The good folks at Samara Canada have penned an op-ed in the Globe and Mail to call for legislation that demand swifter by-elections than currently exists, and would seek to remove the discretion of the prime minister in calling them. To this I say nay, because much like fixed election dates, this is a solution in search of a problem. Indeed, the piece entirely ignored that fixed election dates are not only antithetical to our system, which is based on confidence, but that it created a whole host of new problems and solved none. It used to be the big concern that prime ministers would call “snap” elections when it was deemed politically suitable, and that it wholly disadvantaged opposition parties. Of course, that’s entirely a myth that doesn’t survive actual scrutiny (recall that governments in this country were punished when they called elections too soon because they had good poll numbers), and fixed election dates instead created interminable election campaigns that required even more legislation to crack down on spending and advertising in defined pre-writ periods – something that wouldn’t need to exist under the proper system of ministerial discretion.

Throughout the recent round of braying to call by-elections, none of the arguments has convinced me that this is anything more than a moral panic. While the op-ed does correctly point out that MP offices remain staffed and operational, reporting to the party whip instead of the departed MP, the op-ed laments that there is no MP to push files through the bureaucracy – something that is not only not an MP’s job, but is something we should actually be discouraging because it sets up a system that starts to look corrupt, when it becomes who you know that will get action on your files. If anything, parties should actually take advantage of the fact that when a by-election hasn’t been called yet, it gives the riding associations ample time to locate a good candidate, run an effective nomination process, and then start door-knocking. If parties got their act together, they’d have more time to do this, rather than waiting months, and trying to get a hint as to when the by-election might be called before they even start their nominations – something that is absolutely boggling. Jagmeet Singh should have used the time to do the door-knocking at every available opportunity, and yet that didn’t seem to be the case for the months he was complaining that the by-election hadn’t been called.

You don’t have to convince me that it’s important to run these by-elections in a timely manner, and that having an MP in place as soon as possible is the right thing to do. It absolutely is. But more legislative constraints on executive discretion won’t solve any problems, and only creates more of them. We keep seeing this time and again, and yet we keep coming back to yet more proposals for even more of them, creating a spiralling cycle of more rules to fix a problem that was never actually a problem in the first place. Time to step off this merry-go-round.

Good reads:

• The Cabinet shuffle and the break-up of the “dream team” on Indigenous issues has some Indigenous leaders fearing for the reconciliation agenda.
• Chrystia Freeland says that the death penalty is “inhumane” in her pressing for clemency for the Canadian sentenced to death in China.
• Navdeep Bains met with GM’s CEO and…the Oshawa plant is still closing.
• There are concerns that Jody Wilson-Raybould has a big job ahead of her, not only with selling the job at Veterans Affairs, but in providing stability to the department.
• The opposition members of the Commons foreign affairs committee have called an emergency meeting to demand that John McCallum appear before them.
• A number of First Nations are looking to band together to purchase the Trans Mountain pipeline, and are weighing differing ownership models.
• Here’s a look at the problems of First Nations who have their long-term boil-water advisories lifted, only to have other advisories put into place.
• The situation in Mali hasn’t improved and may have worsened since Canadian forces have been in theatre.
• Problems with SpaceX boosters mean delays for the launch of the Canadian Radarsat Constellation Mission satellite trio.
• The Liberal candidate in the Burnaby South by-election may be using language that stokes the divisions between Chinese and South Asian communities in the riding.
• Reform-turned-Conservative MP Mark Warawa has decided not to run again in 2019.
• The NDP are holding off on holding a caucus retreat later this month in favour of helping Jagmeet Singh campaign in the by-election.
• Former NDP MP Svend Robinson wants to make a political comeback, this time in Burnaby North–Seymour. (He previously tried against Hedy Fry and lost).
• Another MLA in Jason Kenney’s caucus has left caucus to sit as an independent, citing top-down policy development. (He didn’t win his nomination, incidentally).
• The former staffer of an Alberta NDP MLA says that he would insist she sell memberships to constituents and to work on his re-election during work hours.
• Don Braid notes the mounting complaints about Jason Kenney’s leadership and practices, particularly around nominations for the UCP.
• Éric Grenier crunches the rural/urban numbers to show why the Liberals need to be seen to be doing more for rural ridings, hence the creation of a new ministry.
• Susan Delacourt wonders if the government’s planned national pharmacare will actually happen given their inability to deliver on services.
• Chris Selley muses as to whether Jagmeet Singh is the NDP’s problem, or if the party and all of its inherent contradictions are his?
• My column questions if we need to think about assigning seats in parliament to expats after their right to vote was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Odds and ends:

It looks like there have been a few acoustic problems with the new House of Commons in the West Block that are still being ironed out.

Want more Routine Proceedings? Become a patron and get exclusive new content.