Tag Archives: Cyber-security

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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Roundup: Bernier booted from shadow cabinet

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The surprising news last night was that Andrew Scheer had finally had enough and removed Maxime Bernier from his shadow cabinet, reassigning his critic portfolio to Matt Jeneroux. The ostensible reason that Bernier was booted? That he uploaded that chapter from his cancelled book in which he decries the tyranny of Supply Management. Never mind that the chapter was already floated to the Globe and Mail and was published weeks ago, which led to the outcry that had Bernier pull the book until his political retirement. Scheer said that this constituted Bernier breaking his word to caucus on the book, never mind that it was already in the public domain.

A more plausible explanation? That Scheer was getting a lot of heat about Bernier’s views about Supply Management in the face of Trump’s tweets about dairy tariffs that are part of the system, where the government could point to Bernier being on Scheer’s front bench as proof that the Liberals cared more about Supply Management than the Conservatives did. In fact, the swipes about this got increasingly nasty in QP the last few days, to the point that Luc Berthold got right indignant about it when it was thrown in his face yesterday. Add to that, there’s a by-election coming up in a rural Quebec riding, where this is one of those issues that they care a lot about, and Scheer (who is campaigning there later this week with the former Bloc leader who has renounced separatism and taken out a Conservative membership card) wanted to prove that he’s listening to Quebeckers on Supply Management – even though Bernier himself is a Quebecker. (Note: This is also why the Conservatives rarely ask Supply Management questions in English during QP – this is all about pandering for Quebec votes).

I do think that this is further proof that there is little room in the current Conservative party for actual free-market conservatives, and that they are working hard to cravenly embrace right-flavoured populism that is divorced from the values that they claim to espouse (as I wrote a year ago when Scheer first won the leadership). My only question now is whether Bernier will be banished to the nosebleeds along with fellow disgraced caucus member Kellie Leitch.

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Roundup: No, this election won’t be good for electoral reform

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I know that I really shouldn’t give bad columns more coverage, but I can’t help myself, because this is just the first of many that we are doubtlessly going to see in the coming months – that a Doug Ford win on Thursday could get the ball rolling on electoral reform, at least in Ontario. It’s a specious argument, but it’s attractive to a certain class of voter and wonk, so brace yourselves, because this red herring will be coming at you hard in the coming month.

Part of the problem with this particular column is that it doesn’t really make the argument why electoral reform is the logical follow-through for a Ford-led government, because most of the complaints have to do with how Ford won the leadership instead of Christine Elliott. This is not the fault of the electoral system – it’s the fault of our very broken leadership selection system and would largely be corrected if we returned to the system of caucus selection of leaders that our system is designed for. If we had that in place, Elliott would likely have been chosen because she was in caucus at the time that Patrick Brown challenged for the post (while he was still a federal MP, in case you’d forgotten). That would be two dark chapters in the Ontario PC party that could have been avoided, but I digress. The argument here should be that the Ford gong show should be an object lesson in how we need to restore proper leadership processes, where caucus can select and remove leaders in order to ensure that there is proper accountability and more importantly that leaders can’t throw their weight around, that caucus has more power to keep the leader in check. Sadly, that’s not the argument we got.

The balance of the column is a bunch of whinging that parties got majority mandates with less than 40 percent of the popular vote – never mind that the popular vote is a logical fallacy. It’s not a real thing – it’s an extrapolation that magnifies the sense of unfairness by those whose parties did not win, but it’s not a real thing because general elections are not a single event, they’re a series of simultaneous but separate elections for individual seats, and yes, that matters greatly in how the system works, how parliaments are formed, and in the agency afforded to individual MPs.

The other implicit argument being made in pieces like these, though this pieces doesn’t come out and say it, is that proportional representation will likely deliver us a series of coalition governments by nice leftist parties, and we’ll get solar panels on roofs, and great social programs, and no divisive politics because they’ll be forced to cooperate. Won’t it be great? Err, except that’s not what happens, and if anyone thinks it’ll be nice leftist coalitions in perpetuity, they should perhaps look at what’s going on in Europe right now, and how the populist mood there and in North America would have consequences in our own elections that wouldn’t be mitigated like our current brokerage system does, and that could be an even bigger problem. But that’s not the established electoral reform/PR narrative, even though it should be.

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Roundup: A moment for the Queen of Canada

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In light of Victoria Day and the celebration of the official birthday of the Queen of Canada (yes, they’re the same day), here are a few gems about the Queen of Canada, and the monarchy in general.

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Actor Stephen Fry talks about how the monarch keeps politicians in their place, and while it may seem “kind of preposterous” it a system that works. As he says. “If it works, it’s very foolish to get rid of it, even if it’s unreasonable.”

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/998568760003907584

And let’s not forget that Queen Victoria ensured that we have Responsible Government here in Canada.

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Roundup: Border agent woes

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When the House of Commons returns on Tuesday, it’s a pretty safe bet to say that the news that the Canada Border Services Agency is shifting customs agents from the GTA to the Quebec border is going to be one of the main topics of conversation. In fact, I can pretty much guarantee that it’ll come up in Question Period on the first day back. Why? Because amidst this news, a memo from Air Canada pilots claims that they may face delays of up to an hour, being kept on the tarmac because of this lack of agents. There are denials all around (and I’m a bit skeptical myself – I can see big lines in the airport, but I have a hard time seeing why they’d detain them on the tarmac), but the line is going to be that Trudeau is making you wait on the tarmac because he can’t enforce the law on the border.

It’s not exactly true, of course. Whether we see actual delays at airports remains to be seen, but the continued insistence that he can somehow snap his fingers and the border will somehow seal itself is this specious bit of political fiction that nobody wants to seem to own up to. I’ve written about this before – he can’t unilaterally declare the entire border to be an official port of entry, nor can he amend the Safe Third Country Agreement because that requires the buy-in of the Americans, and that’s not going to happen. If he suspends the agreement, like the NDP demands, that will cause a flood at border crossings of people who are jurisdiction shopping while making asylum claims, which was the whole reason the agreement was made in the first place. Direct engagement with the communities where the influx is coming from had success with the Haitian community and the government is looking to repeat it with Nigeria, where most of the new claimants are coming from (and no one has yet explained why that’s the case), but we’ll see when they can actually start engaging.

What this does illustrate is that the government still has a way to go in order to re-capitalize CBSA and ensure that they have enough border guards and customs agents. (They also need to fill vacancies in the Immigration and Refugee Board, and to give them additional resources, but that hasn’t been happening expeditiously either). And yes, this is something that Conservatives can share in the blame with as well, because they cut CBSA to the point where they were having to suspend a number of programmes like screening for drugs being exported, and they had to let go of most of their sniffer dogs because they no longer had the budget. Will this light a fire under the government to properly rebuild their capacity? We’ll see. They insist they’re re-investing but it may be of little use if the situation sounds as dire as it is right now with these rotations in and out of the border crossing.

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Roundup: The struggle of independent senators

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Despite the news being a day-old yesterday, the departure of Senator David Adams Richards from the Independent Senators Group got a bunch of tongue wagging, and even more wannabe comedians making lame jokes about Senate independence. Richards stated repeatedly over the past two days that he wasn’t pressured to vote or do anything by the ISG, but wanted to be “truly independent,” though I’m not sure he quite understands what he’s signing up for. Amidst this, the memo written by Senator Gold to his ISG colleagues about his conflict with just how independent they can be without defeating government bills also hit the news (despite the fact that I wrote about this in my weekend column), which got even more wannabe commentators to start opining about who is really independent in the Senate without having a clue about what is going on. (I will credit Althia Raj as being the only person who did have a clue yesterday, so there’s that).

So, to recap, the Independent Senators Group don’t whip votes or force attendance but organize for the purposes of logistics and to advance the cause of Senate modernization. Logistics include things like allocating office space, and also things like committee assignments, because of the way the Senate operations work, spots are divided up between caucuses, and the ISG is granted their share of committee seats. Any senators outside of the three caucus groups have a much tougher time of getting those committee seats. This is something that Richards is going to face if indeed he wants to do committee work. If he doesn’t, well, that’s going to be an issue because much of the value of the Senate comes from their committee work, which is superior to committee work coming out of the Commons by leaps and bounds.

As for the struggle for how independent Senators should be, part of the problem is that they’re getting a lot of bad and conflicting information, much of it coming from the Government Leader in the Senate – err, “government representative,” Senator Peter Harder, who is deliberately misconstruing both the history of the Senate, the intent of the Founding Fathers, and how the Senate has operated for 150 years. Part of this stems from the fact that he refuses to do his actual job – he won’t negotiate timelines with the caucuses because he thinks that horse-trading is “partisan,” and he wants to ensure that government bills can’t get defeated by means of a Salisbury Convention so that he doesn’t have to do the work of counting votes to ensure that he can get those bills passed. And the Independent Senators are caught in the middle of this, too new to understand what is going on, and getting a lot of bad advice from people who are trying to force their own ideas of what the Senate should look like, and they’re afraid of accidentally defeating a government bill and having public opinion turn against them as being anti-democratic, and the like. So there are serious issues being contemplated, and the commentary coming from the pundit class right now, who think they’re being clever but who actually don’t have a clue about what they’re talking about, helps no one. And if people want to grab a clue, I have a collection of columns on the topic they can read up on.

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QP: Circling back to Atwal, yet again

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A frigid Tuesday in Ottawa, and all of the leaders were present in Question Period, for a change. Andrew Scheer led off, mini-lectern on desk, and he immediately returned to the Atwal issue, wondering who was telling the truth about Atwal — him or the Indian government. Justin Trudeau stood up and said that he would always believe the advice of non-partisan public servants over anyone else. Scheer pressed, and Trudeau reminded him that Randeep Sarai took responsibility for proffering the invitation, but he trusted public service. Scheer tried again in French, and Trudeau repeated that same point about believing public servants. Scheer reverted to English, reset his preamble to provide a fresh media clip, and wondered if it was Chrystia Freeland who was telling the truth this time when she said it was an honest mistake. Trudeau reiterated the same point about believing public service. Scheer demanded an answer as to whether the “conspiracy theory” was baseless, and Trudeau reminded him that for ten years, the Harper government diminished and belittled the work of public servants, and the Conservatives hadn’t moved on from those habits. Guy Caron was up next, and worried about the Facebook data used by Cambridge Analytica. Trudeau noted that they take privacy seriously, and it’s why the Minister of Democratic Institutions was looking into electoral interference, and the Privacy Commissioner also indicated he was taking a look. Caron demanded that the issue of data protection be raised at the G7 meeting in June, and Trudeau assured him that they had already had these conversations and they would continue to do so. Hélène Laverdière raised the armoured vehicle sales to Saudi Arabia, and Trudeau first pointed asked her to ask her caucus colleague from London Fanshaw if she wanted them to cancel that contract, but that they were taking the issue more seriously than the previous government did. Laverdière demanded to know if human rights were for sale, and Trudeau took up a script this time to insist that they respect human rights obligations.

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Roundup: The big Mali announcement

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The formal announcement was made yesterday – six helicopters (two medical evac, four armed escorts) and approximately 250 personnel are headed to Mali as part of UN peace operations, and while this initial deployment covers off for German and Dutch forces that are pulling out, time there will be spent evaluating other ways that Canada can help build capacity in the country, which will involve training troops from other countries. While there have been some 162 peacekeeper deaths so far in Mali, all but four of those are from less advanced militaries than Canada’s, and the four Western countries’ deaths were related to a helicopter accident and not hostile actions. Chrystia Freeland did a great interview that helps lay out more of the details as to why Mali and why it’s taken so long.

Opposition reaction has been swift, and a bit curious. The Conservatives are demanding a debate and a vote on the deployment (reminder: a vote is wholly inappropriate because it launders the accountability that the government should be held to regarding the mission), while the NDP keep pointing out that this will not fulfil all of the government’s peacekeeping promises (not that they have claimed that it would), while demanding more details. Former senator Roméo Dallaire says that this is a good deployment, and reiterates that Canadians training troop-contributing nations and mentoring those forces will help to modernize peacekeeping.

In terms of hot takes, John Ivison sticks to the point that this is a political move by the government designed to help them get their UN Security Council seat as opposed to having anything to do with national security – err, except that peacekeeping isn’t supposed to be about national security. That’s kind of the point.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/975780963559948289

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QP: Concerned about Mali

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While Justin Trudeau was present after two weeks away, Andrew Scheer was not, spending the day in Winnipeg instead. Lisa Raitt led off in his stead, mini-lectern on desk, and she raised the announcement of a peacekeeping mission to Mali, and the risks that it would entail given the rate of casualties there. Trudeau led off with some words about engaging in peacekeeping and that they were responding to a direct request from the U.N., and would work with the opposition on how to hold a debate on the mission — but didn’t really answer about risks. Raitt wondered about whether our troops there would be able to engage in direct combat. Trudeau took up a script, and recited about how personnel would have appropriate equipment and training, but they couldn’t eliminate the risk. Raitt demanded information on what the risk was, and how many soldiers were projected to be lost. Trudeau insisted that they would remain open and responsible rather than wrap themselves in the flag and use Special Forces troops for photo ops, as the previous government did. Pierre Paul-Hus took over in French, accusing the PM of being unconcerned for troop safety. Trudeau took up a script to remind him that they were alive to the risks and would ensure that troops had equipment and training that were necessary. Paul-Hus demanded the operational guidelines, but Trudeau reiterated the plan to hold a debate in the near future. Guy Caron was up next for the NDP, also asking about the Mali announcement, and Trudeau read off some more details about helicopters and medical assistance. Caron switched to English to concern troll about how this promise fell short of the promises. Trudeau noted it was odd how the Conservatives thought we were doing too much with the military and the NDP not enough, before he went off the cuff about the upcoming debate. Tracey Ramsey was up next, demanding the government stand up to US tariff threats. Trudeau noted that he was pleased to meet workers in those industries last week, and to hear their concerns. Ramsey raised Trump’s made-up facts, and Trudeau reiterated how much he enjoyed hearing from workers in those industries.

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Roundup: Getting a second opinion on the dominant narrative

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It was a day full of Canadian pundits pontificating about Indian politics around Justin Trudeau’s trip, whether it’s around his use of traditional garb, the “snubs” by Indian politicians, and then the issue with Jaspal Atwal being invited to that reception. While MP Randeep Sarai has taken responsibility for Atwal’s invitation, the dominant narrative was that someone in PMO had to have known who he was, or that they somehow overrode the kinds of screening that the RCMP or CSIS would have put in place for an event like this. That, of course, got blown out of the water when media actually talked to security sources who said that they had no capacity to vet the 700 or so people invited to this event, so there went that theory. And yes, the Atwal thing is bad, and according to an Indo-American journalist that I spoke to about this, that probably set back Indo-Canadian relations by years, so well done MP Sarai. “Senior government officials” are also now pushing the theory that “rogue elements” in India’s government facilitated this, possibly to embarrass Canada for being “soft” on Sikh separatist extremists, so we’ll see if that compounds any damage.

First of all, if you did not do so yesterday, please take the time to read Kevin Carmichael’s look at the trip, and in particular how pack journalism narratives have formed, but he makes very relevant points about the political dynamics and the regional politics of India that the Canadian media is completely ignoring. My Indo-American friend made a few other observations about the coverage that we’re seeing, which is that he’s not actually being treated poorly over there, and it’s more that certain politicians and business leaders don’t want to be associated with members of the Indian Cabinet, which is controversial in large swaths of Indian society. As for the focus on Trudeau’s wardrobe, most of it is coming from the intellectual, international elite of India, who resent outsiders exoticising India, but the fact that Trudeau is allegedly wearing Indo-Canadian designers will garner plenty of positive reaction. She also added that the inside joke is that Indians outside of India have terrible taste, and are over the top and garish, but it’s also related to their own class stratification. Even tweets coming from verified accounts means that they’re coming from the social elite of India, and that journalism and public intellectualism in India, especially in Delhi, is oriented to socialites. So what Trudeau is doing will play incredibly well with many aspects of the stratified society. As for the Atwal issue, there will likely be competing narratives in India between the bureaucratic incompetence that allowed him into the country in the first place, tempered with “gloating over how a first-world country screwed up.” Regardless, I’m glad I reached out to get a different perspective on how this trip is playing out, because I’m not confident in the image being put forward by the Canadian punditocracy.

Meanwhile, back in the Canadian media sphere, Éric Grenier notes that the trip is likely a defensive action to bolster Liberal support in Indo-Canadian-heavy ridings, especially to counter Jagmeet Singh’s arrival on the political scene. Murad Hemmadi notes that the international press seems to have gotten over its crush on Trudeau, while Paul Wells gives a not wholly underserved whacking at the Liberal government over their handling of this trip (though I do note that many of Wells’ points would handily fall into the groupthink that may not actually reflect what will play on the ground in India).

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