with the administration of the Commons, it’s a problem that seeks to remove the self-governing powers from MPs. This is an issue that needs actual debate – if the message is that we can’t trust MPs to manage their own affairs, then what does that say about their ability to manage the country’s affairs? In a way it’s almost infantilizing them, and that should be concerning. Liberal colleagues say that they want the investigations taken care of quickly, and it was noted that there had been discussion of a harassment policy arising from a 2012 document by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and that members of all parties were to take it back to their caucuses to discuss the matter, but it hadn’t moved forward since. Paul Wells looks at these harassment allegations in the broader picture of the sad place that the capital finds itself in at the moment.
Roundup: An upcoming rounding error surplus
Joe Oliver delivered his fall economic update in Toronto, and as expected, the government is still technically in deficit until next year, at which point they are expected to turn out a modest $1.9 billion surplus, most of which is pretty much spent on their suite of “family” tax measures including the income splitting tax credit – all of it a challenge to the opposition parties and specifically Justin Trudeau, daring them to cancel the “tax cuts” (most of which aren’t really cuts). And it’s not a surplus plan without risks. Thomas Mulcair immediately called the figures a “mirage” because they depend on spending cuts, while Justin Trudeau referred to the tax measures as “unfair” because the income splitting measure in particular disproportionately benefits the wealthy. Andrew Coyne notes that Harper has put the opposition in a box with his tax cuts and expenditures unless those parties are willing to raise the GST. Paul Wells notes that this falls squarely within Harper’s re-election plans – that he doesn’t need to promise anything other than the fear that his opponents’ plans are ruinous. Stephen Gordon provides some context to Oliver’s pronouncements.
If not before Diefenbaker RT @InklessPW: Joe Oliver: Not since Diefenbaker has federal tax burden been this low. pic.twitter.com/Ov1ptUdYko
— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) November 12, 2014
If you're buying into the CPC surpluses, you're buying into their austerity as well. Federal direct program spending: pic.twitter.com/RaFFuUUwBu
— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) November 12, 2014
Roundup: Hollande pays a visit
French President François Hollande landed in Calgary and met with Harper and the Governor General in Banff as the start of his state visit yesterday. He’ll arrive in Ottawa today to address a joint session of Parliament.
Candice Bergen admits that the “family tax credit” aka sorta-income-splitting, won’t benefit single parents because they’re generally too low-income, which again raises the utility of giving tax credits to those who are less likely to need them – as in wealthier two-parent families, never mind that it’s the kind of pandering to the social conservative base that it represents.
Roundup: Warnings about changes to the CSIS Act
Stephen Blaney has confirmed that the government will table a bill next week to enhance CSIS’ powers to better combat terrorism, in order to enhance cooperation with our Five Eyes allies, and to enhance the anonymity for CSIS informants. Never mind that the Supreme Court ruled that those sources already have adequate protections, and the fact that the lawyer for Mohamed Harkat warns that the inability to cross-examine this kind of testimony is dangerous. Former Privacy Commissioner Chantal Bernier also warns that rushing into these kinds of changes could have longer-term human rights consequences. But terrorists!
Roundup: The SCC hears the assisted suicide case
The Supreme Court of Canada heard the arguments in the assisted suicide case yesterday, where the BC Civil Liberties Association’s disabled lawyer smashed the arguments of disability groups warning of a “slippery slope,” where the government put forward arguments in favour of a blanket ban that the Justices could scarcely believe, and the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada’s lawyer made specious comparisons to capital punishment. In all, it was a fascinating day at the Court, and we’ll see what decision comes down in a few months’ time. Carissima Mathen gives her recap and analysis to Power Play here.
Roundup: Mulcair offers $15/day childcare
The NDP announced their national childcare plan, promising $15/day spaces across the country, with $5 billion over eight years intended to create 370,00 spaces by 2018-19, and one million spaces after the eight years, with the federal government paying 60 percent of the tab, the provinces 40 percent. The Liberals, of course, are pointing out that there would have been a similar programme a decade ago had the NDP not sided with the Conservatives to bring down the Martin government, as they had already done the hard part of negotiating deals with the provinces – something a hypothetical future NDP government would have to start over from scratch in a different fiscal reality. They also don’t think the maths work out in terms of per-space funds. The Conservatives are making doom sounds about the universal child benefit, which the NDP say they’re going to maintain, putting that much more of a hole in the fiscal picture. It’s not seen as a model that benefits all families, and there are better models of getting more women into the workforce using existing federal tax deductions that could be tweaked. Economist Stephen Gordon re-upped a previous post of his with regards to the problems with the Quebec model and how it tends to fail both vertical and horizontal equality tests, and also responds to some of the critics he’s heard from all yesterday.
My TL is full of people saying K-12 is free and universal, so why not daycare? Or post-secondary education? Here's why: (1/n)
— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) October 14, 2014
There is a public good argument for K-12: democracy benefits from a citizenry w basic literacy/numeracy and certain common knowledge (2/n)
— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) October 14, 2014
Outside of disadvantaged children, am unaware of any extra benefits daycare provides. (My reading of @kevinmilligan's point.) (3/n)
— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) October 14, 2014
PSE is specialised training, and gains largely captured by student. Public good argument is weak. (4/n)
— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) October 14, 2014
If you want to make daycare and/or PSE obligatory (WHY??) then you are free to use the K-12 analogy. Then make the case for it. (5/5)
— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) October 14, 2014
Roundup: Assisted suicide heads to the SCC
With the Supreme Court challenge to assisted suicide laws heading to the Supreme Court tomorrow, here’s a look at some of the other countries’ laws in that regard. Carissima Mathen gives us a primer on the assisted suicide case going before the Supreme Court this week.
Roundup: 28 instances, fewer charges
The RCMP say they have disrupted or intervened in 28 instances where people have been involved in high-risk travel, be it people returning after fighting with radicals abroad or when they plan on heading over. No word on how many people have had their passports revoked, and there have apparently been no new names added to the no-fly list, and there have been very few charges under anti-terror legislation. The government will likely try to use this low figure to say that we need even more anti-terror laws, and yet it makes one wonder about the actual scope of the problem. Andrew Coyne wonders about the threat that ISIS poses to Canada directly, and if people should be shrugging it all off. (Spoiler alert: no).
Roundup: Not an imminent threat
The heads of CSIS and the RCMP went to committee to say that while ISIS is not an imminent threat to Canada, we have to be vigilant about domestic terrorism threats. Well, sure. And then Stephen Blaney talked about arresting these people and throwing them behind bars, because you know, due process and stuff. Blaney also said that they won’t be implementing exit controls, because those belong to totalitarian countries – but they do share entry data with the Americans, which is a de facto exit control system because if one enters one country, they had to exit the other. But that’s not totalitarian. Incidentally, the government has also announced funding for a bunch of new studies on finding the root causes of domestic terrorism and radicalization. And here Pierre Poilievre assured us that the root cause of terrorism is terrorists.