Roundup: C-10 shenanigans have poisoned the well of our parliament

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Because things around Bill C-10 couldn’t get any more ridiculous, we now have news stories about Michael Geist getting the vapours about how amendments are being rushed through committee in a “secretive” manner, as though he’s never witnessed a clause-by-clause debate before. And to an extent, what has happened with that committee is the result of a complete breakdown of how it should be operating, forcing the government to impose time allocation on the process – a rare manoeuvre at the committee stage – because it has become so toxic. And with the whips intervening, this turned into essentially a forced meeting that the chair himself objected to, but again, this whole process has become so toxic because of partisan gamesmanship.

First things first ­– Geist’s vapours are more or less melodramatic, because there are still several other opportunities to see what amendments have been agreed to – the final committee report, which goes to Report Stage debate in the Chamber, where the full Commons can vote to accept or reject those amendments. And then there is third reading. If anything, particularly egregious is in there, it can still be caught and amended, and while rare at those stages, it is possible. And then there is the entire Senate process, where they can hear from yet more witnesses in their own committees on the amended version of the bill, and given that this particular iteration of the Senate is far more activist and interventionist, we can bet that there will be more impetus for amendments there (which could force an awkward contest of wills around those amendments given that they’d have to go back to a Commons that has risen for the summer, and at a time when nobody in this city can shut up about election speculation). Nevertheless, the point stands that there are several avenues yet for more amendments to this bill than what happened at the Commons committee.

The bigger point here, however, is that the reason this process became so toxic was because the Conservatives took a fundamentally – nay, existentially – flawed bill, and decided that instead of engaging its actual flaws, they would invent a whole litany of straw men and red herrings, and try to get the country up in arms over fictional provisions that they pulled out of their asses and held them up as effigies to be burned in protest. It’s a bad bill – it never should have placed under the Broadcasting Act because that statute deals with the assumption of the limited bandwidth of TV and radio, and trying to apply it to the internet is largely unworkable. This is a legitimate criticism that should have been debated, but instead, we got this fabrication of an Internet Czar who is going to be vetting your tweets and Facebook posts, and dark visions of Orwellian censorship at the hands of the CRTC, which is not even remotely plausible. But they went full-tilt with this insanity, and just completely poisoned the well of parliament along the way.

The government is not blameless here either – the minister’s communication around the bill has been nothing short of a disaster in English Canada, and his stumbles have been extremely damaging, but he’s been given a long leash because this is playing well in Quebec (where discoverability is a huge vote-getter because they do have difficulty finding Quebec and Canadian content in French – pointing to how the debate on this bill has been hugely built on what I’m going to dub “Anglophone privilege.”) We could have had a constructive debate around this bill. But we didn’t. A mountain of lies was countered by communications incompetence, and after six weeks of absolute shenanigans at committee, the government had enough and brought the hammer down. None of this needed to happen, but apparently we don’t have enough grown-ups in our parliament, and that’s just a sad, sad state of affairs.

Good reads:

  • It was the first day of the G7 summit in Carabis Bay, in England, and Justin Trudeau pledged up to 100 million doses for poor countries (details coming Sunday).
  • Prior to his G7 meetings, Trudeau had a video audience with the Queen, and the process to pick a new GG were among the topics of conversation.
  • Dr. Theresa Tam says rules around travelling with children too young to be vaccinated remains a “work in progress,” with more to come soon.
  • The first batch of Johnson & Johnson vaccines are being returned because they came from a contaminated facility, and can’t be certain that they meet standards.
  • The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the estate of Barry and Honey Sherman couldn’t seal their estate documents from the press.
  • The House of Commons unanimously agreed to a motion calling on the government to hold a summit on Islamophobia before the end of July.
  • The Conservatives are trying to smear the Liberals and new MP Jenica Atwin as being antisemitic because of her comments on “apartheid” in Israel.
  • Heather Scoffield talks to Canadian Labour Congress’ outgoing president Hassan Yussuff about his years leading the organization.
  • Jen Gerson recounts the latest developments in Alberta politics as soap opera.
  • Robert Hiltz calls out some of the hypocritical statements from political leaders who bemoan racism and discrimination while they still perpetuate it in various ways.
  • My weekend column reads through the Ethics Committee report on the WE Imbroglio, and finds its suggestions are more likely to simply create new problems.

Odds and ends:

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4 thoughts on “Roundup: C-10 shenanigans have poisoned the well of our parliament”

  1. Michael Geist is a concern troll looking for hits to his website, and to cash in on his 15 minutes bloviating about bad-faith “free speech” concerns, a la a certain self-declared crustacean expert from the George Costanza School of Marine Biology at the University of Toronto. The only reason he’s given any oxygen by “Anglophone media” is because they look for anything they think can reflect poorly upon Trudeau and/or Quebec, and because they themselves have completely guzzled the Kool-Aid of free speech absolutism imported from the dysfunctional Untied States. Postmedia is owned by Republicans, so it’s no surprise they’re going to get vapors about erosion of a supposed “First Amendment” that thankfully doesn’t exist in Canada.

    There’s something wrong in academia, but it’s not of the “cancel culture” variety that the Cons hem and haw about. It’s these noxious men with egos much bigger than their… C.V., whipping their tenure out and waving it around regardless of who actually wants to see it. Geist completes the trifecta of the absolute worst ivory-tower loudmouths to have poisoned public discourse in Canada, along with the now infamous Peterson and tin foil vaccine truther Amir Attaran. How can it conceivably be possible that their free speech is being censored when they won’t SHUT UP about it? “Clean your room!”

  2. With regards to the appeal of compensation claim by human rights commission, when the court finally rule on it? I don’t see a timeline on it.

    • Courts generally don’t give timelines on decisions. Some can be arrived at quickly, others can take months, depending on the complexity of the issue.

  3. “The Conservatives are trying to smear the Liberals and new MP Jenica Atwin as being antisemitic because of her comments on ‘apartheid’ in Israel.”

    Unfortunately, the linked story also notes several Liberals — including Foreign Minister Garneau — have been willing to join the smear against Atwin. Justin Trudeau, himself, has not been shy about calling the peaceful Boycott, Disinvestment, and Sanctions movement ‘anti-Semitic.’ Justin says he wants peaceful change, then seeks to discredit those who take it up.

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