And lo, from Toronto’s den of hipsterdom, comes the plaintive wail that a government ignoring the work of committees is a betrayal of democracy. No, seriously – this is the complaint of VICE’s parliamentary columnist (who does not reside in Ottawa, or ever darken the halls of Parliament Hill, but whatever). Brown cites the centralization of power in the PMO and the growing power of branding as the forces that eclipse these poor committees, but it’s possibly the laziest gods damned complaint you can imagine.

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/971427684965371905

So, for Brown’s edification, here are a few points that he overlooked in his ignorance of how things actually work in Ottawa:

1. The role of Commons committees is not to be driving government policy, as Brown seems to think. The role of Parliament is to hold government to account, and committees are the workhorses of doing that, particularly when it comes to scrutinizing legislation. Senate committees, it should be noted, do a much more robust job of looking at areas of concern and coming up with policy recommendations, but that’s because the Senate is Parliament’s built-in think-tank, and it operates on a less partisan basis than Commons committees, who often approach their committee work with the lens of validating their party’s pre-existing positions.
2. Not all committees are created equal. He may cite the work of a few of the “high profile” committees, writing on “sexier” topics like pharmacare, but because those are higher-profile committees, you’re seeing more studies that are bound to attract attention but have little substance to offer. If he wants to get a better sense of really effective committees that do really good work, he should look at ones like Public Accounts, who do the real work that Parliament is supposed to be doing, which, again, is holding government to account.
3. Committees coming up with reports that the government does not then follow is hardly a sign of PMO centralization – if he wants an example of that, it was how committees operated in the Harper era, where they were all branch plants of minsters’ offices, with parliamentary secretaries directing the government MPs to do their bidding, and having ministerial staffers providing direction throughout. Oh, and the minister would often direct the committee to study topics that were of convenience (while he or she went ahead and legislated before waiting for the committee report). The way committees are operating currently is a vastly different environment than it was just a few years ago. But he might know that if he was actually here and paid attention to these things.

You’ll excuse me if I have little time for facile analysis like this. Whinging about PMO centralization without looking at the complicity of MPs themselves in the problem is to miss the point. And to miss the whole point of Parliament in a column like this makes it clear that nobody should be paying attention to the musings of its author.

Good reads:

• The latest news out of the Trumpocalypse is that Canada and Mexico will be exempted from steel and aluminium tariffs for the time being.
• The Commons agriculture committee met yesterday to lay out their plan for more hearings on the rail grain issue.
• The federal government hosted a guns and gangs summit in Ottawa yesterday to help deal with the rising scourge of gun violence.
• Catherine McKenna plans to use Canada’s G7 presidency to push for action on reducing use of plastics and recycling what is used.
• Maclean’s has a lengthy look at harassment on the Hill, and talks to female MPs, staffers and other employees about what they’ve faced.
• An Oxfam report gives the federal government middling grades on women’s issues…but mostly cites areas of provincial jurisdiction.
• Here’s a timeline of the MMIW Inquiry, to get a sense of where they’ve been as they seek an extension (and more funds).
• DND is asking for $54 million for the sole purpose of evaluating the bids for the new surface combatant fleet.
• Justin Trudeau may keep calling Kirsty Duncan a “Nobel-prize winning scientist,” but she’s not really.
• From his UK trip, Andrew Scheer says that he is against free trade with China, is a maybe on India, and definitely to the UK (despite Trudeau already committing to it).
• Terry Glavin recounts why the Jaspal Atwal issue, and the problem of Sikh extremists, is a personal one for him.
• Andrew Coyne offers a slightly tongue-in-cheek guide to the Trump White House.

Odds and ends:

Lockheed Martin has won the first ever contract to modernize foreign ships – in this case, New Zealand’s frigates – in Canadian shipyards.