Tag Archives: Access to Information

Roundup: Demanding ATIP perfection may be the enemy of the good

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I find myself torn about the government announcement on new legislation to amend the Access to Information Act because on the whole, they made most of the changes that they promised to, but they failed to uphold one promise, which was to make the Act apply to the PMO and minister’s offices. And yes, We The Media let them know how displeased we were about it.

Part of the problem here is that like so many of their other election promises, it may have been a stupid one – kind of like their promise around electoral reform. Why? Because it was always going to be problematic to promise access to cabinet documents, and there’s a very good reason for that, because much of that information should remain private because it will otherwise damage the ability for there to be unfettered advice to ministers or between cabinet colleagues, and they need to have space to make these kinds of deliberations, otherwise the whole machinery of government starts to fall apart.

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Like Philippe Lagassé says, the better discussion would have been to have specific proposals as to what falls under cabinet confidence. Currently the Information Commissioner has some determination around that, and with the changes in this bill, the onus will be reversed – the government will need to convince her (and if that fails, the courts) that information should remain secret, as opposed to her having to take the government to court to get that access. That’s significant.

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There is a lot of good in these changes, but I fear that it will be lost amidst the grumbling that it didn’t go far enough. And let’s face it – sometimes We The Media are our own worst enemies when we use Access requests for cheap outrage stories rather than meaningful accountability, and then wonder why the government suddenly clamps down and turns to message control, and worst of all, nobody wants to talk about that problem. That may wind up making things worse for everyone in the end.

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Roundup: A swiftly-moving “stalled” bill

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An odd narrative has been developing over the past few days about the budget implementation bill being “stuck” in the Senate, and that senators there are “holding it up” as the sitting days in the Commons tick down. And I’m really not sure where this impression comes from because the bill has only been there since Tuesday.

Quite literally, the bill was passed in the Commons on Monday, read in at First Reading in the Senate on Tuesday, passed Second Reading on Wednesday, and had the minister appear at committee on Thursday, and it was later that day that the motion to split the bill was voted on. (The Senate didn’t sit on Friday, for the record). If anyone can please explain how this is “holding it up” or “stuck,” I’m frightfully curious as to how exactly it works.

Justin Trudeau, meanwhile, went on The West Block yesterday and reiterated his praise for the Senate’s work and saying that he expected that this particular attempt to “alter” the budget bill is just “growing pains.” Err, except by altering, they are simply trying to split one section out so that it gets further study, so that the rest of the budgetary elements can get passed, while the section that does need further study gets it. That’s not exactly a major alteration, and they’re not looking to kill that section of it either – just ensure that it’s going to work like it’s supposed to. But then Trudeau insisted that it’s a well-established practice that the Senate always defer to the Commons on money bills.

The hell it is. Constitutionally, the Senate can’t initiate money bills, but that doesn’t mean they simply defer on all of them. Hell, the very first bill they passed in the current parliament were the Supplementary Estimates (which is a money bill), and lo, they had to send it back to the Commons because they forgot to attach a crucial financial schedule to it. Should they have deferred to that flaw? Yes, the Commons is the confidence chamber, and the chamber of “democratic legitimacy,” but Trudeau is conflating a number of different things here, and it’s a bit disappointing because he should know better.

And I will remind everyone that this current Senate, no matter how many bills it sending back with amendments, is still nowhere near as “activist” as the Senate was in the Mulroney days, where they forced him to an election over the free trade agreement and to use the constitutional emergency powers to appoint an additional eight senators in order for him to get the GST passed. The current iteration of the chamber, while they are sending more bills back with amendments, will inevitably defer. That the government is accepting many of those amendments shows that perhaps *gasp!* it was flawed legislation to begin with (not that the Harper government using its illegitimate whip over their senators to pass bills made them any better, because their court record shows they weren’t).

But if we could have fewer terribly media headlines putting forward a patently false narrative about what’s going on in the Senate right now, that would be grand.

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QP: Performing Norsat outrage

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On a very pleasant day in the nation’s capital, things were busy on the Hill between caucus meetings, the marking of the 100th anniversary of the dedication of the new Centre Block (after the original one was destroyed by fire), and after QP, the raising of the Pride flag on Parliament Hill. But first, there was QP. Andrew Scheer led off worrying about the deficit and wondered what the PM was going to do about it. Justin Trudeau was ready, and hit back with the list of ineffective boutique tax credits from the previous government and accused them of having neglected the middle class while his government has created jobs and prompted growth. Scheer moved on, and demanded a public sex offender registry, and Trudeau noted that the system already works. Scheer tried again in English, concern trolling about concerns that the government didn’t have funds to make it public. Trudeau reiterated the current system, and that it was put into place by both the Trudeau and Martin governments while the Harper government’s promise for a public registry was left without framework or funding. Scheer then switched back to French, and worried about the Norsat sale and allied objections. Trudeau insisted that allies were consulted and they listened to the advice of national security agencies. Scheer tried again in English, and Trudeau reiterated his points. Thomas Mulcair was up next, demanding the government support their suggestion on reforming appointments, and Trudeau remarked that they already had a new merit-based process. Mulcair then turned to the Der Spiegel article, and insistence that Trudeau was lying about it, and Trudeau countered with a statement from the German government that the story was wrong. Mulcair then demanded that the journalistic sources protection bill be passed before the end of the term, but Trudeau simply noted their support — which is all he could do because it’s not a government bill and they can’t fast track it. For his final question, Mulcair was concerned about whether Harjit Sajjan misled the Ethics Commissioner on his role with Afghan detainees, and Trudeau reassured him that they take their responsibilities seriously.

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QP: Concern about summer vacations

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The day was not as hot as yesterday, but tempers were indeed starting to fray in the House of Commons with the threat of procedural shenanigans hanging in the air. Andrew Scheer led off, saying that the PM was eager to get away for summer vacation but lo, there were all kinds of new taxes. Trudeau noted that his summer vacation plans included touring the various federal parks around the country, which were all free, and oh, he lowered taxes on the middle class. Scheer then switched to French to demand a publicly accessible sex offender registry, to which Trudeau noted the existing system worked just fine. Scheer tried again in English, and got the same answer. Scheer turned to the Norsat sale in French, and Trudeau assured him that they listened to their national security agencies and allies. They went another round of the same in English, before Thomas Mulcair got up to ask the same question in English. Trudeau reiterated his response, and Mulcair insisted the answer was “demonstrably false.” Mulcair hammered away in French, but Trudeau stuck to his points about due diligence. Mulcair then demanded the government adopt the NDP’s proposed nomination process for officers of parliament, but Trudeau insisted that they already adopted a new process that got more meritorious diverse appointments. Mulcair tried again in French, but got the same response.

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Roundup: Constituent consultation

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In another instance of MPs breaking ranks, Conservative MP Scott Reid bucked the party by opting to vote to send the marijuana legalization bill to committee on second reading. Reid notes that he has favoured legalization since 2000, and it also didn’t escape anyone’s notice that his riding is home to a major medical marijuana factory which is also looking to scale up for the recreational market.

Of course, Reid is putting this with conditions, which is that he wants amendments to the bill at committee, which includes raising the legal age to 21 (because that will totally help kill the black market), and allowing communities to maintain their own prohibitions (again, good luck with the black market). More interestingly is the fact that Reid is promising a “constituency referendum” on whether or not he should vote for the bill at third reading.

It’s this referendum that I have questions about, but Reid points out in his statement that he has done this thrice before, so I’m not sure by what method he did (phone poll? Online voting?) and it’s more indicative of the Reform Party era where this sort of thing was promised a lot, and then rapidly fell into disuse because it’s not easy to organize, especially on a consistent basis with the volume of legislation that can pass through the Commons in any given session. Nevertheless, it’s novel and likely riddled with problems, and I’m not sure I would want to see MPs doing it on a regular basis because part of why we elect them in the way we do is for their judgment in a representative democracy. But…it’s novel.

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QP: Parsing the minister’s answers

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A hot Thursday afternoon, and most of the leaders were gone, Thomas Mulcair excepted. Candice Bergen led off for the day, raising the lack of mention of China in Chrystia Freeland’s speech and the sale of a satellite company to China. Navdeep Bains responded that they take national security very seriously and and that the national security review board gave it a pass (and he said national security about twelve times). Bergen wondered why the sale went ahead without a comprehensive security review, and Bains insisted that the comprehensive review under the Investment Canada Act had been undertaken. Bergen insisted this was about appeasing China, and Bains insisted that the Act stipulates that all transactions are subjected to a national security review, and that included this one. Gérard Deltell then took a kick at the same can in French, twice, but Bains gave the very same answer. Thomas Mulcair was up next, and picked apart Bains’ answers, parsing the language particularly between a full review and a standard screening. Bains reiterated that they followed the law and did their due diligence and would take any advice from national security agencies. Mulcair tried again in French, raising a previous sale, and Bains reminded him that the previous process under the previous government had been botched. Mulcair then turned to the nuclear disarmament treaty and parsed the PM’s responses from yesterday. Bains got up again, and to reiterate the PM’s points about getting a fissile materials treaty underway instead. Mulcair tried again, and Bains read the same points that the PM made.

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QP: The PMQs trial run

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For caucus day, the benches were largely filled, and the PM was indeed present before heading off for London, Ontario. Rona Ambrose led off, asking about a response to the chemical weapon attack in Syria. Justin Trudeau, with a more uncharacteristic script in front of him, read a statement of condemnation and promises of humanitarian assistance and noted Chrystia Freeland’s presence at a conference where the issue is being discussed. Ambrose asked about the reports that our allies didn’t object to pulling our CF-18s out of Iraq, and Trudeau, this time without script, talked about discussions with allies and finding better ways to help, which they found. Ambrose asked again, wondering if the PM was simply misinformed, but Trudeau stood firm that their new mission was well received. Ambrose moved onto the issue of Bombardier and a muddled question on tax hikes, and Trudeau reverted to some fairly standard talking points about middle class tax cuts and hiking them on the one percent. For her final question, Ambrose accused the PM of handing bonuses to Bombardier while not funding families with autism, but Trudeau was not easily baited, and spoke about how much they support families with autism. From the NDP, Murray Rankin and Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet led off by bellyaching about changes to the Standing Orders, and Trudeau spoke sweepingly about looking to do better and looking for cooperation with other parties. Boutin-Sweet and Alistair MacGregor then turned to demands to criminalize marijuana, to which Trudeau reminded them that decriminalization doesn’t protect children nor does it stop criminals from profiting.

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Roundup: The Luddite debate

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The NDP held their second leadership debate yesterday in Montreal on the theme of youth, and the first part of the event went pretty much as expected. All four candidates went on endlessly about the need for free tuition without actually seeming to grasp the underlying issues with such a pledge – not only that in Canada, this is an area of provincial jurisdiction (and no, it’s not as easy as giving the provinces a whack of cash and telling them “this is for free tuition!” because watch what happens when you start putting strings on provincial spending), and the fact that there are always limited resources no matter how you slice it. That means that if you’re offering free tuition, that tends to mean you either need to raise the bar for entrance to universities so that it’s higher and weeds people out, or you water everything down and the quality of the education you’re offering for free declines because systems have only so much capacity and you’re not going to find an infinite number of good profs who are willing to make the smaller salary dollars you’re able to offer in order to keep tuition free for all. It’s basic economic theory.

The other issues paid a great deal of lip service were precarious work, and automation, and while there was a lot of talk about it, I’m not sure there were a lot of answers. Just decrying precarious work doesn’t mean that the government has the power to mandate that there be full-time employment, especially when the problem is in part because of demographics (as in, there aren’t enough Boomers retiring fast enough for jobs to be taken up by Millennials in a serious capacity) and the fact that the economy is restructuring itself and we haven’t arrived at sustainable models for a number of fields yet, particularly when some of those jobs bump up against other Millennial maxims like “information wants to be free” and nobody wanting to have to pay for content that they nevertheless want to be paid to create. But this also fits in with the question of automation, which the candidates didn’t have much to answer with either.

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Being worried about automation while at the same time insisting that you want “value-added” jobs and the kinds of manufacturing jobs that we saw in the fifties and sixties is kind of like the Trump promise to return to coal-fired electricity, which no longer makes sense in the age of cheap natural gas. Those kind of jobs aren’t going to exist because there’s no economic rationale for them, particularly when our economy is moving more toward being service-based. Not to mention, automation is largely taking over the most menial of tasks, which is why it’s not a bad thing that it’s happening. And sure, there are differing ways to deal with it, from skills retraining (as the Liberals are trying to move toward with aspects of their new budget) to basic income (which Guy Caron is proposing), but that may not in the end be feasible. But you can’t just say that you’ll ban automation or tax it in the hopes of supporting displaced workers, while at the same time demanding greater innovation because things don’t work that way. Innovation will demand disruption, which these candidates seem to want do avoid. If things did with without disruption, we’d still all be labouring on farms. And that’s why I found the leadership candidates to be largely unconvincing on this topic. It is an issue we’ll have to deal with, but you can’t just wish for old manufacturing jobs to come back as the answer. It’s not going to happen.

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Roundup: Candour versus transparency

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The government announced yesterday that their proposed changes to the Access to Information Act won’t be coming as quickly as promised because they “wanted to get it right.” Now far be it for me to be completely cynical about this in asserting that they never intended to fulfil this promise, because I’m not entirely sure that’s the case, but I will also say that any Conservative crowing about how terrible the Liberals are for this delay *cough*Pierre Lemieux*cough* needs to give their head a shake because the Liberal have already made changes that far exceed what the Conservative did on this file. This all having been said, Howard Anglin makes some interesting points about this, and whether it’s desirable for them to go ahead with some of these changes.

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As much as my journalistic sensibilities want greater transparency, I also do feel a great deal of sympathy for the point about candour. Having too many things in the open has had an effect on the operation of parliament and times where parties could quietly meet and come to a decision with little fuss has turned into a great deal of political theatre instead (which is one reason why I’m wary of opening up the Board of Internal Economy too much). We want functional institutions, and that does require candour, and not all desires to keep that candour and ability to speak openly from being public is more than just a “culture of secrecy” – there is a deal of self-preservation involved. While it would be nice if we could wave a magic wand and the line by which this tension is resolved would be clearly demarcated lines, but that’s not going to happen. This is going to be muddled through the hard way.

Meanwhile, Susan Delacourt writes about that culture of secrecy that exists within the capital – an even within Cabinet jealously guarding information – and how it’s an ongoing fight to keep from letting that culture keep going unchallenged.

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Roundup: The importance of measuring outcomes

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The MyDemocracy.ca site went live yesterday, and immediately it became the subject of mockery because it asked questions related to outcomes rather than simplistic questions about which system of counting votes one preferred. Of course, focusing on the proportionality of votes to seats fixates on a facile notion of “representation” while ignoring the substance of what those votes actually mean, the effect on accountability, and the effect on our overall system of government. No, it won’t mean that whoever gets 50 percent of the votes will get 50 percent of the power. That’s a wrong-headed notion that ignores the ways in which our system operates currently, and the various roles that MPs have versus ministers.

Anyway, here’s Phil Lagassé explaining why the questions are the way they are (which are not some kind of People magazine pop-psychology quiz like Nathan Cullen constantly derides them as), and no, it’s not about ensuring that the fix is in for whatever the Liberals want – it’s designed to see what kinds of outcomes people are looking for and then working backwards to find an electoral system that favours those outcomes, and anyone who thinks that you can focus on electoral reform without looking at outcomes is deluding themselves.

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