Tag Archives: Appointments

Roundup: Why Canadian MPs resist security clearances

Posted on by

Talk of reforming NSICOP into a full-fledged parliamentary committee is circulating, and it’s all just as well. While I have a full column on this coming out later today, I wanted to post this thread from professor Saideman to set some of the context for that, and to explain part of why we’re in the state we are in Canada when it comes to these things.

https://twitter.com/smsaideman/status/1483076151417389057

Continue reading →

Roundup: A fundamental misunderstanding of the profession

Posted on by

Because this is sometimes a media criticism blog, it’s time once again to look askance at some particularly poor reporting choices by a particular CBC reporter. He has developed quite a pattern and reputation for writing stories about judicial appointments which are skewed toward a certain predilection for creating moral panics, and this really false notion that people are essentially buying judicial nominations with party donations, which is both absurd and not how the system works. And along the way, he mischaracterised comments made by the then-president of the Canadian Bar Association, which I had to go about correcting.

In this particular instance, he is remarking that a new judicial nomination Quebec is a lawyer who argued the case on behalf of opponents of Bill 21 in the province (and didn’t win because the judge noted that the provincial government pre-emptively applied the Notwithstanding Clause). But the entire framing of the story and its implicit narrative is that this is a political appointment for the intention of either tweaking at François Legault, or of signalling federal opposition to the law, which is again absurd, and a completely bizarre understanding of how things work in the legal system.

Let me offer this reminder: lawyers make arguments on behalf of their clients. They don’t need to believe those arguments or subscribe to the beliefs of their clients—they simply need to argue on their behalf. The fact that this lawyer argued on behalf of these clients in opposition to this law should be immaterial to the fact that he applied to be a judge, and it should not be a determining factor in the decision to appoint him. But it does fit the narrative that this particular reporter likes to portray about how judicial appointments work, and the fact that the gods damned CBC is letting him spin this particular narrative and not squashing it for being both wrong and unprofessional is troubling, and makes me wonder what the hell is going on with their editorial standards.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Speculating about normal activities

Posted on by

As there are only three narratives available to mainstream journalists in this country, and the first of those is speculating about an early election, that’s what we got a lot of over the weekend. Yes, it is looking more likely these days, but eventually this starts looking like a self-fulfilling prophecy more than anything else.

To that end, we got an examination of the electoral considerations that each of the main party leaders is hoping to access in BC, and why they have focused so much attention there over the past week. We got an examination of how pre-writ advertising limitations don’t apply to early elections under the current legislation – though nobody is pulling the trigger on early ads just yet anyway (especially not when TikToks and social media shitposts are free). And there was a state of play when it comes to conservative premiers around the country and how much of a fight they’ll manage to put up against Trudeau if and when an election comes, considering how badly wounded most of them are at this point.

Now, as for the summer tours and announcements that the leaders have been on, apparently much of the media either has amnesia, or they’re being wilfully blind to history because they have a narrative to maintain. While some of these tour activities may be electioneering, but this is also typical after the Commons rises for the summer – leaders always head out across the country, and there is a pent-up desire to do so after some sixteen months of public health restrictions related to the pandemic. Not to mention, the budget has just passed, and the government wants to spread the good news and largesse, which happens every year, election or not. So while I can understand why my fellows in the media want to put everything in the election speculation box, these are also the same things that happen every other normal year, so maybe – just maybe – we should cool it a little until we get some actual signs that Trudeau is going to march over to Rideau Hall to demand a dissolution. And maybe we should ban the phrase “campaign-style” for the time being (maybe permanently), because it’s starting to look embarrassing.

Continue reading →

QP: Just pass the budget bill

Posted on by

While the prime minster was in Brussels for the NATO summit, his deputy was attending virtually. Candice Bergen led off in person, scripts before her, and she decried that there were photos of the prime minister at the G7 meeting without a mask (because they have been testing rigorously), and complained he wouldn’t be quarantining upon his return (untrue – he will be quarantining, but at a hotel in Ottawa and not Toronto or Montreal, because he doesn’t fly commercial), and accused him of not paying attention to job losses in our economy. Chrystia Freeland suggested the most important thing they could do to show they care about the economy is to pass Bill C-30 on the budget implementation. After a lengthy issue with translation volumes, Bergen accused the government of a litany of sins including corruption, cronyism and cover-ups, and insisted that the prime minster wasn’t able to focus on the economy — but didn’t really ask a question. Freeland said the government was working hard to pass the budget implementation bill that would extend supports to Canadians, but the Conservatives were playing partisan games in delaying it. Bergen raised the golf game between senior members of the Canadian Forces with General Jonathan Vance while was under investigation, to which Harjit Sajjan read a statement about culture change, and how the new chief of defence staff was dealing with this. Gérard a Deltell took over in French to accuse the government of appointing partisan judges, based on the moral panic of an irresponsible news piece, and David Lametti read some cheery talking points about the merit-based process without explaining it. Deltell took some swipes at Lametti, and Lametti read a piece from the Globe and Mail about the Conservative criteria for appointments based on donor lists.

Claude DeBellefeuille led for the Bloc, and she demanded the government make the language of work in federal offices in Quebec to be French, and Mélanie Joly repeated the demonstrably false notion that French is in decline in Quebec, before saying that in places with a strong francophone presence, they will have a right to work and be served in French. DeBellefeuille repeated the demand, and Joly insisted that there government has committed to doing more, and would have a future bill on official languages.

Peter Julian led for the NDP, and decried that pandemic benefits were being cut, while he accused the government of giving money to oil companies and banks (which is not really true). Freeland suggested that he support the budget implementation bill which would extend those income supports until the end of September. Lindsay Mathyssen returned the Vance golf game, and Sajjan read his statement on institutional culture change and the role of the chief of defence staff once again.

Continue reading →

Roundup: C-10 shenanigans have poisoned the well of our parliament

Posted on by

Because things around Bill C-10 couldn’t get any more ridiculous, we now have news stories about Michael Geist getting the vapours about how amendments are being rushed through committee in a “secretive” manner, as though he’s never witnessed a clause-by-clause debate before. And to an extent, what has happened with that committee is the result of a complete breakdown of how it should be operating, forcing the government to impose time allocation on the process – a rare manoeuvre at the committee stage – because it has become so toxic. And with the whips intervening, this turned into essentially a forced meeting that the chair himself objected to, but again, this whole process has become so toxic because of partisan gamesmanship.

First things first ­– Geist’s vapours are more or less melodramatic, because there are still several other opportunities to see what amendments have been agreed to – the final committee report, which goes to Report Stage debate in the Chamber, where the full Commons can vote to accept or reject those amendments. And then there is third reading. If anything, particularly egregious is in there, it can still be caught and amended, and while rare at those stages, it is possible. And then there is the entire Senate process, where they can hear from yet more witnesses in their own committees on the amended version of the bill, and given that this particular iteration of the Senate is far more activist and interventionist, we can bet that there will be more impetus for amendments there (which could force an awkward contest of wills around those amendments given that they’d have to go back to a Commons that has risen for the summer, and at a time when nobody in this city can shut up about election speculation). Nevertheless, the point stands that there are several avenues yet for more amendments to this bill than what happened at the Commons committee.

The bigger point here, however, is that the reason this process became so toxic was because the Conservatives took a fundamentally – nay, existentially – flawed bill, and decided that instead of engaging its actual flaws, they would invent a whole litany of straw men and red herrings, and try to get the country up in arms over fictional provisions that they pulled out of their asses and held them up as effigies to be burned in protest. It’s a bad bill – it never should have placed under the Broadcasting Act because that statute deals with the assumption of the limited bandwidth of TV and radio, and trying to apply it to the internet is largely unworkable. This is a legitimate criticism that should have been debated, but instead, we got this fabrication of an Internet Czar who is going to be vetting your tweets and Facebook posts, and dark visions of Orwellian censorship at the hands of the CRTC, which is not even remotely plausible. But they went full-tilt with this insanity, and just completely poisoned the well of parliament along the way.

The government is not blameless here either – the minister’s communication around the bill has been nothing short of a disaster in English Canada, and his stumbles have been extremely damaging, but he’s been given a long leash because this is playing well in Quebec (where discoverability is a huge vote-getter because they do have difficulty finding Quebec and Canadian content in French – pointing to how the debate on this bill has been hugely built on what I’m going to dub “Anglophone privilege.”) We could have had a constructive debate around this bill. But we didn’t. A mountain of lies was countered by communications incompetence, and after six weeks of absolute shenanigans at committee, the government had enough and brought the hammer down. None of this needed to happen, but apparently we don’t have enough grown-ups in our parliament, and that’s just a sad, sad state of affairs.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Atwin crosses to the Liberals

Posted on by

There was a somewhat shocking turn of events yesterday as Green MP Jenica Atwin suddenly crossed the floor to the Liberals, after weeks of turmoil within the party over the policies around Israel. When Atwin made comments about Israel being an apartheid state, one of leader Annamie Paul’s advisors threatened her position, and she decided it was time to go. Remember also that the NDP have a Thing about floor-crossing, and wouldn’t have accepted her, leaving her with just the Liberals as a potential home rather than staying an Independent – no doubt increasing her chances at re-election. She insisted that all of her previous comments and votes stood, no matter that she was now a Liberal, so perhaps she will remain among the more “maverick” MPs in the caucus who don’t all toe the line in the same way.

https://twitter.com/DavidWCochrane/status/1403096836383166465

Of course, with any floor-crossing, we get the same tired chorus of voices demanding that anyone who does cross must immediately resign and run in a by-election, which is nonsense in the broader context of how our system works. We elect MPs – we don’t elect parties, even if that’s your calculation when you go into the voting booth. Why this distinction matters is because we empower MPs to act on our behalf, regardless of the party banner, and then we get to judge them for their performance in the next general election. Sometimes MPs will need to make decisions to cross the floor for a variety of reasons, but usually because it’s intolerable in their current situation, and they make the move. We empower them to do so because our electoral system gives them agency as an individual – they’re not a name off of a list because the party got x-percentage of a vote.

This absolutely matters, and we need to enshrine their ability to exercise their ultimate autonomy if we want our system to have any meaning. Otherwise we might as well just fill the seats with battle droids who cast their votes according to the leader’s wishes, and read pre-written speeches into the record that the leaders’ office provided. The trained seal effect is bad enough – we don’t need to erode any last vestiges of autonomy to please the self-righteous impulses of a few pundits who think that this kind of move is heretical or a betrayal, or worse, to appeal to the desire by certain parties (in particular the NDP) to have their power structure so centralized that they see their MPs as a mere extension of their brand rather than as individuals. Parliament means something – the ability of MPs to make ultimate decisions needs to be respected in that context.

Continue reading →

QP: Security breach and securities regulators

Posted on by

While the prime minister was off to the G7 meeting in the UK, the only Liberal in the Chamber was Francis Drouin, though Mark Gerretsen would replace him later in the hour. Erin O’Toole led off, accusing the government of hiding a security breach at the National Microbiology Lab. Jennifer O’Connell warned that O’Toole was playing a dangerous game, and that redacted documents were provided to the Canada-China committee and the unredacted documents went to NSICOP. O’Toole accused her of participating in a cover-up, and O’Connell accused O’Toole of not caring about national security. O’Toole scoffed, noting his military service, and worried there was a Chinese “infiltration” at the Lab, which O’Connell countered with a prof at the Royal Military College praising NSICOP. O’Toole then repeated his first question in French, got the same answer as before, adding that she used to be a member of NSICOP so she could vouch for its security. O’Toole repeated his allegation of a cover-up in French, and O’Connell, exasperated, noted that she wasn’t sure how many more times she could say that they turned over the documents in the appropriate way.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, accusing the government of trying to create a new pan-Canadian securities regulator which Quebec opposed. Sean Fraser noted that the office cooperated voluntarily with provinces. Therrien tried again, and Fraser repeated that Quebec was not bound to work with that office.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and he condescended to the government about the WE Imbroglio, and demanded that the government respect the Ethics committee’s report. Bardish Chagger thanked the committee for the work, but accused them of being more interested in partisan games. Charlie Angus then repeated the demand in English with added sanctimony and stretched the credulity of the allegations, and Pablo Rodriguez batted away the insinuations.

Continue reading →

QP: The documents have been sent to NSICOP

Posted on by

It was one of those days in the Chamber where the benches seemed particularly thin, and once again, only Mark Gerretsen was present for the Liberals. Erin O’Toole led off, script on his mini-lectern, and wanted a new commitment to the Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Report around the graves around former residential schools, and Mark Miller assured him they are working with communities so that they can come up with their own processes and that the federal government was there to support them and with funds when they were ready. O’Toole repeated in French, and Miller gave him the same answer. O’Toole then switched back to English and the issue of the National Microbiology Lab, raising redacted documents that have been released to date, tying it to the lab in Wuhan, for which Patty Hajdu assured him that they were cooperating with any investigation and that the correct place for Parliament to deal with the matter was NSICOP, which has been provided with documents. O’Toole insisted that they weren’t being given enough to hold government to account for a security breach, but Hajdu repeated her assurances with a warning not to play games with national security. O’Toole repeated the calls in French, and Hajdu repeated herself.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and demanded that Quebec’s Bill 101 be extended to federally-regulated workplaces, and Mélanie Joly gave her assurances that they would ensure that French would be a language of work and service. Therrien wanted government support for their bill to make the extension formal, but Joly deflected with talking points about the government’s forthcoming Official Languages Act reforms.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and in French, demanded support for their Supply Day motion on ending litigation around Indigenous children — litigation that is about a bad precedent by the Tribunal and not the compensation order. Miller assured him they were working toward proper compensation. Singh repeated the question in English, and gave a more clear response on the substance of the action around the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, and that discussions around compensation are ongoing.

Continue reading →

QP: Demanding a show of urgency on Calls to Action

Posted on by

For Wednesday, proto-PMQ day, Justin Trudeau was present with his one other MP, Mark Gerretsen, because of course he was. Erin O’Toole led off, script on his mini-lectern, and he mentions the Kamloops mass graves, and wanted urgent action on several of the Calls to Action in the Truth and Reconciliation report. Trudeau had a script to read that they accepted all of the calls to action, and are working with Indigenous communities to fulfil those calls, including millions of dollars from Budget 2019. O’Toole insisted that this wasn’t good enough and wanted “urgent” action, for which Trudeau insisted that they have been taking it seriously, and that they are working with the communities, but mentioned that this fresh sense of urgency comes from non-Indigenous Canadians, but Indigenous people have been living with this. O’Toole tried to sound somber in saying that the families deserved a precise roadmap to achieving these calls to action, and Trudeau slowed down to annunciate that they were working in a culturally appropriate and trauma-informed way, and then slammed the Conservatives for not giving funding when the Commission asked for it in 2019. O’Toole insisted that they needed to “show urgency” and that this wasn’t time for political rhetoric — and yet that was all he was offering. Trudeau repeated that they are moving forward and put the boots to the Conservatives for fighting the UNDRIP bill. O’Toole then switched to French to repeat his first question about the renounced funding, and Trudeau reiterated that they are taking action and allocated funding.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he wanted time allocation on Bill C-10, musing that perhaps the government wanted the bill to fail so that they could blame the Conservatives, and Trudeau condemned the games the Conservatives were playing in committee to delay the bill while praising the aims of the bill. Blanchet then meandered about protecting French, before returning to C-10 as a mechanism to do so, and Trudeau thanked him for recognising the cultural protections in the bill, which was why they were trying to get it passed.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he returned to the topic of the mass grave, and once again raised the court cases against Indigenous children and survivors (though, as a lawyer, Singh should know that narrow points of law do need to be contested when they create bad precedents). Trudeau somewhat sharply reminded him that they support compensation and moving forward in culturally appropriate ways. Singh repeated the question in French, and got much the same reply.

Continue reading →

QP: Saving our forestry sector from the Americans

Posted on by

For a Monday in the shadow of the discovery of that mass grace of Indigenous children in Kamloops, and there was once again but a single Liberal in the Chamber, and yes, it was once again Mark Gerretsen. Candice Bergen led off in person for the Conservatives, and she raised the discovery of the mass graves, and wanted an update on plans to find the identities of those children. Gary Anandasangaree responded after a delay, citing the funding commitments already made and made mention of work done with Indigenous leaders. Gérard Deltell repeated the question in French, and this time Marc Miller responded, saying that they are standing with the communities and will deliver the support they need. Bergen was back up, and she accused the government of being silent on American predations in the forestry sector, for which Seamus O’Regan expressed his disappointment in American actions, and his desire for a negotiated solution. Bergen derided the government’s actions on this as well as pipelines, for which O’Regan assured her they were looking out for all workers, including energy workers. Deltell then repeated the lament about softwood lumber in French, and O’Regan repeated his earlier response.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he demanded that federal workplaces in Quebec make French the language of work — and being very particular about it — and Pablo Rodriguez gave the flattering falsehood about French supposedly declining in Quebec (it hasn’t), and stated their commitment to protecting the French language. Therrien railed that the federal government simply wanted to extend bilingualism, which Rodriguez reassured him that they have worked to strengthen French across the country.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and in a somber tone, raised the mass grave in Kamloops and demanded the government drop their lawsuits against Indigenous children and survivors, and Marc Miller assured him they have committed to compensation, and that they are committed to continuing the search for truth and devoting resources for doing so. Singh repeated the question in French, and Miller repeated his response in French.

Continue reading →