Roundup: Supreme Court hand-holding

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I was all set to write about the Liberals invoking time allocation on the Air Canada bill, when I saw this story and it pissed me right off: Thomas Mulcair thinks that the assisted dying bill needs to be referred to the Supreme Court to ensure that it meets the tests set out in the Carter decision. And it set me off, because this is completely ridiculous. The bill hasn’t even been debated yet, and already they want to demand that the Supreme Court start weighing in? Are you serious? Oh, but of course it’s serious – it’s part of this ongoing pattern of a lack of moral courage that MPs are oh so good at demonstrating, where they don’t want to be seen to have to make any tough decisions, so they fob it off onto the courts to do it for them. And here, before he’s even spoken to the bill in the Commons, he wants the court to do the heavy lifting for him. And it’s an endemic pattern. Usually, it involves the officers of parliament, for whom MPs have so successfully fobbed off all of their work that those officers are de facto the official opposition these days, holding the government to account and doing the heavy lifting because MPs won’t. Oh sure, they’re happy to make snide remarks and to manufacture a bunch of fake outrage in QP, but they won’t scrutinise estimates anymore, and barely scrutinise bills. Hell, their very first bill in this parliament got sent to the Senate in an incomplete form because they couldn’t be bothered to actually check it, but rather passed it at all stages in 20 minutes. And now they want the Supreme Court to do even more of that homework for them. And just like with other homework, where MPs use officers of parliament as their partisan shields (witness the number of questions in QP predicated with “The PBO says…”), Mulcair is looking to use the Supreme Court to do just that for this bill. Before it’s even had a minute of debate. Rather than just stand up and say “In my analysis, this bill doesn’t meet the Carter decision,” no, he needs to hide behind the Supreme Court so that it doesn’t look like the criticism is coming from him. That MPs do this is ridiculous and infantile. You’re elected to do a job – so actually grow up and do it.

Good reads:

  • The verdict in the Duffy trial comes down today, and while you wait, here are ways that Justice Binnie’s arbitration report could influence things.
  • Jane Philpott announced that marijuana legalisation legislation is due next spring, and that they are appointing a task force to help draw it up.
  • The matter of the Senate hiring a lawyer to get Global News to retract portions of their “slanderous” reporting was hashed out in committee.
  • Senator Ringuette wants a more detailed breakdown of the Senate’s budget, rather than just the two-page executive summary.
  • The last sitting senator on the list repaid his questionable claims. Seven retired senators who did not avail themselves of arbitration remain.
  • The NDP tried to create a parliamentary oversight body for foreign arms sales but got shot down. I’m concerned this infringes on Crown prerogative.
  • Here’s a look at some of the defence procurements whose funding was pushed into next year.

Odds and ends:

It’s the Queen’s 90th birthday, and she released a trio of new portraits for it.

One thought on “Roundup: Supreme Court hand-holding”

  1. Mulcair is a tiresome fellow has he hangs on to his ex-job. He is the one who was pushing for the abolition of the Senate knowing that he cannot be done so easily. Now he is pushing for Supreme Court referral on this Right to die bill. What I see is cheap populist politics, Mulcair knows the population is uninformed and pays little attention, so he thunders away and is sounding like a windbag.

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