Roundup: Welcome, parliamentary secretaries

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Justin Trudeau named his parliamentary secretaries yesterday – 35 of them, with three for his office alone, each representing particular portfolio issues. Those appointments aren’t at full gender parity, but then again, they’re not cabinet ministers either. The question now is what becomes of them – will they have useful and meaningful roles while still respecting the letter and spirit of Responsible Government in our system, or will they be used as human shields and ministerial proxies as they were in the last parliament? According to the Open and Accountable Government document that the PMO put out, the role of a parliamentary secretary is not to be a replacement cabinet minister, but to attend Question Period; help shepherd their minister’s legislation through the process in the Commons and in committee (but not voting in committee); supporting their minister’s position on Private Members’ Business; supporting their minister on committee issues and appearing before committees; and carrying out other House duties, such as leading government responses to Opposition Day motions and participating in the Late Show (aka Adjournment Proceedings). All of these are important, but let me make a couple of cautions. First of all, parliamentary secretaries should not – and I cannot emphasise this enough – sit on committees. This practice has been banned in the past, but when repealed, we saw what happened in the last parliament what became of it, which is that the committees were (in the words of Scott Brison) turned into “branch plants of ministers’ offices.” With their special PMO staffer behind them at committee meetings, it allowed the PMO to basically control the committee agendas, robbing them of any semblance of independence like they are supposed to have. This cannot be allowed to continue in the new parliament. We should also discontinue the practice of allowing parliamentary secretaries to field questions in QP. They are not members of the Ministry, and don’t have access Cabinet briefing materials, so they can’t answer. Under Responsible Government, the government is being held to account, so government needs to answer – not their proxies. Having them do so shields the minister from answering, and if the minister is not present, then they need to have a designated deputy in Cabinet to field those questions (and yes, there is a list of the deputies). Let’s keep the roles separate, and keep government accountable to parliament, the way it should be.

Good reads:

  • Senate Speaker Leo Housakos denies being the source of the leak of the AG report, but at least one other Conservative senator says it’s obvious it was him.
  • Trudeau’s apparent plan not to appoint a Leader of the Government in the Senate continues to create confusion, and experts like Lowell Murray are calling it out.
  • The speculation is that the Throne Speech could be one of the shortest in Canadian history.
  • The Liberals appear to be backing away from the promise to cap deficits at $10 billion.
  • Rona Ambrose promises the Conservatives will be the “voice for taxpayers” in the Commons.
  • The head of the Royal Canadian Navy admits they got their costing wrong, largely because they didn’t know what they were doing. Points for honesty?
  • The government says it won’t revive the Conservative bill on expat voting, but are still determining their position on existing expat voting restrictions.
  • On the Trudeau nannies file, the PMO says that the size of the PM’s household staff isn’t increasing, meaning that it will be adjusted to meet this accommodation.
  • The Ethics Commissioner has been notified to look into a Liberal fundraiser promising dinner with the finance minister.
  • The UNHCR has only been able to get a fraction of Syrian refugees contacted interested in coming to Canada by year-end.
  • John Geddes parses the polls on electoral reform, and reads them differently than reform advocates.
  • Susan Delacourt remembers all of those old calls for the Liberals and NDP to merge, and points to some of the things the NDP need to consider as they rebuild.
  • Andrew Coyne, meanwhile, says the Conservatives need an intellectual rebirth before they can rebuild their own party.

Odds and ends:

It’s your annual parade of wireless contract complaint figures.

An obese former sailor won a disability award, and claims the navy diet caused his weight to balloon.

Former NDP deputy leader Megan Leslie has taken on a position with WWF-Canada.

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