Tag Archives: Terrorism

Roundup: Mandating bilingual tweets

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The Official Languages Commissioner has decreed that cabinet ministers should tweet in both official languages, which seems like a fairly concerning decree when you look at how some of those ministers are using the Twitter Machine to engage in some actual dialogue with actual Canadians (and some journalists too) about issues, without it all being canned statements and talking points. The caveat to the Commissioner’s statement is that they must use both official languages when communicating “objectives, initiatives, decisions and measures taken or proposed by a ministry or the government.” In other words, those canned links to press releases. The thing is, those are already being tweeted out by the official department accounts, whereas the ministers tweeting – at least for the good ones – are more “personal” and less filtered. Those are where the value in Twitter lies, and if the objective is to simply turn ministerial Twitter accounts to official releases, then what’s the point? I think this may be an instance where the Commissioner needs to perhaps re-evaluate social media and the engagement that happens over it.

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Roundup: The Adams nomination

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Day three of the Eve Adams floor crossing fallout, and once you wade through some of the sexist columns and tiresome Biblical references, a few things start to emerge. Adams had a very interesting interview on CP24 yesterday, and the host pressed her on a lot of issues and Adams seemed to have some coherent answers about changing her mind about income splitting when Flaherty came out with his objections, and that she was a loyal foot soldier for the Conservatives so their excuses about being happy to be rid of her are ringing hollow. She also said that she would be moving to riding she plans to run in, Eglington Lawrence, and that has already begun reaching out to the community there. The riding president says she’s welcome to run, but reminds everyone that it’s an open nomination. Trudeau told the media while in Winnipeg that he gave some reflection to accepting Adams into the fold, and said that it was Adams’ willingness to do the tough slog to win a difficult riding was what convinced him – and I think that’s borne out it in the fact that it’s going to be an open, contested nomination, and that Adams is going to have to do the hard work of convincing the grassroots members that she is the leopard who has changed her spots. And it’s going to be tough – here is one of the nomination candidates that she will be running against, and it’s going to be tough for her to beat someone of his credentials. I also believe that having Adams lose in a fair fight is part of Trudeau’s actual plan, where he gets the news value of her embarrassing the PM and then saying that the open nomination system worked. The fact that she was slotted into the riding’s nomination race without consultation seems to fit with that fact. But then again, what do I know?

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Roundup: The Liberals say okay

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It is not politically insignificant that the Liberals came out yesterday to say that they would support the new anti-terror bill, despite its flaws, but would work to try and get changes to it, in particular around the need for more oversight and to build in legislative reviews such as a sunset clause. In effect, it is a move that tries to blunt the Conservatives’ attack lines that the Liberals don’t support fighting terrorism (as some of their MPs still tried to peddle while making the rounds on the political talk shows last night). And if the Conservatives shoot down their amendments? Well, the Liberals plan to fix them once they form government (and parliamentary oversight is something the Liberals have been pushing for since they tried implementing it under the Paul Martin government, but the government was toppled and we all know what happened next). That’s not to say that there isn’t a lot to be concerned about with this bill, in particular that there is a broad expansion of powers with few limits, particularly that it doesn’t bar psychological harm. James Gordon writes how the strong language used to describe terrorists is letting them win, while Andrew Coyne wants a more reasoned debate on the bill rather than just lighting our hair on fire.

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Roundup: Baird bows out

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In the wake of John Baird’s resignation from cabinet (and coming resignation as MP – in the “coming weeks,” likely so that a by-election won’t need to be called before the general election), there is plenty of reaction to go around. There hasn’t been a lot of genuine speculation as to the reasons for why now was the time to go, other than the obvious calendar reason that with the parties looking to get their nomination races squared away in advance of the election, that he would need to clear the way so that his riding association could find a new candidate and get them into place in time. It has also been pointed out that Baird has had a keen sense of timing, knowing when it was time to get out of the Ontario PC party as it was on its way down, and the same may be the case federally (despite Baird’s effusive praise during his resignation speech). More than that, it seems clear that he’s got a plan for a corporate position to head to, but he needs to ensure that he’s got the ethics clearances in place. And no, I really don’t think he has any ambitions to come back and pursue the party’s leadership as he never had such ambitions and was more than willing to play the loyal number two. John Geddes has a longer-form treatment of Baird’s career. Michael Den Tandt says the departure leaves a problem for the Conservatives in Ontario. Don Butler writes of his “two-faces,” both partisan and collegial. Matthew Fisher notes that while Baird travelled widely, he didn’t really seem to accomplish much, and that the department will be glad to see him gone. CBC has thirteen of the more memorable Baird quotes, and seven of his files as minister of foreign affairs. And post-speech, Harper gave Baird the first of many awkward bro-hugs that followed.

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QP: Let’s keep repeating quotes!

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With John Baird’s big resignation speech out of the way, and all of the leaders present in the Chamber, it had the makings of a more exciting day. Thomas Mulcair led off, asking about the job losses at Target and wondered where the budget was — odd, considering that Target’s closure has absolutely nothing to do with the government. Harper insisted that he put out a number of economic measures, and read a quote from the CFIB that called the NDP’s measures “dumb and anti-small business.” Mulcair read a competing quote where the head of the CFIB praised an NDP proposal, then asked the same question again. Harper, in turn, doubled down on his answer. Muclair read the same quote yet again, then gave an anecdote about being in a Legion Hall in Sudbury before demanding to see the budget again, giving Harper yet another option to repeat the “dumb and anti-small business quote.” Mulcair railed about all of the eggs being in the “extractive basket” — not remotely true mathematically — and Harper bashed on the NDP being high tax. Mulcair gave a convoluted question about corporations sitting on dead money before demanding help for the middle class and a budget. Harper listed off a number of actions he announced. Justin Trudeau was up next, and decried the problems of the middle class and wondered why the government was giving tax breaks to those who didn’t need them. Harper praised the help they were giving families including a tax cut. Trudeau noted the cuts to infrastructure investments, and said the government’s priorities were wrong when they wanted to help the wealthiest 15 percent of Canadians. Harper reiterated how great his policies were for families. Trudeau then changed topics and wondered about a statement that Peter MacKay once upon a time about the need for parliamentary oversight of national security. Harper insisted that SIRC was robust and functioned well.

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Roundup: Baird on the way out

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The big news is that John Baird is about to resign as minister, with the notion that he won’t run again in the next election for whatever reason, though it is suggested he feels the time is right to move over to the private sector, and the way things operate these days is that if you don’t wan to run again, then you’re no longer in cabinet. There hasn’t been any whispering of any scandal, and he doesn’t have a family to “spend more time with,” so the notion that he feels the time is right to make the transition to the private sector is certainly plausible. This after former Australian PM Kevin Rudd was just in town to try and recruit Baird to help him reform a number of UN agencies (though from what I’ve heard about Rudd, Baird not wanting to work with him may be completely understandable). I have no idea who Harper will name as the new foreign affairs minister in Baird’s place, though Jason Kenney is certainly a good possibility. (After all, there is a good tradition of leaders sticking their rivals in foreign affairs in order to keep them out of the country). In the interim, though, Ed Fast is taking the job on an interim basis, which makes sense as he has been doing the diplomatic work on the trade file. It certainly keeps things exciting. Paul Wells puts Baird’s time in Foreign Affairs into some context, which shows why this is a real loss for the government.

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Roundup: Odd dismissals of oversight

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We’ve had the weekend to look over the new anti-terrorism bill, and it’s not really winning a lot of praise, other than being noted for changing the election narrative from one of economic stability to national security. The fuzziness around what constitutes “terrorist propaganda” that they want the powers to scrub from the Internet (and good luck with that task) is certainly one of the issues that will need to be examined in further detail. The mother of a Calgary man who went over to fight for ISIS, and later died doing so, says that it’s not enough to just take away passports – the government needs to offer some kind of de-radicalisation programmes to go along with the new powers. In fact, one thing the new powers desperately need are more oversight mechanisms and bodies for CSIS and others, but according to the government, that’s just “needless red tape.” No, seriously. SIRC is not effective oversight, and no, Canada is not so different from other countries that we don’t need these mechanisms. But hey, apparently we’re special for not having this kind of oversight, but I don’t think it’s something we should be patting ourselves on the back for.

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Roundup: More security, no more oversight

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The new anti-terrorism bill was unveiled today, but in the government’s singularly dickish fashion – sending journalists to a lock-up off the Hill where they couldn’t even see the bill for the first hour, while Harper made the announcement in a pre-campaign stop in a suburb of Toronto. While the bill would largely expand the powers of CSIS greatly, it lowers the legal thresholds for preventative arrest and peace bones, criminalising the “promotion” of terrorism, allowing CSIS to “disrupt” would-be terror activities, removing terrorist materials from the web, sealing court proceedings, and overhauling the national no-fly list. Oddly enough, nobody would say how any of these measures could have prevented the October 22nd shooting in Ottawa. What it doesn’t do is provide any new or additional oversight to the agency, unlike all of our allies (but hey, they finally filled one of the empty seats on SIRC yesterday, but it’s still not up to full strength and there’s no permanent chair. Yay oversight!). It’s a strange kind of obstinacy, and only serves to make it like the government has something to hide. And then of course there are the concerns from civil liberties groups and the Privacy Commissioner, which goes to the breadth of activities and again the lack of proper civilian oversight. Tyler Dawson writes that the need to criminalise that “promotion” of terrorism is an admission of being afraid of these terrorists.

https://twitter.com/cmathen/status/561220364957933569

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Roundup: Open federalism vs carbon pricing

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With the premiers in town for a Council of the Federation meeting, Justin Trudeau took the opportunity to have a sit-down with Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, and amidst the chiding of the PM for not deigning to make an appearance, one of the things they talked about was carbon pricing. Trudeau is walking a particularly fine line when it comes to the role of the federal government and the provinces in combating climate change, and this is nowhere illustrated better than in the way that different media organisations wrote up the comments. CBC focused on the fact that Trudeau thinks the federal government should leave it up to the provinces, but still have a role to play. The Canadian Press, meanwhile, wrote it up as the federal government needing to take a leadership role, and that the absence of that has forced the provinces to go it alone. Now, the two aren’t mutually exclusive, but it does point to the ways in which attempts to have nuanced policy can lead to misinterpretation and trouble, and it also becomes apparent that Trudeau will need to come out with a much more clarified position as to just what kind of leadership role he thinks that the federal government needs to play on the file while still letting the provinces do their own thing. Open federalism is a real thing, but there will need to be some kind of clarity as to roles, expectations, and of course the important question of who is paying for what, that will need to form part of that discussion going forward.

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Roundup: A look at the weeks ahead

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Parliament is back today, and to set the stage, Stephen Harper delivered a speech to supporters in Ottawa to announce that he would balance the budget, deliver new anti-terror legislation by Friday, and generally set the pre-election stage that this sitting is going to consist of. Because if there’s anything Canadians are really looking forward to, it’s a nine-month-long campaign. Meanwhile, can someone please point out to me where exactly a Liberal government dramatically hiked taxes, as Harper claimed? Because I’m drawing a blank on that one.

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