As I reserve the right to grouse about bad journalism, I’m going to call out a particularly egregious CBC article that appeared over the weekend about a deleted tweet about a judicial appointment, and the way in which the story was framed, being that said potential judge was a donor to the justice minister’s nomination campaign and later to the riding association. The fact that a tweet was made and quickly deleted because the appointment process was not completed is bad form, and embarrassing for the minister’s office, but it need not be a sign that there is anything improper going on if you look at the facts in their totality. But that’s not what happened. Instead, the article omitted any context about how the appointment process is made, framed it like the minister is appointing his donors out of patronage, and got quotes from the Ethics Commissioner to “prove” that the conflict of interest rules are too lax.

The minister does not get to appoint anyone he wants on his rolodex. I mean on paper he has that ability, and constitutionally it’s his responsibility, but in practice it’s not how it works. The judicial appointments process – and I have written extensively about this – starts with lawyers applying to Judicial Appointments Committees in provinces, who then vet them and those which are deemed “Recommended” and “Highly Recommended” are forwarded to the minister’s office. At that point, there is a political vetting process because the government is politically accountable for these appointments if they go bad, but this particular process has been routinely mischaracterised both by media and the opposition – so much so that they have dragged in others on this point. In this case, it is likely that the candidate in question had passed the JAC and was forwarded to the minister’s office as either Recommended or Highly Recommended, and it was in the process of the political vetting when the errant tweet was made, but by deliberately omitting the role of the JACs in these appointments, the CBC article deliberately created a false impression for the sake of building their narrative.

It’s a problem when the media refuses to report this particular situation properly, with context of how appointments work, because they are more interested in a narrative that there is either rampant patronage, or that any lawyer who wants to be a judge should never donate to any party ever for fear of somehow tainting themselves. Political donations are part of how our system works, and it’s not a sign that someone is either a rampant partisan, or that they are trying to buy a judgeship – as the CBC seems to be alleging – especially given the donation limits in this country. Whether that is because there is an element of American political envy here, where we want to feel like we have the same problem of money in politics like they do (seriously, we do not), or whether there is a particular streak of misplaced moralism, in either case the reporting is tainted, and it’s completely irresponsible.

Good reads:

• Flags on all federal buildings are flying at half-mast to mark the discovery of the mass grave of Indigenous children at a Kamloops, BC, residential school.
• Health Canada has extended the expiry date on two lots of AstraZeneca vaccine doses (as the dates tend to be conservative), so that they don’t go to waste.
• François-Philippe Champagne says he has a straight-forward text relationship with Doug Ford, mostly on weekends, which is how they get stuff done.
• There is an exodus of Indigenous members of the RCMP – 100 over three years have left – which shouldn’t be surprising given they can’t grasp systemic racism.
• A former senior staff member from the Royal Military College gave examples of sexual misconduct being covered up, and how that sets the culture of the military.
• An internal review of the military shows that efforts to increase diversity have been stymied by a lack of leadership and resources, as well as time to push real change.
• Some 75 percent of federal prisoners and 90 percent of members of the Canadian Forces have had their first shot of the vaccine.
• Here is a look at how the conversation around Israel and Palestine continues to shift in the Canadian political discourse, and within the mainline parties.
• Matt Gurney notes that the replacement of Ontario’s Chief Public Health Officer likely won’t matter because it’s not like Doug Ford really listens to advice.
• Chantal Hébert wonders if Erin O’Toole might be given more leeway in his next election now that the likes of Jason Kenney and Doug Ford are in deep trouble.
• My weekend column bade good riddance to Mike Duffy from the Senate, and tallied the damage left behind in his wake, and it’s more than you might think.

Odds and ends:

https://twitter.com/cmathen/status/1399032693321605125

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