Roundup: A catalogue of ineptitude

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Over in the weekend Ottawa Citizen, our good friend Kady O’Malley has a comprehensive breakdown of everything that went wrong with the electoral reform committee, and it’s pretty stunning once it’s all laid out before you. It starts with the Liberals’ relenting to allow the makeup of the committee to be more *cough* “proportional” than the traditional make-up of a parliamentary committee (which was not actually proportional, but merely gamed by the NDP to give the appearance of proportionality, and the Liberals relented for what I’m guessing was good faith). From there, it moves to the Liberals putting all newbies on the committee (with the exception of the chair) who didn’t have a clue what they were doing, and their lack of experience, combined with the fact that they no longer had a majority (despite having a parliamentary majority) meant that the opposition party gamed the witness selection in such a way that it meant they were able to self-select witnesses to get the outcome they wanted – namely 88 percent of witnesses preferring proportional systems, and furthermore, because they had motivated followings for their public consultations, it allowed them to self-select their famed 87 percent in favour of proportional systems and a further 90 percent in favour of a referendum. And almost nary was there a voice for ranked ballots. (Also a nitpick: ranked ballots have little to do with the proportionality that people keep trying to force the system into, nor are they about gaming the system in favour of centrist parties like the Liberals. Rather, ranked ballots are designed to eliminate strategic voting, ensure that there is a “clear winner” with a simple majority once you redistribute votes, and to make campaigning “nicer” because you are also looking for second-place votes. Experience from Australia shows that it has not favoured centrist governments).

In other words, this whole exercise was flawed from the start, in large part because the Liberal government was so inept at handling it. In fact, this cannot be understated, and they are continuing to be completely inept at handling the fallout of the broken process that they allowed themselves to be bullied into (lest they face charges of trying to game the system – thus allowing the other parties to game it for them), and rather than either admitting that this went off the rails (because it did) and that it was a stupid promise to have made in the first place (because it was) and trying to either be honest about cutting their losses, they’re dragging it out in order to find a more legitimate way to either punt this into the future, or declare that no consensus can be found (which there won’t be) and trying to kill it that way. But in the meantime, the daily howls out outrage of the opposition because of the way that they have completely bungled not only the committee response (and let’s face it – the report’s recommendations were hot garbage) and the further rollout of their MyDemocracy survey without adequately explaining it has meant that this continues to turn into an outrageous farce. I’m not necessarily going to lay this all at the feet of the minister, or call for her resignation, but this is one particular file where the government has been so clueless and amateurish that the need to pull out of the tailspin that they find themselves in, take their lumps, and then smother this in the crib. Enough is enough.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau announced his climate deal with the provinces – except Saskatchewan and Manitoba (Pallister is leveraging it for healthcare dollars).
  • Brad Wall thinks it’s a conspiracy that *gasp* carbon pricing might be reflected in prices. He’s also concern trolling about the effects on farmers.
  • Joe Biden told first ministers that the economic case to combat climate change has taken over, and says Canada and Germany are the last liberal leaders standing.
  • There are more delays to naval supply ships and heavy icebreakers due largely to poor planning. Everyone try to look surprised!
  • Ralph Goodale is aghast that the executive director of SIRC said that Edward Snowden would be shot if he worked for CSIS.
  • Liberal MP Terry Beech says that while his constituents are opposed to Trans Mountain, he’s not resigning from caucus.
  • Apparently, the Liberals are so busy fundraising to keep their base from getting complacent after their election win.
  • Steven Blaney is attacking Maxime Bernier and sticking up for Kellie Leitch, apparently trying to stay being her Francophone mini-me.
  • Andrew Scheer thinks they need to defund CBC News’ arm, because francophones outside of Quebec and rural and remote communities don’t need news.
  • Robyn Urback makes the case that the government should not just study MMIW, but also include Indigenous men in the equation.
  • Paul Wells recounts the last round of healthcare negotiations as a prelude to Trudeau’s working dinner with premiers on the topic.
  • Andrew MacDougall writes about how the Conservatives don’t need populist rhetoric to beat the Liberals if they actually do the hard work.
  • Susan Delacourt talks about the problems of a shrinking Parliamentary Press Gallery.

Odds and ends:

The government is set to announce a comprehensive asbestos ban next week.