It was no surprised that the motion to support the Iraq mission passed, but what was perhaps unexpected was the bit of verbal sparring between Jason Kenney and Justin Trudeau, and the issue of Kenney’s credibility came up. It has come up several times, having been called out repeatedly by journalists for posting misleading photos on his Twitter account, or his statements that were not true about things like Russian planes buzzing our frigate in the Black Sea, but this weekend, things got even more escalated when the Chief of Defence Staff had to come out and make a statement to both back up and correct the record with regards to Kenney’s statements about how Canada and the US were the only countries engaged in Syria and Iraq using precision bombs. That’s blatantly not true, and General Lawson had to use some careful language to not embarrass his minister but at the same time correct the record, and Kenney treated it as though Lawson backed up his statement – which he didn’t. And Trudeau used that during the question-and-answer portion of his speech on the Iraq motion, that the minister doesn’t have the credibility behind his words when it comes to the motion to extend the mission and the Liberals can’t trust him as a result. Will that be enough political cover for Trudeau given the disgruntled members of his own party who would see us join the mission? I guess we’ll wait and see. Meanwhile, the government’s fudging on the reality of our combat operations is a sign that Canadians really don’t have the stomach for another war.
Tag Archives: Auditor General
Roundup: The unspoken morale problem
As the results of the Senate audit draw closer, and senators are complaining anonymously about the way in which it’s being handled by the Auditor General’s office (and those that they’ve subcontracted to), what has been missing from the reporting is the blow to morale that has taken place in the institution. The constant air of suspicion, the questioning of expenses that should be no problem (like stamps for Xmas cards being sent to the States, or as the article describes, single phone calls and sandwiches) has made not only for some unhappy senators and staff, but it’s sucked the life out of the place, and their focus on the grown-up policy work of parliament – which we should expect from the Commons but don’t end up getting – is being completely sidetracked by the way this audit is being handled, and the time that it is consuming. It’s also to the point of invasive, where one senator mentioned that she had been asked for her personal journals by auditors. And the problem has become that because of the actions of those couple of bad apples – Duffy, Wallin, Brazeau, and Harb – that all senators are under a cloud of suspicion and are unable to push back without it looking like they have something to hide, rather than the fact that there is a genuine feeling like they are being abused by auditors who don’t understand the role of the Senate. One does have to wonder if there won’t be any long-term damage to what is going on, especially as blame is being laid on the institution, and not on the person who made appointments without due diligence.
Roundup: Eight whole meetings
With the C-51 now before the Commons public safety committee, various kinds of shenanigans were played there, the NDP essentially launching a filibuster throughout the day in order to get more time to hear from witnesses, and they did get more time – about eight days, instead of three. They had proposed some 25 hearings, which included over a constituency week so that they could still meet the same deadline the government proposed, but they didn’t bite. It was also suggested that this may have been the government’s plan the whole time – give them a few more days and they’ll seem reasonable. Perhaps, but that didn’t seem to be the case if you listened to the Conservatives on the committee, who seemed to think that talk about rights was somehow an unreasonable thing. Online, people claiming to be from Anonymous are hoping an online campaign will force the government to back down on the bill, the way the government responded to backlash over Vic Toews’ lawful access bill, but I’m not sure they’ll have the same success, especially as the government is fairly confident that they can get the public to go along with the bill by holding the threat of terrorism over them – especially as new stories of people heading over to fight with ISIS become almost daily news at this point. The NDP tried to get in on the online campaign game and tried to get #StandWithRosane to trend – meaning their deputy critic Rosane Doré Lefebvre, leading the filibuster effort. Not surprisingly, it didn’t trend, for fairly obvious reasons, which makes one think that the NDP still hasn’t quite cracked the social media campaign that the election will supposedly be about. Perhaps we can call it a “hashtag fail,” as it were.
.@RosaneDL is fighting for our rights and freedoms right now. Join her. #StandWithRosane #NDP #cdnpoli #C51 pic.twitter.com/ifj82DBbR9
— NDP (@NDP) February 26, 2015
Roundup: Family-friendly has its consequences
It’s one of those kinds of piece that rolls around every few months, and Laura Payton has again taken a look at the toll to family life that an MP’s job takes, especially as several MPs have opted not to run again, citing that very reason. And that’s well and good, but the moment we get to talking about making Parliament more “family friendly,” we immediately start talking about things without acknowledging any of the very detrimental unintended consequences. Beyond better access to childcare on the Hill for MPs (as opposed to staffers), they immediately start talking about things like cancelling Friday sittings, electronic votes, and attending committees by video conference – all of which are actually terrible ideas. Losing Fridays would mean having to make up the time somewhere else, and since we’ve already cancelled evening sittings to make Parliament more “family friendly,” well, that’s out, and let’s face it – nobody wants to sit in July or August because Ottawa is pretty humid and gross – especially in some of those old stone buildings that aren’t very well air conditioned, never mind that MPs generally want to be on the barbecue circuit or spending time with said families now that their children are out of school. Electronic voting is also a bad idea because half of the point of Parliaments are the very important symbolism of having your representatives stand and be seen to be standing for what they believe in. An electronic tally may be more convenient, but it also damages the meaning of the act. The other reason why it’s terrible is because that’s one of the few times that MPs are all together in one place and can see each other and make contacts, whether that means cornering a minister about an issue that they need to have addressed, or simply building relationships. It’s the same with attending committee by video conference. You’re not forming those relationships either with fellow MPs, or with any of the witnesses appearing before you, and even while some witnesses to appear by video conference, that face-to-face contact and the conversations in the hallway afterward are all lost. Those are tremendously important. There are other ways for MPs to better schedule themselves, but already the parliamentary calendar has changed a lot to accommodate families and travel. The loss of evening sittings had a demonstrable impact on collegiality because MPs no longer ate dinner together. Losing more of that contact will have a crippling blow on the institution.
Roundup: Voting attendance matters
The Ottawa Citizen has been carrying on their look at MP attendance in its many forms, and this time turned to the voting records of ordinary MPs. The best ones tended to be Conservative MPs, while the worst were independent and Bloc MPs for the most part, though a few other exceptions were noted, in particular because those MPs were battling cancer (like Judy Foote and Peter Kent). One of the notables for terrible voter attendance was Sana Hassainia, an NDP-turned-independent whose reasons for leaving the party were apparently over the position on Israel, though there was backbiting at the time about her attendance. Hassainia’s issue is her small children – she’s had two since she became an MP, and since most votes tend to be around 5:30 in the evening three, sometimes four nights per week, she claims she can’t get childcare and has to miss them. That’s always one of those claims that bothers me because it’s not like these votes are surprises – they happen on a scheduled basis, so you would think that she would be able to better schedule childcare. As well, she’s not without means – she makes a lot of money as an MP, and has the wherewithal to hire a minder or a nanny who can accommodate those times when she’s needed to vote. And it doesn’t matter how engaged she says she is with her constituents – her job is to vote, and that means showing up to vote, and to stand up and be seen to be voting, which not only has symbolic import, but it’s also a time when MPs are actually all in the same place so contacts can be made, and she can engage with ministers on files she has concerns with because they’re right there. This is an important thing, and it should be considered nothing less than a dereliction of her duties if she can’t see that.
Roundup: Reassigning Fantino
In some ways, it was a big surprise because it’s almost – almost – like Stephen Harper was admitting he made a mistake with regards to his choice for veterans affairs minister. But it wasn’t entirely that – just a bit of a shuffling of the deck. Without really summoning press to Rideau Hall yesterday, the PM shuffled Julian Fantino out of Veterans Affairs, and put newcomer Erin O’Toole in his place. But lest you think that Fantino has had his day in cabinet and he can quietly disappear into the backbenches, no – Harper found him a new home. Technically it’s his old home as Associate Minister of Defence, but instead of being on the procurement file, as he was previously, now he’s been charged with Arctic sovereignty, cyber-defence and foreign intelligence. Let’s remember that when Fantino was previously on that job, he had the F-35 fiasco blowing up around him. Then Veterans Affairs fell apart around him when he was in that portfolio. And if his lack of interpersonal skills was a big part of the failure at Veterans Affairs, he’s going to be in charge of a fairly diplomacy-heavy role with Arctic Sovereignty? Really? Same thing with foreign intelligence and CSE. You want a notoriously poor communicator to deal with those questions? Really? (My other thought is about what this says about confidence in the abilities of Rob Nicholson if the PM need to split off some of his duties to hand them over to an Associate Minister). As for the veterans file, it’s going to be an uphill battle for O’Toole, who is an immeasurably better communicator than Fantino or his parliamentary secretary, Parm Gill, ever were, but he’s still constrained by the policy of the day, and the spending restraints that the government has imposed across the board. Sure, he may be able to communicate better and maybe not alienate his stakeholders to the same extent that Fantino did, but if he can’t really change what’s really ailing the department, it is likely to just be a fresh coat of paint and little else. Paul Wells shares a few thoughts about what the PM might have been thinking.
So some poor sap at Langevin gets to dig up the microtapes to revert the M-4 Unit to his previous Associate Defence Minister programming?
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) January 5, 2015
One does suppose that a duotronic computer system like the M-4 Unit might be well placed to deal with information security. #Fantino
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) January 5, 2015
Just think of all the new talking points that the M-4 Unit will have to upload to his duotronic databanks. #Fantino
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) January 5, 2015
Roundup: MacKay’s turn to blunder
Another day, another minister who appears tone-deaf to the issues of their files – in this case it was Peter MacKay on questions of gun control as we reach the anniversary of the École Polytechnique shootings. It shouldn’t have been a surprise – these kind of questions get raised every year, and the Conservatives have fairly consistently made some kind of gaffe, but normally it’s the Status of Women minister who gets into hot water. This time, MacKay made a couple of nonsense answers during Question Period about the gun control aspect of the anniversary, when he fell back on his bog standard “respect for victims, punish offenders” talking points rather than addressing the issue at hand. The government could sell a case for their bill, C-42, if they would actually bother to do so rather than just accuse the Liberals of trying to resurrect the long-gun registry (which, for the record, Trudeau has said that they would not do), or bringing up the supposed plight of the law-abiding duck hunter. Instead, MacKay put his foot in things again, tried to claim the reason for the shooting was mysterious, tried to backtrack when he got called out on it, and again the government looks worse for wear.
QP: Rerunning the AG questions
On caucus day, we finally had all of the leaders present in the Chamber. Thomas Mulcair led off, returning to yesterday’s Auditor General report about the Nutrition North programme, seeing as he wasn’t there yesterday to ask when the topic was fresh. Stephen Harper insisted that the government spends over $60 million to help those in the North, and there has been an increase in the amount of food shipped and a decrease in the cost to families. Mulcair noted the APTN report about people in the North scrounging in landfills for food, to which Harper insisted that they are trying to help people in the North. Mulcair brought up the report on mental health services for wait times, to which Harper selectively quoted the report’s findings on the complexity of the process and the commitment to improve it. Mulcair asked about those soldiers being released before being eligible for pensions, to which Harper insisted that the report noted important health measures were in place. Mulcair then turned to thalidomide survivors, to which Harper reminded him of the minister’s comments that there was a settlement in the 1990s and the department and minister are meeting with groups. Justin Trudeau was up next, and brought up the École Polytechnique tragedy and tied it to concerns with the current gun control bill being debated. Harper insisted that there were no conceal and carry provisions and that there were restrictions on transportation. Trudeau pressed, stressing that decisions on classification were being taken away from police and given to politicians. Harper called Trudeau’s statements “reckless and false,” and accused him of wanting to bring back the long-gun registry, despite Trudeau explicitly saying otherwise. Trudeau changed topics to spouses of veterans suffering from mental health issues, to which Harper again selectively quoted the AG report.
Roundup: Deployment debate continues
As the debate on the Iraq combat deployment carries on, with the vote set for later tonight, there are already questions as to just how effective air strikes can actually be given that ISIS has already taken lessons to heart about scattering in advance of a raid and reforming after the planes leave. In other words, could that really be the right use of forces. The government made a bit of a show of also adding another $10 million in aid yesterday, including for victims of sexual violence, which the NDP had specifically asked for – but the NDP responded that it’s not really enough to do anything, and then moved an amendment to the government motion to forbid combat and impose strict time limits. (Aaron Wherry recaps the debate here). Liberal advisor and potential candidate, former lieutenant general Andrew Leslie, made the case that an armed non-combat relief mission was a better use of resources because it wouldn’t divide our attention and resources the way doing both combat and aid would, while Roland Paris later noted on P&P that Canada didn’t necessarily need to participate in combat operations, but simply needed to be part of the coalition to help give political cover and legitimacy to the US-led operation. Hillary Clinton, during her speech in Ottawa yesterday, said that military intervention against ISIS was critical – but also not enough to really stop them. Andrew Coyne writes that there is no safe moral ground in this particular fight.
Roundup: Back with a countdown
Parliament is back! Yay! Now let’s obsess about how everything is a pre-election narrative, start polling relentlessly, and speculate wildly about the mere possibility that there would be an early election call without any hint of a justification for there to be one! Oh man, aren’t fixed election dates and the year-long campaigning in advance of them just the bestest thing ever?