Tag Archives: GLBT

Roundup: O’Toole wants intervenor status

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Yesterday morning, Erin O’Toole declared that he would seek intervenor status at the Federal Court in the dispute between the House of Commons and the Public Health Agency of Canada over the disclosure of classified documents. Apparently, he believes that he has a “distinct perspective” on the underlying issues raised by the case, which is…a bit novel considering that his press release was a partisan document that was not about legal arguments but rather about political calculus.

As a reminder, the process was triggered because under the Canada Evidence Act – which Parliament passed – says that when requests for secret or confidential documents are made to a government entity like PHAC, they must notify the Attorney General, and that triggered a process by which said Attorney General sought clarity from the Federal Court – does the Canada Evidence Act and its limitations supersede or otherwise restrict Parliament’s privileges in demanding documents and the production of papers as they see fit, given that they are ostensibly the highest court in the land. Plenty of people have tried to make this a partisan issue – O’Toole most especially among them – rather than a process where everyone is following the law, and the law conflicts with Parliamentary privilege.

I half-suspect that in this case, the Federal Court may not grant O’Toole standing, given that he has pretty much stated that this is going to be an attempt at electoral grandstanding inside of a court room, which the Court would be hesitant to do. Beyond that, his statement in the press release doesn’t actually make sense – the request to present the documents will die when Parliament is dissolved, and the special committee that demanded the documents ceases to exist. Beyond that, if he forms government, he won’t need to release the documents because he’d be able to read them in secret, thus eliminating the possibility that releasing them might compromise our Five Eyes obligations, or inadvertently compromise a foreign intelligence source (though I am not convinced this is a national security or intelligence issue, but rather more likely one of an RCMP investigation into policy breaches). Not to mention, the documents were released, both in a redacted form to the committee, and in an unredacted form to NSICOP, and the Conservatives want someone else to do the redacting who doesn’t have national security experience. I have a hard time discerning just what “distinct perspective” he has other than scoring points, given that the Speaker will be exercising his role in protecting the privileges of the Commons, and he doesn’t need O’Toole’s help for that.

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Roundup: Beware the lure of a pilot project

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You can bet that, as an election looms, that certain parties will start talking up Basic Income again (and this includes the Liberals, given recent party policy votes around it). We’re also hearing from a group of senators who want to push this in spite of evidence that it’s not the best way to go (and they have been vocally dismissing any dissent, no matter how expert). And a bill in the US about Basic Income pilots will add fuel to this particular tire fire. So with that, I turn it over to Dr. Lindsay Tedds, who was on the BC panel that examined the feasibility of Basic Income to break it down:

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1422689592722051072

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1422689597105049603

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1422689601018372096

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1422691518230433793

But there’s a reason why these kinds of pilot proposals are popular, and that is politics. Alas.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1422692966142029826

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Roundup: The bravery of a hollow stand

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Over the weekend, The Canadian Press had an interview with out gay Conservative MP Eric Duncan, talking about his fight against the blood donation deferral period for men who have sex with men, while at the same time members of his own party have been fighting the bill to ban conversion therapy. And while it’s great that the Conservatives finally have an out gay MP (previously, their only out member was Senator Nancy Ruth, though they had ministers like John Baird were out in their private lives, but simply refused to acknowledge it in the media), and that their new leader professes to want to be more inclusive (apparently in spite of his own members), there is nevertheless something a bit off with the way this has all played out.

The thing about Duncan’s apparent “bravery” with talking about the blood donor policy as a result of his own history with being rejected is that this is not something the government can actually do anything about because Canadian Blood Services and Héma Québec are arm’s length, and Health Canada’s regulatory role is outside of the minister’s purview. Yes, we can ask questions as to why the Liberals promised to end the ban if they couldn’t actually fulfil their promise, but for Duncan (and for that matter, the NDP) to try and hold the government to account for something that they can’t actually do is a problem. Likewise, they too would be making promises that either they can’t keep, or they are proposing a massive and troubling overreach where the government would wind up asserting jurisdiction, bigfooting those arm’s-length agencies, and setting precedents for bigfooting other arm’s-length bodies in the future, which is a very bad thing that we should be very concerned about.

As for the conversion therapy bill, there were no “common sense amendments” that would make it acceptable to the Conservatives without gutting the bill. The bill would not criminalize conversations between parents and children, or with pastors, and this constant fear that social conservatives have had for decades as LGBT+ rights have progressed has never come true, and yet they will keep banging on that drum. As for the refrain that certain senators are pushing that “the government had six years to do this” is disingenuous. There is only so much time in parliament and only so much capacity in government to get everything accomplished, and it’s not like we didn’t have anything else happening over these past six years (such as a crash in oil prices, the Donald Trump years, getting climate legislation passed, advancing the cause of Indigenous reconciliation, of when it comes to LGBT+ issues, getting trans rights enshrined in law – again to these same social conservative fears of criminalization). Governments can’t do everything at once, and these people know that. Don’t fall for the rhetoric.

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Roundup: The Ombudsman demands independence

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The military ombudsman put out a position paper yesterday that called for his office to be made fully independent, and he criticized the minister’s office and the Department of National Defence for trying to interfere in investigations and ignoring recommendations for change. In particular, he cited that turning a blind eye to his office’s recommendations advances political interest or has to do with self-preservation or career advancements within the defence community.

Readers may know that I have issues with the demands for yet more officers of parliament. The proliferation of these officers has become acute in the last decade, and while there is a need for an independent ombudsman for the military, I also have not been blind to some of the previous holders of that office, and some were very much unsuited for an office that has no accountability. I’m not sure what kind of a structure the ombudsman’s office should need to be, but again, making him unaccountable and completely insulated opens the role up to the kinds of abuses of authority we’re seeing with the last officer of parliament that was created (being the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who has become completely unmoored from his legislative mandate). Anyone who doesn’t share this concern obviously isn’t paying attention (and I can guarantee you that the media is not paying attention, because they like it when these unaccountable officers try to turn themselves into media darlings, as the PBO is doing right now).

When asked about this, Justin Trudeau said that he would put it to Justice Louise Arbour as part of her comprehensive review, so that the ombudsman’s office can be part of the solution to reforming the military, but I fear that she may recommend the officer of parliament route. Part of the problem right now is that the minister isn’t responsive, but I think the solution needs to be that the minister needs to go rather than the ombudsman needing additional powers. Would that we actually hold ministers accountable for their failures, but this government doesn’t seem to be too keen on that.

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QP: Just pass the budget bill

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While the prime minster was in Brussels for the NATO summit, his deputy was attending virtually. Candice Bergen led off in person, scripts before her, and she decried that there were photos of the prime minister at the G7 meeting without a mask (because they have been testing rigorously), and complained he wouldn’t be quarantining upon his return (untrue – he will be quarantining, but at a hotel in Ottawa and not Toronto or Montreal, because he doesn’t fly commercial), and accused him of not paying attention to job losses in our economy. Chrystia Freeland suggested the most important thing they could do to show they care about the economy is to pass Bill C-30 on the budget implementation. After a lengthy issue with translation volumes, Bergen accused the government of a litany of sins including corruption, cronyism and cover-ups, and insisted that the prime minster wasn’t able to focus on the economy — but didn’t really ask a question. Freeland said the government was working hard to pass the budget implementation bill that would extend supports to Canadians, but the Conservatives were playing partisan games in delaying it. Bergen raised the golf game between senior members of the Canadian Forces with General Jonathan Vance while was under investigation, to which Harjit Sajjan read a statement about culture change, and how the new chief of defence staff was dealing with this. Gérard a Deltell took over in French to accuse the government of appointing partisan judges, based on the moral panic of an irresponsible news piece, and David Lametti read some cheery talking points about the merit-based process without explaining it. Deltell took some swipes at Lametti, and Lametti read a piece from the Globe and Mail about the Conservative criteria for appointments based on donor lists.

Claude DeBellefeuille led for the Bloc, and she demanded the government make the language of work in federal offices in Quebec to be French, and Mélanie Joly repeated the demonstrably false notion that French is in decline in Quebec, before saying that in places with a strong francophone presence, they will have a right to work and be served in French. DeBellefeuille repeated the demand, and Joly insisted that there government has committed to doing more, and would have a future bill on official languages.

Peter Julian led for the NDP, and decried that pandemic benefits were being cut, while he accused the government of giving money to oil companies and banks (which is not really true). Freeland suggested that he support the budget implementation bill which would extend those income supports until the end of September. Lindsay Mathyssen returned the Vance golf game, and Sajjan read his statement on institutional culture change and the role of the chief of defence staff once again.

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Roundup: Atwin crosses to the Liberals

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There was a somewhat shocking turn of events yesterday as Green MP Jenica Atwin suddenly crossed the floor to the Liberals, after weeks of turmoil within the party over the policies around Israel. When Atwin made comments about Israel being an apartheid state, one of leader Annamie Paul’s advisors threatened her position, and she decided it was time to go. Remember also that the NDP have a Thing about floor-crossing, and wouldn’t have accepted her, leaving her with just the Liberals as a potential home rather than staying an Independent – no doubt increasing her chances at re-election. She insisted that all of her previous comments and votes stood, no matter that she was now a Liberal, so perhaps she will remain among the more “maverick” MPs in the caucus who don’t all toe the line in the same way.

https://twitter.com/DavidWCochrane/status/1403096836383166465

Of course, with any floor-crossing, we get the same tired chorus of voices demanding that anyone who does cross must immediately resign and run in a by-election, which is nonsense in the broader context of how our system works. We elect MPs – we don’t elect parties, even if that’s your calculation when you go into the voting booth. Why this distinction matters is because we empower MPs to act on our behalf, regardless of the party banner, and then we get to judge them for their performance in the next general election. Sometimes MPs will need to make decisions to cross the floor for a variety of reasons, but usually because it’s intolerable in their current situation, and they make the move. We empower them to do so because our electoral system gives them agency as an individual – they’re not a name off of a list because the party got x-percentage of a vote.

This absolutely matters, and we need to enshrine their ability to exercise their ultimate autonomy if we want our system to have any meaning. Otherwise we might as well just fill the seats with battle droids who cast their votes according to the leader’s wishes, and read pre-written speeches into the record that the leaders’ office provided. The trained seal effect is bad enough – we don’t need to erode any last vestiges of autonomy to please the self-righteous impulses of a few pundits who think that this kind of move is heretical or a betrayal, or worse, to appeal to the desire by certain parties (in particular the NDP) to have their power structure so centralized that they see their MPs as a mere extension of their brand rather than as individuals. Parliament means something – the ability of MPs to make ultimate decisions needs to be respected in that context.

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Roundup: The choice of patios over schools

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Days after Ontario premier Doug Ford put on a dog and pony show of consulting scientists, health experts and educators about whether to re-open schools for in-person learning for the remainder of the school year, demanding consensus, Ford declared yesterday that he was going to cancel those classes – but he wanted all grades to have an outdoor graduation at the end of the year. This genius suggestion apparently came from a letter he got from a child, and he immediately headed to said child’s home to discuss it. That’s right, Ontario – not only is this province run by incompetent and unethical murderclowns, but they’re taking policy suggestions from literal children.

Pouring salt into the wound, Ford is now trying to push up his re-opening dates for the economy, immediately contradicting his handwringing that schools are too unsafe because of the variants of concern in the community, but those very same variants would be as much a threat to other businesses re-opening, so it’s neither credible nor cogent. And even if we’ve got good vaccination numbers, the hospitalisation and ICU numbers are still way too high to consider any kind of re-opening, or we’ll just repeat the same pattern we did with the previous two waves of this gods damned pandemic. But hey, he wants people to have a beer on a patio.

And we need to keep this in mind, especially when it comes time to hold Ford to account at the ballot box – he made these choices throughout the pandemic to delay, to take half-measures, to not make schools safe, to do simply try to blame-shift rather than act on areas that are under his responsibility, to sit on federal funds rather than spending them immediately and effectively to do things like expanding testing and tracing, and the economy wasn’t any better off as a result. It’s on him, as these were his choices.

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Roundup: O’Toole’s big corporate Pride energy

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For the start of Pride month, the Conservatives decided to go all out to show just how down they are with The Gays these days, starting with a video that Erin O’Toole put out to talk about how great diversity is, and how he joined the military to defend rights, and so on. At the same time, MPs Eric Duncan, Michelle Rempel Garner and Bernard Généreux held a press conference to decry the MSM blood deferral period and put forward an unworkable proposal to lift it (watch for my story on this later today), and pledged to go hard on this issue for the whole month – as though there is nothing more pressing for the queer and trans communities to deal with. Of course, when asked about whether O’Toole’s pledge during the leadership contest to only attend Pride festivities where police are allowed to march in uniform stands, Rempel Garner prevaricated and refused to answer, but probably most ironic of all was Duncan declaring that the Liberals were only interested in virtue signalling – even though he was doing exactly that, knowing that Canadian Blood Services is arm’s length and the minister can’t interfere (and make no mistake, the Liberals should be held to account for making a promise they couldn’t keep – twice).

As all of this is going on, several Conservative MPs have continued to argue against the bill to ban “conversion therapy” (sort of), and much of it is done with concern trolling and red herrings – that they oppose the practice but they have “concerns” about this bill, and debate on the bill still hasn’t collapsed so that it can go to a vote. And it’s hard to take O’Toole seriously that his party is suddenly cool with the gays when his own MPs are putting forward speeches that are vile with homophobia and transphobia (and that O’Toole had to pander to social conservatives to get his leadership win).

I’m not saying that the Conservatives can’t show growth on queer and trans issues, but they haven’t exactly been putting in the work to show these communities that they are actually allies – and the concern trolling and red herrings of the conversion therapy bill prove just that. Right now it’s all just words, and it’s complete virtue signalling, with O’Toole and company insisting that it’s the Liberals who are the real homophobes, not them, and that The Gays should switch their votes because the Conservatives are cool with them now. I’m not sold, they haven’t demonstrated any real understanding of the issues facing our communities – picking the literal smallest hill to die on with the blood deferral period – or why they deserve to be trusted. It’s like the same kinds of hollow corporate Pride sentiments all over again.

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QP: Leaning harder into the Winnipeg Lab conspiracy theory

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It was the prime minister’s first appearance in the Chamber since the discovery of the mass grave in Kamloops last week, and he was joined once again by Mark Gerretsen. Erin O’Toole led off, and with his script before him, he asked for swift action on the Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission around the residential schools. Justin Trudeau gave some platitudes about reconciliation and mentions their investments in those Calls to Action. O’Toole then moved onto the National Microbiology Lab, and deliberately conflated the issue around the two fired scientists with the global demand for answers around the origin of COVID, for which Trudeau reminded him that there are mechanisms to review national security matters. O’Toole dismissed NSICOP as the prime minister’s “secret committee” and tried to conflate the issue around those scientists, for which Trudeau hit back about the secrecy of the Harper government and their refusal to subject national security agencies to independent oversight. O’Toole switched to French to repeat his first question on the two scientists, for which Trudeau reminded him of the oversight mechanisms. O’Toole switched back to English to try and tie in this with approvals for foreign investment from China and Huawei, and Trudeau replied that the Conservatives never hesitate to play politics with national security, before he returned to his praise of the creation of NSICOP.

Yves-François Blanchet rose for the Bloc, and pressed for the swift passage of Bill C-10 in spite of Conservative opposition, for which Trudeau praised the cooperation of other parties in trying to pass the bill, and that they hoped to pass it before summer. Blanchet warned that if it did not pass by summer, there would be a heavy political price to pay in Quebec, and Trudeau reminded him that they have been there for artists since the beginning, starting with reversing the Harper-era cuts, and that it was the Conservatives blocking culture.

Jagmeet Singh led for the NDP, and he raised the court challenges around Indigenous children and residential school survivors (which are about narrow points of law and not compensation). Trudeau stated that every survivor deserves compensation and they are working on that, and they have also been guiding “transformative change” around Indigenous child and family services. Singh repeated the question in French, and got much the same answer.

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QP: Unchallenged misinformation around inflation

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For the first day back after a week away and the Victoria Day long weekend, the prime minister was present, along with Liberal placeholder Mark Gerretsen as the only other MP present on the government benches. Erin O’Toole led off, script on his mini-lectern, and Erin O’Toole led off citing misleading statistics about inflation, for which Justin Trudeau recited some platitudes about having people’s backs. O’Toole complained that housing was becoming unaffordable, and Trudeau listed actions they took, like raising taxes on the top one percent and the Canada Child Benefit as ways they are making life more affordable. O’Toole then raised the American tactic to raise softwood lumber tariffs, which doesn’t really affect the Canadian market (as it will only make it more expensive for Americans as there is a lack of supply in the market), and Trudeau wondered where O’Toole had been the last five years as the government stood up against American trade measures. O’Toole repeated his misleading inflation question in French, fo the same platitudes in French, and the repeated the softwood lumber tariff question in French. Trudeau repeated that they have delivered for the past five years.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he raised Quebec’s Bill 96, and wanted Trudeau to praise it. Trudeau reminded him that they want to protect French while also protecting linguistic minorities and that he looked forward to working with the government of Quebec on it. Blanchet took this as a yes, and wanted a more positive explicit endorsement. Trudeau reminded him that he works with the premiers, and he would meet them again later this week.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and in French, he accused the banks of “stealing” from people by raising fees and that the federal government could stop them but haven’t. Trudeau listed the measures they are taking to make the wealthy pay their fair share. Singh switched to English to quote the deputy minister of National Defence on the lack of progress on the Deschamps Report, for which Trudeau recited that the institution isn’t living up to its goals, and listed the actions they have taken, calling them “first steps.”

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