Category Archives: Musings

Essay-style posts about issues of the day

Where the Liberal “party without walls” will lead

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Wednesday morning, the Liberals are going to be marking the one-year anniversary of their stunning electoral defeat by doing something that has the potential to be political suicide. And they’re doing it with cheers and applause.

Back at their policy convention in January, the party decided adopt a new set of leadership rules that allow a new class of membership to vote in the next leadership contest. Indeed, this new class – known as “supporters,” don’t have to be party members, but simply have to promise that they’re totally not a member of another party, and voila, they can cast their ballot for the next Liberal leader. What could possibly go wrong?

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Sanctimony and the decorum question

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NDP House Leader Nathan Cullen summoned the press to the Foyer this morning for another episode of what is soon going to be known as “Monday morning sanctimony,” in which he pledged that they were going to work on restoring decorum to the House of Commons – although “restoring” may be the wrong word as there never really was a golden age of decorum and civil debate.

Cullen says that he wants to negotiate with the other parties to approach the Speaker and give him permission to deny questions of those MPs who are being disruptive. The Speaker already has the power to turn off an MP’s microphone, and even eject them from the Chamber if they’re being too disruptive – though Speaker Milliken had largely ruled out such a tactic because said MP would simply call the press over to make an event about getting tossed out.

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Wishful thinking and unrealistic expectations – Dion’s proposed electoral reform

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Last weekend, Stéphane Dion took to the pages of the National Post to suggest that Canada needs a new voting system. It’s not the first time such suggestions have been made, and it certainly won’t be the last, but that doesn’t make each new suggestion any better than the last, and Dion’s suggestion is certainly problematic.

Dion proposes that Canada adopt what he calls a “P3” voting system – proportional-preferential-personal. The theory is that there would be the same number of ridings, but super-sized to have three to five MPs per riding, which voters would select party preferences by means of preferential ballot, while at the same time choosing one of the candidates put forward by each party. The proposed method of counting is that first seats are apportioned according to the preferential ballot, and those seats are assigned by highest-ranking candidates for those parties.

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A few notes on the Woodworth motion

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That backdoor motion to re-open the abortion debate happens Thursday afternoon, but before you get too worked up, let’s remember a few things:

1) This is a Private Members’ Motion, not a bill. These motions are possibly the most harmless and indeed meaningless items on the Order Paper. He wants to debate about having a debate, in a vote the House can then ignore if it so chooses. At most, a successful vote will push this off to a committee to debate. That’s all.

2) Even if it passes and they choose to send it for debate, the law he wants to challenge (about legal personhood requiring full birth) is actually legally sound. The jurisprudence and history behind it are nothing what Woodworth describes. It has nothing to do with medical science, no matter what he insists. So he’ll end up looking pretty foolish in the end once the law professors walk you through it.

3) Harper doesn’t want to open this debate, and he’s just been reminded about what happens when parties try. You saw what happened to the Wildrose – the electorate doesn’t really have a stomach for “social” issues like these, especially in unsettled economic times. Yes, he’ll have some stalwarts in his benches who want to make an issue out of it, but he’ll be applying some backroom pressure to ensure that this doesn’t advance any further than this debate (on a debate). He’s voting against it. It sounds like the cabinet will be whipped into voting against it (though he may have a few strategic absences as a result). He’s not stupid, and this isn’t really his “hidden agenda,” because guess what – that really doesn’t exist. Really.

4) No, Harper really can’t get Woodworth to withdraw the motion as the NDP have been insisting, because it’s Private Members’ Business. Yes, the Conservatives have abused it to try and get stuff passed on the sly (witness the long-gun registry bill in the last parliament), and the NDP seem to have a central office controlling their PMBs, but it’s still private members’ business. It’s one of the only independent outlets that MPs have for their private policy hobbyhorses. Do we really want to codify that MPs have zero independence any longer and that their party apparatus now controls all of their thoughts and actions? No, I didn’t think so either. So stop trying to insist that this is what should happen – especially other MPs calling for it.

5) It’s just a debate. It’s not a bill. It’s a debate. No matter how the contentious the issue, we shouldn’t be afraid of debate. This is, after all, a democracy.

About the Hyer defection

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Bruce Hyer’s decision to leave the NDP caucus yesterday – mere hours after Nathan Cullen crowed about how united and focused the party was – got me thinking about a few things, both when it comes to parliamentary democracy, and the state of the NDP in general.

Hyer, lamenting the “dysfunctional” state of parliament, gave the primary reason for his departure as the heavy hand of the whip. Specifically, on the issue of the long-gun registry, which Mulcair wants to bring back and said that he was going to whip the party on. Hyer bristled, said that this wasn’t party policy (which gives one real pause as to just how much power party leaders have accumulated when it comes to dictating policy, which is supposed to be the role of the membership). That may very well be true, and if the leader is using a three-line whip on an issue that is not party policy, then that is something the NDP has to resolve for themselves.

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Timelines, jurisdictions, and future court challenges

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The natural resources minister, Joe Oliver, unveiled the planned changes to environmental assessments today, and some of effects are going to be pretty significant. As part of their “streamlining” process, the government plans to reduce the number of departments and agencies that conduct assessments from 40 to just three, and shift more of the weight onto the provinces (despite the fact that they continue to insist that the ‘austerity’ budget wouldn’t download costs onto the provinces, though their measures continue to do so).

Now, before you get too excited, I think we need to sit down, take a deep breath, and consider a few things here. I know everyone is talking about weakening the process, and how this is going to mean carte blanche for Big Oil and so on, but that may not actually be the case. Nobody is saying that any of these assessments are going to be just rubberstamps. There is still a process in place, which we can’t forget. But this having been established, there are some things that the government needs to really consider before they move ahead with these changes.

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Cold water on the merger talk

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It seems to me that every time someone gets Jean Chrétien in front of a camera these days, they get him to talk about a Liberal-NDP merger, and then they run clips about it for a week or so, and get partisans to wail and gnash their teeth – at least until something else shiny comes along. And once again, that particular pot is being stirred, this time with Chrétien looking back and saying that he should have “united the left” back when he was Prime Minister, and that somehow such a merger would “stabilise” our political landscape, whatever that’s supposed to mean.

I am forced to wonder about Chrétien’s recollection of his time as Prime Minister with relation to the NDP – they had a very small handful of seats, and had a couple of leaders who were unable to find traction with the electorate. Chrétien had his successive majorities, and there would have been little tangible benefit for either party, with the NDP acting as the conscience of Parliament – a role they would have been unable to pursue in a Liberal government. Not that there wasn’t a great deal of debate within the Liberal ranks over some of their own policy issues.

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On being Friends of the Military

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In and amidst all of the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the Auditor General’s report on the F-35 procurement process, the issue of wilful blindness on the part of the government I think is something that needs further attention, and it goes back to the way in which they’ve positioned themselves since they first formed government in 2006. More specifically, they cast themselves as Friends of the Military™, and it makes one wonder if that’s the reason why they didn’t push back when officials at DND were feeding them incorrect information, or keeping their ministers out of the loop. After all, they invested so much time in denouncing the “Decade of Darkness” of the Chrétien years (never mind the fact that the Liberals under Paul Martin went a long way towards recapitalising the military, or that many of the problems during said decade were a result of mismanagement), that they didn’t want to be seen to be accused of being anything other than friendly. And so, they were quick to believe DND officials, despite the Statement of Operational Requirements being written specifically for the plane they wanted, or when the bidding process was rigged, almost in a transparent manner. They wanted to keep being the friend.

It’s not like they weren’t warned. Even if the opposition parties hadn’t been asking the questions about that process – and they were – remember the spanking Sheila Fraser gave them over the purchase of the Cyclone helicopters when DND also gamed the system, told their political masters one thing when the reality was a different picture. If the responsible ministers didn’t ask questions with this knowledge in mind, and with increasing questions from the opposition, then it can only be considered wilful blindness, especially when you look at the way in which they not only dismissed criticism, but gave a series of increasingly hyperbolic talking points in support of this fighter plane, no matter how much reality intruded.

I also think we need to point out that it’s been years since we’ve had any kind of a Defence white paper, or any other kind of guiding document as to what this government expects our military’s role in the world to be. That’s an important consideration with infrastructure and procurement, since it will determine the kind of hardware we acquire. This is at the heart of the F-35 issue – the F-35 is suited for a certain type of mission profile, and it’s one of being on the front lines of future engagements abroad – and is not as well suited for the defence our Arctic given its single engine and lack of cold-weather testing. And without any particular guidance as to the kind of missions we need this equipment for, it makes it really difficult to hold the government to account for its purchasing decisions.

And then we get to the issue of responsibility. The lines are muddy, but clearly heads need to roll, and in our system of government, it all boils down to the ministers of national defence and of public works. Ultimately, the buck stops with them. Not that Harper will either demand or accept resignations. But it should also be noted that against this government’s usual form, they’re not even blaming the bureaucrats for this debacle. In fact, the approved line is that this is all just the result of a series of miscommunications on such a complex file, so really, we can’t hold anyone responsible. And one has to suspect that we go back to this government’s intense desire to be the Friend of the Military™ that they don’t want to be seen to be being anything less than unwavering in their support for our men and women in uniform, no matter how many blind eyes they need to turn to what’s really going on under their own noses. And that needs to be called out for what it really is.

The crystal palace

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Green Party leader Elizabeth May held a press conference this morning to talk about cuts and austerity, and as part of that suggested that the government could save $100 million by forgoing the construction of the “crystal palace” to replace the House of Commons. This of course refers to the plan to glass in the courtyard of the West Block, which will serve as a temporary House of Commons while the Centre Block undergoes needed renovations. May’s suggestion is that the Commons relocate down the street to the Government Conference Centre – the old train station across from the Chateau Laurier.

When the so-called “crystal palace” was first unveiled, there were a number of people writing into newspapers suggesting that the House could perhaps “tour” various parts of the country, and incredulously suggested that the only people put out would be those MPs who hail from different time zones, and that those from closer ones would get the break for the change.

What either of these proposals miss are the fact that the House of Commons is more than just a chamber in isolation. There is a machinery of government that cannot simply pick up and move. That the Chamber itself will be moving one building over to the West Block will be disruptive enough to the machinery of government, but the logistical hurdles necessary to accommodate either move would be unfeasible to say the least.

First of all, the Commons is more than just a debating society in isolation that can debate wherever it likes. While in theory, MPs could hold debates wherever they like, the fact is that they have committee duties, staff, and obligations within their offices that cannot simply be packed up and done out of hotel rooms for weeks or months at a time. More than that, ministerial offices are located in Ottawa, and having ministers work entirely remotely from there is a non-starter. The “democrabus” of a travelling Chamber is an idea that holds no basis in reality.

As for May’s suggestion, however, she seems to miss some of the finer logistical points. For starters, it’s more than just the fact that the Chamber itself is a rather technologically sophisticated marvel, between wiring for sound and simultaneous translation, as well as for television. As well, there needs to be adequate security measures in place, and room for press, dignitaries to visit, and the general public to observe. None of this can be accommodated either in the Government Conference Centre, a ballroom at the Chateau Laurier, or any other nearby space that would be physically large enough. On top of that, the distance between the Conference Centre and the rest of the offices in the precinct become unwieldy. It’s bad enough with the committee rooms at One Rideau under the Chateau Laurier – and those are only committee rooms. When it comes to debates or votes, getting MPs and staff to and from the Conference Centre becomes a nightmare, and even doubling the fleet of little green busses becomes not only an expensive proposition, but one would add a step back for the environmental credentials that May possesses. Simply demanding that 338 MPs (as they would be at the time) and staff trudge quickly through blocks of wind and snow in December or January is not going to be feasible.

While people may grumble about the expense of putting in the glass dome in the West Block as part of its restoration process (as the building had reached the point of systems failure), it’s important to realise that not only will it have to accommodate the technological aspects of the Chamber, but the logistical demands as well. Only that space is so well situated and suited. And for as temporary as it will be – and we all know it will be for longer than currently advertised, as the renovations and restorations inevitably come in over time and over budget – it’s not as though it’ll simply be abandoned once the Commons moves back into a renovated Centre Block. The new glassed-in space will be used for committee rooms in the West Block for generations that will follow. I’m sure that over its lifetime the money will end up being well spent.