Tag Archives: CBSA

Roundup: The drip, drip, drip of details

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At a press event yesterday morning, Justin Trudeau tried to offer some reassurances around Jody Wilson-Raybould, and only seemed to complicate matters – which didn’t help that everyone seemed to read meaning into what he said that I don’t think was at all was intended. To recap, Trudeau said that back in September, at a time when there was a lot of discussion about the SNC-Lavalin, and the jobs and economic repercussions, Wilson-Raybould asked him if he intended to direct her on how to deal with the issue, and he said no, it was her call; in October, the Public Prosecution Service rejected the notion of giving SNC-Lavalin a deferred prosecution agreement. He also said that if Scott Brison hadn’t resigned that she would still be in justice, but things get moved around when you start shuffling Cabinet pieces around (which is fair – there are a lot of considerations). This of course turned into a childish game over Twitter about “blame Scott Brison,” which is not only ridiculous, but completely misrepresents what he said. (Note that regarding her poor performance managing her department, Brison’s departure may have been the opportunity to deal with it, but that it was considered manageable until the next election, but I can’t say that I’m privy to those determinations). Oh, and Trudeau also said it was unacceptable for people to be taking shots at Wilson-Raybould, but this was also about eight days after the anonymous grousing started appearing in media reports.

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Amidst this, people have started taking a look back at the deferred prosecution portion of the budget implementation bill when it was being debated and studied back in the spring (*coughs*my story once again*coughs*), perhaps to prove that this was something the government snuck through to the benefit of all of that SNC-Lavalin lobbying. While Aaron Wherry finds a voluminous paper trail here, and the chair of the Commons finance committee, Wayne Easter, told Power & Politics that he personally questioned why that section wasn’t being sent to the justice committee, where things get really interesting is before the Senate’s legal and constitutional affairs committee, where those provisions were sent for study. It becomes exceedingly interesting that Wilson-Raybould refused to make herself available to testify on the issue – which is a very bad thing for a minister – and while Senator Serge Joyal, who heads the committee, says that in hindsight she may not have been comfortable with the subject matter if there was pressure (if that is indeed what was happening), we also need to remember that she refused to appear on other bills, which was holding them up because the committee (quite rightly) said no minister, no bill. Since she was shuffled, Lametti has agreed to appear before the committee on those bills. This kind of truculent behaviour should be taken into consideration when people think that she was doing a “great” job (she wasn’t), but even when she did appear to answer questions, the only thing she’d ever say was how proud she was of the job she was doing (another strike on her record).

Former BC premier Christy Clark affirmed Trudeau’s line that if Wilson-Raybould had a problem and was feeling unduly pressured that she had a duty to say something and resign, which she didn’t. And as a related note, here’s a closer look at the principles of Cabinet secrecy that Trudeau has noted are a consideration in what’s going on here, and how Trudeau has the prerogative to invoke it or not.

In other related news, a former SNC-Lavalin executive had his obstruction of justice charge stayed because it “timed out” under the Jordan principles outlined by the Supreme Court of Canada. As for SNC-Lavalin’s pursuit of a deferred prosecution agreement, here is an explainer of what kind of process a company would need to go through for a prosecutor to consider granting them one, and why it’s not simply paying a fine.

Meanwhile, Andrew Coyne insists that because SNC-Lavalin couldn’t meet the tests necessary to even qualify for a DPA that there shouldn’t have been any reason for Trudeau and Wilson-Raybould to talk about one, while Paul Wells looks at the polling numbers on the issue, and finds Trudeau’s credibility lagging Wilson-Raybould’s on the issue.

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Roundup: Flippant suggestions stepping on the message – again

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There weren’t any official new developments in the SNC-Lavalin/Wilson-Raybould controversy yesterday, but we did get a few more drips of information, like how prime minister Justin Trudeau had a one-way teleconference call with the caucus in the wake of Jody Wilson-Raybould’s departure, with the main message being that he still wished her well and didn’t want her booted from caucus. Not helpful was justice committee chair Anthony Housefather who somewhat flippantly suggested that perhaps Wilson-Raybould was replaced because she didn’t speak French at a time when a great many legal issues are coming up in Quebec – only to apologise later and clarify that he said it in relation to the baseless speculation that is rampant, not because it was a serious suggestion (except he did repeat it in a couple of different interviews, but I’m sure it sounded good in his head at the time). Because this party never ceases to stop stepping all over its own message, and can’t communicate their way out of a wet paper bag. Every. Single. Time.

In the absence of any new developments in the story was looking at where various Liberals are starting to align themselves in relation to Wilson-Raybould’s current status, but that hasn’t stopped the anonymous Liberals from trying to give takes about “crossed wires” and “revisionist feelings” with benefit of the doubt going to Trudeau – or not, in other cases. Northwest Territories MP Michael McLeod points out that Wilson-Raybould’s departure means there is no longer Indigenous representation in Cabinet (expect this to be a factor in the upcoming shuffle). New Brunswick Liberal MP Wayne Long continues to break ranks and say he wants more answers, and good for him for doing his job as a backbencher properly. Oh, and PMO now apparently condemns the smack talk of other anonymous Liberals besmirching Wilson-Raybould’s record following complaints from Indigenous groups that said it was sexist and racist. Elsewhere, a number of Indigenous senators published a letter of support for Wilson-Raybould but also noted that this shouldn’t derail reconciliation, which is more than the work of one minister. (Senator Brazeau was not among them and is trying to make more hay of this).

In related matters, here’s a look at how the way in which the Ethics Commissioner undertook his examination (note that he didn’t investigation) of the matter could mean that he can end it at any point without a public report, and it’s not clear that he really has the scope to undertake such an investigation to begin with. The premier of Quebec is calling for SNC-Lavalin to get that deferred prosecution agreement, surprising no one. Here’s a look at SNC-Lavalin’s history of lobbying on the issue, and why Quebec sees the company as an asset in spite of their poor history.

Meanwhile, Susan Delacourt thinks there are lessons from #MeToo that Trudeau should be drawing from in handling this whole mess, particularly as silence remains on half of the tale. Jen Gerson thinks that it’s time to stop treating SNC-Lavalin with kid gloves, and that their demise may actually benefit a number of other companies who don’t have a history of corruption.

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Roundup: Polling on magical parties

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I am not a big fan about reporting on polls, which makes me particularly aggrieved that we saw a few stories today about the latest Angus Reid poll that postulated a hypothetical “Western Canada Party” and how that would skew the vote for the established parties. Why a poll like this is especially irksome is because when you invite people to vote for a hypothetical that has no leader, or policies, or structure, or even raison d’être, then it simply becomes a repository for unicorns and pixie dust. You’re inviting people from four fairly disparate provinces to join forces, when you have separate grievances with the federal government, and you think you’d make a coherent political force out of it? Really? What exactly is anyone supposed to take from this message, other than people have vivid imaginations?

Of course, the idea is pretty ludicrous on its face – it could never be anything other than a protest party that couldn’t aspire to power by sheer mathematics – and it builds on some particular mythology around the Reform Party that I’m not sure necessarily reflects history. You have people like Deborah Grey who hears this and just sighs about the notion about splitting the Conservative party again (though there is plenty to debate about how we qualify the “reunification”). Should Andrew Scheer read this poll and take it as a warning that his Western base thinks he’s pandering too much to Quebec? We’ve already seen him embrace some outright tinfoil hattery because he’s been spooked by Maxime Bernier and losing those votes – will he crank up his faux-Saskatchewan credentials to eleven for the rest of the election to keep pretending that he’s one of them to bash away at the federal government? Will we hear big and small-c conservatives double down on the faux mythology of Alberta’s conservativism (and if you haven’t yet, please do read Jen Gerson’s exploration of that mythology here). “Ooh, but protest vote!” people will handwave. But BC and Alberta would be protesting against different things – and different parts of BC would have different protests at that. Grievance-mongering is not a path to sustainable politics. Polls like this just confuse issues and make people think that there are magic wands – or in this case, magical political parties that could somehow cure all of their woes by forcing Ottawa to take them seriously, somehow. But that’s not real life, and politics is hard work, which is not something that this kind of polling reflects.

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Roundup: The C-69 battle begins

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The Senate’s Energy and Environment committee is slated to begin their examination of Bill C-69 today, which promises to be a right gong show as the Conservatives have been pledging to do everything they can to kill the bill, which could mean attempting to delay things as long as possible – which is one reason why they have been aggressively pushing for the committee to hold cross-country hearings. This is being pushed back against by the government whip – err, “liaison,” and the leader of the Independent Senators Group, but that hasn’t stopped the agitation. Conservative Senator Michael MacDonald went so far as to pen an op-ed in the National Post that says the prime minister is trying to “keep the Senate from the people,” which is absurd on its face considering that Trudeau’s hands-off policy on the Senate is one reason why the Chamber is in a bit of disarray at the moment.

Meanwhile, there will be an effort from non-Conservative senators to see amendments to the bill, which could create its own delays as the debates and votes on those amendments could get drawn out for weeks, while the parliamentary calendar ticks down. (For reference, I wrote this piece last week, talking to lawyers on both the environmental and proponent sides of the issue about the kinds of amendments they would like to see). The bill has its issues, no doubt, but the rhetoric around it has reached hyperbolic proportions, and much of the opposition we hear has become based on myth rather than fact or analysis. That’s going to make the Senate’s deliberations more difficult in the weeks ahead, as people will be howling about non-existent segments of the bill, and we’ll hear the daily demands in QP that the bill be withdrawn, never mind that the current system isn’t working and has been the subject of numerous court challenges. I suspect this will become a very nasty fight before the end of spring.

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Roundup: Backbench lessons

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Backbench Liberal MP Greg Fergus is learning the tough political lessons that just because the prime minister says something, it doesn’t mean that changes are necessarily happening. In this case, it’s the declaration by Justin Trudeau a year ago that the government would start to address the systemic barriers faced by Black Canadians, including anti-Black racism, but there has been negligible progress in the meantime, other than a commitment of funds. Fergus’ lesson – that lobbying can’t be a one-time thing, but an ongoing effort.

It’s certainly true, and he’s learning that the hard way – it’s easy to make a declaration, but you need to hold the government’s feet to the fire in order to ensure that things happen, particularly a sclerotic bureaucracy that doesn’t like to change the way it does things (and to be fair, you can’t just turn the way a bureaucracy does anything on a dime – it takes time, and it takes capacity-building, which can’t be done overnight). If anything, Fergus is getting a lesson in being a backbencher – that it’s his job to hold government to account, especially when it’s his own party in power. They can promise a lot of things, but you need to ensure that they actually do it, which is part of why Parliament exists, and why we need good backbenchers who want to do their jobs, and not just suck up to the prime minister in order to get into Cabinet. Hopefully we’ll see an invigoration in the way Fergus and others agitate to ensure that the government keeps its promises, because seeing the backbenchers doing their jobs is always a good thing in any parliament.

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Roundup: To travel or not to travel?

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There’s a battle brewing in the Senate over Bill C-69, and some of it seems like a concern trolling on the face of it. Given that the bill – which aims to reform the environmental assessment process – is contentious among certain sectors, and has been subject to a misinformation campaign by the Conservatives (who have dubbed it the “no more pipelines bill” based on zero actual evidence), there is a push by Conservative senators to have the Senate’s energy and environment committee take hearings on the road. You know, to hear directly from those affected. The bill’s sponsor, government whip – err, “liaison,” Senator Mitchell, resists that, and it looks like he’s got the leader of the Independent Senators Group, Senator Woo, more or less backing him, Woo saying that travel is unnecessary when you can videoconference.

The Conservatives are looking to delay the bill, likely to death, given that the number of sitting days in this parliament is rapidly dwindling. Never mind that many affected industries are behind the bill, or that most others say that they would rather see amendments at this stage than a whole new process because that just increases the uncertainty (and it should be pointed out that the current system, which the Harper government implemented, has not worked and has resulted in a number of court challenges). And to add to that fact, the senator who chairs the committee is inexperienced (and many will openly say that she doesn’t know what she’s doing), and the Conservatives on that committee haven’t been cooperative in getting the hearings up and running because they are protesting the fact that she appears to be taking dictation from the Government Leader in the Senate – err, “government representative,” Senator Harder. So, this is all turning into a giant mess. And did I mention that the number of sitting days is rapidly dwindling? I suspect this is going to get ugly.

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Roundup: McCallum’s gambit

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A political firestorm kicked off yesterday when it was revealed that our ambassador to China, John McCallum, held a media availability with Chinese-language media on Tuesday and didn’t inform Canadian media, and then he made comments about how Meng Wanzhou had a “strong case,” and laid out some reasons why, including the fact that Donald Trump politicised her arrest. There seemed to be some genuine confusion among the Canadian foreign affairs community about what exactly was going on here, including whether McCallum was freelancing or going on a limb, but during his own media availability later in the day, Trudeau didn’t distance himself from the comments – though he certainly danced around them a fair bit (though parliamentary secretary Arif Virani later went on Power & Politics to say that the government stood behind McCallum). And then the reaction – Erin O’Toole accusing McCallum of throwing the Americans under the bus, and Andrew Scheer insisting that he would fire McCallum if he was prime minister (for what good that would do).

It’s worth remembering that our extradition system always has the element of political discretion, in that the minister of justice has the final say once the court processes are over and have determined whether the case is viable. (Full explanation of the process here). Also, here’s a video of lawyer Michael Spratt explaining the process.

Meanwhile, Andrew Coyne says that McCallum put doubt into peoples’ minds about the rule of law, and will be seen to indicate a preference for the outcome, before wondering if McCallum was just freelancing or buying time with the Chinese. Given the swift media reaction in China, there may be more of the latter than the former in the calculation, but it’s hard to know at this point.

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Roundup: A few notes on the state of the Brexit drama

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Given the state of the drama in Westminster right now, I thought I’d make a couple of points about why we’re here now. It’s pretty unprecedented for a government to lose a vote – badly – on a major foreign policy plank without automatically losing confidence, and yet, thanks to the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, that’s exactly the case. And because Theresa May squeaked out a confidence vote, that leaves her in something of a precarious situation about not really having a mandate to continue on the path she was on, while not being able to take anything to the people in a general election, as might ordinarily be the case under our share Westminster system. The FTPA has made Parliament untenable, and enables bad actors to game the system, which would ordinarily have been avoided by the sheer fact that they would have been keen to avoid shenanigans that the Queen would need to be involved in.

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It seems to me that if the Westminster parliament were functioning normally, then May could have taken the question of proceeding with Brexit to the people in an election, given that she lost the vote of confidence. Of course that would necessitate Labour to come up with a coherent position (and perhaps a more coherent leader, which their current bastardised leadership selection process also gave them). That would have given the winning government a popular mandate to overtake the referendum if need be, but again, that’s now off the table because of the way the FTPA has distorted the Westminster system. With the practice of Responsible Government being blunted by this statute, it’s clear that it must go.

Meanwhile, Chantal Hébert looks at the Brexit omnishambles and compares it to the plans for Quebec sovereignty back in the day, and how this seems to be dampening any sovereigntist sentiment in the province even further (while getting in a few jabs about Andrew Scheer’s Brexit boosterism along the way). Andrew Coyne likewise looks to the Brexit drama as an object lesson in how seccession from any union is far from painless.

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Roundup: Huawei, Trump, and the rule of law

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The issue around the arrest of Huawei’s CFO in Vancouver last week took a number of turns yesterday, and is proving to be an utter gong show, thanks entirely to Donald Trump. So, to recap, the US ambassador to Canada stated that there was absolutely no political motivation behind the request for the arrest and extradition to the US, but meanwhile in China, a former Canadian diplomat who now works with International Crisis Group was arrested in China for no apparent reason, and there is no confirmation as to whether this is in retaliation for the Huawei arrest. Back in Vancouver, said CFO was granted bail for $10 million with five guarantors while she will await extradition hearings – and she has to surrender her passport, be under 24/7 surveillance and wear an ankle monitor, because she is considered a high flight risk. (Here’s a good backgrounder on all of the issues).

And then, it all went pear-shaped. Why? Because Donald Trump suddenly said that he’d intervene in the case if it helps to get a trade deal with China, which undermines the rule of law that Canada has been operating under and trying to assure Beijing that we’re operating under, and that because we have an independent judiciary with processes to be followed (which they can’t get their heads around because their judicial system is politicised), and all of the evidence around the criminal activities, allegations of fraud and of violating sanctions is apparently all for naught, because the US president has put his foot in it. And lo, Canada is relatively screwed by the whole thing. Hooray.

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Roundup: A noble bill with problems below the surface

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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.

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