After stories about how some MPs – both Conservative and Liberal – used the Canada Summer Jobs programme to funnel those job grants to anti-abortion and anti-gay organisations, the government has made a few tweaks to the programme so that any organisation that is looking for grants needs to sign an affirmation that they will agree to comply with Charter values, as well as its underlying values including
“reproductive rights, and the right to be free from discrimination on the basis of sex, religion, race, national or ethnic origin, colour, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression.” And while that’s all well and good, they didn’t fix the glaring problem with this system – the fact that it’s MPs who are signing off on these grants.

No. Seriously, no.

This is antithetical to the whole point of Parliament. Parliament is about holding the government (meaning Cabinet) to account, and part of that is by controlling the public purse. MPs don’t give out money – they ensure that the government can only spend it wisely. By Service Canada sending lists of groups recommended to receive funding, and then having the MPs validate and recommending more or fewer jobs through the group, or whether to fund them at all, it goes beyond accountability and into disbursing funds which is not the role of an MP. At all.

And what really burns me is that nobody sees this. We have become so civically illiterate that a practice that is a direct existential challenge to a thousand years of parliamentary history doesn’t merit a single shrug. No, instead, it’s become part of this expectation that MPs should be “bringing home the bacon” to their ridings. It’s why MPs shouldn’t be making funding announcements for the government – that’s the role of Cabinet ministers (and I will allow parliamentary secretaries under protest because it’s hard for cabinet to be everywhere), but that’s it. Having MPs make announcements “on behalf of” ministers is a betrayal of the role that MPs play with respect to ministers, which is to hold them to account, even if they’re in the same party. This is cabinet co-opting MPs, and in the case of these job grants, laundering their accountability so that nobody can actually be held to account for when funding goes to groups that are contrary to the values of the government of the day. But nobody cares – not even the journalist who wrote the story about the changes.

If only someone had written a book about this kind of thing…

Good reads:

• In a press conference to mark her final day, Justice Beverley McLachlin push back against criticism of judges with sexual assault trials, and praised Indigenous rights.
• Catherine McKenna says that provincial governments need to have their carbon pricing plans submitted by the end of 2018, including the $50/tonne price by 2022.
• Ralph Goodale has missed his deadline for tabling new gun control legislation.
• Kent Hehr acknowledges that he can be brash and insensitive, but thinks he still belongs in cabinet because he’s learning from his mistakes.
• Here’s a look at the status of implementing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommendations two years later.
• The Taxpayers Ombudsman agrees that CRA has systemic issues, and is glad that the Auditor General identified some of them.
• The Phoenix pay system backlog continues to grow (but in part because of a month where there were three pay periods instead of two).
• The RCMP is expanding their review of sexual assault cases deemed “unfounded,” going back to 2015, with some 25,000 files in total.
• Boeing and Bombardier will be making final arguments before the US International Trade Commission on Monday regarding their current dispute.
• The law firm that investigated the Jian Ghomeshi allegations at CBC will be investigating the PMO allegations.
• Liberal MP Celina Caesar-Chavannes wrote about the subtle racism she faces on the Hill, prompting a response from the Speaker in speaking to Hill security.
• Here’s an attempt to justify Jagmeet Singh not having a seat.
• Andrew Coyne thinks that the time has come for broad-based tax reform instead of the piecemeal tinkering that goes on. As though that wouldn’t have its own issues.
• Susan Delacourt looks at the Google searches of politicians in Canada, and ponders what it may mean for the likes of Andrew Scheer.
• Chantal Hébert looks back at political stories of 2017 to augur what may be coming in the New Year.
• Colby Cosh looks at Jason Kenney’s provincial by-election win and remarks that the Harper Conservatives never really did lose in Alberta.
• My weekend column looks at the way in which senators want to make a spectacle out of the marijuana legalization bill, for selfish reasons.

Odds and ends:

Here are more behind-the-scenes tales of the various departments’ attempts at Star Wars Day videos.