Tag Archives: The Senate

Roundup: Getting the TPP to the finish line

Posted on by

The bill to enact the Trans Pacific Partnership has passed the House of Commons and arrived in the Senate, and the race is on for its swift passage, as there is a desire for Canada to be among one of the first six countries to ratify the deal (currently three others have ratified). In the Commons, the NDP were the prime opponents to the deal, but they’re not a force in the Senate. The Conservatives in the Senate are just as keen on its swift passage as their Commons counterparts were – and they tried on more than one occasion to pass the bill at all stages without debate (because hey, who needs to do the job of scrutinising bills and holding government to account?)

While we can expect a bit more scrutiny in the Senate, I have to wonder where any delays will come from. When it comes to the Independents, one of their own are sponsoring the bill, so he will likely lead a push within that caucus in the way of organising briefings and trying to muster votes, so it would largely be an issue of whether any of them want some particular extended study on issues in the bill. The Senate Liberals tend to be free-traders, but they will want to insist on some scrutiny, as is their forte – they can often be counted on to do some of the heavy lifting that MPs are unwilling to do. So while I don’t expect them to hold up the bill, I would expect them to do their due diligence, which means it won’t sail right through, though I wouldn’t expect it to take long.

So where would I expect any delays to happen with this bill? With the Leader of the Government in the Senate’s office, given his reluctance to do any negotiation of timelines for bill passage. If there’s to be any delays, I personally would expect them to come from bottlenecks of other bills that are languishing because they can’t manage to get them passed at a reasonable pace because nobody wants to do the actual negotiation of timelines. Delays will come from incompetence, rather than malice. We’ll have to see how severe it will be, but that seems to be the state of things in the Senate these days.

Continue reading →

Roundup: A “grand coalition” is a terrible idea

Posted on by

Over in New Brunswick, where there has been no movement on whether or not there will be a new government, we are being treated to such views as the suggestion that there should be a “grand coalition” between the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives in the province to…rise above partisan interests? Erm, well, leaving aside the fact that there is a lot of bad blood between the leaders and it’s never going to happen, I find the suggestion in and of itself utterly offensive. Why? Because our system depends on there being an opposition to hold the government to account. That’s the whole point of parliament after all – to hold government to account, and while backbenchers are supposed to play that role as well as the opposition, in practice it often doesn’t work that well because the incentives are rarely there when there are Cabinet posts to distribute and the fact that we’ve bastardized our leadership system so as to neuter caucus’ ability to hold their leaders to account. Such a “grand coalition” would mean that the province has an opposition comprised of two three-member parties, which would have to fight over who gets to be the Official Opposition, and would have a hard time doing the job of holding a massive coalition government to account.

Now, I will add that New Brunswick and its peculiar political culture once returned a legislature that was 100 percent Liberal and had zero opposition members, and they managed to make it work. Sort of. But it’s not a situation that anyone should want to repeat, because it’s a Very Bad Thing for democracy and the practice of Responsible Government. Opposition plays an important role, and I know that people don’t like it because the adversarial nature can become both theatrical (witness Question Period), but if members don’t take that theatricality to heart, it can become embittering – especially if there are few avenues for cross-partisan bonding. I don’t know enough about how that part of the political culture works in New Brunswick, but the diminishing avenues for such bonding in Ottawa has created a less collegial parliament than it used to be in years past, and that’s a problem.

https://twitter.com/SkinnerLyle/status/1052295726477312000

Meanwhile, the lieutenant governor is straying dangerously out of her lane in issuing statements warning the parties to come to a solution because she doesn’t think the province wants a new election, and that means also finding a Speaker. This shouldn’t be public, and I get that some people want transparency, but she shouldn’t be doing this – especially because it gives people the idea that she can boss around the premier, which she can’t actually do unless we want to undo 170 years of Responsible Government in this country. It’s especially bad if the parties are trying to play the LG and trying to force her hand in some way – which is the kind of gutless manoeuvre that we should expect from Canadian politicians who don’t like to be seen to be making unpopular decisions and will try to foist the blame onto someone else. This whole situation is distasteful, and everyone needs to grow up and behave like adults.

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1052316915140423680

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1052317982884425729

https://twitter.com/SkinnerLyle/status/1052335901366476800

Continue reading →

Senate QP: Frustrated as an Albertan

Posted on by

Following the swearing-in of five new senators, Senate QP got underway with special guest star, natural resources minister Amarjeet Sohi. Senator Larry Smith led off, asking about the Trans Mountain pipeline and research around diluted bitumen spills and the federal response. Sohi responded with a bit of a roundabout recap of the Federal Court of Appeal decision and the lack of marine considerations with the original NEB report, and now they were filling in that gap – but didn’t really respond to the question. Smith asked how this research played into the tanker ban on the northwest coast of BC. Sohi noted the ban didn’t apply to Trans Mountain, but that it was in place on the northern coast because of the lack on infrastructure there to deal with a spill, but natural gas from LNG was a different matter.

Senator Neufeld worried about low prices for natural gas versus high carbon prices, and Sohi reminded him that climate change is real and causing damage to coastal communities and forests, with billions of dollars in costs, meaning it was irresponsible for any government to ignore those costs, which is why they gave provinces the flexibility to price pollution in a way that makes sense to them, and cited the success of BC’s model.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Secret document demands

Posted on by

The saga of Vice Admiral Mark Norman’s trial is making its way to the floor of the House of Commons, as Norman’s defence team has been trying to suggest that Brison tried to play a part in delaying the Davie Shipyard contract on behalf of his friends in the Irving family. Brison, meanwhile, tried to fend off the attacks in QP by suggesting that he did his due diligence as Treasury Board president to question the sole-source contract that the previous government entered into on the eve of the election.

Where this gets even more interesting, however, is with the suggestions in the documents that Norman’s team filed, was that senior bureaucrats tried to scuttle the deal because it could interfere with the established National Shipbuilding Programme, which everyone was so enormously proud of, and from there, Norman tipped off Davie officials, which was eventually leaked to the CBC. Added to that, Norman’s team are demanding a number of documents that have been deemed to be Cabinet confidence, which creates added complications because those are secret and could demand all new levels of safeguards for the court process if they are to be turned over. Trying to make political hay out of the government turning over the documents or not could be fraught with future consequences, however, for any future government that wants to protect secret materials from a court process, and given the growing propensity for people to turn to the courts when they lose at politics, that possibility could come sooner than one might expect. Nevertheless, this is an interesting case to keep an eye on, if only to shine a light on how broken our country’s procurement processes really are.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Protecting parliament from court interference

Posted on by

The decision in Mikisew Cree First Nation v. Canada (Governor General in Council) at the Supreme Court of Canada yesterday has been described in some cases as relieving the government of the Duty to Consult Indigenous communities when preparing legislation, but I think some of that misses the very real issue of the separation of powers and parliamentary privilege – particularly when the news channels would immediately trot out Indigenous lawyers to say that this was an infringement on the Duty to Consult, and that it was a “missed opportunity” to get legislation right, and so on. (And lo and behold, here’s Pam Palmater to argue just that, and I find her analysis flawed). In fact, the CBC piece on the decision buried the aspect about separation of powers at the very bottom of the piece, despite the fact that it’s at the heart of the ruling.

To recap, the separation of powers is the doctrine that the executive, legislative, and judicial branches have different roles and you shouldn’t have them meddling in one another’s business, which is exactly what the case was proposing to do – to allow the courts to weigh in on legislation before it’s been passed, or in this case, even been drafted. That’s a huge overreach by the courts, and a giant infringement on parliamentary supremacy. Why that’s especially important is because we’re seeing a growing movement of people who try turning to the courts when they lose at politics, which is very bad for democracy. (In fact, it appears that the Mikisew are engaging in a bit of that very thing here, objecting to the changes to the changes to environmental assessment legislation). If the Mikisew had their way, it would allow for the courts to weigh in on the legislative process at all points, which not only makes legislation impossible, but it means that parliament can no longer govern its own affairs, which is a very bad thing. Of course, there were many differences of opinion between the justices as to how this all shakes out, but they all agreed that the courts have no role in interference in the legislative process, and I don’t think that was highlighted nearly enough.

https://twitter.com/cmathen/status/1050384273394622464

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1050384955954483200

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1050386530752032768

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1050389501523050496

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1050390172947296257

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1050393327521038336

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1050397264298950657

This being said, they did affirm that the Duty to Consult is still necessary – just that it didn’t need to be mandatory before drafting legislation. Smart governments who take the Duty seriously would do so in the planning stages of legislation, and there are opportunities to engage in consultation during the legislative process, particularly at committees, when amendments can be proposed that would assist with accommodation. Emmett Macfarlane also suspects that we could see the Senate take a more active role in ensuring proper consultation as it weighs in on bills as well, which could be an interesting evolution in the Senate’s activities as we move forward with its “new” characteristics.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1050391764069019649

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1050392582931369984

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1050393088823185408

Meanwhile, Philippe Lagassé digs into Justice Brown’s reasoning around the Crown’s distinct capacities. Here is a thread from Emmett Macfarlane on his thoughts on the decision. And here’s University of Ottawa law school vice dean Carissima Mathen to explain the decision.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Yet more dubious suggestions hosted by the GRO

Posted on by

Over on the Government Representative Office website, Government Leader in the Senate – err, “government representative” Senator Peter Harder has been hosting suggestions from former senators of late on how to “reform” the Senate. Because of course he has. And not all of the suggestions are particularly helpful, or good for the Senate in the long run. The latest example is from Senator Pierre De Bané, who was a senator for thirty years and an MP before that. De Bané seems to think that what the Senate needs more than anything is the independent oversight body that the Auditor General wants instituted before voluntarily neutering its powers by passing a motion to only use a suspensive veto. Because hey, if it’s good enough for the UK…

I’ve written numerous times that the notion of an independent oversight body risks the senate’s status as a self-governing parliamentary body. I would be okay with an audit committee that includes outside members but is still made up with a majority of senators in order to ensure that it remains in Senate control because it’s important that our parliamentary bodies retain self-governing status. Otherwise we might as well turn power back over to the Queen, because we obviously have no business governing ourselves. I’m also forever baffled by the notion that we should neuter the Senate’s ability to exercise hard power and defeat a bad government bill when necessary. It’s part of their necessary duties to hold government to account, and before you say that it’s good enough for the House of Lords, the Canadian Senate is a vastly different body than the Lords, with a very different history, and the Senate was never the primary legislative body as the Lords was for centuries. These are differences that can’t be papered over.

De Bané’s other suggestion is that the Senate start creating a series of special committees tailored to senators’ special interests to…do advocacy work, apparently. I’m not opposed to senators undertaking an advocacy role on issues that are of particular interest to them, I am less keen on the proliferation of special committees because I worry that it will draw the focus away from the actual legislative responsibilities of senators – especially in an environment with independent senators who are beholden to nobody and who aren’t able to be corralled into getting work done. We’re already having problems getting bills passed in a timely manner because the leadership within the Senate refuses to do things like negotiate with one another – now imagine that these senators are otherwise engaged with busywork of their own interest rather than with the boring work of scrutinising legislation or holding government to account. I do fear that creating an environment where personalized committees can proliferate will have a detrimental effect on the Senate overall, and I’m a bit surprised that a former senator doesn’t see this possibility.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Populist myths and the lies they tell themselves

Posted on by

The Nobel prize has been awarded to economists working on issues of climate change, who point to the need for carbon pricing to get markets to come to a consensus about finding solutions, and what do we get in Canada? Doug Ford going on tour to see Scott Moe and Jason Kenney to decry carbon taxation, and to lie to people about the efficacy of carbon taxes. They work, despite what Ford, Kenney, Scheer, et al. say, and we have the data to prove this.

The Ford/Kenney rally was apparently quite something, a demonstration of partisanship over politics, and a demonstration about what how this all relates to our recent discussions over populism, with the carbon tax as a wedge issue. But while this is being put against this notion that Stephen Harper is trying to put forward in his new book about how “conservative populism” is somehow trying to weed out the worst instincts of populists, but that can’t actually be true if the dog-whistling still goes on. In her piece about the Ford/Kenney rally, Jen Gerson relayed the anecdote about people attending the rally being asked to cover up their MAGA hats with oil sands stickers – but the MAGA hats are still there, even if they’re being literally papered over. Kenney and Ford still play semantic games around the same terminology that the xenophobes use (such as the use of “illegals”), and it’s still a dog-whistle. And it can’t be any surprise that because of all the dog-whistling that the Soldiers of Odin have started posing with UCP candidates in Alberta while wearing their badges and vests. You can’t simply say “Oh, it’s unacceptable these people show up to our events” when you keep inviting them with the dog-whistle language. (There’s a lesson in here for Maxime Bernier as well).

Meanwhile, John Geddes went through that excerpt of Harper’s book and deconstructed his arguments and his analysis about populism, and his nonsense construction of “Somewheres” and “Anywheres.” Aside from the fact that it’s deeply ironic that Stephen Harper, strong friend of Israel, is using the same “rootles cosmopolitan” argument used in Soviet propaganda to vilify Jews, it’s just trading on baseless mythology and trying to build an argument around it that doesn’t actually hold any water. But it also goes back to what Ford, Kenney and others are pandering to – they’re denying that problems exist, and then undermining the institutions that can help solve them. Such as with the looming climate crisis. We need a wake-up call.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Carbon tax opportunism

Posted on by

The latest round of carbon tax drama has the Conservatives drunk with glee, as Manitoba premier Brian Pallister’s decision to scrap his own carbon tax plans has them thinking that they now have a national momentum against carbon taxes. It’s not likely to be that simple – and they may find out that it may blow up in their faces. Pallister says he changed his mind about it after meeting with Trudeau, and found Trudeau intransigent on letting Manitoba keep their tax at a flat $25/tonne when everyone’s else was ramping up to $50/tonne, which sounds like a no-brainer – you want a consistent carbon price across the country to prevent leakage and to keep a level playing field. (Pallister also claims that their plan was so comprehensive, but in interviews would point to things like remediating mines and recycling programmes, which are not about addressing climate change, and his deliberate misinformation should be called out as such). But it also smacks of opportunism, given that small-c conservatives across the country are taking the election of Doug Ford in Ontario as some sign that there is an uprising against carbon taxes when that was very likely not the cause of his election, but rather it was the impetus for change from the province’s tired Liberal government. Overreading Ford’s “mandate,” if we’re going to use that word, is dangerous for them to do. Meanwhile, Ford was yukking it up with Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe in their insulting the federal carbon tax, each believing their mutual court challenges are going to go somewhere (they’re likely not), and Ford would say things like a carbon tax is the worst thing in the world and will do nothing for the environment – complete falsehoods, and all he has to do is look at BC to show the complete opposite.

The federal government, meanwhile, hasn’t been terribly eloquent in their response, on the one hand decrying Pallister’s “flip flop” and worrying that conservatives want pollution to be free, while also pointing out that when the federal backstop comes in, people will be getting cheques in the mail. And that’s going to be the Achilles heel of the federal Conservatives’ belief that the country is going to rise up against carbon taxes. They keep pushing the narrative that it’s a tax grab to feed the Liberals’ “out of control spending” when it’s in the enabling legislation for the carbon tax that the funds will be rebated. But the government hasn’t been eloquent – and has been barely competent – when it comes to any kind of messaging on this file, and that’s the part that will probably hurt them the most, and it’ll be a self-inflicted wound, which makes you just shake your head watching it all go down.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Not appealing, just consulting

Posted on by

First thing yesterday morning, the federal government announced that they were proceeding with restarting consultations with First Nations affected by the Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline, and that they had tasked former Supreme Court of Canada justice Franc Iacobucci to oversee the process. Iacobucci has done a great deal of work around the Duty to Consult in recent years, as this report that he wrote with law firm Torys LLP demonstrates, along with work he’s done with Ontario over the underrepresentation of Indigenous people on juries in the province. Indigenous groups in the region have responded with some optimism, but are also warning that these consultations can’t come with a predetermined outcome if they’re to be meaningful (which may be too far to go given that the government has stated that this project will go ahead). Some of those Indigenous communities are also looking at the fact that this process could allow them to talk more amongst themselves.

https://twitter.com/coreyshefman/status/1047512242109997056

https://twitter.com/coreyshefman/status/1047512244303663104

https://twitter.com/coreyshefman/status/1047512246660808704

https://twitter.com/coreyshefman/status/1047512248716087297

Meanwhile, Rachel Notley and Jason Kenney (among others) are bellyaching that the government has opted not to appeal the Federal Court of Appeal decision to the Supreme Court of Canada, and yet not one of them has articulated what the error in law they are looking to contest would actually be, which is kind of a big deal if they think the Court will hear it. It’s also not clear that an appeal would get them any clarity anytime soon, given that the Court usually gives about six months between granting leave and hearing the case in order to provide time for submissions, and then a decision could take another six months at least – possibly more if it’s a contentious issue, like this one is.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Counting on LNG

Posted on by

The federal and BC provincial governments made a big ballyhoo yesterday about the fact that a consortium of companies have come together to make a $40 billion investment in Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) in BC, and it’s a project that not only did Indigenous consultation correctly, but got buy-in from the communities. It’s seen as a study in contrasts for other pipeline projects – but it’s also worth noting that natural gas isn’t bitumen, and you’ve got vastly different environmental consequences to a spill or breach. It’s also a major energy project at a time when the dominant narrative is that we apparently can’t get anything built in this country, or that investment is fleeing (not actually true), and that what we need to do is to end carbon pricing (despite the fact that energy companies have been calling for it), gutting environmental legislation (never mind that the regime Harper put into place created far more problems than it solved), and that Indigenous consultation is just a fleeting goalpost that keeps shifting. This project seems to prove otherwise – even if BC promised breaks on provincial and carbon taxes to sweeten the deal (though one could say that it shows there’s enough flexibility in the system as opposed to the whole system being hopelessly broken). Suffice to say, it makes the Conservatives’ talking points far less tenable (not that the truth has really mattered to them).

One of the more interesting questions in all of this is how it will affect emissions – not only locally, but globally, and that’s really the big question. While the local emissions would be high enough that it appears that BC would likely need to virtually decarbonise their economy otherwise, there is the potential that this LNG would be a major help in reducing emissions in Asian economies that are reliant on coal-fired generation – but that’s only if the LNG displaces coal and not other renewables instead. In all likelihood, LNG would be used alongside renewables as a backup or stopgap, but it may be some time before we see if that’s really what happens. Suffice to say, it has the potential to have a major impact on global emissions, if applied in the right way.

More New NAFTA fallout:

  • Justin Trudeau says that despite that notification clause in the new NAFTA, Canada will still pursue a deeper trading relationship with China.
  • Kim Campbell says it’s a bit cheeky for the Conservatives to suggest that they could have gotten a better deal given the American leadership.
  • In Vancouver, Bill Morneau praised the new NAFTA, but also said that dairy and steel sectors still need help. So, there’s that.
  • The new NAFTA includes a specific clause to insist that Canadians not be able to watch the American broadcast of the Super Bowl. No, seriously.
  • Here’s a deeper dive into the Supply Management issue as it relates to the new NAFTA, including the fears of hormone-laced milk coming in from the US.
  • Here’s a look at the government’s efforts at trade diversification, given that NAFTA is more or less renegotiated.
  • Here’s a look at next steps when it comes to ratification of the new NAFTA.

Continue reading →