With a little over a day left in the spring sitting of the Commons, two major government bills were unveiled yesterday. The first was yet another immigration bill, this time looking to crack down and deport non-residents who commit crimes and serve time in Canada, and oh look – it proposes to give the minister additional powers to decide on these cases. Right as a bill that proposes to give the minister additional arbitrary powers over refugee determination has nearly finished wending its way through the Senate. But you would be correct if you saw a theme emerging – giving the minister more arbitrary powers under the guise of speeding processes along, seeing as creating sets of rules that need to be followed takes time, and apparently we’re willing to forgo rules for the sake of speed. Or something like that.
Meanwhile, Vic Toews announced the tabling of a bill to amend the RCMP Act in order to improve the discipline process as the Commissioner had been requesting while he works to clean up the Force after a series of embarrassing scandals. These changes also include a more robust public complaints process, which is also a good thing.
Kevin Page offers Maclean’s a few words in the defence of his mandate.
The NDP are filibustering the public accounts committee to ensure that the Conservatives can’t shut down their inquiry into the Auditor General’s F-35 report before the House rises for the summer.
The draft plan being discussed at the Rio+20 environmental summit is being criticised for being weak and without timelines, and Canada is being called out for not actively participating, or working to weaken it further at worse.
It looks like the airing of the dirty laundry of the Prime Minister’s RCMP security detail may be payback for internal disputes. Still, it’s a fascinating look inside.
A high rate of absenteeism in the federal public service costs the treasury a billion dollars a year. And yet nobody wants to talk about the abysmal state of morale in said public service that contributes to said absenteeism either.
And the rules of the Senate are changing and modernising, which yes, is actually worth noting.