Roundup: Another paralyzing motion

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In the wake of Wednesday’s confidence vote, Erin O’Toole was strutting around saying that his party was going to focus on “issues” instead of “playing politics” – as though the stunt of the so-called “anti-corruption committee” was anything other than playing politics, or the fact that he has to continually lie about non-issues in order to make people angry than focusing on some of the actual issues that this government is getting wrong. And to that end, O’Toole and Michelle Rempel Garner spent yesterday on another Supply Day motion, this time geared toward ordering the health committee to conducting a wide-ranging study on the federal government’s response to the pandemic. Rempel Garner insisted that this was “non-partisan” and free of the hyperbole of the previous motion (and the government is not treating this as a confidence motion), but I still have issues with it (and I do not agree with Kady that this is “100% shenanigan-free).

For starters, many of the items enumerated by the order are the kinds of things that the Conservatives have been engaging in a campaign of revisionist history around, so I absolutely do not consider their intentions to be pure and honourable regarding them, and I suspect there will be many a fishing expedition based on this order, particularly to satisfy the conspiracy theorizing that the Conservatives have engaged in around the role of China and the WHO. The motion also orders a massive production of documents going back to January 2018 in some cases – something that the government has warned would be physically impossible in the time allotted (because we need to remember that nobody is working from their offices, and access to many of their files is limited to non-existent because nobody can get to their offices for “health and safety” reasons). I don’t think that Patty Hajdu was being too hyperbolic herself when she said that this kind of order would grind the department to a halt. As Kady mentioned in her tweet, the protocol of ordering ministers to appear is bad and setting a terrible precedent, and I’m increasingly uncomfortable with orders that the Law Clerk handle redactions on a very limited basis, meaning that there is no room for Cabinet confidences under the order, and the fact that he may not necessarily have the right knowledge to know about national security exemptions, or commercial sensitivity as Anita Anand pointed out yesterday around some of the negotiations for contracts, whether it’s PPE or vaccines, and publicly releasing that information could undermine ongoing negotiations with other suppliers.

The vote on this won’t be until Monday, and it looks like the other opposition parties are lined up in favour of supporting it, as they have with most other Supply Day motions (that weren’t declared confidence). I do worry that these kinds of motions are going to start becoming commonplace, and that very bad precedents are being set for the future.

Good reads:

  • Harjit Sajjan warns any white supremacists looking to join the Canadian Forces that they will be found out and dealt with.
  • The public inquiry into the Nova Scotia mass-shooting is now officially underway with the final commissioner appointed and the secretariat being set up.
  • Calgary has been selected as a test site for use of rapid tests to help some travellers avoid a two-week quarantine once they get a negative result.
  • The Chief Electoral Officer says an election could be held in a pandemic, but still wants legislative changes. (The Conservatives also engaged in some Trumpism).
  • Five years into the military’s “crackdown” on sexual misconduct and victims still report being singled out and harassed for making complaints.
  • One of the Royal Canadian Navy’s new “slushbreakers” had a breakdown in the Arctic, which they are trying to investigate the cause of.
  • An Ontario judge granted a permanent injunction against Indigenous protesters near Caledonia who say a proposed housing development is on unceded land.
  • The Bloc continue to push hard on the issue of professors being able to use racist slurs in a classroom setting as “academic freedom.”
  • Robert Hiltz is concerned that Justin Trudeau is becoming everything he hates, as the Liberals’ need to cling to power gets more acute.
  • Heather Scoffield tut-tuts about the partisan gamesmanship when MPs should be behaving more civilly in a time of pandemic.

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3 thoughts on “Roundup: Another paralyzing motion”

  1. It won’t be declared a confidence motion, but Chantal Hebert said on At Issue that Justin Trudeau has now established a narrative whereby he could take a trip to the GG himself, on grounds that Parliament has become dysfunctional and paralyzed and he cannot continue to govern (especially in a pandemic) if the opposition keeps gumming up the gears. She even mentioned Harper’s “strong, stable majority government” mantra as having been successful for him once before and said it could work for Trudeau, because it’s apparent that if he wants an election he’s going to have to be the one to call it. The NDP are broke and their polls are in the toilet and so they’re not going to bite. So it’s possible that the Liberals knew the Conservatives et al were going to turn this into a fracas and are playing rope a dope, now that it’s also evident they too (the Liberals) can put up a fight. At least that’s my hope anyway.

    • I hope you’re right. There’s nothing noble in what the CPC is doing. O’Toole is showing himself as a leader willing to do anything to gain power. Plus the recent revelations of the CPC ‘s data harvesting to target voters is a disturbing GOP allegation.

  2. Granted Trudeau likely does want an election, but I’m not sure it is wise to fight it on the grounds of “hiding corruption” as the opposition parties will phrase it. Trudeau would be better off to have a positive issue to call an election.
    Love your newsletters and blog posts, by the way – excellent summaries, very useful.

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