Tag Archives: Veterans

Roundup: 10 grievances aired

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“It’s a new way to interview the prime minister!” CBC declared, as they promoted their latest gimmick – their “face-to-face” special with the prime minister, in which they selected ten Canadians from around the country to come to Ottawa, and each have a ten minute conversation with Justin Trudeau about whatever their issue is. I watched the one-hour special (not the individual interviews – sorry, but I try to have a life), and was underwhelmed. Why? Because it wasn’t actually interviewing the PM – it was ten people coming largely with a personal grievance to be aired.

While the CBC pats itself on the back about this little exercise, and good on them for trying it, I just felt like there actually wasn’t anything new here. That Trudeau agreed to do this wasn’t a surprise in the least – connecting with “ordinary Canadians” is his shtick. He spent the better part of the past three years doing just that. If the last guy agreed to do this – that would be news. Trudeau? Not so much. That it feeds into this toxic narrative that there is an “Ottawa bubble” that must be broken out of is also annoying, because it presumes that the higher-level discussions that happen here aren’t important or that they don’t matter to “ordinary Canadians” when everything that happens here does impact, whether they see it or not. And with these airing of grievances, what I saw demonstrated was an expectation from these “ordinary Canadians” that the prime minister must not only have facile solutions to complex problems – many of which are not even within his own jurisdiction – but that there was an expectation that he personally should be doing something for them, and for their personal situation. Is this the expectation that people have about the way that politics works? That there is some kind of entitlement that voters have for their problems to be solved if they complain to the people in office about them? Maybe this is a reflection of who the CBC chose for their ten people, and that it’s not more reflective of the broader population as a whole. Suffice to say, I came away from the whole thing feeling worse for having watched it, but then again, maybe I’m not the audience for these kinds of things.

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QP: Concern for jobs and Iran 

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While it was caucus day, and all of the leaders were present, but things got off to a late start for a rather unfashionable reason. When QP started, Rona Ambrose started, mini-lectern on desk, reading a question about the lack of concern by the government over mounting job losses in Alberta. Justin Trudeau reassured her that he was preoccupied with the issue, and that measures were coming in the budget. Ambrose repeated the question in French, got much the same response, and then turned to the lifting of sanctions on Iran but tied it into the Syria mission. Trudeau said that the world was safer with a nuclear deal with Iran, and that Canada needed to engage in a responsible way with that country. Tony Clement railed against Iran in French, to which Trudeau repeated his previous answer about engaging responsibly, and then went for another round in English on the topic. Thomas Mulcair was up next, and demanded action on restoring home mail delivery. Trudeau reminded him that they campaigned on a moratorium, which they did, and they were now engaging with Canadians on the issue. Mulcair then demanded that OAS be restored to people at 65 immediately, to which Trudeau reminded him that it’s already the case. Mulcair read the same question again in French, got the very same answer, that they age increase wasn’t going to happen until 2023, and suggested that Mulcair check his facts first. Mulcair asked about provincial pension enrichments, to which Trudeau reminded him that the finance minister is currently engaging with provinces.

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QP: Call Denis Coderre

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The first QP of 2016, and after several statements of condolences for the incidents in La Loche, Saskatchewan, and the attacks in Burkina Faso and Jakarta, there was a moment of silence for the victims in La Loche. Rona Ambrose led off, script on mini-lectern, and read her condolences for La Loche and asked for an update on the situation. Justin Trudeau expressed his condolences, and noted that the RCMP and victims support services were on the ground to support the community. Ambrose then accused Trudeau of “swanning around” in Davos while Canadians were hurting. Trudeau insisted that his party was elected on a commitment of investment and growth, and listed the business leaders he met with to get them to invest in Canada. Ambrose then accused him of running down the resource sector, to which Trudeau insisted that the resourcefulness of Canadians included the natural resources sector. Ambrose switched to French, and accused the government of spending through the surplus they left behind (not that any of the projections agreed that there was a surplus ongoing), and Trudeau reiterate that they were elected on a platform of investment. Ambrose then demanded that Trudeau call Denis Coderre to fight for the Energy East pipeline, to which Trudeau replied that they had ten years to get pipelines approved and couldn’t. Thomas Mulcair was up next, and concern trolled about the fact that the TPP was being signed without changes. Trudeau corrected him, saying that signing was only one step that was moving forward with the consultation process. There was a round of the same again in French, before Mulcair switched to the PBO’s report on tax changes. Trudeau praised them for helping more families than before. Mulcair brought up comments made by the new Clerk of the Privy Council about university protesters (Trudeau: I’m pleased he’s the new clerk and will lead public service renewal).

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Roundup: Heckling the delicate flowers

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Oh, those poor delicate flowers that dwell in the House of Commons. Their poor nerves are so affected by all of the terrible heckling during Question Period that they all need to collapse on a divan, and get out the smelling salts, and blah, blah, blah. Samara just released a report on heckling, and wouldn’t you just know, everyone is aghast by all of the heckling that goes on. Why, it’s just terrible. But here’s the thing – every MP says they hate it, and insists that they don’t do it, except they do. They’ll even deny it when caught on camera. Heckling of course comes in a broad variety of taunts, jeers, and outright boorish behaviour, but really, sometimes it’s more instructive than what passes for debate. Yes, some heckling is sexist and boorish and should be called out, but not all heckling is sexist and boorish. And when there are complaints that women get heckled more, sometimes it’s because of how they’re reading scripts – one of the things about heckling is that it’s trying to knock people off of their talking points. Sometimes it’s clever and witty, and sometimes it’s not. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t value in knocking people off of their message tracks. And if anyone thinks that simply having more women in the place would change that, well, the most vigorous (and indeed some of the best) hecklers in my experience have been the women. And honestly, I can’t think of anything more dreadful than a QP that lacks it. Why? Because we need an injection of theatre into the sitting day, lest we all develop narcolepsy. Has anyone who moans about heckling sat through the rest of the day’s debates? Probably not. I’ve learned more about some issues by the heckling than I have in the scripted responses by ministers. Can it be too vigorous at times? Sure. Can people take it too far? Of course, and it should be dealt with when that’s the case, but this constant pearl-clutching about it is ridiculous, disingenuous, and in most cases, hypocritical. I’d rather a commitment to improving the quality of heckling than to see its elimination, and we’d be better off for it.

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Roundup: Bemoaning private meetings

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There are times when demands for transparency from the government in all things does perplex me, particularly times when it starts to feel creepily inappropriate. Case in point is the sudden cry of “Oh noes! Justin Trudeau’s itinerary doesn’t list who those private meetings are with!” followed by some handwringing about taxpayer dollars. And then a chorus of “Oh noes! He met with lobbyists!” Because that’s the whole point of lobbying – to meet with officials, and not all lobbying is evil or the exchange of money, gifts or favours for the sake of influence, despite what American television will tell you (though, to be honest, the American version of lobbying – where those lobbyists have been able to be on the floor of the House of Representatives – is excessive). The fact that we can see after the fact that the PM and his staff have met with lobbyists is a sign of the transparency in our reporting mechanism, and I’m sure that there are meetings that should probably be private for all sorts of legitimate reasons. Can we ask questions about it? Sure. Does it mean that we are entitled to be privy to all of the details? I don’t see why. The thing is, sometimes the government relies on private, frank conversations in order to help guide their thinking – kind of like meetings with the Governor General. Sometimes good governance requires a modicum of discretion, and sometimes total transparency makes things worse. Is there a balance to be had? Of course. The fact that we’re getting daily itineraries is a far cry more than what we got under the last guy, and while that can’t simply be the go-to excuse that something is better than nothing, it also behoves us to temper our expectations a little. They don’t have to jump when we say so. I sometimes wonder if there aren’t a few people who don’t realise this and who get bent out of shape when it doesn’t happen. By all means, let’s ask the questions – but let’s also not pretend that the system is broken when we don’t get the answer we’re looking for.

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Roundup: Airfare obsessions

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Oh, the things we obsess over in this country – like the Prime Minister’s air travel. Perpetual source of media copy, as are the strange figures that get attached to it. As previously mentioned, Justin Trudeau and family went on vacation to the Caribbean island of St. Kitts-Nevis, and apparently rented a villa there (which they paid for out of pocket), and got a bit of tabloid attention, because why not? Also, apparently there was a bit of diplomacy as he met with the country’s prime minister and foreign minister, but that’s beside the point. The point is that while Trudeau has promised to reimburse the public purse for the equivalent of economy fares for the trip, the media continues to bring forward the dollar figure of $10,000 per flying hour to operate the Challenger jets, which the PM is obligated to take for security reasons. The problem with using that $10,000/flying hour figure is that it never places it in the context of it being a military aircraft, and it’s not just sitting around waiting to shuttle the PM around – they’re in use for other operations, and even when they’re not, they still get flown empty because those military pilots need to keep up flying hours aboard them. It’s a Thing, but nobody ever mentions it. Instead, when the PM wants to go somewhere on personal business, we drag up the $10,000/flying hours figure because we want a bit of cheap outrage, and if there’s anything that Canadian media loves, it’s cheap outrage. It is a little curious that Trudeau is reimbursing at the economy fare rate, but I guess we’ll see what that rate looks like once it’s repaid. While Paul Martin made it the practice to repay double the going business-class rate, Stephen Harper would occasionally reimburse it at what was alleged to be the lowest possible economy fare, though most of the time when reporters tried to find equivalent flights for what Harper repaid, well, it couldn’t be done. I would say that if anything, repaying less than the economy fare is almost more insulting than not repaying anything and saying “I’m Prime Minister, I can’t fly commercial, so deal with it” because it almost looks like you’re showing contempt than respecting the taxpayer (which is the born-again motto of the Conservative Party post-election). So really, we should suck it up (provided that the trips aren’t egregious) but I see little chance of that happening anytime soon.

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Roundup: The problem with private members’ bills

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I’ve written a lot about the problems with private members’ bills, and in my column this week over at Loonie Politics, it came up again given that the lottery for the Order of Precedence was posted. I wrote about it back in the spring when there were a number of problematic ones that the Senate was possibly going to kill (and in some cases did when the clock ran out on them) for good reason – because they were bad bills. While interviewing Liberal Senator George Baker yesterday for a story I was writing, he offered this, which I unfortunately wasn’t able to include in the piece, but every MP should nevertheless read it and take it to heart:

“Here’s a real problem with these private member’s bills: if there’s a fault in the bill, if there’s a word out of place, if there’s an error in the wording or in the intent of a sentence of paragraph – if it’s a private member’s bill, then the Senate is in a quandary because if they amend the bill, then they will in all likelihood be defeating the bill. If you amend a bill in the Senate, if it’s a private member’s bill, it goes back to the Commons and it goes to the bottom of the list for consideration, and then the private member will come to the Senate committee and say you’re going to pass this bill. We had it happen three times in the past two years. They say you’re going to defeat the bill, so the Senate turned around and passed the bill, given the tradition of not defeating something that’s legitimately passed in the House of Commons, and Senate ignored the necessary amendments and they passed bad legislation.”

Baker is absolutely right in that there is a problem – MPs don’t have them drafted very well, and then don’t do their due diligence because these bills are automatically time-allocated by design. That a number of these bills died on the Order Paper in the Senate one hopes might be an object lesson to MPs that they need to do better, but unfortunately, the lesson too many MPs took is that the “unelected and unaccountable Senate” didn’t just rubber-stamp a bill because it passed the Commons. Except, of course, it’s not their job to rubber stamp, and we’ve had an increasing number of bad bills getting through the cracks based on these emotive arguments, and not a few hissy fits along the way *cough*Reform Act*cough*. And now we have bad laws on the books because of it, apparently content to let the courts handle it instead. It’s sad and a little pathetic, to be perfectly honest. We should be demanding out MPs do better, and when they screw up, they need to take their lumps so that they’ll do better next time. Otherwise they won’t learn – or worse, they will take the wrong lesson, and our system will be worse off.

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Roundup: Barton in charge

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The announcement came down yesterday making it all official – Rosemary Barton has now passed the gauntlet of the competition process and has officially been named the permanent host of CBC’s Power & Politics. It’s not as though she didn’t more than prove herself in spades over the course of the election, with six-days-a-week broadcasts, and sharp coverage, but that Chris Alexander interview, where she shut down one of his tantrums and put him in his place – that has become legendary in political circles already. A senior journalist in this town described her as an “accountability interviewer,” and that’s something that’s been desperately needed in this city, where there has been a certain amount of timidity in the kinds of interviews we’ve seen. Not having a Jeremy Paxman of our own, we’d seen many a political show host in this country tiptoe around members of the Harper government for close to a decade because they often threatened (or instituted) boycotts after one hissy fit or another (John Baird being particularly famous for them), but Barton was having none of that – and it went for opposition MPs as well, like her interview with Thomas Mulcair pretty much on the day she was given the interim job when Evan Soloman’s sudden firing happened, and she didn’t put up with Mulcair’s too-cute-by-half routine. In their release, CBC pointed out her history as a reporter, going back to her starting out as a researcher for the French-language RDI while in Winnipeg, and covering politics in Quebec City – the kinds of chops that her predecessor never had, who relied instead on personality than on hard-won experience in covering the beat. And with Barton’s permanent appointment comes the acknowledgement of the changing face of politics in Canada – the fact that she’s not a middle-aged white male is important in an age of younger MPs, and of gender-equal cabinets, that a younger woman is tougher and more competent in the role than her middle-aged male contemporaries. It’s just too bad that this announcement didn’t happen in June on the heels of Solomon’s departure. (And as for Evan Solomon, it was announced that he’s taking over the afternoon broadcast for Ottawa’s CFRA radio station, because all is apparently forgiven for his ethical lapses).

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Roundup: A troubling allegation

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There’s a rather disquieting story in the Huffington Post that quotes a couple of unnamed former Senate staffers, who point the finger at Senate Speaker Leo Housakos as the source of the leaks of the Auditor General’s report into senators’ expenses. And to be clear, in the past couple of weeks, I’ve heard similar tales being floated by someone else on the inside who witnessed it happen, and later witnessed Housakos deny it to other Senators. And indeed, Housakos was in the big chair when he found a prima facia breach of privilege when Senator Céline Hervieux-Payette raised the issue in the chamber, and with that finding, it went to the Senate’s rules committee to study the matter; that study was suspended when Parliament was dissolved, but it could be revived once the committee is reconstituted. That breach of privilege is a pretty big deal, and the fact that more than one person is now coming forward to say something is telling. This going public is also going to put pressure on Prime Minister Trudeau with regards to what he’s going to do with the question of appointing a new Senate Speaker. To be clear, this is a Prime Ministerial appointment because, unlike the Commons Speaker, the Senate Speaker is higher on the Order of Precedence as he or she fills a variety of additional diplomatic and protocol functions that the Commons Speaker does not, and is considered a representative of the Crown. If the current representative is not deemed to be trustworthy, and has indeed violated the privilege of Senators for his own ends, then it seems difficult to see how he can be trusted to stay in the post, and it may light a fire under Trudeau to do something about it, while the rest of the Senate remains in the dark about how they’re going to organise themselves as Trudeau drags his feet.

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Roundup: Refugee plans leaking out

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We have some more details on the Syrian refugee plans that have started leaking out – 900 Syrians arriving per day starting December 1st, primarily from camps in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey; military facilities are being quickly winterized to help house them, mostly in Ontario and Quebec; and it looks like Christmas leave and vacations are being cancelled for a number of civil servants and military personnel to help make this all happen in time, which will cost in overtime. All will be identified by the UNHCR as resettlement candidates and screened on the ground (screening process explained here), and once they land and additional checks are made, they’ll immediately be made permanent residents. And it sounds like there may also be an advertising campaign to help Canadians who want to help out and do more to help the refugees. We’re due to get the official confirmation for these plans by next week, so we’ll see how much of all these leaks bears out then, but it does appear that the ambitious plan is coming together, and perhaps all of the overblown concerns for plans nobody has seen or articulated may be for naught.

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