Roundup: Tiresome cheap shots

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Oh, look – there’s the Senate bat-signal and oh, it’s because a couple of pundits have decided to be completely tiresome about it. I see. Up first is CBC’s Terry Milewski, who has once again decided to use Mike Duffy to paint the whole of the Senate with his disreputable brush. Never mind that the vast majority of senators don’t abuse the system, or that they have made vast improvements on financial controls and transparency (and remain far more transparent than the House of Commons in most respects), apparently the whole system is an unfixable morass because Duffy. Um, okay. And to cap it off, Milewski tries to make some wrong-headed point about representation in the Senate, ignoring that representation is along regional and not provincial lines, and no, Newfoundland is not part of the Maritimes and is a region unto itself, but hey, conflating its seats is fun and deliberately misleading! Apparently nobody has taken a basic civics or Canadian history course, because the whole point of why the Senate was constructed the way it was, was precisely because it wasn’t supposed to be representation-by-population. The Commons is, and the Senate had to rebalance the representation to keep Ontario from swamping the minority provinces. Oh, but those are “bizarre” and “absurd imbalances” apparently, because Milewski has decided that ignorance is the effective bully tactic. It’s a series of cheap shots that should be beneath the journalistic establishment, but alas no, it’s become par for the course these days. And then there’s Andrew Coyne, who decided to deliberately over-complicate the situation in the Senate in order to misconstrue what’s happening and sow confusion to make a point, that it’s not the kind of reforms that he would prefer (never mind that he’s never quite articulated why it’s preferable to have an elected Senate that would compete with the Commons, or to remove the Senate’s veto powers when they’re necessary to thwart a majority prime minister who is overstepping his or her bounds, other than the saying “democracy!” while hand-waving). But clearly, some clear-eyed critical thinking about our parliamentary institutions is a lot to ask, particularly when there are cheap points to be scored.

https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/676603993049690112

Good reads:

  • The final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is released today. Expect remarks from the Prime Minister.
  • The Duffy Trial got to the part about the $90,000 cheque, and Duffy ever remains the saint, trying to do good by Canadians. (Reevely, Blatchford and O’Malley here).
  • The finance minister is creating an advisory panel to help find ideas to stimulate economic growth.
  • More Syrian refugees arrive today, this time on a leased Jordanian airliner.
  • Here are some of the recommendations of the Provincial-Territorial Expert Advisory Group on Physician-Assisted Dying. One law professor wants it listed on death certificates so numbers can be tracked.
  • There are concerns that our new Coast Guard ships are unsafe, and that the problems were identified in construction and not corrected.
  • BuzzFeed looks deeper into how the military has set up its sexual assault centre.
  • The Americans are asking their allies, including Canada, to step up the fight against ISIS. Many are saying they’re doing enough.
  • Senator McCoy lays out some of the current problems with Senate committee assignments.
  • Jen Gerson pens a convincing column on why making the sale of reproductive material has failed.

Odds and ends:

This is but the first in what promises to be an endless series of stories about attention seekers “applying” to be Senators, isn’t it? Can we just stop it now?

A couple of Liberal MPs discuss their seat assignments in the Commons, and explain why they’re not as bad as they look.

CBC has a great explainer about the current methods being employed in Canada to try and reduce carbon emissions.

https://twitter.com/inklesspw/status/676590104186519553

4 thoughts on “Roundup: Tiresome cheap shots”

  1. Well said, there are far too many people out there, many of my friends included, who don’t understand the function of the senate.
    Just because the nomination process has been abused by successive governments that is no reason to throw the senate out.
    A well functioning none partisan senate is essential to our democracy.
    A nomination and appointment process independent of the PMO has to be found a.s.a.p. It will require a couple of decades to evolve but I believe it is possible and desirable.

  2. I too am disappointed with Terry M. and his article, this is not he first article I find questionnable. I often wonder if Terry knows what he is writing about or is it just for effect. Sad because such articles just continue to perpetuate amongst an unenlightened public all manners of false perceptions.

    • I’m pretty sure it’s just for effect, but that doesn’t make it any less of a cheap shot.

  3. I purposefully avoided reading Milewski’s column. Then I read yours, and went to read it. Clearly he fails to understand the point of the Senate, as you point out. I’m getting real tired of journalists/pundits ranting about the Senate, while never actually caring enough to listen to debates there, or go see them. It’s also quite amusing that they are the same people who seem to think the House is so much better, though they rarely attend anything other than QP. Anyway, thanks for defending the Senate and actually knowing what you’re talking about.

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