Roundup: No authority to examine

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It was not unexpected, but the Auditor General did confirm yesterday that she wasn’t going to be looking into the Trudeau Foundation’s private donations because it’s not within her wheelhouse. Which is what I’ve been saying for over a week now—the Foundation isn’t a Crown corporation, its only reporting relationship to the Industry Minister is around the status of the initial endowment, and the Conservatives put them under the Access to Information and Privacy regime in 2007 because they put all kinds of organisation with a tangential relationship to government under the regime during their performative toughness. It doesn’t fall under the Financial Administration Act, so there is no basis for the AG to examine their books.

This news of course has the Bloc somewhat apoplectic, and they insist that if she doesn’t have the authority to look into their books, then Parliament should give her that authority. Which is, frankly, boneheaded. She already has more than enough work to do. The very last thing we need to do is turn her into some kind of roving commission of inquiry for MPs to sic her upon anyone who turns their ire (through a motion in the House of Commons that she would “consider”), especially because she’s already unaccountable for her parliamentary audits. Extending those into past Parliament or Crown corporations would be a disaster.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives have bene trying to weaponise the Public Accounts Committee into looking into the Foundation, which again, is beyond their ambit. It’s especially beyond their ambit because the Auditor General hasn’t produced a report on them, and she won’t—because she has no authority to—so that particular committee has no authority to look into it. And yet, they voted on doing just so, but with the caveat of not calling any elected officials or members of the Trudeau family to testify. I can’t believe that the committee clerk didn’t warn the Chair this is out of bounds, but this is an opposition-chaired committee—in this case, Conservative John Williamson—and it sounds like he opted to ignore that warning and proceed anyway, which is incredibly poor form, especially since this whole exercise is about little more than letting Garnett Genuis perform for the cameras. And once again, we prove that ours is not a serious Parliament.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Estonia’s prime minister met with president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the northwestern city of Zhytomyr, and said that she supports Ukraine’s accession to NATO “as soon as conditions allow” (which means the war has to be over and Russian forces no longer occupying territory).

Good reads:

  • With regards to the civil service strike, about four issues remain out of an initial 570, but one of them is a red line, and the wage question remains up in the air.
  • Justin Trudeau spent the day at various events with the German president, discussing democracy and the race for green tech.
  • Chrystia Freeland says the government is keeping a close eye on Glencore’s unsolicited bid to buy mining giant Teck Resources.
  • Omar Alghabra tabled his bill to improve air passenger protections, and pretty much everyone is unhappy with what’s on offer.
  • The government released the plans for the Coronation ceremony in Ottawa, and it’s so minimal that it’s petty. (Expect my column on this later today).
  • A German flight helped evacuate Canadians from Sudan, as the government is reaching out to allies to help airlift more, as we get our own military plane there.
  • A paper published by Environment Canada scientists suggests that we may be underestimating the GHG emissions from the oil sands.
  • Two major gun control groups are calling out the NDP for “amplifying disinformation” with the (since withdrawn) amendments to the gun control bill.
  • Women’s shelters are calling on the government to extend their pandemic funding, as it’s allowing them to do more than bare-bones provision of services.
  • Bill C-11’s final debate is being time allocated in the Senate, and Conservatives are crying censorship (even though time allocation was voted upon and they lost).
  • No MP has stepped up to sponsor a Senate bill on arts recognition after its original sponsor, Jim Carr, passed away (and the Senate sponsor is about to retire).
  • MPs across parties are looking for the government to come up with regulations for AI, sooner than later.
  • The head of the Alberta Energy Regulator was at committee and apologised for the Kearl oil sands tailings pond leaks, but wouldn’t answer other questions.
  • More elite athletes appeared at committee to detail abuse, and to call for a public inquiry into the state of sport in Canada.
  • Former Conservative MP Dave MacKenzie is going to back the Liberal candidate to replace him because he’s angry with how his former party monkeyed with the race.
  • Iqaluit’s water treatment plant is back in operation after over a year since it was shut down due to fuel contamination.
  • Geoff Salomons calls on Alberta to get completely off the resource revenue roller-coaster because commodity prices are only getting more volatile.

Odds and ends:

My Loonie Politics Quick Take notices the provinces and police chiefs trying to shift the blame on rising crime to the federal government.

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