The House of Commons has risen for the season, but still has a number of bills on the Order Paper slowly working their way through the process. And as usually happens at this time of year, there are the big comparisons about how many bills this government has passed as compared to the Conservatives by this point. But those kinds of raw numbers analyses are invariable always flawed because legislation is never a numbers game, but is qualitative, as is the parliamentary context in which this legislating happens.

Part of the difference is in the set-up. Harper had five years of minority governments to get legislation in the wings that he couldn’t pass then, but could push through with a majority. He went from having a Senate that he didn’t control and was hostile to his agenda to one where he had made enough appointments (who were all under the impression that they could be whipped by the PMO) that it made the passage of those bills much swifter. And they also made liberal use of time allocation measures to ensure that bills passed expeditiously. Trudeau has not had those advantages, most especially when it comes to the composition of the Senate, especially since his moves to make it more independent means that bills take far longer than they used to, and are much more likely to be amended – which Trudeau is open to where Harper was not – further slowing down that process, particularly when those amendments are difficult for the government to swallow, meaning that they have taken months to either agree to them or to come up with a sufficient response to see them voted down. And then there are the weeks that were lost when the opposition filibustered the agenda in order to express their displeasure with the initial composition of the electoral reform committee, the first attempt to speed through legislation, and the government’s proposal paper to “modernize” the operations of the Commons. All of those disruptions set back legislation a great deal.

This having been said, Trudeau seems to remain enamoured with UK-style programming motions, which he may try to introduce again in the future (possibly leading to yet more filibustering), because it’s a tool that will help him get his agenda through faster. So it’s not like he’s unaware that he’s not setting any records, but at the same time, parliament isn’t supposed to be about clearing the Order Paper as fast as possible. Making these kinds of facile comparisons gives rise to that impression, however, which we should discourage.

Good reads:

• Bill Morneau unveiled the details of the tax changes around income splitting and sprinkling in private corporations, while Senators want the changes scrapped.
• Morneau, incidentally, says that he would have sold all of his shares earlier if he had known that the goalposts would be moved (not his words) on him.
• Canadians have donated $12.5 million for Rohingya refugees, which the government will match, on top of the $37.5 million contributed so far.
• The government released the broad strokes of its national clean fuels strategy yesterday, which they say will get them a sixth of the way to the 2030 climate goals.
• While a bill to ban advertising junk food to children hits the Commons, here is an attempt to debunk the arguments against it.
• Canadian arms manufacturers are being given the go-ahead to sell “defensive weapons” to Ukraine, but approvals will be on a case-by-case basis.
• Those Australian F-18s will need work before they’re flight-ready in Canada. This Australian defence analyst says their “bucket of bolts” description is overblown.
• The passage of the preclearance bill means that new facilities will open up at the Billy Bishop and Quebec City airports.
• Here is a deep dive in the history of the Bronfman family in Canadian politics.
• John Geddes looks into Michael Wolfson, whose data seems to be partly responsible for the government cracking down on income splitting and sprinkling.
• Senator McPhedran says she’s been appealing her expenses in order to bring the process out into the open. I’m…not sure that’s helpful.
• A PMO staffer has been suspended and is under investigation following allegations of harassment.
• Here’s an interview with Jean Yip, who won Monday’s by-election to replace her late husband, Arnold Chan.
• It turns out that Jagmeet Singh launched the Scarborough by-election outside of the riding, then insisted that it wasn’t a launch, and that he’s playing the long game.
• Kady O’Malley digs into the some of the problems with the Ethics Commissioner nomination process, but notes that the opposition suggestions would make worse.
• John Geddes looks at Andrew Scheer’s strategy of trying to out-everyman Justin Trudeau, and finds it wanting.
• Andrew Coyne is not having any of the rhetoric around the fighter jet procurement.
• Emmett Macfarlane says that the choice of Justice Wagner as new Chief Justice was the right call.

Odds and ends:

The Centennial Flame refurbishments are completed, and Nunavut is now represented.