Roundup: A major amendment at committee

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There will be another looming showdown between the Senate and the Commons in the coming weeks, as the Senate’s Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee narrowly voted to remove the random mandatory alcohol testing provisions from Bill C-46, the government’s new impaired driving legislation. And this wasn’t just the Conservatives being obstructionist – Liberals joined in this too, the tie-breaker coming from Senator Serge Joyal. Why? Because this provision is almost certainly unconstitutional. Senator Denise Batters, who moved the motion, explained the reasons in this video here:

It can’t be understated that the criminal defence bar has been warning for months that this will lead to even more court challenges, including Charter challenges, and that it will do nothing to alleviate the backlog in the courts, and would only make them worse in the post-Jordandecision world of tight timelines. And if you don’t think that this won’t create problems, then just look to BC to see what moving to administrative roadside penalties for impaired driving did to their court system – it’s created a cottage industry of court challenges to those citations. I’ve interviewed these lawyers before. One of them, for whom this is her specialty (as tweeted below) knows what she speaks when it comes to what this bill will do.

The government will point to constitutional scholars that told them their plans were sound, but again, this likely won’t be definitively be answered until it gets put to the Supreme Court of Canada. And plenty of lawyers will also point out – correctly – that just because the police are looking for certain powers, it doesn’t mean they should get them because they will infringe on Canadians’ Charter rights. The funny thing is that this creates a schism within the Conservative caucus, with the MPs being in favour of the bill (much of it having been copied from a bill that Steven Blaney tabled), but then again, the Senate is more independent than people like to give it credit for.

So now the justice minister says that this is unacceptable, that it guts the bill (not really true – the marijuana provisions are all still intact I believe, which is why this bill was a companion piece to the marijuana legalisation bill in the first place), and she won’t have these amendments. We’ll see whether the full Senate votes to adopt these amendments or not – there’s been a lot of talk from the Government Leader in the Senate – err, “government representative,” Senator Peter Harder, that they shouldn’t vote down bills of dubious constitutionality because that should be the role for the courts (I fundamentally disagree with that – it’s actually the Senate’s job), and we’ll see how many of the new Independents are swayed by Harder’s arguments. But it’s one more bit of drama to look forward to.

Good reads:

  • In Charlevoix, Justin Trudeau defended the $600 million price tag for hosting the G7 summit in that location.
  • Donald Trump is trying a new tactic around auto import tariffs, which Trudeau pushed back against, saying his excuse shows “flimsy logic.” You think?
  • The BC Supreme Court dismissed two challenges against the Trans Mountain expansion, which clears one more legal hurdle in its way.
  • Navdeep Bains says that Canada is still open for business with China, despite rejecting the takeover of Aecon.
  • Jean-Yves Duclos announced an overhaul of the assistance fund for parents of missing and murdered children.
  • A group in New York State is distributing pamphlets about how to cross the Canadian border illegally; our government is trying to get them to stop.
  • Toronto mayor John Tory says he’s not getting any response from the federal government on his request for help with the influx of asylum seekers.
  • The government finally announced the new CEO for its Infrastructure Bank, who says the first major investment won’t be for another nine to 18 months.
  • The government has finally decided that it’s time to update our search-and-rescue helicopters, and have begun the tendering process.
  • NATO intelligence chiefs are currently meeting in Ottawa, and discussing how difficult information sharing can be among member countries.
  • The MMIW Inquiry’s recommendation of a new police oversight body for these kinds of cases is making slow progress, as it’s a complicated request.
  • Here’s a look at a confrontation between gun rights groups and Liberal MPs at committee over the new gun control bill.
  • Here’s Mubin Shaikh discussing that ISIS returnee that has everyone riled up, and the questions raised by his differing accounts of his time in Syria.
  • Jason Kenney says he’s sorry that he made personal attacks against Justin Trudeau. (I found the apology insincere and that he’s sorry it went over like a lead balloon).
  • Jason Markusoff wonders if Alberta is really the fiscal hawk haven that Jason Kenney imagines it to be.
  • Colby Cosh praises the incoming bill to decriminalise paying for genetic material or surrogates for assisted reproduction and looks back to the legislation’s origins.

Odds and ends:

There is an audio recording of Doug Ford gaming a nomination meeting in 2016, and this is just more proof of why we need to deal with nomination contests properly.

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