Roundup: The Reform Act makes everything worse

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On a vote of 38 to 14, with four abstentions, Michael Chong’s Reform Act passed third reading in the Senate last night, despite a couple of late attempts at amendments that were designed to essentially kill the bill. MPs who bullied senators into passing the bill – Chong included, never mind that he wants them to kill a different bill he doesn’t agree with – were jubilant over social media, but they all seem oblivious to the fact that they’ve just undermined their own stated goals in passing this bill. I’ve written on the subject numerous times – here, here, here, here and here, and long story short is that it won’t actually remove the power of the leader to veto nominations because it doesn’t stop the leader from just giving his chief-of-staff that power, and instead of giving caucus the power to remove a problematic leader, it insulates that leader by creating a high enough bar that any MP who grows enough of a spine to go public will face a media that demands the names of the twenty percent of other rebellious MPs, and any opposition will crumble. Oh, and our current broken system of unaccountable presidentialised leadership selections are now being codified into legislation because we really want to make sure that we really break our system of Westminster democracy well and truly while patting ourselves on the back for “modest reforms.” It’s not reform, and I can guarantee that we will live to regret it, like we have every other “reform” attempt that has inevitably made our system worse off. Congratulations, 41st Parliament – you’ve done an ace job in making things worse. Slow clap.

Good reads:

  • A Federal Court judge ordered the government to turn over an external hard drive with Quebec long-gun registry data as the fight with the Information Commissioner escalates.
  • A pro-Conservative PAC launched yesterday with predictably amateurish radio ads. Because this is what you get with fixed election dates, Canada.
  • Justin Trudeau gave a speech in Ottawa yesterday where he outlined the need to fix Canada-US relations, and promised to list visa restrictions to Mexico.
  • Senator Jaffer talks about the anti-Islamic fear being stoked in order to pass C-51.
  • The government is rolling out a number of defence announcements to make it look like they haven’t completely ballsed up the procurement file for the past decade.
  • A $2 billion federal infrastructure programme and its lack of oversight have become a problem for the town of Blind River.

Odds and ends:

MPs sanctimonious about the Senate expenses issue won’t answer questions about their own residency. Only 20 MPs – mostly Liberals – did.

Opposition to the location for the Victims of Communism memorial is stepping up.

The government is putting a bunch of new travel restrictions on Crown Corporation employees.