Tag Archives: The Senate

Roundup: Contemplating compromised committees

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As the summoning of the new Parliament draws ever closer, we’re seeing more stories about the procedural intricacies of the first few sitting days, and the coming confidence vote on or before the 10th because of the Supply cycle and the need to pass the Supplementary Estimates before that date. Fair enough – those can be expected to pass pretty handily because nobody is going to want to head right back to the polls (and I wouldn’t expect the Governor General to grant an immediate election either – the developing convention is waiting at least six months, providing there is another viable governing party, though that would be the real trick given the current seat maths).

This all having been said, there was something in this interview with Pablo Rodriguez, the new Government House Leader, which sticks in my craw, and that’s the talk about possibly undoing the rule changes that prevent parliamentary secretaries from being voting members on Commons committees, and I. Just. Cannot. Even.

While the chances of this happening are fairly slim, given that it would require opposition support and they are unlikely to get it, it’s still crazy-making. This reflex to go super political in a hung parliament is understandable but deeply frustrating because it undermines the whole raison d’être of Parliament, which is to hold the government to account, and committees are one very big piece of the accountability puzzle. Parliamentary secretaries should have no business even being near committees because it undermines their independence. It’s bad enough that under the previous parliament, they were still on the committee in a non-voting capacity, but it still allowed ministers’ offices to attempt to stage manage what went on (to varying degrees, depending on which committee it was). Having the parliamentary secretaries as voting members simply turns committees into the branch plants of ministers’ offices, and we saw this play out for the better part of a decade under Stephen Harper. Committees are not there to simply take orders from the minister and waste everyone’s time, and it would be hugely disappointing if the Liberals returned to that way of thinking simply because it’s a hung parliament. If we think that the only time to let Parliament function properly is if there’s a majority for the government, then it’s a sad state of affairs for our democracy.

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Roundup: The call is coming from inside the caucus room

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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.

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Roundup: Putting Alleslev at the fore

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As expected, Andrew Scheer named Leona Alleslev as his new deputy leader yesterday, but left the majority of his House leadership team in place. Alleslev is a bit of a curious choice, given that she was a Liberal until a little over a year ago until she crossed the floor in a huff (and in conversation with MPs, it seems that a large part of her reason for crossing was because she was essentially being ignored by the PMO when she was trying to step up, and she felt unappreciated for her efforts, which is fair enough). There were plenty of sarcastic responses from long-time Conservatives over Twitter, given how she campaigned against Stephen Harper in 2015. Others Conservatives – Scheer loyalists in particular – were trying to insist that Alleslev represented the way the party needed to bring Blue Liberals into the fold – but this assertion is fairly problematic given that the Venn Diagram of Blue Liberals and Red Tories would show a fairly significant crossover in areas of being socially progressive, which is partly where the Conservatives are having problems right now. As well, it’s hard to qualify Alleslev as reaching out to those voters when she goes on TV and just parrots all of Scheer’s talking points, particularly around the environment, to the point where she was contradicting her previous statements and trying to walk them back when called on them. I’m not sure how demonstrating groupthink is reaching out to new voters. It’s also hard not to be cynical about Alleslev’s appointment as a box-ticking exercise about her being both a woman and from the GTA as the political reasons as to why she was chosen.

Scheer also took the opportunity to vow that he was staying on as leader, and insisted that the party needed to pull together behind him. This while Stephen Harper’s former campaign manager, Jenni Byrne, also called for his ouster, and there also talk about how Conservatives in Alberta are angry that he wasn’t able to defeat Trudeau in spite of Trudeau doing his level best to defeat himself in some cases.

In amidst this, Lisa Raitt was also keeping herself in the media, putting out the supposition into the public sphere that the more xenophobic populism that reared its head during the party’s last leadership campaign branded them during the election, and that it changed the perceptions around the party. (Raitt is also defending Scheer and saying that his weakness is that he doesn’t come off as a “strong man” on any particular area). And while Raitt is trying to insist that the likes of Kellie Leitch (and eventually Maxime Bernier’s Twitter persona) were somehow isolated incidents, she ignores the fact that Scheer himself promulgated far-right conspiracy theories about the UN Compact on Global Migration, that his comms team spread racist memes about irregular border crossings, that he offered succour to avowed racists because he thought he could use them to “own the Libs,” and that even though he knew that the xenophobia and far-right element of the “yellow vesters” had taken over that so-called “convoy” to Ottawa, he nevertheless still met with them – in full view of their xenophobic signs and symbols – and then took weeks to actually denounce white supremacy when called on it. So I’m having a hard time giving Raitt the benefit of the doubt for this theory of hers.

Meanwhile, Matt Gurney posits that Scheer’s ability to survive now turns on whether he can convince enough people that he can actually do better in the next election – and that’s becoming harder to do. Paul Wells poses more questions that the Conservatives need to consider regarding Scheer, the direction of the party, and their ability to build a winning coalition internally that has proved fairly elusive in recent decades.

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Roundup: Lowest cost and least economically-damaging

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The Ecofiscal Commission released their final report yesterday, and said that Canada will have to increase carbon prices to $210 per tonne by 2030 is the cheapest and most effective way to reach our climate targets, though certainly not the only way – regulation or subsidies are also possible, but less effective and far more costly. Increasing carbon prices would also mean increased rebates under the current federal backstop (but provinces could certainly recycle revenues in other ways, and some provinces could entirely eliminate their income taxes with said revenue), which would have other knock-on economic effects, but for simplicity and cost, they point toward carbon prices. (It’s worth noting that this analysis didn’t cover the output-based pricing system for large emitters, which helps take things like trade-exposure into account to provide those industries more time to adjust).

Predictably, the Conservatives freaked out and started a new round of social media shitposts about how this was the Liberal plan all along, and they would prevent the cost of everything from going up, etcetera, etcetera, but that’s a dishonest position because other models, like regulation and subsidies, drive up the costs just as much, but they tend to be passed onto consumers in a hidden way, whereas straight-up carbon pricing is transparent and makes it easier for consumers to make better choices (which addresses the demand-side of carbon emissions).

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To that end, here is the Ecofiscal Commission’s Chris Ragan making the case in his own words, while Heather Scoffield suggests that premiers Kenney and Ford should be thanking Trudeau for imposing the federal carbon backstop because it’s a less economically damaging way of reducing emissions than their plans to date have been.

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Roundup: Frivolous lawsuits that help no one

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Because climate lawsuits on behalf of youths are apparently all the rage, another one has been launched, this time against the Ford government in Ontario, because of their cancellation of the cap-and-trade system and their challenging of the federal carbon price. I can barely even.

So, to recap: Lawsuits are about getting individual remedies, and these actions are not designed to do so. They are using “novel” Charter arguments, which are an abuse of process. It’s also trying to use the courts to impose public policy solutions, which is not the job of the courts. That’s not their function, and trying to use the courts because you lost at politics is not how things work. And further to that point, the courts are already overburdened, and these kind of frivolous suits – and that’s exactly what they are – waste everyone’s time and court resources, and I would fully expect the courts to impose costs on those who brought forward these complaints that waste everyone’s time.

I spent an afternoon on the Twitter machine of being accused of not taking climate action seriously because I made these points about this lawsuit, which is not the case at all. My point – as exemplified by the (very good) lawyer who joined in the fight over Twitter, is that this is a political problem, not a legal one. You don’t use a saw to hammer a nail, which is what this lawsuit is attempting to do. The courts are not the place for this because they can’t force a government to come up with a climate change plan that meets the expectations of scientists – that’s not how life works, and it’s not how democracy works. And sure, young people are frustrated with the slow action so far, but democracy depends on people organising, and that means doing the hard work of getting involved in riding associations, changing party policy though conventions, and agitating internally to do something. And it means organising. I can’t stress this enough – organise, organise, organise. Protest votes won’t get you anywhere – and let’s face it, that’s what Green votes are. That’s how you make change in politics, and the sooner that young people realise this – and you can join parties as young as sixteen and start volunteering and voting on nominations and resolutions – the more you will be effecting meaningful change. (Want to learn more about how that works? Read my book).

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Roundup: Look at all the chimeric ministers

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With the usual bit of pomp and circumstance, the Cabinet has been shuffled in advance of Parliament being summoned. It is bigger by two bodies, there are seven new faces, a few new portfolios – and baffling ones at that – a few being folded back into their original ministries, and yes, gender parity was maintained throughout. The Cabinet committees are also getting a shuffle, which gives you a glimpse at what they see the focus will be, and spoiler alert, it’s very domestic and inward-looking – not much of a surprise in a hung parliament where there are few plaudits or seats to be won on foreign affairs files. It’s also no surprise that it’s Quebec and Ontario-heavy, and largely representing urban ridings, because that’s where the Liberals won their seats.

And thus, the biggest headline is of course that Chrystia Freeland has been moved from foreign affairs to intergovernmental affairs, but with the added heft of being named deputy prime minister – the first time this title has been employed since Paul Martin, and Freeland assures us that it’s going to come with some heft and not just be ceremonial. She’s also retaining the Canada-US file, so that there remains continuity and a steady hand on the tiller as the New NAFTA completes the ratification process. It also would seem to indicate that it gives her the ability to keep a number of fingers in a number of pies, but we’ll have to wait for her mandate letter to see what specifics it outlines, though the expectations that she will have to manage national unity in this somewhat fractious period is a tall order. Jonathan Wilkinson moving to environment has been matched with the expected talk about his upbringing and education in Saskatchewan, so as to show that he understands the prairies as he takes on the environment portfolio. Jim Carr is out of Cabinet officially, but he will remain on a Cabinet committee and be the prime minister’s “special representative” to the prairie provinces, which is supposed to be a less taxing role as he deals with cancer treatments (though I don’t see how that couldn’t be a recipe for high blood pressure, but maybe that’s just me). Two other ministers were demoted – Kirsty Duncan, who will become deputy House Leader, and Ginette Petitpas Taylor, who will become the deputy Whip – though it should be noted that both House Leader and Whip are of added importance in a hung parliament.

The opposition reaction was not unexpected, though I have to say the Conservatives’ talking point was far pissier than I would have guessed – none of the usual “we look forward to working together, but we’ll keep our eyes on you,” kind of thing – no, this was bitter, and spiteful in its tone and language. Even Jason Kenney was classier in his response (but we all know that lasts about five minutes). That’ll make for a fun next few years if they keep this up.

As for some of my own observations, I was struck by the need to name a new Quebec lieutenant, given that Trudeau used to say that they had a Quebec general (meaning him), so no need, and lo, did the Conservatives had meltdowns over it. Likewise, there was thought under the previous parliament that they would eliminate all of those regional development ministers and put them all under Navdeep Bains (whose ministry has rebranded again from Industry, to Innovation, Science and Economic Development, and is now Innovation, Science, and Industry), which kept a lot of the kinds of nepotism that was rampant in those regional development agencies at bay. Now Trudeau has hived off the economic development portfolio into its own ministry, to be headed by Mélanie Joly, but she’ll have six parliamentary secretaries – one for each development agency region, which feels like the whole attempt to break those bonds is backsliding. Science as a standalone portfolio was folded back into Bains’ domain, but the very specific project that Kirsty Duncan was tasked with when she was given the portfolio four years ago was completed, so it made a certain amount of sense. Democratic Institutions is gone, folded back into Privy Council Office and any of its functions Dominic LeBlanc will fulfill in his role as President of the Queen’s Privy Council (which is a role that is traditionally secondary to another portfolio). Trudeau continued to keep his Leader of the Government in the Senate out of Cabinet, which is a mistake, but why listen to me? (I’m also hearing rumours that Senator Peter Harder is on his way out of the job, so stay tuned). The fact that David Lametti got a new oath as minister of justice and Attorney General to reflect the recommendations of the McLellan Report was noteworthy. But overall, my biggest observation is that Trudeau is doubling down on the kinds of chimeric ministries that tend to straddle departments, which makes for difficult accountability and confusing lines of authority on files. The most egregious of the new portfolios was the “Minister of Middle Class™ Prosperity,” which is a fairly bullshit title to attach to the fact that she’s also the Associate Minister of Finance, which should have been significant in the fact that it’s the closest we’ve been to a woman finance minister at the federal level, but dressing it up in this performative hand-waving about the Middle Class™ (which is not about an actual class but about feelings) is all the kinds of nonsense that keeps this government unable to communicate its way out of a wet paper bag, and it’s just so infuriating.

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In hot takes, Chantal Hébert sees the move of Freeland as the defining one of this shuffle, and notes that it could either be just what they need, or it could be a kamikaze mission for Freeland. Susan Delacourt sees the composition of the new Cabinet as one that corrects past mistakes and of taking on lessons learned. Robert Hiltz points to the two polarities of this Cabinet – the farce of the Minister of Middle Class™ Prosperity, and the menace of putting Bill Blair in charge of public safety. Paul Wells makes the trenchant observation that carving up ministries across several ministers has the effect of creating multiple redundancies that will make more central control necessary – and I think he’s right about that. (Also, for fun, Maclean’s timed the hugs Trudeau gave his ministers, which didn’t compare to some from 2015).

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1197245638548869120

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Roundup: Don’t bug the LG. Ever.

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In a move that is as brazen as it is utterly galling, Jason Kenney’s government legislated the province’s elections commissioner out of existence, after he levied tens of thousands of dollars in fines over the UCP leadership shenanigans. To make it all the more gob-smacking, Kenney and the minister in charge of the bill claimed that this wasn’t politically motivated, which earns a “Sure, Jan.” But even more appalling was the response from opposition leader Rachel Notley, for which I am about to suffer a rage-induced stroke.

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No. No, no, no, no, no. No. You DO NOT involve the lieutenant governor in this. She does not have discretion to accept or reject bills. She is not the “boss” of Jason Kenney. She cannot reject bills on the advice of the opposition, or her own recognizance for that matter. Her job is to accept the advice of the first minister who commands the confidence of the legislature, which Kenney does – even if the bill is unconstitutional. Her job is to act as a constitutional fire extinguisher, and we are a long way from there. Here’s Philippe Lagassé with more:

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I’m going to add an additional point about this being an appalling lack of basic civic literacy from the leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition in the province, but it implicates the entire media ecosystem as a whole, particularly when they ignorantly act as though a vice-regal has discretion about things like government formation, as exemplified with the stories of the hung parliaments in BC and New Brunswick, and even when shows like Power & Politics wrongly said that Trudeau “asked permission” from Her Excellency, Julie Payette, to “form a government” when they were the incumbent and already had a government and didn’t need to form one, let alone the fact that her job is not to grant permission. But stories like that plant the idea in people’s minds that she or any other vice-regal has personal discretion and can decide who will or will not form a government and apparently allow or disallow legislation, much like the pervasive idea that you can write to the Queen and she’ll do something about whatever it is you’re complaining about. That’s not how the system works. This shouldn’t be rocket science, but apparently these very basics are not being understood by those who are supposed to know these things because it’s their jobs to.

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Roundup: Big numbers for hate clicks

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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.

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Roundup: Singh thinks he has leverage

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Yesterday it was Jagmeet Singh’s turn have his one-on-one with prime minister Justin Trudeau in advance of the Cabinet shuffle and Throne Speech, and Singh came with his own list of priorities and demands – most of them as unrealistic as Andrew Scheer’s. And Singh’s insistence that he was open to voting against the Throne Speech, and that the party was ready to go to another election at any time, was simply precious. Unable to read the room, or calculate the seat maths, Singh apparently thinks he’s going to play kingmaker when there are more willing partners on the dance floor.

To that end, Singh was demanding immediate action on pharmacare, and pretending that Trudeau hasn’t been clear that he plans to implement the Hoskins Report, which called for a universal pharmacare system. The problem is that you can’t have “immediate action” on it, because it’s actually a very complex thing. You can’t actually just say “we’ll pay for all pharmaceuticals” because the costs would be extraordinary, and phasing it in with a single national formulary is actually incredibly challenging to do, especially across all provinces and territories, because they have different formularies currently and you run the risk of reducing people’s existing coverage (as what happened in Ontario when they briefly offered pharmacare for all young people in the province). It’s going to require careful negotiation with the provinces and stakeholders, and Singh’s constant refrain that this can happen immediately is fantasyland – just like his request that they also consider adding dental care in there.

As for some his other demands, the one about more “science-based” targets for emissions reductions is pure buzz-word. Science is not public policy, and you can’t just hand-wave and go “science” because it doesn’t work like that. Demanding the government abandon its judicial review of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal decision on compensation for Indigenous children in care? As a lawyer, you think he would be sensitive to the concerns of bad precedent – particularly if the Tribunal did exceed their statutory authority. Energy-efficient retrofits? Electrified transit? Green jobs? It’s like they haven’t paid much attention to the Liberal climate plan and what carbon pricing does to create market incentives. Electoral reform? Apparently he didn’t pay attention to the hot garbage report that the parliamentary committee released last parliament. His “super-wealth tax”? The one that would require the government to rewrite the entire tax code to make it conform to American concepts? I’m sure they’ll get right on that. Singh has no leverage, and yet he thinks the government should simply adopt the NDP platform or have the party’s support withheld. I’m sure the government will get right on that.

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Roundup: Upcoming Speaker election

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As you may be aware, the very first order of business in any new Parliament is the election of a Speaker, and today we have confirmation that the incumbent, Geoff Regan, is planning to run again for the role, as are the deputy and assistant deputy Speakers from the last parliament, Bruce Stanton, Carole Hughes and Anthony Rota, and one new face, Conservative MP Joël Godin. What is new in this Parliament is the plan to run the election by way of preferential ballot rather than successive rounds of voting, which is no doubt intended to speed up the process and reduce the use of hospitality suites between voting rounds as has happened in previous Parliaments. (ETA: Apparently I am mistaken and this is the second time they will have used a preferential ballot. My apologies). The speedier process will also allow them to have the Speech from the Throne on the same day, which is unusual in and of itself.

One of Regan’s main advantages in this race is experience, which is going to be a very important consideration in a hung parliament situation. And while many of us would love an assertive Speaker like the UK’s John Bercow (perhaps without the alleged bullying of House of Commons staff), who did a lot to protect the rights of MPs against the party leaders and the Cabinet, we have to remember that Canadian Speakers are hampered by the Standing Orders that limit their powers. Some of those rules may be changing – the Liberals pledged as part of their platform that they would like to see the Speaker do away with the speaking lists provided by the party whips and House leaders, which frees up the Speaker to pick MPs to speak and perhaps enforce some more discipline that way – but it’s only a half-measure so long as we still allow scripts and prepared speeches in the Commons. Nevertheless, if they go ahead with even the half-measure, that could be a bigger challenge for any Speaker to take on, so having one with some experience under his (or her) belt would be a beneficial thing.

Meanwhile, Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column offers the guidebook on how the Speaker election will be run, as well as just what the job entails should any other MPs be considering the job.

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