Category Archives: Musings

Essay-style posts about issues of the day

Cutting the Speaker some slack

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Attacks on the Speaker are, generally speaking, the last refuge of the desperate, and those unwilling to look at their own complicity in the state of affairs they decry. And yet we have seen an increasing amount of grumbling about Speaker Scheer in the past few weeks, not only over venues like the Twitter Machine, but also by way of anonymous gripes to the Halifax Chronicle Herald.

It’s not to suggest that Scheer has done a perfect job, because let’s face it – his ruling this week that he couldn’t rule on the quality of written responses to questions was problematic. This isn’t to call him partisan, but rather, it’s to acknowledge that he’s in a pretty tough spot. The response was clearly a non-answer, and the government has a demonstrated pattern of trying to limit the flow of information and control what opposition parties – and the media – can see. And yet, Scheer is also bound by the rules of the Commons, known of course as the Standing Orders.

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My two cents on the Liberal leadership question

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I know everybody is chiming in today on the Liberal leadership given Bob Rae’s announcement this morning that he wouldn’t be running, but I figured I’d give my own two cents – just because.

Rae’s decision not to run was probably best for the party, regardless of the promise he’d made and which he would have duly – and dare I say appropriately – been criticised for breaking. Rather, it’s because of the need for new blood at the top, and as good of a performer in the Commons as Rae is, his running would have represented a hanging on of the “old guard” of the party as it currently stands, given his previous leadership bids, and the “Rae camp” that still exists within the party, and all of that. This move clears the slate, and there are no pre-existing camps now playing out new psychodramas. Well, for the moment anyway. Never underestimate the Liberal capacity for new or renewed psychodrama.

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The omnibudget versus the role of the opposition

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Amidst the anticipation and reaction to the Speaker’s rulings on the amendments for the omnibus budget bill yesterday, I was struck by the tone of the rhetoric being employed across the opposition benches, and how it varied from party to party. That tone was actually pretty instructive with how each party seems to consider its role as an opposition party.

First out of the gate this morning was Marc Garneau for the Liberals, who laid out why his party was prepared to vote on marathon amendments. When asked if all of these votes were a good use of Parliament’s time, considering that we all know how they’ll end up, Garneau gave an unequivocal yes. According to him, it is an effective use because it is holding the government to account. And while sure, the Liberals have offered to support the actual budget portions if the government hives off the four other sections of the bill (environment, fisheries, OAS and EI), it was with a firm tone.

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Bernier can’t identify our Head of State

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Our nation’s lack of civic literacy truly has reached crisis proportions when ministers of the Crown can’t even identify the very basic parts of our system of government. I’ve written before about the public’s general lack of understanding of the Canadian monarchy, and our need to disabuse ourselves of the notion that the monarchy is somehow “foreign” because the Queen doesn’t live in the country full-time. It’s an issue of education and awareness. I get it.

But when a minister of the Crown can’t even make this distinction, there is a problem. And a really big one at that.

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The actual cynical political games

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All day, the Conservatives were sniping at other parties over “cynical partisan games” on two different bills. They not only accused Liberal senators of delaying the CP Rail back-to-work legislation (which they weren’t), and the NDP of deliberately delaying a private member’s bill on eliminating inter-provincial trade barriers on wine. The problem is, there were no actual games being played.

While Lisa Raitt railed against those awful Liberal senators, it turned out that it was the rules of the Senate, which mandates that 48 hours notice must be given before the Senate hears a bill. The bill passed the House at 1:30 in the morning, and the Senate sat at 13:30 in the afternoon. The leadership in the Senate met, and actually moved up the timetable to hear the bill on Thursday – a full twelve hours before they were obligated to. And they’ll be hearing from witnesses at Committee of the Whole, which is more than what happened in the Commons. But apparently that’s “obstruction.”

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Disabusing the notions of foreign monarchs

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Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, have completed their Royal Tour (Diamond Jubilee Edition), and all is well in the land. Support for the monarchy is on the rise in English Canada, the Prince’s Charities are getting off the ground nicely, and Diamond Jubilee medals are being affixed to lapels everywhere.

But as with any royal tour, one starts to get a bit wary of the kinds of depictions used about the Canadian monarchy, and that there remains this ingrained media perception that it is somehow foreign. One CBC anchor event went so far as to call Charles “The future king of England” – never mind that the position of “King of England” hasn’t existed since 1707 with the Act of Union, and the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain, which later became the United Kingdom. What these anchors, and many of the talking heads in the media, seem to forget is that Canada has a separate and distinct monarchy, which just happens to have the same head of state as the United Kingdom and several other countries.

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As Wilks demonstrates, ignorance is democracy’s biggest danger

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Its plaintive wail echoing through the halls of the Langevin Block, the independent thought alarm sounded earlier this morning, and something needed to be done. Young staffers in the PMO rushed into action, and by shortly after noon, the bilingual press release was out, and independent thought was quashed. In all, a good morning’s work.

What we are referring to was the musings that BC Conservative MP David Wilks would contemplate voting against the omnibus budget bill – provided that Canadians could convince twelve other Conservative MPs to also vote against the bill. That, of course, simply wouldn’t do. I mean, it was a bone-headed thing for Wilks to say considering it’s a confidence measure and finding twelve other Conservatives to revolt would actually cause the government to collapse – but there did seem to be a moment or two of worry that he might actually take a stand against his party – providing of course that he had enough cover with which to do so. But it was not to be.

Throughout all of this, however, runs a few more disturbing underlying currents, which really only come out in the videos of the constituents’ meeting that Wilks was just the sense of pervasive helplessness that individual MPs are imbued with. Wilks continued to insist throughout that as a single MP he couldn’t do anything, which is a) not true, and b) indicative of just how far we’ve fallen as a democracy. The degree of central control over individual MPs is reaching crisis proportions, and Wilks’ explanations for the way things work are a testament to that fact. Oh, and smug partisans and Kool-Aid drinkers of all stripes: this applies across the board. All parties are guilty of centralised messaging and levels of control, whether that’s the formal exercise of the whip or by quiet bullying and shaming if someone should dare deviate from the “united front” that they feel they must present.

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Bruce Hyer and his contradictory “solutions” for democracy

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Last week newly independent MP Bruce Hyer took to the blog rolls of the Huffington Post to talk about what he sees as the ills of our democracy while giving a partial explanation for why he left the NDP – and that mostly amounts to party discipline. Nobody is denying that excessive party discipline is a problem with our system at present, but simply saying all party discipline is bad is reductive and doesn’t give proper consideration to its proper role within the Westminster system.

As a quick refresher, party discipline exists because a government needs to command the confidence of the House of Commons, and when matters of confidence are put before the Chamber, they crack the whip to ensure the survival of the government. It is also used along with brokerage politics to keep individual MPs from demanding that governments give special considerations for their ridings in exchange for their votes. Observe the number of “bridges to nowhere” that happen in systems where there is almost no party discipline. Obviously the legitimate uses for discipline have been increasingly abused on both sides, and We The Media don’t help when we suddenly start salivating at the prospect of internal division within a party. Nevertheless, it does exist for a valid reason that needs to be acknowledged before one can denounce the concept in its entirety.

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A few observations on the procedural wrangling

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The kinds of procedural wrangling to try and slow up or affect the omnibus budget implementation bill has started to split along party lines in the opposition, which lends itself to a few different observations, if I may. The NDP has decided that their tactic will be to try to move twenty different motions in twenty different committees to try and get those committees to study the portions of the bill relevant to their area of study, seeing as attempts to break up the bill have failed. After all, the government did agree to break-up pre-study of the bill over in the Senate to the various relevant committees, so why not in the Commons? The complicating factor there, of course, is that it has become standard operating procedure for the government to move any opposition motion in a committee to an in camera discussion, which shuts out the public, and then the government will use their majority to defeat it out of the public eye. The likely effect is to show that the government is being unreasonable, but that doesn’t touch the substance of the bill itself.

The Liberals have decided that since there are some 750 clauses in the bill, that they will move amendments to delete those clauses in report stage, after the bill has come back from the committee. That’s a whole lot of votes. Likewise, Green Party leader Elizabeth May has also decided that there are some 700 amendments that she can move at report stage, owing to her particular status, and she intends to fully exercise that right. Again, that could be some 700 votes in the Chamber. And both of these tactics address the substance of the bill.

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The threat of a formal request

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Nathan Cullen started off this week’s Monday Morning Sanctimony with a quote from Young Stephen Harper about the very undemocratic nature of omnibus bills, and how they prevent MPs from voting on individual issues. You know, just to establish who has the monopoly on virtue. Behind him were Guy Caron and Peggy Nash, and together, they outlined the NDP strategy for tackling the undemocratic monster that is the omnibus budget implementation bill.

They’re going to make a formal request to split it up into at least five separate bills.

A formal request you say? I think Stephen Harper just broke out in a sweat. He probably can’t believe they’ve escalated things to…making a formal request.

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