Tag Archives: The Senate

Roundup: A blow to the tanker ban bill

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The Senate’s transport committee voted last night to not proceed with Bill C-48, which bans tankers on BC’s northwest coast, but before anyone gets too excited, I would caution that it’s not the bill’s end. We just saw the Senate’s national security committee recommend changes to the gun control bill that would gut it, and those got overturned by the Senate as a whole, and I suspect we’ll see a repeat performance of that with this bill – but the Conservatives will put up a fight, and because this was one of the bills that they did not offer a final vote timeline in their agreement with the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Peter Harder, they will dare him to invoke time allocation on this. (I plan to write more about this in column form later).

In the meantime, Independent Senator Paula Simons was one of the deciding votes on this, and she explains it all over Twitter.

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Senate QP: Morneau explains…and explains

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Just minutes after the Commons QP ended, Senate Question Period got underway with special guest star finance minister Bill Morneau, for what was likely to be forty minutes of Morneau’s trademarked pabulum, but in slightly longer form. Senator Larry Smith led off with a completely question about how Canada can’t get pipelines built while we help China build theirs (not true), and demanded to know when the Trans Mountain expansion would be built. Morneau noted that there were a number of questions in there, but stated that by buying the existing pipeline, they wanted to get it built but we engaged in a meaningful process of engagement with those along the line, and that they planned to make the decision by June 18th. On Smith’s other questions, the decision to be part of the Asian Infrastructure Bank was part of our global economic engagement, which has a positive impact on the Canadian economy, and on Bill C-69, they looked forward to the amendments from the Senate. On a supplemental, Smith asked whether his office was working with Catherine McKenna’s about amending Bill C-69, and her acknowledged that they were engaged, but the amendments were up to the Senate.

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Roundup: Questions about that Senate poll

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There is some drama going down at the Senate’s internal economy committee over Senator Donna Dasko’s poll on the Senate appointment process. Conservative senators say the poll is really partisan and should be a personal expense, whereas Dasko says they just don’t like the results and are trying to shoot the messenger. But I will have to say that I’m leaning more toward the Conservative side on this one because Senator Yuen Pau Woo – the “facilitator” of the Independent Senators Group – and others have been using this poll to push the Senate appointment process as an election issue, knowing full well that Andrew Scheer plans a return to partisan appointments and Jagmeet Singh follows the NDP dogma of preferring to abolish the Senate (but good luck getting the unanimous consent of the provinces). That is de facto partisan, whether Woo and the Independents believe it to be or not (and it’s somewhat galling that they don’t see this as being partisan, and yet they refuse to engage in the horse trading on managing bills in the Senate, because they see that as a partisan activity when it most certainly is not).

We all know that I didn’t find the poll particularly illuminating, because it could have asked Canadians if they wanted a pony and would have achieved similar results. I do especially find it objectionable that these senators are using it to justify their world view of the Senate, which is and of itself a problem – their particular disdain for everything that came before, dismissing it as being partisan and hence evil and wrong, is part of what has caused the myriad of problems the Senate is now facing with its Order Paper crisis and committees that aren’t functioning, because they don’t understand how Parliament or politics works and they don’t care to. But now they have a poll to point to that says that Canadians like the independent appointments process, as though that justifies everything. It doesn’t and it creates more problems in the long term.

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Roundup: Beyak suspended

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It was inevitable, but the Senate has voted to suspend Senator Lynn Beyak without pay for the remainder of his Parliament in accordance with the recommendation from the Senate’s ethics committee after the findings of the Ethics Officer that letters Beyak posted to her website were racist and breached the ethics code for senators. Beyak got her chance to defend herself yesterday before the vote, and she insisted that she has done nothing wrong, that there’s nothing racist about the “truth” (as she sees it), and she thinks that her website is a beacon of positivity because she’s trying to assert that residential schools for Indigenous children weren’t all bad.

In terms of next steps, Beyak will likely reappear at the start of the next parliament, following the election, where she will be given another chance to apologise, and prove that she understands why those letters were racist (something she has been completely incapable of comprehending to date – and the Ethics Officer did point out that this was an issue of comprehension, not malice). At that point, if she still refuses to see the error of her ways, the Senate could revisit the matter and vote to suspend her again for that parliamentary session (meaning until there is a prorogation or dissolution), and if that extends past two years, there is the possibility that they could declare the seat vacant at that point. More likely will be pressure to simply vote to expel Beyak for the Senate because she has been unrepentant in exposing the Senate to disrepute for her racist actions – at which point she may get the hint and do the honourable thing and just resign, but she does seem to be sticking to her guns here. Regardless, this suspension is now the first stage in a two-stage process of dealing with the problem. But those who want Beyak to be out immediately will need to be patient, because the power to expel a senator can’t be used casually.

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Roundup: The Norman trial collapses

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As expected, Crown prosecutors announced yesterday that they were staying the breach of trust charges that had been laid against Vice Admiral Mark Norman regarding the leaks of cabinet confidences related to a shipbuilding project, and people who don’t pay attention to details decided that the timing was suspicious and spun a number of conspiracy theories, many of them around the fact that Andrew Leslie was due to “testify against” the government. (Reality check: Leslie agreed to be a character witness for Norman months ago, and PMO was fully aware and there were no indications that they tried to dissuade him from doing so). With that out of the way, Norman made a statement about bias and presumption of guilt by senior levels of government, and his lawyer, the formidable Marie Henein, threw shade at PMO – stating that while the prosecutors acted independently, she felt PMO was withholding documents for far too long in the process – and the suggestion is that some of the Harper-era documents were what eventually exonerated him (though the Crown attorneys said there was no one piece of evidence that was responsible). As this was happening, Harjit Sajjan announced on his way into caucus that the government would pay Norman’s legal expenses. Norman later met with the Chief of Defence Staff, General Jonathan Vance, who said that with this out of the way, that Norman would be returning to duty soon, though we’ll see if it will be back as vice-chief of defence staff, as the role has since been filled by someone else. There are lingering questions – lots of them – about what happened here, but there aren’t likely to be many answers anytime soon given that the trial for the bureaucrat also charged with leaking information is coming up.

And great Cyllenian Hermes, were there a lot of hot takes on the end of the Norman trial today. Christie Blatchford described Norman’s ordeal, while Andrew Coyne has so many questions. Susan Delacourt and Matt Gurney both point out that this could remove one controversy from Justin Trudeau’s plate before the election, but both point to the lasting reputational damage that this has helped to inflict on Trudeau.

I have a few comments of my own that nobody seems to have brought up – one of them is to point out that the RCMP unit that investigated the leak was apparently the same one who investigated Senator Mike Duffy, and so ballsed up that investigation that we all know how it ended. Perhaps we should question whether this investigative unit is very good at their jobs. The other thing that bothers me in this whole affair was less about the leak than it was about what appears to be a high-ranking military official who balked when Scott Brison, the Treasury Board president, put the process on pause so that they could examine the sole-source contract granted by the previous government (as is the official version of events). Remember that this contract was granted after the House of Commons rose for the summer (and before the election call), and when Senators raised it while they still sat, the government offered no clarity or details, so there was no proper scrutiny at the time. That matters. But whether Brison paused the process to examine it, or to possibly open it for tender, it shouldn’t have been for Norman to work his contacts to try and pressure the government to resume the process (as is the allegation), because that undermines the civilian control of our military. Nobody is talking about his angle, which I think needs a better airing in all of this.

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Roundup: Green wins, and the AG’s report

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After the Green Party won their second seat in Monday night’s by-election in Nanaimo–Ladysmith, it was inevitable that we would be subjected to a litany of hot takes about what this means for the upcoming federal election, most of which I’m not going to bother reading because frankly, I’m not sure it means anything at all. The Greens have been doing well provincially on Vancouver Island, where this riding is, and more than that, this particular candidate was once an NDP candidate who was booted from the party (apparently for views about Israel), and when the Greens picked him up, he won for them, while the NDP vote collapsed. Add to that, Green wins in BC, New Brunswick and PEI were also predicated by incumbent governments who had been in place for a long time (well, in New Brunswick, it was a constant PC/Liberal swap), and that’s not necessarily the case federally. While Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh tried to spin this as “proof” that Canadians care about the environment (for which both will try to tout their party policies on the same) we can’t forget that Canadians want to do something about the environment in the same way that they want a pony – it’s a nice idea that nobody has any intention of following up on because it’s a lot of effort and mess. This has been proven time and again. I would also caution against the notion that this means that “progressive” votes are up for grabs, because the Greens, well, aren’t all that progressive. If you read their platform, it’s really quite socially conservative, and they had whole sections essentially written by “Men’s Rights Activists” because they have little to no adult supervision in their policy development process. So any hot takes you’re going to read about the by-election are probably going to be full of hot air (quite possibly this one as well).

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1125798043905818624

Auditor General’s Report

The big news out of the Auditor General’s report was of course the backlog that the Immigration and Refugee Board faces regarding asylum claimants in Canada. The Conservatives, naturally, have jumped on this to “prove” that the current government has somehow broken the system, but every single expert that was cited over the day yesterday said that the Liberals inherited a system that was already broken (some went so far as to say that the Conservatives deliberately broke it in order to force a crisis that would allow them to adopt more draconian measures – though those backfired in a spectacular way, worsening the backlog), and that they have taken steps to increase the IRB’s resources. I wrote about some of these issues a while ago, and the IRB was starting to streamline some of their processes and start making use of technology like email (no, seriously) that cut down on some of the bureaucracy they were mired in – but as with anything, these kinds of changes take time to implement and have an effect. But expect the narrative of the “broken” system to continue in the run up to the election. Meanwhile, here are the other reports:

  • Half of Canadians who call a government call centre can’t get through, which is blamed on technology that was allowed to go obsolete
  • The RCMP are still not adequately prepared to deal with active shooter situations.
  • Our tax system hasn’t kept up with e-commerce and needs modernization
  • The mechanism to prevent governments from doing partisan advertising has little documentation and rigour.

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Senate QP: Some of Goodale’s Regina Monologues

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While his planned appearance had been postponed a few weeks earlier due to “unforeseen circumstances,” Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale was in the Senate for Question Period, which curiously interrupted a vote bell, as the rules of the Senate allow. Senator Plett led off, asking about the gun control bill and the amendments that the committee is debating, asking if he would “instruct” the Independent senators to kill the amendments of not, to which Goodale quipped that he would never presume to tell senators what to do. When Plett tried to press as to whether the government would entertain amendments, Goodale gave a paean about the need for debate and votes.

Linda Frum raised the House of Commons voting to list the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization, and eleven months later, they had not been. Goodale reminded her that there is a detailed process under law that was being followed, and noted that some of their subsidies had already been listed.

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Roundup: A victory for carbon prices

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In a 3-2 decision, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal has ruled that the federal carbon price backstop is not only constitutional, but it also qualifies as a regulatory charge and not a tax, which means that the way it’s being applied is also constitutional. Predictably, Scott Moe has vowed to take this to the Supreme Court of Canada (and a 3-2 decision made this a certainty if the political element wasn’t there already), while Catherine McKenna, predictably, called it a victory for the planet.

In terms of analysis, here is the long thread from economist Andrew Leach’s reading fo the decision, and his commentary on what the dissenting judges got wrong is particularly illuminating. As well, economist Lindsay Tedds’ wheelhouse is the whole difference between taxes and regulatory charges, so she has some comments here. I would note that the majority decision is going to be some of the precedent that Ontario’s Court of Appeal will look at as they’re drafting their own ruling on the Ontario reference, and if New Brunswick, Alberta, and Manitoba proceed with their own challenges, it will help to inform them as well. But with it headed to the Supreme Court of Canada – as Ontario’s will inevitably as well, and everyone knows it – it may not make any more sense for those other provinces to carry on their own challenges as it’s unlikely that they’ll make any more novel arguments, and it would seem to be swifter for all involved to let the SCC process happen sooner than later (though it certainly won’t happen before the next election, and there is a hope among opponents that a Conservative win will render the whole issue moot if they scrap the federal law beforehand).

Jason Markusoff notes that while the court victory is a modest win for the Liberals, the continued carbon tax crusading by Kenney and Ford isn’t winning them much applause from the blue-chip Toronto corporations that they’re looking to attract with their “open for business” shtick. (Here’s a hint: Stop creating uncertainty by cancelling established environmental plans and creating political risk by cancelling projects and immunizing yourselves from litigation). Andrew Coyne, meanwhile, asserts that the ruling is a victory for common sense – as well as the planet.

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Roundup: Suspension as a first step

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The Senate’s Conflict of Interest and Ethics Committee has considered the Senate Ethics Officer’s report into the conduct of one Senator Lynn Beyak and found her response to be wanting. Because she has refused to acknowledge wrongdoing and hasn’t removed the racist letters from her website, let alone apologise for posting them, they are recommending that she be suspended without pay for the remainder of the current parliament (meaning that it would end when parliament is dissolved and the writs drawn up for the election). Part of the thinking is that the time away – without pay or access to Senate resources – will give her time to think about her actions, and they suggest that the sensitivity training about racism and Indigenous history should be out of her own pocket. And if she still refuses to take action, they’ll look at having Senate administration take the letters down from her site (though nothing would stop her from moving them to a site that she hosts on her own), and if she still refuses action, well, they can revisit her fate in the next Parliament.

A couple of things to consider in all of this. First – it may help to re-read my column on the subject – is that they are likely recommending suspension because they will be very reluctant to recommend full expulsion without exhausting all avenues, and to afford her every single bit of procedural fairness and due process they possibly can in order to ensure that if it comes to that, that they will be on unshakeable ground. Setting a precedent for the removal of a senator should be done very, very carefully, and it has been argued in some circles that the reason why Senators Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau remain in the Chamber are because the need to be politically expedient in their suspensions and not affording them proper fairness essentially made it impossible to recommend expulsion in the future because they could plausibly argue that they hadn’t been afforded the due process. Consider that lesson learned with how they are dealing with Beyak.

I can’t stress enough that recommending expulsion is an extraordinary step, and they can’t just do it because she’s an unrepentant racist (even though she doesn’t see herself that way) – especially because part of the whole reason the Senate has such strong institutional protections is because Senators are supposed to be able to speak truth to power without fear of repercussion. But it’s clear that this isn’t what Beyak is doing, and they need to go to great lengths to prove it and to provide enough of a paper trail to show that there is no other choice to deal with her than expulsion, because this is a very dangerous precedent that they would be setting. More than anything, the measures they are recommending are done in the hopes that she does the honourable thing and resigns, though it remains to be seen if she will get that hint (given that she refuses to believe that she’s done anything wrong). This will be a slow process. People will need to be patient. Demanding her immediate removal will only make things worse.

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Senate QP: O’Regan regales

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It was the first time I’ve managed to get to Senate Question Period in their new chamber (previous attempts having been thwarted in one manner or another), and while the building is amazing, I find myself underwhelmed by the temporary Chamber itself. This having been said, the ministerial guest of honour today was Seamus O’Regan, minister for Indigenous Services, his first appearance in his new portfolio. Senator Don Plett led off, accusing the government of killing Indigenous jobs by rejecting the Northern Gateway pipeline, to which O’Regan stated that individual projects are as diverse as the diverse Indigenous communities, so you couldn’t make sweeping statements. He added that they work with Indigenous communities because it’s the right thing to do, and businesses want certainty, which is why the Conservatives’ environmental assessment legislation wasn’t working. On a supplemental, Plett accused the government of threatening future Indigenous projects with Bill C-69, and O’Regan took a swipe at the previous government’s record before regaling the Senate with the notion of doing regional assessments with the legislation.

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