Tag Archives: Fundraising

QP: Vote for my bill

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Despite being in town (and just having a completed a call with the White House), Justin Trudeau was absent for QP today, for which I will scowl. Thomas Mulcair was still away as well, part of the GG’s state visit to Sweden, leaving only Rona Ambrose the only major leader present. She led off, trolling for support for her private member’s bill on mandatory sexual assault training for judges — something that is not asking about the administrative responsibilities of the government. Jody Wilson-Raybould said that it was an important topic and that she would review the bill as it came to the Commons. After another round of asking in French and repeating the answer in English, Ambrose raised the case of Justin Bourque to demand that consecutive sentencing laws remain in place. Wilson-Raybould reminded her that they are conducting a broad-based review, and that there are already the highest mandatory penalties on the books for murder. Ambrose asked about that Chinese company that bought that nursing home chain and wondered if they figured out the ownership yet, but Navdeep Bains repeated this assurances from yesterday about the review of the sale. Ambrose finished off her round asking about the government refusing to release information on their carbon price cost projections, and Catherine McKenna reminded her that there are also costs for not tackling climate change. Nathan Cullen led off for the NDP, spinning a small conspiracy theory about fundraising by the chairman of Apotex, for which Bardish Chagger reminded her that the Lobbying Commissioner found nothing amiss. Karine Trudel asked the same in French, got the same answer, and then spun another question about the government’s ethics, and Chagger reiterated her same points. Nathan Cullen then railed about the government caring only about billionaires and not average Canadians, and Chagger chastised him for ignoring the ways in which the government has been listening to Canadians.

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QP: Pink shirts against Trump

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With it being caucus day, most of the desks were filled in the Commons, and MPs were ready to go. Rona Ambrose led off, asking about the sale of some BC retirement homes to a Chinese firm with murky ownership. Justin Trudeau reminded her that we are a trading nation, and that means allowing foreign investment in our interests. Ambrose pressed about the Chinese’s firm’s murky ownership, and Trudeau took the rare move of pulling out a note to read off some of the provisions of the deal including provincial oversight and job guarantees. Ambrose turned to the issue of consecutive sentences and demanded that they remain in place. Trudeau reiterated his previous day’s response about supporting judges while doing the broad-based Criminal Code review. Ambrose asked again, and got the same answer, before she turned again to the lack of full-time job growth, and Trudeau retreated to his well-worn talking points about tax cuts and the Canada Child Benefits. Jenny Kwan led off for the NDP, railing about a massive immigration crackdown in the United States and and asked if the PM still thought the US was a safe country for refugees. Trudeau noted that the expectation of this government is to work well with the Americans. Matthew Dubé pressed about refugees heading for our border, and Trudeau noted that he was surprised that the NDP, who are concerned about the rights of workers, would look to jeopardize our economic relationship with the States. Dubé then asked about Canadians turned back from the US border and worried that the pre-clearance bill would make it worse. Trudeau reminded him that pre-clearance means that they still get Charter protections that they wouldn’t have on US soil. Jenny Kwan demanded that Trudeau stand up to the bully Trump on Pink Shirt Day, but Trudeau repeated his answer.

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QP: Queen’s Park and conspiracy theories

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While Justin Trudeau was off in Strasbourg, the rest of the Commons was filtering in, ready for the grand inquest of the nation. Rona Ambrose led off, asking what half-dozen things that the government had in mind that they said could be fixed about NAFTA. Bill Morneau responded by giving some vague generalities, and said that they would talk NAFTA when it comes up. Ambrose worried that the US was cutting taxes and red tape, but Morneau assured her that our economy was still very competitive. Ambrose railed about “Kathleen Wynne’s failed policies” and carbon taxes, to which Catherine McKenna listed companies creating sustainable jobs. Denis Lebel was up next, and worried about how the dairy sector would be impacted by NAFTA renegotiations, to which Lawrence MacAulay assured him that they supported supply management. Lebel switched to English to demand if the government still supported supply management, and MacAulay assured him once again that yes, of course they did. Thomas Mulcair was up next, raising the refugee claimants crossing the border. Ahmed Hussen assured him that there was no material change on the ground. Mulcair switched to French to claim that there were smugglers near the border, and this time Marc Garneau responded in French that they were working with authorities to address the situation. Mulcair then changed topics to accusations that the Liberals were accepting larger than legal donations, at which point Karina Gould reminded him that all parties have instances of overages and all parties pay them back. Mulcair persisted, insisting that the Liberals broke the law, and Bardish Chagger got up to remind him that any questions asked by the Ethics Commissioner would be answered.

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Roundup: Losing crucial regional perspectives

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As the hollowing out of the Press Gallery continues, we lost a fairly unique voice yesterday, being Peter O’Neil, who was writing for the Vancouver Sun. While he is but yet one more journalist who has been let go in this period of bloodletting, his was a fairly unique position of being the only “regional” voice left in a major chain paper. Yes, we still have the Winnipeg Free Press and the Halifax Chronicle Herald sending journalists to the Hill rather than just buying wire copy (which they still do, mind you), but those independent papers, and that does make a difference.

Once upon a time, each local paper for the major chains sent someone to Ottawa to cover stories here from the local perspective rather than rely solely on national reporters to feed stories to them. It allowed for local concerns to be brought to MPs here, and for the MPs to better engage with their local papers from Ottawa – especially as they had someone who knew their home ridings here to keep them honest. That’s all gone now. And part of why this is a problem is that there has been a proven correlation between the loss of regional reporters in the Press Gallery and a decline voter turnout in those communities where they suffered that loss. (There are academic studies on this, but my GoogleFu is failing me on this one, but yes, this was a subject frequently discussed during my master’s programme). And now, with even fewer national reporters there to do the daily reporting plus trying to get any kind of perspective, we no longer have reporters doing the same kinds of accountability on MPs themselves rather than just of the government. Peter was the last of the regional voices from the big chains, and because Vancouver has a particular unique political culture of its own, that was an important perspective to have. In fact, it’s one of the reasons why he wound up writing the biography of former Senator Gerry St. Germain – because St. Germain knew that O’Neil knew West Coast politics, he could trust him enough to tell his story. That’s not an insignificant thing in a country with big regional differences like Canada has. And this becomes a growing problem as we lose more and more journalists and positions here in Ottawa, which we need to figure out how to reverse, one way or another, before things deteriorate to the point of no return.

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QP: In the shadow of Ste-Foy

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With a somber mood in the Commons in advance of QP, shortly after statements made Trudeau and the other party leaders regarding the shooting in the Quebec City mosque. Rona Ambrose led off, raising the mosque shooting and offering condolences. Trudeau thanked her for her question and leadership, and offered assurances that they were working to address the situation. Ambrose then asked about the timeline on the Yazidi refugees and how the US travel ban might affect them. Trudeau said that the new minister was working hard on the file and they were working hard to meet the deadline with an announcement coming in a few weeks. Ambrose raised the worries about jobs going south with lower taxes and slashed regulations, but Trudeau immediately raised their focus on the middle class. Ambrose then moved to the helicopter ride to the Aga Khan’s island and breaking ethical rules. Trudeau responded simply that they were working with the Ethics Commissioner to resolve the situation. Ambrose then accused Trudeau of worrying about his own affairs instead of Canadians’. Trudeau noted the town halls he held across the country, and that they remained focused on the middle class. Thomas Mulcair was up next, and he too raised the Quebec City mosque shooting, and wondered how those religious institutions would be kept safe. Trudeau assured him that police forces were monitoring the situation, but the best way to protect Canadians was with a united society. Mulcair noted that the mosque had been targeted in the past, and wanted greater dialogue with concerned religious leaders across the country. Trudeau noted how all MPs were engaged with faith leaders in their community, and that they were working to reduce ignorance around the country. Mulcair raised the American “Muslim ban” executive order, and wanted Trudeau to condemn it as an affront to Canadian shared values. Trudeau said that Canadians were an open society and he would stand up for those values. Mulcair wanted permanent support to refuges who are now banned from the United States, and Trudeau said that they are working to see how they can help out more.

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Roundup: A two-fingered fix for fundraising

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After months now of interminable questions about the perfectly legal fundraising practices of the Liberals, it was let known that they will be a tabling a bill in the near future to…do something about it. Not really clamp down. Not really stop. Just add more disclosure, and ensure that events don’t happen in private homes, which many people argue is not really the point, but I think is more of the government giving two fingers to their critics and making some cosmetic changes to shut people up.

Kady O’Malley rather astutely observes that this is really setting a trap for opposition parties, particularly with the proposed provisions around party leaders and leadership candidates being subject to the same new rules, waiting for them to oppose it so that they can be accused of hypocrisy. I would add that there’s an element of payback in here for the way in which the Conservatives and NDP got together in 2006 to screw the Liberals in the middle of their leadership contest by changing the fundraising rules right in the middle of it, meaning that some of those candidates were unable to raise enough money to pay back debts that they would have had little problem doing beforehand.

Of course, it all goes back to the fact that this whole story has been overblown from the very start. These fundraisers were never really “cash for access” as they were billed – they were only termed so because the journalists at the centre of this were trying to piggyback on the kind of mess that was happening in Ontario where cabinet ministers were largely blackmailing companies that were trying to lobby them for tens of thousands of dollars in order to get a hearing, which is absolutely not what was happening in this context, nor, and this bears repeating again and again, can you buy meaningful influence for $1500. And even if you get your five minutes with the PM and want to give your pitch to him, do you honestly think that it would really sway his opinion when he’s got people who want pitch him all the time? I’m not convinced. And, as they’ve said (and as this “listening tour” has again demonstrated), they’ve shown a remarkable degree of openness to regular Canadians and are constantly consulting. It’s not like the only time you can see them is at a fundraiser. But ooh, scary Chinese businessmen! Anyway, I’ll let Howard Anglin take it from here.

Oh, and one more reminder about how overblown this has all been: Transparency International has us as one of the cleanest, least corrupt countries in the world. Given the pearl-clutching you hear from our commentariat, you wouldn’t actually know that.

Incidentally, the Conservatives are already howling at the moon about this, and the NDP’s Alexandre Boulerice says it’s not enough and he’ll table his own bill – except that’s an empty threat since he’s so far down the Order of Precedence that it will never see the light of day.

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Roundup: Not a looming crisis

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Everyone spent yesterday lighting their hair on fire based on this “buried” government report that was full of scary numbers, like growing deficits going out to 2050 that reached the $1 trillion mark, and wasn’t this just the sign of how reckless Liberal spending was, and so on. The headline in fact read “looming fiscal crisis.” The Conservatives in particular tried to push some rather questionable narratives about how much better fiscal managers they were, complete with a little chart that was a work of fiction that Dame Barbara Cartland would be proud of.

Of course, it’s all complete and utter twaddle. For one, the report points to the fact that the debt-to-GDP ratio continues to decline, which means that the economy is growing and the deficit is not proportionally. That is a big deal. And if you believe that the Conservatives would have a trillion-dollar surplus in the same amount of time, give your head a shake because they not only built their “balanced” budget on a foundation of sand in 2015, but they continued to insist that they would cut taxes rather than let surpluses accumulate (and hey, remember how their desire to cut the GST in a hurry left them with a deficit before the 2008 financial crisis even hit? Yeah. Prudent fiscal management there, what with the desire to put populism before good economics). Not to mention, as Andrew Coyne points out, the whole exercise was just that – a paper exercise based on a number of projections on a spreadsheet, not an actual economic forecast, which you wouldn’t actually do for 40 year timelines because that’s literally crazy-talk.

The question becomes, however, does this become a narrative that hangs around the Liberals’ necks like an albatross? They’re already using it as showing why they’re taking a harder line against the provinces demands for increased healthcare spending, and about approaching new spending with caution. But it also lends credence to their project for trying to restructure the economy to kick-start growth that is otherwise sluggish. Will it work? It remains to be seen. But without trying to sound like some kind of apologist, would it kill a single journalist writing the stories around said report to mention the debt-to-GDP ratio? Provide some actual context for those numbers, rather just present the scary trillion-dollar deficit figure and brand it a looming crisis, when it very clearly is not? But that might require something other than the usual kinds of cheap outrage that our journalism tends to peddle, making us all the poorer for it.

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Roundup: Harder’s wrongheaded impatience

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Our good friend Senator Peter Harder is at it again, going to the media about his frustrations that Senate modernization isn’t going his way. The current complaint is twofold – one, that they haven’t adopted all of the Auditor General’s recommendations; and two, that the rules allow for senators to delay debating bills for lengthy periods. So, let’s break it down.

First of all, the AG’s recommendation that the Senate require an external audit committee to provide some kind of “external validation” was a Very Bad Recommendation. I’ve argued this time and again, and I’ll say it again right here – the Senate cannot be put under external oversight because parliament is self-governing. This is a very important consideration that the AG doesn’t understand. I don’t care how many government departments and private companies use this external validation – they are not parliament and parliament is self-governing. That means that the Senate must police itself, no matter how much the AG seems to find that to be a problem (and considering how very little his audit found for how much it cost, as problematic and arbitrary as it was). And yes, an audit committee is an idea that could include external members but must have a majority of members from the Senate on it, non-negotiable. If Parliament cannot govern itself, then we might as well just declare that the past 148 years of Responsible Government were just a failed experiment and we might as well tell the Queen to take over and rule us directly again. I’m not even kidding. If Harder can’t grasp this fundamental concept, then that is a problem.

The other point, about delays, is as much Harder’s own failing as Government Leader – err, “government representative” than anything. If government bills need swift passage, he needs to make the case to the Senate, and if there are delays, then he has tools at his disposal including time allocation, which he must again, make the case for swift passage. And there are a lot of bills that the Senate does dispose of relatively quickly, particularly because the Commons likes to dump them on the Senate shortly before Parliament rises for either the holidays or summer, and implore that they get passed post-haste, and most of the time, they are. And just like with the Senate’s veto, there are sometimes cases where delay is warranted for any number of reasons, including that it’s a bad bill (such as the single sports betting bill in the previous parliament). The Senate is not a rubber stamp; changing the rules to force them to be more “disciplined” in how they debate is seriously close to curtailing the privileges of parliamentarians to suit the government’s agenda. Parliament is there to keep a check on the government, not simply nod everything through. This is one more piece in the concerning pattern that Harder is looking to make changes to an institution that he doesn’t understand and will cause lasting damage if he’s not reined in.

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Roundup: Chagger on fundraising

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Government House Leader Bardish Chagger talked to the Huffington Post, and the headline had all of my media colleagues grasping for their pearls as she declared that the House of Commons was not the place to discuss Liberal fundraisers. And if I’m going to go full pedant on this, she’s right – to an extent. On its face, fundraising is party business and really nothing to do with the administrative responsibility of the government. Why this current round of eye-rolling nonsense around so-called “cash for access” fundraising (which isn’t actually cash for access in the sense that we got used to talking about with Ontario) is because the opposition is trying to link those fundraisers with conflicts of interest from the government, all based on insinuation with no actual proof of quid pro quo. But because there is this tenuous connection, the questions are being allowed, and they get to make all manner of accusations that would otherwise be considered libellous before the cameras under the protection of parliamentary privilege. Indeed, when Ambrose accused the government of acting illegally with those fundraisers, Chagger invited her to step outside of the Chamber to repeat those accusations. Ambrose wouldn’t, for the record.

Where this might resonate are with memories of the previous parliament, with endless questions about the ClusterDuff affair, and the operations of the Senate, and those various and sundry questions that came up time and again, and which were rarely actually about things that were the administrative responsibility of the government. And every now and again, Speaker Andrew Scheer would say so. But contrary to the opinions of some, this wasn’t something that Scheer made up out of thin air.

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In fact, Scheer was too lenient for many of these questions, and there are sometimes that I think that Regan is even more so. Most of the NDP questions asked during the height of the ClusterDuff affair were blatantly out of order, asked for the sake of grandstanding. That the questions with the current fundraising contretemps have made this tenuous link to government operations and decisions is the only thing that makes them marginally relevant to QP. That said, the hope that this will somehow tarnish the government or grind down their ethical sheen generally depends on there being actual rules broken or actual impropriety, which there hasn’t been. Meanwhile, a bunch of issues that the opposition should be holding the government to account for are languishing because they need to put up six MPs a day on this. But hey, at least they’re providing clips to the media as opposed to doing their jobs, right?

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Roundup: The problem with measuring parliamentary productivity

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Every year around this time, we get the series of articles trying to measure just how “productive” parliament has been, and it uses metrics like how many votes passed – as though that were the sole function of an MP.  And while Aaron Wherry tried to challenge this particular metric of parliamentary productivity, I thought that I would add a few added bits of context. For starters, a number of the bills passed by the Conservatives late in any parliamentary sitting would be some small and very narrow bills to do with something like legislating changes to a particular federal park whose boundaries they expanded (and called it an environmental programme), or specific one-off changes that deal with particular First Nations. They would introduce these bills, let them languish on the Order Paper, and then just before the Commons was set to rise for either winter or summer break, they would pass them at all stages with pretty much no debate or committee hearing, citing them as uncontroversial, and off they would go to the Senate, where they tended to at least get a few hours of debate. Bills like these helped to inflate the numbers that the Conservatives would then cite to “prove” just how productive they had been, when in reality, so much debate time got swallowed up by the need to constantly debate and vote on time allocation motions.

Meanwhile, has this particular government been slow on their legislative agenda? Hell, yes. The fact that Bill C-7 on RCMP labour relations went the entire fall sitting without being brought back for debate after the Senate amended the bill last June is concerning. This was a bill that was in response to a Supreme Court of Canada decision that was granted a brief extension by the Court (around the same time as the assisted dying legislation) and the fact that said deadline expired months ago is a problem. I really don’t know why Bill C-32 (equalising the age of consent for gay sex) hasn’t been brought up for debate yet because the bill is a no-brainer and could (and should) pass with a mere few hours of debate, and yet it’s been sitting there for a month. There are customs and pre-clearance bills that have been sitting on the Order Paper since June, which you think would be important to a government that is looking to try to eliminate barriers to trade with the United States. I’m not sure why the House Leaders are having difficulty in getting these bills moved forward. So while I do think that trying to measure the effectiveness of a parliament by the number of bills passed is a bogus measure, it doesn’t mean that there still aren’t bills that they should have moved on months ago.

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