It wouldn’t be summer if we didn’t have an emergency committee meeting of some sort, and we got just that yesterday, as the Conservatives triggered the recall of the Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics committee with an eye to opening an investigation into Liberals contracting database services from a Liberal-friendly company, headed by a personal friend of the prime minister’s. The party has claimed that this is for constituency services, and that there is no data going to party databases (as has been the case with the Conservatives and their own constituency data in the past), and that all of the rules have been followed, but the Conservatives have a narrative they need to feed, so there it went.

In the end, it got nowhere. The Liberals managed to stymie the proceedings long enough for the Bloc MP to side with them in opting not to pursue the matter, but along the way, they (correctly) suggested that this is a matter best suited for the Board of Internal Economy, which deals with MPs’ resources and allocations, and these payments have been coming out of MPs’ office budgets. Of course, the Conservatives (and to an extent the NDP) can’t put on a public dog and pony show at BOIE like they could at the ethics committee, so of course they had no interest in pursuing that course of action – especially after the Liberals also wanted the Conservatives’ database practices included in their referring the study to BOIE.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t issues that could be better explored here, the chief of which is that political parties are exempt from privacy legislation, so there aren’t many effective firewalls around the use of constituency files. And hey, that would be something that the Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics committee should be tackling, because it’s right in their mandate! One Conservative MP also suggested that perhaps the House of Commons build their own constituency file management system so that parties don’t have to contract their own systems, which may not be a bad idea – but it’s one that BOIE would tackle, not the ethics committee. And the point of this exercise was about the dog and pony show, not anything of substance, which is one more reason why this particular session has turned toxic.

Good reads:

• Canada is redirecting our incoming allotment of 17.7 million AstraZeneca doses to other countries by way of COVAX, focusing on the Caribbean and Latin America.
• Jonathan Wilkinson submitted Canada’s new climate goals to the UN, and meanwhile has six months to come up with a plan to meet those targets.
• The federal government is launching a new programme to aid tourism operators avoid the “spiral of debt,” until they can fully reopen.
• A report on the failure of the Global Public Health Intelligence Network within PHAC shows that key positions have been vacant for years, with no explanation as to why.
• The acting Chief of Defence Staff says they plan to start posting “culture officers” on deployments, and offer survivor-led sexual misconduct training workshops.
• A Federal Court judge ruled that privacy laws can include a “right to be forgotten,” allowing some people to have their Google searches de-indexed in some cases.
• More MPs are panning the “hybrid” parliament, and how detrimental it was to the ongoing practice of democracy (which is an encouraging sign!).
• The Logic has an exit interview with Catherine McKenna.
• Lawyers for a group challenging public health orders had private investigators tailing Manitoba’s chief justice in an attempt to catch him breaking rules.
• Scott Moe is complaining that his proposed carbon plan was rejected by the federal government because it doesn’t meet minimum national standards.
• Kevin Carmichael looks into the need for skilled manufacturing workers in Canada as our auto sector starts to shift toward building electric vehicles.
• Carmichael also takes note of the appointment of the next Senior Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada, who will be the only woman at the table when she starts.
• Susan Delacourt reads into those Abacus poll numbers on the party leaders and declares them to be favourable for Trudeau.
• Colby Cosh reflects on the return of Stampede in Calgary, and what it says about the state of politics in the province.

Odds and ends:

My latest Loonie Politics Quick Take video looks at the Conservatives’ sudden vulnerability in Alberta, and why that gives the Liberals an opening.

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