Tag Archives: The Senate

Roundup: A justified time allocation

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Amidst the Conservatives’ planned filibusters and procedural gamesmanship as part of their campaign to demand that the National Security Advisor be hauled before committee to answer questions on the Atwal Affair™, Government House Leader Bardish Chagger is starting to play hard ball in return. When the Conservatives tried to filibuster in order to delay debate on the gun control bill after already delaying the debate by means of their vote-a-thon (for which they continue to blame the Liberals for their own self-inflicted discomfort, like a kid who keeps hitting himself in the hopes that it will persuade his parents to give him something they’ve denied him), Chagger invoked time allocation in order to get the bill moving to committee. And – scandalously! – she gave them a whole extra day of second reading debate. The horror!

Err, except no, that’s actually totally a fair amount of second reading debate for any bill, no matter what it is. Why? Because the point of second reading is to debate the broad merits of a bill. Do we agree with its overall aims, yes or no. It’s not about debating its intricacies, which is what committee study is for, and it’s more than legitimate for the government to want to move it to committee so that it can get proper study. That’s the way things should work, in a properly functioning Westminster parliament. But in Canada? No, we’ve developed this ridiculous culture where the parties insist on interminable days-long second reading debate, and by “debate,” we mean read twenty-minute-long prepared speeches into the record while nobody pays attention. It’s not debate, and it’s part of what we really need to address when it comes to fixing the broken culture inside the House of Commons. So it’s not actually a scandal that time allocation was imposed on this bill, and I would add that it’s not such a bad thing that Chagger is learning to play hard ball.

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Senate QP: All about Trans Mountain

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After a delay due to votes in the Commons, Senate QP got underway with special guest star, natural resources minister Jim Carr. Senator Larry Smith led off, raising the Trans Mountain pipeline and wondering how the minister was supposed to move the project forward. Carr noted that the government approved the pipeline because they believe it’s good for Canada, and noted that while BC has decided it wants to consult, Canada has already done so in order to not make the same mistakes that were made with Northern Gateway. Smith wondered if there was any kind of contingency plan to deal with future obstacles, and Carr noted that they had already intervened before the National Energy Board, who agreed with the government position, and permitting continues at pace and that pace is determined by Kinder Morgan.  Continue reading →

Roundup: The 21-hour tantrum

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If there is a parliamentary equivalent to a toddler having a full-on meltdown and screaming and pounding the floors after not getting their way, then you pretty much have the setting for the 21-hours of votes that the Conservatives forced upon the House of Commons. Which isn’t to say that I don’t think there was value in the exercise – I think having MPs vote on line items in the Estimates is a very good thing given that the Estimates are at the very core of their purpose as MPs, and we should see more of this (in a more organized fashion that they can do in more manageable chunks, mind you). But this wasn’t the exercise that the Conservatives billed it as.

Scheer’s framing is completely disingenuous. These votes were not blocking their efforts, and had nothing to do with the Atwal Affair, or the attempt to get Daniel Jean hauled before a committee. That particular motion was proposed, debated, and voted down on Wednesday. Forcing individual votes on the Estimates was a tantrum in retaliation. It was not about transparency. And it was tactically stupid – there would be far more effective ways to go about grinding Parliament to a halt to get their way rather than this tactic because there was an end point to it (and one which would have been at some point on Saturday if they hadn’t decided to let everyone go home).

The other reason it was stupid is because they forced votes on line items, it allowed the Liberals to spend the whole time tweeting about the things that the Conservatives voted down, like money for police, or veterans, or what have you. They handed that narrative to the Liberals on a silver platter. (The NDP, incidentally, voted yea or nay, depending on the line item, rather than all against, looking like they actually took it seriously). And what did the Conservatives spend their time tweeting? Juvenile hashtags, attempts to shame the Liberals (“You have the power to stop these votes. Just get the PM to agree.”) And in the end, it was the Conservatives who blinked and called it off (but declared victory and that they “drew attention” to the issue, of course).

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This all having been said, there are more shenanigans to be called out amidst this. There was a whole saga about whether or not PCO offered Andrew Scheer a briefing, which his office denied, and then suggestions that Scheer wouldn’t accept it because he wanted as much of it made public as possible (again, with more conflicting versions of how much they wanted to be public and how much in camera). But even with the demands for public briefings, it trips up the parliamentary notion that public servants aren’t called to committees – ministers are, because they’re responsible. (Deputy ministers can be called as the accounting officers of their departments, but the National Security Advisor is not a deputy minister). And with that in mind, why exactly would the government put a long-time civil servant up for the sole purpose of having the opposition humiliate him? Because we all know what happened to Dick Fadden when he was hauled before a committee to talk about his fears about Chinese infiltration, and it damaged our national security because MPs couldn’t help themselves but play politics over it. Nobody covered themselves in glory over this exercise, but this wasn’t some great exercise in preserving the opposition’s rights. This was a full-on temper tantrum, and the more attention we pay to it as though it were a serious exercise, the more we reward the behaviour.

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Roundup: Artificial cannabis vote drama

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It started with a bunch of headlines about how it was do-or-die day for the marijuana bill in the Senate. Apparently, nobody can canvas vote numbers any longer, so there was the suggestion that it was going to be close, and that that it could be defeated. The Government Leader in the Senate – err, “government representative” even went before the cameras to play up the drama of not knowing the votes. As context, a number of senators were travelling on committee business, and there was a scramble to get them back to town in order to ensure they could vote on the bill (and while CBC gave the headline that it was the “government” scrambling, that would imply that it was actually government staffers doing the calling, not the ISG’s coordinators, as it actually was). The bill eventually passed Second Reading, and it wasn’t even a close vote.

With a new captive audience, reporters who don’t normally tune into the Senate got the Conservative senators’ greatest hits of over the top, ridiculous denunciations of the bill, and the usual canards as though this was just inventing marijuana rather than controlling something that some twenty percent of youths (and the 45-to-65 crowd as well) have used in the past year. Senator Boivenu got so emotional that he called the bill a “piece of shit” that won’t “protect people.” And on it went. From a press event in New Brunswick, Trudeau said that Senators are supposed to improve bills, not defeat them, though to be clear, they do have an absolute veto for a reason, and they refrain from using it unless it’s a dire circumstance because they know that they don’t have a democratic mandate. This bill, however, doesn’t really come close to qualifying as a reason to defeat a government bill (though I’m not sure all of the senators have the memo about using their mandate sparingly).

Since 1980, the Senate has only defeated three government bills, and in each time it was at third reading, which means that they let them go through committee before deciding to defeat them. In two of those cases, it was Charter rights at play, and the budget implementation bill in 1993 included some cuts to programmes and “streamlining” or boards and tribunals that were a straw too far even for some Progressive Conservative senators that they voted against their own government. This particular bill doesn’t rise to either of those particular tests. As for what would happen if it were to be defeated, well, the government can’t introduce the same bill twice in a single session. The way around that? Prorogue and reintroduce it. It would only delay, which may in fact hurt the Conservatives in the end.

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Senate QP: Brison talks out the clock

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Senate Question Period resumed this week, after a hiatus of several weeks, and the special guest star this week is Scott Brison, president of the Treasury Board and temporary minister of democratic institutions. Senator Larry Smith led off, and he worried about marijuana regulations not being pre-published in the Canada Gazette. Brison said that Treasury Board’s work from a regulatory perspective was to work with Health Canada to ensure that the framework was in place by the time that the legislation comes into force. He assured them that there would be no corners cut, before launching into the worn talking points about the point of the legislation. Smith tried to puzzle out the timelines around regulations being published, and he wanted the rationale being made public in terms of why the regulations were not pre-published. Brison reiterated that they were trying to ensure that the regulatory framework was in place prior to the law effect. Continue reading →

Roundup: The big Mali announcement

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The formal announcement was made yesterday – six helicopters (two medical evac, four armed escorts) and approximately 250 personnel are headed to Mali as part of UN peace operations, and while this initial deployment covers off for German and Dutch forces that are pulling out, time there will be spent evaluating other ways that Canada can help build capacity in the country, which will involve training troops from other countries. While there have been some 162 peacekeeper deaths so far in Mali, all but four of those are from less advanced militaries than Canada’s, and the four Western countries’ deaths were related to a helicopter accident and not hostile actions. Chrystia Freeland did a great interview that helps lay out more of the details as to why Mali and why it’s taken so long.

Opposition reaction has been swift, and a bit curious. The Conservatives are demanding a debate and a vote on the deployment (reminder: a vote is wholly inappropriate because it launders the accountability that the government should be held to regarding the mission), while the NDP keep pointing out that this will not fulfil all of the government’s peacekeeping promises (not that they have claimed that it would), while demanding more details. Former senator Roméo Dallaire says that this is a good deployment, and reiterates that Canadians training troop-contributing nations and mentoring those forces will help to modernize peacekeeping.

In terms of hot takes, John Ivison sticks to the point that this is a political move by the government designed to help them get their UN Security Council seat as opposed to having anything to do with national security – err, except that peacekeeping isn’t supposed to be about national security. That’s kind of the point.

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Roundup: 20 years of Vriend

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There was a particular milestone that has personal significance to me yesterday, which was the twentieth anniversary of the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Vriend v Alberta, where sexual orientation was official “read into” the Charter of Rights and Freedoms when it comes to protection from discrimination. Why it has particular significance for me was because this happened shortly after I came out, and in many ways, it opened my eyes to the cynicism of politics.

This was shortly after I completed my time as a page in the Alberta legislature, and I had become familiar with the MLAs who worked there. As a page, you have so many friendly interactions with them, as they ask about how you’re doing in school, and they sneak candy to you from the stash at their desks, and generally made you feel like a welcome part of the functioning of the chamber. But as the decision was rendered, the newspapers were full of statements from these very same MLAs whom I had come to like and respect that were full of vitriolic homophobia that it was very much like a betrayal of everything I had come to experience about them during my time as a page. Ralph Klein, who was the premier at the time, was also publicly mulling the use of the Notwithstanding Clause to opt out of the Court’s decision, but in the end, opted to respect it, and thus proving that so much of the trials and the foot-dragging by the provincial government was merely about the performance of having to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the present, and being “forced” to accept that gays and lesbians had rights. In other words, nobody – especially Klein, who was described by many as a liberal who adopted the Progressive Conservative mantle – had the political courage to stand up for what was right because they were afraid of the province’s Bible belt (which continues to be a thorn in the side of many to this day, with the battles of Gay-Straight Alliances in the province, and the “acceptability” in the former Wildrose party of the “Lake of Fire” comments by one of their MLAs, which eventually forced then-leader Danielle Smith to walk out, sinking the party’s fortunes).

So yes, this had a very formative impact on my political sensibilities, before I even considered journalism to be my career path. It forged much of my cynicism about electoral politics, and about the kinds of performative jackassery that is considered normal in the execution of political duties, and it especially gave me a real sense of the profiles in political courage that we see time and again, every time there’s a tough decision that MPs will defer to the Supreme Court, every single time, most recently with the decision to return the tougher decisions around medical assistance in dying back to the courts after the government refused to accept expert recommendations in their legislation. The pattern remains the same, even if the moral goalposts have shifted ever so slightly. So here’s to twenty years of Vriend, and to my human rights as a Canadian.

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Roundup: Jagmeet Singh’s past catches up with him

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Yesterday was a bit of a day for NDP leader Jagmeet Singh. After the Globe and Mail published a piece that showed him at a 2015 rally of Sikh separatists in San Francisco under a banner featuring the armed extremists leader of the group that prompted the raid on the Golden Temple in Punjab, Singh put out a statement saying that he was there as a “human rights activist” and that he condemns terrorism – but was vague in just whom he was denouncing, which raised yet more questions.

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Since then, more information came to light by the National Post which showed Singh at a 2016 panel devoted to Sikh sovereignty along with a particular leader who advocated violence, and another organizer later said that he appreciated Singh not denouncing the architect of the Air India bombing when he was on Power & Politics, essentially feeding the conspiracy theories that said architect was set up. And since even then, Ujjal Dosanjh has come out with video where Singh has denounced him as an opponent of Khalistani separatists. So, it looks like Singh could be in for a difficult time ahead as more questions get asked, and we’ll see if his comms team remains as cagey as they have been so far.

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Paul Wells notes that Singh’s half-answers and the lengths to which he’ll go to give clear answers demonstrates that he is, after all, a lawyer. Martin Patriquin notes that Singh will have a hard time saying that he can support Sikh separatists with regard to Khalistan while opposing Quebec separatists in Canada.

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Roundup: Reading the constitution and a map

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The constitutional lunacy taking place in Alberta shows no signs of abating, especially now that Jason Kenney has taken his seat in the legislature. Already they have debated a motion to back the province’s fight for pipeline access in BC, but the demands they’re making that Justin Trudeau invoke Section 92(10)(c) of the Constitution are wrong and bogus. Why? That section applies to projects that are of the national interest but are only within a single province’s boundaries – which this pipeline is not. So here’s Andrew Leach to pour some necessary scorn onto the whole thing, while Carissima Mathen, a constitutional law professor, backs him up.

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Meanwhile, Kenney is playing an utterly disingenuous game of semantics with his objection to the province’s carbon tax, insisting that it didn’t give them the “social licence” to get their pipelines approved. But to suggest that was the only value of such a tax is to be deliberately misleading. The real purpose of a carbon price is to provide a market signal for industry to reduce their emissions, by providing them a financial incentive for them to do so. It’s proven the most efficient way to reduce emissions in the most cost-effective manner possible, and while correlation may not be causation, it has bene pointed out that those jurisdictions in the country that have implemented carbon pricing have roaring economies, while those resisting one (such as Saskatchewan) don’t. Whether there is a correlation or not, provinces like BC have shown that the carbon tax allows them to lower other taxes which are generally less efficient taxes regardless. As for social licence, it’s part of the overall balancing act to show that there is a sufficient plan to achieve reductions as part of transitioning to a low-carbon future, but I’m not sure that anyone suggested that it would magically end all protests (and if they did, they were fools for doing so). But for Kenney to claim that this was the promise is utter nonsense.

Like the bogus calls to invoke Section 92(10)(c), it’s all about putting forward a plausible-sounding argument in the hopes that the public doesn’t bother to actually read it to see that it’s actually bullshit. But that is apparently how political debate works these days – disingenuous points that don’t actually resemble reality, or lies constructed to look plausible and hoping that nobody calls you on it, and if they do, well, they’re just apologists or carrying water for your opponents. This isn’t constructive or helpful, and it just feeds the politics of anger and resentment, which in turn poisons the discourse. They all know better, but keep doing it because it’s so addictive, but never mind that the house is burning down around them.

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Roundup: Ouellet’s magnanimity

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The complete illogic of how the Bloc Québécois’ leadership woes continue to unfold continues to amaze. Over the weekend, the party executive emerged from a meeting to affirm their support for Marine Ouellet, but they extended the magnanimous gesture to not tear up the Bloc memberships of those seven MPs who walked out. This, of course, should surprise no one because badly our system has become corrupted by membership-driven leadership contests is that those same members who elected that leader will also help to install his or her friends into the party executive, which centralizes power for that leader. Witness Patrick Brown having Rick Dykstra installed as PC party president, or Justin Trudeau and his friend Anna Gainey. This is why the kind of rot in the PC party in Ontario happens – because the checks and balances within the party have eroded as it transforms itself into a cult of the leader. One a further note about Ouellet, Martin Patriquin notes that as Bloc fortunes continue to wane, she becomes a perfect scapegoat for the party’s demise.

As for Patrick Brown, the news of the weekend was how the party started making plans to deal with revelations of his dating history as it came out, particularly vengeful ex-girlfriends and staffers, which should have been alarm bells right then and there. But this is what happens when you try to deal with the leader that a membership-driven process delivers and who has a “democratic mandate,” whereas if caucus chose from among its ranks, they would know the kinds of open secrets about a candidate and could be steered away from choosing a leader with such skeletons on display, and furthermore, could easily deal with a leader whose vices and other personal problems came to light with swift action. This is yet another reason why caucus selection matters, if we can get past the populist impulses of the current system.

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