Roundup: The 21-hour tantrum

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If there is a parliamentary equivalent to a toddler having a full-on meltdown and screaming and pounding the floors after not getting their way, then you pretty much have the setting for the 21-hours of votes that the Conservatives forced upon the House of Commons. Which isn’t to say that I don’t think there was value in the exercise – I think having MPs vote on line items in the Estimates is a very good thing given that the Estimates are at the very core of their purpose as MPs, and we should see more of this (in a more organized fashion that they can do in more manageable chunks, mind you). But this wasn’t the exercise that the Conservatives billed it as.

Scheer’s framing is completely disingenuous. These votes were not blocking their efforts, and had nothing to do with the Atwal Affair, or the attempt to get Daniel Jean hauled before a committee. That particular motion was proposed, debated, and voted down on Wednesday. Forcing individual votes on the Estimates was a tantrum in retaliation. It was not about transparency. And it was tactically stupid – there would be far more effective ways to go about grinding Parliament to a halt to get their way rather than this tactic because there was an end point to it (and one which would have been at some point on Saturday if they hadn’t decided to let everyone go home).

The other reason it was stupid is because they forced votes on line items, it allowed the Liberals to spend the whole time tweeting about the things that the Conservatives voted down, like money for police, or veterans, or what have you. They handed that narrative to the Liberals on a silver platter. (The NDP, incidentally, voted yea or nay, depending on the line item, rather than all against, looking like they actually took it seriously). And what did the Conservatives spend their time tweeting? Juvenile hashtags, attempts to shame the Liberals (“You have the power to stop these votes. Just get the PM to agree.”) And in the end, it was the Conservatives who blinked and called it off (but declared victory and that they “drew attention” to the issue, of course).

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/977249513051164672

This all having been said, there are more shenanigans to be called out amidst this. There was a whole saga about whether or not PCO offered Andrew Scheer a briefing, which his office denied, and then suggestions that Scheer wouldn’t accept it because he wanted as much of it made public as possible (again, with more conflicting versions of how much they wanted to be public and how much in camera). But even with the demands for public briefings, it trips up the parliamentary notion that public servants aren’t called to committees – ministers are, because they’re responsible. (Deputy ministers can be called as the accounting officers of their departments, but the National Security Advisor is not a deputy minister). And with that in mind, why exactly would the government put a long-time civil servant up for the sole purpose of having the opposition humiliate him? Because we all know what happened to Dick Fadden when he was hauled before a committee to talk about his fears about Chinese infiltration, and it damaged our national security because MPs couldn’t help themselves but play politics over it. Nobody covered themselves in glory over this exercise, but this wasn’t some great exercise in preserving the opposition’s rights. This was a full-on temper tantrum, and the more attention we pay to it as though it were a serious exercise, the more we reward the behaviour.

Good reads:

  • On Monday, Justin Trudeau is expected to exonerate six Tsilhqot’in chiefs hanged in pre-confederation British Columbia.
  • The trade dispute over paper may soon be over in Canada’s favour, Boeing isn’t appealing their tariff loss, and Trump set new deadlines NAFTA talks.
  • Jane Philpott announced a plan to eliminate TB from Inuit communities by 2030.
  • Diplomats are frustrated by the government fumbling the communications on the Mali mission. This government? Fumbling communications? Couldn’t be!
  • An online program and app to help soldiers transition to civilian life and find jobs is being shelved after spending $1.1 to develop it.
  • The Department of Justice’s own analysis of the gun control bill says that the record-keeping requirements could become a Charter issue.
  • The Conservatives are launching social media campaigns targeting Liberal MPs over the summer jobs grant attestation.
  • Kellie Leitch is taking swipes at some of the candidates vying to replace her in the riding nomination, insisting that some are not “real Conservatives.”
  • Stephen Harper’s former advisor, Bruce Carson, was found guilty by the Supreme Court of Canada for influence peddling.
  • The NDP have taken David Christopherson off of the procedure and House affairs committee because he broke ranks to vote against the jobs grant attestation.
  • Elizabeth May and Kennedy Stewart were briefly arrested while protesting at a Kinder Morgan pipeline site.
  • Here’s a profile of Senator Tony Dean, who has been sponsoring the marijuana bill (and with whom I profoundly disagree on the direction of the Senate).
  • Jen Gerson offers some thoughts on the problem of “free speech grifters.”
  • Susan Delacourt wonders if Facebook data is so valuable to political parties that they don’t concern themselves with its ethics.
  • Andrew Coyne ponders whether this Facebook scandal is a moral panic or unwarranted complacency about the role it plays in our lives.
  • Colby Cosh takes on the report on a potential federal election debate commissioner, and questions if it’s really necessary after all.
  • My weekend column looks at what point the culture warrior pundits are missing when they balk at the government’s “political correctness.”

Odds and ends:

Chaos at a Senate committee after their in camera discussions on a confidential report turned out to be filmed and streaming publicly. Oops.

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3 thoughts on “Roundup: The 21-hour tantrum”

  1. Canada has been treated to dirty politics for ever it seems but the Tories in the past decade have taken “dirty” to a new level. Expect the same going forward and in 2019.

  2. Which minister would you prefer to have testify in Jean’s stead? The PM? Goodale? From what I’ve seen, they’ve both declined to take any sort of responsibility for the statements, so I don’t think the principle of ministerial responsibility justifies their conduct.

    In any case, it seems to me that the government committed the original sin by allowing/asking Jean to brief the media. Once his statements have become a matter of public record, it’s totally unfair to criticize the opposition for wanting him to follow up/clarify.

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