As the nepotism scandal in Ontario picks up steam, with revelations that there were appointments made to lacrosse players and an MPP’s father, and more demands that there be a more independent review of the appointments that have been made, I think it’s time for a bit of a civics and history lesson about patronage appointments. In many ways, patronage appointments are how we wound up with Responsible Government in the colonies that became Canada in the first place – the local assemblies wanted control over who was being appointed to these positions rather than them going to people from the UK who would then come over to carry them out, and eventually we won that right as part of Responsible Government. It was also understood at the time that it was fine if the party in power put their friends into patronage positions because when fortunes turned and their rivals formed government, they would be able to do the same with their friends. That particular view we have, fortunately, evolved from.

Regardless of this evolution, the core fact remains – that under Responsible Government, it is the first minister and Cabinet who makes these decisions as they are the ones who advise the Governor General/lieutenant governor to make said appointment. It also means that they are accountable to the legislature for that advice, which is where the current nepotism scandal now hangs. There are going to be all kinds of Doug Ford apologists who say that this was all Dean French, that Ford didn’t know what was going on – even though he signed off on it. And that’s the thing. It doesn’t matter if this was French hoodwinking Ford because Ford is the one who advises the LG about the appointments, and Ford is responsible to the legislature for making those appointments (and for hiring French, when you think about it). And if his party gets too embarrassed by this particular scandal, well, there could be a loss of confidence in the offing (likely from within party ranks than the legislature, but stranger things have happened).

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1143639086231633920

On that note of accountability, we should also point out that with the appointment of yet more ministers and “parliamentary assistants,” there are a mere 27 MPPs left in the back benches who don’t have a role, which means that they will see themselves as one screw-up away from a promotion (and this is more salient in the provinces, where regional balances are less of an outright concern, and this government in particular seems less interested in other diversity balances). That does erode the exercise of accountability by backbenchers. So does, incidentally, a chief of staff who would berate MPs for not clapping long enough, but maybe they’ll grow a backbone now that French is gone. Maybe.

Good reads:

• Justin Trudeau is in Japan for the G20 summit, where he intends to engage the Chinese president about the ongoing trade dispute.
• The halting of meat exports to China is being blamed on smugglers using faked Canadian veterinarian certificates. The RCMP have been called in to investigate.
• The government has added two international neo-Nazi groups to its list of banned terrorist organizations – a first for far-right extremists. (Context thread here).
• Health Canada listed new regulations around reporting drug and medical device reactions, as well as reproductive technology rules.
• Harjit Sajjan announced that Canada will extend our Iraq training mission until 2020, and that a female Afghanistan veteran will lead it.
• Catherine McKenna announced a memorandum-of-understanding with California about developing more stringent vehicle emissions standards.
• Vice-Admiral Mark Norman has announced his retirement after reaching a settlement with DND (which isn’t surprising as there was no job for him any longer).
• An RCMP employee working in their Access-to-Information branch was removed from the job after being found to be a security risk. Oops.
• Twitter is banning most pre-writ election advertising, but not the ads during a writ period.
• The Conservatives have been recruiting more young women to run for the party in the next election, possibly in the hopes of winning over women voters.
• Brian Pallister is taking a stand against Quebec’s “secularism” law and is hoping for a joint statement from Western premiers at their meeting this week.
• Jason Kenney tabled his unconstitutional Senate “elections” bill, and would hold it with municipal elections in October 2021 (still too late to fill Senator McCoy’s seat).
• Aaron Wherry looks at all the ways in which Andrew Scheer continues to hew to Stephen Harper’s policy book.
• Anne Kingston finds the response from Canadian federal party leaders on the American practice of detaining migrant children to be lacking.
• Martin Patriquin pans the Quebec “secularism” bill as cruelty and absurdity rolled together.

Odds and ends:

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