Roundup: Leave it to (yet another) Officer

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Thomas Mulcair has written to the two other main party leaders about establishing a process to deal with MP-to-MP harassment, and proposes a clear definition in the Standing Orders, an independent Officer of Parliament to deal with complaints, training for MPs and staff, and to ensure that the process protects the rights of victims including to privacy. While some of this sounds reasonable on the surface, there are a few flags to my eye, some of it centred around the creation of yet another Officer, which gives the impression that this kind of thing is commonplace enough that you would need someone to deal with it full-time, rather than amending the mandate of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, for example, to deal with these kinds of issues as well. The proliferation of these Officers is actually a problem, and much like the NDP’s desire to blow up the Board of Internal Economy to create a new bureaucracy to deal with the administration of the Commons, it’s a problem that seeks to remove the self-governing powers from MPs. This is an issue that needs actual debate – if the message is that we can’t trust MPs to manage their own affairs, then what does that say about their ability to manage the country’s affairs? In a way it’s almost infantilizing them, and that should be concerning. Liberal colleagues say that they want the investigations taken care of quickly, and it was noted that there had been discussion of a harassment policy arising from a 2012 document by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and that members of all parties were to take it back to their caucuses to discuss the matter, but it hadn’t moved forward since. Paul Wells looks at these harassment allegations in the broader picture of the sad place that the capital finds itself in at the moment.

Good reads:

  • Kady O’Malley looks at the social media reaction to the government’s latest anti-pot ads.
  • Michael Den Tandt on the omnishambles of our military procurement.
  • Michael Ignatieff writes about his political experiences and where he failed.
  • PEI Premier Robert Ghiz, the longest-serving premier in the country currently, has decided to step down once a replacement is chosen in the New Year.
  • Deborah Coyne lost her nomination race in a riding she hasn’t lived in to a woman who ran there the past two elections (and who has excellent credentials), then complains about the process. Not that some of the concerns aren’t valid, but still.
  • There’s a French-language documentary on Justin Trudeau out next week.
  • Kevin Milligan looks at the issue of taxing investment income and why it’s not as black-and-white as you might think.

Odds and ends:

The Supreme Court building is starting to need some renovations.

https://twitter.com/mplauriehawn/status/532891504222957569

https://twitter.com/channay/status/532951989052010496

2 thoughts on “Roundup: Leave it to (yet another) Officer”

  1. So, Coyne isn’t supposed to complain about a flawed nomination process for fear that a writer who has never himself experienced the process might snark at her? I don’t think so.

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