Roundup: Holland breaks out the passive-aggressive open letter tactics

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The drama over the Winnipeg Lab documents took another turn yesterday as Government House Leader Mark Holland sent a four-page open letter to the Conservative House Leader, urging him to reconsider rejecting the government’s offer to create a new ad hoc panel to have the documents vetted behind closed doors with a panel of three former judges to adjudicate any disputes. In said letter, Holland name-checks nearly every national security and intelligence expert who has weighed in on the topic of the past few weeks, with a couple of exceptions.

While Holland didn’t name Philippe Lagassé’s piece, it’s fairly irrelevant to the concerns at hand. Whether NSICOP gets turned into a full-blown committee or not, it won’t make a material difference because the Conservatives’ objections are not based on any particular matter of principle or specific objection. As I point out in my column, they are merely acting in bad faith in order to be theatrical and try and score points by winking to conspiracy theories in order to paint the picture that the government is hiding something for the benefit of the Chinese, or some other such nonsense.

I don’t expect Holland’s letter to do anything other than look passive-aggressive and ham-fisted as the issue continues to fester—not that there is an order to produce documents any longer, and the committee that made said order no longer exists either (though O’Toole has been under pressure to restore it, as though it actually did anything meaningful other than be yet another dog and pony show). We’ll see if the other two opposition parties come to some kind of agreement, but so far this issue continues to just make everyone look like our Parliament is amateur hour. Which it kind of is.

Good reads:

  • At the health committee, Dr. Theresa Tam said that because COVID keeps evolving, herd immunity might be impossible. Also, omicron likely still spreads after 10 days.
  • Mélanie Joly has wrapped up her trip to Kyiv, and says that they are still considering selling arms to Ukraine. She heads to Paris, then Brussels.
  • Joly will also be hosting a virtual summit on Friday with regional leaders to discuss the political instability in Haiti.
  • The federal government has terminated two PPE supply contracts when they were found to use items made by forced labour in Malaysia.
  • The planned “modernisation” of the CBC could mean eliminating advertising.
  • The Canadian Forces are 12,000 members short of regular force troops and reservists, making their capabilities even more limited.
  • Jagmeet Singh was afoul of ethics rules when his wife accepted a $1895 rocking chair in exchange for social media influence; they now have opted to pay for it.
  • Heather Scoffield calls on business and government to collaborate on climate change, as the pandemic has changed the perception of government involvement.
  • Althia Raj makes the case to restore 24 Sussex, and blames the government for not adequately funding the NCC so that they can begin the work.
  • Colby Cosh points out the weaknesses of the BBC’s TV-licence fee model that some are advocating for the CBC, though the alternatives may not be much better.
  • My column looks at the proposal to turn NSICOP into a full-fledged parliamentary committee, and why it won’t solve the Winnipeg Lab documents issue.

Odds and ends:

My latest for the CBA’s National Magazine looks at the potential for court challenges to the recent ban on conversion therapy.

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3 thoughts on “Roundup: Holland breaks out the passive-aggressive open letter tactics”

  1. As usual O’Toole and his band of fractured supporters who in many cases hold their noses as they find themselves picking through the offal trying to find an undigested seed or two that might germinate into a plant they couldn’t recognize as there isn’t a botanist in their whole pack. This is the main opposition party that every day tries to prove to Canadians that it is the salvation for our nation while wallowing in places an intelligent organization wouldn’t go. If O’Toole had a brain he would have long ago supported the current government and concurrent made positive suggestions that his party would take to augment those policies for Canada. Instead as the stupids on the right do constantly, they continuously attempt to appeal to the shrill ignorance of their party’s well trained white, evangelical elites whose only purpose is to malign and destroy all vestiges of liberalism because even when the Liberals do good works it it must be intrinsically evil. Well for all the sycophants of this Con way it is not working!

  2. Well, I for one want to see a full-scale committee investigation of The Chair Affair AKA Singh Sits On It.
    I saw a tweet yesterday that suggested Charlie Angus should now be hauling in the chair manufacturer to rake him over the coals — sounds good to me!
    But seriously, if Sophie had ever done something like this, the howlers would have screamed for Trudeau’s immediate resignation.
    Nothing wrong with supporting Canadian industry, but if that chair manufacturer has extra product to donate, he should have been asked to donate it to a women’s shelter or a Sunday school.

  3. Lagassé is way too optimistic about the maturity of opposition MPs. I mean seriously, the Cons still have Marjorie Trailer Gallant in caucus who sent a (now deleted) Facebook message accusing Trudeau of unleashing the virus. Pigeon Poilievre has been cozying up to Jordan Peterson who is enamored of the whole George Soros/Klaus Schwab “great reset” nonsense that Skippy was floating not so long ago. The NDP just goes along with it because they, too, have nothing serious policy-wise to write home about, so fall back on “Trudeau bad.”

    Trudeau said that the enemy of progressive politics is cynicism. It’s hard not to become cynical about politics when “holding the government accountable” has become an exercise in riling up QAnon idiots on social media. Ed Broadbent was on TV last week paying tribute to Alexa McDonough. He was asked if there was anyone in Parliament who he felt met the standard that she set. He sadly shook his head and said no. That’s a real indictment of his own party and how much the “conscience of parliament” is circling the drain. Now where’s Charlie the Tuna to open up a Joseph McCarthy inquiry into his own guy?

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