Tag Archives: Alison Redford

Roundup: The coming Senate legislative crunch

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While the legalized cannabis bill passed the House of Commons last night and is off to the Senate, questions about the kind of reception it will find there are sure to be buzzing about in the days to come. While the bill’s Senate sponsor wants a process akin to the medical assistance in dying bill to take place (something I find overzealous and ignores the context of what happened then), it’s unlikely to happen that way, and we may see the Conservatives in the Senate trying to dig their heels in. But it’s still early days, so we’ll see.

With this in mind, I wanted to turn to Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column yesterday, where she looked at how the Senate could gum up the government’s end-of-season legislative plan, as they try to push through a number of bills before the Commons rises in just under three weeks. The Senate is already seeing a growing backlog of bills on its Order Paper (a function I’m told has to do largely with the Government Leader in the Senate – err, “government representative” and his unwillingness to negotiate with the caucuses in there on timelines), and will likely sit up to the 22nd to try and get most of them passed. But what O’Malley described in the refusal by the Senate to engage in pre-study of the budget implementation bill as being a sign that of uncertainty, I will note that the circumstances around this demand for pre-study were unusual from a procedural standpoint. As he outlined in his speech against the pre-study motion, Senate Liberal leader Joseph Day pointed out that the point of pre-study is for the Senate to do a parallel committee process and send recommendations to the Commons before they complete their own study so that they have the chance to make amendments that the Senate proposes at that time. The problem is that this particular bill had already reached Report Stage in the Commons before the motion to pre-study was moved in the Senate by Senator Harder, meaning that the opportunity to offer amendments had already passed, and there was no actual cause for pre-study, and what Harder was looking to do was short-circuit Senate procedure for his own scheduling purposes, and well, the Liberals were having none of it. And in the end, neither were the Conservatives and several of the Independents.

And this is one of the things that I think O’Malley missed in her column – that part of the problem in the Senate right now is that the leadership (meaning Senator Harder) is not exactly doing the government any favours with his inability to manage the legislative agenda in that chamber, especially when he tries to do an end-run around the rules to suit his purposes. It will be a problem if he keeps this up, because the veterans in that chamber won’t stand for it.

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Roundup: Crossing the line with a golf shirt

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The official date of the new child benefit cheques going out saw the Conservative government at its most ham-handed yesterday, starting with a “leaked” letter to caucus about just how historic this event was as the “single biggest one-time direct payment in Canadian history.” Funny, it seems to me that an actual conservative government would rather just lower taxes across the board rather than bribe people with their own money, but oh, wait – this is a right-flavoured populist government and not a real Conservative one. As ministers and MPs went around the country to tout the benefit, and social media sites were bombarded with blaring ads, some of which were branded as “Christmas in July,” Pierre Poilievre was the most egregious of all, hosting a press event in Halifax that was arranged by his department, and yet featured him wearing a Conservative-branded golf shirt, as though this were a partisan event, or that it was somehow the Conservatives doling out this largesse rather than the Government of Canada. It was utterly crass, and yet the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner decreed that no, it wasn’t actually in contravention of the rules, though one cannot deny that it was in poor taste and poor judgement. Mind you, this bit of vote-buying is going to blow a big hole in the government’s budget, given that growth projections are down and we are pretty much certainly back into a deficit position (not that the budget was actually balanced – simply papered over by raiding the contingency reserve and the EI fund). But then again, the NDP have declared that the child benefit would remain under their plan on top of their plans to have this universal childcare programme (well, years down the road at a great cost to the provinces) and the Liberals planning to revamp the whole system that will also cost at least an extra couple of billion more than this programme does. Watching this play out in the election while each touts fiscal responsibility will be an interesting exercise.

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Roundup: Odd dismissals of oversight

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We’ve had the weekend to look over the new anti-terrorism bill, and it’s not really winning a lot of praise, other than being noted for changing the election narrative from one of economic stability to national security. The fuzziness around what constitutes “terrorist propaganda” that they want the powers to scrub from the Internet (and good luck with that task) is certainly one of the issues that will need to be examined in further detail. The mother of a Calgary man who went over to fight for ISIS, and later died doing so, says that it’s not enough to just take away passports – the government needs to offer some kind of de-radicalisation programmes to go along with the new powers. In fact, one thing the new powers desperately need are more oversight mechanisms and bodies for CSIS and others, but according to the government, that’s just “needless red tape.” No, seriously. SIRC is not effective oversight, and no, Canada is not so different from other countries that we don’t need these mechanisms. But hey, apparently we’re special for not having this kind of oversight, but I don’t think it’s something we should be patting ourselves on the back for.

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Roundup: A good kid

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Correctional Services’ own reports show that Omar Khadr is a “good kid,” non-radicalised and highly compliant, but that hasn’t stopped the government from trying to paint him as a heinous war criminal as they continue to deny journalists’ requests to interview him in prison. It looks more and more like they are trying to protect the narrative about him that they have built up for political cover.

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Roundup: Cyberbullying not lawful access

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It has to sting when witnesses the government expects to back their bills unflinchingly don’t do what is expected. This happened yesterday as parents of teens who committed suicide because of cyberbullying (or criminal harassment being called cyberbullying even though it’s not really) gave their reservations about the government’s “cyberbullying” bill to the Commons committee studying it. The general consensus – though not universal – was that the bill should be split up, and the aspects dealing with non-consensual distribution of intimate images be dealt with separately from the lawful access provisions that are stuffed in the bill. Amanda Todd’s mother said that she doesn’t want other children victimised by having their privacy rights violated using her daughter’s name. It also should be said that those parents who were fine with the privacy violation provisions are also coming from a place of profound grief and loss, and it colours their perceptions of the issues around civil liberties. Suffice to say, it’s fascinating to see the government losing their own narrative over such a contentious bill.

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Roundup: Accusations of intimidation

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As you may have noticed during QP, the narrative around Harper’s spat with the Chief Justice is now being characterised by the NDP as an attempt to intimidate her and the courts, which is kind of unsettling. Mind you, Thomas Mulcair isn’t exactly pure when it comes to attacks on the Supreme Court based on conspiracy theories, as recent history shows. Aaron Wherry rounds up more reaction to the dispute here. Brent Rathgeber blasts the PMOs use of selective and disingenuous facts to try to smear the Chief Justice for the sake of fundraising dollars. Irwin Cotler took questions about the situation over the Twitter Machine. Andrew Coyne wonders when Conservatives of good faith will start to challenge the party’s leadership over the damage they are doing to our institutions.

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Roundup: Only 359 pages

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The first of the 2014 budget implementation omnibus bills has now been tabled, and this one is only about 359 pages long. Included in its many, many pages are provisions relating to aligning trademark rules to match international regulations, changes to the temporary foreign workers programme when it comes to better enforcement mechanisms, formalizing the reintroduction of the “royal” titles to the Royal Canadian Airforce and Royal Canadian Navy, capping domestic roaming rates for wireless calls, keeping suspended MPs and Senators from accruing pension benefits, adding new Superior Court judges in Alberta and Quebec, funding the Champlain Bridge replacement (*drink!*), and implementing a controversial tax-sharing agreement with the US, to name but a few (more items here, while you can find the whole bill posted here.

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Roundup: Voiding Nadon’s appointment

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It really was a blow to Stephen Harper, and his judgement when making appointments. The Supreme Court in a 6-1 decision rebuked not only the appointment of Justice Nadon to the Supreme Court, but also the declaratory provisions passed in the omnibus budget implementation bill that made the appointment okay. Nadon never was a Supreme Court justice and remains a supernumerary justice on the Federal Court of Appeal, his appointment and swearing in ceremony null and void. There was a lot of reaction to the decision, including from Justin Trudeau who pointed out that this is a sign that Harper couldn’t even get the big things right, which puts his judgement into question (ironic, since that’s what the Conservatives are trying to attack Trudeau about). The Toronto lawyer who brought forward the challenge wonders why it was left up to him, a private citizen, to do something about the government’s attempt at subverting the constitution, and on his own dime. Adam Dodek walks Maclean’s through the decision, and in a separate op-ed says the ruling represents the entrenchment of the Court’s constitutional independence, and a serious blow to the “transparent” appointment process that Harper put into place. Emmett Macfarlane goes further into the repudiation of the appointment process, and says that the consequences of this decision will almost certainly mean doom for the government’s Senate reform reference. Carissima Mathen, who appeared at committee and said that the declaratory provisions were doomed to fail (and was mocked for it) gets the last laugh. Liberal MP and former justice minister Irwin Cotler draws the lessons from the whole affair as to the flawed appointment process, the government’s own delays in selection, and their ignoring the warnings that Nadon’s appointment was going to present a problem.

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Roundup: So long, Alison Redford

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In a somewhat surprising move, Alberta premier Alison Redford resigned last night, effective Sunday evening. It sounds like she’ll be staying on as MLA for the time being, but man, that’ll be a tough gig. Jen Gerson notes that for all of her skill at policy, Redford lacked political instincts and was in fact the victim of her own transparency laws as her own spending came to light. Colby Cosh reminds us that this really had little to do with the cost of the South Africa trip, but was a long simmering series of problems that kept building until Redford finally collapsed under the weight of them.

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Roundup: Exit Flaherty

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Out of the blue, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced his resignation from cabinet yesterday, but not his seat (just yet). This after Flaherty promised that he was going to run again, while simultaneously dropping hints that he was ready to wind down his political career. And it looks like Joe Oliver will be tapped to replace him as Finance minister, but no word on who would then take over the Natural Resources file. Here are some facts about Flaherty and his career, and a look back at his best ties, which were pretty much all green, which was kind of his shtick. Here’s Paul Wells’ profile of Flaherty from a couple of months ago.

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