Tag Archives: Governor General

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: LEEFF details and mask recommendations

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As is becoming the norm on days when there is a special committee sitting, it was the ministers who were out first – specifically Bill Morneau, who was announcing more details for the Large Employer Emergency Financing Facility (LEEFF), and how that was going to work – including more of the attached conditions such as ensuring that there was some kind of beneficial arrangement for the government in the form of warrants, and the possibility of a government observer on boards of directors.

Prime minister Justin Trudeau was up next for his daily presser, wherein he repeated his pleas to employers to use the wage subsidy to re-hire their workers, and for commercial landlords to take advantage of the rent subsidy programme, which would begin taking applications on May 25th. He also said that more assistance for large retailers would be coming.

What made no sense was the Thing that journalists made of the fact that Trudeau has increasingly been seen with a non-medical mask in certain public situations, followed by Dr. Theresa Tam making an “official recommendation” that people wear such masks when physical distancing is difficult. Erm, except she’s been saying that for weeks now, so why this was such a big deal that journalists needed to play up and then dissect the “evolution” of her position is boggling. Nothing has changed – the message has always been that these masks won’t prevent you from contracting the virus, and that you still need to maintain physical distancing and proper hygiene (and more to the fact that these masks can instill a false sense of confidence, and that people are more likely to touch their faces more with them on). But hey, our de facto parental authority figure is telling us this “officially” now, so that obviously has some kind of psychic weight, or something. (Seriously, guys).

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Roundup: The big endorsement

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All three leaders were in Quebec yesterday, being one of the most important battleground provinces when it comes to getting out the vote. Justin Trudeau started off his day in Montreal to again make the pitch that voters need a progressive government and not a progressive opposition, and saying that this was the “dirtiest” campaign ever because of things like disinformation. From there, he made several stops on the way to Sherbrooke. The big news in the afternoon, however, was a tweet from Barack Obama, giving an endorsement for Trudeau’s re-election, citing the need for a progressive voice on the world stage (and taking some of the wind out of the sails of the Conservative claim that Trudeau has been some kind of “embarrassment” on the world stage).

https://twitter.com/b_momani/status/1184550642225991685

Andrew Scheer started his day in Saint-Jérôme, Quebec, then headed to Essex, where he promised higher penalties for ethics violations (possibly flirting with constitutional challenges of what constitutes an administrative monetary penalty versus a criminal sanction), and headed into Ontario, eventually making it to Hamilton, where he was in the riding of the Liberal incumbent who was at her mother’s funeral that day – to which Scheer insisted it was okay because he made a charitable donation. (We also found out that he switched the location he planned to make the stop, and the pub owner of the first location was brassed off because he spent $700 preparing food for the stop and putting more workers on staff).

As part of his Quebec tour, Jagmeet Singh was in Hudson, Quebec, the birthplace of Jack Layton, to make his pitch of trying to claim Layton’s legacy. Throughout the day, he started making more untenable promises, like reopening an emergency room in Winnipeg – something that is explicitly provincial jurisdiction, while hand-waving about “levers” he can use, which he actually has none – particularly not in the Canada Health Act. But hey, he wants people to “dream big,” and never mind the Constitution or the clear division of powers therein.

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Roundup: Sticking with the date

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You may recall that last week, the Federal Court granted judicial review to the Conservative candidate looking to change the election date because it clashes with a particular orthodox Jewish holiday, and lo, the Chief Electoral Officer set about to review his decision. Yesterday he announced that he’d reviewed it, and he was still confident that there wasn’t sufficient reason to change it – moving it back a week would put it in conflict with a bunch of PD days in schools that they needed to use for polling stations, and it would collide with municipal elections in Nunavut, and there were still plenty of options, be they advance polls or special ballots, for those affected by the orthodox Jewish holidays. That decision goes to Cabinet, who will make the final call later this week.

But then something curious happened – a couple of Liberal MPs tweet their dismay at the CEO’s decision, which is a little odd because, well, it’s not really his call. He’s making a recommendation, and Cabinet makes the final decision because the dissolution of Parliament for an election is a Crown prerogative, meaning that it depends on the Governor-in-Counsel (i.e. Cabinet advising the governor general) that makes the decision, regardless of our garbage fixed election date legislation. So if they’re tweeting dismay, they should direct their pleas to their own government rather than to harass the CEO.

This having been said, I am forced to wonder if this isn’t part of the fallout from the aforementioned garbage fixed election date. One of the justifications for said garbage legislation is that it’s supposed to help Elections Canada plan, rather than scramble in the event of a snap election call – but it’s starting to feel like perhaps those plans are also getting a bit precious, which is a bad sign for an institution that is supposed to be adaptable in order to accommodate the election call, whenever it may be.

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Roundup: On MPs’ sanctimony

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My patience for self-aggrandising bullshit is at an all-time low, so you can image just how hard my eyes rolled when I heard that Justin Trudeau was telling a school group that was touring Parliament that his side is “serious and respectful” and the other guys like to shout, and how it was because when a there isn’t a lot that they can go after the government on, they make noise instead. Trudeau’s capacity for sanctimony is practically legendary, but this was gilding the lily more than a little. Now, I will grant you that since he’s been in charge, the Liberals have been far better behaved in QP than they used to be, and the clapping ban has lowered the level of din in the chamber by a great deal (though said ban is not always honoured). And yes, the Conservatives do yell and heckle a lot, but some of it is deserved when you have ministers or parliamentary secretaries who read non sequitur talking points rather than doing something that resembles answering a question. (They also yell and heckle to be childish and disruptive as well, but it bears pointing out that it’s not entirely undeserved). It’s also cheap theatre, and there is a time and a place for that in politics, and if we didn’t have it during QP, then I daresay that there might be an outbreak of narcolepsy on the Hill. But as with anything, it should be done judiciously and cleverly, and that’s not something that these guys are any good at, and so we return to the sounds of jeering, hooting baboons no more days than not, but that’s no excuse for sanctimony. There are no saints in that chamber.

With that in mind, my tolerance for the whinging and crying foul over the removal of Leona Alleslev as chair of the NATO Parliamentary Association is also mighty thin, for the sheer fact that when she crossed the floor, she wouldn’t be able to chair a parliamentary association. The way these things work is that a government MP chairs, and an opposition MP vice-chairs, and lo, the Conservatives already had a vice-chair on said association. Her removal was not retaliation, but it is a consequence. Now, there are definite questions that can be asked about the timing of said removal – two weeks before a NATO meeting that she has worked toward, and weeks after she crossed the floor (but I don’t know how often this association meets, so this may have been the first opportunity) – but that is far different from the caterwauling from the Conservatives about how the “supposedly feminist” prime minister was being mean to a woman and a veteran. (As an aside, could we please stop with this policing of the PM’s feminism? 99 percent of attacks attached to said policing have nothing to do with feminism). This attempt to claim the moral high ground is exasperating.

To add to all of this, the meeting where the removal happened was met with a bunch of disruptive, juvenile behaviour by Conservative MPs and staffers that included butchered singing, and *gasp!* drinking! Oh noes! Nobody behaved admirably in this situation, and nobody has any high ground to claim, so maybe we should all behave like adults around this.

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Roundup: A dearth of innovative policy ideas

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While Maxime Bernier’s social media committee continues to demand attention (yesterday’s missive was to declare “political correctness” dead in Canada – in both official languages), all eyes will turn to Andrew Scheer as the party’s policy convention gets underway this week in Halifax. There is all kinds of talk that they’ll come away from this more united than ever – one of those kinds of meaningless phrases that parties seem to trot out whenever they face the slightest bit of internal criticism or difficulty, and usually before and after there’s some kind of rift or someone gets tossed. But depending on what Bernier tries to do with his acolytes at the convention, we’ll see if his tone or messaging changes after the convention is over, or if this becomes some new problem for Scheer to contend with – eventually.

As for the policy resolutions, most of the ones we’re seeing discussed are…not very innovative. In fact, most of them seem to be either the usual pushing back against restrictions on their well-worn bugaboos and hobbyhorses (looking to make anti-abortion policies more accepted in the party officially, for example), but so few of them seem to be actually coming from a free market conservative point of view. In fact, a lot of what’s on the list is pretty reactionary, and definitely signals a shift from a party that used to be all about the rule of law, and now seems to think they’re above it (witness resolutions against any payments or court settlements with convicted terrorists – a dig at Omar Khadr).

One could go on – a policy about building Energy East, despite the fact that there is no economic case to do so. Repealing gender identity legislation because they are under the illusion that it compels people to use unconventional pronouns (because apparently the Jordan Peterson crowd is well represented here), Andrew Scheer’s problematic policy of withholding funds to universities who don’t defend speech (but no context there, because you know they’ll rail about Israel Apartheid Week), closing the “loopholes” in the Safe Third Country agreement (no mention of how exactly, or the unintended consequences of doing so), maybe developing a climate policy that won’t involve a carbon tax or cap-and-trade (so you’re in favour of heavy-handed and expensive regulation? Really?), prioritizing CANZUK trade agreements (a rose-coloured view of our colonial past that didn’t really exist economically), treating pornography like a public health issue (Seriously, guys – didn’t you embarrass yourselves with this already at the Commons health committee when you couldn’t articulate a policy out of this fraud) – nothing innovating in here in the slightest. So one has to wonder just what vision there is within the party if this is the best that they can come up with for policy resolutions.

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Roundup: A new GG and a new NDP leader

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Today is the day that Julie Payette is sworn in, and will soon be known as Her Excellency, the Right Honourable Julie Payette, Governor General of Canada. To that end, she has been receiving the customary signals of office over the past couple of weeks, as she takes on the roles of the chancellor (or “Principal Companion”) of the Order of Canada, the Order of Military Merit, the Order of Merit of the Police Forces, and the prior of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem (with note that the Queen is the fount of all Canadian honours).

Payette will have an extremely busy schedule from here on in, acting in the ceremonial capacity that state functions demand, doing diplomacy domestically and internationally, becoming a patron to charities, and keeping on top of her constitutional duties. It’s a big job, but given Payette’s accomplishments I’m quite sure that she’ll be up to the task.

Payette is also the first GG since the 1950s who comes to the position without a spouse, so she has nobody to help share the burden of appearances with, so that will be an interesting change from the past few appointments, where there has been this sense of a two-for-one deal between the GG and their highly-accomplished spouses. It will also, unfortunately, mean that more people will be attempting to download the whole “First Lady” nonsense to Sophie Grégoire Trudeau when the closest Canadian equivalent was the “Chatelaine of Rideau Hall” (when the GG was male – I’m not sure what the male of equivalent of Chatelaine is), presuming that one doesn’t count Prince Philip given that he’s actually the spouse of our head of state (and we don’t have a “First Family” because we have a royal family).

Meanwhile, here’s Philippe Lagassé on the meaning of the GG as our Commander-in-Chief in Canada.

https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/913471460542435331

https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/913472033434034176

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Roundup: Exit the GG

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With this being Governor General David Johnston’s last week on the job, and before we see the installation of Julie Payette as his successor next week, I thought I’d share this thread from Philippe Lagassé from the weekend on the job of being GG.

https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/911698953879597056

https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/911700156059471873

https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/911700872366903298

https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/911701713077366789

https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/911702540508680192

https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/911703691085979648

Meanwhile, that interview with Maclean’s that Johnston did last week also sparked a few thoughts from Lagassé as well.

https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/909846125879980032

https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/909846543150272514

While I think that Johnston was an okay GG, I do recall there being a few…brow-raising incidents early in his tenure, which most people seem to have glossed over. One was during a cabinet swearing-in shortly after one of the Harper-era elections, where reporters at Rideau Hall noted that he was doing a lot of high-fiving with newly sworn-in cabinet ministers, and while those on the scene tried to raise the issue over Twitter, it got swallowed by the news cycle shortly. (Remember that Johnston was appointed not long after he drafted very narrow terms of reference for the Oliphant Inquiry into Brian Mulroney’s dealings with Karlheinz Schriber, which again were curious at the time). The other incident for me that I found a bit curious was during an interview that Johnston had with George Stroumoublopoulos, in which Strombo raised the promotion of family as one of the things that Johnston was keen to promote during his time in office, and when he asked what that meant, Johnston replied that it started with the nuclear family. As someone for whom the nuclear family was never going to be an option, I found the response curious but it wasn’t really delved into. Nevertheless, Johnston’s tenure has been largely unremarkable, which was probably what those who appointed him were looking for after two previous Governors General that were media darlings and in danger of being a bit self-aggrandizing at times. We’ll see what Julie Payette brings to the role, and I look forward to her installation.

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Roundup: The fount of Canadian honours

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A particular thread that I forgot to talk about last week was about the new GG, and one of the important things that the office does, which is to be the conduit by which the country’s honours system works. It’s a pretty important function of the office which has been encroached upon my MPs and in particular the Prime Minister in recent years, and yes, that is a problem.

https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/885683651928887296

https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/885684376922488832

https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/885684989228134405

https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/885686006023950336

The Queen is the fount of honours in Canada, but politicians have been trying to get in on the game. Stephen Harper created a “teaching award,” and Trudeau has been talking about creating some kind of medal on his own as well, while there have been partisan spats about the Thérèse Casgraine award, or the John Diefenbaker award, and whichever party in power “forgetting” to award it, and on it goes. But part of leaving those kinds of decisions up to Rideau Hall is that it keeps the awards from taking on a partisan taint. With the Prime Minister’s Awards for Teaching Excellence, there was a lot of difficulty getting nominees under Harper because many people didn’t want to be associated with him, which is a fair point – the award should be politics-neutral, but associating it with the head of government as opposed to the Queen means not only that there’s a whiff of partisanship, but that the PM would use the awards as a bit of reflected glory. That’s generally something we try to avoid in our system, which is also why we ensure that it’s not the prime minister’s face on postage stamps or first in line in our embassies, but rather the Queen. It’s why the civil service swears their oaths to the Crown and not the government of the day as well – because we keep them above the partisanship of the day, and it keeps them from developing cults of personality (as much as is possible, but the age of celebrity politics is certainly challenging this notion). Suffice to say, we should be aware that the duties of honours rests with the Crown and with the GG for a reason, and we should frown on more attempts by politicians to horn in on them.

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Roundup: A lack of scrutiny

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While again noting that I don’t often write about provincial matters, sometimes they can be a microcosm or a vanguard of broader themes happening in different legislatures across the country, including the federal parliament, and this item out of Queen’s Park raises alarm bells because it is a telling sign. The province’s Financial Accountability Office – the provincial equivalent of the Parliamentary Budget Officer – tabled his annual report that essentially states that there’s not enough scrutiny happening within the legislature. And yes, that’s a very big problem.

While I am a bit surprised that his office is being underutilized, the fact that backbenchers aren’t doing the work of scrutinizing the actions of Cabinet – particularly on budget matters – is not unique to the province. Here in Ottawa, we see too many instances of MPs passing the Estimates with the barest of glances, and when ministers appear before committee to discuss them, they are generally bombarded with questions about issues of the day rather than what’s in the Estimates. That most of the scrutiny of the Estimates now happens in the Senate is Ottawa’s saving grace – something that provinces like Ontario can’t claim.

Part of the problem is that our civic literacy has so degraded that most MPs or their provincial counterparts (MPPs, MLAs, MNAs – style them how you will) don’t understand that their actual constitutionally mandated job is to hold the government to account by means of controlling the public purse. That, by definition, means scrutinizing budgets, the Estimates, and the Public Accounts. That MPs and their provincial counterparts don’t want to do that job – or at the very least are ignorant that it’s their responsibility – has meant the creation of more Officers of Parliament like the PBO, and the FAO in Ontario, to do that homework for them, and that’s a huge problem for the health of our democracy. But so long as MPs and their counterparts opt to stick their heads in the sand and play American lawmaker, spending all of their time and energy on private members’ business (when they’re not cheerleading for their particular leader), then our system suffers for it as governments aren’t held to account properly.

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