Tag Archives: Commonwealth

Roundup: Taking Atwood’s unfounded concerns too seriously

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I am starting to think that the Globe and Mail has a secret penchant for humiliating Margaret Atwood while pretending to substantiate her concerns about legislation. They did it with Bill C-11 on online streaming, where Atwood read a bunch of utter nonsense on the internet, some of it by a fellow CanLit author who is currently a crank in the Senate, and she got concerned about bureaucrats telling people what to write. It was utterly ridiculous, but what did the Globe do? Write up her concerns as though she knew what she was talking about, including the part where she admitted she hadn’t really read the bill.

And now they’re doing it again—same journalist, in fact—about the Online Harms bill. Atwood again read some stupid things online, this time from the right-wing press in the UK, and is again worried about “Orwellian” consequences because of “vague laws” and “no oversight.” And hey, the Globe insists that because she wrote The Handmaid’s Tale, she’s an expert in Orwellian dystopias. But again, Atwood is operating on a bunch of bad information and false assumptions, and the story in the Globe doesn’t actually do the job of fact-checking any of this, it just lets her run free with this thought and spinning it out into the worst possible scenario, which if you know anything about the bill or have spoken to the experts who aren’t concern trolling (and yes, there are several), you would know that most of this is bunk.

The biggest thing that Atwood misses and the Globe story ignores entirely is that the hate speech provisions codify the Supreme Court of Canada’s standard set out in the Whatcott decision, which means that for it to qualify, it needs to rise to the level of vilification and detestation, and it sets out what that means, which includes dehumanising language, and demands for killing or exile. That’s an extremely high bar, and if you’re a government, you can’t go around punishing your enemies or censoring speech you don’t like with that particular bar codified in the gods damned bill. I really wish people would actually pay attention to that fact when they go off half-cocked on this bill, and that journalists interviewing or writing about the topic would actually mention that fact, because it’s really gods damned important. Meanwhile, maybe the Globe should lay off on talking to Atwood about her concerns until they’re certain that she has a) read the legislation, and b) understood it. Honestly.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces downed 15 out of 25 drones launched toward Odesa, while a Russian missile destroyed a grain silo in the Dnipro region. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that their frontline situation is the best it’s been in three months as they have improved their strategic position. Here is a deeper look at the Ukrainians’ retreat from Avdiivka, as ammunition was low and one of their commanders disappeared. UNESCO says that Ukraine will need more than a billion dollars to rebuild its scientific infrastructure that has been damaged or destroyed in the war.

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Roundup: It’s Coronation Day

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It’s Coronation Day, and Justin Trudeau will have arrived in the wee hours, having taken a red-eye across the Atlantic to get there. Trudeau was absent from the meeting with other Commonwealth leaders, where he could have been doing something productive like organising to help advance LGBTQ+ rights within those countries (as I suggested in my Xtra column). Nevertheless, it was bad form for him not to be there, especially as he could have moved his party convention to another weekend once the coronation date was announced.

Most of the official delegation gathered for a photo, sans-Trudeau. Not in the delegation but part of the day’s festivities is Canadian Marion Portelance, who will be playing cello at the post-Coronation concert, and it’s believed the cello she’s using was once owned and played by the King.

And because it’s her big day as a royal correspondent, our friend Patricia Treble has stories out on pretty much every platform:

  • For the Globe and Mail, a visual guide of the event and the regalia used in it.
  • For The Line, she delves into the Kremlinology of who is and is not showing up for the big event.
  • For the Star, some coronation history and some of the fascinating events that have happened during them.
  • In The Walrus, traces the indifference Canadians feel for the King to the apathy to the Crown exhibited by governments.
  • On her Substack, showcases some of the coronation scenes in London.

Ukraine Dispatch:

The leader of Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group says they’re pulling out of Bakhmut in days because they lack ammunition, and are dying in vain. (Ukraine believes they are simply reinforcing their positions). There is still shelling happening in the Kherson region, while the Russian-installed “governor” of the Zaporizhzhia region is ordering an evacuation of villages close to the front line. Meanwhile, new analysis is showing that the drone that struck the Kremlin likely launched from within Russia.

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Roundup: You can’t replace committee travel with Zoom

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Another day, another story where I roll my eyes and sigh because nobody can seem to grasp some pretty fundamental points. To wit: Scandal and pearl-clutching because the Senate’s audit committee is planning a trip to Westminster to consult with their counterparts there. Someone fetch a fainting couch for all of the zeros attached to the costs of the trip! And of course, we couldn’t have cheap outrage without getting a quote from the so-called Canadian Taxpayers Federation, whose continued existence depends on being the go-to source for media when they need a cheap outrage quote.

Some context to this story—the Senate’s audit committee has been a long and hard-fought battle to come into existence because the previous Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Peter Harder, was trying to steer the nascent committee in a direction that would see it be completely staffed by outsiders, which is a particular affront to Parliamentary privilege and the status of the Senate as a self-governing body in and of itself. Eventually the current composition—a mix of senators and outsider, with senators in the majority—was adopted, years after it should have been, and very much in the model that the House of Lords employs. (Note that this model had first been championed by the late Senator Elaine McCoy, and we could have saved years of fighting had people just listened to her). And because this has to do with a parliamentary body, you can’t just get advice from any audit firm in Canada, as the CTF seems to think—you need best practices from those who have dealt with the particular issues that a parliamentary body has. Of course, none of this context is in the story, because nobody pays attention to the Senate unless it’s for a cheap outrage story like this one. Of course.

Meanwhile, the most galling part of the piece is the suggestion that all of this should be done over Zoom, both out of a concern for cost and carbon emissions. And honestly, this type of suggestion needs to have a stake driven through it. This kind of work relies on human interaction, and relationship-building, and that doesn’t happen and cannot happen over Zoom. This is one of the biggest problems with hybrid sittings (which, mercifully, the Senate has ended), but which MPs refuse to believe, and apparently a few senators do too—parliament is a face-to-face institution. It cannot effectively operate remotely. The pandemic was a short-term (ish) problem that required a solution, and while this was not the best one, it was a solution that nevertheless has emboldened people to think that Parliament is a job you can do from home. It’s absolutely not, and this kind of committee travel is no exception. You cannot replace the kinds of interactions that make this travel essential over Zoom, and we need to stop thinking of Zoom as the solution to problems that aren’t actually problems.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russia launched another overnight round of attacks on Kyiv, this time with drones, but all were shot down. The commander of Ukraine’s ground forces says it’s important that they maintain their hold on Bakhmut in advance of the counter-offensive (not the least of which because it’s degrading Russia’s forces significantly). The EU is hoping to increase production of ammunition in order to help Ukraine’s efforts. And here is one Ukrainian farmer’s novel way of de-mining his fields using parts from old Russian tanks.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1653390767329558530

https://twitter.com/war_mapper/status/1653169425749508100

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Roundup: Commonwealth Day reminders

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Yesterday was Commonwealth Day, and also the ten-year anniversary of the Commonwealth Charter, which was supposed to be a project to spearhead the adoption of more common human rights legislation that would include better inclusion of LGBTQ+ rights in those Commonwealth countries where they are still an issue. In those ten years, that seems to have fallen off the radar, and I have barely heard any mention of that Charter at all, until when the anniversary was mentioned yesterday.

With anything related to the Commonwealth, we were guaranteed a bunch of bad media takes, and lo, for their inaugural episode, CTV News Channel’s new debate show had one of their topics as to whether Canada should stay in the Commonwealth or abandon the monarchy, which is a dumb false dichotomy because the vast majority of Commonwealth countries are not monarchies. Only fifteen member countries are Realms, meaning that we share Charles III as our monarch in a natural capacity (we each have separate Crowns), and newer members of the Commonwealth are not former British colonies, but have requested membership because they see value in the institution. Even if we did abandon the monarchy (which isn’t going to happen because it would mean rewriting our entire constitution and good luck trying to make that happen), we would still probably retain membership in the Commonwealth because of the relationships forged there, and it can be good forum for getting things done with countries.

Meanwhile, I’m going to re-up this interview I did with MP Alexandra Mendès, who is the chair of the Canadian Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, about the work these associations do and how Canada helps to train the legislatures and parliaments of smaller Commonwealth countries.

Ukraine Dispatch:

The battle near Bakhmut continues to rage, while the International Criminal Court is expected to seek the arrest of Russian officials responsible for the policy of forcibly deporting children from Ukraine, as well as their continued targeting of civilian infrastructure.

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Roundup: Reverberations north of the border

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We’re now in day one-hundred-and-twenty-two of Russia’s invasion of Ukriane, and it looks like the battle for Severodonestk is ending as Ukrainian forces are withdrawing before they are completely encircled. That means Russians are now advancing on its twin city of Lysychansk, across the river, which will secure hold on the Luhansk province. More heavy American weaponry is arriving, but we’ll see if it’s enough to change the balance.

Closer to home, there was a lot of reaction in Canada to the US Supreme Court overturning the Roe v Wade decision, which essentially re-criminalises abortions in many states. Conservative leadership candidate Leslyn Lewis was quick to jump on it to encourage an “adult conversation” about it in Canada, which apparently involves abortion doctors being mind-readers and taking away these rights from women in other countries. (Other Conservative leadership candidates, including Pierre Poilievre, have reiterated that they are pro-choice). There are also a bunch of voices, some of whom are concern trolling, others of whom are genuinely clueless, who point out that Justin Trudeau hasn’t done anything to enshrine abortion rights in the constitution, which is a) dumb, and b) counter-productive as it actually plays into the hands of anti-abortionists who would use the opportunity to introduce limits. Yes, Trudeau has promised more about access, and he has tasked both ministers Duclos and Ien with consultations on adding regulations to the Canada Health Act around abortion access, but that’s not something that can happen overnight, as there is a process for regulation, and as we have long established, putting strings on healthcare funding for provinces is touchy business. But provinces are where the fight is in Canada, because they control access.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1540380879519875073

There was also a number of news programmes yesterday which ran interviews with anti-abortionists in a completely uncritical fashion, allowing them to frame the conversation in their usual bullshit terms, and getting only the most minor pushback to some of their claims of popular support for their cause. These kinds of uncritical interviews are key to how misinformation and disinformation is spread through the media, because they have no capacity to do anything other than both-sides the issue, which again, allows misinformation and disinformation to spread because it isn’t challenged. We are fully in the age of disinformation, and our media outlets have learned absolutely nothing about how to deal with it, and yesterday was case in point about that.

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Roundup: Morale over policy

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It’s the Liberal Party’s big policy convention in Halifax this weekend, and it’s already consumed with the pre-election narrative, never mind that said election is a year-and-a-half away. And while it’s supposed to be about policy, and developing the ideas that are intended to shape the next election platform, it’s really more about morale, and finding inspiration to go out and do the door-knocking (as Sophie Grégoire Trudeau’s keynote spoke about). It’s about reminding the party that they need to keep up a united front and “have the Prime Minister’s back,” and totally not worry that they won’t be able to keep all of their seats in Atlantic Canada or the West. No ma’am.

When it comes to the policy resolutions, they are very much of the left-wing/progressive side of the party. Almost entirely so, in fact, some of them exactly the same kinds of demands that the NDP have made, making me wonder what’s left in their big tent for the more fiscally conservative, “blue Liberal” members to grasp onto. The most talked about resolution so far is that around decriminalising small amounts of all drugs so that they can be treated as a public health issue instead of a criminal one, as has been done successfully in Portugal. In contrast to the health minister, Jody Wilson-Raybould says she’s open to decriminalising, and reforming prostitution laws (which is another resolution). In an interview with Power & Politics, however, Petitpas Taylor refused to say one way or the other how the government would consider a successful vote by the convention on the issue, deferring instead to keeping an open mind.

But while everyone is going to talk policy on a superficial level this weekend, I have to raise the point that the party has so centralized their operations and policy machinery that this is only superficially a grassroots movement, and instead is an exercise in confirming the policies that the leader’s office is floating. Because the Liberals have so disempowered their grassroots when they changed the party constitution at their previous convention, there is little hold for the grassroots any longer. This is a problem with how our system is supposed to work, and is a direct result of the ways in which we have so utterly presidentialized party leadership contests so that they are now repositories of vast power that can’t be challenged, and everything is being reworked to be top-down instead of bottom-up. While this is all being done under the rubric of being modern, and nimble, it’s corrosive to how politics is supposed to work in this country, and we’ll see how long it takes for party members – err, “registered Liberals” to figure out that they’re being played and they start to demand their rightful power back.

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Roundup: Beer still imprisoned

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The Supreme Court of Canada delivered their ruling in the Comeaucase yesterday, which deals with the subject of interprovincial trade barriers – in particular, those around alcohol. While this case has been widely championed as “free the beer,” what we got came down to an exploration on the nature of federalism in this country – and many observers were keenly unimpressed as they chose to uphold those particular barriers.

https://twitter.com/InklessPW/status/986964159530057728

First of all, read this Q&A with University of Ottawa vice-dean of law Carissima Mathen about the decision, so that you get some sense of how the constitution operates here, and why the Court is loathe to interfere in something of this magnitude. It’s not just alcohol sales that could be affected – its knock-on effects include supply management schemes (which the Conservatives have yet to reconcile with their “free the beer!” sloganeering), public health prohibitions, environmental regulations, and so on. And more technically, the case that led up to this decision was a lower court judge making an interpretation of settled law that they felt wasn’t robust enough to justify overturning that jurisprudence – not enough had changed – and they upbraided said judge in the ruling. This is also something that can’t be taken trivially in the decision.

https://twitter.com/cmathen/status/986988440163143681

https://twitter.com/kylekirkup/status/986968367205634048

https://twitter.com/cmathen/status/987022846936473602

https://twitter.com/cmathen/status/986988440163143681

https://twitter.com/cmathen/status/987059335623618560

https://twitter.com/cmathen/status/986971152353460224

And then there are the critics. University of Alberta law professor Malcolm Lavoie says the decision privileges some parts of the Constitution over the other, while John Ibbitson looks at what the knock-on effects could be and wonders if the result wasn’t for the best. Emmett Macfarlane is not sold on that, and feels that the Court feels too bound by old JCPC decisions that undermined the text of the constitution when they should instead be upholding it – that the intent of the Founding Fathers was indeed a centralized economic union. Some commentators think that the decision could legitimize Alberta’s bill to limit oil exports to BC, but frankly I think that analysis is beyond absurd. I do have to say that I have a degree of sympathy for the Court in not looking to overturn the entire federal order, because there would be monumental blowback. But it’s not like they said that it couldn’t be done – what it needs is the political will for the legislatures to come to an agreement on this, and there is a new internal free trade framework that is coming into place where there’s a better forum for having these discussions than we’ve had in 150 years of confederation. And I think that perhaps those who felt that the Court needed to do the work of the legislatures on this issue were doing so a bit inappropriately because we keep insisting that the Court do the hard work that the legislatures won’t, and perhaps this is another wake-up call that we need to do the actual work of making tough decisions in this country on our own.

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/986991062584582144

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/986975038652821506

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/986976381794861061

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/986968227556179968

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/987049703526187008

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Roundup: Jean’s version

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Yesterday finally saw that long-anticipated Daniel Jean appearance before the Commons public safety committee, and it was…not explosive. Much of it was simply reiterating everything we’ve heard before – that Jean was sensitive to misinformation that was appearing in media outlets that suggested that RCMP and CSIS didn’t take Jaspal Atwal’s appearance seriously, that there was a possibility this was an attempt to embarrass the Canadian government into looking like they didn’t take Khalistani separatists seriously, and that Jean himself suggested the briefing and PMO simply providing him with a list of journalists to reach out to. And when the Conservatives demanded to know about the “rogue elements in the Indian government” or “conspiracy theory” allegations, Jean corrected that he didn’t say those things.

Now, some of the journalists involved in the briefing are disputing a few details, and in particular the notion that Jean had suggested that perhaps Indian intelligence was involved (which he denied yesterday). And there remains this concern trolling that senior bureaucrats don’t normally go to the media like this so he “must have” been put-up to it by PMO, which I’m not really sure is the case, particularly because as we heard in later releases about Jean’s briefing, and in his testimony yesterday, he highlighted the use of “fake news” and propaganda by hostile outlets, which is why we wanted to correct them as a neutral third-party. This is not really a widespread concern just a few years ago, particularly given the way that it was seen as interfering with elections and whatnot, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he wanted to be more proactive about it.

Of course, the real hitch in all of this is that some of the sensationalized reporting around the original briefing, coupled with the torque applied to it by Andrew Scheer and company to the point where the story being proffered in the House of Commons didn’t match reality (which is Scheer’s stock in trade these days) have spun this whole narrative beyond what was a “faux pas,” per Jean. And when Jean’s narrative didn’t match Scheer’s, it was Scheer who tried to insist that Trudeau spoke about the “rogue elements” (he never did – he very studiously avoided any specifics and only said that he supported what Jean said), and that it was up to Trudeau to provide clarity for his apparent contradictions when he didn’t actually make any – it was Scheer himself who put forward a false narrative and has been caught with his pants down over it. But let’s also be clear – a lot of the reporting around this has not been stellar either, between sensationalization and omitting of aspects (like his concern about the misinformation being fed to Canadian media), coupled with a refusal to call Scheer out on his disingenuous framing of the whole thing, has led these false narratives to grow out of control. And they keep getting dragged on longer by things like yet more false claims being piled on, such as with the chickpea tariffs and the allegedly cancelled meeting that never existed, but do we call it out? Not until days later. And some journalists should own up to their role rather than get their backs up (like they did yesterday) so that we can move on from this whole incident because we really do have better things to discuss.

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Roundup: Gaming the system a second time

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So the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party’s nomination committee has allowed Patrick Brown to run for the leadership contest, despite the fact that he was kicked out of caucus (which also rescinded his nomination as a candidate in his riding), which is going to go super well for everyone involved, be it Brown claiming that he’s been vindicated from the allegations (he hasn’t), or the other candidates who are trying (and failing) to come up with new policy on the fly as they try to distance themselves from Brown’s campaign platform. But what gets me are all of the pundits saying “It’s up for the party members to decide,” which should provide nobody any comfort at all, because the reason the party is in the mess it’s in is because Brown knew how to game the system in order to win the leadership the first time. He has an effective ground game, and can mobilise enough of his “rented” members, likely in more effective distributions (given that this is a weighted, ranked ballot) than other, more urban-centric candidates can. He played the system once, and has all the means necessary to do it again. Saying that it’ll be up to the membership to decide is an invitation to further chaos. This is no longer a political party. It’s an empty vessel waiting for the right charismatic person to lead it to victory, which is a sad indictment. Also, does nobody else see it as a red flag that Brown’s on-again-off-again girlfriend is 16 years his junior and used to be his intern? Dating the intern should be a red flag, should it not? Especially when one of his accusers is a former staffer.

Meanwhile, here’s David Reevely previews the party’s civil war, while Andrew Coyne imagines Brown’s pitch to members as his running as the “unity candidate” in a party split because of him.

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Roundup: Government vs opposition duties

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While I’ve written on the topic before, comments made by Government House Leader Bardish Chagger on her tabled “discussion paper” on trying to make the House of Commons more “efficient” really rankled over the weekend. In particular, Chagger said the proposals were trying to find the balance between the government’s “duty to pass legislation and the opposition’s right to be heard.”

No. Just no. And here’s Philippe Lagassé to explain why.

https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/843115014227746816

The whole point of Parliament is not to ensure that government passes legislation. The point is to hold it to account, and that often means slowing it down and ensuring that it doesn’t overstep its bounds, which it is wont to do. Already it’s a problem that government backbenchers don’t do their duty and due diligence when it comes to keeping a check on the government – most are happy to toe the line in order to be considered for a cabinet post, which is a problem in and of itself, and we’ve seen this attitude of being “team players” amplify in the last number of years, particularly after the minority government years, when message discipline became paramount above all else, which is why I worry about how the backbenches will react to this proposition by the government. Will they willingly surrender their responsibilities of accountability because they want to be seen as being onside with Cabinet (particularly after the recent defeats of cabinet on those private members’ bills and Senate public bills?) Maybe.

What worries me more is the way that Chagger phrased the opposition’s “right to be heard.” We’re seeing increasingly that with this government and their insistence on constant broad consultations, they will listen, then go ahead with their original plans. I worry that this is how they are starting to feel about parliament – that they’ll hear the concerns of the opposition or the Senate, and then bully through regardless. Parliament is not a focus group to “consult” with, and I’m not sure that they’re quite getting that, particularly given Chagger’s statement. Accountability is not just politely listening, and the opposition is not there to just deliver an opposing viewpoint. There needs to be a tension and counter-balance, and right now I’m not sure that this government quite gets the need for that tension, particularly when they keep mouthing platitudes about working together collaboratively and whatnot. Then again, I’m not sure that the opposition necessarily gets the extent of their responsibilities either, which is depressing. Regardless, Chagger’s case for these reforms is built on a foundation of sand. Most should be fully opposed and defeated soundly for the sake of the very existential nature of our parliament.

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