Roundup: A caution around more nomination “safeguards”

Posted on by

There has been some renewed interest in party nominations after the accusations of shenanigans in Liberal MP Han Dong’s nomination, and unsurprisingly, we get a rather tepid piece asking if we need more safeguards. There are a few things that this ignores, part of which is the history. MPs actively wanted to keep Elections Canada out of policing nominations (though they now have a bigger role in policing the funding of said contests). This is one of the reasons why the decision was made to have party leaders sign off on nominations forms—to keep Elections Canada out of the process. (That later turned into a problem of leaders using this power to blackmail members into staying in line, which was not something contemplated at the time, and yes, I did study the Hansards of those debates as part of research for my book).

The other thing that the piece missed is how parties have been monkeying with nomination processes to get their favoured candidates installed. The Samara Centre for Democracy has a great report on this (though they were a little too credulous at the NDP’s claims they always run open nominations when they don’t), and my particular caution is that more “safeguards” for nominations may very well mean a greater ability for the party or the leader’s office to monkey around or put their thumbs on the scale. Already we are in a veritable crisis where open nominations are fast disappearing behind the curtain of protected nominations for incumbents and invoking “electoral urgency” rules unnecessarily that allow the leader to just directly appoint candidates. Parties used to be robust enough to fight this kind of interference, but they are losing that ability, particularly in the Liberals, who rewrote their party constitution to centralize even more power in the leader’s office and disempower the grassroots after Trudeau became prime minister.

Should there be more safeguards? Probably. But that means returning the power to the grassroots riding associations so that they can run proper, open and transparent contests, rather than what has been happening.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces say that in spite of Russian claims, Bakhmut is not surrounded, and the fighting continues. In fact, the head of the Wagner Group mercenaries has said that their position is at risk if they can’t get more ammunition. The Ukrainains are, however, trying to evacuate the remaining civilian population, who are still there for many different reasons.

Good reads:

  • Chief of Defence Staff General Wayne Eyre was in Kyiv to talk about how the Canadian Forces can support Ukraine’s future needs.
  • The CRA is investigating ten employees—some of whom have already been terminated—for getting CERB while employed by them.
  • A recent CSIS report shows that climate change will be a threat to Canada’s stability and prosperity. Gosh, you think?
  • The UN reached an agreement on protecting biodiversity on the high seas.
  • The UN is also hoping Canada will do more to resettle those displaced by the earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria.
  • Here is a look at some of the upcoming riding redistributions.
  • Jagmeet Singh is thinking about using the Supply and Confidence Agreement as leverage to get a public inquiry. (He won’t, and asking him every time is boring).
  • The Ontario Liberal Party had their AGM and adopted a one-member-one-vote system (which was a mistake). MPs Erskine-Smith and Naqvi are probably running.
  • Heather Scoffield proposes four low-cost ways to achieve high-impact emissions reduction targets.
  • Althia Raj points out that the Conservatives are counting on Trudeau to be unable to answer questions on interference to claim he has something to hide.

Odds and ends:

Want more Routine Proceedings? Become a patron and get exclusive new content.