Tag Archives: Dean Del Mastro

Roundup: Beyak suspended

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It was inevitable, but the Senate has voted to suspend Senator Lynn Beyak without pay for the remainder of his Parliament in accordance with the recommendation from the Senate’s ethics committee after the findings of the Ethics Officer that letters Beyak posted to her website were racist and breached the ethics code for senators. Beyak got her chance to defend herself yesterday before the vote, and she insisted that she has done nothing wrong, that there’s nothing racist about the “truth” (as she sees it), and she thinks that her website is a beacon of positivity because she’s trying to assert that residential schools for Indigenous children weren’t all bad.

In terms of next steps, Beyak will likely reappear at the start of the next parliament, following the election, where she will be given another chance to apologise, and prove that she understands why those letters were racist (something she has been completely incapable of comprehending to date – and the Ethics Officer did point out that this was an issue of comprehension, not malice). At that point, if she still refuses to see the error of her ways, the Senate could revisit the matter and vote to suspend her again for that parliamentary session (meaning until there is a prorogation or dissolution), and if that extends past two years, there is the possibility that they could declare the seat vacant at that point. More likely will be pressure to simply vote to expel Beyak for the Senate because she has been unrepentant in exposing the Senate to disrepute for her racist actions – at which point she may get the hint and do the honourable thing and just resign, but she does seem to be sticking to her guns here. Regardless, this suspension is now the first stage in a two-stage process of dealing with the problem. But those who want Beyak to be out immediately will need to be patient, because the power to expel a senator can’t be used casually.

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Roundup: Green wins, and the AG’s report

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After the Green Party won their second seat in Monday night’s by-election in Nanaimo–Ladysmith, it was inevitable that we would be subjected to a litany of hot takes about what this means for the upcoming federal election, most of which I’m not going to bother reading because frankly, I’m not sure it means anything at all. The Greens have been doing well provincially on Vancouver Island, where this riding is, and more than that, this particular candidate was once an NDP candidate who was booted from the party (apparently for views about Israel), and when the Greens picked him up, he won for them, while the NDP vote collapsed. Add to that, Green wins in BC, New Brunswick and PEI were also predicated by incumbent governments who had been in place for a long time (well, in New Brunswick, it was a constant PC/Liberal swap), and that’s not necessarily the case federally. While Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh tried to spin this as “proof” that Canadians care about the environment (for which both will try to tout their party policies on the same) we can’t forget that Canadians want to do something about the environment in the same way that they want a pony – it’s a nice idea that nobody has any intention of following up on because it’s a lot of effort and mess. This has been proven time and again. I would also caution against the notion that this means that “progressive” votes are up for grabs, because the Greens, well, aren’t all that progressive. If you read their platform, it’s really quite socially conservative, and they had whole sections essentially written by “Men’s Rights Activists” because they have little to no adult supervision in their policy development process. So any hot takes you’re going to read about the by-election are probably going to be full of hot air (quite possibly this one as well).

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1125798043905818624

Auditor General’s Report

The big news out of the Auditor General’s report was of course the backlog that the Immigration and Refugee Board faces regarding asylum claimants in Canada. The Conservatives, naturally, have jumped on this to “prove” that the current government has somehow broken the system, but every single expert that was cited over the day yesterday said that the Liberals inherited a system that was already broken (some went so far as to say that the Conservatives deliberately broke it in order to force a crisis that would allow them to adopt more draconian measures – though those backfired in a spectacular way, worsening the backlog), and that they have taken steps to increase the IRB’s resources. I wrote about some of these issues a while ago, and the IRB was starting to streamline some of their processes and start making use of technology like email (no, seriously) that cut down on some of the bureaucracy they were mired in – but as with anything, these kinds of changes take time to implement and have an effect. But expect the narrative of the “broken” system to continue in the run up to the election. Meanwhile, here are the other reports:

  • Half of Canadians who call a government call centre can’t get through, which is blamed on technology that was allowed to go obsolete
  • The RCMP are still not adequately prepared to deal with active shooter situations.
  • Our tax system hasn’t kept up with e-commerce and needs modernization
  • The mechanism to prevent governments from doing partisan advertising has little documentation and rigour.

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Roundup: Three senators went to Washington

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Three Conservative senators went to Washington DC to talk about marijuana legalization, and you may be shocked to learn that they were not reassured by any of it. They were told that Homeland Security isn’t adding any new resources to the border so Canadian travellers may face more delays, and they were told of all of the new cartels that have emerged as the crime rate has skyrocketed in Colorado. And oh, how the loopholes around home-growing are being exploited by criminal elements. Woe! Most of this should be taken with a particular grain of salt – there has been no proven causal relationship between the increased crime rate in Colorado with marijuana legalization, and if there are Mexican cartels looking to exploit loopholes to export it from the state, I’m not sure that’s as big of an issue in Canada if the whole country is legalizing instead of a single province. And as for the border, well, individual agents already have immense discretionary powers now, so nothing is really going to change there.

What was curious in all of this is how the Government Leader in the Senate – err, “government representative,” Senator Peter Harder, complained that these three Conservatives were “undermining the government” by taking this trip. I’m not sure that it’s a very credible complaint considering that they weren’t claiming to be headed down there on behalf of the government – rather, it was under the rubric that they haven’t been getting straight answers from the government, so they wanted to get answers for themselves. It’s almost as if they were exercising the discretion afforded to them as part of the “independent Senate” where they don’t have to ask the government’s permission to engage in such activities. And let’s not kid ourselves – this was a very partisan exercise, and I’m sure that most Canadians can see that it clearly was. They’re not exactly hiding it, but they’re also doing their duty as the opposition to get the information they think they need to hold government to account. The sky isn’t falling here, and Harder is coming across as a little thin-skinned in making the complaints he is.

Oh, and for those of you asking, it’s likely that this trip was paid for by the Senate, but bear in mind that Senators are allowed travel to Washington as part of their duties (and in fact, a trip to Washington is included as part of their annual travel points). There’s no actual scandal here for anyone to point to.

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Roundup: Media as government whip

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The fact that a couple of Liberal backbenchers are expressing reservations about the government’s proposed tax changes to private corporations has journalists salivating about caucus divisions – again.

Never mind that we’ve seen several examples of MPs going against the government in this current parliament – sometimes en masse (like with the genetic privacy bill), and time after time, Justin Trudeau doesn’t rise to the bait, and yet We The Media continue to try to make an issue out of it. Never mind that backbenchers holding their own government to account is how things are supposed to work in a Westminster system, because that’s their job as MPs, the media tends to remain focused on this narrative that all MPs should be in lockstep with their leadership, especially when they form government. No. That’s not true at all. And yet, Power & Politics spent several blocks on this very notion, especially with the interview with MP Wayne Long (not that there was sufficient pushback against Long’s positions, especially because lower tax rates for self-incorporation are not supposed to be a reward for risk, nor did his assertions about these tax rates being responsible for the current economic growth make any logical sense). What was notable in the eyes of the producers was that a government MP was going against the grain, and that needs to be An Issue.

As for Bill Morneau, he seems to have finally clued in that his communications plan for these changes has been nothing short of an omnishambles and is promising better information out this fall as consultations wrap up, but it’s almost too late at this point, considering the loads of utter nonsense coming out from the business community and how much traction it’s getting.

https://twitter.com/arlenedickinson/status/907908816783663104

https://twitter.com/inklesspw/status/907925126993383424

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/908039874468487168

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Roundup: One bill passed, one deferred

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After very little drama, the budget implementation bill passed the Senate, their tempers cooled overnight. Not that it was ever going to be a real constitutional crisis – blame some garden variety torque for that one, but this wasn’t a meek climb down. The Senate did launch one final jab at the Commons, reminding them that while they are passing the budget bill this time, they nevertheless have the authority to amend or veto budget bills if they so choose – a pointed rebuke to the provocative boilerplate language of the Commons’ rejection of their amendments.

This having been said, what the Senate didn’t do was pass Bill S-3, which aims to remove certain types of discrimination from the Indian Act. The Senate amended the bill to remove all of the discrimination, while the Commons nixed said amendments, and the Senate was more willing to dig their heels in this one. By deferring debate and votes on this until September, it puts the government into a particular legal bind because they were under a court deadline of July 3rd to pass this bill in order to comply with a court order. This didn’t happen, and one suspects that it’s because the senators at the centre of this want to put more pressure on the government to accept their amendments and remove that discrimination.

Meanwhile, Dylan Robertson got a copy of the court decision that refused to extend the timeline for the government.

We shall see what the government’s next move is. I suspect it will be another court extension, but whether the summer to think over the amendments in light of the judge’s ruling may prompt a change of heart. Maybe. Time will tell.

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Roundup: Incentives and outcomes of electoral systems

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After four days of electoral reform committee hearings, the general sense that we’ve come away with is that academics in favour of reform are in favour of their own particular models, and that’s really been about it. (Kady O’Malley’s latest liveblog here). The most discussion that seems to have come out about outcomes from different electoral systems has been largely that one professor said the research hasn’t shown that everything will be sunshine and rainbows if we adopt a new system as each system has their own problems, and a lot of back-and-forth about how other systems will magically result in more compromise and nicer politics will somehow come out of it in the end (against all logic or evidence).

It was with some surprise that I noted that Fraser Institute of all places probably had the most to contribute to the discussion this week with the release of an academic essay (which appears to be the chapter in a forthcoming volume) that actually tested some of the outcomes and incentives for different electoral systems against fiscal policies of countries. While I didn’t find the results all that surprising, others might – that systems that result in more parties and more coalitions tend to have public spending as a far higher percentage of GDP, and much bigger deficits than countries with plurality/majoritarian systems like ours currently.

The logic is fairly simple and the research in the essay proves it – that coalition governments tend to be higher-spending because they require buying off the various parties in said coalitions; higher spending means growth of the public sector, and or deficits. There was also some more serious discussion than I’ve seen all week about the incentives to create smaller parties in PR systems than in plurality/majoritarian systems, where the coalition is more internal to the party, because the need for a coalition gives small and single-issue parties greater power and leverage to make demands as a coalition partner, thus incentivising the creation of more parties. This is not an insignificant consideration when it comes to outcomes from different voting systems, and I hope that this particular essay gets some traction rather than just being shrugged off as yet another Fraser Institute report.

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Roundup: Motion 6 regrets

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With a tiny bit of time and distance from the ridiculous events of this week, attention is turning back to the procedural shenanigans that got us to the frayed tempers in the first place. While the Liberals promised an era of fewer procedural tactics when being sworn in, in reality it was a petty dumb promise to make because let’s face it – sometimes it’s tough for a government to get their agenda through a House of Commons that doesn’t like some of their plans, and the opposition isn’t going to go along with them. It’s not their job to, and our system is built to be adversarial in order to keep the government accountable. On the other hand, there is so much hyperbole being applied to what Motion 6 was, and what the Liberals attempted to do with it, that we need to apply a little bit of perspective sauce. For starters, while Peter Julian rants and rails about how “draconian” the motion was, those in the know on the Hill know that he is very difficult to work with as a House Leader. In fact, the word “impossible” has been thrown around if you ask the right people. And sometimes that means using a heavier hand to work around. Rona Ambrose complained that Motion 6 took away “every ability” for the opposition to hold the government to account, but I’m not sure that dilatory motions are actual accountability. They’re protests, certainly, but that’s not necessarily accountability, so points for hyperbole there. And yes, this is a problem of the Liberals’ own making, promising infinite debate on an infinite number of bills, until they ran into a bunch of deadlines that made infinite debate a problem. And we need to remember that time allocation can be a perfectly appropriate tool when used appropriately. Did the Conservatives over-use it? Yes, because Peter Van Loan was an inept House manager, and the NDP refused to let any debate collapse, which made it a regular tool. And every debate does not need to go on forever. There is no genuine reason that there needed to be 84 speakers at second reading for the assisted dying bill. None. Particularly when virtually every one of those interventions was reading a script that said 1) This is a deeply personal issue; 2) What about palliative care?; and 3) Conscience rights, conscience rights, conscience rights. That does not need to be repeated 84 times at the stage of debate where you deciding on the merits of the bill. It’s noble that the Liberals were as accommodating as they were, but in this case, the opposition demands that everyone be heard – and not during extended hours – is actually unreasonable. Likewise, when LeBlanc started the time allocation motions, it was to head off NDP procedural trickery around Bill C-10, which they are perfectly justified in doing. And now that the government has backed off from Motion 6 (which I maintain was likely the nuclear option they were presenting to try and force the opposition parties back to the negotiation table for timetables around bills, and I doubt their tales that they were cooperative given the personalities involved), we’re going to see an increased hue and cry any time a future time allocation motion is brought forward. The Liberals, by combination of a dumb promise of infinite debate combined with their tactical ham-fistedness, have hampered their own future attempts to get bills passed in a timely manner. This will make things even more difficult going forward, as more planks of their ambitious agenda get unveiled.

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Roundup: The demise of Mulcair, part deux

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Plenty of more reactions to Mulcair’s demise and the party’s direction, so let’s get to it. Matt Gurney figures that the party is once again one of protest, while Jon Kay suggests that the party has outlived its usefulness with its embrace of the Leap Manifesto, and that Canada now effectively only has to parties. Gerry Caplan recalls the party’s hey days of 20 percent voter shares, and wonders if they can ever be taken seriously electorally. Andrew Coyne tries to look at the broader cause of Mulcair’s demise, while Jen Gerson says that Rachel Notley’s party that is getting things done is the one the federal party membership really threw under the bus, not Mulcair. David Reevley says the party can’t rebuild while “Zombie Tom” is still at the helm, while Emilie Taman insists that everything’s fine, that the Leap resolution gives the party a “path forward,” which I sincerely doubt. Colby Cosh takes the more existential take of the gradual demise of meaningful political parties writ large, and that if the NDP is but a shell then so is everyone else. He also takes on the notion that the political left is also largely meaningless anymore, which is something else to consider.

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Roundup: The Senate Advisory Board reports

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In keeping with the commitment to openness and transparency, the Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments released their report yesterday (PDF) on the interim process by which the first seven of the new independent Senate appointments were chosen. It’s an interesting read – they had a list of nearly 300 names to consider after consultations and nominations, from which they whittled it down to 25 names – five per vacancy that they were expected to fill, from which Justin Trudeau ended up selecting seven names rather than just five. The cost of the whole process was about $170,000, which seems to be pretty bare bones if you ask me. There were observations on the process included in the report, primarily that the process was pretty rushed, which meant that most of the information they had on candidates were all based on self-declaration, and that they didn’t conduct interviews with their short-list candidates in this process – they merely identified them, and one presumes that PMO was then responsible for the final vetting – something that might change as the process goes forward and the panel has more time and resources going forward as they look to fill the remaining vacancies over the next year or so, and any future vacancies as they come up. Also, the report listed the nearly 400 groups that the Board reached out to in order to get suggestions, and had demographic data on gender, linguistic profile, and Aboriginal and visible minority status. It also noted that failed candidates got a letter thanking them for participation, and the report noted that they are free to apply again under the future process. The chair of the Board has dismissed any concerns over the issue of André Pratte and his property hiccough, given that it will be resolved before he is appointed, and it’s a perfectly reasonable position to take. I will also note that this report answers most of the questions that Scott Reid has been howling about in QP over the past couple of months with regard to process and the secrecy of the system. Yes, there is an expectation of confidentiality for those who did not get appointed, as with any Governor-in-Council appointment, and from the language of the report, the PM did indeed choose the names from those on the short lists. Thus far, it looks like this new system is working as expected, and it provides the necessary suggestions for how to improve the process even further. Of course, we need to see how these new senators will perform, particularly in the capacity as independents in a system where the rules are still weighted to party caucuses (though that is slowly changing), but so far Trudeau’s reform plans are bearing fruit. We just need time to evaluate them going forward before we can declare it a success or not.

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Roundup: Slowly effacing the Crown

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There has been a certain level of trepidation amongst monarchists when the Liberals came to power, given their penchant for rewriting Canadian monarchical symbols out of things in order to focus on the maple leaf. When Trudeau announced that there would be no changes to our relationship with the Crown, there was a bit of a sigh of relief, particularly when he said that he would not be de-royalizing the service names of the Canadian Forces, but they are slowly and subtly reversing some of the Conservative restorations of monarchical symbols, starting with generals’ rank pins. They had gone from maple leaves, reverting to the older crowns given that hey, this country is a constitutional monarchy and the head of the Canadian Forces is the Queen of Canada. But now they’re turning back into maple leaves. The official excuse is that it’s easier for our international allies to recognise, but I am suspicious that this isn’t in fact a reversion to traditional Liberal effacing of monarchical symbols. What especially makes me insane about this is that it reinforces the narrative that the Conservatives as the party of the monarchy, inherently politicizing the Crown which should never, ever happen, and which is really, really irresponsible for the Liberals and NDP to engage in. Like, completely and utterly boneheadedly irresponsible. The Crown is our central organising principle. It is the centre of our constitutional framework. I cannot emphasise enough that letting one party drape themselves in the glow of the Crown unchallenged is beyond negligent. Worse, they not only let it go unchallenged by buy into this completely wrong narrative that they’re reverting to Britishisms when the Canadian monarchy is separate and distinct (well, more or less, but there is not grey area thanks to the Conservatives’ completely boneheaded royal succession bill). Rather than defending the Crown of Canada, you now have parties that are playing stupid political games around it, and doing lasting damage to Canadians’ understanding around our very constitutional framework. So slow claps all around, because this is the height of ignorant wrongheadedness. Everyone needs to be spanked for this petty and irresponsible nonsense.

https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/716069134925103104

https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/716069379809480705

Update:

I may have been hasty about the pips, as there may be good reason to change them. The rest of my points, about allowing the Crown to be politicized (especially since it allows more clueless journalists to put this frame around it), and my own trepidation about the Liberal penchant for effacing Crown symbols, remains.

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