The Russian government has retaliated against sanctions imposed by Canada by instituting sanctions of their own against 13 Canadian officials, including the Clerk of the Privy Council, the deputy secretary to cabinet in the Privy Council, Speaker Scheer, Peter Van Loan, Senator Raynell Andreychuk, and MPs Dean Allison, Paul Dewar, Irwin Cotler, Ted Opitz, Chrystia Freeland and James Bezan, all of whom consider it a “badge of honour.” Notably absent were John Baird and Stephen Harper, which signals that there is still room for negotiation. Irwin Cotler wrote his response about how he was first banned from the Soviet Union in 1979, and that he was poisoned on his last trip to Moscow in 2006. Meanwhile, the G8 is essentially no more, as Russia has expelled after their invasion of Crimea. The G7 is now resurrected in its place.
Tag Archives: Ukraine
QP: Shuffled sparring partners
After two weeks away, MPs were back and ready to carry on with the Grand Inquest of the Nation. With Harper still off in Europe, it was a question as to whether there would be a front-bench babysitter answering questions, or just ministers and parliamentary secretaries in the leaders’ round. Thomas Mulcair led off by asking about the situation in Ukraine, and David Anderson read a pro forma statement about travel bans and economic sanctions. Mulcair then turned to the Supreme Court ruling on the Nadon reference, and wondered if the government would accept the ruling. Peter MacKay stood up to reiterate that they got legal opinions beforehand, that they were surprised by the decision, and they felt that Nadon was a legal expert, and would study the decision. Mulcair then asked if the new minister of finance would abandon the national securities regulator project. Joe Oliver, in his debut answer in his new role, but said that he would wait for the new critic to ask in order to be fair to him after he took such a major pay cut. Mulcair then moved onto the elections bill, and Pierre Poilievre invited Mulcair to call witnesses before the committee, saying the bill would “protect” our system of democracy. Scott Brison led off for the Liberals, and asked about the coming cuts to infrastructure funds. Denis Lebel answered that they were increasing funds. Brison reminded him that the funding commitments were back-end loaded and that communities would have to hike property taxes in the interim, but Lebel insisted the preamble was wrong. Marc Garneau took another stab at the question in French, and got the same answer from Lebel.
Roundup: A new front bench dynamic
The House is back this week, though Harper is over in Europe. We will, however, see the first of the new line-up on the government’s front bench, with Joe Oliver taking Jim Flaherty’s place, and Greg Rickford filling in for Oliver. Add to that the NDP’s front-bench shake-up and we’ve got a new dynamic of Nathan Cullen versus Joe Oliver, which I can just imagine will be full of passive aggressive snark from Cullen and impatient grumpiness from Oliver, if previous interactions are anything to go by. It also sounds like we’ll see the budget implementation bill get tabled this week, so we’ll see if that is as crazily omnibus as their previous implementation bills have been of late.
Roundup: Voiding Nadon’s appointment
It really was a blow to Stephen Harper, and his judgement when making appointments. The Supreme Court in a 6-1 decision rebuked not only the appointment of Justice Nadon to the Supreme Court, but also the declaratory provisions passed in the omnibus budget implementation bill that made the appointment okay. Nadon never was a Supreme Court justice and remains a supernumerary justice on the Federal Court of Appeal, his appointment and swearing in ceremony null and void. There was a lot of reaction to the decision, including from Justin Trudeau who pointed out that this is a sign that Harper couldn’t even get the big things right, which puts his judgement into question (ironic, since that’s what the Conservatives are trying to attack Trudeau about). The Toronto lawyer who brought forward the challenge wonders why it was left up to him, a private citizen, to do something about the government’s attempt at subverting the constitution, and on his own dime. Adam Dodek walks Maclean’s through the decision, and in a separate op-ed says the ruling represents the entrenchment of the Court’s constitutional independence, and a serious blow to the “transparent” appointment process that Harper put into place. Emmett Macfarlane goes further into the repudiation of the appointment process, and says that the consequences of this decision will almost certainly mean doom for the government’s Senate reform reference. Carissima Mathen, who appeared at committee and said that the declaratory provisions were doomed to fail (and was mocked for it) gets the last laugh. Liberal MP and former justice minister Irwin Cotler draws the lessons from the whole affair as to the flawed appointment process, the government’s own delays in selection, and their ignoring the warnings that Nadon’s appointment was going to present a problem.
Roundup: A branch office in Montreal
The Liberals have big questions about the NDP’s “branch office” in Montreal, which they claim is totally for coordinating parliamentary work and is totally not doing any partisan work – really! Note that the NDP complained when the Bloc had an office set up in Montreal paid for out of Parliamentary funds, but when they do it, it’s not problem. What I find intensely curious about the whole affair is not only the way in which several of these staffers have dual titles, and that a number of them are labelled as “outreach.” The thing that I finds a little disturbing is the way that this points to a concerning level of central control when it comes to their MPs and staff, far and above the particular level of centralisation they already have with staffers on the Hill. Suffice to say, it all does look a bit suspicious.
Roundup: Condemning an illegitimate referendum
As expected, Stephen Harper has denounced the “referendum” in Crimea, and said that it would lead to further isolation for Vladimir Putin. Said vote, which was done on ten days notice, with no voters list, and with the only options of seceding from Ukraine or seceding from Ukraine and joining Russia, is said to have a result of 95 percent in favour of joining Russia, but given that it’s illegitimate and dubious at best when conducted under what amounts to military occupation, it’s only real use will be for Putin to legitimise his occupation of the region. (Incidentally, Justin Trudeau tweeted that the government did the right thing to condemn the vote; Thomas Mulcair tweeted a photo of himself pouring beers for St. Patrick’s Day).
Roundup: No ruling on “reasonable”
A Federal Court judge has declined to rule on whether a three-year delay in an Access to Information request is “reasonable” under the legislation, saying that it’s Parliament’s decision to make, not hers. This could make the Information Commissioner’s job much more difficult, if she doesn’t have a proper definition of what constitutes a reasonable delay to go by.
Roundup: Denying a green light
Drama in the Liberal ranks in preparation for a by-election in Trinity Spadina, as the nomination front-runner was apparently refused a green light from the Ontario Campaign Co-Chair because Christine Innes and her husband, former MP and junior minister Tony Ianno were accused of intimidating and bullying volunteers. Apparently they were telling these volunteers that their futures in the party would be over if they were on the “wrong side” of a nomination battle, meaning the future riding redistribution and their support for Chrystia Freeland. Innes put out a statement alleging backroom strong-arm tactics and that she refused to be “assigned” a riding to run in, which went against the promise of open nominations. The party responded that it was a request to keep candidates focused on the by-election, and not future nomination battles against incumbent MPs, which sounds like what the intimidation was about. As the battle waged over Twitter, the partisan concern trolling from all sides got cute, but the accusations of sexism because she was denied the green light over the actions of her husband do seem a bit over the top.
Roundup: PKP goes to the PQ
All tongues were wagging, not only in Quebec but across the rest of the country as Pierre-Karl Péladeau, head of Videotron (owner of QMI and the Sun Media chain) and Hydro-Québec, was recruited as a candidate to run for the Parti Québécois, no matter that he categorically denied having any intention to run a few weeks previous. Péladeau says that he’s resigned from all of his holdings, but that his stock will go into a “blind trust” – which would mean that it’s not really a blind trust, because you don’t know what stocks are in a blind trust. At least one Quebec union is unimpressed given their history of clashes with Péladeau, and well, the unions tend to like the PQ. So there’s that. Here is Maclean’s profile of Péladeau. Martin Patriquin writes that in the short term, at least, he’s a win for the PQ, while Michael Den Tandt wonders about how this will play out with the Sun chain, and the “so Canadian it hurts” SunTV crowd, now that their majority shareholder is dedicated to the break-up of the country.
Roundup: Mayrand’s concerns laid out
After a bout of procedural shenanigans and two separate time allocation votes in the Commons, Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand spoke to the Commons Procedure and House Affairs committee, giving his assessment of the Fair Elections Act. He has a couple of major concerns – the lack of powers to compel testimony, the loss of the vouching system and the likelihood that it will disenfranchise voters, and inadequate paperwork filed by candidates who get their refunds nevertheless. He spoke about the privacy concerns over turning over the lists of who actually voted over to the parties, who have zero legislated privacy safeguards, and said that the fears of voter information cards to commit fraud is a lot of sound and fury over nothing as most of the errors recorded were procedural and not substantive. In case you couldn’t guess, Pierre Poilieve shrugged off most of the whole appearance, and tried to claim that Mayrand made a number of factual errors.