Tuesday in the Commons, and all of the leaders were present. Apparently Mondays don’t count. Thomas Mulcair led off asking about Mohamed Fahmy and demanded that the Prime Minister contact the Egyptian President directly. Stephen Harper responded by saying that they have raised it at all levels, including his own, and that they would continue to press the case. Mulcair said that it wasn’t a clear answer, and asked it again. Harper repeated the substance of his answer, and and dead his disappointment in the lack of progress. Mulcair moved onto C-51, to which Harper dismissed the criticisms as “ridiculous.” Mulcair then asked if Harper felt that SIRC was adequate oversight when even SIRC’s members indicated otherwise. Harper expressed dismay that Mulcair compared Canada’s human rights record to Egypt’s, and read a passage about judicial authorization — nothing to do with the question. Mulcair then changed topics to ask about a backbencher’s musing about using the Notwithstanding Clause on the doctor-assisted dying issue. Harper said he respects the decision of the courts, and was listening to Canadians. Justin Trudeau was up for the Liberals, and wondered if they would support their supply day motion on creating a special committee to study the issue. Harper said that it was a delicate issue and threw it to the Commons justice committee to study it if they wish. Trudeau noted the time crunch, to which Harper repeated that it was a non-partisan issue and repeated his previous answer. Trudeau noted that Harper hadn’t actually answered on the Notwithstanding Clause question, and asked again — not that he got a different answer.
Tag Archives: CSIS
Roundup: About those federal minimum wage claims
I got a householder from my MP, Paul Dewar, the other day, and the figure he cited on it bothered me – that raising minimum wage for federally-regulated workers would benefit “tens of thousands.”
We fact-checked this right? There aren't tens of thousands of federally regulated workers making min wage. #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/oODcbmGfMw
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) February 20, 2015
I remember this being fact-checked when the NDP first announced this policy, and shortly after I tweeted the photo of the mailer, one of my followers found the reference – that there are currently 416 federally-regulated workers earning minimum wage.
@journo_dale @bigpicguy 416. http://t.co/5FhcrtLLWI
— Debbie L 🇨🇦 (@Debalap) February 20, 2015
And let’s also be clear – federally-regulated workers are paid the prevailing provincial minimum wage, which keeps them in line with their local counterparts, and is in line with other jurisprudence regarding federally-regulated workplaces and provincial workers compensation regimes – jurisprudence that has been upheld at the Supreme Court level. It was later pointed out to me that the number of federally-regulated workers who earn between the local minimum wage and $15 may indeed be in the thousands.
https://twitter.com/kaylehatt/status/568985974824267776
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Fair enough. It may well be that the intent of the NDP policy is to encourage the provinces to raise their own provincial minimum wage rates, but no province with an NDP government has bothered to make such a move, so that may be a telling sign. The bigger issue, however, is that this $15/hour minimum wage issue is a gimmicky policy that will actually do nothing to raise anyone out of poverty, and in fact seems to be yet another case of a political party lifting talking points from American sources without bothering to check the Canadian data or context, and if you talk to any credible Canadian economist, they will tell you that you may as well advocate raising the minimum wage to $20 even $20,000/hour, because raising the minimum wage is terrible policy for poverty reduction. What does work, however, are cash transfers to the poor by means of things like the GST rebate mechanisms that are already in place. But it’s populist to say that people “deserve a raise,” even if it’s terrible policy, and it deserves to be pointed out. Context is as important to journalism as repeating facts in isolation.
QP: Questions on counter-radicalization
Despite it being only a Thursday, attendance in the Commons was already on its way down — Stephen Harper was off in BC, and Justin Trudeau in Toronto. Thomas Mulcair was still present, and led off by asking about the US summit on countering extremism, and wondered where this government’s support for counter-radicalism was, and gave a swipe that the government was anti-Muslim while he was at it. Peter MacKay gave some outrage and said that C-51 was giving tools to prevent terrorism. Mulcair wanted examples on disruption in the bill, to which MacKay insisted that Mulcair was incorrect in his characterisation. Mulcair wondered if the bill would give CSIS the power to investigate environmental groups or First Nations, to which MacKay insisted that Mulcair was simply fear-mongering as the bill specifically prohibits lawful dissent or advocacy. Mulcair changed topics and demanded expadited hearings for EI claimants at the Social Security Tribunal. Pierre Poilievre agreed that the backlog was unacceptable, and noted that his predecessor put in a plan to eliminate the backlog by summer. Mulcair said that was nonsense and decried the number of “Conservative buddies” being appointed to the tribunal, which Poilievre refuted. Dominic LeBlanc led off for the Liberals, denouncing the economic uncertainty of a delayed budget. Andrew Saxton stood up to read some standard talking points about how great the government was doing. Ralph Goodale asked the same again in English, got the same answer.
Roundup: Closure and privilege
It was wholly depressing the way in which the whole matter was rushed through. After the imposition of closure – not time allocation but actual closure – the government rammed through their motion to put all Hill security under the auspices of the RCMP without any safeguards to protect parliamentary privilege. After all, the RCMP reports to the government, and Parliament is there to hold government to account and therefore has privileges to protect that – the ability to have their own security being a part of that. Liberal MP Mauril Bélanger tried to amend the government’s motion to make it explicit that the Speakers of both chambers were the ultimate authorities, and the government said good idea – and then voted against it. And so it got pushed through, privilege be damned, with minimal debate and no committee study or expert testimony. The Senate, however, is putting up more of a fight, and the Liberals in that chamber have raised the privilege issue, and the Speaker there thinks there is merit to their concerns, and has suspended debate until he can rule on it. And this Speaker, incidentally, is far more aware of the issues of privilege and the role of Parliament and the Senate than his Commons counterpart seems to be, and he could very well rule the proposal out of order. One hopes so, and once again it seems that our hopes rest on the Senate doing its job, because the Commons isn’t doing theirs.
I don't know about you all, but I'm actually not willing to predict how Senator Nolin will rule. Senate speakers are tricky.
— kady o'malley (@kady) February 17, 2015
QP: New BSE concerns
The benches were pretty empty in the Commons on Monday, and apparently more than a few MPs were snowed in at their local airports, and none of the leaders were present. That meant that David Christopherson led off for the NDP, gruffly worrying about the BSE case in Alberta. Gerry Ritz confirmed that it was found and that they were still investigating. Christopherson wondered about consumer confidence, to which Ritz repeated that they were working with the farm in question and they put money in the budget to advance beef trading, which the NDP opposed. Christopherson then moved onto the back-to-work legislation for CP Rail, and the safety issues around it. Jeff Watson responded with some bog standard talking points about rail safety. Nycole Turmel repeated the questions in French, and Watson repeated his answers in English. Stéphane Dion was up for the Liberals, asking about the infrastructure deficit and the comments made by Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi, and would the government do something about it. Peter Braid gave his standard Building Canada Fund talking points in response. Dion pressed, and Braid repeated his talking points more forcefully. Dion was back up, noting the bulk of the investments were backloaded, but Braid insisted that they were better off than under the Liberals.
Roundup: Mandating bilingual tweets
The Official Languages Commissioner has decreed that cabinet ministers should tweet in both official languages, which seems like a fairly concerning decree when you look at how some of those ministers are using the Twitter Machine to engage in some actual dialogue with actual Canadians (and some journalists too) about issues, without it all being canned statements and talking points. The caveat to the Commissioner’s statement is that they must use both official languages when communicating “objectives, initiatives, decisions and measures taken or proposed by a ministry or the government.” In other words, those canned links to press releases. The thing is, those are already being tweeted out by the official department accounts, whereas the ministers tweeting – at least for the good ones – are more “personal” and less filtered. Those are where the value in Twitter lies, and if the objective is to simply turn ministerial Twitter accounts to official releases, then what’s the point? I think this may be an instance where the Commissioner needs to perhaps re-evaluate social media and the engagement that happens over it.
This is a triumph of Missing The Point. We can say goodbye to the incipient, yet salutory trend of ministers engaging directly w/ the public
— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) February 12, 2015
Roundup: No thanks, FactsCan
A new site launched this week called FactsCan, which aims to fact-check claims put out by political leaders and parties as we head toward an election. The organisers like to think that because they’re not filing stories to the 24-hour news cycle that they can spend the time doing this when journalists apparently can’t. It sounds like a laudable goal on the surface, but if you think about it for longer than a few seconds, I’m not exactly convinced of the merits of this programme. For one, journalists are already fact-checking and pointing out blatant falsehoods. All the time. It’s our job. The site talks about offering information “with no BS or alternate agenda.” So, the mainstream media is delivering both? Is that their implication? At least one of the names attached to the project raises a red flag with me, which is someone from Democracy Watch, seeing as that is an organisation that often deliberately distorts the way our democratic system functions and has often given massively inaccurate information about some basic civic literacy concepts in this country – and yet one of their members will be “fact checking.” Okay. What bothers me the most, however, is the funding aspect. This site appears to be trying to do the crowd funding thing, but hey, why not simply pay for your news so that journalists can continue to do this kind of work like we’re supposed to, and so that we won’t have to keep facing newsroom cuts which further impact on our time? They’re also relying on volunteers to help them out, which again impacts on journalists’ livelihoods. If they want the media to do a better job, well, then they can subscribe to a newspaper or two so that we have the resources to do our jobs – not getting others to do it for free.
Roundup: All About Eve, Part 2: The Revenge
It was a move that shocked pretty much everyone – Conservative parliamentary secretary Eve Adams crossed the floor to the Liberals, and called out Stephen Harper as “mean-spirited” and a bully. Of course, Adams is not without controversy, with her botched nomination and allegations of shenanigans, and the news from the Conservative Party that she was denied a further attempt to contest a nomination – not that it impacted her parliamentary secretary role or duties, which they apparently still had confidence in her carrying out. This makes her look to be self-serving in her decision to approach the Liberals, though it sounds like she approached Trudeau before the final no from the Conservatives. There are also suggestions that her relations with Harper started to deteriorate after a meeting last month, but it’s all still unclear at this point. For the Liberals, Adams played up her roots in the Progressive Conservatives – a party which is no longer and whose bona fides are fading from the modern Conservative Party (which, to be fair, has also tossed social conservatism in favour of base populism). Trudeau is trying to re-capture those blue Liberal voters who voted Conservative in the past couple of elections, as well as to get the Red Tories who still exist, particularly in Ontario but also in Alberta, to vote Liberal instead. Now she’s going to try and contest one of the still open seats in the GTA, but if any Liberals want to send a message that she’s not welcome in the party for her past Conservative sins, well, this is their chance to let their displeasure be heard. As for Adams, she leaves from a prestigious position with the government to the third party, and she goes from strict message control to a place where she’s going to have to do a lot more heavy lifting as she takes on a critic portfolio. Maybe she can make something of it and prove herself. She’s got about 14 sitting weeks to make something of her change. Then there’s the question of Adams’ spouse, Dmitri Soudas, former right-hand-man of the PM and former director of the Conservative Party. He says he supports her move, and has already made threatening tweets to Conservative MPs who have tried to be too snarky about it, but the Liberals have stated that he will have no formal role in the campaign other than supporting Adams with her nomination. It was, however, pretty rich of the Liberals to cast questions about this dynamic as sexist, because they were a “power couple” and that makes it relevant. I personally am curious about some of the wider-ranging implications, such as how the Soudas-Leo Housakos power structure will carry on, as that is currently part of the cabal at the centre of Senate leadership. The loss of Soudas from the Conservative fold could resonate there as well. Paul Wells offers some snarky – but entirely deserved – comments on the whole affair.
Do men get accused of ambition when they cross the floor? I don't really know any politicians who aren't ambitious. #cdnpoli
— Susan (@susandelacourt) February 9, 2015
https://twitter.com/d_soudas/status/564867569836765184
To clarify: Soudas will not have a formal role in the LPC but he, like her whole family, is supportive of @MPEveAdams's decision and her run
— Kate Purchase (@katepurchase) February 9, 2015
https://twitter.com/d_soudas/status/564910542037319680
Roundup: The problem with SIRC
Of the many hats that Bob Rae has worn over his long and storied careers in Canadian politics, one of them was as a member of the Security and Intelligence Review Committee for a period of five years. Remember, this is the body that the government claims is providing oversight to CSIS, and that they’re “robust,” “doing a good job,” and “are the envy of the world.” No, seriously – they have said all of those things. Rae, meanwhile, notes that SIRC has limited resources for the size of the job they have, but more than that, they haven’t been paid attention to by the government itself. In other words, no matter what their reports say, and how scathing they are, the government’s response is pretty much to pat them on the head, say thanks, and ignore them. Issues like the limited mandate and compartmentalisation of what they’re supposed to be reviewing makes their jobs almost impossible to get a proper picture. The Privacy Commissioner has pointed out that the silos make their own job difficult to do because they can’t see what’s going on either. And then there are security agencies like CBSA – which gained a lost of powers post-9/11 – who have no independent oversight at all. But hey, any oversight is just “needless red tape” – also a phrase this government has used – and would somehow detract from trying to fight terrorists. All of this just adds to the fact that giving CSIS new powers without any additional oversight sounds like a more alarming proposition all the time.
Roundup: Supreme Court okays assisted dying
In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled 9-0 that struck down laws around doctor-assisted dying in this country, so long as the person is a competent adult with a condition that they have no hope of recovering from, be it terminal or an acute disability. As well, it’s worth noting that while Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin wrote for the minority in the 1993 Sue Rodriguez case, she led a unanimous court this time. The ruling is welcomed by those who live with pain and who know that it will only get worse, as well as by Conservative MP Stephen Fletcher, who has been fighting for these changes in parliament. The head of the Canadian Medical Association wants there to be a process to set the rules around this new right. Emmett Macfarlane parses the decision and shows how it paves the way for governments, which have been too politically paralysed to deal with these kinds of issues. Carissima Mathen says the ruling not only shows the ways in which laws evolve, but that it’s a call to action for governments – and explains the ruling on Power Play. Jonathan Kay writes about the perversity of the current law, where the assisted suicide that was legal was to starve oneself in a cruel manner. Andrew Coyne fears this is a first step to some kind of death-on-demand system.
I don't think the Christian Medical and Dental Society understands the #SCC ruling was about terminal conditions. pic.twitter.com/14yyIoTdnw
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) February 6, 2015
It's great that you're committed to healing patients, but these are patients that can't be healed. That's the point. #SCC
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) February 6, 2015
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