The Speaker engaged in a bit of procedural housekeeping after Question Period yesterday, and ruled that the Board of Internal Economy’s vote on a vaccine mandate for MPs in the House of Commons was in fact a violation of MPs’ privileges—which most of us expected, because that’s pretty much what it was. It’s a moot point, however, because the motion passed that re-authorized hybrid sittings included the vaccine mandate for the Chamber, so there remains a vaccine mandate regardless of this outcome. It sounds like the Conservatives are satisfied with this ruling in that it doesn’t create a precedent for expanding the BoIE’s powers, so that’s not necessarily a bad thing in all.
At the same time, the government house leader proposed a compromise for the Winnipeg Lab documents, which had been floated before dissolution but is back on the table now—which is procedurally dumb because the committee that requested those documents is non-existent, as is the order to produce those documents. If said committee were reinstated and they vote on a new motion to produce documents, then the government should have floated this compromise then, but no, they’re going ahead with it unbidden, which is silly. This compromise would see the creation of a new committee that would be advised by a panel of three former senior judges who would vet materials—but again, this is stupid.
The compromise was the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. That was the point. It was the right venue for these documents to go to, and that’s where those documents were sent, before the Conservatives decided that theatre was more important (and the other two parties decided that embarrassing the government was also the point). All this is doing is muddying the waters even further, duplicating efforts, and making MPs even less trustworthy to Canadian security and intelligence services. Because our MPs are not interested in actual oversight or accountability—they are only interested in theatre, and that diminishes our Parliament for everyone.
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