While the PM took a personal day after his return from the G20, Andrew Scheer was off in Winnipeg to talk guns and gangs. Pierre Poilievre led off concerned about the PM’s supposed “celebrity lifestyle” that referred to the pre-planned tweet around funds for women and girls’ education, before he suddenly pivoted to Bill C-69, demanding it be scrapped. Amarjeet Sohi reminded him that the system the Conservatives put into place that wasn’t working, so they were working to get a one project-one-review process. Poilievre railed that the PM was at the G20 talking about how there were negative consequences when male construction workers went to rural communities, before returning to the demand to scrap C-69. Sohi reiterate his response, and when Poilievre went for another, more boisterous round of the same, he got much the same answer. Alain Rayes took over to ask about the report in the National Post about a potential investigation on a land deal that might involve Navdeep Bains and Raj Grewal, to which Bains told him the allegations were false and invited him to repeat them outside of the Chamber. Rayes tried to insist on Liberal connections to the situation, to which Bardish Chagger read a statement that functionally repeated Bains’ response. Guy Caron was up next for the NDP, railing about high-protein milk under Supply Management, to which Lawrence MacAulay deployed his usual lines about defending the system. Caron then turned to the Oshawa closure and demanded action by the government, to which Bains read that the sector was strong, that they had the auto innovation fund if GM wanted to use it. Tracey Ramsey demanded action on Oshawa, to which Bains reiterated his previous response. Ramsey then railed that steel and aluminium tariffs were still in place, to which Mélanie Joly read that the NDP celebrated the deal behind closed doors.
Tag Archives: Canada Post
Roundup: Ginning up the Grewal resignation
As the stories on Raj Grewal’s gambling debts and intended resignation continue to trickle through, a number of them have taken on a vaguely conspiratorial tone. A lot of facts that shouldn’t be out of the ordinary are treated as suspicious for absolutely no reason at all. For example, people keep wondering why he was reassigned from the finance committee in September “with no warning.” Gee, what else happened in September that would have affected committee memberships? Could it have been the fact that the parliamentary secretaries all got shuffled, so committee assignments need to be rejigged? Maybe? And whoa, he asked questions on catching money launderers to law officials and FINTRAC agents during a study on – wait for it – “Confronting Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing: Moving Canada Forward.” Such an amazing coincidence that is totally suspicious. And the latest “revelation” is that Senator Jean-Guy Dagenais says that a retired Mountie told him a year ago that he heard Raj Grewal was under investigation, and he therefore thinks PMO should have known then. Erm, except that neither the OPP nor the RCMP tell the PMO what they’re investigating because they operate at arm’s length, and more to the fact, Grewal was a backbench MP, which I cannot stress enough.
To that end, Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column looks at the issue of parties policing MPs’ off-hours, considering the Clement and Grewal situations, while Susan Delacourt cites those same two cases, and wonders if we need to do a better job of screening backbenchers. And I’m pretty dubious because backbenchers are not ministers. They don’t have access to secret materials (Clement, I remind you, is a former minister and thus a member of the Privy Council, and his activities on NSICOP are outside of the usual activities of a backbencher), nor are they public office holders. Their job is to hold government to account – they are not part of the government, and it doesn’t matter what committees they’re on. Treating them as the same thing is not only a gross overreach, but frankly it will give MPs a wrongheaded sense of their place in the system, which is already suffering because of civic illiteracy.
Are Grewal’s debts concerning? Yup. Is it a crisis that he was mentioned in passing as part of an investigation into other suspicious characters? Maybe, but we don’t know enough to say whether it is or not, and the baseless speculation and ginned up allegations aren’t helping. Should Trudeau and the PMO have been more candid from the start about the reasons Grewal was resigning? Probably, and given this government’s inability to communicate their way out of a wet paper bag, their approach once again blew up in their faces. But treating this affair with clickbait headlines and spinning random facts out of context in order to make them seem sinister is bad reporting.
Roundup: A noble bill with problems below the surface
It’s not often that I’ll go out of my way to comment on poor reporting (as opposed to columns), but in this particular case, I’m going to make an exception. The story is the fact that Rona Ambrose’s bill on mandatory sexual assault training for judges has been stalled in the Senate. Ambrose appeared on Power & Politics to express her shock and dismay, but there was very little research done in terms of the concerns that have been raised with the bill to date, and the fact that its passage through the House of Commons was problematic in and of itself (most especially the fact that it was referred to the Status of Women committee instead of the Justice Committee in order to ensure swift passage, with a committee that was sympathetic and didn’t have the expertise on the matter). The written story on the CBC website was simply a recap of Ambrose’s interview with no comment from anyone else, or recounting any of the concerns or pushback from the debates on the bill.
So I decided to take twenty minutes and skim over the Second Reading debates in the Senate on the bill, and lo, there are some pretty important concerns being raised. Senator Jaffer, who is a lawyer who has done judicial training, pointed to the fact that the bill mandating written rulings in all sexual assault cases not only takes away from the fact that there are procedures for clear oral rulings that can be appealed, but that it will cause other delays. The training also disadvantages rural lawyers, and can tip the hand of a lawyer in a firm that they are applying to be a judge.
Senator Joyal, a formidable constitutional lawyer who had a career fighting for minority rights (and who helped write the Charter of Rights and Freedoms) expressed some serious concerns about the powers given to a federal commissioner to determine what qualifies for training. He raised the very real point that the bill stipulates that training must be done by sexual assault survivors and organisations that support them, which automatically biases the training and the presumption of innocence (and others have raised the point that these trainers are often called as expert witnesses, which creates further biases). Joyal also noted the constitutional implications of the bill given that judicial independence includes the ability to maintain control over their education.
Senator Pratte, while not a lawyer, raised the salient logistical issue that for every 500 judicial applicants, maybe 50 make it through, meaning that if everyone needs training before they can be appointed, it delays assessment of applicants and has the potential to create problems with the quality if the training. He also raised the notion that if sexual assault survivors are needed for this training, how long will it be before other victims’ groups demand to be heard for other judicial training?
Senator Fraser, whose objections were briefly noted in the CBC piece, also made points about the inappropriateness of the bill mandating that reports on the number of judges who have taken the training be tabled in Parliament because judges report to Chief Justices in their regions, not to the minister. As well, because the majority of these cases are actually heard in provincial courts, this could qualify as interference in provincial jurisdiction.
The story also went onto state that Senator Joyal, who chairs the Legal and Constitutional Affairs committee, wouldn’t give a date for when the bill will be studied, but it didn’t mention that government bills always take precedence at committee, and as you can see from the committee’s schedule, they have a pretty full slate for the coming weeks, possibly months.
Frankly, I’m more than a little dismayed at the lazy reporting on this bill. While it may look like a slam-dunk issue on the surface, there’s a lot beneath the surface that’s not being reported on, which is actually fairly irresponsible. Would that political reporters at the CBC take twenty minutes to do some actual research on their stories than simply transcribe an interview.
QP: Fighting for Oshawa
While Justin Trudeau was in town but meeting with the head of Unifor, Andrew Scheer decided to show up for the first time in almost two weeks. Scheer led off, mini-lectern on desk, and he read that he met with workers at the GM plant in Oshawa earlier that morning, before he concern trolled around “massive deficits,” before wondering if the support for workers was factored into the fall economic update (obviously it wouldn’t have been), or if it meant higher deficits. Navdeep Bains responded by saying that they stand up for workers, and touted their innovation fund. Scheer demanded they cancel the carbon tax to protect jobs, to which Bains praised the business environment and the auto sector in Canada. Scheer demanded a second time, and Bains noted new investment in the sector. Gérard Deltell took over to reiterate the demand in French, to which Bains read his bland assurances in French. Deltell listed the various other job losses in other sectors, to which Bains retorted in English about the good economic news that countered those individual challenges. Guy Caron was up next for the NDP, and he worried about the Oshawa news, and got the usual reply from Bains. When Caron demanded that GM repay any funds that the government provided them, Bains assured him that all options were being explored to protect workers. Peter Julian was up next to reiterate the question in English, and Bains took exception to his characterisation of events before listing the economic figures. Julian insisted that the fall economic update was a giveaway to corporations, but Bains again pushed back against the rhetoric and proclaimed about their plans to invest created growth.
Because narrative.
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) November 27, 2018
Roundup: Refusing to learn their lessons
A former PQ minister wants to run for leadership of the Bloc, and I just cannot. Can. Not. The challenger this time is Yves-François Blanchet, who served in Pauline Marois’ short-lived Cabinet, and has since taken on a political pundit career since being defeated in 2014. He apparently met with the caucus yesterday, and the majority of them – including their past and current interim leaders – all seem to like him, but I keep having to circle back to this simple question: did you learn nothing from your last disastrous leader?
I can’t emphasise this enough. Since their demise in 2011, the Bloc have had a succession of seatless leaders, including Mario Beaulieu (who now has a seat, incidentally, and is the current interim leader), and while he stepped aside so that Gilles Duceppe could return (unsuccessfully), they keep going for leaders who aren’t in caucus, and time after time, it goes poorly for them. Every single time, I have to wonder why they don’t simply do as our system was built to do, and select a member from caucus. Constantly bringing in an outsider does nothing for their profile (ask Jagmeet Singh how that’s going), and their leaders keep being divorced from the realities of parliament. And time and again, they keep choosing another outsider. Why do you keep doing this to yourselves? Why do you refuse to learn the lessons that experience has to teach you?
There is one current MP who is considering a run, Michel Boudrias, and if the Bloc was smart, they would choose him by virtue of the fact that he’s in the caucus, he’s in the Commons, and he knows how Parliament works. Of course, if they interested in ensuring he’s accountable (especially given just how big of a gong show their last leader was), then it would be the caucus that selects him so that the caucus can then fire him if he becomes a problem (again, if history is anything to go by). But that would take some actual political courage by the party, and given their apparent reluctance to learn the lessons from their mistakes, that may be too much to ask for.
QP: Demanding action for Oshawa
While the prime minister was present, on a day of tough news for Oshawa, Andrew Scheer was absent yet again. Because why bother showing up to Parliament when you’re the leader of the opposition? Erin O’Toole led off, and said there was a future for manufacturing in Canada if they fought for it, and wanted to know what the government was doing. Justin Trudeau read a statement about their disappointment in the news, and how they would support the workers. O’Toole said that they needed to hear that the prime minister hasn’t given up on the sector, to which Trudeau said that they were working with other orders of government to support the workers. O’Toole asked if GM asked him about trade and tariff concerns that were impacting their competitiveness, to which Trudeau said that the auto companies worked with them as part of the new NAFTA talks, and there was more work to do in eliminating steel and aluminium tariffs. Luc Berthold took over in French to ask again about fighting for the jobs, and Trudeau picked his script back up to read the French version of his first answer. Berthold read some further concerns about the workers, and Trudeau read some further assurances about the industry being solid. Guy Caron was up next for the NDP, and he worried that GM was getting “tax giveaways” while cutting jobs, to which Trudeau read a script about support for the auto sector and how they worked to make it globally competitive and innovative. Caron switched to the Canada Post strike and worried that back to work legislation wouldn’t have resulted in the gains the union made, and Trudeau read a script about all of the measures they took to help get a deal. Karen Trudel asked the same question again, and Trudeau extemporaneously explained how they worked respectfully with unions but the time came to make difficult decisions. Irene Mathyssen read that Canada Post was a toxic environment, to which Trudeau read about his faith in the collective bargaining process.
Roundup: Pausing the birth tourism hysteria
You probably heard last week about the recent report that incidents of “birth tourism” in Canada are higher than previously reported, owing to collecting data from hospital sources rather than local statistical agencies. Given that this became a flashpoint at the Conservative policy convention a few months ago, it’s probably safe to assume that this will become a topic of debate in Parliament in the coming weeks (though it depends on whether or not Andrew Scheer decides this will be the next issue he decides to chase down a rabbit hole, as is his wont). One does hope, however, that we may have a reasonable debate around this, and while Chris Selley may point to the fact that we may want to do something (that won’t violate human rights and create stateless persons), economist Lindsay Tedds has another view that may also be worth considering, especially if we look at the issue over the longer term.
https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1066763395578253312
https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1066766469545975808
https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1066768661434662912
https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1066770215784996864
Roundup: Getting your Senate criticism wrong
In light of Independent Senators Group “Facilitator” Yuen Pau Woo’s comments in the Globe and Mail last week about wanting to make Senate modernisation an election issue, Konrad Yakabuski penned a column in the Globe’s pages to point out that for all of the appointment of Independent senators, the institution remains as political as ever. Which is true – it is inherently a political body, no matter what some of its more recent denizens may think of it (much like the Supreme Court of Canada is itself a political institution, though people don’t like to think of it as such). And there are a lot of problems with Woo’s attempt to turn this into an issue, or his belief that Independent senators are somehow apolitical, or that a “non-partisan” Senate is even desirable (hint: It’s not). But Yakabuski’s column falls apart in several areas because, once again, you have pundits who know nothing about the institution passing judgment on it.
The key lines from the column that betray its ignorance are not difficult to spot:
Mr. Trudeau has effectively transformed the Senate by appointing 45 senators in just three years in office, almost all of whom sit as independent members. But just how independent are they, really, when they consistently vote in line with the Liberal majority in the House of Commons? Frankly, there is no way of knowing, given that the workings of the “new” Senate are even more opaque than those of the old one, when almost all senators were clearly aligned with one of the major parties and sat in on party caucus meetings.
Yakabuski has fallen into the trap of not understanding how Senate votes work, and how they can be different from those in the Commons. And I will be fair in pointing out that Conservatives, particularly a number of them in the Senate, have been playing a bad-faith game of portraying the votes in this light. What people ignorant of the institution don’t realise is that because the Senate knows they’re unelected, and will defer to the House of Commons on most occasions, they will rarely vote against government legislation, but will instead focus their attention on their role around scrutiny and any kinds of amendments to bills they can make – and this is even more so in the current era, where you have a government that has stated that they are open to those amendments. They also know that if they did vote down a government bill, there would be tempting a constitutional crisis, which is why they will only do it in exceptional circumstances. Simply counting votes ignores this reality of the Senate’s workings (which is both lazy journalism and poor qualitative political science in a qualitative body, and what the Conservatives agitating against the ISG are counting on). This is also to add that Yakabuski is off-base in describing the workings of the Senate, “new” or status quo, as being “opaque.” It’s not, and you have to go out of your way to ignore the workings if you think it is.
I would also add that Yakabuski also closes his column with praise for the design of the American Senate, citing that “The separation of powers and checks and balances built into the U.S. system expose the vulnerabilities of our own.” Nope. I would rather a system based on confidence and Responsible Government than their “balanced constitution” at any point, and if he thinks their system works better, he hasn’t paid the slightest bit of attention.
Roundup: A sudden dilemma for Singh
Liberal MP Raj Grewal made a surprise announcement last night, that he’s resigning his seat because of “personal and medical reasons,” which the PM later called “serious personal challenges” – a phrase that only raises the number of questions about what it could be. Aside from losing one of the best-dressed MPs on the Hill (Grewal is a frequent recipient of sartorial snaps on this blog), where this announcement gets very interesting is the bind that it places on NDP leader Jagmeet Singh.
Liberal MP @RajLiberal Raj Grewal is resigning his seat. Here is his post to constituents. #cdnpoli #hw pic.twitter.com/e5qky0LHqv
— Hannah Thibedeau (@HannahThibedeau) November 22, 2018
Yesterday, I learned that Raj Grewal is facing serious personal challenges, and today he announced he is stepping down as Member of Parliament for Brampton East. While it may have been a difficult decision, it was the right one. I hope he receives the support he needs.
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) November 22, 2018
Singh had initially stated that he wanted to run in Grewal’s riding during the next election, given that it was his riding provincially (note to non-Ontarians: in this province, the federal and provincial ridings are identical with a couple of exceptions in Northern Ontario), and for almost a year, he kept stating that he was “comfortable” not having a seat and waiting to run in that same Brampton riding in 2019. That is, until his party’s poll numbers started tanking and he realized that he needed to actually be present in Parliament if he hoped to regain any traction. (Also of note, his brother now holds the seat provincially.) But in August, Singh committed to run in Burnaby South, and has been spending some time there campaigning, and recently announced that he found a rental property there.
So this leads us to wonder – will Singh abandon Burnaby South, where he has already expended some effort and expense, or will he decide that since Brampton is now back on the map, that it’s the smarter decision to run in given his roots and history in the riding? This just as Singh learned that he’ll get the byelection in Burnaby South that he’s been (belatedly) demanding in February. So there’s a choice to make, and we’ll likely hear all about it in the coming days. (Also, expect the Conservatives to push conspiracy theories about just how “convenient” it was for Grewal to suddenly resign now, and how this must mean the Liberals really want him in the House because they think it’ll give them some kind of advantage; this line of baseless speculation was proffered on Power & Politics last night and I expect to hear it repeated in the coming days).
QP: Concern trolling about the media
While the PM was off to Calgary to sell his fiscal update, Andrew Scheer was absent yet again. Alain Rayes led off, proclaiming that the government was racking up “record” deficits (not sure that’s correct), and demanded a plan for a balanced budget. Bill Morneau insisted that they did have a plan for growth and investment, and that the level of debt was the best in the G7. Rayes tried a second time, and got the same answer. Pierre Poilievre got up next, and said that the Morneau was trying to rewrite history from his deficit promises. Morneau got up and said that Poilievre was repeating buzz-words from first-year economic textbooks, while his government was getting results with growth. Poilievre then concern trolled that the government was buying off the press, to which Morneau said that journalism was vital democracy and they were trying to help the sector in a manner that was independent. Poilievre stated that the government thinks that journalists should shower then with praise, to which Morneau replied that it was insulting to think that journalists could be bought off. Guy Caron was up next for the NDP, decrying the tablet of back to work legislation for Canada Post, to which Morneau said that they tried to get a deal but the economy was starting to suffer. Caron railed that this was a gift not only to Canada Post but also EBay and Amazon, and Morneau responded with some pabulum about supporting small businesses. Karine Trudel and Irene Mathyssen further denounced the move on back-to-work legalisation, to which Patty Hajdu listed the ways they tried to get to a deal, and that the legislation may still give room for bargaining while getting the workers back to work.
Conservatives roar with laughter when Morneau said it’s insulting to think the press can be bought.
A couple looked up to the Gallery to see our response. I restrained myself from responding with an obscene gesture. #QP— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) November 22, 2018