Tag Archives: Iraq

Roundup: Refugee hysteria

Posted on by

The question of Syrian refugees in the aftermath of the Paris attacks has reached ridiculous proportions, as a number of American state governors declared that they were going to let ISIS win and terrorize them, by insisting that they didn’t want any Syrian refugees in their states. Because it’s the refugees that have been responsible for mass shootings in the States, right? Closer to home, Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall decided he was going to be the one to try and crank up the concern trolling over refugees to eleven, saying that he wants the whole thing suspended because he thinks that security screening is being compromised in order to reach the “quota” and “deadline,” despite there being zero evidence to that effect, and the fact that in order for people to be registered refugees under the UNHCR, most of these kinds of background checks will already have been completed. Unfortunately, Wall is also cynically pandering to populist sentiment that has been stoked by the hysteria of what happened in Paris, in defiance of logic and fact. What is fortunate, however, is that pretty much every other province has disavowed this kind of nonsense and is ready to push ahead, with Quebec and Ontario ready to accept some 16,000 refugees, Rachel Notley being okay with the accelerated timeline, Greg Selinger saying that Manitobans are excited to welcome newcomers, and Christy Clark recognizing the urgency to bring refugees over. So it looks like Wall is the outlier on this one, but that’s not exactly a surprise, considering that critical thinking hasn’t been his strongest suit on a number of other files *cough*Senate reform*cough*.

https://twitter.com/saladinahmed/status/666337468132761600

Continue reading →

Roundup: Mandate letters a good step

Posted on by

Within a few days, we’re going to see another first on the federal scene – the mandate letter sent to every cabinet minister are going to be made public. We’ve seen this in a few provinces before, but not federally, and when Trudeau talks about this being a step in open, transparent and accountable government, he’s right. These letters, personalised to each minister, lay out responsibilities and expectations, and perhaps even timelines, when it comes to what they have on their plate. So why make them public? Because it’s a way of showing what was expected of them so that they can be held to account based on those particular metrics. It also gives the civil service an idea of where the government is going so that they can tailor their efforts accordingly. It does set the more open and transparent tone that Trudeau has been looking to set for his government, and changes the kinds of black boxes that we’re normally used to seeing. Not that there aren’t reasons for some of those closed-doors – cabinet meetings in particular, the caucus room as well – because there do need to be spaces for closed-door discussions in order for consensus to be achieved or for positions to be hashed out without fear of the press making a big deal about divisions that may or may not exist. But even with cabinet secrecy being a good and important thing, I’m having a hard time seeing how mandate letters could be justified under that rubric. It’s not about the discussion leading up to a decision – it’s about setting the government’s direction, and that is something that should generally be out in the open. It’s a move we should applaud, and hopefully it will continue to be an indication of the direction this government is taking in terms of its commitment to actual transparency.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Warning about possible Senate frustration

Posted on by

There’s the Senate bat-signal, so here we go again. On Evan Solomon’s radio show, Liberal Senator David Smith suggested that if Trudeau does not appoint a Government Leader in the Senate that it will create frustration in the Chamber if they have no means by which to hold the government to account, and that they could – if it got that far – start to stall or even vote against the government’s legislation as a protest. Mind you, as these things do, the headlines hype it up, but it does point to problems that I outlined in my National Post piece earlier this week. And because I know that some people have suggested it, no, just calling ministers before committee is not enough as it robs the daily exercise of accountability that is Senate Question Period of meaning (as Smith suggested), and those appearances might happen every couple of months. The existing protocol is for the Government Leader to have access to the same briefing books as the Prime Minister. If senators are to do their job of sober second thought and accountability, they need access to information on a timely basis, and the government leader, if he or she can’t provide that answer immediately, takes it under advisement and gets a written response as soon as possible. They have a job to do and they need information to do it. The threats over the past couple of weeks, as overhyped as they have been, have awakened Andrew Coyne’s concern trolling over the Senate’s veto powers, because he apparently doesn’t believe they should have enough power to push back against a majority government when necessary, and would rather the courts do it years down the road. Meanwhile, Senate Speaker Housakos has said that he plans to propose the creation of an arm’s length spending oversight body to give guidance to the Internal Economy Committee, but we have no details on this yet. I would once again caution that we need to ensure that the Senate remains self-governing for the sake of parliamentary supremacy (argued here). I would still like to see Senator McCoy’s proposal for a Senate audit committee comprised of three senators, an auditor and a former judge as the best solution, but I guess we’ll wait to see what Housakos’ proposition is.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Campaign autopsies in full swing

Posted on by

Not that we’ve had a day to catch our breaths (more or less), the campaign post-mortems are beginning, especially from the Conservative camp. Things are starting to leak out, such as this gem from the Conservative camp, which tells about their considering and ultimately rejecting the Hail Marry pass of having Harper say that he wouldn’t run after this campaign. It also tells of the Conservatives trying to offer advice to the faltering NDP campaign about how to attack the Liberals, lest the Liberals win out over both of them, and lo and behold, they did. Ron Liepert – a former provincial cabinet minister who turned federal to take out Rob Anders at the nomination race – talks about a campaign where the central party wasn’t respecting the local candidates or listening to their concerns on the ground. Andrew Coyne writes that the party defeated itself with a “deep, unrelenting, almost poisonous cynicism.” Not surprisingly, Conservatives like Michelle Rempel are questioning the tone of the campaign. As for the NDP, they are starting their own process, but some, like now-former MP Craig Scott, are less gracious in defeat.

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/657050622504472576

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/657050927812075520

Continue reading →

Roundup: No, they’re not new powers

Posted on by

I’ll admit that there has been some terribly naïve punditry about Michael Chong’s Reform Act, and a lot of touchy-feely optimism about the fuzzy notion of “reform,” but perhaps one of the most gallingly maladroit to date has come from Campbell Clark, who wonders if MPs will actually get the will to confront party leaders with their “new powers.” Yes, that was the sound of me sighing deeply. “New powers.” For those of you keeping score, Chong’s bill did not give MPs any new powers. MPs had all the power in the world thanks to the way our system of government is designed – elected as an individual MP under the first-past-the-post system, they are empowered to give or withdraw confidence, whether it is to their party leaders, or to the government of the day in the Commons. That’s an incredible amount of power because confidence is how our system runs. The problem is that they stopped empowering themselves to exercise their power, deferring first to leaders who were no longer accountable to them after we broke our leadership selection system to make it “more democratic” by taking away that power from MPs and giving it to the party membership (a convention which Chong’s bill now cements into law), and later to leaders who gained the power to sign off on their nomination forms (a measure designed to prevent spoofing on ballots and hijacked nomination races). Sure, MPs still had power and they could exercise it – but it generally meant that enough of them had to defy the leader all at once to ensure that the spectre of group punishment didn’t draw further questions, and few MPs had the intestinal fortitude to risk their necks. They still, however, had that power. For Chong to claim that his bill grants “new” powers is bogus. As I’ve stated before, it actually takes power away because it did not actually do away with the nomination sign-off power in a meaningful way, and it raised the bar by which MPs can openly challenge a leader so it can no longer be a small group who has the gonads to go forward, but will now see the media demanding the 20 percent headcount. So will MPs have the will to use these “new” powers? Probably not, because the bar has been set higher. But in the meantime, we’ll have the pundit class praising Chong for his efforts and his “courage,” rewarding him for the campaign of bullying and attempting to disenfranchise an entire body of parliament along the way.

Continue reading →

QP: Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.

Posted on by

Despite it only being a Thursday, the major leaders were elsewhere in the country, busy campaiging instead of doing their jobs. Megan Leslie led off, bringing up job losses at Bombardier and wondered why the government wasn’t doing more for manufacturing. Pierre Poilievre gave a pro forma expression of sympathy before touting the government’s job creation record. Leslie asked again in English twice again, got the same answer, and then Alexandre Boulerice took another kick at it in French. Poilievre was just as adept in repeating the good news talking points in French. Marc Garneau led for the Liberals, also asking about the job losses, and Poilievre put a “Liberals would raise taxes” spin on his same talking points. Judy Sgro took a kick at it, naming some of the other closing plants and job losses, but Poilievre kept insisting the Liberals would raise taxes and kill more jobs.

Continue reading →

QP: Reiterating a commitment

Posted on by

Wednesday, caucus day, and the benches were mostly full for the second day in a row that all leaders were present. It shouldn’t be noteworthy to say so, but apparently this is the way of things now. Thomas Mulcair led off, wondering about the role of Ray Novak in the Duffy Audit conspiracy — because we’re still on about that. Stephen Harper said that Mulcair’s reading of the court documents was creative, and retreated to the shield of the courts. Mulcair then demanded the statement that Mike Duffy allegedly signed to indicate he was a resident of PEI before he was sworn in. Harper said it was Duffy’s actions who were on trial, and it was before the courts. Mulair then moved to the issue of the slow response to the Deschamps Report on military sexual harassment, but Harper stated that the quote came from a letter written two months before the report was issued. Mulcair demanded action on the items in the report, and Harper insisted that the Chief of Defence Staff was acting on the recommendations, including an independent centre for reporting assault. Mulcair pivoted again, and demanded amendments to the budget to end the tax on feminine hygiene products. Harper insisted that Mulcair’s true purpose was to offer that tiny tax cut while planning to raise the GST. Justin Trudeau was up next, and immediately started plugging his plan, and wondered why the government wasn’t investing in the middle class. Harper responded by misconstruing Trudeau’s “fairness” comment from yesterday, and insisting that the Liberal plan doesn’t balance. Trudeau indicated he looked forward to raising that in the debate, and Harper continued to insist the Linerals want to raise taxes. Trudeau responded by insisting that fairness was helping those who need it, and asked his same question again in French. Harper repeated his talking points about what he claimed the Liberals would take away.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Breaking the debates

Posted on by

The Conservatives have decided that they’re going to opt out of the major broadcasters when it comes to election debates this fall, and will instead entertain the option of independents who don’t have the same kind of widespread broadcast capabilities, by accepting the invitations of Maclean’s/Rogers, and TVA in French. In a way, it’s more of this attempt to portray themselves as poor, put upon underdogs that the “big media elites” are trying to control – as though being in power for the past ten years doesn’t make them elites. There has been this particular undercurrent in pre-election conversation that they want plenty of debates because apparently it’ll be how they can trip up Justin Trudeau (ignoring both the fact that he cleaned up in his party leadership debates, and the fact that the more debates, the more chance that any gaffes will be minimised). It’s also a curious strategy that they would forgo the broadest audience that the major broadcasters’ consortium could provide – and a bit tone deaf as to the reality of the media landscape that they think that it’s just a matter of some university hosting an event and everyone brings their cameras. What it does is twofold – firstly, it’s a power game by the Conservatives to unilaterally pull out of the consortium negotiation process and throw everyone into disarray, and secondly, it’s an attempt to control those debates by creating a proliferation of independent offers that they can then cherry pick when it comes to things like format and hosting choices. It has also been pointed out how hypocritical their position is considering that they very rarely allow their candidates to even attend local debates, so for them to be concern trolling over the state of the leaders’ debates is a bit rich. Suffice to say, it’s throwing a lot of added confusion out there and is setting up a power play that will further break our system more than it already is.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Risk or propaganda?

Posted on by

It really was pretty galling when the tweets started rolling in yesterday morning – after admonishing the media to pay close attention and be very careful not to show the faces of any of the Special Forces troops in Iraq while they covered the Prime Minister’s surprise visit, the PM’s own media team went ahead and did it without a second thought. Oops. When this was pointed out, they took the videos down and tried to make some excuses, and later in the day, the Chief of Defence staff called the risk “minimal,” but maybe that’s because the PM’s 24/Seven videos get a mere tens of viewers, half of them from the media trying to see what they weren’t allowed to cover while the PM had his own team of propagandists doing the work for them. But the thing is, this wasn’t the first time this particular screw-up happened either. No, just a few weeks ago, Jason Kenney tweeted some of those faces that were not supposed to have been shown when he posted photos of the ramp ceremony of Sgt. Doiron, and I’m not sure that he delivered so much as an apology. And while Marc Garneau did ask whether this was a matter of incompetence, it also needs to be called out that neither of the opposition parties took this rather serious breach of operational security and government incompetence was asked about in QP until the second round for the NDP, the third for the Liberals. If a government is putting troops in danger because they want to bolster their image for propaganda videos, they deserve to be raked over the coals for it. It’s too bad that the opposition parties can’t be bothered to do their jobs.

Continue reading →

QP: Dropping the ball on operational security

Posted on by

On most Tuesdays in the Commons, the leaders would actually be present, given that it’s usually one of the two days per week that Stephen Harper deigns to show up. Today, however, with Harper still in the Netherlands, none of the other main leaders bothered to show up either. Yay accountability! Megan Leslie led off, asking about the record trade deficit (which it needs to be stated is not necessarily a bad thing, just because it’s referred to as a deficit). Ed Fast insisted that exports were up, and yay trade agreements. Leslie asked again in English, capping it off with a demand for $15/day childcare. Candice Bergen insisted that theirs was the best plan for all families. Again, Leslie bemoaned the state of the manufacturing sector, to which James Moore praised all of their measures. Rosane Doré Lefebvre was up next, and decried the imminent passage of Bill C-51. Stephen Blaney wondered why the NDP refused to give tools to the police, or how they could deny that there were terrorist attacks in Canada. Dominic LeBlanc led for the Liberals, and wanted help for the middle class, touting the plan they introduced yesterday. Pierre Poilievre responded that the Liberals would raise taxes by replealing the doubling of the TFSA (which is not actually true). Ralph Goodale was up and more forcefully asked the same again in English twice, and Poilievre doubled down on his blatantly untrue talking points.

Continue reading →