Roundup: The elbowing

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I can scarcely express just how stupid things got yesterday because everyone needed to rush to score points. But here we are. Starting back at the beginning, the government decided to put a motion on the Notice Paper that was basically the nuclear option of time allocation measures – essentially suspending all avenues by which the opposition could propose dilatory motions until the Commons rises for the summer, so that they can get C-14 and a few other timely pieces of legislation passed. And the opposition freaked out.

Nobody is quite sure why the Liberals resorted to such tactics, but my working theory is that the closed-door House Leaders’ meetings have degenerated to being unworkable (not an unlikely theory considering that my sources told me in the previous parliament that Peter Julian was impossible to work with), and Monday’s surprise vote after the NDP lied about the motions they were moving that day broke the trust of the Liberals, who had been attempting to work amiably with them. It’s also possible that putting this motion on the Notice Paper was as the nuclear option – the threat to hold over their heads in order to try and force them to come to the table with reasonable requests for timelines on debates. Dominic LeBlanc went so far as to suggest that rather than constraining debate, they were trying to allow for more under this motion, not that the opposition believed him. Temperatures got raised, and QP was one of the most heated of the current session.

After QP and the Komagata Maru apology, the procedural games started up again, including a privilege motion from Julian about how terribly draconian these tactics were. Fast forward a couple of hours to the time allocation vote on C-14, and the NDP apparently decided to play the childish tactic of physically blocking the Conservative whip from being able to walk down the aisle. The NDP claimed they were just “milling about,” but people milling about don’t all stand facing the same direction, and both Elizabeth May and Andrew Leslie have confirmed that there were shenanigans being played. And it would seem that Justin Trudeau had lost his patience by this point, possibly because Christy Clark was waiting in his office for a meeting he was already late for, and he still had a Komagata Maru apology reception to speak at, also late for. And so he did something completely boneheaded – he got up, went to the NDP blockade, and reached through to grab the Conservative whip and pull him through (which he apparently didn’t appreciate either), and in the course of that, accidentally elbowed Ruth Ellen Brosseau. Moments later, he went back to apologise to her as she fled the chamber – apparently flustered and unable to cope – when Thomas Mulcair began screaming at Trudeau and jabbing in his direction, when suddenly MPs from both sides of the aisle went to pull them apart before things got physical. It was all over in seconds, and Trudeau apologised for his actions.

Not well enough, apparently, as he did it again later when Brosseau reappeared in the chamber, but it doesn’t seem to matter because opposition MPs were now in point-scoring mode. Niki Ashton immediately got to her feet to decry that Trudeau had violated the “safe space” of the Chamber and NDP MPs started likening the incident to domestic violence, bullying and physical intimidation, and Julian talked about how his aunt was beaten to death. No, seriously. The Conservatives soon after began piling on, smelling blood in the water, and it devolved from there. Outside the chamber, Scheer and Julian took to the microphones to ramp up the spin, Julian deciding to drop the hints that there were “rumours” to the fact that Trudeau has some kind of history of violence, because there were points to be scored. And the faux outrage dominated the Twitter Machine as “fearful” MPs registered their shock and horror at what they’d witnessed. And it was just so stupid that I can’t even. Suffice to say, this looks like it’s going to boil down into privilege hearings in the Procedure and House Affairs committee, and we’re going to be subjected to weeks of un-clever “sunny ways” references, and suggestions that Trudeau is apparently unfit for office. It’s a good thing that next week is a constituency week, but I fear for what the final stretch of sitting weeks is going to be like if tempers are this frayed this early. I suspect it’s going to get really ugly from here.

Good reads:

  • Yesterday’s hightlight was the apology for the Komagata Maru incident.
  • The Alberta Court of Appeal made an assisted dying ruling that seems to suggest that C-14 is too restrictive, adding to the government’s attempt to speed passage.
  • Two rogue RCMP officers targeted two journalists for unauthorised surveillance over a leaked document. The governments they have been reprimanded.
  • Thomas Mulcair, of course, demanded a public inquiry. Commissioner Paulson explains how he dealt with it.
  • Maryam Monsef keeps saying that referenda are “undemocratic” (but nobody will properly challenge her on this because scripts).
  • Stéphane Dion is off to Saudi Arabia next week to talk anti-ISIS strategies, but promises to raise human rights concerns in that country.
  • Independent senators are trying to get their own representatives onto the stalled Senate Ethics committee.
  • In advance of the Deschamps report, military personnel kept insisting the issue of sexual misconduct was overblown. General Whitecross held her ground.
  • Michelle Rempel talks about the important discussions happening at the Women Deliver Conference in Copenhagen.
  • MP Scott Reid says the government’s actions on the democratic reform file are designed to run out the clock in order to get their own way.
  • Carissima Mathen argues against the need for public hearings into Supreme Court nominations.
  • Andrew Coyne writes about the mess that the CPP Investment Board is in as its CEO steps down.

Odds and ends:

Stephen Harper was apparently in the chamber to witness the elbowing. So there’s that.

3 thoughts on “Roundup: The elbowing”

  1. According to the film it looks staged by the Opposition. Mulcair’s attitude is also pathetic, he goes ballistic and screams at the PM. Was Mulcair off his medication again?

  2. We can search for additional villains all we want but the precipitating actions here were those of the Prime Minister. If he had just kept his cool there wouldn’t have been an incident to talk about, he wouldn’t have overshadowed his own Komagata Maru messaging, the House would have got back to debating government business that much sooner, and the PM would have been able to get on with his other business of the day. This is very much a case of Mr. Trudeau being the author of his own misfortune.

    • Not disputing that at all. But nobody needed to pile on with histrionics either.

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