The Speaker engaged in a bit of procedural housekeeping after Question Period yesterday, and ruled that the Board of Internal Economy’s vote on a vaccine mandate for MPs in the House of Commons was in fact a violation of MPs’ privileges—which most of us expected, because that’s pretty much what it was. It’s a moot point, however, because the motion passed that re-authorized hybrid sittings included the vaccine mandate for the Chamber, so there remains a vaccine mandate regardless of this outcome. It sounds like the Conservatives are satisfied with this ruling in that it doesn’t create a precedent for expanding the BoIE’s powers, so that’s not necessarily a bad thing in all.

At the same time, the government house leader proposed a compromise for the Winnipeg Lab documents, which had been floated before dissolution but is back on the table now—which is procedurally dumb because the committee that requested those documents is non-existent, as is the order to produce those documents. If said committee were reinstated and they vote on a new motion to produce documents, then the government should have floated this compromise then, but no, they’re going ahead with it unbidden, which is silly. This compromise would see the creation of a new committee that would be advised by a panel of three former senior judges who would vet materials—but again, this is stupid.

The compromise was the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. That was the point. It was the right venue for these documents to go to, and that’s where those documents were sent, before the Conservatives decided that theatre was more important (and the other two parties decided that embarrassing the government was also the point). All this is doing is muddying the waters even further, duplicating efforts, and making MPs even less trustworthy to Canadian security and intelligence services. Because our MPs are not interested in actual oversight or accountability—they are only interested in theatre, and that diminishes our Parliament for everyone.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1466554090452762626

Good reads:

• Chrystia Freeland will deliver a fiscal and economic update on December 14^th.
• The pandemic support bill has passed second reading with Bloc support, and will go to a reconstituted finance committee on Monday.
• Airport authorities are citing a lack of information on new testing requirements and rules around self-isolation.
• Mélanie Joly says that Canada is taking the Russian threats against Ukraine “very seriously” and is working with NATO allies on the situation.
• Joly also announced new sanctions for Belarusian officials for human rights violations and silencing political dissent.
• Rideau Hall says that their internal network was breached in a cyber-attack.
• A group of senators has created the African Canadian Senate Group—an informal caucus—to advance issues.
• A review of the House of Commons’ harassment policy has found no shortcomings in the wake of the allegations against former MP Raj Saini.
• Mike Moffatt delves into why only Ontario is seeing more 25 to 34-year-olds living at home, and no, ethnicity doesn’t explain the increase either.
• Jen Gerson darkly muses about what might happen if the omicron variant turns out to be the Big One that we have thus far avoided.
• My Xtra column looks at some of the shifting dynamics at play with how the new version of the conversion therapy ban bill got passed in the Commons.

Odds and ends:

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1466411389518549001

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