Roundup: Chagger vs Bergen

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The big news yesterday was Rona Ambrose shuffling up her shadow cabinet after the summer of leadership announcements, and naming Candice Bergen as the new Opposition House Leader in the place of Andrew Scheer. What is of particular interest is that you have two fairly inexperienced people in the role in both the government and the official opposition, which could make for some very interesting times going forward.

To refresh, the role of the House Leader is to basically determine the agenda of the Commons (deputy leaders fill this role in the Senate), when it comes to determining what items will be up for debate on what days, the scheduling of Supply Days for opposition parties, and basically doing the procedural management. Why the fact that two relatively inexperienced MPs will be doing this is interesting is because we’ll see what kinds of ways that they prioritise things. (Bergen does have experience as a parliamentary secretary and minister of state, but little in the way of procedural experience as far as I’ve been able to determine). What everyone will be paying attention to in particular, however is tone. The fact that for the first time in history, it’s two women in the role is going to have people waiting to see just how that affects tone (as Rosemary Barton gave as her item to watch in this week’s At Issue), because we have been fed a number of gender essentialist narratives that women do things differently and without as much of the partisan acrimony – not that I necessarily believe it, given that Bergen herself is a pretty die-hard partisan. The added spoke in this wheel is the NDP’s House Leader, Peter Julian, whom I have it on good authority is unreasonable to work with at the best of times. When the tension between the House Leaders boiled over into Motion 6 in the spring (and the subsequent The Elbowing that broke that camel’s back), I have little doubt that it had a lot to do with Dominic LeBlanc losing his patience with both Scheer and Julian (who totally insisted that they weren’t even being obstructionist, which I find a bit dubious). So will they be able to work together to push through what promises to be an extremely busy legislative agenda? Or will Bardish Chagger need to start resorting to procedural tactics to ensure that bills can get passed without endless Second Reading debates that the opposition refuses to let collapse so that they can get to committee (which was constant in the previous parliament when the NDP were official opposition). I’m not going to make any predictions, but it is something that I am very curious to watch as the era of “openness and cooperation” rolls along.

Good reads:

  • A Canadian missionary held in China under charges of espionage was deported back to Canada yesterday, days after Trudeau’s visit.
  • Justin Trudeau and London mayor Sadiq Khan spoke about immigration integration and not being too impatient about it. (More from Susan Delacourt here).
  • The Human Rights Tribunal has ordered the government to comply with its earlier ruling on Indigenous child welfare funding, ignoring that things take time.
  • Kady O’Malley attended Maryam Monsef’s Ottawa-Gatineau electoral reform town hall. It’s as scintillating as you’d expect.
  • There are warnings that a malicious hack on the CBSA/immigration biometric database could deny innocent travellers entry into the country.
  • Global Affairs Canada purchased two armoured SUVs in a sole-source contract from that company under fire for improperly selling arms to places like South Sudan.
  • Here’s a look at how a decision on the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion could affect BC MPs – particularly Liberal ones.
  • While current caucus members aren’t talking, former MP Joe Comartin wants Thomas Mulcair gone for the sake of the party.
  • Brad Trost has decided that anti-same-sex marriage ads are a good way to kick off his leadership bid.
  • Robyn Urback says that Trudeau missed a chance at being a real feminist and should have made the scene uncomfortable at that gender-segregated mosque.
  • Liberal MP Anita Vandenbeld disputes that, and says that there’s value in going to such places and that you need to listen to the women there.
  • Robert Hiltz thinks that Doug Ford is going to use his forthcoming book as a springboard to the federal Conservative leadership.

Odds and ends:

Media got a tour of the renovations happening in the West Block, and it’s all very exciting.

 

5 thoughts on “Roundup: Chagger vs Bergen”

  1. The NDP House Leader should have no regular place in determining House business as there is no constitutional or parliamentary role for a “Third” party. In the UK, “the usual channels” consists of the Leader of the House and the shadow leader, and the government and opposition Chief Whips. Other parties are part of the discussions only if circumstances require it, which is the exception, not the norm.

    • I wonder if this is a hangover of minority government years, or some notion about being “nicer” and “more inclusive” rather than effective. Something to look into, in any case.

      • I think it’s another consequence of the whole “officially recognized party” idiocy. It’s the same in the ON Legislature. We recognize parties as main agents in the House rather than members, so all parties who meet the “officially recognized” threshold have rights and that trumps the traditional Gov’t and Official Opposition duopoly.

  2. To be fair to Kevin Garratt, it should be noted that he was “deported” from China rather than “extradited” to Canada. Canada did not seek his extradition because Mr. Garratt faces no charges in our country.

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