Roundup: A line-by-line review

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If the tweets of Cabinet ministers are to be believed, Cabinet is currently seized with doing a line-by-line review of the amended Bill C-69 that was sent back to them from the Senate earlier this week. By all accounts, the current form of the bill is a complete dog’s breakfast that includes a number if contradictory clauses, because the Chamber of Sober Second Thought didn’t bother to actually do the work of reconciling them because members of the environment and energy committee were keen to placate Jason Kenney and to credulously believe the oil and gas industry lobbyists who insisted that the bill’s original form, while not perfect, would somehow doom all future projects in this country. And you would think that actually getting a bill in reasonable condition back to the Commons would be kind of important to a body like the Senate, for whom this is their raison d’être as a legislative chamber who preoccupies itself with reviewing legislation, but no, they decided instead to sent it back to the Commons as is rather than to take the blame that Kenney and company will lay on them as he continues to lie about the bill and consider it a rallying cry for the implacable anger of Albertans that he sold a bunch of snake oil to during the last provincial election.

In the midst of this, you have senators like Conservative Senate Leader Larry Smith claiming that the Senate’s attempt to stop bills C-69 and C-48 are supposedly the last bastion of the provinces who are “under attack” by prime minister Justin Trudeau, which is hokum of the highest order. C-48 doesn’t landlock Alberta’s resources because the chances of a pipeline to the northern BC coast are virtually nonexistent given the Federal Court of Appeal decision on Northern Gateway’s failure, and the propaganda campaign against Bill C-69 is the completely divorced from reality, but hey – angry narratives to sustain. At the same time, Senator André Pratt is defending the Senate against accusations levelled from the likes of Andrew Coyne that they’re overreaching if they do kill C-48 (which they won’t), saying that they’re trying to do their job while being cognisant that they’re an appointed body. He’s not wrong, and it’s probably one of the better articulated pieces of late.

Meanwhile, the Conservative whip, Senator Don Plett, is denying that he’s stalling the UNDRIP bill, and he’s actually got procedure on his side for this one – the cancelled meeting would have been extraordinary, and there are reasons why the Senate doesn’t hold special committee meetings while the Chamber is sitting – which they are sitting later and later because they have so much business to get through because the Independent Senators can’t get their act together, and lo, we have the current Order Paper crisis that they are working their way through (though apparently not so urgently that they didn’t sit yesterday). Unfortunately, the media does love private members’ bills, and is focusing a lot of attention on them, no matter that most of them are actually bad bills that should probably die on the Order Paper (but people don’t like to hear that).

Good reads:

  • While meeting with Justin Trudeau in Paris, Emmanuel Macron promised swift ratification of CETA…for a second time.
  • While in Paris, Trudeau stated that China was “inventing excuses” to block shipments of canola from Canada.
  • After Brian Mulroney suggested that the government sent Jean Chrétien to China to resolve the current dispute, Chrétien said he will go if asked.
  • Here’s a look at the possible consequences of the steel bill that the government is trying to rush through the Commons.
  • The National Post combed through previous inquiries into missing and murdered Indigenous women to find some recurring themes that remain unaddressed.
  • A federal penitentiary in Alberta will apparently pilot a safe injection site for inmates, which will be a first in Canada.
  • The Canadian Press got a look at the Cabinet minutes from the Mulroney government’s response to the Tiananmen Square massacre 30 years ago.
  • Liberals on the justice committee are moving a committee report to the Commons to request to strike Michael Cooper’s outburst from the official record.
  • As part of their pre-study on the budget implementation bill, the Senate social affairs committee wants the government to delay the refugee provisions by a year.
  • The Liberals accidentally targeted fundraising ads over Facebook to people in the US and UK (who can’t donate). Oops.
  • A Conservative candidate is taking Elections Canada to Federal Court because election day falls on a Jewish holiday and they refuse to move it.
  • Conservative MP Cheryl Gallant has been spinning a lie that fisheries regulations are responsible for the recent spring flooding and not climate change. No, seriously.
  • Another NDP MP, Christine Moore, has opted not to run again this fall.
  • Here’s a look at how five votes – five votes!– cost the Liberals their majority in the Newfoundland and Labrador election.
  • Heather Scoffield looks at the encouraging job numbers and wonders if this isn’t a sign that Canada should ramp up immigration as Germany did.
  • Martin Patriquin points out that Quebec’s conservative CAQ is bucking the trend and doing something aggressive about climate change.
  • Chantal Hébert tries to divine some meaning in the number of MPs not running again this fall, and how provincial fortunes an affect Conservative candidates.
  • Chris Selley decries the police excesses that stem directly from the recent impaired driving laws that are already producing bizarre charges (many being overturned).
  • Susan Delacourt explores the idea of treating climate change as a common enemy to rally people against, much as what happened in the Second World War.
  • Colby Cosh deciphers the Liberals’ attempts at social media regulation in advance of the election.
  • My weekend column looks at the issue of interprovincial trade, and why Andrew Scheer’s promises are all show and no substance.

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