Tag Archives: The Senate

Roundup: Policy or privilege?

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Yesterday after QP, NDP trade critic Tracey Ramsey raised a question of privilege in the Commons, claiming that the tabling of CETA implementing legislation was contrary to the rules, not only because it didn’t follow the 2008 departmental policy on tabling treaties which lays out that 21 sitting days be given before introducing any such bills, and because it didn’t contain any explanatory memorandum.

They key phrase to remember in there is that it’s a departmental policy and not a standing order or other rule of the House of Commons, which means that this point of privilege is pretty much doomed to fail – and this was pretty much Bardish Chagger’s brief submission to the Speaker in advance of a more robust response to come at a later date. I would add that while Ramsey says that it’s unfair that Parliamentarians have to digest all 1700 pages of the treaty on their own without these explanatory memoranda, it’s not like these details have been in the dark. The text of the agreement has largely been available for a year now at least, which is a lot of time for the parties to do their research on the agreement, and yes, this is why they have research budgets and staff who can assist with these sorts of things. And it also sounds a bit like the opposition is complaining that the government isn’t doing their homework for them. Maybe I’m wrong, but that would certainly fit with the trend that has developed across the board in the House of Commons – that MPs expect everyone else to do that homework on their behalf, whether it’s the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the Auditor General, or any other Officer of Parliament.

I would also add that many of the changes that the Conservatives made policy-wise to things like treaties and military deployments were done under the illusion of giving the House of Commons a greater role to play when many of these matters are actually Crown prerogatives that they were looking for political cover in exercising, or in partisan gamesmanship designed to divide the opposition. I’m not sure how much this particular 2008 policy is a reflection of that Conservative mindset, but if the way the government went about this was a more traditional exercise of prerogative powers, then that’s all the more reason for them to do so, rather than to continue to indulge some of the bad habits that the Conservatives put in for their own purposes.

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Roundup: Six more makes a full chamber

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The final six Senate appointments have been made, all from Québec, and all were very much in the same pattern that we’ve seen to date from this government – well qualified, certainly, but without much in the way of ideological diversity, and as of yet, no new openly LGBT senators (that are very much needed). There could very well be some selection bias at play here, which is part of why asking people to apply rather than seeking to nominate people continues to be a problem, and promises of transparency would mean some kind of a statistical breakdown of the short lists presented to the PM, but one doubts that will ever happen.

Now this all having been said, the performative outrage by a number of Conservative senators is getting to be really tiresome. I am also failing to see the logic in how appointing a bunch of partisans and telling them that they are to be whipped (which no, senators are not supposed to be) is somehow preferable and “transparent” than it is to appoint a number of ideological similar individuals who aren’t assigned a party label, nor are they being told that they’re subject to a whip. It really makes no sense, particularly when there are all manner of other perfectly legitimate criticisms that can be levelled at the nomination process and the pattern that has emerged from the appointments, but to insist that it’s all a “con job” is really, really rich. It’s bad if they all vote for the PM who appointed them if they are “independent,” but it’s a-okay to vote under an illegitimate whip by the PM who appointed them so long as it’s under a party banner? Huh? (Also, to correct Senator Housakos, nothing stops any of these new senators from joining a caucus of their choice).

Meanwhile, we’re going to get more grousing about committee slots and research budgets, but honestly, that’ll work itself out within a few weeks and bellyaching won’t actually help make the process work faster or better. There is also some grumbling right now that the current crop of independent senators haven’t managed to fill the two slots per committee they’ve been allotted as is, so why give them yet more seats? It will happen, but the rules don’t really allow committee reconstitution until a prorogation anyway, so I’m not sure why there’s such a rush. Better to let the process take the time it needs rather than going too fast and ballsing it up and creating room for unintended consequence.

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Roundup: The fiscal update’s hidden gem

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The fall fiscal update was delivered yesterday – in the House of Commons, it must be noted – and not unsurprisingly there are deeper deficits projected while the government pledges funds to kickstart an infrastructure bank in the hopes of attracting foreign investment. Oh, and “no path back to balance” is the phrase you’re going to hear an awful lot in the coming weeks. Probably ad nauseum. Oh, and “privatization,” as the NDP now consider the infrastructure banks (because hey, we might have to start paying for the roads and bridges that this bank might fund and we couldn’t have that). That having been said, the debt-to-GDP ratio will be the government’s saving grace when it comes to the size of the deficit, as it should remain relatively stable, while still coming in at the lowest in the G7 by a significant margin. So there’s that.

This all having been said, there were other elements in the update that bear mentioning, and which should not be overlooked, which are some of the changes to the way that Parliament operates. They’re going to make the Parliamentary Budget Officer a full Officer of Parliament (which I have mixed feelings about because this solidifies his status as an unaccountable officer for MPs to fob their homework off onto while hiding behind his analyses as “objective proof” of their partisan accusation), they’re adding new independence to Statistics Canada, and they’re going to open up the Board of Internal Economy. But more important than any of that is they’re going to do something about the Estimates cycle.

Why does this matter? Because MPs are supposed to hold the government to account by controlling the public purse, but over succeeding decades, the ways in which they do that – the Estimates and supply cycle – have become so corrupted that they no longer follow the budget cycle, their accounting methods no longer match the Public Accounts so that they can’t track spending, and in many cases, MPs just vote on the Estimates in a series of votes with zero scrutiny (leaving that job up to the Senate – naturally). So if this government is promising to put the Estimates and Budget cycle back in sync, and to clean up the discrepancies between the Estimates and the Public Accounts, that is a Very Big Deal. It means that it will let MPs do their jobs like they’re supposed to do. (We’ll see if any of them do, especially with an empowered PBO for them to fob that homework off onto, but this will certainly help him too). It’s restoring some of the proper functioning of our parliamentary democracy, and we shouldn’t ignore it.

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Roundup: CETA got signed

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Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland went to Brussels over the weekend to sign the Canada-EU trade deal (known as CETA), but this was the real signing, as opposed to the several signings staged by the Harper government at much earlier iterations of the process, which they wanted to use to show how pro-trade they were, and how much work they were doing on the trade file. And yes, they did get the ball rolling on CETA, as well as the TPP, and a number of trade deals with a bunch of small countries with tiny economies that do very little trade with Canada, and loudly proclaimed the number (as opposed to the worth of those signed deals). So there’s that. At the signing ceremony, Trudeau also downplayed the delays and praised the democratic way in which it all happened, essentially saying that it’s not a bad thing to raise questions and to have them answered, which is fairly gracious of him (and fits with the overall character of his government to date in acknowledging the challenge function of parliament and the media – though he may want to let his Senate leader, Peter Harder, know, as Harder rather arrogantly doesn’t believe that the Senate needs an official opposition).

Of course, now comes the hard part of implementation, which will doubtlessly have numerous stumbling blocks along the way, and we’ll likely need several reminders about why the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism isn’t actually an attack on sovereignty, and how the improvements that Freeland negotiated to the system are a net positive and will likely form a model for other such systems going forward. We’ll hear yet more cries from the NDP and other left-leaning critics about those concerns, but the deal is moving ahead.

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Roundup: Seriously, stop calling it cash-for-access

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Apparently we’re still on this bizarre witch hunt against Liberal Party fundraisers, because I’m guessing we have little else to obsess over right now. Best of all, we’re now inventing conspiracy theories, like how the head of drug company Apotex is apparently fundraising because his company is both lobbying the government (as a drug company does) and because they’re involved in a lawsuit, and no said company head isn’t the company’s lobbyist, but yet these connections are being drawn by both media and echoed by the opposition, and I shake my head wondering people in their right mind think this is some kind of a scandal or breach of ethics. You really think the federal government is going to throw a lawsuit because they got a $1500 donation? Really? Honestly?

That media – and in particular the Globe and Mail continues to characterise this as “cash for access” is bizarre. Sure, your “average family” isn’t going to pay $3000 to meet a minister, but why would they? I mean, seriously? What would be the point? And it’s not like they don’t do other events either, and we’ve previously established that this is a government that loves its consultations, so it’s not like you couldn’t have your say. It’s inventing a problem that doesn’t actually exist. Do you think ministers shouldn’t attend fundraisers at all? Do you think that they can be bought for $1500? How about $500? $100? And they’re not hiding these fundraisers either. VICE asked for the list, and lo and behold, it was provided. But here’s the most bizarre part of all – mere months ago, the Globe declared that the federal system was the best in the country and urged provinces to all adopt it (while in the midst of their zeal against the much more dubious practices that were taking place in Ontario where ministers were soliciting donations from the stakeholders lobbying them, which is not what is happening at the federal level).

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Meanwhile, the president of the Liberal Party wrote a response to the Globe, but they wouldn’t publish it, so it’s on their website. Howard Anglin expands on his criticism of the reporting on fundraisers, and defends our system as being clean on the whole, and seriously, this is getting tiresome.

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Roundup: Nine new senators

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Nine new senators were appointed yesterday, with another 12 appointments to come in the next few days. By the time that happens, the non-aligned senators will have the plurality in the chamber, but that is causing a bit of consternation among some of the existing independent senators. Senator André Pratte sent out a missive decrying that committee seats are not proportional yet, while Senator Claude Caignan groused about the appointment process as being neither open, transparent, nor non-partisan, and insinuated that they were all Liberals in all-but-name and intimated that they would all be “steadfastly loyal” to the Prime Minister for appointing them – you know, just like he was unthinkingly partisan and loyal to Harper since his own appointment.

As for some of the new senators, PowerPlay interviewed incoming senator Patricia Bovey and the chair of the appointments committee, Hughette Labelle, while Power & Politics interviewed Diane Griffin. The Canadian Press profiled Daniel Christmas, who will be the first Mi’kmaq senator.

P&P went hard on the fact that some of these new senators had previously donated to parties – and not all of them to the Liberals – which is irksome because it’s giving this message of a rather unfair level of non-partisanship being expected when donations are part of political engagement in our system, and we should want senators who have at least had some level of engagement and were not completely disinterested in politics. As for the pace at which the modernization to the Senate rules are happening, I would caution against moving too quickly – as Pratte is demanding, Senator Peter Harder is glowering darkly about, and Terry Milewski was being ridiculous in his characterisation of on P&P. If we want an upper chamber that is functional but not dominated by parties, we want to make sure that rule changes are done right and not in haste, and we especially don’t want them to be turning over any swaths of power to Harder as the “government representative,” as he is already empire-building and starting to try and co-opt the non-aligned senators as they organise themselves. If they’re not getting on committees fast enough, that’s in part because the rules are such that committees can’t be reconstituted until a prorogation, but we also want to give these new senators time to get adjusted and settled. Throwing them onto committees too soon will be overwhelming, and if they’re interested, they can still sit in on the committee meetings and contribute – they just can’t vote. The proportions of seats will adjust before too long. A little patience is not a bad thing.

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Roundup: Questions about ordered repayments

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Conservative-turned-independent Senator John Wallace is asking questions around the decision to withhold Senator Mike Duffy’s salary to repay inappropriate expenses that were uncovered as part of his court case, and in particular, whether the Internal Economy Committee’s three-member steering committee has been exceeding its authority in making decisions without the full committee signing off. The steering committee after all is supposed to be limited to some administrative matters, but in cases of “emergency,” they can do more. So was this an emergency? There is the argument that the decision was made over the summer when the full committee could not meet, and it was in accordance with rules laid out as part of the broader expenses issue and dispute resolution process, which Duffy did not avail himself of, his lawyer insisting that he was “fully exonerated” by the judge in his court case (which is not what the judge said, but rather that what he did simply didn’t meet the threshold of being criminal, and yes, there is a vast difference). With a case as high-profile as Duffy’s, the fact that inappropriate expenses have been flagged meant that the appearance of doing something about recovering those expenses was a very real consideration for the continued public legitimacy of the institution whose reputation has taken a beating, and letting Duffy get away with those inappropriate expenses would continue to damage the institution in the eyes of the public. But, that having been said, was this a decision that could or should have waited for the full committee to decide up on in the fall, and is this a case of procedural unfairness or worse, of a lack of any kind of due process, as has happened on more than one occasion as this whole expenses issue has reared its head? I’m not sure, but it does bear asking. I do think that something needed to be done to address the issue in a timely manner because the Senate has to rebuild its public image after senators like Duffy have done so much to muddy it, but whether what happened was right, well, that’s not a question I can answer.

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Senate QP: The loquacious Mr. Goodale

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This week’s ministerial Senate Question Period featured special guest star Ralph Goodale, minister of public safety. Senator Carignan led off for the opposition, asking about PTSD for RCMP, and the delays in passing the Senate amendments to Bill C-7 on RCMP unionization and whether the government was going to seek another judicial extension on it. Goodale said that they were considering the amendments and were consulting with their stakeholders to determine the nature of their response, and then said that they were working on coming up with policies for PTSD in first responders.

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Roundup: Chong’s plans are a start

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While new Conservative leadership candidate Steven Blaney decided to come out swinging with a niqab ban policy designed to appeal to those Quebeckers still hot for the idea and to give Kellie Leitch a run for her money, Michael Chong also came out with some policy yesterday morning – much more modest policy in line with how he thinks he could start to change parliament for the better if he were party leader. Because it’s not big policy pronouncements, it’s more in keeping with the kinds of things that leadership candidates should be focusing on, but that said, there are a few problems with what he laid out. I tweeted some of those concerns earlier, but I’ll elaborate a bit more.

So yes, Chong made a valiant attempt at doing this with this Reform Act, but it got so watered down in his amending the bill to get it passed that it rendered it useless, and the veto went from the party leader to their designated surrogate. This is a promise that is more difficult than it sounds because there does need to be a quality control mechanism in place (which is why it was introduced in the first place), but it also needs to be arm’s length from the leader, and Chong’s previous proposals for such an officer didn’t fly. He’ll need to try and thread this needle much more carefully going forward.

This one bothers me a fair deal because it’s buying into the nonsense that the Liberal Party has been spreading with their reforms to their party constitution. They claim it’s about “modernizing” the party structure and making it more responsive, but it’s more about populating databases, so that when they come out with top-down policy pronouncements, they can use their Big Data approach to justify anything. If other parties want to simply populate their own databases to target or micro-target policies even more that the Conservatives did during their decade in office, this isn’t actually good for democracy, and it’s not actually good for the grassroots. You don’t have people who are quite literally buying into the process (thus putting some skin in the game) and having an interest in their responsibilities as members when it comes to policy and nominations. It devalues membership, and I do think that’s a problem.

Promising reforms to the way the Senate operates while billing this as part of a package of giving power back to the grassroots is curious, but I’ll run with it only so far as to say that Chong shouldn’t actually be trying to out-Trudeau on this. Trudeau has put some things in motion that are not actually for the better, be it centralizing power in his own caucus, or trying to weaken the accountability role of the Senate, while his current “representative” there is trying to upend the whole system so that he can be the true bureaucrat that he is and empire-build, co-opting the whole burgeoning independent system for his own ends. Chong not grasping the constitutional role of the Senate Speaker, or the role of the Government Leader under Responsible Government is worrying, and I do feel like he should know better and not just try to play the reform-for-the-sake-of-reform card. That becomes a very dangerous thing under our system, especially because the system is not broken, so we should stop trying to break it while insisting on fixing problems that don’t actually exist.

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Roundup: The outsider instinct

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Over in the National Post, Michael Den Tandt offers the theory that Donald Trump and his excesses have poisoned the well for other “outsider” candidates worldwide, and that his flash-over-substance style will make others take a second look. Citing the Conservative party leadership in Canada, Den Tandt supposes that this dooms a potential candidacy by Kevin O’Leary, just as Boris Johnson basically outsidered-himself out of the running to be prime minister in the UK – but I’m not sure that I buy the premise of the argument.

I think that there remains a hankering for outsider candidates despite Trump, and that that precisely because he’s poisoned the well that we’ll continue to see these kinds of players railing against the establishment. As is playing out in the Conservative leadership race here, we’ll see more candidates establish themselves as outsiders struggling against the party “elites” because that’s the narrative that has been blown wide open in recent years. (See: Kellie Leitch and Brad Trost). Den Tandt acknowledges that Tony Clement dropped out because he was unable to attract donors for being too conventional and too much an established politician, which I think is part of what blows his whole thesis out of the water. It wasn’t that Clement got in the race too soon, it’s that this notion of needing to find an “outsider” is a particularly strong influence in the zeitgeist right now, especially for conservatives who feel that the establishment has been letting them down, that it hasn’t gotten them where they need to be (witness how Harper’s incrementalism has largely been undone in a matter of months, if you don’t count the permanent fiscal chokehold that the GST cut has put into place). I think it’s why Leitch is taking the Ford Brothers/Nick Kouvalis route of yelling “gravy train,” and why Maxime Bernier is playing entirely against the rest of the party’s established policies and is getting attention for it. Everyone wants to play against the establishment and they are looking for the right way to do it. I don’t think we’ll have another Donald Trump – it would be hard to get that kind of unconstrained id and utter narcissism in a single package again – but I think there is absolutely going to be yet more people trying to find the right balance. I’m not sure it’ll be as successful in Canada as it might be in the States (particularly as our system is not really broken like theirs is), but the impulse to find that outsider is still pervasive, and it will be felt in the race here.

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