Roundup: The House un-suspends

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The House of Commons is to resume ordinary sittings today, with the suspension motion having expired, but how long this state of affairs lasts remains an open question as the parties are negotiating new motions on what comes next for the next few weeks and possibly months, as we adapt to these pandemic times. The Conservatives want a resumption of regular sittings with a maximum of 50 MPs present, along with some kind of mechanism for electronic voting and for all committees to have their full powers restored – as they are especially keen on getting powers to summons back. The Liberals, however, are proposing that they extend the special COVID-19 committee to four days a week until June 17th, when they would rise for the summer, but come back four times in July and August. And it’s going to come down to which other parties either side can convince to join them.

I think the Conservatives are half-right in their proposal – the problem being the system of electronic voting, because that is a Pandora’s box that we do not want to open. Where the Liberals are going wrong is the fact that they think that the special committee’s remit of essentially holding extended QP-like sessions is good enough, when it makes a mockery of what Parliament is. Parliament is not Question Period, and yet they are acting as if that’s all it is, and it’s almost certainly a cynical calculation that preys on the popular perception that it is. But one of my biggest bugaboos is the fact that we’ve now had five pieces of emergency legislation that haven’t had anything resembling proper legislative scrutiny, haven’t had witnesses called, haven’t had any outside commentary or evaluation, and where everything is agreed to behind closed doors, and the government seems to think that’s good enough. It’s not, and we have more bills on the way. For them to carry on and pretend that this special committee and endless questions are going to satisfy the demand that we have a functioning parliament is frankly insulting.

Meanwhile, here’s a look at how the West Block has been adapting to pandemic life as MPs and staffers still show up to work – and yes, those “virtual” sittings still require staff to show up, and in fact require twice as many staff as in-person meetings, in case anyone thinks that “virtual” is somehow safer for all involved. It’s not, and people should stop pretending otherwise.

Good reads:

  • A public sector union is calling for all long-term care facilities to be under a public system, which ignores the fact that publicly funded facilities in Quebec were as bad.
  • An internal RCMP memo suggests that their ongoing contract policing obligations to provinces is draining resources from their areas of federal responsibility.
  • The mass shooter in Nova Scotia is drawing more attention to the potential need for Criminal Code penalties for coercion as a tactic of domestic abuse.
  • The Canadian Forces mission in Latvia was the subject of a pandemic-related disinformation campaign, likely coming from Russia.
  • Here is an interesting look at how Ontario’s auto sector is reopening in large part because the rest of the supply chain is also opening up, and it needs to be in sync.
  • Aaron Wherry notes that the pearl-clutching about deficits could be ignoring other problems in the economy, and that austerity could prolong the slowdown.
  • Chantal Hébert points to all the ways in which Andrew Scheer squandered the ground that Stephen Harper made for his party across the country.
  • Susan Delacourt looks to polling data to see that the country is hungry for some broader change in the wake of the pandemic as we find the “new normal.”

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