Tag Archives: Kim Campbell

Roundup: A couple of notes on Campbell’s record

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The weekend was full of conservatives and other right-leaning commenters chirping about Kim Campbell’s record after her (verifiably true) assessment that Pierre Poilievre is a “liar and a hate-monger” who doesn’t believe in the urgency of climate change. Some of them—such as a certain self-aggrandising independent MP—have been utterly dismissive of Campbell and her record, but most people don’t really understand what happened in 1993, and why the fact that the PCs went from a majority to two seats was hardly her doing.

The thing to remember about Brian Mulroney’s massive majorities was that he had managed to build a particular coalition of conservatives in the Prairies, and that he was won over Quebec, which is incredibly difficult for any conservative to do, and no doubt a lot of this was premised on the (somewhat hubristic) promise that he was going to finish the constitutional project that Pierre Trudeau wasn’t able to complete and bring Quebec “into the fold” (which is mostly hyperbolic nonsense anyway). By 1993, that coalition has collapsed, in part because of the failure of Mulroney’s constitutional projects, being Meech Lake and Charlottetown, the latter referendum failing.

Conservatives in Quebec has largely fallen away to the Bloc, which was formed in part by Mulroney’s old friend and confidante, Lucien Bouchard. To this day, the Dean of the House, Bloc MP Louis Plamondon, was first elected in 1984 as part of Mulroney’s PC landslide, and in 1990, crossed to the nascent Bloc. Meanwhile, the prairie conservatives had defected to the nascent Reform Party under the banner of so-called “Western alienation,” in part because of decisions that Mulroney had made, not only in areas of the constitutional reforms that failed, but also because of things like CF-18 maintenance contracts that were supposed to go to a Winnipeg firm were instead given to those in Montreal, and it exacerbated the existing grievances that the Pierre Trudeau’s National Energy Programme had inflamed (though he was largely blamed for things that were not his fault, like the collapse in world oil prices that the NEP didn’t cause, but were blamed for regardless).

Campbell inherited a PC party that had lost its voter coalition, thanks to Mulroney’s actions. The election went from three parties to five, with two very different regional parties at play. Trying to pin the blame for that collapse on Campbell is classic glass-cliff logic, where she was handed a bag of dogshit and when she didn’t perform a miracle, was given the blame for it. Did she make mistakes in that campaign? Indeed she did. Could she have resurrected the party’s fortunes with the voter coalition disbanded? Certainly not in the time allotted. For modern conservatives to say that her “record speaks for itself” don’t seem to understand what actually happened in the early 1990s, and instead are showing a particularly misogynistic streak in how they are choosing to attack her and her record.

Ukraine Dispatch:

One woman was killed in Russian shelling in the Kursk region on Sunday. Two people were killed, including a teenager, in Russian artillery attacks on the Dnipropetrovosk region on Saturday, and Russia claimed to have shot down a Ukrainian fighter jet. Here is a horrifying look at the rapes and torture that Russians have subjected Ukrainian prisoners to, particularly in occupied areas.

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Roundup: Running interference for Scott Moe

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There is no shortage of terrible opinion pieces in Canadian media, but I believe that the prize for utterly missing the point comes from the Globe and Mail yesterday, where John Ibbitson tried to lay the blame for Saskatchewan’s flirtation with lawlessness on Justin Trudeau, with the headline accusing him of “botching” national unity. It’s a…curious accusation, because the implication therein is that if the federal government doesn’t accede to every demand or tantrum of the provinces that they can be accused of damaging national unity. I take that back. It’s not curious, it’s utterly absurd and wrong.

Ibbitson goes to great pains to both point out how unprecedented it is that Saskatchewan is going to break federal law, but then turns around to run interference for Scott Moe and tries to insist that this is really Trudeau’s fault because he used federal spending powers to “bend provinces” to his will rather than negotiate, and in imposing the federal carbon price on provinces who failed to meet national standards. Both of those are half-truths at best—there is nothing illegitimate about using federal spending powers to get provinces on board to ensure that there are equitable services across the country, particularly for programmes with greater economic good such as early learning and child care. As for the carbon price, provinces had an opportunity to come up with their own system that met minimum standards, and most provinces refused. He also didn’t explain that when the system was enacted, most provinces already had carbon pricing in place (Alberta and Ontario both changed governments who dismantled their systems and were subsequently subjected to the federal system), and he doesn’t spell out that BC and Quebec have their own systems that meet the standards.

Yes, the federal government should have found a different solution to the problem of heating oil than the “pause,” and doomed themselves when they announced it with all of their Atlantic MPs behind them. I’m not disputing that. But while Ibbitson insists that this doesn’t justify Saskatchewan’s lawlessness, he thinks that the best solution is to “reach some sort of compromise.” Like what? He won’t say. He just laments that “Canada doesn’t work like that right now.” Did it ever? What compromise can there be when one province breaks the law and tries to justify it with a fig leaf of “fairness” but obscures the facts and truth of the situation? This kind of white bread, milquetoast “Why can’t we find a compromise?” handwringing is a hallmark of a certain generation of punditry, and it serves absolutely no one.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces downed 33 out of 37 Russian drones fired at Odesa, the remainder of which damaged infrastructure, though there were other attacks in the north in Sumy and Kharkiv that cost civilian lives. There are concerns that safety is deteriorating at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, as the international community keeps trying to convince Russians to leave the site. India says they have encountered a human trafficking racket which promises young men jobs in Russia, and then forces them to fight in Ukraine on their behalf.

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Roundup: The usual rote nonsense ahead of a royal tour

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It is now approximately day eighty-two of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and British intelligence is suggesting that Russia has lost up to a third of its forces in the Donbas region, and is significantly behind its schedule for the invasion of the region. There was also chatter over social media over the weekend that Ukrainian forces have pushed Russians far enough away from Kharkiv that the city is largely out of danger, so we’ll see if that holds. As well, Ukraine won Eurovision over the weekend, so that is also a bit of a nice morale boost for the country.

Meanwhile, Finland and Sweden are moving ever closer to officially applying for NATO membership, and Finland’s president has gone so far as to tell Vladimir Putin directly that they are apply, but that they would continue to engage on issues in a bilateral manner. There remains the complication of Turkey, who has become more clear in the demands they have before they would be willing to admit these new members, particularly around groups that these governments have supported which the Turkish government opposes.

Closer to home, it’s royal tour week, as Charles and Camilla arrive tomorrow, and once again, we get the usual rote nonsense from news outlets courting republicans to give the tired lines about “scepticism” of the monarchy, without noting that it’s going to be nigh impossible to remove them because a) it requires unanimous consent on the constitution from provinces, and b) there is zero consensus on what would replace them, and even if they did, that would be the conclusion of the colonial project around Indigenous peoples in this country, given that their treaties are with the Crown. And yes, that very much means something. There are of course a few special cases who think we should replace the current royal family with someone Canadian, but I am a bit dubious on that for the same reason as there being no consensus on who that might be, because for better or worse, the status quo has a thousand years of history behind them, which is pretty important in the grand scheme of things. Love or loathe the family themselves, the system works better than any of the alternatives, and we shouldn’t dismiss that out of hand.

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Roundup: Where is the civilian control?

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Something rather unusual happened yesterday in that both prime minister Justin Trudeau, and his deputy, Chrystia Freeland, publicly panned the decision by the Chief of Defence Staff to keep the head of the navy on the job after he went on that golf game with the former CDS, General Jonathan Vance, while Vance is under active investigation for past sexual misconduct. But it’s pretty crazy that this happened given how things work under our system.

https://twitter.com/mattgurney/status/1410275366292307969

This boils down to Harijit Sajjan and the fact that he’s not doing his job as minister. He is supposed to be the person in Cabinet who does the civilian control, who manages the CDS, and who ensures that the CDS is doing his job properly, but Sajjan hasn’t been doing that job. If he were, then he wouldn’t have been so incurious as to why the investigation into Vance never took off when the former military ombudsman brought forward the allegations, and he would have taken the opportunity to cycle Vance out of the job and put in someone new rather than renew Vance for another term. These are all things were things Sajjan should have done and didn’t do.

Trudeau, however, keeps insisting that Sajjan is the right person for the job, that he’s not part of the old boys’ club, but that’s part of the problem – Sajjan was an active member of the military when he got elected and had to process his resignation papers while he was named to Cabinet, because technically at that point, the CDS outranked him, which is not good when Sajjan is supposed to be exercising civilian control. That’s why we shouldn’t put former military people into the role – they are not civilian control. This can’t be stressed enough. Sajjan shouldn’t have been put in the role, and hasn’t properly done his job since he’s been in it. It’s time for a new minister, and the sooner the better.

Programming note: I am making a long weekend for myself, so no post tomorrow or Saturday. See you next week!

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Roundup: The Ombudsman demands independence

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The military ombudsman put out a position paper yesterday that called for his office to be made fully independent, and he criticized the minister’s office and the Department of National Defence for trying to interfere in investigations and ignoring recommendations for change. In particular, he cited that turning a blind eye to his office’s recommendations advances political interest or has to do with self-preservation or career advancements within the defence community.

Readers may know that I have issues with the demands for yet more officers of parliament. The proliferation of these officers has become acute in the last decade, and while there is a need for an independent ombudsman for the military, I also have not been blind to some of the previous holders of that office, and some were very much unsuited for an office that has no accountability. I’m not sure what kind of a structure the ombudsman’s office should need to be, but again, making him unaccountable and completely insulated opens the role up to the kinds of abuses of authority we’re seeing with the last officer of parliament that was created (being the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who has become completely unmoored from his legislative mandate). Anyone who doesn’t share this concern obviously isn’t paying attention (and I can guarantee you that the media is not paying attention, because they like it when these unaccountable officers try to turn themselves into media darlings, as the PBO is doing right now).

When asked about this, Justin Trudeau said that he would put it to Justice Louise Arbour as part of her comprehensive review, so that the ombudsman’s office can be part of the solution to reforming the military, but I fear that she may recommend the officer of parliament route. Part of the problem right now is that the minister isn’t responsive, but I think the solution needs to be that the minister needs to go rather than the ombudsman needing additional powers. Would that we actually hold ministers accountable for their failures, but this government doesn’t seem to be too keen on that.

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Roundup: On not electing first ministers

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There was something going around the Twitter Machine yesterday regarding past prime ministers, and Kim Campbell in particular, and it appealed to my sense of pedantry/exactness in our civic discourse – no, Kim Campbell was not “elected” as prime minister, but no prime minister is actually elected in the Westminster System.

She was not the first prime minister not to have been appointed to the position without leading their party to victory in a general election. We had two early prime ministers who were sitting senators and not MPs. John Turner didn’t have a seat in either Chamber when he was sworn in as prime minister. At least Campbell had a seat and had led several high-profile Cabinet portfolios (first female justice minister and defence minister), and she made significant reforms to the structure of Cabinet upon her appointment as PM, many of which have been lasting. She did not have to face Parliament as prime minister, but neither did Sir Charles Tupper, not John Turner. Trying to somehow insist that because her appointment did not follow a general election victory as somehow denigrating or making her lesser-than as a prime minister is ahistorical and ignorant of how Westminster parliaments work.

Part of this, however, is tied up with narratives that our pundit class keeps importing from the US, and which our media stokes out a sense of general ignorance of civics. We recently saw in places like Nova Scotia, where they just appointed a new premier, that the media are jumping up and down for him to get “his own mandate” – meaning going to a general election – which goes against how our system works. In Newfoundland and Labrador, their premier was appointed without a seat, which he promptly won in a by-election, and then called an election “to get a mandate” and lo, it turned into a gong show because they had a sudden outbreak of COVID. But this false notion about “mandates” keep cropping up, because media and pundits keep feeding it. It’s not how our system works, and it places false expectations on new first ministers, and creates unreal expectations for those, like Campbell, who did everything according to our system’s actual tenets. It would be great if we had a better sense of civics in this country to counter this ongoing nonsense.

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Roundup: Outlining the transition steps

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The government unveiled their planned next steps in income supports for the economic recovery yesterday, starting with an additional month of CERB, after which they will start transitioning people to EI (with relaxed criteria) as well as a new system of support benefits for those who don’t normally qualify for EI, as well as sick benefits. I’m given to understand that part of why they are being transitioned away from CERB has to do with flexibility – the EI computers are more able to handle the ability to allow benefits to flow while a person is still getting incomes than the CRA’s system does, and that is one of the things that are being rolled out here, so that people don’t lose benefits the moment they reach an arbitrary threshold. (More from economist Jennifer Robson in this thread).

Something that came up repeatedly over the day (particularly on certain politics shows), however, was the notion that while the legislative portions of these changes would need to happen fast when Parliament is recalled, that nothing could happen until after a confidence vote on the Speech from the Throne. This is false. Once the Speech has been read by the Governor General, the government can start introducing and debating other bills. They don’t have to simply debate the Reply to the Speech, and they don’t have to have an immediate confidence vote. In fact, they don’t need to have one at all, given that there are other confidence votes coming up in the Supply Cycle. Yes, Trudeau did promise a confidence vote, in what appears to be a dare to the opposition, but that’s not the point here – the point is that they can introduce these measures in Bill C-2, and swiftly pass them before Trudeau has that confidence vote. All of the pearl-clutching that I’m seeing is completely for naught, because people don’t pay attention to process or procedure (and I’m sure a few of them are trying to create an artificial sense of drama).

https://twitter.com/SkinnerLyle/status/1296556887761129476

Meanwhile, a certain senator is grousing that transitioning people to EI is going to be too complicated, so he wants the provinces to start basic income pilots, and I can’t even. Economist Lindsay Tedds has been working on this issue for a long time and has stated that we don’t need more pilots – governments need to simply design programmes that meet their objectives, but it seems that said Senator hasn’t been listening when she’s told him that directly.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1296646779639746560

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Roundup: Don’t bug the LG. Ever.

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In a move that is as brazen as it is utterly galling, Jason Kenney’s government legislated the province’s elections commissioner out of existence, after he levied tens of thousands of dollars in fines over the UCP leadership shenanigans. To make it all the more gob-smacking, Kenney and the minister in charge of the bill claimed that this wasn’t politically motivated, which earns a “Sure, Jan.” But even more appalling was the response from opposition leader Rachel Notley, for which I am about to suffer a rage-induced stroke.

https://twitter.com/Jantafrench/status/1196555704200351744

No. No, no, no, no, no. No. You DO NOT involve the lieutenant governor in this. She does not have discretion to accept or reject bills. She is not the “boss” of Jason Kenney. She cannot reject bills on the advice of the opposition, or her own recognizance for that matter. Her job is to accept the advice of the first minister who commands the confidence of the legislature, which Kenney does – even if the bill is unconstitutional. Her job is to act as a constitutional fire extinguisher, and we are a long way from there. Here’s Philippe Lagassé with more:

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1196608180488482818

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1196609606220500992

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1196610409521930240

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1196612302348464130

I’m going to add an additional point about this being an appalling lack of basic civic literacy from the leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition in the province, but it implicates the entire media ecosystem as a whole, particularly when they ignorantly act as though a vice-regal has discretion about things like government formation, as exemplified with the stories of the hung parliaments in BC and New Brunswick, and even when shows like Power & Politics wrongly said that Trudeau “asked permission” from Her Excellency, Julie Payette, to “form a government” when they were the incumbent and already had a government and didn’t need to form one, let alone the fact that her job is not to grant permission. But stories like that plant the idea in people’s minds that she or any other vice-regal has personal discretion and can decide who will or will not form a government and apparently allow or disallow legislation, much like the pervasive idea that you can write to the Queen and she’ll do something about whatever it is you’re complaining about. That’s not how the system works. This shouldn’t be rocket science, but apparently these very basics are not being understood by those who are supposed to know these things because it’s their jobs to.

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Roundup: Brad Wall’s basic nonsense

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Former Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall penned an op-ed for the National Post yesterday that, amidst quoting some classic rock lyrics, repeated a bunch of debunked mythology about pipelines that never happened, the federal price on carbon, Bills C-48 and C-69, and even pulse exports to India. (Seriously – does Wall not read anything?) But amidst this pile of false narratives, Wall decided to make a few “suggestions” about how to mollify Alberta and Saskatchewan, which included the non-starters of letting the provinces set their own carbon price on heavy emitters (effectively ignoring the whole point of the national price is to ensure that provinces don’t undercut one another in a race to the bottom), an “equalization rebate” which is not actually equalization – and worse, wants to offload the environmental liabilities of orphan well clean-up to the federal government under the guise of said “equalization rebates.” (Seriously, the Supreme Court just months ago said that the responsibility for orphan wells can’t just be offloaded because of bankruptcy, and companies need to be responsible for remediating them, because we have a polluter pays principle in this country). Wall also demanded that Trans Mountain be completed and privatized with a significant portion going to First Nations interests (why the privatization matters to him I’m not entirely certain), and amendments to C-48 and C-69 to ensure that pipelines can get to the West Coast – even though that would seem to undermine the fact that all projects need to undergo a proper assessment. Suffice to say, the demands for a “fairer deal” with the federation are generally built on false premises, such as lies about how equalization works, and a sense of grievance that no amount of capitulation will actually solve. (Ask Brian Mulroney about that one).

For a reality check, the Hill Times consulted with professor Andrew Leach about all of the claims that Trudeau single-handedly destroyed Alberta’s economy – complete bunk, of course – but it has some good facts in here about the context of the oil price crash, and the demands for MOAR PIPELINES! when there won’t be enough production capacity to build yet more pipelines once the TMX expansion, Enbridge Line 3 and Keystone XL all finish construction.

Meanwhile, Wall’s successor, Scott Moe, is warning that the separatist talk is “alive and happening.” I’m going to call bullshit – only a few loudmouths and swivel-eyed loons are talking about it, and not seriously. Ordinary people simply vent frustrations because they’re being fed a diet of lies and snake oil, which is what Jason Kenney and Moe want – people to be angry at Justin Trudeau, so that their attention can be safely elsewhere.

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Roundup: Solidifying the “new” Senate

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Another day, another badly executed wrap-up article on the Senate, this time courtesy of the CBC, which again, has a badly misleading lede in which it claims that “Legislative changes that would have made it harder for a future prime minister to reverse Senate reforms have fallen through.” This is wrong – any changes to the Parliament of Canada Act that the government was contemplating would have had zero effect on the selection process for future senators. Why? Because that’s not governed by that Act, or indeed any piece of legislation – it’s part of the constitution, and clearly spelled out as a prerogative of the Governor-in-Council, meaning the prime minister and Cabinet will advise the Governor General as to who gets appointed. There is nothing that Trudeau could do to bind that advice legislatively – recall the Senate reform reference to the Supreme Court of Canada – that would require a constitutional amendment requiring seven provinces with fifty percent of the population to do.

What would changes to the Parliament of Canada Act regarding the Senate do? The actual proposals were to ensure that leaders of any parliamentary group in the Senate would get commensurate salary increases and resources to put them on par with the what is nominally the government and official opposition in the Senate, and the ISG has been pushing for this pretty hard, but they also were demanding to be part of consideration for vote bells, though I’m not sure why it would matter (particularly given that they have demonstrated time and again that they’re not reliable negotiating partners). But I also suspect that part of the reason why these changes didn’t get proposed was because there is some legal opinion that it would require some kind of buy-in from provinces to make this kind of change, so there was likely little time for the government to add this ball to all of the other ones they were juggling that late in the parliamentary calendar (despite the cries of the ISG). Of course, this hasn’t stopped the media from falsely framing these changes as affecting the selection process, as this has been cited by more than one reporter from more than one outlet, and it’s false.

The rest of the story is again more of the same voices opining on how great the “new” Senate is working, but we fortunately got a bit of pushback from Liberal Senator Lillian Dyck, who did point out that the lack of organisation among the Independents has held up bills and slowed down the process – and she’s right. But nobody wants to talk about that as they’re busy patting themselves on the back for “not being whipped.” There’s more to the Senate than that, and they need to get off this self-congratulation because things aren’t working as well as they like to claim.

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