Roundup: Precious illusions and appeals to reason

As part of their campaign against the Fair Elections Act, the NDP have taken to a number of…precious tactics, from Craig Scott writing to Pierre Poilievre to ask him to withdraw the bill in order to start over with all-party consultation (good luck with that), to targeting individual MPs and ministers to vote against the bill, Michael Chong and Bal Gosal thus far. Chong may seem like fair game considering his new role as the so-called “champion of democracy” with his Reform Act bills, and his curious defence of the elections bills thus far (or at least his evasion of taking a stand until they are through the committee stage). But if they think that Gosal is going to break cabinet solidarity on a government bill, they’ve really lost touch with our contemporary reality, and it makes one wonder how they feel about one of the most important conventions about how we form governments under our system of Responsible Government. Would an NDP government not speak with a single voice? I doubt that very much, which makes this particular tactic all the more eye-roll inducing.

The Federal Court of Appeal has upheld a ruling that says that Métis have the same rights as status Indians under Canadian law, and clarified that non-status Indians be granted those same constitutional rights on a case-by-case basis. This means that the government has a lot more obligations to Métis and First Nations, especially when it comes to healthcare, hunting and trapping rights, and the ability to enter into treaties or agreements with the Crown. It is a ruling that doesn’t do much other than give status when it comes to negotiation, but doesn’t actually settle any particular claims. The government is likely to appeal it to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Speaking of the Supreme Court, they granted leave yesterday to hear the case of Tamil migrants who had been detained by the government upon the arrival of the MV Sun Sea, where four of those refugee claimants were caught in the country’s human smuggling laws.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer says that more full-time public service jobs have already been cut than the government had planned, though Treasury Board says that many of the reductions came about by the end of temporary projects. There are also concerns that the government is consistently under-spending and hoarding money in order to make their books look better.

The Canadian Press subjects the NDP’s claims that there are “discrepancies” in the CRA’s timeline of events around the Heartbleed bug to their “baloney test,” and finds that there’s some baloney in there. There really aren’t that many gaps in the CRA’s story, not that the facts stop the them from making partisan hay out of it.

At a public event on Friday, Diane Finley confirmed that the government has received the options analysis report for the replacements to the CF-18s, and that they are deciding whether or not to hold an open competition between the F-35s or four other competitors. The Liberals say the choice is self-evident, and that they should have started holding an open competition years ago.

The Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner has cited Jason Kenney for unreported stock transactions in 2012, but in true Mary Dawson style, Kenney was fined a mere $100 (out of a total possible penalty of $500) and “named and shamed.” But hey, it’s not like MPs are in any hurry to update their conflict of interest rules.

CBSA launched new web tools to help people get forecasts of border wait times, for their travels over the Easter long weekend.

Canada will be sending six CF-18s as part of the expanded NATO operations in Eastern Europe while the crisis in Ukraine continues to rage.

In nominations news, two weeks after Lewis Cardinal was nominated to run in Edmonton Centre in the 2015 election to great fanfare and a marquee event with Thomas Mulcair, he submitted his resignation for “personal reasons.” It’s mysterious, and makes me question the utility of running these nomination races this far out from the election, considering that a lot can happen in the intervening 18 months. In Trinity–Spadina, city councillor Adam Vaughan has announced that he plans to seek the Liberal nomination. He represents the area municipally and won by a margin of 75 percent in the last city election. Meanwhile, the Conservatives are considering a rules change that would ensure that a candidate who is defeated in one nomination race can’t run in another riding, which would definitely affect Rob Anders and possibly Eve Adams if her attempt to win the nod in Oakville is unsuccessful. (Remember that the Conservatives already have rules that say that someone who has lost two elections can’t be greenlit as a candidate either).

And energy economist Andrew Leach reminds us of just what happened in 1979, as opposed to the current government’s attempt to school Jimmy Carter about US energy security. (Hint: We were not helping the Americans’ cause).