Tag Archives: Dean Del Mastro

Roundup: Trying to politicize the RCMP – again

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Trying to cash in on the Duffy trial, the NDP decided to send an open letter to the RCMP Commissioner yesterday, essentially demanding that the case against Nigel Wright be re-opened and expanded to include current chief of staff Ray Novak, for some unknown reason. Oh, and they want a “clear response” as to why there are no charges. There are a few problems with this approach, so let’s list them, shall we?

  1. The RCMP don’t have to answer to the NDP. Sorry, but they don’t. They don’t have to explain why they didn’t press charges for someone else’s partisan gain.
  2. We’ve pretty much determined that in order for a bribery charge to be even feasible, they would have to establish the mens rea – the intent – that the $90,000 cheque was intending to buy influence. It wasn’t, and we have Wright’s testimony under oath to that effect. Are there no lawyers in the party that can explain this?
  3. And this is the big one – the NDP are explicitly trying to politicise the RCMP by making them part of their campaign against the Conservatives in the campaign.

Whoever in the NDP brain trust decided it was a good idea to drag the RCMP into the election should give their heads a shake because it’s kind of gross. The NDP brought them into a previous election – you’ll remember the December 2005 letter from the RCMP that the NDP used against the Liberals in that election, and when Harper won the election, how there were plenty of curious appearances of ties with the then-RCMP commissioner and Harper. (An investigation, it should be noted, that amounted to nothing). One would think that the RCMP would have learnt their lessons, and that they’ll be more circumspect. I guess we’ll see if they are, but suffice to say, the NDP trying to repeat that particular cheap stunt is not particularly endearing, and they should rethink trying to drag nominally non-political actors into the fray. No good can come of it.

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Roundup: Going around the rules

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So there were shenanigans in the Senate yesterday, the result of a confluence of a number of factors. Some of them are longer term – the terrible manner in which Harper has made his appointments has left a large cadre of Conservative senators who feel beholden to him and his largely imaginary whip. There are exceptions to the rule, but there are a lot of Senators right now who still feel they need to follow the PM’s rule because he appointed them, and that’s simply not the case. It was just a sensibility encouraged by the Senate leadership on the Conservative side who had far too many newbie senators in place at once. Then there’s the problem of the bill itself. The PMO has ruled they want to see this go through – never mind that it would create a giant bureaucracy at CRA, and that it could have “staggering” compliance costs for mutual funds and other organisations beyond the unions it’s targeting. It’s also a constitutional overreach because labour relations are a provincial jurisdiction, but the government wants this through because they see unions as a big threat to them. It never should have been a private members’ bill, but that was how they introduced it, and got it past the worst of the scrutiny on the Commons side because of automatic time limits. The Senate recognised it as unconstitutional and a threat to labour relations in this country, and even a number of Conservative senators opposed it. Led by Hugh Segal, they voted to amend the bill to near uselessness and sent it back to the Commons – but then prorogation happened, and the amendments were undone when the bill reset (thanks to Senate rules). In the interim, Hugh Segal retired, and Marjory LeBreton stepped down as government leader, almost certainly because of the caucus revolt over the bill. The Conservative senators sat on the bill for months before the PMO decided it wanted them to try and pass the bill. The Liberals, as is their right, filibustered. And they have the provinces on their side – seven provinces representing more than 80 percent of the population are opposed to the bill, and the Senate has a regional representation role. Things came to a head yesterday when the Conservatives tried to break the filibuster by trying to time allocate the bill – something they can’t do under Senate rules, and when the Speaker said no, the Conservatives challenged the ruling – something they can actually do under Senate rules. Kady O’Malley explains some of it here, and I responded with a Twitter essay.

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Roundup: Getting out the leg irons

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It was the image that launched a thousand attack ads – or probably will, at any rate, as Dean Del Mastro was marched out in handcuffs and leg irons, off to spend the night (at least) in an Ontario prison after being found guilty of breaking election finance laws. “Cheating is cheating,” the judge noted, and that it was a serious enough crime to warrant some kind of jail time, so she decided on a month – though he may get out by tomorrow on bail pending the appeal of his case. Del Mastro’s lawyer also tried to get other exceptions for Del Mastro – jail on weekends, numerous exceptions for the eventual house arrest provisions – because he has a farm and needs to feed the animals, and a job in Toronto, and so on. The judge didn’t appear to be buying it, and made a point about needing a jail sentence onto only to show the severity of the crime (hence denunciation and deterrence), but also the issue of time to reflect on his actions, thought may be asking a lot from Del Mastro, as he walked into the courtroom convinced of his own innocence, and has shown no remorse whatsoever, even though the judge noted that Del Mastro was prepared to falsify his own statements to try and get away with his overspending. Many will argue that leg-irons and jail time are overkill, give that he’s not a dangerous criminal, but it relies on the same logic behind putting white collar criminals behind bars as well – because making them pay a fine or just house arrest aren’t considered punishment enough for the severity of their crimes. Disagree with it all you want, but we have made this choice though our legislative regimes, and if we want to change that, well, there’s an election coming up. Meanwhile, Stephen Maher says the Conservatives’ treatment of the man who testified against Del Mastro leaves a lot to be desired.

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Roundup: Ham-fisting a simple request

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The signs of the current government’s incompetence at handling the big files are numerous, but recent revelations about their anti-terrorism legislation just may take the cake. Documents obtained by The Canadian Press show that last year, Canadian intelligence services said that they were looking for “significant improvements” to information sharing between the various agencies – but they wanted them within the existing legislative framework. They didn’t need all kinds of new powers or expanded mandates, and yet, the government turn around and brought in C-51, which did just that. Because this government, after almost a decade in office, apparently doesn’t know what they’re doing, gave the intelligence services a ham-fisted, overly broad new suite of powers that they didn’t need – or even want, if these documents are to be believed – because they had managed to terrify themselves thanks to a couple of lone-wolf attacks on home soil. They drafted a bill that was so sloppy and terrible that every expert on the subject could hardly believe it. And their inept communications strategy around the bill managed to get every civil society group up in arms over it, creating a second sweep of paranoia (despite the fact that no, the bill had nothing to do with trying to expand surveillance to civil society groups or use terrorists as cover for trying to bring the hammer down on First Nations – a simple look at the fact that the government has underfunded CSIS and the RCMP will tell you pretty much everything you need to know about their intentions). It looks to be just one more example of where this government once again rejected expert advice in order to make themselves look like they were getting tough on terrorism – as effectively as they’ve gotten “tough on crime” – and they managed to balls things up for themselves and everyone else in the process. Would that we could have some grown-ups leading this country for a change.

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Roundup: An implicit repudiation

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It was Auditor General day yesterday, and as usual, there were some stories that didn’t get a lot of attention, like CBSA’s computer systems, and some which are somewhat alarming, like the fact that twenty years later, Health Canada still doesn’t have a real plan to deal with superbugs, that there are some serious deficiencies when it comes to nursing stations with remote First Nations, or that the Royal Canadian Mint and the Office of the Canadian Forces Ombudsman had some spending issues. But the most interesting bits were in two chapters – one on tax expenditures, the other on the release of male offenders from corrections. In essence, both are repudiations of the way that this government has been managing things. Tax expenditures has a lot to do with the mass proliferation of those boutique tax credits that this government likes to throw around in order to target voters, but as the AG points out, it’s done with little scrutiny, and not enough information on them gets back to Parliamentarians to hold that spending to account. (Couple this with the report on Monday about the growth in tax complexity, and it should be a big red flag). As for offenders, too many low-risk offenders are not getting parole when they are eligible, and that makes reintegration harder, and recidivism more likely because they don’t get the monitoring that comes with parole. Add to that, the squeeze on programming resources within prisons and the removal of incentives to do the programming means that too many offenders are being released without having completed their rehabilitation programmes, which is also alarming. It’s also the direct fault of this government and their tough-on-crime policies what have made a virtue of trying to keep people in prisons longer, and then justifying it by saying that they won’t be on the streets to re-offend (never mind that in the vast majority of cases, keeping them in prison longer does more harm than good). And as the AG pointed out, it’s more costly to keep them in prison longer and without gradual release and programming, they get released with a higher chance to re-offend. In other words, we’re paying more to get poorer results because it’s easier to try and get votes by appealing to the sense of retribution rather than rehabilitation. Well done, guys. Slow clap.

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Roundup: The Senate invokes privilege

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In his attempt to cast the net far and wide in order to excuse Mike Duffy’s housing claims, it seems that Donald Bayne is trying to show that plenty of other senators were improperly claiming for Ottawa residences, and is trying to compel the release of an internal Senate audit conducted in 2012, where two Senators – retired Senator Zimmer and Senator Patterson – were found to have questionable claims which they later explained away. The Senate, however, is invoking privilege and refusing to turn it over, which is their constitutional right. They are under no obligation to help Duffy’s defence, after all, and as a legislative body they have the right to conduct their own affairs. And before anyone starts getting hysterical, remember that privilege is all about the independence of the institution, and keeping the courts out of parliament so that it can do its job without the constant threat of litigation during the legislative process. Likewise, Parliament doesn’t get involved in individual court cases because that would interfere with the independence of the courts. Otherwise, Bayne tried to bring up Senator Carolyn Stewart Olsen yesterday who was part of the subcommittee that “sat in judgement” of Duffy when she was claiming her long-time Ottawa residence as secondary for two years while she was trying to sell it in order to fully move back to New Brunswick (this is the point where I mention that she shouldn’t have been appointed as a New Brunswick senator until she was fully moved back). Also, the Senate finance officer continued to be grilled, and continued to push back against Bayne, going so far as to read more than the passages he indicated in order to provide context, which the judge allowed her to do. Nicholas Köhler paints that sketch with his usual aplomb.

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Roundup: Eminent Canadians push back

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The anti-terror legislation again dominated the headlines yesterday, starting with a letter that four former Prime Ministers – Turner, Clark, Chrétien and Martin – along with 18 other eminent Canadians including five former Supreme Court justices, penned in the Globe and Mail about the need for better oversight of our national security agencies. You know, like the Martin government was trying to pass in 2004 before the Conservatives and NDP brought them down (and which Peter MacKay blatantly misconstrued in QP). What’s more baffling is that the government, by way of Jason Kenney, is now arguing that the bill doesn’t need more oversight because it gives more power to the courts to provide it. (Funnily enough, this is the same party who likes to moan about judicial activism). The problem with judicial oversight is that it also isn’t really oversight, and we have actual demonstrated cases where CSIS didn’t tell the truth when they went to the courts for a warrant. One of those cases is now waiting to be heard by the Supreme Court, because CSIS failed in their duty of candour. This is not a minor detail, but rather a gaping hole in the government’s argument. Oversight is a very important and necessary component, and it makes no sense that the government can keep ignoring it because it’s going to come around and bite them in the ass if they don’t get a handle on it, particularly when the bad things that happen come to light, and they always do, and we’ll have another Maher Arar-type situation.

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Roundup: Laying out their C-51 positions

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Not that it was any surprise what they were, but the opposition parties laid out their explicit positions on the new anti-terror bill in advance of the start of debate yesterday – the NDP firmly opposed, the Liberals walking the line by listing the things they support in the bill and the things they don’t, and vowing to make it an election issue if the Conservatives don’t make the necessary amendments. But while it’s certainly within the right of the NDP, as official opposition, to call for the bill’s defeat, if you scratch beneath the surface a little, much of their messaging on it is a mess. At his press conference yesterday, Mulcair was simultaneously saying that they want the bill defeated writ large and voted down at second reading (agreement in principle), while saying that it needs more debate and amendments at committee, and then reiterating that it’s beyond saving, that there were no amendments that could make them live with it. From a procedural standpoint, that’s all over the map. And then there’s the conspiracy theory aspect, where Mulcair is going on about how a government could use CSIS to spy on their political adversaries under these broad definitions, and then to the Francophone media, he goes full-bore on re-fighting 1970, and it’s all October Crisis and the War Measures Act. That, of course, has to do with his Quebec voter base, which is polling its support for stronger anti-terror measures, discomfited by the terror-inspired hit-and-run last October, and probably the Charter of Values xenophobia around Muslims that is still an undercurrent. Suffice to say, the scattershot of arguments against make it hard to follow the plot. For her part, Elizabeth May is going full-on conspiracy theory, insisting the bill will turn CSIS into a “secret police” – err, except that they have no arrest powers, and then tried to say that such a bill would basically turn Rosa Parks into a terrorist in CSIS’ eyes. I’m not sure that’s helpful. Terry Glavin makes the point that while there are alarming things in the bill, hysteria doesn’t really help the debate. As for Peter MacKay, whose use of “cultural” causes with relation to the not-really-would-be-terror-attack in Halifax, when asked what he thought the definition of terrorism was, MacKay told reporters to “look it up.” He’s all class.

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Roundup: Open federalism vs carbon pricing

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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.

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Roundup: Recycled economic planks

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Thomas Mulcair spent the noon hour yesterday laying out three of his party’s economic planks for the coming election. (A reminder: it’s still nine months away). To that end, Mulcair promised a cut to small business taxes, an extension of the capital gains cost allowances for companies buying new equipment, and an innovation tax credit for businesses. The first of those is not new – the NDP have been going in this direction since the previous election, and the second is current government policy that is set to expire, but one wonders how much it has been taken up as the government already extended it, and we still hear that Canadian companies didn’t spend the high dollar years investing in this equipment to boost productivity at a time when it was advantageous for them to do so, and now the dollar is much lower and it’s more costly for these businesses to buy this new equipment. The third, geared toward research and development, again sounds suspiciously like what the current government has been trying to do as they retooled the National Research Council to help with commercialisation of technologies. There is, of course, debate on some of the utility of these points as well, with certain experts saying that those small businesses that would benefit from this kind of tax cut are already well off. (Also, small businesses are not the biggest job creators in the country – sorry, but that doesn’t make any mathematical sense). The final point is geared toward revitalising the manufacturing sector, but it’s pocket change in terms of dollars, and the sector has much more entrenched structural problems. Of course, there is no mention of how this is costed, on top of promises for their childcare spaces, restoring the much higher healthcare transfer escalator, and returning OAS eligibility to 65 – and no, raising corporate income taxes won’t get you that much, nor will going after offshore tax havens. Mulcair also added that the NDP would move to protect pensions from bankruptcy proceedings, which again is not new policy, for what it’s worth.

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