Our friend Kady O’Malley penned a column over the weekend about how anyone upset about the tight timeline of the assisted dying legislation should be upset at the fixed election date instead of the Supreme Court for imposing the deadline. And she’s right, but I’m not particularly enthused about her suggestion that the election date be moved to earlier in the year instead of October, as that date pretty much wipes out the fall sitting of Parliament. I mean, that is a valid point, but if you were to ask me, the real suggestion would be to simply eliminate the fixed election date as we already have a constitutional requirement that elections be held every five years, whereas the fixed date is a particular bit of Americanisation that is supposed to provide stability but just winds up making the whole system worse off, from turning Question Period into an unrelenting series of election ads, to simply changing the government’s calculations on policy to suit that date rather than supposedly helping the opposition by giving them more predictability when it comes to election timing. It didn’t, incidentally, stop the speculation of early election calls since pretty much every media outlet continued to ask whether there would be an early call (as is permissible, since the legislation can’t actually bind the powers of the Governor General), so it’s not like it changed that conversation any. That all being said, I would like to note that while many people quite rightly point out that there was no obligation on the Supreme Court to give the government that year (plus the extra four months) to come up with a bill, but could rather have struck down that prohibition immediately and we would have had few ill-effects, I will point out that without a deadline, MPs would simply keep putting off the legislation under the constant plaintive wails that it’s “deeply personal” and “a difficult subject.” Our MPs, in the event you haven’t noticed, are a lot that really are pretty lacking when it comes to moral courage to deal with difficult things. Instead, they wait for people to bring it to the courts in order to be “forced” to deal with it, and if you look at the pattern from the last decade or so, their response is to half-ass some rushed legislation in response, decry the courts for forcing them into such a compromise position, and leave it for it all to be challenged in court once again. That we have a new government doesn’t seem to have changed the pattern too much, with overly cautious legislation that doesn’t appear to meet the test laid out by the Supreme Court in the Carter decision, while MPs fall all over themselves to declare that it’s a “deeply personal” issue while wailing plaintively that there are no provisions for more palliative care in a bill that is about changing Criminal Code prohibitions. So rather than blaming the fixed election date (which is a valid position), I choose instead to blame our rather spineless crop of MPs, who have mostly chosen to complain about the lot they’ve been given rather than rise to the occasion.

Good reads:

• The government is aiming for a spring bill to deal with pre-clearance expectations for US border guards on Canadian soil.
• An update on the issue of children caught on the No-Fly List is also expected within the coming days.
• While First Nations leaders are happy Trudeau plans to go to Attawapiskat, they are still waiting for long-term solutions.
• The government is set to formally shift its position on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples from aspiration to legally binding.
• Apparently the NDP is becoming divided over the timing of their next leadership vote.
• Lisa Raitt and Ruth Ellen Brosseau talk about being parents on the Hill. Notably, Raitt says it’s far more flexible than when she was a CEO.
• Trudeau’s social media presence earns praise from the White House, while Michael Den Tandt thinks you can’t be both showman and statesman.
• Here’s a great look at how our alliances with the Peshmerga in Iraq could have more serious diplomatic consequences down the road.
• Elections Ontario is looking to introduce e–poll books for the 2018 election. We’ll see if Elections Canada picks up on the technology.

Odds and ends:

PEI’s Confederation Museum is being forced to close for lack of visitors.

The Senate celebrates Asian Heritage Month.