Roundup: Scheer joins the sister-hiring brigade

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The saga of MPs hiring siblings exploded yesterday as several revelations came to light – that Andrew Scheer not only hired his sister-in-law, but that he also hired his sister to work in his office when he was both Deputy Speaker and Speaker. Granted, this was within the rules at the time, and those rules were changed at the end of the time Scheer was Speaker (and his sister was let go then – and then moved over to a Conservative senator’s office), but for someone who liked to give lectures to the prime minister on the optics and the appearance of ethical conduct, it does seem like a bit of the pot calling the kettle black. Erin O’Toole, meanwhile, said that while these hirings were within the rules, he wants to set a higher ethical bar, so he would have a talk with Scheer about it, though he apparently let his sister-in-law go around the same time. No word yet on whether the Conservatives will call for his resignation.

Meanwhile, in the other sibling hiring drama, it turns out that now-former Liberal MP Yasmin Ratansi’s hiring her sister was actually flagged to the Ethics Commissioner two years ago, and his office decided to take a pass on it, figuring that it was better dealt with by the Board of Internal Economy. Now he’s saying that maybe he should have taken a look then. Of course, this sounds to be about par for the course for Mario Dion, whose approach to interpreting his enabling legislation is…creative to say the least, from inventing new definitions under the Act, stretching the credulity of what it covers in some reports, and even confusing his Act with the MP Code – which are completely different – in another case. So, that’s going well. Incidentally, the Board of Internal Economy will be meeting later this week and will address the Ratansi complaints at that time about whether or not this hiring violated the rules, and they will determine the next course of action at that point. (And yes, this is an example of parliamentary privilege, where parliament makes and enforces its own rules, because it’s a self-governing institution, which is the way it should be).

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau said that though the military could help with vaccine distribution, there are currently no plans. Most Canadians could be vaccinated by late 2021.
  • The government tabled their new privacy legislation, which gives the Commissioner order-making powers including the ability to levy steep fines from companies.
  • The Information Commissioner released a scathing report on the RCMP’s refusal to comply with Access to Information laws; Bill Blair promised a ministerial directive.
  • The Auditor General says that some $247 million in revenue has been lost because our tax laws hasn’t been updated to capture GST/HST on foreign digital products.
  • The CSE’s Centre for Cyber Security cautions that hacking attacks against the government are growing more sophisticated as they are hoping for a payday.
  • The head of NATO is warning about the consequences of the US pulling out of Afghanistan too soon, as Trump has suggested he’d do.
  • The Heritage committee plans to study Facebook’s recruitment of civil servants from Canadian Heritage.
  • Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column evaluates the procedural efficacy of the Conservatives’ Supply Day motion on forcing a decision on Huawei.
  • Heather Scoffield suggests that more transparent local data is necessary if they want businesses to be able to close down as part of fighting the pandemic.
  • Susan Delacourt notes that Doug Ford has started using “Ontario first” protectionist noises, which is a warning sign for how a post-pandemic future is going to look.
  • My belated weekend column wonders why the federal government seems to have lost its procedural capacity when it comes to amending their own bills.

Odds and ends:

My latest Loonie Politics video looks at the calls for public health officials to either resign or take more control, and why that’s bad for accountability.

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One thought on “Roundup: Scheer joins the sister-hiring brigade”

  1. In a general sense I don’t really care about the whole hiring of family members thing, *except* for the fact that the Cons howl in outrage pointing their fingers at Trudeau as some kind of nefarious mafioso scion, and accuse the Liberals writ large of being “corrupt”. Hypocrisy is a far worse “sin” if you ask me, and it’s galling that Poilievre in particular seems untouchable (one wonders what kind of dirt he must have on media types or if the simplest explanation is that they’re protecting one of their own). But it’s clear that Dion #ReallySucks at his job, and why I don’t expect his eventual ruling on Morneau and Trudeau over the WeGhazi nontroversy to make any logical sense any more than his SNC one did. FFS PMJT didn’t *hire his mom and brother* to oversee the CSSG, no matter what the conspiracy theorists in QP and online think.

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