After a raucous Question Period in the Other Place, has it was a much more sedate affair in the Red Chamber as agriculture minister Lawrence MacAulay arrived to answer questions. Senator Larry Smith started off in French, asking about the cultivation of marijuana and land use, and what steps would be taken to avoid the diversion food land for large-scale outdoor grow ops. MacAulay first regaled us with tales about prohibition, and then noted that the bill was under the jurisdiction of the ministers of justice and health, but he was also concerned about the use of land, and eventually said he would assure senators that he would do anything he could to ensure that land would remain for farm use. Smith asked if he offered any advice to Health Canada officials on the use of outdoor growth, but MacAulay didn’t really offer any kind of assurance.
Tag Archives: The Senate
Roundup: Trans Mountain decision day?
It looks like today will be the day we get some kind of answer on the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain expansion pipeline, and everything will likely be confirmed in the morning as Cabinet meets earlier than usual. The three options on the table are the previously announced indemnification, as well as the option to either buy the pipeline outright (though I’m not sure if that means just the expansion or the original pipeline itself that the expansion twins) in order to sell it once the expansion completes construction, or temporarily buying it long enough to sell it to someone else who will complete construction. The word from Bloomberg’s sources is that the government is likely to buy it outright, on the likely option of buying it long enough to find someone who can guarantee its completion.
Source said the Canadian government would be expected to sell it basically as soon as makes sense, so long as it's guaranteed to be built. Doesn't sound like government wants to be in pipeline business long.
— Josh Wingrove (@josh_wingrove) May 29, 2018
Kinder Morgan said in statement tonight it wouldn't issue updates “unless and until these discussions have concluded or we’ve reached an agreement that satisfies our two objectives" — clarity & shareholder protection.
— Josh Wingrove (@josh_wingrove) May 29, 2018
https://twitter.com/InklessPW/status/1001288600967827456
https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1001294404836085760
As for what this will mean politically, you can bet that there will be no end to the howls of outrage from both opposition parties – from the Conservatives, we’ll hear that this never should have happened, and it’s only because of the federal government’s incompetence that it did. (While one can certainly question their competence in a number of areas, this is one where they had few good options, and no, a court reference or a pipeline bill would not have helped because they already have the necessary jurisdiction they need). The NDP, meanwhile, will howl that this is a betrayal of their promises on the environment and the rights of First Nations, and that it pays billions to “Texas billionaires” rather than Canadians, and so on (though one would imagine that the NDP should be all for nationalizing infrastructure projects). And one can scarcely imagine the invective we’ll hear from Jason Kenney, as helpful as that will be. Suffice to say, the next few days (and weeks) will likely be even more dramatic that they have been. Because this time of year isn’t crazy enough in Parliament without this.
Roundup: A tire fire of a debate
Last night was the third and final leaders’ debate in the Ontario election, and it was…terrible. Painful to watch. And yet here we are. Doug Ford promised all kinds of increased spending, and promised not a single layoff, while he offered no specifics on any promise, and a false version of history of when he was at Toronto City Hall. Andrea Horwath promised some different spending than the Liberals, that she would end “hallway medicine,” while being overly generous on the hole in her party’s platform and the fact that she doesn’t stand for Hitler memes (while not having actually rebuked or dumped the candidate accused of posting one). Kathleen Wynne was sorry that people don’t like her personally, but isn’t sorry for her record, and she offered detailed policy in a format that didn’t let leaders fully answer questions and where Horwath in particular kept interrupting and aggressively talking over everyone else. In all, a demonstration that this whole election is absolutely terrible.
#ONdebate pic.twitter.com/26EqQrwT5f
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) May 27, 2018
In reaction, Chris Selley remarks on Ford’s performance – that the only place he stood out was his promises around childcare (though he didn’t offer specifics, which are that his tax credit won’t amount to much for parents), while David Reevely noted Horwath’s aggressive challenges around Ford’s lack of platform or Wynne’s stance around collective bargaining, showing more fire than Wynne, who was building an intellectual case in a lawyerly tone for much of the debate, only really finding her own fire when she pushed back against accusations around the Hydro One sale.
#ONdebate pic.twitter.com/ixQIA0hwX0
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) May 27, 2018
Roundup: A major amendment at committee
There will be another looming showdown between the Senate and the Commons in the coming weeks, as the Senate’s Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee narrowly voted to remove the random mandatory alcohol testing provisions from Bill C-46, the government’s new impaired driving legislation. And this wasn’t just the Conservatives being obstructionist – Liberals joined in this too, the tie-breaker coming from Senator Serge Joyal. Why? Because this provision is almost certainly unconstitutional. Senator Denise Batters, who moved the motion, explained the reasons in this video here:
Yesterday @SenateCA legal committee voted to remove random alcohol testing provisions from #C46. Thank-you @denisebatters for listening to expert evidence, embracing Charter values, and taking the issue of racial discrimination seriously. This is sober second thought at its best pic.twitter.com/I77HlgbDBv
— Michael Spratt (@mspratt) May 24, 2018
It can’t be understated that the criminal defence bar has been warning for months that this will lead to even more court challenges, including Charter challenges, and that it will do nothing to alleviate the backlog in the courts, and would only make them worse in the post-Jordandecision world of tight timelines. And if you don’t think that this won’t create problems, then just look to BC to see what moving to administrative roadside penalties for impaired driving did to their court system – it’s created a cottage industry of court challenges to those citations. I’ve interviewed these lawyers before. One of them, for whom this is her specialty (as tweeted below) knows what she speaks when it comes to what this bill will do.
I’M SO HAPPY. Thank you @denisebatters for protecting Charter values and sticking up for what is right in a free and democratic society. https://t.co/Oc9ntrewWg
— Kyla Lee (@IRPlawyer) May 24, 2018
Is it wrong to think that I may have had a small part in persuading the Senate to vote to remove the random breath testing provisions from Bill C-46? I hope I did. pic.twitter.com/dPpVcVRZmT
— Kyla Lee (@IRPlawyer) May 24, 2018
The government will point to constitutional scholars that told them their plans were sound, but again, this likely won’t be definitively be answered until it gets put to the Supreme Court of Canada. And plenty of lawyers will also point out – correctly – that just because the police are looking for certain powers, it doesn’t mean they should get them because they will infringe on Canadians’ Charter rights. The funny thing is that this creates a schism within the Conservative caucus, with the MPs being in favour of the bill (much of it having been copied from a bill that Steven Blaney tabled), but then again, the Senate is more independent than people like to give it credit for.
There are many measures we could take that could be reasonably be expected to save lives but we don’t because they would unduly infringe upon individuals’ constitutional rights.
— Trina Fraser (@trinafraser) May 24, 2018
Lots of unconstitutional measure could assist police. Expect better from “the party of the Charter”. https://t.co/yC768C5yTZ
— Michael Spratt (@mspratt) May 24, 2018
Hogg’s analysis on this was not rock solid on this issue. And to be frank came from a place of privilege that minimized potential impcts of police conduct. https://t.co/xzyzh2ciC2
— Michael Spratt (@mspratt) May 24, 2018
So now the justice minister says that this is unacceptable, that it guts the bill (not really true – the marijuana provisions are all still intact I believe, which is why this bill was a companion piece to the marijuana legalisation bill in the first place), and she won’t have these amendments. We’ll see whether the full Senate votes to adopt these amendments or not – there’s been a lot of talk from the Government Leader in the Senate – err, “government representative,” Senator Peter Harder, that they shouldn’t vote down bills of dubious constitutionality because that should be the role for the courts (I fundamentally disagree with that – it’s actually the Senate’s job), and we’ll see how many of the new Independents are swayed by Harder’s arguments. But it’s one more bit of drama to look forward to.
Roundup: Not the constitutional crisis you were looking for
After much drama and back-and-forth between the two chambers, the Senate passed the omnibus transport bill yesterday after the Commons rejected their amendments a second time. Once again, we did not get the constitutional crisis that we were promised, and we’ll get a whole new round of back-patting that the Senate did its job, because at least a few of the amendments were accepted (even though the larger problem remains that many of the ones that were rejected saw no debate, nor were reasons for rejecting them provided other than the government “respectfully disagrees,” which is not a reason).
Amidst this, the Conservative Senate leader, Senator Larry Smith, penned a response in Policy Optionsto Government Leader in the Senate – err, “government representative” Senator Peter Harder’s previous op-ed about the apparent use of a Salisbury Convention in the Canadian Senate (which was false). The problem there, however, is that Smith didn’t really rebut anything about the Salisbury Convention or lack thereof. Rather, he went on about how the prime minister is trying to walk back on his promise of a more independent Senate by means of their rejection of the bulk of the amendments to the transport bill, and the apparent orchestration through Harder of a policy of trying to tell senators how to vote (as in, pass bills even though we say that we don’t want you to be a rubber stamp). And while I sympathise with many of his points, I’m not convinced by his overarching thesis.
Despite the fact that many a Conservative senator keeps trying to promulgate a series of conspiracy theories, from the fact that the new Independent senators are all just crypto-Liberals that are being whipped to vote a certain way, that they are trying to “destroy the opposition” in the Senate, or in this case, that the PM is trying to undermine his own pledge for independence via Harder’s patently unhelpful suggestions. But part of the problem is that on the face of it, none of these really stack up. While we can’t deny that many of the new senators have government sympathies, I wouldn’t consider them partisans in the same sense. The issues of their block-voting has more to do with their anxieties about accidentally voting down government legislation than it is about their being whipped to vote a certain way. And frankly, the biggest reason why I sincerely doubt that Trudeau is conspiring with Harder is the fact that there has been so little competence being demonstrated by Harder and his office when it comes to management of the agenda in the Senate that it seems more than implausible that there is any kind of coordination happening, particularly since I know that there are people in Trudeau’s and Bardish Chagger’s offices who know how the Senate works, and we’re not seeing their input. And the longer that the Conservatives keep pushing these woeful conspiracies, the more they undercut their own position on maintain a level of status quo in the Senate that is probably beneficial in the longer term. But they never seem to learn this lesson, and it may cost them, and the institution, as a result.
Senate QP: Hajdu ducks a request
Following weeks of condemnation around the government’s insistence on the “Charter rights” attestation for Canada Summer Jobs Grant applications, it was time for the minister of labour, Patty Hajdu, to appear before the Senate to answer questions. Senator Larry Smith led off, as is customary, and he asked about the fact that no new federal drug testing regulations would be in place before marijuana was legalised. Hajdu noted that in her previous job, she dealt a lot with substance use issues with clients adn employees, and she was passionate about the topic. She noted that they are working with federally-regulated employers and labour groups, but also called out that this debate was a red herring because cannabis is not new, nor is use at work. Smith wanted some degree of certainty for employers, and Hajdu said they are already having those conversations, and most workplaces already have robust policies.
Smith worries about drug testing policies in federal workplaces.
Hajdu said it’s a bit of a red herring because cannabis is not new, workplaces already deal with its use. #SenQP— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) May 22, 2018
Roundup: An unnecessary proposal to cover for abdicated responsibility
When Parliament resumes next week, and the final push of legislation before the summer break starts, I can pretty much guarantee that there will be some gnashing and wailing of teeth in the Senate about the crush of bills headed their way, and the fact that there isn’t a plan to manage it. And from Government Leader in the Senate – err, “government representative,” Senator Peter Harder, we’ll get a reminder that he’s proposed a business committee to do said managing of the Order Paper. And lo, in Policy Options yesterday, we got an endorsement of the notion of a business committee from a former political science professor, Paul G. Thomas, which read a lot like it was could have been commissioned by Harder’s office.
To wit: One of the reasons why I object to the creation of a business committee is because it will create a powerful clique that will determine the legislative agenda of the chamber in a manner that has the very real possibility of trampling on the rights of individual senators in the name of expediency. Currently the rules allow for any senator to speak to any item on the Order Paper on any day – something Thomas notes has the potential to delay business, but under most circumstances, this can be managed through negotiation, and if abused, a vote can be used to clear that obstruction. But what Thomas’ glowing endorsement of the notion of a committee ignores is the fact that sometimes, it can take time for a senator who sees a problem with legislation to rally other senators to the cause. We have seen examples of that in the current parliament, with bills like S-3, which wound up getting majority support from senators to fix the flaws in the bill, or even with the amendments to the omnibus transportation bill last week, where Senator Griffin’s speech convinced enough senators that there was a real problem that the amendment was meant to correct. Having a business committee strictly lay out timelines will stifle the ability for the Senate to do its work when sometimes it needs time to do the work properly.
One of the reason why this kind of committee should be unnecessary is because the Senate has operated for 151 years on the basis of the caucuses negotiating the timelines they need at daily “scroll meetings,” but it requires actual negotiation for it to happen, and since Harder took on the role of Government Leader, he has eschewed his responsibilities to do so, believing that any horse-trading is partisan. Several of the new Independent senators follow a similar mindset, which is a problem. And while Thomas acts as Harder’s apologist in trying to downplay the criticism that a business committee will simply allow Harder to stage manage the legislative process – and it is a possibility that he could, but only in a situation where there are no party caucuses any longer, and that the Senate is 105 loose fish that he could co-opt as needed – my more immediate concern is that he would use the committee to avoid his actual responsibilities of negotiation and shepherding the government’s agenda, more so than he already has. We already don’t know what he’s doing with this $1.5 million budget and expansive staff, so if he is able to fob off even more responsibility onto this clique, what else does that leave him to do with his budget and staff? It’s a question we still don’t have any answers to, and yet another reason why the creation of such a committee is likely to lead to more problems than it does solutions that aren’t actually necessary if he did his job.
Roundup: Decrying unfairness while ignoring logic
As the countdown to Kinder Morgan’s deadline for some kind of reassurance around the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion draws near, we’re starting to see a lot of angry commentary from Western conservatives, and not all of it is very well thought out. Yesterday, former Wildrose leader Brian Jean took to the Financial Postto say that Alberta needs to demand a “fairer deal” from Canada…but made a litany of errors and misrepresentations, and gaps in the logic of his own conclusions. Andrew Leach laid out many of them here:
On what basis would any conceivable equalization program have transfered dollars TO Alberta in the midst of an historic boom?
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) May 15, 2018
Next, the column puts literally zero thought into its evaluation of pipeline projects, and treats imports as straight costs to the Canadian economy. The latter is more risible but both are important.
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) May 15, 2018
The basic pitch in the column is that the country should make infrastructure for the benefit of Alberta (although energy east would almost certainly not do that on top of TMX and KXL) while simultaneously suggesting Alberta play less of a part in the federation.
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) May 15, 2018
For your reference, I think this is the one time Brian Jean mentioned equalization in the House of Commons or Committee during his time as an MP. https://t.co/3qjs0uZ9J9
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) May 15, 2018
I would add that Jean also disingenuously ignored the fact that the Federal Court of Appeal ruled that the Northern Gateway process didn’t adequately consult the First Nations to a constitutional standard, which was entirely the fault of the Harper government and not Trudeau. And for his complaints around Energy East, he also ignored the fact that while the NEB said that they would look at downstream emissions as part of their analysis, Cabinet broadcast that their criteria for approval had not changed, and it did not include those emissions profiles. It also ignores the economics of the situation, that Energy East was the most expensive option now that Trans Mountain and Keystone XL had been approved. It also gives the false notion that it would allow Alberta oil to flow to Eastern refineries for the sake of “energy security” when those refineries are not built to handle the kind of heavy crude that Alberta exports, and thus the majority of it would not wind up in Canadian gas tanks. But hey, why do facts matter when you’re trying to stir up anger?
Even though oil prices are recovering, SK's economy is still being hard hit by a rail backlog and lack of pipelines, all of which is the federal government's responsibility.
But there is still one thing the federal government is good at shipping out of SK…equalization dollars. pic.twitter.com/8SGr1K7DEK
— Scott Moe (@PremierScottMoe) May 14, 2018
And anger over equalization is so easy to stir up when you constantly misrepresent the issue. It’s not a cheque that the province hands over – it comes mostly out of personal income taxes. It’s a federal programme, and the reason Alberta pays more into it and doesn’t get it is because Albertans have the highest incomes in the country, and the fiscal capacity that their government can offer the same level of services as other provinces without crippling taxes. And when Premier Moe starts tweeting about “shipping out” equalization dollars, I think it’s fair to ask if he thinks that his province wants either the lower incomes or the reduced fiscal capacity that it would take for them to be a net receiver of equalization. (Note: He does have a point about the rail backlogs, and the federal government could have taken measures to deal with that months ago if they so chose). But seriously – these equalization/fair deal gripes are not grounded in fact or logic, and we need to remind people of that.
Roundup: On lying with statistics
Over the weekend, Andrew Scheer tweeted that there was “devastating” job news released on Friday, with “zero total jobs created” in April, and that 41,400 jobs had been lost so far this year. Investment is apparently being driven away from the country. It’s all doom and ruins. Except that it’s all complete bullshit. It’s lying with statistics.
Devastating news for Canadian workers. Justin Trudeau is failing to create opportunity for Canadians. He continues to drive essential investments out of the country. @CPC_HQ will continue to fight Justin Trudeau’s reckless policies that hurt Canadian workers. pic.twitter.com/DeYKGqx2fV
— Andrew Scheer (@AndrewScheer) May 12, 2018
Man, this is lamer than lame that stepped on a tack and is hopping around on one foot.
I think CPC comms needs a holiday. https://t.co/qvjTUMQ725
— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) May 13, 2018
What do the actual figures show? For starters, unemployment has been at a 40-year low for the past several months at 5.8 percent. This while the participation rate and employment rate have remained relatively steady throughout. Those “devastating” numbers in April were a net loss of 1,100 jobs, but that net showed a loss of 30,000 part-time jobs and an increase of 28,800 full-time jobs, and industry-wise, the losses were mostly in either construction or retail and wholesale trade. Wages have been increasing over 3 percent year-over-year for several months now. And yes, there was a brief correction in job numbers in January, but it was after a spike in November and December, while the trend cycle remains upward. And if you ask any credible economist, they’ll tell you the underlying numbers indicate that the economy is strong, which puts a lie to Scheer’s tweets.
Of course, I tweeted that Scheer was wrong over the weekend, and I was bombarded with apologists insisting that we should really be looking at the US unemployment rate, which is 3.9 percent. Err, except the Americans use a different measure, and if we used that same measure, our rate would be 4.9 percent. I was also told that all of these new jobs were part-time (not true – as explained above, they’re mostly full-time jobs displacing part-time ones, and have been for several months now), or that this is all because people have run out of EI and have stopped looking for work (please see: participation rate). Oh, and then there were the anecdotes being thrown my way as “proof” that those figures are wrong. Because anecdotes trump statistical data, as we all know. The data are all there. Scheer’s particular cherry-picking is ludicrous on its face, but he’s counting on the low-information voter not having enough know-how to look up the figures at StatsCan, or to read some actual economic analysis about how yes, the economy is doing quite well right now and we can expect interest rates to start going up as a result. It seems to me that if they were in government and an opposition party was doing the same thing he was doing, they would be howling about how awful it was that the opposition was talking down our economy. Funny how that is.
Roundup: A recanted confession
It was not unexpected that we would get a level of histrionics and performative outrage in Question Period yesterday regarding the revelations that a Canadian ISIS returnee had spoken to a New York Timespodcast about his experiences killing while in Syria. (Never mind that this was the second time they raised this issue, but it never got traction when they tried on Tuesday). But amid the dramatic meltdown that completely distorted the situation – citing his description of the killing as “gleeful” when it was apparently anything but (note: I have not listened to the podcast myself because there aren’t enough hours in the day, but this is basing it on the accounts of those who have), and how it’s a complex and nuanced situation of someone who was recruited and who wasn’t a front-line fighter, but was in the “morality police.” And then, hours later, when contacted by the CBC (who had interviewed him years earlier, when he said he didn’t kill anyone), he recanted the tale he told the Timespodcast, citing that he turned a third-person account into a first-person one possibly under the influence of drugs, as the Postinterview was within three weeks of his return to Canada after a spell in Pakistan where he began abusing substances to cope with trauma. And yes, CSIS and the RCMP have been in touch with him.
First, some thoughts from people who know what they’re talking about:
https://twitter.com/MrMubinShaikh/status/995047235946676224
https://twitter.com/MrMubinShaikh/status/995048194802413568
https://twitter.com/MrMubinShaikh/status/995106705267666944
https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/995063490866905088
https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/995063493035409408
https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/995063494901874690
https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/995063496847970304
Other observations: We keep getting from the Conservatives this false notion that the Prime Minister welcomes back former terrorists with hugs, cheques, and that they send them away to poetry classes, all of which is complete bullshit, and conflates a number of issues that is not helpful in any of this. The Omar Khadr settlement is not because of anything he is alleged to have done as a minor while in Afghanistan, but because he was tortured by the Americans with the full knowledge of our intelligence agencies in breach of his Charter rights. That’s kind of a big deal. And those “poetry classes” are derisive attempts to conflate rehabilitation with de-radicalization in the Countering Violent Extremism programme, which is extremely valuable because it prevents them from becoming terrorists. But instead, we get demands that, in order to look tough, both distort the situation and that would in all likelihood jeopardise actual criminal investigations if they were seriously acted upon. Was the news of this podcast “confession” concerning? Yes. But does a half-cocked meltdown that completely misrepresents the whole situation help? Nope. In fact, it probably does more damage in the long run, feeding the paranoia of the likes of the Quebec mosque shooter, who radicalized by internalizing these very kinds of irresponsible messages. Not that the Conservatives care if there are points to be scored.