Sometimes you read an op-ed so clueless that it burns. This piece by lawyer and part-time law professor Daniel Tsai about the Mike Duffy lawsuit is one of those pieces. Tsai argues that the lawsuit is an opportunity for the courts to make changes to the Senate that, according to him, will make it “more accountable.” As his evidence, he cites statements from Government Leader in the Senate – err, “government representative” Senator Peter Harder darkly musing that some senators may want to protect their friends, and Senator Marilou McPhedran’s quest to root out harassment in the Senate as “proof” that the problem is the Senate’s parliamentary privilege. But he also cites former Senator Don Meredith as a case of harassment without also acknowledging that it was because the Senate has parliamentary privilege that they’re able to discipline their own, and that they had recommended expulsion for his breaching the Senate’s ethical code, and that forced his hand to resign. This is a feature, not a bug.

The whole piece demonstrates that, lawyer or not, Tsai doesn’t understand what privilege is, the importance of Parliament’s need to be self-governing (if it’s not, we might as well just turn power back over to the Queen), or the fact that the institutional independence of the Senate (which allows it to hold the government to account) requires it to have a robust set of privileges that can police its own members rather than subject the institution to threats of lawsuits from its various members when they’ve feeling sore by the fact that they’ve been disciplined. Weakening privilege won’t make the Senate more accountable – it will make it vulnerable to vexatious litigation, and along the way, weaken the House of Commons’ own parliamentary privileges as well (because the privileges of the Senate and the Commons are inextricably linked).

None of this is to suggest that the Senate is perfect – it’s not, and there have been bad apples that generally have been made to resign when the going gets tough. Tsai completely ignores the constitutional role of the Senate and the way in which it’s constructed with a defined purpose in mind in order to engage in some populist pandering to the myths that surround the institution. His “solution” about a judicially-imposed limitation on the privileges that are embedded in the constitution (seriously?!) would make things worse, not better.

Good reads:

• Justin Trudeau says that Canada won’t be doubling defence spending to meet the NATO two-percent target (in fact, there’s a technical decrease this year).
• Trudeau also plans to have words with Donald Trump about NATO, and why it was built to counter Russian expansion. That said, Turkey may be the weak link.
• The federal Transport department is shrugging off requests to subsidize Greyhound if they want to keep busses in the Western provinces. Here’s more on the impact.
• The Canadian Press got a glimpse of the government’s forthcoming poverty reduction strategy.
• The finance department is rated at a medium risk for a cyber-attack. Reassuring!
• A former RCMP officer who shone a spotlight on harassment in the Force took her own life.
• Speaking of the RCMP, the Force has failed to post any of their completed Access to Information requests as they’re supposed to. Transparency!
• The government is investing $2.2 million in technology to help reduce methane emissions in the oil and gas sector.
• The Chinese ambassador worries that the US and Australia are trying to undermine China’s relationship with Canada. He also claims China allows dissent, FWIW.
• An Ontario superior court decision related to sentencing could impose even more timeline restrictions for cases that are being stayed for taking too long.
• Éric Grenier looks into which ridings are picking up the most fundraising by the different parties.
• My column puts some caveats to the supposition in that Atlantic article about how Canada has largely eluded illiberal populism. It hasn’t been for lack of trying.

Odds and ends:

Here’s a look at the fraught terminology of “irregular” versus “illegal” border crossers.

The National Post got a look at government documents from the original NAFTA talks in 1992, and some things remain very much the same as they are today.

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