With the clock ticking down to the end of the current parliament, the government is going to start lighting a fire to getting C-51 passed over the next two weeks, before the Easter break. That means accelerating the committee hearings to largely stuff them in the next week, with lots of witnesses in single sittings and little time to hear from each of them. It’s not a surprise that the government would use this particular tactic again to ram though contentious legislation, as they’ve done repeatedly, because they apparently have little capacity or desire to actually do the due diligence that they’re supposed to when it comes to these kinds of bills. Not surprisingly, there’s going to be plenty of opposition to large parts of the bill, and some of those who do support parts of the bill are at least concerned that there’s not enough study of the ramifications, or that there is enough needed oversight. But will the government make changes? Unlikely. Adding their voices to the opposition to the bill over the weekend was the Canadian Bar Association.
Tag Archives: Terrorism
Roundup: Freezing out the ambassador
It’s a very curious tale that didn’t seem to get much attention yesterday, but the Globe and Mail had a very interesting and lengthy dissection of the relationship between the Canadian government and the US ambassador to Canada, and it’s not good. It’s also one of those cases where it’s hard to assign blame, because so much of what’s terrible seems to be coming from both sides. First Obama took nine months to announce a replacement, which was seen as a snub, and then when Bruce Heyman was appointed and arrived in Canada, he basically said he couldn’t help with any of the big files – Keystone XL and the new Detroit-Windsor bridge – and wanted us to bend on other files like intellectual property. Oh, and he told a crowd at his first big outing that we need to pretty much get over Keystone XL. So the Canadian government froze him out – Harper won’t meet with him, nor will the cabinet, and since Harper still meets with Obama at international summits, and John Baird had a good relationship with John Kerry, it was all well and good to go around Heyman, who in turn started going around the federal government and has been focusing on premiers instead. It’s all perfectly dysfunctional, and perhaps a sign of the dysfunction at the top, and problems in the world’s biggest trading relationship.
Roundup: Blowback on gun comments
The backlash from the Conservatives’ fundraising appeal for rural gun owners is starting, from NDP leader Thomas Mulcair, to Quebec premier Philippe Couillard, to Ontario’s former attorney general. In fact, numerous legal authorities are reminding Canadians that they don’t have the right to use deadly force to protect their homes – unless it’s a case of self-defence, but those situations are rare, and use of force must be proportional in order to not be criminal. And then the PMO started backpedalling about things Harper did or did not say, and how they are aware of criminal misuse of firearms, all while the gun lobby is chafing that the government hasn’t gone far enough for their liking. See the swamp that the government has stepped in, while curiously trying to import a culture war that doesn’t actually exist in Canada. It has also been pointed out that Harper made the gun comments in part of a broader discussion of rural issues while in Saskatchewan, and that he missed the mark on some of the more pressing concerns in that area as well.
Roundup: Contradictions over a niqab policy
It’s definitely starting to look like there’s a either a rift forming in the NDP when it comes to their position on the niqab, or they’re saying one thing in English and another in French, trying to please both audiences in contradiction to the other. Alexandre Boulerice went on Quebec media to talk about the need to keep it out of the civil service, and that we need a national Bouchard-Taylor-esque commission to determine reasonable accommodation for religious minorities around the country – because that worked so well in Quebec, and apparently the rest of the country has the same insecurities around multiculturalism that we need to develop some kind of nonsense term like “interculturalism” to cover for assimilationist policies. Meanwhile, in English, MPs like Paul Dewar and Pat Martin are saying there’s no issue with the niqab and no party policy around it, and Thomas Mulcair has been dancing around the issue when asked directly, talking only about how the Federal Court judgement on the citizenship ceremony issue went to process – a ministerial decree – than the substance of the niqab issue. And if you thought that Boulerice was just freelancing that opinion, it was being tweeted out by the party’s official French Twitter Machine account, and give the degree to which communications are centralised in that party (possibly worse than the Conservative centralisation), it would seem to indicate that such a message has been officially sanctioned, and that the party looks to be trying to please different audiences in the country with contradictory messages. Meanwhile, The Canadian Press took their Baloney Meter™ to the Conservative claims around the niqab ban for citizenship ceremonies (spoiler: It’s full of baloney).
Roundup: Talking over criticism
We saw more testimony on C-51 yesterday, pretty much all of it scathing in one way or another – not that the Conservatives on the committee were really open to hearing such criticism, and went so far as to mischaracterise some of the comments on the evening political shows, and talking over those witnesses while in committee to attempt to make their points for them. One of the witnesses yesterday was AFN national chief Perry Bellegarde, who wants the bill withdrawn for not having consulted with First Nations, because he sees it as an assault on their rights, saying that they have been labelled as terrorists for standing up for their rights and lands. (I can’t recall this government ever having done that, for the record, and I think his argument is a bit of a stretch, but maybe that’s just me). A former head of SIRC – and former Progressive Conservative cabinet minister at that – called the bill a constitutional mess, which is a pretty good indication that the criticism on the bill is coming from all sides – not just the environmentalists and civil libertarians. The Conservatives, meanwhile, have blocked the Privacy Commissioner from appearing at committee, but they insist that he was “consulted” on the bill. The problem there is that he didn’t see the bill before it was tabled, which is really tough to call it consultation since he couldn’t see the language of what he was supposed to be consulted on. John Geddes profiles the two law professors who have taken the lead in pointing out the many flaws in the bill, who also appeared yesterday.
QP: Don’t question, just support C-51
Because Thursday is the new Friday, none of the major leaders were in the Commons, leaving it up to Megan Leslie to lead off, asking about Turkish reports that a Canadian helped those three British teens cross into Syria. Stephen Blaney wouldn’t comment, but invited her to support Bill C-51 instead. Leslie tried again in English, and got much the same answer. Nycole Turmel then asked about the extension of the mission in Iraq, to which Jason Kenney insisted that they hadn’t made a decision, but when they do, a motion will be tabled. Turmel and Leslie then wondered when a budget would be tabled, to which Kevin Sorenson decried Liberal and NDP tax increases. John McCallum led off for the Liberals, detailing the history of racist comments by John Williamson, and demanded that he be kicked out of caucus. Pierre Poilievre stood up to say that Williamson apologised, and that Justin Trudeau should apologise for his comments about the Holocaust (which, it bears noting, he didn’t actually mention). After another go around of the same, McCallum pressed one last time, and this time Tim Uppal repeated the very same talking points.
Roundup: A poor excuse for a culture war
Apparently we’re calling it a “culture war” now, this little fracas going on about the niqab and the Prime Minister decreeing what a woman can and cannot where, and when they can and cannot wear it. Face-coverings, for example – bad at citizenship ceremonies where a woman’s identity has already been determined and she’s completed all of the steps for citizenship, but okay in the civil service (or so says Tony Clement). Both of the opposition leaders are trying to press the narrative that Harper is “fostering intolerance” with his particular decrees, along with the way that he has singled out Muslims with references to mosques in his statements on countering terrorism. The NDP and the Conservatives are trying to cast Trudeau’s speech on Monday as over the top, and accusing him of bringing up the Holocaust when he in fact didn’t – only the immigration policy at the time as it dealt with Jews, and that was as an example of places that the country has failed in the past. For his part, Harper insists that the “overwhelming majority” of Canadians agree with him about niqabs – except that’s the thing about minorities, and why we shouldn’t subject them to the whims of the majority. It’s one of the hallmarks of a liberal democracy, as Harper should well know. Trudeau also tried to play his own rhetorical games, saying that Harper accused the Muslim faith of being anti-woman, when he was referring to the culture that insists that women wear niqabs. (Harper, incidentally, doesn’t seem to be pressing Saudi Arabia, where this cultural practice originates, on their misogyny). So really, everyone is playing political games here, and that’s as surprising as finding out that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Paul Wells notes, however, that it’s the first time in that the Liberals have given a Liberal argument in years – since the last three leaders, in fact. So while we are getting some discussion on an issue like this, I’m not convinced that this really qualifies as “culture war” territory, at least not like we’re seeing south of the border.
Roundup: The many reactions to Trudeau’s speech
Justin Trudeau’s Monday night speech in Toronto certainly has a lot of people talking, and it’s not just the trolls on Twitter! His attempt to reclaim “liberty” for the Liberals instead of the Conservatives, who like to talk a lot about freedom (particularly from taxes and big nanny state governments) is certainly going to cause a reaction, and did it ever. Jason Kenney, not surprisingly, was not a fan and railed about “politically correct Liberals” not thinking critically about Muslim women wearing niqabs. Michael Den Tandt sees the speech as trying to create a narrative framework for the Liberals going forward, and notes it gained from the timing of things like Chris Alexander conflating the hijab and the niqab, Jason Kenney’s Twitter Machine misadventures, or John Williamson’s racist statement about “whities” and brown people. (The NDP, conversely, are going on about how Trudeau can talk liberty when he plans to vote for C-51, which they see as a threat to liberty). Terry Milewski sees this as another shot fired in a nascent culture war about the niqab, and notes that just as Trudeau compared the current climate against Muslims with the anti-Semitism during the 1940s, while Stephen Blaney turned around and invoked the Holocaust to defend C-51. Aaron Wherry looks at the speech in contrast to the Federal Court ruling on the niqab in citizenship ceremonies, and the subsequent debates about religion and feminism that the Conservatives and Liberals are having.
Roundup: The other CSIS bill gets scrutiny
The Senate heard a lot of testimony yesterday regarding Bill C-44 – the other bill to boost CSIS’ powers, in case you’d forgotten about it. Those new powers include being able to operate abroad and break laws in other countries, which might be a bit of a problem, and raises a bunch of questions when it comes to how you oversee those kinds of operations, particularly given the limitations that SIRC faces when they can only visit one CSIS foreign posting per year to look into their operations. There was also testimony from Ray Boisvert, the former assistant director at CSIS, who described the internal processes of conducting investigations and getting warrants, painting a pretty robust system of high bars to proceed with investigations or operations – but again, we have to take his word for it, because we no longer have the in-house oversight of the Inspector General’s office, and SIRC does an annual review. SIRC, incidentally, said they have enough resources to do the job they’re supposed for now, but if they’re going to need to take on new responsibilities such as overseeing a far more robust and empowered CSIS, well, they’ll also need more money, which this government seems pretty unwilling to give. Curiously, the deputy minister of Public Safety said that the Auditor General also provides oversight of CSIS operations, which is pretty wrong – he looks at value-for-money, which is not the kind of oversight that CSIS requires.
QP: On eggshells about friendly fire
Despite the fairly significant news that happened in Iraq over the weekend, none of the main leaders were present in the Commons for QP today, leaving it up to Megan Leslie to deliver a paean about the soldier killed by friendly fire, and asked for information about his death. Jason Kenney stood up to offer condolences, and said that there were three investigations ongoing. Leslie accused the government of hiding the nature of the mission, and asked how many troops were in a combat situation. Kenney repeated the condolences in French, and praised the advise and assist mission. Leslie asked about a debate and vote on a future mission extension, to which Kenney spoke about the importance of the mission against the “death cult” of ISIS. Carol Hughes asked about the crude oil derailment in Northern Ontario, to which Lisa Raitt assured her that Transport Canada was taking strong action. Hughes asked the same in French, and Raitt gave assurances that they were moving the DOT-111 cars out of the system, along with other measures. Marc Garneau led off for the Liberals, first giving condolences for the fallen soldier, and then asked about the CIBC job quality survey results. Pierre Poilievre stood up to announce that the 1.2 million net new jobs were of good quality and they were lowering taxes. Scott Brison asked the same again in English, got much the same response in English, and for a final round, Poilievre gave some route talking points about the Liberals raising taxes.