Roundup: Stacking the panel

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The government has unveiled how they’re going to respond to the Supreme Court’s ruling on doctor-assisted dying, and it could not be any more spineless if they tried. Having first ignored the issue in Parliament for decades, they waited for the courts to tell them to do something, and by something, they decided to appoint a three-person panel to hold more consultations and come up with recommendations. In other words, outsourcing their response. But wait – it gets better. Two of the three members of this panel are opponents to doctor-assisted dying, and testified on the government’s behalf during the court cases. The third member, a former Quebec cabinet minister, is vested in the issue of provincial jurisdiction. In other words, the government has decided on the outcome they want, and stacked the panel in such a way as to deliver it. We shouldn’t be surprised by this response, considering how closely it mirrors what happened with the Bedford decision on prostitution. Rather than actually heed the decision and what it said about safety and security for sex workers, the government stacked their consultations in favour of opponents and religious institutions, dismissed as much expert testimony as they could in committee hearings, and drafted a bill that substantively does not change the situation for those sex workers when it comes to their safety, and will in fact just drive the industry further underground by criminalising buyers, and all the while touting that they were listening to the responses from their consultations. Watching them do the same with the assisted dying issue is proof positive that this is a government that refuses to make any hard decisions. (On a related note, here’s an interesting analysis of the Court’s decision in the case from Michael Plaxton and Carissima Mathen).

Good reads:

  • The premiers came up with their National Energy Strategy. Reevely notes they promise to do everything, and Coyne says it means almost nothing.
  • General Jonathan Vance is the new Chief of Defence Staff, and his first statement was about stamping out sexual misconduct in the military.
  • We learned that the government asked embassies to delay refugee resettlements last year because their budget was getting low. And yes, we’re two years behind on our commitment to resettle Syrian refugees.
  • A judge dismissed an attempted injunction against the Fair Elections Act, saying that while he had concerns, it was now too close to the election to stop it.
  • Kady O’Malley looks at why Elizabeth May is being kept out of some of the leaders’ debates.
  • Douglas Judson tears apart the NDP’s MPP electoral reform proposal (and comes up with some arguments I hadn’t considered before).
  • Susan Delacourt suggests some political reads for the summer.

Odds and ends:

Seven companies admitted to making illegal corporate donations to Peter Penashue in the last election.

The creator of the Centennial logo doesn’t think much of the Canada 150 logo.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/622074689234403328

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/622075592960143360

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/622076832137908224

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/622227468678594560