For a second day in a row, all leaders were present in the Commons, ready to go for QP after a morning of caucus meetings. Rona Ambrose led off, asking about the secrecy over whether our Forces were on the front lines in Iraq. Justin Trudeau said that their role in assisting and training was important and dangerous but necessary work. Ambrose worried that the lack of transparency with no technical briefings, and Trudeau noted the need for operational security. Ambrose asked again in French, got the same response. From there, Ambrose went onto fundraising and tried to link ministers going to fundraisers with the former system in Ontario, and Trudeau reminded her that there are strict and transparent rules. She pressed again, but Trudeau responded a bit more forcefully. Thomas Mulcair kept up the fundraising questions, calling activities “unethical” and wanted tougher rules into law. Trudeau reiterated the strict federal laws, and they went another round of the same in French. Mulcair then moved onto funding for First Nations children, demanding support for their Supply Day motion on the subject tomorrow. Trudeau spoke about respect and working in partnership and the noted the investments to date. Mulcair asked again in English, and got much the same response.
Tag Archives: CETA
Roundup: No, it’s not cash-for-access
This latest round of pearl-clutching over political fundraising is reaching its fever pitch in a most tiresome way possible, and I’m losing all patience with it. Determined to try and label it “cash-for-access” in order to tie the story in with the gross lack of fundraising rules that existed in Ontario, and the very dubious practices of the government there of having ministers essentially asking for donations from companies lobbying them, what’s going on at the federal level is nothing like that at all. However, bored journalists are drawing lines on between people who are attending or organizing fundraisers and lobbying activities, despite everything being reported and above board, are going “Look! Look! Smell test!” But I’m having a really, really hard time buying this. Likewise with opposition parties going “Sure, it’s in the rules, but Trudeau’s letters said that nobody should have the appearance of conflict of interest and this has the appearance!” No, it actually doesn’t. Just because you say it does, it doesn’t mean that there’s a problem.
I’m trying very hard not to come off as some kind of an apologist, but for the love of all the gods on Olympus, we have a really, really clean fundraising system with clear rules, and it shouldn’t bear repeating (and yet here we are) that you can’t buy influence for $1500. You just can’t. Sure, you might get to meet a minister, but what is that going to get you? You think they’re going to engineer a special loophole in the law for your company because you donated $1500 to their party – registered through Elections Canada, and the lobbying registry? Honestly? And it’s not like there aren’t a hundred other consultations that you could offer your suggestions to a minster or their staff with, because as we know, this government loves to consult. And further to that, are we actively trying to insist that no minister should ever fundraise because, well, “smell test” or “appearance.” Give me a break.
Meanwhile, we get inundated with everyone giving their “solution” to this, whether it’s returning the per-vote subsidy as Susan Delacourt suggests here, or if it’s Duff Conacher howling in the corner that we should adopt the Quebec donor limits of $100 (ignoring that limits that are too low means that money starts getting funnelled in other ways). But maybe, just maybe, we should all take a deep breath and realise that the more we get hysterical about this perfectly above-board fundraising in a clean and quite transparent system, it’s that we’re turning it into some zero-sum game. If we keep inventing scandal, shouting “smell test!” and “appearance!” when no, a reasonable and rational look at the situation shows that there isn’t actually a problem, we’re going to wind up giving excuses for parties to start hiding these activities. To paraphrase Rick Anderson on last night’s Power & Politics, there’s only a perception problem around this fundraising because people are throwing mud. It’s time to stop throwing mud and be grown-ups about it. This isn’t cash-for-access. $1500 is not buying influence. Stop lighting your hair on fire.
https://twitter.com/jec79/status/791117661476388866
QP: Demanding a firm commitment on Yazidis
All leaders, permanent or interim, were present for QP today, and it feels like a while since that has been the case. Rona Ambrose led off, mini-lectern on desk, demanding to know how many Yazidi refugees the government would bring to Canada in the next 120 days. Trudeau thanked her for her leadership on the file, and committed to doing so, but didn’t provide a number. Ambrose asked about the call for Chancellor Merkel in Germany to create security zones in Iraq, and Trudeau committed to more aid for refugees. Ambrose moved onto CETA, and demanded Trudeau get on a plane and do anything necessary to get the deal signed. Trudeau reminded her that they already made progress on getting ISDS, and he expected good news in the coming days. Ambrose changed topics again, raised the Medicine Hat by-election as a pronouncement on the carbon tax schemes, and Trudeau promised more visits to Alberta. Ambrose then moved again, this time onto “cash-for-access” fundraisers, and Trudeau reminded her that the low personal limits in Canada ensured that there were no ethical problems. Thomas Mulcair was up next, and tried to go after the same issue, and Trudeau reminded him that looking south of the border, our system was well above and repeated that the low limits meant there were no ethical issues. Mulcair tried again in French, got the same answer, and then moved onto the situation at Muskrat Falls and the health of those Aboriginals who rely on fishing in the area. Trudeau reminded him that the provinces were working on the issue, and he trusted them, and they went one more round in English.
https://twitter.com/aaronwherry/status/790982900221091841
Roundup: Chong’s plans are a start
While new Conservative leadership candidate Steven Blaney decided to come out swinging with a niqab ban policy designed to appeal to those Quebeckers still hot for the idea and to give Kellie Leitch a run for her money, Michael Chong also came out with some policy yesterday morning – much more modest policy in line with how he thinks he could start to change parliament for the better if he were party leader. Because it’s not big policy pronouncements, it’s more in keeping with the kinds of things that leadership candidates should be focusing on, but that said, there are a few problems with what he laid out. I tweeted some of those concerns earlier, but I’ll elaborate a bit more.
Not sure about some of Chong’s proposals. Some, like the veto, are necessary but needs to be done right. He didn’t with his Reform Act. 1/ pic.twitter.com/eX1lsZ9zJZ
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) October 24, 2016
So yes, Chong made a valiant attempt at doing this with this Reform Act, but it got so watered down in his amending the bill to get it passed that it rendered it useless, and the veto went from the party leader to their designated surrogate. This is a promise that is more difficult than it sounds because there does need to be a quality control mechanism in place (which is why it was introduced in the first place), but it also needs to be arm’s length from the leader, and Chong’s previous proposals for such an officer didn’t fly. He’ll need to try and thread this needle much more carefully going forward.
I’m not sure the point of free registrations. Most fees aren’t onerous and if they are, parties should address that on their own. 2/
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) October 24, 2016
This one bothers me a fair deal because it’s buying into the nonsense that the Liberal Party has been spreading with their reforms to their party constitution. They claim it’s about “modernizing” the party structure and making it more responsive, but it’s more about populating databases, so that when they come out with top-down policy pronouncements, they can use their Big Data approach to justify anything. If other parties want to simply populate their own databases to target or micro-target policies even more that the Conservatives did during their decade in office, this isn’t actually good for democracy, and it’s not actually good for the grassroots. You don’t have people who are quite literally buying into the process (thus putting some skin in the game) and having an interest in their responsibilities as members when it comes to policy and nominations. It devalues membership, and I do think that’s a problem.
Changes to the Senate Speaker is a constitutional issue, and there are real implications for letting senators choose Government Leader. 4/
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) October 24, 2016
The fact that Carignan and now Harder are not cabinet ministers (but still in PC) is simply peevish optics. Not something to continue. 6/5
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) October 24, 2016
Promising reforms to the way the Senate operates while billing this as part of a package of giving power back to the grassroots is curious, but I’ll run with it only so far as to say that Chong shouldn’t actually be trying to out-Trudeau on this. Trudeau has put some things in motion that are not actually for the better, be it centralizing power in his own caucus, or trying to weaken the accountability role of the Senate, while his current “representative” there is trying to upend the whole system so that he can be the true bureaucrat that he is and empire-build, co-opting the whole burgeoning independent system for his own ends. Chong not grasping the constitutional role of the Senate Speaker, or the role of the Government Leader under Responsible Government is worrying, and I do feel like he should know better and not just try to play the reform-for-the-sake-of-reform card. That becomes a very dangerous thing under our system, especially because the system is not broken, so we should stop trying to break it while insisting on fixing problems that don’t actually exist.
QP: Demanding adult supervision
Despite the fact that it was a Monday, none of the leaders save Elizabeth May were present in the Commons. Denis Lebel led off, blaming Chrystia Freeland for being unable to conclude the Canada-EU trade agreement, or any other trade agreement. Freeland insisted that Canada had done its job, but this was an internal dispute for the EU to resolve and then come back to Canada, and that she remained committed to it. Lebel repeated the question in English word-for-word, and Freeland elaborated on her answer. Lebel demanded that the PM head to Europe to salvage the deal — as though that was how negotiations work, and Freeland started getting feistier about the previous government’s record. Gerry Ritz picked up the torch, and took on a more bullying tone with a pair of questions that belittled Freeland for her visible emotion in Brussels, and saying that she needed the “adult supervision” of the Prime Minister. Freeland had none of it, and hit back on the previous government’s record on the stalled agreement and expensive signing ceremonies for a deal that wasn’t done. Murray Rankin led off for the NDP, and kept up the same topic, but from the angle that they needed to drop the investor-state dispute resolution mechanism. Freeland listed socialist governments in Europe who had signed onto the deal, trying to prove it’s not just an ideological divide. Niki Ashton then got up to decry the comments from the Finance Minister about “job churn,” decrying precarious work. MaryAnn Mihychuk said that the new work environment had a lot to do with technology but they were helping Canadians. Ashton demanded that Morneau and the PM attend their precarious job summit, to which Mihychuk reminded her that they have a youth workers council.
I guess this is to be expected. But CPC's line on this today is transparently disingenuous.
— Michael Den Tandt (@mdentandt) October 24, 2016
Conservatives demand Trudeau put an "adult at the table" to get CETA done – which seems to be an unsubtle dig that a girl can't do it.
— Tonda MacCharles (@TondaMacC) October 24, 2016
Roundup: Lamenting the regional ministries
Agriculture minister Lawrence MacAulay told his local paper that he’s not too concerned that the minister in charge of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency isn’t from the region, but that he’s a Central Canadian, but hey, he’s gotten results so it’s all good. And then people went insane because how dare the government not have a regional development minister from the region, ignoring that the policy of this government has been to eschew the tradition of regional ministers writ large, and that all regional development agencies all report to the same minister – the industry minister – rather than spreading it around to a number of ministers of state (and bloating the size of cabinet while you’re at it). And then from there comes the perennial outrage that we have regional representation at the cabinet level, which ignores that cabinet positions are not actually something that requires subject matter expertise, but that it’s a political position that is largely based on managerial competence, which is fine, particularly under a system of Responsible Government that the legislature can hold them to account for the performance of their duties. After all, they have the civil service to do the subject-matter expertise part for them, and it’s the job of ministers to make decisions that they can then be held to account for. But a few of the exchanges were at least worth noting.
https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/790304049916698624
https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/790320546814824449
https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/790323018631348225
https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/790323328108130304
Most of those were all well and good, but this one from Candice Bergen caught my eye, because it actually highlights something that has largely been ignored.
Eliminating Regional Economic Agency & Regional Ministers centralizes power in PMO & gives them ability to push certain provinces around. https://t.co/IGCyFdnFa4
— Candice Bergen Harris (@CandiceBergen_) October 23, 2016
While it may be a little overwrought, the point about centralizing power in the PMO is actually quite astute, and fits the pattern of centralization that Trudeau has been entirely underreported. Within the Liberal Party itself, Trudeau has convinced the party to abolish its regional powerbases and centralize it all within his own office under the guise of “modernization” and “being more responsive.” Once could very well argue that eliminating regional minister has a similar effect. That said, one could also argue that the purpose of regional minister was about pork-barrelling and doing the partisan work of securing votes from those very same regions for the government’s benefit, so their loss wouldn’t be too deeply felt in a move to make a system built to be more responsive to evidence than political consideration. Regardless, the propensity of this prime minister to consolidate power should not be underestimated, and this is something we should absolutely be keeping an eye on.
Roundup: Walking out on Wallonia
Talks to save the Canada-EU trade agreement broke down yesterday, and after more than two days of direct talks, trade minister Chrystia Freeland walked out of the meeting and basically declared that it was now impossible for the EU to come to an international trade deal. And really, this was about the Walloons in Belgium who weren’t letting this go through. Wallonia’s president tried to sound an optimistic tone, and said that “difficulties remain” around largely the investor-state dispute resolution mechanism and wanted Justin Trudeau to hold off on his planned trip to Europe next week to finalize the deal so that the Walloons could have more time.
And, ultimately, the left-wing opposition to CETA is hard to defeat, because it's largely conspiratorial.
— Justin Ling (Has Left) (@Justin_Ling) October 21, 2016
And all those promises that the WTO, NAFTA, ICSID, etc are coming to steal your sovereignty away? They never came to fruition.
— Justin Ling (Has Left) (@Justin_Ling) October 21, 2016
All this to say is that it's hard to convince a conspiracy theorist.
— Justin Ling (Has Left) (@Justin_Ling) October 21, 2016
While Freeland said she was ready to get back on a plane and go home to see her kids, it looks like the EU president managed to keep her around for more talks, which may have been the whole point of Freeland’s exit – so that the rest of the EU could pressure Wallonia to come to their senses. While Belgium’s ambassador to Canada also said that the deal wasn’t dead, we did see some of the usual suspects line up to applaud the potential demise of the agreement, like Elizabeth May, the NDP, and the Council of Canadians.
Throughout this, however, I will admit to more than a little distaste at the snide tone of the Conservatives throughout all of this. In QP yesterday, Candice Bergen laid this at the feet of Freeland personally and declared that she would have to “wear it.” Gerry Ritz said that Freeland should have “rolled up her sleeves” and stayed at the table (which she had already been doing), and Rona Ambrose demanded that Justin Trudeau get on a plane and smooth this over himself. And there is this overall tone that the deal had been “gift wrapped” for the Liberals (after Harper had already done two symbolic signings of the agreement before it had been ratified), which is specious and facile. The Liberals have countered that the deal was essentially dead before Freeland resurrected it, largely through reopening some of the negotiations and through declaratory statements to clarify the language in the provisions of the deal, so it’s not like they didn’t do nothing. Quite the opposite, in fact. And one fails to see how it’s Freeland’s fault when pretty much everyone agrees that this is now an internal EU matter that Canada really can’t do anything about. Then again, the Conservative message around other trade deals like softwood lumber are equally fantastical (how they could have forced the Americans to come to an agreement when they clearly aren’t interested is beyond me, and there was a lot of unhappiness with the deal they signed when they first got into office that gave the Americans a victory). Sure, they signed a bunch of deals with small countries with small economies. Sure, they got CETA and TPP off the ground, but they still protected a lot of industries that didn’t necessarily deserve it, nor did they seal those deals either. Trade is a difficult business, and I’m not sure they have the moral authority to be as frankly abusive as they have been on the file.
Roundup: Fundraising fears
It’s been a curious thing the last few days, watching in QP as the Conservatives are tearing their hair out over this Bill Morneau fundraiser in Halifax and raising the spectre of the wealthy contributing to politics, and calling Bill Morneau a millionaire like it’s a bad thing. As though suddenly the Conservative Party of Canada has become overrun by socialists or something. Really, it’s just their cheap populism run amok, trying to cast themselves as champions of ordinary Canadians (never mind that their policies disproportionately aided wealthier Canadians during their decade in power), and if they really were the champions of the working class, you would think the rest of their policies to date would be different (such as around labour unions or the Canada Pension Plan, or anything like that), but no. And if you think this is really a question about ethics or conflicts of interest, well, no, the Ethics Commissioner herself has stated that this fundraiser was above board, but hey, if they wanted to tighten the rules around fundraising, she’s been asking them to do that for years and after a decade in power, they wouldn’t do that either. So here we are, with a desperate attempt to frame perfectly above-board fundraising as “cash for access” and somehow comparable to the situation in Ontario, which it’s not. Meanwhile, Howard Anglin had a perfectly apropos tweet storm on this, so I’ll let him finish off here.
1/ *If* none of the "well-heeled" (how do we know they are?) "business leaders" is a Finance Ministry stakeholder .. https://t.co/1PA2BWv76E
— Howard Anglin (@howardanglin) October 21, 2016
3/ And making it sound like it is undermines public confidence in what is a very clean federal political system post Fed Accountability Act.
— Howard Anglin (@howardanglin) October 21, 2016
5/ Again, the caveat is that stakeholders of a ministry cannot attend a fundraiser featuring that Minister. $50 or $1500, doesn't matter.
— Howard Anglin (@howardanglin) October 21, 2016
7/ Amount (below max) is relevant only as a matter political perception. Media does not help by encouraging misperception of misbehaviour.
— Howard Anglin (@howardanglin) October 21, 2016
9/ There's plenty to be concerned about in fed politics (out of control spending/self-serving "reforms"), but not fundraisers w/in the rules
— Howard Anglin (@howardanglin) October 21, 2016
Roundup: A warning or a betrayal?
Justin Trudeau made some comments to Le Devoir about the reduced sense of urgency around electoral reform, and a bunch of people – notably the NDP – freaked out. Trudeau said:
Under Stephen Harper, there were so many people unhappy with the government and their approach that people were saying, ‘It will take electoral reform to no longer have a government we don’t like’. But under the current system, they now have a government they’re more satisfied with and the motivation to change the electoral system is less compelling.
And then comes the parsing of the rhetoric – is he trying to walk back on his election promise that 2015 was the last election under first-past-the-post, or is he trying to give signals to the electoral reform committee as they begin to draft their report after their summer of consultations across the country? To the NDP (and Ed Broadbent of his eponymously named Institute), Trudeau’s comments are a betrayal because to them, he can only deliver proportional representation or bust. Their working premise is that Trudeau was saying that because the system elected Liberals it’s fine, but when it elected Conservatives, it was broken. But I’m not sure that’s what Trudeau was actually saying, because the prevailing popular discussion pre-election was that reform was needed because any system that delivered Conservative majorities was deemed illegitimate – one of those kinds of talking points that gives me hives because it presumes that electoral reform needs to be done for partisan reasons. And to that extent, Trudeau is right, that the sense of urgency has decreased because the Conservatives are no longer in power, so there’s less clamour for it to happen. There is also the theory that what Trudeau was signalling was that there are degrees of acceptable change, and that without as much broad support that smaller change like ranked ballots could be something he would push through (seeing as we all know that the committee is going to be deadlocked).
https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/788788763854077952
https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/788789074228371457
Kady O’Malley, on the other hand, thinks that Trudeau is signalling to the NDP and Greens that they should be willing to compromise on PR during the committee deliberations, or he’ll deem it a stalemate and either walk away or put it to a referendum, where it would almost certainly be doomed. Rona Ambrose says that it could signal that Trudeau is backing down, which the Conservatives would like (and to be perfectly honest, I would too because the system is not broken and electoral reform is a solution in search of a problem). That he may have found the excuse to back down and admit this election promise is a failure – and then move on – would be the ideal move in my most humble opinion.
QP: Woe be the small business
While nearly all of the leaders were present today, it was the Prime Minister who was absent today (though he did show up for votes afterward), so when Rona Ambrose led off with another disingenuous questions about taxes, Bill Morneau stood up to remind her that they lowered taxes on millions of households. Ambrose then decried Trudeau meeting with billionaires and demanded that he instead reverse tax increases on small businesses. Morneau reminded her that those taxes went down, and that those meetings were bringing investment to Canada, such as with Thompson Reuters opening that new tech centre in Toronto. Ambrose closed with another overwrought lament about the plight of families, while Morneau responded with a list of the measures they implemented to help families. Denis Lebel took over, and lamented that the federal government was getting too involved in provincial jurisdiction around healthcare. Carolyn Bennett took the question, and reminded him that Jane Philpott was meeting with her provincial counterparts and they waned results for their transfers. Lebel tried again, and Bennett hit back with Maxime Bernier’s plan disband all health transfers. Thomas Mulcair stood up for the NDP, and decried “cuts” to healthcare — despite the fact that there aren’t any. Bennett noted that there was no cut, and reminded Mulcair that his election promise of increased health transfers with a balanced budget would have resulted in cuts across the board. Mulcair tried again, got much the same reply. Mulcair tried to insist that the government was confusing competence with jurisdiction with health spending, and Bennett laid out the divisions. Mulcair demanded that the Prime Minister meet with the premiers to discuss health funding, to which Bennett said there would be a meeting soon.
Peter Julian just got named by the Speaker for heckling Bennett. #QP
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) October 18, 2016
https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/788446704429391873