Roundup: Ministers in the Upper Chamber

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Something rather unusual happened in the UK, which I figured I would explore a little bit here for how it relates to our shared Westminster system of government. There was  Cabinet shuffle in Westminster yesterday, and prime minister Rishi Sunak appointed former prime minister David Cameron to the House of Lords, and to be his new foreign secretary. Cameron is a particularly interesting choice, given that his spineless decision to call the Brexit referendum to appease certain segments of his party blew up in his face and created much of the foreign policy chaos the government finds itself in,

One of the big questions around this kind of appointment is how MPs get to hold a minister who doesn’t sit in that chamber to account. There are mechanisms in the Lords for asking questions of the government, and while usually that’s directed to the Leader of the Government in that Chamber, this gives Lords an opportunity to ask questions of the foreign secretary directly. There was talk of creating a mechanism to use Westminster Hall, which is the “second chamber” used for debates in Westminster, to allow some sort of mechanism that’s not the Commons, but it never got off the ground the last time this was an issue. For the record, because of the way Australia’s parliament is structure, it is fairly common for several ministers to sit in their Senate, and to answer questions during their Senate Question Time, or however they term it there.

As for Canada, the last time we had a fairly major minister in that Chamber was Michael Fortier, starting in 2006 when Harper formed government and felt he needed a minister from the Montreal area, but didn’t have any MPs from there. So, he chose Fortier, his campaign co-chair, and made him minister of Public Works, which was a bitter twist of irony considering this was just post-Sponsorship scandal, and the complaint was there wasn’t enough accountability for that department. Fortier was later appointed minister of international trade, and faced questions from the Liberals in the Senate, but there were complaints the Bloc and NDP couldn’t use the same avenue, though they could ask questions of his parliamentary secretaries in the Chamber, or question him at committee. Previously, Joe Clark had appointed his minister of justice from the Senate, as he had no Quebec seats at all, while two of our prime ministers—John Abbott and Mackenzie Bowell—were senators and not MPs, so we do have that bit of history to draw on as well.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces say that Russians have intensified the bombardment around Avdiivka, as well as tried to make a push around Bakhmut again. In Romania, the F-16 pilot training hub for Ukraine and NATO allies has now opened, but training Ukrainian pilots likely won’t start until next year. Here’s a look at how the information warfare happening has created confusion with legitimate news sources, particularly when they can’t get independent verification.

Good reads:

  • Minister Ya’ara Saks, MP Anthony Housefather and Senator Marc Gold were in Washington for meetings on countering rising antisemitism.
  • Global Affairs says that ten more people with ties to Canada have been able to leave the Gaza Strip, and are now in Egypt.
  • The Royal Canadian Mint plans to unveil the first circulation coins to feature the effigy of King Charles III on them today.
  • Some Palastinian-Canadians who were able to escape Gaza are questioning who the government counts as family for these kinds of evacuation programmes.
  • The Logic interviews the Martin Imbleau, the new CEO of the VIA Rail subsidiary building the high-frequency rail line, about how this project is being structured.
  • Cameron Ortis claims he was trying and nudge criminals to use an encryption service that intelligence services could monitor; the service denies any links.
  • Pierre Poilievre wants to ratchet up the pressure on the government to pass a private member’s bill…in the Senate. Where they don’t have any levers.
  • Poilievre says he would speed up approvals for clean energy projects, but his party is holding up two bills that would facilitate the green energy transition.
  • Poilievre also says he needs to study the bill to ban replacement workers in federally-regulated work sites further before he’ll take a position.
  • The Northwest Territories will hold its elections today, which were delayed because of the wildfires over the summer. Premier Caroline Cochrane is not running again.

Odds and ends:

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