The news had the NDP crowing, but it’s a lot of sound and fury signifying almost nothing. Over in Saskatchewan, Brad Wall’s government decided to repeal their senate “nominee election” legislation, and pass a motion to declare that they are calling for Senate abolition. Which is all well and good, but that legislation was of dubious constitutionality since the Senate is federal jurisdiction, the selection of Senators explicitly spelled out in the constitution as a Governor-in-Council appointment, not to mention that Wall refused to actually hold these “elections” because Ottawa wouldn’t pay for them. And then there’s the fact that abolition would require the unanimous consent of the provinces to achieve. So Brad Wall set out a marker, for what it’s worth – but it’s hardly going to get any ball rolling, especially before the Supreme Court hears the reference case.
Tag Archives: Keystone XL
Roundup: Nonsensical offers for backroom deals
Well, that was interesting. As the debate in the Senate over the suspension motions carried on, moving into the realms now of invoking time allocation and turning the motions from an independent one to government motions, something else completely weird and awkward happened. Senator Patrick Brazeau took to the floor and said that he had essentially been offered a backroom deal by the government leader in the Senate, Claude Carignan – that if he apologised to the Chamber and took full responsibility, then his punishment would be reduced. But none of it makes any sense, particularly when Carignan “clarified” that he was being too helpful and offered Brazeau options of how they could made amendments to the motion. But Brazeau doesn’t believe that he was in the wrong with his housing claims, and no amendments could have been moved because the Senate is still debating Senator Cowan’s amendment to send these three senators before a committee to have everything fully aired. Not to mention that Carignan said that suspension without pay still had to happen, so we’re not sure what could be negotiated other than perhaps the length of the suspension. And while the Conservatives in the House were demanding that the Liberal senators “step aside” and pass the suspension motions “for the good of the taxpayer,” the counter-narrative emerged that the Liberals were not going to be complicit in a cover-up – the notion that the only way all the facts will come out is before a committee where witnesses can be compelled to testify (and hopefully in a way that won’t interfere in the ongoing RCMP investigations). These Conservatives didn’t seem to remember that several Conservative senators are also against the suspensions – or are at least in favour of some better element of due process – though Harper took to talk radio in Toronto to urge those dissenters to vote for the suspension motions because it wasn’t about the RCMP investigations but about internal discipline – err, except there are some pretty valid arguments that at least some of these senators have been the victim of unclear rules and processes, and there are no established internal procedures for discipline this harsh, and they are very wary of setting a precedent that could be used against any others that the government of the day doesn’t like in the future. Not to mention that it is increasingly transparent that the Conservative brass wants this settled before their convention. And as for Senator Wallin, well, she continued to speak out, waiving her right to privacy with Internal Economy transcripts from in camera sessions, and tabling her own documents to help prove her case. Nothing is resolved, and the Senate returns Monday afternoon (which is another rarity, as normally only committees will sit on a Monday instead of the full chamber).
Roundup: Del Mastro facing charges
Elections Canada has now charged Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro with four breaches of the Elections Act stemming from the 2008 election, and charged his official agent with three of those offences. Within a couple of hours, Del Mastro was out of the caucus (he says voluntarily, but we all know what that means), which also means that his parliamentary secretary position was also out the door. And of course, Del Mastro insists that he’s innocent and plans to prove it – because Elections Canada just spent the past four years gathering evidence because they’re part of a Conservative-hating conspiracy, apparently. Oh, and if convicted, Del Mastro and his official agent could be sentenced to up to five years in jail plus a $5000 per offence – now multiply that by four, and you’ll see the stakes of Del Mastro’s situation.
Roundup: Flaherty’s EI premium freeze
Jim Flaherty announced a “good news” economic measure of freezing EI premiums for the next three years – you know, like the Liberals have been hounding him to do for the past couple of years. Only, to be clever, the Liberals were calling them “job-killing payroll taxes” either, and despite the freeze, there will still be some rate increases. It also makes one wonder about the utility of the arm’s length board set up to advise on things like rates if the government continues to undermine them and set the rates anyway. Aaron Wherry notes that this was the subject of one of Justin Trudeau’s “crowd-sourced” questions during QP in the spring. When you crunch the numbers, however, the freeze isn’t worth all that much – about $24 per year for the average person, and $340 for the average business.
Roundup: More humanitarian aid for Syria
At the end of the G20 conference in Russia, Canada is pledging another $45 million in humanitarian assistance for Syrian refugees, while Harper had more harsh words about Putin and the fact that it was unacceptable that he has a veto on Security Council taking action. But Harper also put distance to the notion that we’ll be making concessions on the Canada-EU Free Trade Agreement, and said that “significant gaps” remain. Okay then. And then the biggest news of all – that Harper has basically asked Barak Obama to dictate what emissions regulations targets he wants us to set in order for the Keystone XL pipeline to be approved. It’s likely an attempt to get a firm set of numbers rather than the nebulous talk that we’re currently mired in, but so much for setting our own sovereign environmental goals and policies.
Roundup: Mulcair’s summer tour
While in St. John’s, NL, Thomas Mulcair claimed that he won’t raise personal taxes (because apparently people don’t pay for corporate taxes) and that nobody had ever asked him that before (not true). He also pointed to a graveyard on a map and said that the Liberals are headed there – because that’s classy and raises the tone of debate! He then moved onto PEI to kick off his summer tour of constitutional vandalism (aka advocating Senate abolition) and offered nothing but bluster and misleading characterisations.
The Senate’s internal economy committee promises that they won’t “monkey around” with Pamela Wallin’s audit, but it may be damaging enough that they might consider recalling the full Senate shortly to deal with it.
Roundup: Apoplectic over unenforceable rules
The Conservative Party is apoplectic with outrage after Elections Canada didn’t put punitive sanctions against those 2006 Liberal leadership candidates who still haven’t repaid their debts. The problem, Elections Canada says, is that the rules aren’t actually enforceable. And guess whose fault that is? The Conservatives, along with the NDP, who were in such a rush to punish the Liberals in 2006 that they passed a really flawed series of changes that made a dog’s breakfast of leadership campaign finance rules. About the most they did was make the ability to fundraise so restrictive that these former candidates with outstanding debts can’t raise that money. So really, well done all around.
Roundup: Keystone XL angst and job numbers
President Obama told the New York Times that the job numbers for Keystone XL were greatly exaggerated and that Canada needs to do more about its carbon emissions. In response, both TransCanada Pipelines and our ambassador in the US are disputing the job numbers – both of which are correct if you look at how each measures different things – and want to remind him that our environmental performance really isn’t all that bad overall (not mentioning anybody’s reliance on carbon-intensive coal-fired electricity). Of course, it’s all about playing politics, so facts may be a casualty of any of those kinds of debates.
Roundup: Lisa Raitt is on the case
Two days on the job as transport minister, and Lisa Raitt paid her first visit to Lac-Mégantic to assess the scene there for herself, and to promise that yes, the federal government will assist in reconstruction. And while the NDP complained that she didn’t come with numbers in hand, it’s like they don’t understand how federal disaster assistance works – that at the end of the process, they write one big cheque that will cover something on the order of 90 percent of the costs. It just doesn’t happen up front, which is the role of the province and municipality.
Roundup: Politics and blame for Lac-Mégantic
As the blame and politics around the Lac-Mégantic explosion swirl about, which you can parse in all sorts of different ways – including the company saying that the locomotive may have been tampered with – it does bear reminding that Transport Canada has been slapped by auditors in the past for not having clear training regimes and procedures for their inspectors – so that even if inspections were conducted, were they all conducted the same, and what kind of follow-up was done, given the rates at which the same problems were found in successive inspections. The CBC’s extensive coverage can be found here. Liza Ch. Savage looks at how it figures into the Keystone XL pipeline debate in the States. Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall also send their condolences, as well as those for the floods in Alberta.