Tag Archives: Undermining Parliamentary Democracy

Roundup: The Senate steps up

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In their very first piece of legislation passed, the House of Commons ballsed it up. Quite badly, in fact. In rushing through a supply bill, they didn’t include a necessary schedule for where the money that was being authorised would be spent, which is a pretty big deal. And so, when it reached the Senate, this was caught and the bill had to be sent back before the Senate could deal with it and pass it so that it could get Royal Assent and everyone could go home for the holidays. The Senate, however, was not amused. This is not the first time that defective bills have made it to the Senate, be it when they sent an earlier unamended version down the hall, or when their due diligence wasn’t done and they had to make some kind of excuses to get the Senate to pass it anyway with the promise of adding a clause in a future bill to retroactively fix it. And the patience of the Senate is wearing thin. In the words of Speaker Furey:

“While it is not our place to look into the functioning of the House of Commons, I am appalled that we received a defective bill. If it is the wish of the house, I would be prepared to write to my counterpart in the House of Commons to seek his assurance that this will not happen again.”

Liberal Senator Terry Mercer was even less forgiving and deservedly so:

“It galls me, Mr. Speaker, that they talk about an administrative error. That’s passing the error off onto the staff. I’m sorry; the Members of Parliament voted on this; it is their fault and they alone take the blame… To give us this BS about administrative error, passing the buck off to someone in the administration of the House of Commons, doesn’t wash with me, and it shouldn’t wash with anybody, and it shouldn’t wash with Canadians. I want this to be notice to the Minister of Finance and to our colleagues in the other place that this place will not put up with this anymore.”

Senator Fraser suggested that the Commons needs to examine their system and perhaps even apologise to the Senate, while other Senators noted that this is government legislation and not a private member’s bill, and that perhaps the Senate should not always be as patient and perhaps rise without granting Royal Assent in the future. Part of the root of this is that that the Senate, yet again, did its job while the Commons didn’t. In their haste to get this passed so that MPs can leave, MPs spent a grand total of fifteen minutes on the Supply bill, including Committee of the Whole. That’s right – fifteen minutes to examine and authorise the spending of money by the government. The Senate Finance Committee held three days of pre-study on the bill so that they would know what the issues were, and lo and behold, when the bill arrived in defective form, they could spot it immediately. And as noted before, this keeps happening with increasing frequency. And yet, when we send MPs to Ottawa to “be our representatives,” we seem to forget that they have a job to do – to scrutinize bills, and most especially spending, and they’re not doing it. They leave it to others to do, be it the Auditor General, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, or the Senate – all while bitching and moaning about how terrible the Senate is even though the Senate is actually doing their jobs when MPs aren’t. And the next time I hear someone give me the line about how the Senate has no function in a modern democracy, I can give them yet another object lesson about how the Commons is the real dysfunctional chamber in our democracy. I’ll repeat Speaker Furey’s admonition – it’s appalling. Shape up, MPs. You’re embarrassing yourselves.

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Friday QP Recap: A few bad habits creeping in

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I’m generally not in the habit of writing up Friday QP recaps, but I wanted to make a few observations of how Friday QP unfolded under the new Liberal government. Fridays, as most people know, are generally B-team days, with leaders rarely present, and only ever a small number of ministers, meaning one tends to generally get deputy critics quizzing parliamentary secretaries. It had been my hope that the Liberals would phase out the practice of letting said parliamentary secretaries answer questions in QP, because it ultimately have issues with the accountability role of QP – questions are asked of the government, which means cabinet, because they have access to the answers. Parliamentary secretaries, despite getting some briefing notes, don’t have those actual answers, so it generally becomes much more about the show than anything else. Over the past number of years, the scene has degenerated so that the painful scripted performances from either side of the aisle are unbearable to watch. Sure, you had a handful of parliamentary secretaries who could outshine their own ministers because they had learned their files while their ministers still read from the prepared talking points in front of them, but it also reached the point where parliamentary secretaries became the human shields for their ministers, absorbing the blows from bad media stories by taking fire on their behalf during QP. It’s why Paul Calandra became the spokesperson for all things unpopular on Harper’s plate. It’s a perversion of our system.

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Roundup: Trudeau’s troubling QP pledge

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In an interview with Huffington Post, Justin Trudeau mused somewhat about his proposed changes to Question Period, where he is looking to institute a once-weekly Prime Minister’s Questions Period, akin to Prime Minister’s Questions in the UK, but wouldn’t commit to showing up any more days than that. Under Harper’s time in office, he went from three days to one or two, and only answering the questions of the other leaders when he did show up. Even if a theoretical Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were to show up once a week and answer all of the questions put to him, I’m a bit sceptical because it does limit availability. Part of what’s been the beauty of our QP as we have structured it is that the PM can be called upon to answer any question on any day, with no advance notice. That’s not the way it works in Westminster, where the PM is given questions in advance. Trudeau is also talking about staying out on the road to connect with Canadians, but insists that it’s not a diminution of parliament but rather the opposite, because he’ll have a capable cabinet that can handle things in his absence and it not be a one-man government. Fair enough, but anytime politicians insist that their time is better spent away from Parliament Hill is diminishing the role of parliament. We have a representative democracy, which means that people send their representatives here to debate and make the decisions. If those representatives decide they have better things to do, then what’s the point? I do find it a troubling sentiment because parliament matters. Pretending it’s a distraction from “the real issues” or just a “bubble” ignores that the work that does go on here is important and needs to be accorded with some actual respect. There is more to governing a country than doorstep issues, and it might behove a future Prime Minister to acknowledge that.

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Roundup: Balanced budgets are magic

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Balanced budgets became word of the day on the campaign – Harper warning of permanent deficits if either opposition party gets in, Mulcair promising a balanced budget in 2016-17, and Trudeau hedging by not promising it immediately, given he doesn’t know the real state of the country’s books and we have some global economic turbulence going on. And then things started getting bizarre, with fiscal hawks praising NDP restraint (with no idea how they plan to achieve balance), and the Liberals attacking the NDP as promising more austerity to achieve said balance at a time of recession. And yes, the NDP’s new “star candidate” of the former finance minister of Saskatchewan said they would cut things, but some of the clues the party has dropped – things like “corporate tax giveaways” – are small change, and they even included the Senate on their list of things to cut, which makes me laugh uproariously because a) abolition will never happen, b) you’re not going to cut the Senate’s budget without either starting a war between the two chambers or starving them of the resources necessary to study and pass the legislation the Commons wants passed, and c) any savings they think they’re going to book from Senate abolition would be eaten up and then some with court challenges of flawed bills and Royal Commissions for policy work the Senate did at a cost-effective manner. But keep dreaming. I tackled the subject of party spending promises in my column here, but in the meantime, here are some economists smarter than I, who are similarly doubtful about these balanced budget pledges, for very good reason.

https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/636170339878174720

https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/636355620640133120

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https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/636357255332536320

https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/636357563399938048

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Roundup: A moratorium courting constitutional crisis

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Without going too deeply into this (something I’ll save for later), Stephen Harper decided that his best way to “differentiate” himself on the Senate was to flout the constitution, and declare a moratorium on any future appointments. There are already 22 vacancies in the Chamber – a full fifth of its complement, and more than any in history. It’s unconscionable, because there are supposed to be 105 senators, and not a maximum of. It’s a complete abrogation of the compromises made by the Fathers of Confederation, and furthermore, it’s also flouting the decision of the Supreme Court who said explicitly that the Senate has a role with sober second thought. That role is already being compromised because they’re having trouble filling committee seats, and this is a very serious problem. On the one hand, this official declaration of a moratorium is a gift to Vancouver lawyer Aniz Alani, who has launched a challenge in Federal Court to get a declaration that the Prime Minister is obligated to make appointments as they happen. It’s also courting problems with federal-provincial relations for a couple of reasons – one is that Harper is now attempting to do through the back door what he won’t do from the front door (again), and he’s using a childish tactic of throwing this problem into the laps of the premiers to come up with some kind of solution without him. It also highlights that there is again a choice for voters in the election – you can vote to keep in a party whose leader flouts the constitution and the Supreme Court; one who promises to do the very same while chasing the pipe dream of Senate abolition; and one who has promised concrete and constitutional measures to reform the appointment process in the same way that Harper did with vice-regal appointments. Oh, and in case you were wondering, if the courts declare that a Prime Minister has a constitutional obligation to make appointments as they happen – and that’s pretty much guaranteed – and the PM still refuses to, we’re into constitutional crisis territory where the Governor General will have the very real need to dismiss said PM. This is what we’re courting here. It’s not a trivial matter.

https://twitter.com/aaronwherry/status/624675200358055936

https://twitter.com/inklesspw/status/624675923984576512

https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/624676159687671809

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https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/624676790179655680

https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/624677092953858048

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Roundup: Bemoaning members’ statements

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Over in the National Post, Tristin Hopper despairs at how much of Hansard is taken up by ridiculous and ultimately meaningless members’ statements, not to mention the plethora of petitions. And while the notion of members’ statements used to be kind of sweet and noble, it’s largely degenerated into a daily dumpster fire in the Commons, with a handful of feel-good statements followed by a number of increasingly nasty partisan attacks. Petitions, however ridiculous many may be, is a measure of political engagement so we shouldn’t discount them just yet – and we’re about to see a whole bunch more of them now that they’re going to all electronic petitions. Hopper suggests we follow the European example and put Members’ Statements at the end of the day. I tweeted some thoughts on that.

Bottom line: Pretty much all of Parliament is terrible right now with speeches because we’re electing a cohort who has largely lost the ability to think for themselves on their feet, whose greatest skill now is reciting the lines that are given to them. (Not all are like this, but most are, and I will note that the Liberals seem to be the least scripted from the leaders’ office these days). While I can sympathise with Hopper, it’s not the rules that are the problem – it’s the fact that we have apparently stopped valuing MPs who can speak or think for themselves in favour of ciphers for the leader.

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Senate QP: A perfectly legitimate mechanism

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For what was possibly the final day of the Senate’s sitting, there was some tension after the shenanigans on Friday. Things got off with a single statement, regarding the terror attacks last week, and then it was onto Routine Proceedings. The deputy government leader, Yonah Martin, tabled a motion that the next sitting of the Senate would see them rise until mid-September. “You’ll be pretty lonely,” a Liberal senator heckled, knowing an election would be taking place then.

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Roundup: Fobbing off your work to the Senate

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With MPs having gone home for the summer to start the campaign in earnest (well, not including the one in six who aren’t running again), the Senate is still hard at work to get through the last of the government’s agenda before they rise. Included in this are three bills that were passed at all stages in the dying days. Now, none of these are controversial so far as we can see, but the fact that they were all rammed through on a voice vote with zero debate is not exactly an encouraging trend. More to the point, it forces the actual due diligence onto the Senate, which is their job, but once again, it seems that they’re doing the work that MPs can’t be bothered to do because they’re too busy doing things like holding concurrence debates on nine-month old Health committee reports on the dangers of marijuana (never mind that said report was a sham rammed through the committee thanks to the government’s majority, and that it ignored the bulk of witness testimony) in order to try and hammer the Liberals on their pot policy. Because that’s an effective use of time. It’s also extremely ironic that the NDP insists the Senate does no valuable work ad should be abolished – and yet they once again fobbed off their work to the Senate to deal with because they couldn’t be bothered. There is no such thing as unflawed legislation, and it’s the job of MPs to scrutinise it in order to hold the government to account. But for a party who believes so strongly in the infallibility of the House of Commons that they don’t want an upper chamber, they gave bills a free pass with zero debate. Wow. Way to go there, guys. Really showing that you’re taking your jobs seriously, and that you’re doing the job of accountability like the official opposition is supposed to. Kind of like how they’ve taken to fobbing off their homework to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. It’s behaviour like that that undermines the NDP’s whole argument for Senate abolition – not that I mind. But MPs should be embarrassed when they pass any legislation with zero scrutiny. You’re just making the case for your own growing irrelevance, which serves nobody’s interests.

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Roundup: The galling abuse of the Information Commissioner

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The Information Commissioner is very unhappy about the government’s move to retroactively change the law to protect the RCMP for destroying gun registry records despite promises to her office that they wouldn’t in order to fulfil Access to Information requests. That the RCMP broke the law by destroying the information, and the government is protecting them by retroactively changing the law and putting that change in the middle of the omnibus budget bill, sets a very bad precedent, she warns, and she’s right. While the government wanted the long-gun registry data destroyed for political purposes, there was other information of value in the data that wound up being destroyed that had little to do with any future attempts at recreating a registry – something the Conservatives have long been afraid of, and are pressing for the hasty destruction of data to impede. And the way she characterises this is genuinely frightening – that they are backdating changes to the law to make something legal after a finding of wrongdoing. She uses the example of the Sponsorship Scandal – what if the Liberal government of the day retroactively changed the law so that the Auditor General was ousted from her jurisdiction after the fact. It’s unconscionable. What’s even more galling is the way that the prime minister is shrugging this off as just “fixing a loophole.” No, it’s not. It’s wilfully undermining the Commissioner and her ability to do her job, which this government has already made nearly impossible through starving her office budget and wanton disregard of their obligations under the Access to Information regime. All while they call themselves “open and transparent.” It’s grotesque, abusive, and in violation of their obligations as the government of the day. And if anything is any more upsetting about this situation, it’s that the opposition parties were too busy electioneering in QP instead of raising bloody hell about this issue – the Liberals not asking until nearly the end, and the NDP not raising it at all. Thanks for doing your jobs in holding this kind of unconscionable behaviour to account, MPs. Gold stars all around.

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Roundup: It’s not an authorisation

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Today is the day that the Commons will be holding their non-binding vote on the motion to support the government’s decision to extend the military mission in Iraq and into Syria, but you wouldn’t know it based on the headlines out there right now. “Tories to push through authorization of Syria air mission,” says the Globe and Mail. Nope. It’s not an authorisation, and the Conservatives aren’t pushing it through because they have a majority and it was a foregone conclusion. “Avoiding Syrian air defences a concern as Commons set to approve war expansion,” says The Canadian Press. Still nope – it’s not an approval. It’s an expression of support. It’s right there in the text of the motion. Granted, the government is courting this kind of false interpretation by forcing an unnecessary vote in the first place, and no matter how correctly the motion is worded, they are presenting it as an authorisation or an approval when it’s not, precisely because politically it will help to launder the decision, and make it look like the Commons approved it when they didn’t. That way, when things to wrong – and they inevitably do – and the opposition does its job in holding the government to account, the government could say “the Commons voted on it,” and try to wash their hands of it. Except it’s not an approval, the motion states that, and We The Media need to stop playing the government’s game for them. So repeat after me – it’s an expression of support. That’s all.

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