A frigid Monday in the nation’s capital, and all of the various party leaders were in attendance. Andrew Scheer led off, mini-lectern on desk, and in French, he demanded that the PM repay his expenses for his Bahamas vacation. Justin Trudeau reminded him that he took responsibility and would ensure going forward would clear future trips and clarify his relationship with the Aga Khan. Scheer tried again, and Trudeau reiterated recommendations from the Commissioner and that he would adhere to them. Scheer switched to English to try and bring the high dudgeon for the very same demand. Trudeau went to the high road, and reminded the viewers at home that the Ethics Commissioner is above partisanship and he was happy to all of her recommendations. Scheer repeated his demand, and got the same response, tut-tutting about mudslinging. Scheer insisted that only a Liberal would consider an “objective finding” by the Commissioner to be mudslinging, but it didn’t change Trudeau’s response. Guy Caron was up next for the NDP, and in French, he railed about a mining company that got government loans and then avoided taxes. Trudeau, taking to prepared notes for a change, indicated that the loan came from an arm’s-length Crown Corporation, which was not under their control, and if there was tax-shifting, they condemned those actions. Peter Julian repeated it in English, and Trudeau reiterated the tax-shifting portion of his answer more forcefully in English. Julian then railed about web giants not paying Canadian taxes, and Trudeau said they promised not to raise taxes on the middle class. Caron took a stab at the same question in French, noting that these companies control online advertising and media, but Trudeau noted that they recognise that the online world is changing which is why they went to Netflix to get more help for content creators. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Veterans
Roundup: Reheated economic policy
Andrew Scheer came out with his first economic policy plank yesterday, and it was pretty much a tepid reheated policy of the Harper era that plans to be packed into a private members’ bill at some point this parliament. The idea is a “tax credit” for parental EI benefits – because Harper-era Conservatives loved nothing more than tax credits, and tax credits are the loophole in private members’ bills that let them spend money without actually spending money, because the rationale is that they’re reducing income rather than raising revenue, but if I had my druthers, I would see that loophole closed because a tax expenditure impacts the treasury just as much as an actual spending programme does. Add to that, tax credits are generally not tracked by the Department of Finance, so their ongoing impact is not reported to Parliament, nor is their effectiveness really tracked either – and yes, there is an Auditor General’s report from a couple of years ago that states this very problem with them.
https://twitter.com/InklessPW/status/959085766029713408
And add to that, this announcement is yet another sop to the suburban family voter that the Conservatives want to try to recapture from the Liberals. Of course, like most of the plans of the Harper era, the tax credit structure doesn’t actually help a lot of the families who need it, and the benefits tend to go towards those who make more money in the first place, which one suspects is why the Liberals’ Canada Child Benefit was seen as a more advantageous plan to that same voting demographic that Scheer wants to target. And don’t take my word for it – here’s Kevin Milligan and Jennifer Robson to walk you through why this isn’t a well though-out plan from an economic or policy standpoint.
https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/959082561090670592
https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/959085082827882496
https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/959087061453033473
https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/959088530117967872
Low & modest income parents are less likely to qualify for & claim EI. Middle/upper income parents are more likely and, all else being equal, would benefit more from tax free status.
— Dr. J Robson (@JenniferRobson8) February 1, 2018
Middle/upper income parents also more likely to get an employer top-up on EI benefits. So tax-free status will cut their tax burden even if take-home income is near 100% of working income
— Dr. J Robson (@JenniferRobson8) February 1, 2018
What’s the rationale for making only *some* EI special benefits tax-free? Why not sickness? Or compassionate care?
— Dr. J Robson (@JenniferRobson8) February 1, 2018
To clarify: I don’t mean *ought to not be taxable*. Rather, I mean this is opening a can of problems/worms. Distracts from focus on more better options to improve each EI & support for new parents.
— Dr. J Robson (@JenniferRobson8) February 1, 2018
Roundup: Procedural shenanigans beget the new anthem
There has been some drama in the Senate over the past couple of days as the procedural shenanigans to bring the national anthem bill to a final vote culminated in a motion to call the vote, and eventually that happened. The bill has passed, and the new national anthem will be law once the Governor General gives it royal assent. But the procedural moves have the Conservatives in a high dudgeon, somewhat legitimately.
https://twitter.com/larrywsmith36/status/958840131481423872
My understanding of events was that the main motion to call the vote has been on the Order Paper for months, and was finally called Tuesday night. This was a debatable motion, and likely would have sparked a few weeks of adjournments and debate, but ultimately would have delayed the vote for only that long. But a second, also legitimate procedural move was used by another Independent senator immediately following, and Speaker apparently didn’t hear Senator Don Plett’s desire to debate it. What I’ve been able to gather is that this was likely a mistake given lines of sight, but were compounded by tactical errors on the Conservatives’ part in demanding to debate the first motion and not the second (or something to that effect). Points order were debated last night, but they had agreed to end the sitting at 4 PM in order to have the votes at 5:30, and when they didn’t get unanimous consent to extend the sitting, debate collapsed and when 5:30 rolled around, the Conservatives boycotted the vote in protest. According to those I’ve consulted, the moves were all legitimate but messy, and have the danger of setting up bad precedent for not allowing debate on this kind of motion.
https://twitter.com/InklessPW/status/958853911888080898
The Conservatives in the Senate, meanwhile, are caterwauling that their democratic rights have been taken away, and there is talk about conspiracy between Mélanie Joly’s staff, and other threads that are hard to track when they’re throwing them against the wall like spaghetti. And while I share the concerns about bad precedent, I can’t say that I have too much sympathy because they’ve used (and one could argue abused) procedure for over a year to keep the bill at Third Reading, with the intent to ultimately delay it until it died on the Order Paper. They insist that they offered the chance to amend it to the more grammatically correct “thou dost in us command” rather than the clunky “in all of us command,” but I find it a bit disingenuous, because it was simply another delay tactic. And I’ve argued before that this continued tendency to use procedural tactics to delay bills is going to end up biting them in the ass, especially because it plays into Senator Peter Harder’s hands in his quest to overhaul the chamber in order to strip it of its Westminster character. The Conservatives are overplaying their hand, and it’s going to make it very difficult to drum up enough legitimate concern to stop Harder when crunch time comes, and they should be very aware of that fact.
.@SenHarder @melaniejoly @yuenpauwoo Trudeau staff taking the independence out of Trudeau’s independent senate. @michelabreau pic.twitter.com/7JP198to2n
— Sen. Larry W. Smith (@SenLWSmith) February 1, 2018
https://twitter.com/InklessPW/status/958861523878789120
QP: Bardish Chagger, ad nauseam
While the prime minister was off to Winnipeg, the desks in the Chamber were full, MPs ready for another scintillating round of accountability. Or talking points at the very least. Andrew Scheer led off, mini-lectern on desk, and today decided to use the moving expenses of senior PMO staff as his cudgel to demand the PM repay his expenses for that infamous vacation. Bardish Chagger reminded him that the PM accepted the report, took responsibility, and made changes going forward. Scheer switched to English to try again, getting breathy in his punctuation, and Chagger reiterated her response. Scheer insisted that an apology is no good without an attempt to make amends — apparently financially — but got the same response. Lisa Raitt was up next to assert that there were no recommendations in the report, just facts and an assertion of guilt, before she too demanded repayment. Chagger reiterated her points, including stating that he accepted recommendations. Raitt tried a second time more forcefully, and Chagger spelled out that the recommendations came from the former Commissioner at committee. Ruth Ellen Brosseau led for the NDP, demanding to know what the government was doing to get more women elected. Karina Gould said that they were doing more recruit more women, and wanted to ensure that they could thrive once elected. Brosseau tried again in French, got the same answer, and Karine Trudel and Shiela Malcolmson demanded pay equity legislation in both French and English. Scott Brison said they were working with the public sector unions and other unions on the topic, and that they remained committed to a proactive pay equity system.
Brosseau’s question is not government responsibility. It’s each party’s job to recruit candidates. #QP
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) January 31, 2018
Roundup: Duffy’s privilege problems
At long last, the Senate has responded to Senator Mike Duffy’s lawsuit against it, and is asking the Ontario courts to remove it from the suit because of parliamentary privilege. This was to be expected, and I’m surprised it took this long, but here we are. Duffy’s lawyer says that he’ll fight it, of course, but he’s going to have an uphill battle because this is very much a live issue.
For a refresher as to why this matters as an issue of privilege is because it’s about the ability of the Senate to discipline one of its own members. This is especially important because the Senate is a self-governing body of Parliament, and because it’s appointed with institutional independence and security of tenure in order to ensure that there is that independence. In other words, the Senate has to be able to police its own because there’s no one else who can while still giving it the ability to be self-governing (as we explored in great detail over the Auditor General’s desire to have an external audit body oversee the chamber’s activities). And indeed, UOttawa law professor Carissima Mathen agrees that it would be odd for the Senate not to have the power to suspend its own members, and raises questions about whether it’s appropriate for the judiciary to interfere in this kind of parliamentary activity. (It’s really not).
The even bigger complicating factor in this, of course, is that NDP court case trying to fight the House of Commons’ Board of Internal Economy decision around their satellite offices. The Federal Court ruled there that it’s not a case of privilege (which is being appealed), and Duffy’s former lawyer, Donald Bayne, said that this is a precedent in their favour while on Power & Politics yesterday. And he might have a point, except that the Commons’ internal economy board is a separate legislative creature, whereas the Senate’s internal economy committee is a committee of parliament and not a legislative creation. This is a Very Big Difference (and one which does complicate the NDP case, to the point that MPs may have actually waived their own ability to claim privilege when they structured their Board in such a fashion – something that we should probably retroactively smack a few MPs upside the head for). I don’t expect that Duffy will win this particular round, meaning that his lawsuit will be restricted to the RCMP for negligent investigation, but even that’s a tough hill to climb in and of itself. He may not have much luck with this lawsuit in the long run.
Roundup: Draft climate legislation revealed
The government unveiled their draft legislation for carbon pricing mechanisms, largely as the backstop for those provinces whose governments are toeing the agreed-upon line, and it includes both pricing incentives for those who can get 30 percent below the national standards, as well as the ability for the federal government to directly reimburse individuals for their carbon payments rather than just returning it all to provincial coffers and letting the provincial government figure it out.
.@cathmckenna says 'we're not letting anyone off the hook' over provisions to protect industrial emitters' international competitiveness. #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/Y2UgV8RFqd
— Power & Politics (@PnPCBC) January 15, 2018
Energy economists Andrew Leach and Trevor Tombe dig into the announcements a bit more.
It's going to take a while to get through the fine print, but the federal carbon pricing regime is, for all intents and purposes, the Alberta system. A consumption-side carbon price and an industrial emitters regime with output-based allocations to protect competitiveness.
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) January 16, 2018
This is, I believe, the 5th major GHG regulatory effort out of ECCC in the last 12 years, under three governments. LPC Project Green, CPC Reg Framework, CPC cap-and-trade, CPC sector-by-sector approach, LPC carbon pricing backstop.
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) January 16, 2018
I think this might be the most interesting part of the federal GHG backstop policy: fed gov't discretion on distribution of revenues from carbon charges. 1/N #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/vt1yYXyOh5
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) January 16, 2018
A similar clause appears in the industrial regulations for GHGs, allowing more discretion than I'd expected in how any excess compliance payments are used. #CDNpoli pic.twitter.com/Dbnh9d80uQ
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) January 16, 2018
Here, you will find the Federal Government response to the proposed Carbon Tax Repeal Act of 2019 in Alberta. #ableg #CDNpoli pic.twitter.com/9pPw0EtOcU
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) January 16, 2018
Provisions in the Act to extend the time period beyond 2022 or, interestingly, to change the price schedule between now and 2022. pic.twitter.com/FOlCD2yyvJ
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) January 16, 2018
Offsets are possible under the regulations, but as of now, there are no federal guidelines. Will be interesting to see whether AB offsets would be eligible for compliance in, say, Saskatchewan. #CDNpoli #ableg pic.twitter.com/zLp78oCD3H
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) January 16, 2018
An interesting comparison: the proposed GHG prices in the Harper plan of 2008 vs the Trudeau plan of 2018. PMSH price for 2016 was the same as PMJTs proposed price for 2022. #CDNpoli pic.twitter.com/K6ErqhOLvT
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) January 16, 2018
Interesting to note the use of funds: Feds will distribute their CTax proceeds to the province *OR* persons in a prescribed manner (i.e., Feds leaving themselves discretion to provide low income rebates directly). S. 164 (2): pic.twitter.com/MgAealhKJB
— Trevor Tombe (@trevortombe) January 15, 2018
Roundup: Morneau cleared – mostly
On her way out the door, now-former Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson released a statement saying that there was no ethics issue or conflicts of interest with Bill Morneau’s share sales, which blows the hysterical arguments about “insider trading” out of the water. As well they should be – these claims were never serious to begin with, and were part of the attempt to throw everything at the wall in the hopes that something, anything, would stick. This of course leaves the “investigation” into Morneau introducing Bill C-27 on pension reform while he still indirectly held those Morneau Shepell shares, and the opposition are still waving their hands around this and trying to insist that this is some kind of Major Ethical Issue, never mind that the allegations themselves depend on a fundamental misunderstanding with how ministers sponsor bills, and ignoring the fact that clearing bills with the Ethics Commissioner before they are tabled would be a violation of cabinet confidence and parliamentary privilege. But hey, we’ve already established that we don’t need plausibility or facts to get in the way of laying allegations – it’s simply about trying to build a “narrative” by whatever means necessary.
Meanwhile in Maclean’s, Paul Wells has a lengthy interview with Morneau about how his last six months have gone, and it’s a good read. The major takeaway in all of this is that Morneau and the cabinet got complacent after a string of successes, where they managed to get some pretty big wins despite initial grumbles from provinces around things CPP reform or healthcare premiums. The fact that they shopped those planned changes to private corporation tax rules several times and got no pushback meant that they let their guards down, and then with a combination of misrepresentation around what those changes were, and reporting that didn’t question those narratives, Morneau wound up blindsided, which was compounded by his dislike of being scrappy enough to respond to allegations and mistruths forcefully. One hopes that he’ll have learned his political lessons and that he’ll start stepping up a little sooner – and communicating better – but time will tell.
Roundup: Mary Dawson delivers a spanking
Outgoing Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson released her report on the Prime Minister’s vacation to the Bahamas and the Aga Khan’s private island there last Christmas, and she determined that he had indeed broken four sections of the code. Reaction was swift – Trudeau quickly called a press conference to apologise and try and to take full responsibility, but stumbled in some of his responses. And soon after, both Andrew Scheer and Jagmeet Singh called their own press conferences to condemn Trudeau and to rail about how out of touch he is, and so on.
Rosemary Barton presses Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about his decision to vacation on the private island owned by the Aga Khan.
Read more: https://t.co/piRo8tdZ62 pic.twitter.com/m2aq3jf3Wc
— CBC News: The National (@CBCTheNational) December 20, 2017
First things first: The Canadian Press has five items of note from the report, and John Geddes offers three items of his own. Hay is being made – particularly from certain opposition politicians – that Trudeau is the first PM to have been found guilty of breaking these conflict of interest laws, but it’s worth bearing in mind that this current conflict of interest regime is only a decade old, and it’s not a lot of time for which there to be much to compare to. Aaron Wherry parses the report here, while Paul Wells offers his own bigger-picture look as to why this all matters.
This all having been said, I’m trying to digest the substance of the report, and some of it does rankle with me a bit, in particular the way in which Dawson parses how a friendship with someone like the Aga Khan should unfold, given the position that he holds. I also wonder if better context should have been applied to just what his Foundation’s dealings with the Canadian government are, because actual private interests aren’t being advanced here – nobody profits from this. A lot of what the Foundation does with Canadian aid money is do things like provide school books to Syrian refugees in camps in the Middle East, where they have the networks to deliver them. This isn’t nearly the same thing as accepting gifts from businessmen whose private interests and personal profits may rely on decisions made by the Canadian government, and I wonder if it’s helpful to treat those as being on an equal playing field. (Then again, maybe it is. I’m not an expert in this).
https://twitter.com/aaronwherry/status/943542087299010561
A couple of other thoughts – It is fair to ask why Trudeau and his team, who can be so focused on optics at times, were so blind to this one. But given that they’ve scored more than a few own-goals this last year with bad communications plans, that’s becoming clear that they’re not the masters at this that they sometimes appear to be. As for the lack of penalties in the Conflict of Interest legislation, we have to bear in mind that these are political actors that we are discussing, and merely naming and shaming them does have political consequences. If we got into games of demanding financial penalties or that public office holders be jailed for breaches, we change the political calculus of this ethics regime, and it would become an even bigger gong show than it is now, not to mention that it would make cooperation even less likely if they think there’s a jail sentence attached. And finally, there is a lot of smug sanctimony going around, but some caution had best be exercised, particularly by members of the opposition, when it comes to how the Aga Khan is portrayed in this. The Ismaili community already has their backs up over how he has been characterised to date, and those opposition parties could find themselves alienating an important voting bloc if they’re not careful.
Like, if not "Justin, this might violate the Conflict of Interest Act," then "Justin, this could play badly for us in the following seven ways…"
— Chris Selley (@cselley) December 20, 2017
https://twitter.com/aaronwherry/status/943550386715222016
Roundup: Will American tax changes affect us?
With the excitement building over that coming US tax cut legislation (if one can call it that), we have already started seeing reaction here in Canada about how we should react, and while there has been some predictable demands that we start cutting our own corporate taxes yet again, others have called for a more pragmatic approach. In the Financial Post, Jack Mintz foretold doom for our economy in the face of these changes. With that in mind, Kevin Milligan tweeted out some thoughts:
https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/943147447957667840
https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/943148492121284608
https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/943150555899105280
https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/943151815540932608
https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/943152471857291264
It also hasn’t gone unnoticed that these changes will create all manner of new loopholes around personal incorporation to avoid paying income taxes – kind of like Canada has been cracking down on this past year. Imagine that.
https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/943192234958221313
https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/943193234817404929
To that end, Milligan offered a few more thoughts about the experience around implementing these kinds of changes.
https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/943179468205473792
https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/943180201596350464
https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/943183056554270722
https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/943184198034001921
Meanwhile, my Loonie Politics column looks at whether the process used by that American tax bill could happen in Canada. Short answer: no.
Roundup: Cyberwarfare oversight concerns
The University of Toronto’s CitizenLab issued a report on Bill C-59, and the powers that it gives the Communications Security Establishment to engage in offensive cyberwarfare operations, rather than just sticking to being on the defensive. According to their report, these kinds of activities wouldn’t require any kind of judicial oversight – just the sign-off from the ministers of foreign affairs and national defence – and will have little other oversight other than the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. And as Stephanie Carvin explains below, that’s actually not a bad thing, because offensive capabilities are not the same as intelligence gathering – one of CSE’s other activities.
https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/942720569648340992
https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/942721438150209536
And this is pretty much the point – a Crown prerogative doesn’t require the same kinds of oversight, and does not necessarily bind the activities to being Charter compliant because it’s not directed at Canadians, thus is not concerned with their particular rights and freedoms. And as Carvin points out, these kinds of operations have their own particular oversight mechanisms, which are simply different than the once that CitizenLab identifies. It’s perfectly fine to wonder if CSE is really the agency to be doing this kind of work, but that also means asking who else would be doing it, and if the answer is to build new capabilities within the Canadian Forces, is that the best use of scarce resources? Perhaps, perhaps not. It’s certainly a topic worthy of debate, but “no judicial oversight” is not right argument to be making in this case.