In a rather surprising announcement at the end of the day yesterday, the government has named the Parliamentary Librarian as the interim Parliamentary Budget Officer until Kevin Page’s replacement can be found. That process is internal to the Library, and Page has expressed concerns that the makeup of the committee charged with the search is being kept secret, but I do get concerned when opposition parties want input into those processes, because it ultimately erodes the accountability for those appointments. Look at the questions surrounding Arthur Porter these days, and how Vic Toews skirts accountability by pointing out that the opposition leaders were consulted on his appointment. That’s why the prerogative power of appointment should rest with the Governor in Council – because it keeps the executive as the sole resting place of accountability. Meanwhile, the job criteria for the next PBO have been posted, and they include qualities like “discreet” and “consensus seeking” – perhaps not too surprising after the battles that Page had with the previous Parliamentary Librarian over his role.
Tag Archives: Supreme Court
Roundup: Voting down legislative stunts
Not one, but two opposition stunts were voted down in the Commons yesterday. The first was the NDP’s opposition day motion on Senate abolition, which they, the Bloc and Elizabeth May voted in support of, and was defeated 186-101. The other was the Bloc’s motion to repeal the Clarity Act, which only they voted in support of, the NDP “totally not whipped” into voting down, and it went to its defeat 283-5. Bob Rae called out the NDP for their “total incoherence” on their Clarity Act/Unity Bill position, and deemed the party to be an unstable coalition in the wake of their “orange wave” fortunes. And now, with these votes out of the way, one can hope that the opposition parties get back to their actual jobs of holding the government to account rather than to continue with stunts and grudge-matches, but that’s probably asking too much. Sadly.
Roundup: Wanton constitutional vandalism
The NDP have decided to spend their opposition day motion on what is basically the endorsement of wanton constitutional vandalism, but in this particular case, trying to put forward the case for Senate abolition. Never mind that their arguments will ignore federalism, bicameralism, and the actual work that the Senate does or perspective it provides – no, it’ll be all specious catchy slogans and intellectually dishonest false comparisons masquerading as substantive debate. It’s like saying that you don’t know what your pancreas does, so why not remove it? Meanwhile, Thomas Mulcair won’t say whether or not he’d appoint Senators if he were to form government in 2015 – never mind that whether he believes in the Senate or not, there is still a constitutionally mandated legislative process that needs to be followed. But you know, details.
Roundup: Fallout from a Thursday Gong Show
So, yesterday was a busy day. Bit of a gong show really. But let’s start with the more shocking news – that NDP MP Claude Patry crossed over to the Bloc. Okay, well, it’s actually not all that shocking. Paul Wells has predicted this since 2011, and it could very well be the first of many. A rather shamefaced Thomas Mulcair took to a microphone and rather sulkily declared that Patry had voted in favour of an NDP PMB that would require MPs to resign and run in a by-election if they wanted to cross the floor – not that said bill passed, and Patry indicated that the vote was whipped, and has let it be known that the rigid party discipline of the NDP is one of the reasons that he decided to take his leave. And I’m going to be a bit counter-intuitive here, but I say that Patry is under no obligation to run in a by-election. He was elected to fill the seat, and that means that voters have put their trust in him to exercise his judgement, and if his judgement is that the NDP was no longer where his values lay, then he should be free to exercise that judgement and leave the party. Despite what people may think, seats are not filled based solely on the basis of party affiliation – yes, it is a major part of the decision on the part of many voters, but we are also voting for a person to fill that seat – not a robot wearing party colours to recite the speeches prepared for him by Central Command and vote on command. And guess what – the accountability mechanism is that if those voters don’t believe he made the right choice in his judgement, they can vote him out in the next election. Michael Den Tandt writes that Patry’s defection is a mess of Mulcair’s own making.
Roundup: Supreme Court refines what constitutes hate speech
The Supreme Court handed down its decision on the Whatcott case, which basically refined the definition of what constitutes hate speech in the country. They also said that the “love the sinner, hate the sin” argument is not acceptable either when it comes to hate speech against gays, for what it’s worth. Emmett Macfarlane notes the issues around defining what a ‘”reasonable person” would constitute as hate, as the decision seems to indicate. Charlie Gillis laments the lost opportunity to affirm free speech, no matter the content, because human rights legislation is being abused as a blunt tool in the country. Jonathan Kay sees the decision as privileging anti-Christian censorship because they believe in the fire-and-brimstone retribution for gays, especially because the “love the sinner, hate the sin” argument holds value for Christians. Andrew Coyne laments that the judgement didn’t spend enough time prefacing the value of free speech. And Bill Whatcott himself? Plans to keep up his anti-gay pamphleting because apparently Christ has nothing better to do than ensure that Whatcott denounces the gays.
Roundup: Awaiting the Whatcott decision
It’s going to be an interesting day as the Supreme Court rules on the Whatcott trial, which will be a major ruling around hate speech laws in this country.
The police records for Senator Patrick Brazeau’s arrest warrant have been released, and all of the details are here – grabbing, punching, spitting, stair-pushing, and so on.
In other Senate news, the CBC polled Senators as to their residence, and of the 104 Senators, 17 refused to respond as to where they lived – 16 of those Conservatives (the sole Liberal being Mac Harb, who is currently under investigation). They have an interactive chart of their responses. Meanwhile, Senator Patterson, who is also having his residency questioned, made the mistake of running away from reporters yesterday, but when they caught up to him said that he is a resident of Nunavut (he is the former premier of the NWT when they were a single territory), and that he’s cooperating fully with the audit. It has also been noticed that Harper was less strident in his defence of Senator Wallin and her repayment of undisclosed expenses yesterday. Oh, and while Charlie Angus may rail on about how the awful Senate is keeping everyone in the dark, it may be worthwhile to remember that there a) hasn’t been time to complete any of the audits, and b) that MPs’ expenses are just as opaque if not more so than those of Senators, so if he wants transparency then he can open up his own books while he’s at it.
Roundup: The unravelling cases of Senators Wallin and Duffy
In the past couple of days of Senate revelations, we find that Senator Pamela Wallin has an Ontario health card and not a Saskatchewan one, which raises the question about her residency – no matter that she spent 168 days in Saskatchewan last year. Wallin also apparently repaid a substantial amount in expense claims before this whole audit business started, which is also interesting news. Senator Mike Duffy, meanwhile, could actually end up owing $90,000 plus interest on his living expense claims rather than the $42,000 that was cited over the weekend. Oops. Tim Harper looks at the sideshow that is Senator Duffy’s non-apology and smells a deal made to save his job. Senator Cowan says that repayment doesn’t answer the questions – especially not the ones about residency, which means he may not be up to protect Duffy – or Wallin and Patterson’s – seats. And those Senators who’ve been silent on their residency claims are now being called before the Senate Internal Economy committee to explain themselves. Terry Milewski goes through the entire housing claims allegations and fixes an appropriate amount of scorn on the idea that two ticky-boxes are “complex” on the forms.
Roundup: Exit John Duncan
In a surprise four-thirty on the Friday before a constituency week announcement, Aboriginal affairs minister John Duncan resigned from cabinet yesterday. To be fair, I’ve been waiting for him to resign “for health reasons” for a while, but what was surprising that the reason for said resignation was that he wrote an improper letter to the Tax Court a couple of years ago as a character reference for a constituent, which of course he should not have, and it sounds like after the Flaherty/CRTC letter affair, cabinet ministers were asked to check their files for any other potential infractions and this turned up. James Moore has been given the file for the time being, but given its size and political sensitivity at the moment, it’s likely it’ll be handed off to someone else soon, though it likely won’t signal any major changes in cabinet. Harper won’t be doing a major shuffle for a while yet – the common consensus is late June, but I’ve heard from my own sources that it may not be until next year, when it’s a little closer to the election. John Ivison says that an “all-star” will need to take the file – but they’re few and far between in the Conservative ranks, and Baird, Harper’s usual Mr. Fix-it, likes his current job with Foreign Affairs.
Roundup: Succession and Senate consequences
University of Ottawa professor Philippe Lagassé writes the definitive look at the Crown succession bill the government introduced last week, and proves how the government and its arguments are entirely wrong about it. Australian constitutional scholar, and the authority on succession issues, Anne Twomey, writes about the bill and how it de-patriates our constitution back to Britain, as well as is a telltale sign about the lengths the government will go to avoid dealing with the provinces.
Speaking of the lengths that Harper will go to in order to avoid the provinces, regarding last week’s other big news – the Senate reference – Paul Wells notes that Harper’s plan seems to have been to try to destabilise the legislative equilibrium by pushing what small changes he could and take advantage of the resulting free-for-all – which sounds about right. Over in the Globe and Mail, there is a look at what an elected Senate under the current proposal means regarding provincial parties running candidates in a body dominated by federal parties. The result is almost certainly chaos that would be largely unworkable, reduced to issue-by-issue coalitions, grinding the legislative process to a halt. Free-for-all that a PM could try to work some additional executive powers out of in order to “break the logjam”? Don’t discount the possibility.
Roundup: Five more for the Upper Chamber
Stephen Harper marked the Friday before the House comes back by fulfilling his constitutional duty to appoint senators – in this case, five new ones to fill vacancies. Included in this batch is Denise Batters, the widow of a former Conservative MP and a tireless activist for suicide prevention after the death of her husband. Note that she is the kind of person you want nominated to the Senate. Also included are another “elected” (and I use the term loosely) nominee from Alberta, who as it turns out has a penchant for expense accounts. Remember how Senate elections are supposed to ensure that these kinds of people don’t get selected? Yeah, good luck with that one. There’s a bit more about the other appointees here.
AFN National Chief Shawn Alteo is laying out timelines for his talks with Stephen Harper, and is looking for concrete progress within four months. John Geddes looks at how the First Nations file will dominate the return of the Commons next week. Here is a look at the letter that the Attawapiskat band council delivered to Chief Theresa Spence that demanded the end of her hunger action.