Roundup: More dynamics at play with the story of the Clerk

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The CBC story earlier in the week regarding the Clerk of the House of Commons has its critics, and there were elements of the story that felt “off” while reading it – such as how it described Charles Robert’s relationship with a senator (omitting that the senator was male, and the actual dynamics of what happened with the former Liberal-appointed senators when Justin Trudeau expelled them from the party), or the way in which Robert allegedly consulted the Liberals over the timing of releasing a privilege ruling to the Speaker. I did know that his appointment ruffled feathers, which was in part over the poor process that the government ran for it, and how they essentially pushed out the other contender, Marc Bosc, by forcing him to re-apply for his deputy clerk position when he didn’t get the full clerk job. But it sounds like there were other dynamics at play there as well – and this thread by a former procedural clerk in the House of Commons illuminates some of those. It may not absolve Robert entirely, but it certainly colours the story that CBC published, and reminds us that we may not be seeing the full picture.

Good reads:

  • A suspicious package meant that the RCMP delayed the arrivals of the VIPs to the National War Memorial yesterday, which impacted the two minutes’ silence.
  • Justin Trudeau told the (online) Paris Peace Forum that the world needs to do a better job of making cyberspace a safer place, and taking down terrorist content.
  • Patty Hajdu says she is trying to get a sense of what the issues are with the remaining boil-water advisories on First Nations reserves, but is wary of a timeline.
  • There seems to be a bit of movement on the child care negotiations between Ontario and the Federal government, as the feds wait for Ontario’s demands on paper.
  • It looks like two US senators – one Democrat, one Republican – could water down the electric vehicle tax credit provision that worries Canadian manufacturers.
  • Apparently spooked by what happened with Air Canada, the CEO of SNC-Lavalin is postponing a planned speech in order to beef up its French content.

Odds and ends:

The Ottawa Citizen’s annual We Are the Dead feature profiles Lt. Robert James McCormick, who died pushing the Germans out of Buron, France.

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2 thoughts on “Roundup: More dynamics at play with the story of the Clerk”

  1. Hey, I find so many good Canadian twitter accounts by following your posts — thanks! This is a fascinating story and I’m glad you alerted us right way to the smear attempt that is starting up.
    Too many reporters who think of themselves as sophisticated truth-seekers are actually just appallingly credulous — it never seems to occur to them that their “sources” have agendas.

  2. Anytime actual fact-checking is brought into a story that’s slanted against the Liberals, whoever brings receipts is condemned as a “TruAnon.” Hall also decried the Cons *and* the NDP for their abhorrent overreach at the ethics committee, turning it into a McCarthy hearing. I guess that means an actual procedural clerk and the RCMP themselves (who debunked the whole “Trudeau and the GG were late because they don’t respect vets”) are the next on the list to be lumped into Jake Tapper’s manufactured cult of personality.

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