Roundup: Closure and privilege

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It was wholly depressing the way in which the whole matter was rushed through. After the imposition of closure – not time allocation but actual closure – the government rammed through their motion to put all Hill security under the auspices of the RCMP without any safeguards to protect parliamentary privilege. After all, the RCMP reports to the government, and Parliament is there to hold government to account and therefore has privileges to protect that – the ability to have their own security being a part of that. Liberal MP Mauril Bélanger tried to amend the government’s motion to make it explicit that the Speakers of both chambers were the ultimate authorities, and the government said good idea – and then voted against it. And so it got pushed through, privilege be damned, with minimal debate and no committee study or expert testimony. The Senate, however, is putting up more of a fight, and the Liberals in that chamber have raised the privilege issue, and the Speaker there thinks there is merit to their concerns, and has suspended debate until he can rule on it. And this Speaker, incidentally, is far more aware of the issues of privilege and the role of Parliament and the Senate than his Commons counterpart seems to be, and he could very well rule the proposal out of order. One hopes so, and once again it seems that our hopes rest on the Senate doing its job, because the Commons isn’t doing theirs.

Good reads:

  • The Parliamentary Budget Officer released his cost estimates for the mission to Iraq, and they’re higher than the figures Kenney put out. The PBO figures were lowballed for a number of reasons, which makes one wonder if they’re not hiding the numbers in other ledgers. DND also stonewalled access to information on this report.
  • Kevin Milligan shows how the loss of the long-form census affected the Labour Force Survey put out by Statistics Canada.
  • Jennifer Robson muses about the notion of loyalty for political staffers to their bosses.
  • The Conservatives are downplaying the recent issue of Conservative mailings that had QR codes on them for party websites, and there could be a repayment demanded (but not to the same amount as the NDP mailings).
  • Diane Finley thinks that too much socialism in Sweden has created a generation of people with no parenting skills. No, really.
  • Elizabeth May remains convinced that C-51 will turn CSIS into a “secret police” – um, except that it doesn’t give them the power of arrest. Thomas Mulcair also thinks it’ll give CSIS the power to spy on the government’s political adversaries, which one suspects is stretching credulity.

Odds and ends:

The Commons public safety committee invited the RCMP Commissioner to show them the videotape made by the Ottawa shooter behind closed doors – though the NDP wants it to be public.

Justin Trudeau made an issue of the government cutting funds to vaccine promotion since 2006, as the country faces an increasing number of measles outbreaks.

Trudeau also, incidentally, opposes the government’s position on banning niqabs during citizenship ceremonies.