Roundup: Elections Canada’s helpful suggestions

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Amidst the (possibly overblown) hysteria that party nomination contests are a possible vector for foreign interference, Elections Canada has come along with a series of “helpful” proposals to parties in order to reduce the vulnerabilities. They insist they don’t want to actually manage these contests (which is good, because that would be an enormous expansion of the organisation, which I’m not sure we really want), but nevertheless they could play some kind of role around financial oversight of these contests, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Their suggestions include limiting votes to Canadian citizens, or at least permanent residents, which I think is reasonable, because much like I think it’s good that parties let people join by age 14 so that they can learn about and participate in grassroots organisation before they’re able to vote, bringing in permanent residents before they can also vote could help foster better civic engagement (well, if parties hadn’t decimated their grassroots as they centralised power in their leaders’ offices). Other suggestions include published nomination rules and processes (which parties will hate because they have become used to the ability to tip the scales at the behest of the leader and his or her cult of personality), publishing fuller results such as number of ballots cast and vote distribution, requiring all contestants file a financial return, and banning the sale of party memberships in bulk (the Liberals no longer have paid memberships, while the Conservatives are more expansive rules around this, for the better).

Some of these are quite reasonable, but I have my doubts that parties will do more than theatrically take them under advisement, because they simply don’t want to. They’ve spent so much time and energy in order to minimise their grassroots in favour of the leader and his or her office that they have eliminated most of the checks and balances that are supposed to keep them from getting too big for their own britches (and the Liberals have been the absolutely worst with this, with the 2016 changes to their party constitution). Will they start to re-impose these minor changes in order to hold themselves accountable? I’m not going to hold my breath.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian missile struck a playground in the southern city of Mykolaiv, killing three. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was invited to attend Cabinet in Westminster, where he reiterated the need reduce restrictions on long-range missiles so that they can strike sites in Russia where they are being attacked from.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1814328171543580848

Good reads:

  • Interim Government House Leader Steve MacKinnon was sworn-in as labour minister, and immediately insisted there’s nothing to see here, no crisis in caucus.
  • Mélanie Joly met with her Chinese counterpart in Beijing, and pledged to advance relations in a “pragmatic” manner in order to stabilise bilateral ties.
  • Lawrence MacAulay says the federal and provincial governments are contributing $1.2 million to creation of an office to oversee the grocery code of conduct.
  • Carla Qualtrough named a new ministerial advisory committee for sports.
  • The government named Vanessa Lloyd as the interim director of CSIS, the first woman to lead the organisation.
  • The Star takes a deep dive into the Black Justice Strategy report that the government commissioned and then posted on their website with no fanfare.
  • The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the government is not completely immune from lawsuits where laws were found to be unconstitutional.
  • Seventy-five percent of freelance interpreters on Parliament Hill are letting their contracts lapse after the Translation Bureau inserted new language in them.
  • Patricia Treble makes some observations about the recently-released portraits of the Kings of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
  • The Liberals have chosen a city councillor to run in the upcoming LaSalle—Émard by-election, and it doesn’t appear to have been an open nomination either.
  • The Nova Scotia government is teaming up with the federal government to offer rental subsidies for people fleeing domestic violence.
  • Danielle Smith sees no ethical problems with her or her Cabinet ministers accepting playoff tickets in luxury boxes, so we should just trust her judgment.
  • Philippe Lagassé takes exception to the Supreme Court’s decision, and considers it to be incoherent with previous decisions around privilege and the Crown.
  • Paul Wells somewhat credulously listens to the recent strain of supposed “working class” rhetoric coming from Conservatives in Canada and the US.

Odds and ends:

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One thought on “Roundup: Elections Canada’s helpful suggestions”

  1. “Some of these are quite reasonable, but I have my doubts that parties will do more than theatrically take them under advisement, because they simply don’t want to.”

    Sadly, you are absolutely correct.

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