Roundup: Let’s not punt it to the Supreme Court

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As the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion drama continues to chug along, we saw that Bill Morneau had a meeting with Rachel Notley and while nothing specific was announced, it was stated that something is on the way in fairly short order. Add to that, Jim Carr was doing the media rounds saying that the pipeline will get built, and it’s a question of how, which is an important clue. And then came Jagmeet Singh, who decided that his contribution to this is to insist that this all get referred to the Supreme Court of Canada in a joint federal/provincial/First Nations reference. Because showing political leadership apparently means fobbing off the tough questions to the Supreme Court. He also suffers from the delusion that the Court could act swiftly on this, ignoring that it would take six months to even pull a reference together (seriously – the Court wouldn’t hear it until the fall at the earliest). And then his environment critic went on Power & Politicsand said that even if the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the federal government and that the project could go ahead, they’d still oppose it because obviously it would be a wrong decision. Yeah. Okay.

https://twitter.com/InklessPW/status/984117292945498117

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/984120318544396288

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/984121488537104384

As Carissima Mathen explains in this segment of The House, the Supreme Court doesn’t like to be used for political purposes, reference questions are generally of general application, and even referring the question of jurisdiction to them would imply that there is doubt that the federal government has it, which settled case law clearly demonstrates that they do. (Likewise, going Jason Kenney’s route and invoking Section 92(10)(c) implies that there is doubt that these pipelines are federal jurisdiction when we know that they are, hence why it’s not only a redundant course of action, but it creates damaging precedent). And that’s why Morneau was pretty explicit when he shot down Singh’s proposal yesterday – they know they have jurisdiction, so it would make no sense to refer it to the SCC. On a related note, the BC NDP have changed their rhetoric around using every tool in the toolbox to oppose the pipeline and are now pledging to use all tools to protect their coastline and environment, likely because they got a legal opinion that said that they have no jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, Jennifer Ditchburn notes that Indigenous protests against the pipeline aren’t a side plot – and she’s right, but it’s also separate from the jurisdiction issue, and should be treated as separate. (I also suspect that the government will argue that approval was given before they legislated implementation of UNDRIP, and that they did additional consultation and created the Indigenous-lead monitoring committee, so that should satisfy Section 35). Chantal Hébert sees few options that the federal government could use that would still maintain provincial peace. David Moscrop wants everyone to cool their jets because this isn’t actually a crisis, but rather how democracy and federalism actually work. Jen Gerson looks at how this failure would be the signal of a bigger market failure in Canada, and open us up to creating an institutionalized culture of kickbacks and corruption when it comes to major projects.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau ruled out Canada participating in a mission to Syria, given our current and future commitments.
  • Trudeau departs today for a ten-day trip to Peru, Paris, and London.
  • Unifor president Jerry Dias insists that NAFTA is still a long way from being ready, and some sources seem to confirm that.
  • Scott Brison pledges that the government will do more to help scientists feel “unmuzzled.”
  • Mélanie Joly says that she has received assurances from China about the protection of intellectual property for Canadian cultural industries.
  • The government has spent more than $1.1 million on headhunters to help fill more than 50 positions, because their appointments reforms are going swimmingly.
  • National Security and Intelligence Advisory Daniel Jean is set to retire this spring, which was planned months ago and long before the Atwal Affair™ happened.
  • An Alberta judge has struck down the mandatory use of the sexual offender registry in one case, citing it as disproportionate, and that puts the whole regime in question.
  • Charlie Angus is trying to get the Ethics Commissioner to investigate Seamus O’Regan joining Trudeau on that holiday with the Aga Khan.
  • Jagmeet Singh continues to say that he’s considering running for Thomas Mulcair’s soon-to-be vacant seat in Outremont.
  • Kevin Carmichael looks at an Indian payments company that’s set up in Canada and is finding success amidst stories of the apparent flight of capital from this country.
  • Andrew Coyne offers an epic eyeroll to Maxime Bernier’s complaints about the “fake Conservatives” giving Scheer his leadership win.
  • Paul Wells delves into that book about Trudeau’s foreign policy by Dion’s former advisor, and gleans what insights he can from it.

Odds and ends:

Tristin Hopper debunks the arguments around Alberta paying more in tax than the get back from the government (largely because they make more money).

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