It’s egregiously partisan, and Pierre Poilievre won’t apologise for it. He released a pair of YouTube videos featuring himself talking about the government’s new tax measures, never mind that they still haven’t passed into law yet. Most of all, he filmed them on a weekend, using public servants on overtime. He says it was only two hours (but rules are they need to be paid a minimum of three), and not unsurprisingly, the public sector unions consider it an abuse of resources. Because it is. Liberal MP David McGuinty is hoping to leverage it into support of his bill to limit this kind of nonsense, much in the way that Ontario created an advertising commissioner in the Auditor General’s office to vet ads so that things like party colours, or the faces or voices of politicians are outlawed from government advertising. The funny thing is that the current Conservative government rode into power on the white horse of accountability, waving the banner of outrage over partisan advertising and polling by the previous government – never mind that their advertising was never this blatant or nakedly partisan. But apparently that doesn’t matter because this government can justify and rationalize absolutely anything, no matter how much they end up looking like hypocrites.
Tag Archives: CRTC
Roundup: Some questionable justifications
Yesterday, Jason Kenney went on a charm offensive to lay out the legal position on extending our bombing raids into Syria, most notably saying that we have authority under Article 51 of the UN Charter, with Iraq asking us to help them defend their borders while the Syrian government is unwilling or unable to. It’s pretty thin ice under international law, but if the Americans are doing it, apparently that’s good enough for this government. More dubious was Kenney saying that we’re acting in the “spirit of” Responsibility to Protect, to which Trudeau later made the point that one of the tenets of R2P is that you don’t make the situation worse, which could be the outcome if our bombing ISIS in Syria ends up solidifying Assad/ And what about Syrian air defences? Do we not need to coordinate with them so as to not get shot down? Kenney says there’s no ground radar in that part of the country, and that ISIS doesn’t have weapons capable enough of taking down our fighter jets. Kenney also made the claim that only the smart bombs that Canada and the US posses in the alliance are capable of doing the job, but experts are disputing that fact, pointing out that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also have the capability. In other words, this sounds like Kenney embellishing the truth again, which puts the veracity of his other statements into question as well. As for Harper, he started joking that we didn’t have to worry about ISIS’ lawyers taking us to court, when the bigger concern is actually other world leaders. You know, like Putin, for whom we are accusing of breaking international law for annexing the Crimea. Oh, wait a twisted little world it is.
Roundup: Awaiting the Iraq debate, redux
As we prepare to debate the extension of the Iraq mission, our Forces say that the ban on entering Syria hasn’t really been a problem, since our allies can do it on their own terms. Given that Canada has no authorisation under international law to enter Syria without permission – something we are justifiably loathe to get give that it would be coming from Bashar al-Assad, the dictator there – it makes it hard for our government to come up with a convincing enough case to take the war there, especially when the Americans have their own particular means by which they can enter that country. Much of that debate will be framed in such a way as to trap the Liberals, the government hoping that they can cast them as being soft on terror by not wanting to pursue ISIS there, lest the Liberals expose their left flank to the NDP supporters who are much more pacifistic. It will be a debate full of rhetoric on the government side which will make ISIS look bigger and more dangerous than it is – and while they have done some awful things, they’re pretty tiny on the scale of history in the region (and given the way this government makes ISIS look like a bigger threat than they probably are in reality, does that count as promoting terrorism?) The flipside of the debate will be the humanitarian side, which Rob Nicholson has been touting after his visit to the region. The problem there is that unless we have clearly stated objectives on that front, we risk becoming tangled up in problems that may leave us worse off in the long run, just as we wound up making a hash of things in Afghanistan despite the best of intentions. But can MPs really handle a nuanced debate like this so close to an election call? I have my doubts.
Roundup: A tacit plea of no contest
From all accounts, it was one of the worst press conferences in recent memory. Former Liberal MP Scott Andrews, currently an independent, said he’s not going to fight to rejoin the Liberal caucus, that he accepts what was in the executive summary of the investigation into the harassment allegations, but wouldn’t say anything more concrete about whether he feels he was guilty or innocent of the allegations. There were hints, however, that he is not contesting what has been in the media – that he followed an MP home, pushed her against the wall and groped her, stopped when she told him to but subsequently referred to her as a “cockteaser.” Talking about learning the lessons of “the importance of personal space” and his “jovial Newfoundland personality” seems to indicate that he’s tacitly admitted he’s done something. The fact that he said he’s laying down partisanship, however, does raise questions, but with no answers forthcoming, we will be left to speculate. Andrews said that he hasn’t decided if he’ll run again in the next election, but even as an independent it would be a long shot. Justin Trudeau, meanwhile, says he considers the matter closed, so unless someone starts leaking the contents of the investigator’s report, this is probably the last we’ll hear about it.
Roundup: Talking over criticism
We saw more testimony on C-51 yesterday, pretty much all of it scathing in one way or another – not that the Conservatives on the committee were really open to hearing such criticism, and went so far as to mischaracterise some of the comments on the evening political shows, and talking over those witnesses while in committee to attempt to make their points for them. One of the witnesses yesterday was AFN national chief Perry Bellegarde, who wants the bill withdrawn for not having consulted with First Nations, because he sees it as an assault on their rights, saying that they have been labelled as terrorists for standing up for their rights and lands. (I can’t recall this government ever having done that, for the record, and I think his argument is a bit of a stretch, but maybe that’s just me). A former head of SIRC – and former Progressive Conservative cabinet minister at that – called the bill a constitutional mess, which is a pretty good indication that the criticism on the bill is coming from all sides – not just the environmentalists and civil libertarians. The Conservatives, meanwhile, have blocked the Privacy Commissioner from appearing at committee, but they insist that he was “consulted” on the bill. The problem there is that he didn’t see the bill before it was tabled, which is really tough to call it consultation since he couldn’t see the language of what he was supposed to be consulted on. John Geddes profiles the two law professors who have taken the lead in pointing out the many flaws in the bill, who also appeared yesterday.
Roundup: Open federalism vs carbon pricing
With the premiers in town for a Council of the Federation meeting, Justin Trudeau took the opportunity to have a sit-down with Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, and amidst the chiding of the PM for not deigning to make an appearance, one of the things they talked about was carbon pricing. Trudeau is walking a particularly fine line when it comes to the role of the federal government and the provinces in combating climate change, and this is nowhere illustrated better than in the way that different media organisations wrote up the comments. CBC focused on the fact that Trudeau thinks the federal government should leave it up to the provinces, but still have a role to play. The Canadian Press, meanwhile, wrote it up as the federal government needing to take a leadership role, and that the absence of that has forced the provinces to go it alone. Now, the two aren’t mutually exclusive, but it does point to the ways in which attempts to have nuanced policy can lead to misinterpretation and trouble, and it also becomes apparent that Trudeau will need to come out with a much more clarified position as to just what kind of leadership role he thinks that the federal government needs to play on the file while still letting the provinces do their own thing. Open federalism is a real thing, but there will need to be some kind of clarity as to roles, expectations, and of course the important question of who is paying for what, that will need to form part of that discussion going forward.
Roundup: Contempt, tempers, and losing the plot
Thomas Mulcair’s snide exchange with the Speaker during yesterday’s QP continues to resonate around Ottawa, with reminders that Scheer doesn’t currently have the powers to police the content of answers (MPs would have to agree to give him those powers), and musings about this kind of contempt of parliament and remonstrations about how this is what makes people cynical. And the worst part? That even over the Twitter Machine, Paul Calandra continues to play the part. It has also been noted, and I fully agree, that by losing his temper and going after the Speaker, Mulcair made the story about himself rather than Calandra and his utter nonsense.
Media upset with me, gee what am I to do? Tell you what, I will stand up for Israel who are on the front lines fighting terror every day.
— Paul Calandra (@PaulCalandra) September 24, 2014
It's not up to Speaker Scheer to discipline poor answers, and you lose focus on govt stonewalling when you attack the Speaker. #QP
— Bob Rae (@BobRae48) September 23, 2014
Roundup: The Tabulator gong show
Over in the New Brunswick election last night, their new Tabulator machines which were supposed to deliver election results faster all pretty much fried and turned into a big gong show, with missing ballots and unreadable results, while the company who was contracted out to run the machines didn’t answer calls. With no results being trustworthy, parties began demanding manual recounts, and with a virtual tie result, the final results likely won’t be clear in the morning. And so, let this once again be a lesson that paper ballots should always be used with manual counts because that’s the only tried and true way with actual accountability.
Roundup: Crowing over a very little
The NDP spent an inordinate amount of time crowing over social media yesterday about how they scored a “procedural coup” and “forced” a debate on the report of the special committee on missing and murdered Aboriginal women. The problem is that it’s not really true. Yes, they moved a concurrence motion during Routine Proceedings after QP on Friday, as is their right – but they didn’t surprise the government or catch them off-guard, as Romeo Saganash said during QP that they would be moving such a motion. Giving 20+ minutes notice is not “catching the government off-guard.” And when they forced a 30-minute vote and proceeded to this concurrence motion, the government voted with them and agreed to the debate, which again, puts the “forced” or “coup” narrative to the test. The report itself doesn’t recommend a national inquiry, seeing as it was a Conservative-dominated committee, and while the NDP wanted to highlight their dissenting report appended to it, it still gave the government side plenty of time to discuss their version of said report. So with these facts in mind, you will forgive me if I find the social media triumphalism a bit much.
Roundup: An emergency debate, such as it was
The Commons had their “emergency debate” on the situation in Iraq last night, using debate loosely, of course. After all, “debate” these days tends to largely mean reading monotonous speeches into the record that were all pre-written and don’t actually debate what has already been said. The NDP hammered away at demanding a vote on deployment, never mind that military deployment is a Crown prerogative and thus not subject to a vote, and in fact, shouldn’t be because it launders the prerogative and the accountability. But if Mulcair wants to give Harper political cover so that he can, in the future, say that the Commons decided on the matter and that they are culpable when things go wrong because there was a vote, well, it makes it kind of awkward for the opposition, no? It’s part of Responsible Government – the Commons has given the government the authority to govern, and if they don’t like it, then they can withdraw confidence. Voting to “make decisions” is not actually their role – accountability is. The NDP were also childishly mocking the Liberals for largely not being there for the debate – except that they only got two speaking slots the whole night, which they used near the beginning, and as we’ve established that it’s not a real debate, it does seem fairly pointless to have a bunch of people there to simply endure repetitive prepared speeches – and make no mistake, they are repetitive – with no real ability to respond or add to what’s been said. But this is the state of our parliament these days.