Roundup: Procedural shenanigans in a pandemic

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The state of the government’s legislative agenda remains mired in procedural shenanigans, and the Conservatives are largely to blame. Of course, this is being framed as giving the Liberals ammunition for calling an election to try and win a majority so that they can regain control over their agenda, despite the fact that nobody aside from a few bored pundits actually wants to go to an election in the middle of a global pandemic, especially because we won’t be getting enough people vaccinated until at least summer before this could even be a remotely plausible scenario.

The government has been trying to pass two bills in short order – the latest pandemic support bill, and the assisted dying bill, for which they needed to get yet another extension to the court-imposed deadline because the Conservatives keep denying consent to extend debate on it. The procedural tactics tend to be forcing concurrence debates on committee reports, and because the opposition has enough votes to force them through, the actual orders of the day – mostly government bills – don’t wind up being debated after all. Of course, what has been especially precious is the way that the NDP have been using Question Period to complain that the government isn’t bringing bills up for debate (including the conversion therapy ban bill and the UNDRIP bill), even though they are actively participating in these concurrence debates, and voting with the Conservatives to have the debates. (The NDP also wasted an hour of the Commons’ time the other day when Don Davies complained he couldn’t re-ask his question from QP after his video cut out, never mind that the audio was fine, he was heard, and the question got a response. But he wanted the video so that it could be clipped for his social media, which is what QP had degenerated to).

I find myself particularly bemused by the Conservative House Leader – backed up by the Bloc’s – to claim that the government hasn’t set “clear priorities” and is failing to manage the legislative agenda. This is pretty ridiculous, because they know full well why those two bills are being prioritised, and in the case of the assisted dying bill, the Liberals have several times offered to move a motion that would allow the Commons to sit until midnight and debate the bill uninterrupted, but the Conservatives keep refusing consent for such a motion. And for as much as both the Conservatives and NDP keep saying that it’s the Liberals that want an election and that they don’t want to give it to them, it’s curious how they keep trying to engineer the opportunities for such a call. The fact that this level of gamesmanship is going on while we’re still in the midst of a pandemic just breeds cynicism, but seems tactically stupid if the government can demonstrate that their ability to get help to people (as with the pandemic support bill) keeps getting stymied by these kinds of shenanigans. But most of our parties these days are all tactics and no strategy, so that’s not a surprise in the end.

Good reads:

  • Prime minister Justin Trudeau appeared on Meet the Press to talk about his meeting with Joe Biden, vaccines, Saudi Arabia, and Keystone XL.
  • Health Canada says they got more data from Johnson & Johnson on the same day that their vaccine was approved in the US.
  • Harjit Sajjan says that it’s time for “swift action” to change the culture of Canada’s military (and I might believe it if they didn’t keep rolling out half-measures).
  • The government won’t say if they allowed Bangladesh to buy cellphone trackers to be purchased from Canada.
  • The director of CSIS is making more pleas to Parliament for expanded powers, particularly in the ability to gather foreign intelligence.
  • The new Canada Energy Regulator wants to address systemic racism, and avoid industry capture like the NEB suffered, especially around pipelines.
  • Maclean’s has a longread about the terrible state of Canada’s prisons.
  • There are rumblings in the Conservative ranks that Erin O’Toole isn’t providing much direction six months in, while the social conservatives are restive.
  • NDP MP Mumilaaq Qaqqaq talks about what drove her to burnout last year.
  • Heather Scoffield looks at the challenge François-Philippe Champagne has in rebuilding vaccine capacity in Canada amidst feuds with the pharma industry.

Odds and ends:

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