Tag Archives: Veterans

QP: The Giorno angle

Posted on by

With all of the leaders in the Commons today, the hope was that the show would be a little less awful than it was yesterday. On the whole, it was. Rona Ambrose led off, mini-lectern on desk, reading a plea that the government approve the Pacific Northwest LNG project, and Justin Trudeau dissembles about the choice between the environment and the economy. Ambrose lamented that too many pipeline projects were languishing and getting people back to work. Trudeau reminded her that their pipeline plans didn’t work because they didn’t get community buy-in, added that the Conservative voted against middle-class tax cuts. Ambrose changed topics, concerned about discussions with China that included cyber-security regardless of how many times Chinese hackers attacked Canadian targets. Trudeau stated that previous discussions were always ad hoc, while these new high-level discussions provided a more permanent framework. Ambrose expressed confusion about any extradition talks with China, and Trudeau returned to the same response about high-level dialogue. Ambrose asked again in French, and got the same answer. Thomas Mulcair was up next, asking if the Great Bear rainforest was no place for a crude oil pipeline, but wondered if it would also be one for natural gas. Trudeau didn’t give a clear response, mentioning analyzing various projects. Mulcair then lamented the adoption of Harper-era healthcare “cuts” (note: it’s not a cut, because the funds are still increasing), but Trudeau shrugged it off with talk of consultation with the provinces. Mulcair went another round in French, got the same answer, and then Mulcair moved onto labour rights and demanded that the government support their anti-scab bill. Trudeau spoke about the need for a better collaborative approach.

Continue reading →

QP: Doomsaying and expense obsession

Posted on by

Caucus day, and with Trudeau back from the UN, we had a full leadership deck today (minus Elizabeth May, who is travelling with the electoral reform committee). Rona Ambrose led off, mini-lectern on desk, doomsaying the economy and the looming catastrophes of a carbon tax and a CPP increase. Trudeau reminded her that they have lowered taxes for the middle class and noted that the previous record of not raising them on the wealthy didn’t work. Ambrose moved to the possible extradition treaty with China and that country’s human rights record. Trudeau noted that the dialogue they have established means they can raise difficult questions as well as investment opportunities, while they won’t lower the standards on extraditions. Ambrose worried about Chinese cyber-attacks, and Trudeau noted again that the dialogue allows them to raise difficult issues. Ambrose asked about the extradition treaty again in French, got the same answer, and ended her round asking about a peacekeeping missing in sub-Saharan Africa. Trudeau noted the responsibility that Canada has to the world, and said that they were considering the mission carefully in order to determine what the mission would be, but assured her they would be transparent. Thomas Mulcair was up next and demanded a vote on a peacekeeping mission. Trudeau noted this appreciation for the capacity of parliamentarians to raise issues, but didn’t deliver the necessary civics lesson about why a vote would undermine the role of the opposition. Mulcair touched on the extradition treaty with China, got the same answer that Ambrose got, and Mulcair moved onto a pair of questions about the climate targets not being more robust than those of the Conservatives. In both cases, Trudeau reminded him of their commitment to working with the provinces as they agreed to price carbon.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Party fault lines

Posted on by

With social conservatives trying to stake out turf, along with Kellie Leitch’s “Canadian values” testing, Michael Chong’s Red Toryism and Maxime Bernier’s Freedom!-crying Libertarian-ish-ism, the question has been posed as to whether the Conservative leadership is opening up old schisms in the party. And the answer I would surmise is that probably, and it’s almost inevitable that it would. The party is a fairly big tent with some big divisions that got patched over by Stephen Harper in his quest to take down the Liberal party, and at the time, he was able to get enough disaffected factions together to do just that and keep them together while they achieved power, because power is its own reward. But now that they’re no longer in power, with Harper no longer at the helm, and the conditions that predicated his leadership have moved on, it’s not surprising in the slightest that these factions are now getting restive and trying to find different leadership camps to rally around. It’s not uncommon, and I have to wonder if there is anyone with enough personality and charisma to keep the factions together, given that there seems to be little appetite for another Harper (not that one could really be found among the current crop of leadership candidates). One could add that it should be a warning to Jason Kenney that the same conditions that allowed for the Conservative unification federally may not exist in Alberta given the history and challenges of the separate parties there. I would also note that given the diversity of views to be found in that big tent, this is likely not a discussion that we would be having if Canada were to adopt a Proportional Representation voting system. There, each faction would be more likely to splinter off into its own party in the hopes of forming an external coalition with more leverage for trying to achieve their goals rather than the internal coalitions that exist in big-tent brokerage parties currently, which moderate the excesses of the various factions in the hopes of achieving government. It’s one of those reasons why we need to be sceptical of those poll analyses that would show how the election might have gone under another system, given that it’s not likely that our parties would continue to exist in the same way under a different system.

Meanwhile, in case it was keeping you up at night, Kevin O’Leary continues to say he’s waiting to see who else is running before he announces if he’ll make a leadership bid of his own.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Fear change of government!

Posted on by

Another day, another round of completely objectionable things heard regarding electoral reform that need to be countered. Most egregious of all today was Elizabeth May’s musing about the nature of government under current and PR systems.

And then my head exploded.

It sounded for a moment there like May was advocating for a system of basically permanent governments that don’t change, and that basic accountability – i.e. “throwing the bums out” – was a bad thing. It boggles the mind that this would be considered a good thing. Is it a good thing that countries like Germany, Austria and Sweden have basically had one-party rule for decades, where coalition partners get shuffled and that’s that? That hardly sounds like a healthy democracy because longevity can certainly breed complacency and to a certain degree corruption. May also assumes that the “consensus building” of coalitions would somehow produce superior governance without looking at the effect it has on accountability (when everyone’s responsible, then no one’s responsible), or that the watered-down outcomes and lack of ability to govern effectively in many cases is really better than a system that allows for decisive action but also the ability to hold those who take action to account for those decisions. Seriously, though, this dislike of accountability mechanisms is very concerning. Also, this notion that the “right parties” will always be in power to get these mythical better outcomes.

https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/771181766413398020

https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/771182236003512324

And then there’s Andrew Coyne, who again cherry-picks his railing against the arguments to keep the status quo with regards to the arguments about stable governments (as though other PR countries operate on a system of responsible government), or that our current system has been riddled with regional parties that we warn about in PR countries (ignoring that regional parties don’t last long in our system precisely because they can’t get power), and buying into Ed Broadbent’s ridiculous revisionist mythologizing about the NEP.

I’ll end on one good note, which was Samara’s call for better civic education. That should be what the government spends its time, energy and resources on rather than this ridiculous quest for a new electoral system, but it’s a start that people are calling out for it.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Ignoring accountability, again

Posted on by

Samara Canada, the country’s civic engagement organisation, put out a report over the weekend about electoral reform and what the various kinds of systems looked like. And it’s a decent enough report on its own, but what struck me was the fact that yet again, we get a report on electoral systems that ignores the biggest single point of discussion with any electoral system – accountability. While I tweeted this concern, the report author responded thusly:

While the fact that two systems have a correlation between MPs and ridings, it doesn’t spell out the fact there are accountability mechanism, particularly around both nomination processes and in being able to punish an MP at the ballot box if necessary. Why this needs to be spelled out is because with Proportional Representation systems that have lists, the ability for voters to determine who is on that list is a big issue. Is it a slate? Then do you not vote for the slate for one or two bad names on that list? Is it an open list? How does that complicate the ballot process, particularly if you want to punish a bad MP? There is mention paid in the report to parties who want to put more women and visible minorities on their lists as a selling feature, but nothing about where those lists become problems when it comes to holding that party to account, or those MPs when it comes to re-election.

Similarly, one party government does not tell us anything about how we hold a government to account at election time, nor does it spell out the problems with holding governments to account when they are part of a coalition. The ability to punish a government at the ballot box is a feature of our current system, and this needs to be stated as such. Conversely, the fact that in many countries that use PR systems and have coalition governments, central parties can stay in power for decades by simply shuffling their coalition partners around periodically. This is not holding them to account, nor is it actually healthy for democracy if parties stay in power in perpetuity. They actually need to be out of power from time to time in order to refresh themselves, but this is not mentioned anywhere.

While I appreciate that the author had limited space to work in, accountability is a concept that needs to be stated explicitly and discussed in open terms rather than in vague mentions like he did here. As with the whole electoral reform committee process we’ve seen, so much attention is paid to fetishizing the ballot without actually ever mentioning accountability that it’s only having half the discussion. Accountability matters. Being able to punish at the ballot box is just as important – if not more so – than electing someone. Being able to throw the bums out is one of the biggest single features of our current system, and yet that gets mentioned almost nowhere over the course of these discussions. It’s ridiculous and wrong, and we need to talk about it openly and frankly if we’re to have a true and proper discussion about what’s at stake.

Continue reading →

QP: A (mostly) serious, grown-up day

Posted on by

There we no major leaders present for Question Period yet again, and with an increasing number of empty desks, the time of year is getting increasingly obvious. After an emotional tribute by Nathan Cullen to UK MP Jo Cox, who was murdered in her home riding earlier today, there was a moment of silence in the Commons. Jason Kenney started off, demanding that ISIS be considered a genocide. Stéphane Dion assured him that because of the UN report on genocidal activities, they were asking the UN Security Council to make a declaration. Kenney insisted that Dion was late to the party and named off other affected local populations, and Dion reminded him that Canada’s policy was the same as our allies and we were taking the lead in getting the Security Council to Act and it was why we tripled our contribution to the allied forces in the region. A third round from Kenney got the same answer. Michelle Rempel was up next, and demanded action on resettling Yazidis to Canada. John McCallum noted that several families were on the way to Winnipeg in a few weeks under private sponsorship, and noted that the Immigration Committee had just adopted a motion to study it. Rempel quoted the act that lets McCallum take action immediately, and he reminded her that the situation was more complicated than that. Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet led off for the NDP, demanding parliamentary oversight for weapons exports. Dion stated that he controls export permits and does so with rigour and transparency. Boutin-Sweet then demanded a public inquiry into Afghan detainees, and John McKay listed off past and ongoing investigations. Murray Rankin was up next, and demanded that parliament pass Bill C-14 as amended. Jody Wilson-Raybould insisted that the bill as tabled was already constitutional and that it was the right approach. Rankin demanded the bill be referred to the Supreme Court, but Wilson-Raybould was not moved.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Modest changes suggested

Posted on by

When its release was announced, I approached it with trepidation – based on the discussions to date, it was bound to be a horror show. Surprisingly, however, the report on how to make the House of Commons more “family friendly” was less ambitious than it could have been – so far, at least. There were many issues left unresolved for the future, and I’m sure that they plan to address some of those issues in a future report, which could indeed be that report that I’m dreading. Overall, however, they decided against the four-day workweek, and haven’t done anything particularly ridiculous like electronic voting or Skyping into committee meetings. Recommendations did include:

  • Maintaining the motion to keep most votes after QP, but not changing the Standing Orders so as to keep flexibility in the system
  • Not holding votes after Thursday QP so as to let MPs be flexible with travel arrangements
  • Moving the date up for deciding on next year’s calendar for better planning
  • Having House Administration provide flexible childcare options at the Members’ own hourly cost
  • Letting MPs’ families have access to their calendars
  • Better flexibility with the shuttle bus service on the Hill
  • Looking at amending the travel point system with regard to families.

While the worst of the previously discussed options were not recommended going forward, and some of the more nonsensical issues like decorum in the Chamber (which has to do with family friendliness how?) had no recommendations, I still think that some of these recommendations have problems. In particular, demanding that House Administration provide childcare options is an issue because uncertainty of usage is costly – do you have childcare workers essentially on standby? How does that work for them, exactly? As well, I find the demand that the Commons provide this service to be a bit rich because these MPs should be able to find solutions on their own. After all, they make $170,000 base salary per year – they can afford to find their own childcare options, whether it’s a nanny or whatnot. The recommendation around travel points is also a little unsettling because it amounts to reducing the transparency around travel so as not to discourage family members from travelling to Ottawa by opening themselves up to criticism. While I do think that we have a problem with petty, cheap outrage when it comes to reporting on MPs’ expenses, I also think that we should use the opportunity to have a discussion with Canadians about the effect of travel on MPs and their families rather than just shaming them without any pushback. After all, we should address these issues rather than just letting the cheap outrage narrative carry the day.

Continue reading →

QP: Politicizing genocide

Posted on by

The benches were nearly full, and all of the leaders were present for today’s exercise in accountability. Rona Ambrose, mini-lectern on neighbouring desk, led off by demanding that the government was “shameful” in not declaring ISIS to be a genocide. Justin Trudeau strongly condemned the actions of ISIS, praised our efforts, and noted that they asked the international authorities to weigh on rather than politicians. Ambrose pressed, Trudeau reiterated that they wouldn’t trivialise the word “genocide” by using it inappropriately. Ambrose tried again in French, and Trudeau repeated his point about not making petty points with this determination. Ambrose moved to the plight of Yazidi girls and asking for them to be brought to Canada. Trudeau noted that they use the UN determination of most needy. Ambrose insisted that they weren’t refugees but displaced people, and the Conservatives hollered as Trudeau noted that the previous government diminished the capacity to bring people to Canada. Thomas Mulcair was up next, and lamented the court battle from a veterans group, and Trudeau insisted that they were making changes to help veterans. After another round in French, Mulcair moved onto marijuana decriminalisation, and Trudeau reminded him that decriminalisation won’t stop street gangs. Mulcair repeated the question in English, and got the same answer.

Continue reading →

QP: A moment for Orlando

Posted on by

Things got off today with a few statements of condolence and shock around the attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando over the weekend, and a moment of silence in the House of Commons. Neither Rona Ambrose nor Justin Trudeau were present today, Trudeau meeting with the chief and youth delegates from Attawapiskat.

Denis Lebel led off by asking about the terror attack in Orlando and the execution of hostage Robert Hall in the Philippines. Ralph Goodale responded with condolences and assurances that there were no threats to Canadians. Lebel then demanded an electoral reform referendum, to which Maryam Monsef called on all parliamentarians to help the committee do their work. Lebel pivoted again, and asked about a carbon tax. Jonathan Wilkinson assured him that they were focused on growing the economy in an environmentally sustainable way. Andrew Scheer took a crack at that question in English, terming a carbon price an “Ottawa knows best” approach, and Wilkinson gave the same answer. Scheer then accused the Liberals of charging admission for an electoral reform town hall, and Monsef said that they all members were supposed to follow the rules around these town halls. Thomas Mulcair was up next, and raised their opposition day motion topic of marijuana decriminalisation for simple possession. Jody Wilson-Raybould noted that they can’t just decriminalise without ensuring that children could not access it. Mulcair gave it another go in English, got the same same answer, and then he pivoted to take on the scourge of bank fees. François-Philippe Champagne reminded him that the government doesn’t regulate the day-to-day operations of banks. Mulcair asked again in French, and got much the same answer.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Save your prayers

Posted on by

As reaction to the Orlando shooting started to roll in, the rote phrase of “thoughts and prayers” was pretty much stock on most public officials’ tweets and posts, including in Canada. The Governor of Florida went so far as to say that now was a time for prayer. And yes, reaction to these kinds of events is now rote and ritualised, and it gets worse with every time that it happens.

https://twitter.com/scott_gilmore/status/742066737995231232

In this particular incidence, however, people calling for prayer are precisely the wrong thing to say. Why? This was a crime directed at the LGBT community (in this instance, particularly gay men), and it should not bear reminding that this is a community that has to deal with spiritual violence directed toward them on a consistent basis. What exactly do you think that calling for prayer for a community that is constantly told that they’re going to hell means to them? Do you think it somehow comforts them to know that the same god who is wielded against them is supposed to be looking after them? Really? As well, the fact that the word “homophobia” is absent from most of the leaders’ statements is a problem in my opinion.

While it’s all well and good to call it domestic terrorism – which it undoubtedly is – the problem with that narrative, particularly with an ostensibly Muslim shooter (that he may have declared allegiance to ISIS being entirely irrelevant) is that it diminishes the act perpetrated against the targeted community. Both Trudeau and Ambrose are supportive of the LGBT community, of that there is no doubt, but for them not to call out homophobia point blank is disappointing, particularly because words matter, and when the word they choose is “terrorism,” it sets up for a specific response, and in today’s climate, that response gears toward Islamophobia instead. Across the Twitter Machine, people insisted that it was Islam who planted the seeds of homophobia in the shooter, which is rich considering how much the Christian right-wing in America uses blatant homophobia (and more recently transphobia) for political ends. But suddenly these same American politicians care about the lives of 50 people gunned down in a gay nightclub (without ever having to say the words “gay” or “homophobia,” natch). Fortunately, things are a little better on this side of the border.

I would like to see more statements like Rempel’s, where homophobia is called out, and there are no calls for prayer; and likewise with Oliphant’s, who reminds people that Muslims are not automatically homophobes or hate-mongers. Words matter. We should ensure that they are used wisely.

Continue reading →