Roundup: Sticking to vapid promises

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Because I’m not ready to let go of this topic of the Liberals plans around the Standing Orders, Maclean’s had an interview with deputy House Leader Kevin Lamoureux about why the government is so keen on trying to make these changes. Lamoureux has two answers – that the rules should be modernized (with no explanation as to why), and that they made an election promise to do so. Oh, and some too-cute-by-half insistence that even if they changed Question Period that Trudeau would show up more than once a week, despite the fact that he promised in that same election that he wanted to be out on the road more than just being stuck in Ottawa. So yeah, that seems to indicate that he’s looking for an excuse to only be there one day a week.

As with electoral reform, the Liberals came out early on with this facile talking point about the need to “modernize.” There’s no justification as to why or no explanation as to what’s not working (just the rather pedestrian observation that it’s not – draw your own conclusion) and then doing some jazz hands and saying “modernize!”

And like with electoral reform, promising “modernization” without saying why, is kind of a stupid promise, and you know how I feel about stupid promises – they should be owned up to as being stupid before they are broken. In this case, I’m not sure if it was just the vapid need to promise to modernize everything, or if they think there’s a real issue that they want to solve – regardless of what it is, it’s obvious that anything they’ve proposed to date won’t actually solve the problems that they have because the problem is cultural in this place, and the way to solve it isn’t by changing the rules that they’re proposing to. Either way, they need to say “Stupid promise. Real life proved to be different than we imagined it was,” and abandon these plans in favour of maybe, just maybe, tackling the deeper cultural issues that are the real cause of dysfunction in our Parliament.

Meanwhile, I was on AM 770 in Calgary yesterday to talk about my Maclean’s op-ed on the fact that we don’t need to modernize the House of Commons, which you can listen to here.

Good reads:

  • Senator Larry Smith is the new Conservative Senate leader, while Senator David Wells is the new caucus chair. Senator Yonah Martin remains deputy leader.
  • Senator Don Meredith says he’ll appear before the Senate ethics committee (either in person or by video conference) on April 4th.
  • Senators on the Aboriginal Peoples Committee are looking at options around Senator Beyak, while she has some defenders in her own caucus.
  • Canadian officials are in Belgium to discuss the electronics ban on air travel from certain countries made by the US and UK.
  • Irving shipyard wants to the government to commission an additional Arctic offshore patrol vessel to keep them busy until they get the frigate plans sorted.
  • A Samara Canada study shows that Canadians are more satisfied with the state of our democracy than we were two years ago.
  • Here’s a profile of Karina Gould, including her annoyance at people who insist that she was thrown under the bus with her portfolio.
  • Here’s an odd look at Liberal MP Kim Rudd and a strange constituent (from another riding) sending her immigration “queries” to send on the PM.
  • Former CSIS directors warn about an extradition treaty with China…which I didn’t think we were pursuing, other than high-level dialogue.
  • Yesterday was the final day for membership sales in the Conservative leadership, and every candidate was trying to show that they have momentum.
  • Brad Trost’s last-ditch membership pitch was to go full homophobe, railing against other Conservatives who went to Pride and saying he’s not “comfortable” with gays.
  • If you want to watch Rosemary Barton eviscerate Kevin O’Leary on the issue of the economy and asylum seekers, the video is here.
  • Alheli Picazo looks at the issue of the coming court challenges on assisted dying for those suffering of mental illness.
  • My column this week looks at the deeper malaise in our parliamentary debates that no amount of rule changes will fix.

Odds and ends:

Justin Trudeau will attend the 100th anniversary Vimy commemoration next month.

Here’s a look at the 150th anniversary of Queen Victoria signing the British North America Act, which took place this week.

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