Over at The Canadian Press, Joan Bryden wrote a wrap-up piece about the near-defeat of a few government bills in the Senate during the final days of the parliamentary sitting, but some of the piece has been rankling me, in part because of how it frames the state of play. So if you’ll indulge me, I’m going to pick it apart just a little, because I think it’s important to understand these things.

The lede is very awkward “In the final hours of Justin Trudeau’s four-year experiment with a less-partisan Senate, Independent senators came within a whisker of biting the hand that feeds them.” It’s a nonsense sentence that doesn’t make any sense – Trudeau’s experiment with a “less-partisan Senate” isn’t over by any stretch of the imagination, and there were no final hours to it – saying that it was the final hours of the parliamentary sitting or even session (since the chances of a prorogation and Speech from the Throne before the writs are drawn up in September are infinitesimal), or even the 42^ndParliament would make sense, but not as written. I’m also really bothered by the notion of the “biting the hand that feeds them.” By feeding them, is it supposed to imply the person who appointed them, because that’s not the same thing. Is it supposed to imply that their posts continue at the beneficence of Trudeau, and that he could be rid of them at any point? Because that’s clearly not the case in the slightest (particularly constitutionally), but the phrasing implies the latter instead of the former, which is why it’s weird and misleading in all kinds of ways.

The rest of the piece is the usually bit of sniping between the leader of the Independent Senators Group, the Conservative whip, and the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Peter Harder, wherein Harder and the ISG insist that everything is fine, this is exactly what the Senate should be, and the Conservatives cry that the Independent senators are just Liberals by another name. The wrench in here is that Senator André Pratt calls the Conservatives out for supporting a government bill that more Independents opposed because they didn’t really want to set up a precedent for the Senate voting down government bills because when they form power next, there could be a real problem for them (though one has to say that the bill in question, C-83, was of very dubious constitutionality as it had court rulings against it before it was even law). As we approach the election, we can expect more of this sniping going on, particularly once the Independents start trying to agitate for continued independent Senate appointments to be an election issue – which is essentially an endorsement for Trudeau – and it could start to get very uncomfortable for all involved really quickly.

Good reads:

• Justin Trudeau and other party leaders were in Quebec for St-Jean-Baptiste Day/Fête Nationale celebrations.
• Maryam Monsef announced a $13 million fund for commemorations for missing and murdered Indigenous women.
• The number of irregular border crossers has fallen by about half of what it was last year, most still crossing in Quebec.
• The government is set to announce the Canada Infrastructure Bank will be involved in VIA Rail’s plan to build dedicated tracks on the Toronto-Quebec City corridor.
• Meng Wanzhou’s lawyers say Canada should abandon the extradition claim for “national interests.” So…give into Chinese hostage-taking?
• The government has spent $2 million over the past year to fight Abousfian Abdelrazik’s lawsuit around government complicity for his torture in Sudan.
• Canadian special forces are buying three surveillance aircraft from the Americans, which will be deployed by 2022.
• General Vance explains the strain that climate change is putting on the Canadian Forces, who are tasked with assisting with fires and flooding.
• A mysterious group calling themselves “Ontario Strong” has been sending a text message push poll on carbon prices to mobile numbers in Ontario.
• Here are the farewell speeches from MPs who won’t be running again this fall.
• Conservative MP Michael Cooper is threatening to sue the Hill Times for publishing a column that called out his quoting the Christchurch shooter’s manifesto.
• Celina Caesar-Chavannes has been pointing out the lack of any Black civil servants that make it to the upper management levels, and wants more attention to barriers.
• Here’s an interview with the outgoing Chief Justice of the Ontario Superior Court about challenges facing the system, most especially technology adoption.
• Here’s an interview with Rachel Notley about life in opposition, and her time as premier while Jason Kenney dismantles her legacy.
• Kady O’Malley crunches the numbers on the number of government bills passed this parliament (but misses that some were abandoned and lumped into other bills).
• Andrew Coyne wonders about the current romance with wealth taxes, and the problem that they are supposed to be solving.
• Paul Wells writes a brilliant piece about right-hand syndrome with first ministers relying on chiefs of staff without institutional knowledge, and how it all blows up.

Odds and ends:

Here’s a lengthy exploration about the problem of “fake news” trying to influence elections, and why fact-checking it may be a futile pursuit.

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