I’ll admit that there has been some terribly naïve punditry about Michael Chong’s Reform Act, and a lot of touchy-feely optimism about the fuzzy notion of “reform,” but perhaps one of the most gallingly maladroit to date has come from Campbell Clark, who wonders if MPs will actually get the will to confront party leaders with their “new powers.” Yes, that was the sound of me sighing deeply. “New powers.” For those of you keeping score, Chong’s bill did not give MPs any new powers. MPs had all the power in the world thanks to the way our system of government is designed – elected as an individual MP under the first-past-the-post system, they are empowered to give or withdraw confidence, whether it is to their party leaders, or to the government of the day in the Commons. That’s an incredible amount of power because confidence is how our system runs. The problem is that they stopped empowering themselves to exercise their power, deferring first to leaders who were no longer accountable to them after we broke our leadership selection system to make it “more democratic” by taking away that power from MPs and giving it to the party membership (a convention which Chong’s bill now cements into law), and later to leaders who gained the power to sign off on their nomination forms (a measure designed to prevent spoofing on ballots and hijacked nomination races). Sure, MPs still had power and they could exercise it – but it generally meant that enough of them had to defy the leader all at once to ensure that the spectre of group punishment didn’t draw further questions, and few MPs had the intestinal fortitude to risk their necks. They still, however, had that power. For Chong to claim that his bill grants “new” powers is bogus. As I’ve stated before, it actually takes power away because it did not actually do away with the nomination sign-off power in a meaningful way, and it raised the bar by which MPs can openly challenge a leader so it can no longer be a small group who has the gonads to go forward, but will now see the media demanding the 20 percent headcount. So will MPs have the will to use these “new” powers? Probably not, because the bar has been set higher. But in the meantime, we’ll have the pundit class praising Chong for his efforts and his “courage,” rewarding him for the campaign of bullying and attempting to disenfranchise an entire body of parliament along the way.

Good reads:

• While the Royal Canadian Navy enters into talks with Davie shipyard about refitting a commercial vessel as an interim supply ship, new documents show that the plans for new Joint Support Ships are pretty much off the rails. Again.
• The head of the Canadian Army is moving ahead with mandatory briefings on changing the sexualised culture of the institution.
• MP Paul Dewar has obtained documents that show the decision to put the Victims of Communism Memorial near the Supreme Court was due to political interference.
• Justin Trudeau said if elected he would withdraw Canada from the bombing campaign against ISIS and focus more on training Iraqi forces.
• Jason Kenney evoked Sharia law in a Twitter debate about the niqab, because of course he did.
• Aaron Wherry follows Irwin Cotler’s last days in parliament, arguing points of privilege until the very end.
• Andrew Potter lists his election edition of Naïfs versus Cynics. (Can one be both?)
• Laura Payton kicks off her Travers Fellowship series on Canada’s maternal and child health contributions, looking at what has actually been delivered.

Odds and ends:

Former Toronto police chief Bill Blair says the NDP approached him first about running for them, but the Liberals best reflected his values.

The NDP government in Alberta is leaving huge loopholes in their bid to ban corporate and union donations.

The Canadian Press’ Polibriefs notes that Senator Cools wants journalists to come forward about who leaked the AG report. Not going to happen.