Roundup: Jumping the satellite offices gun

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The NDP are signalling that they have received a hopeful sign in their attempt to take their battle over their satellite offices to the Federal Court, because an affidavit from a university professor that argues in favour of their position was accepted as evidence by the court. If I may be so bold, championing this as a hopeful sign is jumping the gun. Sure, they haven’t had their case summarily dismissed just yet, but that’s hardly a good sign. It could be that the judge wants to hear more arguments before writing his or her reasons as to why this case should never be brought before the courts because of parliamentary privilege, and while there is some academic opinion out there that this doesn’t qualify, I have a hard time seeing why not. It is a fundamental tenet of our democratic system that parliament be self-governing, which means that it does not submit itself to an external body for oversight, and that the courts do not interfere with Parliament and its operations, just as Parliament does not interfere with the courts as they do their job. The mechanism by which the House of Commons governs its affairs is the Board of Internal Economy. They may choose at some future point to come up with a new internal mechanism, but for the time being, that’s it. Normally it operates by consensus, but in this case, the NDP feel that they are being treated unfairly because the other parties at the table insisted that they broke the rules, and to justify their refusal to play by those rules, the NDP have cried “partisan” and “kangaroo court” rather than admit that they were in the wrong when they used parliamentary resources to open up those satellite offices (the very nature of which are dubious to begin with, because they are an extension of the centralization of power and communications within the leader’s office, which is problematic for the rights of individual MPs). By turning to the courts, the NDP are repudiating the supremacy of parliament in determining its own affairs, and that’s a problem. But then again, they are consistent in this repudiation, from demanding that the Board of Internal Economy be dismantled and replaced by a new bureaucracy to oversee MPs activities and expenses, and that senators be placed under some other external authority (in advance of abolition, of course). The problem with trying to replace parliamentary self-governance with a technocratic bureaucracy is that it undermines the fundamental nature of our democratic system. If we can’t expect the people we elect to be able to manage their own affairs, then why are we bothering to elect them in the first place? We might as well just hand power back to the Queen, tell her that the past 170-odd years of Responsible Government didn’t really work out, but thank you very much, and be done with it. Asking the courts to interfere with Parliament’s self-governing ability is a similar admission, rather than taking responsibility for their actions. It’s petulant and does long-term damage to our very democratic system. I quite look forward to a sound denunciation of their position by the Federal Court.

Good reads:

  • From the Conservative convention, the party heard some tough words about the last campaign, took one step closer to changing their position on same-sex marriage (featuring an epic Michelle Rempel eyeroll), defeated the “Draft Rona” movement, Marilyn Gladu donned a Grim Reaper costume, and Ambrose championed women, youth and immigrants before alluding that Trudeau was womanly.
  • From the Liberal convention, the pipeline debate was playing out amidst accusations that the party was stifling dissent.
  • From the G7 meeting, Trudeau didn’t get broad support for stimulus spending but did get support for tackling the issue of random payments to terrorists.
  • Stephen Harper will be taking on a fundraising role within the Conservative party.
  • The Fiscal Monitor showed that hey, there was a deficit last year after all, but we won’t get the final numbers until the fall.
  • The Liberals are promising their national security oversight committee to be unveiled before summer.
  • The report on the consultations regarding the missing and murdered Indigenous women inquiry says that it should be headed by an Indigenous woman.
  • The experts aren’t too impressed with Kevin Vickers taking down that protester.
  • Canada Post is warning about service disruptions this summer as labour negotiations continue to drag out.
  • Maclean’s has a good long read about Kevin O’Leary, which casts some pretty serious doubt on how serious he is as a potential leadership candidate.
  • Andrew Coyne wonders if Harper’s enduring legacy isn’t more related to his role as party leader than as prime minister.

Odds and ends:

Liberal MP Arnold Chan is having trouble slowing down enough for his cancer treatments.

Tristin Hopper gives a brilliant look at what the Trump-equivalent would be in a number of other countries.