Stephen Blaney has confirmed that the government will table a bill next week to enhance CSIS’ powers to better combat terrorism, in order to enhance cooperation with our Five Eyes allies, and to enhance the anonymity for CSIS informants. Never mind that the Supreme Court ruled that those sources already have adequate protections, and the fact that the lawyer for Mohamed Harkat warns that the inability to cross-examine this kind of testimony is dangerous. Former Privacy Commissioner Chantal Bernier also warns that rushing into these kinds of changes could have longer-term human rights consequences. But terrorists!
Tag Archives: Irwin Cotler
Roundup: Votes cast, commence the grumbling
As expected, the confidence vote on the government as it ordered a combat deployment to Iraq went ahead last night and passed with little trouble, and not without a great deal more political posturing on all sides. I’m not going to say we’re going to war, because that gives ISIS too much credit, but it does escalate Canada’s role in the region, though we’ll see how long any airstrikes will be effective for. The NDP are grumbling particularly about the door being opened to combat in Syria, while Liberal MP Irwin Cotler put out a release to state his reason for abstaining from the vote, which was eloquently stated when it comes to needing to engage in some form of combat against ISIS, but not agreeing with the way this government has gone about it. In the region, Matthew Fisher notes the logistical challenges that will mean it may not be until the end of the month before our CF-18s can begin making any airstrikes. Terry Milewski notes the divisions among those opposed to the combat mission, including former Liberal voices that want it to go ahead, while Michael Den Tandt looks at the way in which the Liberals were squeezed in this debate. Paul Wells goes back to the archives to find the ways in which the Liberals handled Iraq deployments in the past, and finds the curious ways in which history repeats itself.
Roundup: Voices from the past
A number of has-been pro-life (and homophobic) former Liberal MPs sent out an open letter to Justin Trudeau decrying his decree that a woman’s right to choose is a Charter issue and not a matter of conscience. They decried it as “anti-democratic,” never mind the fact that this was the policy voted on by the party’s membership during the policy convention before Trudeau won the leadership. Oops. The pedigree of these former MPs is also worth mentioning, as several of them quit the party to join the Reform Party, while others left over the same-sex marriage issue. Not surprising, most Liberals simply shrugged off the whole thing, while Trudeau tweeted out a fairly decent comeback.
The days when old men get to decide what a woman does with her body are long gone. Times have changed for the better. #LPC defends rights.
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) September 18, 2014
Roundup: So long, Jimmy K
And another one steps down – this time, long-time Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis, or “Jimmy K,” as he is known colloquially, has tendered his resignation, and he plans to run for Toronto city council instead. Karygiannis is something of a polarizing figure, a “bare-knuckles” organizer for the party who made great inroads with ethno-cultural communities, but who also had a tendency to boast that if the party simply listened to his communications advice that they would be better off. Karygiannis was one of the three longest continually serving MPs in the House. This also means that we’re up to four by-elections to be called, which is going to put us at a really high number in recent parliaments, and we’ve still got a year-and-a-half to go before the next election.
Roundup: More concerns about the elections bill
By day two of examining the Fair Elections Act, more of the flaws have become apparent – limiting the ability of the Chief Electoral Officer to speak publicly, leaving the job of promoting elections to parties – who tend to only target likely voters and would be in danger of entrenching disenfranchisement, the end of the “vouching” system likely to disenfranchise more marginalised voters, and no real oversight of parties themselves during elections. Even more concerning – even to former CEO Jean-Pierre Kingsley, who has been otherwise in favour of the bill – is the provision that exempts the party from counting fundraising expenses for anyone who has donated over $20 to the party over the past year. In other words, it’s a backdoor loophole to keep an increasingly costly practice from counting against spending limits. Oh, and after a whole two hours of debate, the government moved time allocation. Because we apparently can’t have too much democracy. Canadian Dissensus finds even more problems with moving the Commissioner of Elections over to the Director of Public Prosecution’s desk. Kady O’Malley writes how the provisions on limiting bequests will likely disadvantage the NDP the most.
Roundup: Senators start fighting back
It seems that some senators have had enough, and they’re not going to take it any more. First we saw Senate Speaker Kinsella bash back at NDP leader Thomas Mulcair’s unfounded smear during Question Period earlier in the week – for which Nathan Cullen went whining to the press about how it “undermined the Senate,” showing that he neither understands the role of the Senate Speaker and how it differs from that of the Commons, nor that Kinsella was simply responding in kind to Mulcair’s attack. That the NDP have built up a huge straw man around the supposed “non-partisan” nature of the Senate – which never has been the case nor was it ever the intention – shows the lengths to which they will construct fictions in order to suit their partisan abolition call. Yesterday we saw Quebec Senator Claude Dagenais unleashing his full fury on NDP MP Charmaine Borg after he received one of her ten-percenters about abolishing the Senate. His public response challenged her assertion that Senators were useless by remarking that constituents whom he has sent to speak to her (their local MP) found her to be useless and powerless, before he suggested that Borg go to the Parliamentary and read up on the institution before she attack it. He then unloaded on the fact that they were only elected by a surge of spontaneous sympathy for Jack Layton in Quebec (and it will be noted that Borg was one of the McGill Four who never even visited her riding during the election). He also has no intention of backing down so long as the NDP continue to attack the Senate. Meanwhile, some Conservative senators are also tired of being given orders by the PMO, and are meeting this weekend to talk about steps to reassert their independence – things like refraining from attending national caucus and possibly establishing bipartisan regional caucuses instead. That’s an incredibly encouraging sign and would go a long way to the chamber reasserting itself after being pushed around by a PMO bent on control.
Roundup: Absenteeism, transparency and outside auditors
It’s time to look at the absenteeism rates over in the Senate once more, and Senator Romeo Dallaire currently has the highest rate, largely because he’s doing research at Dalhousie on child soldiers and advising the UN – things he’s not declaring as Senate business and isn’t claiming expenses or time on. The promised review of absenteeism rules is still ongoing, but has become a bit of a backburner issue with the other things going on at the moment. And no, you can’t actually find out what the absenteeism rates of MPs are, because they don’t make that data available, whereas the Senate does (even if you do have to head to an office building during business hours to find out). As for the allegations of misspending, there are suggestions that they turn the investigation over to the Auditor General because it may be too much for the three-member committee to handle – though I know there has been reluctance to have the AG look at their expenses because he reports to them. Oh, and Senator Wallin’s travel claims are now being added to the list of things to be checked by the outside auditor – even though Harper himself asserted that her travel claims are not out of line, which he has not done for Senator Duffy.
Roundup: Re-focusing CIDA
International cooperation minister Julian Fantino has announced a new business-focused international development policy, and said that it’s not CIDA’s business to keep funding NGOs forever. There’s no word on what kinds of programmes will be cut in order to make this shift in focus, but Fantino says that no, they’re not getting into the mining industry.
Campaign Research polling company has been censured by the industry body for their reprehensible calls into Irwin Cotler’s riding alleging that he’s about to retire.
Bill C-398, the latest iteration of the attempt to reform Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime – which aims to get cheap generic medicines to developing countries – was defeated in the Commons last night by seven votes.
QP: Schrödinger’s contingency plan
While Thomas Mulcair was back in the Commons today, Harper was off meeting the President-elect of Mexico, who is currently visiting Ottawa. So while Mulcair opened QP by reading off a trio of questions on whether or not the government had any contingency plans for another fiscal downturn, it was Jason Kenney’s turn to be back-up PM du jour, and he responded that there was a line in each budget for unexpected expenses. Oh, and the NDP would raise taxes. Peggy Nash then asked what the government was going to cut in order to meet its election promises, to which Ted Menzies batted back about the fictional “carbon tax” and reiterated their intention to get the budget in balance within the current parliament. Bob Rae demanded an apology from the Conservatives for their engaging Campaign Research for their reprehensible calls into Irwin Cotler’s riding, to which Peter Van Loan (correctly) pointed out that this wasn’t about government business, before he went on to say that the Speaker had already settled this issue.