Tag Archives: China

Roundup: Secret document demands

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The saga of Vice Admiral Mark Norman’s trial is making its way to the floor of the House of Commons, as Norman’s defence team has been trying to suggest that Brison tried to play a part in delaying the Davie Shipyard contract on behalf of his friends in the Irving family. Brison, meanwhile, tried to fend off the attacks in QP by suggesting that he did his due diligence as Treasury Board president to question the sole-source contract that the previous government entered into on the eve of the election.

Where this gets even more interesting, however, is with the suggestions in the documents that Norman’s team filed, was that senior bureaucrats tried to scuttle the deal because it could interfere with the established National Shipbuilding Programme, which everyone was so enormously proud of, and from there, Norman tipped off Davie officials, which was eventually leaked to the CBC. Added to that, Norman’s team are demanding a number of documents that have been deemed to be Cabinet confidence, which creates added complications because those are secret and could demand all new levels of safeguards for the court process if they are to be turned over. Trying to make political hay out of the government turning over the documents or not could be fraught with future consequences, however, for any future government that wants to protect secret materials from a court process, and given the growing propensity for people to turn to the courts when they lose at politics, that possibility could come sooner than one might expect. Nevertheless, this is an interesting case to keep an eye on, if only to shine a light on how broken our country’s procurement processes really are.

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Roundup: Yet more dubious suggestions hosted by the GRO

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Over on the Government Representative Office website, Government Leader in the Senate – err, “government representative” Senator Peter Harder has been hosting suggestions from former senators of late on how to “reform” the Senate. Because of course he has. And not all of the suggestions are particularly helpful, or good for the Senate in the long run. The latest example is from Senator Pierre De Bané, who was a senator for thirty years and an MP before that. De Bané seems to think that what the Senate needs more than anything is the independent oversight body that the Auditor General wants instituted before voluntarily neutering its powers by passing a motion to only use a suspensive veto. Because hey, if it’s good enough for the UK…

I’ve written numerous times that the notion of an independent oversight body risks the senate’s status as a self-governing parliamentary body. I would be okay with an audit committee that includes outside members but is still made up with a majority of senators in order to ensure that it remains in Senate control because it’s important that our parliamentary bodies retain self-governing status. Otherwise we might as well turn power back over to the Queen, because we obviously have no business governing ourselves. I’m also forever baffled by the notion that we should neuter the Senate’s ability to exercise hard power and defeat a bad government bill when necessary. It’s part of their necessary duties to hold government to account, and before you say that it’s good enough for the House of Lords, the Canadian Senate is a vastly different body than the Lords, with a very different history, and the Senate was never the primary legislative body as the Lords was for centuries. These are differences that can’t be papered over.

De Bané’s other suggestion is that the Senate start creating a series of special committees tailored to senators’ special interests to…do advocacy work, apparently. I’m not opposed to senators undertaking an advocacy role on issues that are of particular interest to them, I am less keen on the proliferation of special committees because I worry that it will draw the focus away from the actual legislative responsibilities of senators – especially in an environment with independent senators who are beholden to nobody and who aren’t able to be corralled into getting work done. We’re already having problems getting bills passed in a timely manner because the leadership within the Senate refuses to do things like negotiate with one another – now imagine that these senators are otherwise engaged with busywork of their own interest rather than with the boring work of scrutinising legislation or holding government to account. I do fear that creating an environment where personalized committees can proliferate will have a detrimental effect on the Senate overall, and I’m a bit surprised that a former senator doesn’t see this possibility.

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Roundup: Carbon tax opportunism

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The latest round of carbon tax drama has the Conservatives drunk with glee, as Manitoba premier Brian Pallister’s decision to scrap his own carbon tax plans has them thinking that they now have a national momentum against carbon taxes. It’s not likely to be that simple – and they may find out that it may blow up in their faces. Pallister says he changed his mind about it after meeting with Trudeau, and found Trudeau intransigent on letting Manitoba keep their tax at a flat $25/tonne when everyone’s else was ramping up to $50/tonne, which sounds like a no-brainer – you want a consistent carbon price across the country to prevent leakage and to keep a level playing field. (Pallister also claims that their plan was so comprehensive, but in interviews would point to things like remediating mines and recycling programmes, which are not about addressing climate change, and his deliberate misinformation should be called out as such). But it also smacks of opportunism, given that small-c conservatives across the country are taking the election of Doug Ford in Ontario as some sign that there is an uprising against carbon taxes when that was very likely not the cause of his election, but rather it was the impetus for change from the province’s tired Liberal government. Overreading Ford’s “mandate,” if we’re going to use that word, is dangerous for them to do. Meanwhile, Ford was yukking it up with Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe in their insulting the federal carbon tax, each believing their mutual court challenges are going to go somewhere (they’re likely not), and Ford would say things like a carbon tax is the worst thing in the world and will do nothing for the environment – complete falsehoods, and all he has to do is look at BC to show the complete opposite.

The federal government, meanwhile, hasn’t been terribly eloquent in their response, on the one hand decrying Pallister’s “flip flop” and worrying that conservatives want pollution to be free, while also pointing out that when the federal backstop comes in, people will be getting cheques in the mail. And that’s going to be the Achilles heel of the federal Conservatives’ belief that the country is going to rise up against carbon taxes. They keep pushing the narrative that it’s a tax grab to feed the Liberals’ “out of control spending” when it’s in the enabling legislation for the carbon tax that the funds will be rebated. But the government hasn’t been eloquent – and has been barely competent – when it comes to any kind of messaging on this file, and that’s the part that will probably hurt them the most, and it’ll be a self-inflicted wound, which makes you just shake your head watching it all go down.

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Roundup: Leniency for chronic offenders

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There was an interesting piece about document security lapses within the federal government, which is something that speaks to me as someone who spent time doing records management within a federal department back during my early days in Ottawa as I was building up my freelance career (before I started on the Hill). The report cited 3075 lapses in the past year at Public Services and Procurement, with six employees being cited as chronic offenders.

During my time doing this kind of document work, there were a rash of news stories about secret documents being left unattended, or being thrown out and found on street corners, and much of it boils down to a culture within the public service of not caring about document security – in part because people aren’t trained to care about it. It was also because, in my department’s experience, every time they would train an admin assistant in document management, she would go on mat leave, then her replacement wouldn’t be trained to the same level, and she would go on mat leave or another assignment, and her replacement not trained, and on it went. So records went unattended, and people in the department stopped properly dealing with their records, including those who were supposed to be kept secret. And you’d see people in the Tim Horton’s downstairs from the office with Protected of Secret file folders on them, despite the fact that they weren’t supposed to leave the office area. And nobody seemed to care about that fact – all of which reinforced the notion that there isn’t a culture of responsibility around these kinds of things.

Which brings me back to the article. With those chronic offenders, they are being treated leniently, despite the fact that they are supposed to be subjected to tough sanctions, including demotion or termination. But as with so many things in the public service, where there are so few instances where there are consequences for transgressions, it seems to reinforce the notion that document security doesn’t need to be taken seriously, and then we get more security and privacy breaches. If there were actual consequences, that might start making an effort at reducing the number of breaches.

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Roundup: Cluelessly disparaging parliamentary privilege

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Sometimes you read an op-ed so clueless that it burns. This piece by lawyer and part-time law professor Daniel Tsai about the Mike Duffy lawsuit is one of those pieces. Tsai argues that the lawsuit is an opportunity for the courts to make changes to the Senate that, according to him, will make it “more accountable.” As his evidence, he cites statements from Government Leader in the Senate – err, “government representative” Senator Peter Harder darkly musing that some senators may want to protect their friends, and Senator Marilou McPhedran’s quest to root out harassment in the Senate as “proof” that the problem is the Senate’s parliamentary privilege. But he also cites former Senator Don Meredith as a case of harassment without also acknowledging that it was because the Senate has parliamentary privilege that they’re able to discipline their own, and that they had recommended expulsion for his breaching the Senate’s ethical code, and that forced his hand to resign. This is a feature, not a bug.

The whole piece demonstrates that, lawyer or not, Tsai doesn’t understand what privilege is, the importance of Parliament’s need to be self-governing (if it’s not, we might as well just turn power back over to the Queen), or the fact that the institutional independence of the Senate (which allows it to hold the government to account) requires it to have a robust set of privileges that can police its own members rather than subject the institution to threats of lawsuits from its various members when they’ve feeling sore by the fact that they’ve been disciplined. Weakening privilege won’t make the Senate more accountable – it will make it vulnerable to vexatious litigation, and along the way, weaken the House of Commons’ own parliamentary privileges as well (because the privileges of the Senate and the Commons are inextricably linked).

None of this is to suggest that the Senate is perfect – it’s not, and there have been bad apples that generally have been made to resign when the going gets tough. Tsai completely ignores the constitutional role of the Senate and the way in which it’s constructed with a defined purpose in mind in order to engage in some populist pandering to the myths that surround the institution. His “solution” about a judicially-imposed limitation on the privileges that are embedded in the constitution (seriously?!) would make things worse, not better.

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QP: Pointing out the line-item votes

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In what is likely the final week of the sitting, all leaders were present for what is likely the final Monday QP, and Andrew Sheer led off, and in French, he whined that his party forced a vote-a-thon, and demanded the cost of the federal tax on families. Justin Trudeau reminded him that everything was transparent on their website, and they have consulted with experts to design it. Sheer tried again in English, and Trudeau listed the line items from the Estimates that the Conservatives voted against in their vote-a-thon, and called their lack of a plan the real environmental cover-up. Sheer then moved onto that ISIS returnee walking the streets of Toronto, to which Trudeau retorted with the cuts that the Conservatives made to CBSA, and said that their security agencies are protecting Canadians. Scheer insisted that they had enough information to lay terrorism charges, and to this, Trudeau took up a script to list tools that national security agencies have. Scheer insisted that the government was taking away tools from National Security Agencies, to which Trudeau countered that they are in fact investing in new tools. Guy Caron led off for the NDP, worrying about child poverty in Canada, to which Trudeau reminded him that the numbers being cited were from 2015, before the Canada Child Benefit was created, which was lowering child poverty. Caron then cited the child removals at the US Border and wondered if the US was still a Safe Third Country. Trudeau stated that he wouldn’t play politics with this, but that the UN still designated the US a safe country. Jenny Kwan tried again in English, with added sanctimony, to which Trudeau noted that he was going to remain focused on a constructive relationship with the United States, and that he was trying to build support for refugees globally. Kwan demanded the Safe Third Country Agreement be suspended, and Trudeau insisted that he wasn’t going to play politics with it.

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QP: Sunset clause off the table?

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Although Justin Trudeau was present for QP today, Andrew Scheer was not, once again. Lisa Raitt led off, asking succinctly if it was true that Trump took the five-year sunset clause off of the negotiating table. Trudeau got up to first thank the opposition and all Canadian for standing together, and after some applause, noted that they are still negotiating but they would not accept a sunset clause. Raitt wanted a clear yes or no if it was taken off the table, and Trudeau spoke around the question, talking about his meeting on Friday, but would not say if it was taken off that table. Raitt said that she would have to take it as a yes, and worried about the trade war on families in her riding, before demanding that carbon taxes and payroll taxes be scrapped. Trudeau said that no, the sunset clause was not taken off the table, before talking about how tariffs would hurt American workers as well as Canadian ones. Alain Rayes took over in French, and concern trolled about the deficit and the drop in foreign investment, and worried how the prime minister could say he was good for the economy. Trudeau deployed his well-worn talking point about Canadians choosing investment instead of austerity. Rayes listed areas where the Fraser Institute says that taxes went up, to which Trudeau reminded him that the Fraser report didn’t take the Canada Child Benefit into account. Guy Caron led off for the NDP, asking about a First Nation band building a solar farm on their land while a pipeline crosses it, framing it as competing visions, to which Trudeau took up a script to rad that the Federal Court of Appeal started that the previous government didn’t adequately consult First Nations and his government did. Caron reiterated in French, and this time Trudeau read that they used to support Rachel Notley’s plan, before listing similar measures his government is taking. Alexandre Boulerice railed that they were not investing in a fair energy transition, and Trudeau reiterated his Notley’s-filled script. Jenny Kwan railed that CPP may invest in the pipeline, to which Trudeau repeated Notley’s plan, yet again.

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Roundup: A major amendment at committee

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There will be another looming showdown between the Senate and the Commons in the coming weeks, as the Senate’s Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee narrowly voted to remove the random mandatory alcohol testing provisions from Bill C-46, the government’s new impaired driving legislation. And this wasn’t just the Conservatives being obstructionist – Liberals joined in this too, the tie-breaker coming from Senator Serge Joyal. Why? Because this provision is almost certainly unconstitutional. Senator Denise Batters, who moved the motion, explained the reasons in this video here:

It can’t be understated that the criminal defence bar has been warning for months that this will lead to even more court challenges, including Charter challenges, and that it will do nothing to alleviate the backlog in the courts, and would only make them worse in the post-Jordandecision world of tight timelines. And if you don’t think that this won’t create problems, then just look to BC to see what moving to administrative roadside penalties for impaired driving did to their court system – it’s created a cottage industry of court challenges to those citations. I’ve interviewed these lawyers before. One of them, for whom this is her specialty (as tweeted below) knows what she speaks when it comes to what this bill will do.

The government will point to constitutional scholars that told them their plans were sound, but again, this likely won’t be definitively be answered until it gets put to the Supreme Court of Canada. And plenty of lawyers will also point out – correctly – that just because the police are looking for certain powers, it doesn’t mean they should get them because they will infringe on Canadians’ Charter rights. The funny thing is that this creates a schism within the Conservative caucus, with the MPs being in favour of the bill (much of it having been copied from a bill that Steven Blaney tabled), but then again, the Senate is more independent than people like to give it credit for.

So now the justice minister says that this is unacceptable, that it guts the bill (not really true – the marijuana provisions are all still intact I believe, which is why this bill was a companion piece to the marijuana legalisation bill in the first place), and she won’t have these amendments. We’ll see whether the full Senate votes to adopt these amendments or not – there’s been a lot of talk from the Government Leader in the Senate – err, “government representative,” Senator Peter Harder, that they shouldn’t vote down bills of dubious constitutionality because that should be the role for the courts (I fundamentally disagree with that – it’s actually the Senate’s job), and we’ll see how many of the new Independents are swayed by Harder’s arguments. But it’s one more bit of drama to look forward to.

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QP: Conflicts, subsidies, and elections

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While Justin Trudeau was off in Charlevoix, and Andrew Scheer in Laval as part of his “listening to Quebeckers” tour, there were no leaders in the Commons today except for Elizabeth May. Candice Bergen led off, raising new allegations from the Globe and Mail about the Arctic surf clam fishery, to which Dominic LeBlanc assured her the allegation was false, before reminding her that they included Indigenous people in the fishery when the previous government didn’t. Bergen reiterated the previous allegations about the process including the accusation that his family will benefit, and this time LeBlanc was a little more sharp in his reiteration that the allegations are false, and the fact that he has no family connection in the case. Bergen demanded that the prime minister remove him from the file, and LeBlanc assured her that he would cooperate with the Ethics Commissioner, but pointedly reminded her that she should stick to the facts. Jacques Gourde took over to ask the same again in French, and LeBlanc called out the fact that they were simply reiterating the same falsehoods in French. After a second round of the same, Ruth Ellen Brosseau led off for the NDP, demanding an end to fossil fuel subsidies by 2019 and to know how much would be given to Kinder Morgan. Bill Morneau got up to say that they were on track to phase out subsidies by 2020, and that they were still talking with Kinder Morgan. Nathan Cullen reiterated the same in English, with a heap of added sanctimony, to which Morneau repeated his same answer. Cullen then got up to moralise about  getting multi-party support for the elections bill, to which Karina Gould praised it going to committee to get the “study and interrogation” that it deserves. Brosseau repeated the same in French, and got the same response.

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QP: Emerging from the fog of repayment demands

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Thursday, and with the PM off to Edmonton, and Andrew Scheer giving his first major economic policy plank in a nearby hotel, it was a bit odd that Scheer didn’t bother to show up since he was in town. Alain Rayes led off, reading some heroic praise about how the Conservatives insisted the prime minister be investigated for his vacation, and demanded repayment for it. Once again. Bardish Chagger dutifully stood up to read the approved talking points about the PM taking responsibility and making changes going forward. Rayes tried again, got the same answer, and on his third attempt, Rayes tried in vain to link it to previous repayments, and Chagger reiterated her points a third time. Candice Bergen got up to try the same again in English, and with added indignation, and Chagger added praise for the PM’s town hall in her talking points. Bergen tried another tortured analogy with Trudeau saying that harassment codes apply to him so why not repayment, and while Chagger reiterated her previous points. Guy Caron led off for the NDP, noting how much other countries have recovered from the Panama Papers, while Diane Lebouthillier responded that they were investigating. Caron raised the bonuses that CRA executives were getting, but Lebouthillier stuck with stats on how combatting evasion. Ruth Ellen Brosseau stood up to sound the alarm about investment funds being involved with the Infrastructure Bank. Marc Garneau praised the fact that the Bank was now in operation and had a diverse board, and after another round of the same in French, Garneau responded in English about what a great optional tool the Bank could be for communities. Continue reading →