Roundup: Suspended for negotiations

Posted on by

For his daily presser yesterday, Justin Trudeau first gave some bland assurances about believing in democratic institutions before updating on his conversation with the premiers the day before, stating that now was not the time for the Emergencies Act to be implemented, but it remained the tool of last resort. (He also gave some information on other flights they have secured for stranded Canadians, said that faster testing was coming, and that they’re not ruling out using telecom data to find social gatherings so that they can shut them down). But the drama for the day started moments later when the House of Commons convened for the Skeleton Parliament, and immediately suspended in order to continue negotiations because the Conservatives in particular were not going to let the government give itself the power of unlimited spending without any parliamentary oversight – as well they shouldn’t. Even more to the point, Conservative MP Scott Reid showed up, despite not having been on the leader’s approved list, and posted a 2500-word essay online about why he was going to deny any unanimous consent, why it was improper for his party to try to keep him from being there, and his (proper) concern around Parliament passed three bills sight-unseen in one fell swoop before they suspended. And he’s absolutely right.

While the negotiations carried on for at least the next twelve hours (by the time I gave up waiting and went to bed), it sounded like the government was walking back on some of the measures but a new text of the bill still hadn’t been forthcoming. But that didn’t stop the absolute inane partisanship from all sides, which was not helped at all by ministers like Mélanie Joly saying asinine things like “the parliamentary process is too slow” for the government’s pandemic response, which is utterly infuriating. People defending the government’s move to try and bypass parliament seem to forget that this is how democracy works, and it’s not a bad thing. If they don’t like that, then they can tell the Queen that we’re turning over all power to her because it’s easier that way. And then there were the conspiracy theories that the Conservatives had somehow set up Reid as the weasel so that they could be partisan spoilers over the government’s response, which is so mind-blowingly stupid that I can’t even. Reid, who is on the outs with Scheer, somehow cooked up a scheme to be spoilers? When the government went and put an unconstitutional provision in the bill and expected parliament to swiftly pass it and just trust them? Seriously? And the harrowing cries that this was causing people to die, never mind that the plan was always that the Senate would receive the bill today and that it would get royal assent today, not yesterday. Because why should two centuries of Responsible Government matter? And Westminster parliaments going back to the late 1600s? It’s not like turning over more power to governments in times of fear without proper oversight ever goes badly, right?

Meanwhile, Susan Delacourt has some of the behind-the-scenes details on how those offending passages got into the bill, though I’m not mollified by the notion that this was all to be negotiated because I’ve heard from people at briefings who say that this wasn’t how it was presented to them. Heather Scoffield isn’t reassured by the government’s words, considering they wanted to enhance their spending powers until the end of 2021. Chris Selley praises Scott Reid for standing up for Parliament in the face of a government that would have trod all over its rights.

Good reads:

  • The small business lobby is demanding much bigger wage subsidies from the government, but it’s not easy and there are risks to doing so.
  • The Royal Military College is moving classes online.
  • Returning snowbirds in Brockville are aggressively ignoring the directive to self-isolate. THIS IS HOW WE LOSE OUR CIVIL LIBERTIES, PEOPLE.
  • A group of IT professionals in Canada is forming a kind of civil cyber-security defence brigade to protect healthcare systems under attack and target scammers.
  • The parties have all needed to rethink their usual fundraising appeals during this particular time of crisis.
  • Pierre Poilievre is awaiting COVID-19 test results.
  • Kevin Carmichael wonders what industries the government is going to be willing to bailout in this crisis, particularly those that clash with its environmental agenda.
  • My column looks at how everyone has been terrible with both the suspension and return of the Skeleton Parliament, and it’s proof of why we need to keep it going.

Odds and ends:

Here is a look at the various chief public health officers across the country, who are becoming celebrities in their own right in recent weeks.

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

2 thoughts on “Roundup: Suspended for negotiations”

  1. Sad to see you drink the Con kool-aid in the name of “principle,” Dale. A pandemic doesn’t care about the Magna Carta any more than it cares about the U.S. Constitution or Supreme Court dockets or any other piece of paper written by man. What this means is that the government won’t be able to respond as nimbly and quickly to the rapid developments of this crisis, at least not without going hat in hand begging for alms and going through this same tired circus charade.

    This is SNC 2.0, where the stuffy eggheads of the punditry and she who must not be mentioned were more concerned about the arcane British legalese of the “Shawcross Doctrine” while Trudeau, the clear-eyed pragmatist, was focused on people’s jobs. Such is Quebec, and probably why Blanchet was the only oppo leader in yesterday’s fracas who was actually talking sense.

    Mélanie Joly (another pragmatic Quebecer) is absolutely right: Biology has surpassed the clogged, messy inefficiencies of democracy. Trudeau got slammed back in the day for his out of context comment about China’s “basic dictatorship,” but they didn’t have to put quarantine or spending limits up for pointless spit-flinging debate. They just did it. You said so yourself: if people continue to misbehave, liberties will have to be curtailed.

    The Cons are just mad that it’s not their guy doing it while tacking on some prejudice for the red-meat base. The Dippers are just mad that they’re irrelevant otherwise, and that they can’t use the unfettered power of the purse to drain the bank accounts of unsavory “boomers” on their death beds, in order to “redistribute the wealth” for reparations or woke startups or dank meme factories or whatever is popular with the Bernie/Corbyn cult.

    Besides all that, though, the same projecting hypocrites who were found in contempt of parliament, who actually compiled a book about disrupting the process, and who wanted Trudeau to send in tanks to clear out protesters (even the non-disruptive ones), have no moral standing whatsoever to complain about a “power grab.” He called their bluff and they proved they couldn’t be trusted to keep a draft bill — a *draft* — under confidentiality. As they made up a phony story abut him making some high school student sign an N.D.A.

    Meanwhile, if you want to see an actual power grab under the guise of Covid-19 legislation, look no further than Harper’s I.D.U. colleagues Viktor Orbán and Bibi Netanyahu. To follow Trudeau’s philosophy of boxing as a metaphor for politics, why is it only liberals who are expected to follow Queensberry rules, while the right gets a pass for bringing nukes to a fist fight? I saw De Adder’s cartoon this morning trying to frame Trudeau as a comic book villain. I say give him the Thanos glove, and let him rule with an iron fist like the Castro they think he is anyway!

    The cons are shameless, lawless thugs and liars who gaslight, work the refs, and have no respect for the “democracy” they claim to care so much about, let alone people’s lives. They are a virus, and so are their irrational, enemy-of-my-enemy left-populist enablers. Shame on all of them. I hope they all get the bug and choke on a ventilator. “IOKIYAR,” It’s OK If You’re a Reformacon, right?

    Oh, and Scott Reid is no hero. He’s a narcissistic, grandstanding jerk and I hope Giant Tiger goes bankrupt. That’s it, that’s the tweet.

  2. The first thing returning Canadians do is go to a food store or mall, then who knows where else. So much for the honor system. The myths that Canadians stand up for one another, are rule abiding, and in effect are altruistic is just not true. People act on self interest. Despite knowing that their actions put others at risk people delude themselves. It is just human nature. All those other religious rules learned so many times over a lifetime go out the window. Survival! I’m alright Jack! So let’s cut the illusion. Canadians, when they feel completely stressed in 3 or 4 months and despite the government handouts will devolve, if the Covid19 continues, into desperate mass of frustration and will take to the streets to demand an end to restrictions at the risk of a continuing or second wave of infection.
    Religious based conservatives will lead the charge. Slogans like the government is spending too much money, our freedoms are being eroded, how can we ever pay the national debt will be the cry. They will say,Trump was right, yes many may die but we need to get our economy running. We sacrifice the lame and the halt so that the young can survive! What B.S.
    History is rife with examples of how the righteous self interests succumb to simple solutions..
    It starts small and morphs into a ground swell that will lead to societal chaos.
    Just today in an interview a woman castigated the government for being too slow in getting her a check! We are so entitled and self absorbed that even a few days of delay in receiving a check is a major disaster.
    Trudeau stands each day to give us hope knowing human frailty for what it is. He is castigated cruelly for his efforts, called Truedope, Castro’s son and all sorts of things.
    As difficult as these times are and will become, I shudder to imagine us being led by the likes of MacKay, Poilievre, et al.

Comments are closed.