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.
Tag Archives: Labour
Roundup: To amend or not to amend the motion
As we get ready for another sitting week of Parliament, we are no closer to finding any kind of clarity or resolution to the issue of the suspension motions in the Senate. In fact, there are different stories being floated in the media – some that the Conservatives there are open to compromises in the motions, based on comments that Senator Claude Carignan, the leader of the government in the Senate, made. The PMO, meanwhile, is standing firm that they want the suspensions without pay – not that they actually have a say in the matter, given that the Senate is the master of its own destiny and not at the beck and call of the PMO (despite what many – including a handful of senators who haven’t learned better yet – may think). So that leaves the state of play still very much in motion as things get underway. Justin Trudeau, for his part, wants everyone involved to testify under oath, feeling that’s the only way everything will be cleared up. While Senator Cowan’s motion to send it to a committee would give an opportunity to summon the current and former PMO staffers involved, Parliamentary committees can’t summons Parliamentarians and force them to testify (because of privilege), so the really key players may yet be spared from testimony if that is the case. Law professor Carissima Mathen talks to CTV about the legal arguments in the Senate suspension motions. Tom Clark writes about how this is playing with the Conservative base, and how the push for swift action in the backrooms and behind closed doors is starting to look more like the Chrétien/Martin way of doing things, which is what the Conservatives rode into Ottawa promising to clean up.
Roundup: Visits to the Langevin Block
Yesterday in Senate-related news, the visitor logs of the Langevin Block – which houses the PMO – shows the dates of visits by Senators Mike Duffy, David Tkachuk and Irving Gerstein in the days around the news of Duffy’s audit, and leading up to the $90,000 cheque from Nigel Wright. It helps to further establish the timeline of who met with whom, as the investigation continues. Elsewhere, the Auditor General met with the Internal Economy committee and its audit subcommittee to discuss his forthcoming audit of the institution and its membership. The AG said that the audit will be “comprehensive,” but people shouldn’t think that it means “forensic,” because that’s not what his office does, and they don’t have the staff or expertise to do those kinds of audits. (That’s in large part why they get contracted out to Deloitte). The Internal Economy committee is also looking at an overhaul of the Senate communications office, which has shown itself to be unable to handle the increase in media requests given recent events, and their mandate is nebulous with too many masters. Fortunately, there seems to be an appetite to change this.
Roundup: The RCMP’s ClusterDuff revelations
The ClusterDuff detonated yet again yesterday with the revelation of RCMP documents related to their ongoing investigation into his expense claims, and it looks like Mike Duffy is headed toward charges of fraud and breach of trust. In particular, the revelations include word that the party was prepared to pay off his housing expenses when they believed it was $30,000 worth, but it was at the point of $90,000 that the party backed away and Nigel Wright stepped in, in a move he believed was “ethical” because it would protect taxpayers. Oops. Wright’s lawyers also say that Wright knew Duffy, but they weren’t friends – contrary to one of the versions of the story that was being circulated at the time, and that the conditions attached were that the expenses be repaid immediately and that Duffy stop talking to the media. And yes, it looks like the RCMP have seen the bank draft from Wright to Duffy’s lawyer. Oh, and three people in the PMO appear to have known what was going on – remember that Wright took sole responsibility – and they still insist that the PM was out of the loop. The RCMP also believe that Duffy has a demonstrated pattern of filing false expense claims and double-dipping, so really, it’s not looking very good for the Ol’ Duff at this point.
QP: Back to the buffoonery
After a really good QP, and one that was a little better than average, there we no hopes for a good show as none of the leaders were present — Harper was entertaining the president of Chile, while Mulcair and Trudeau were each giving speeches in Montreal and Toronto respectively. That left Megan Leslie to lead off, with the kinds of preambles and soliloquies that we expect from QP scripts, and James Moore — the designated back-up PM du jour — gave a boilerplate about how Wright admitted doing wrong, and by the way, your leader is covering up corruption in Montreal. Leslie tried to ask about former Senator Bert Brown’s travel expenses — which has precisely zero do do with government operations and should have been disallowed. Moore mentioned Elections Canada had all of the campaign expense files, and returned to the point about Mulcair covering up corruption. Leslie then moved onto the appropriateness of Nigel Wright getting severance pay, which was followed up by David Christopherson, who tried to tie it to Harper’s comments about David Dodge back in 2005. Moore said that Wright would get the minimum amount owed to him by law and nothing more. Ralph Goodale was up for the Liberals and brought up Nigel Wright’s emails to Senator Duffy, but Moore’s dodge/counter-punch was about Liberal Senator Pana Merchant’s husband’s offshore account. When Goodale wondered why Duffy’s wage weren’t being garnisheed to ensure that he paid the $90,000 he personally owed, not that Moore’s answer changed, nor did it change when Stéphane Dion tried to impress upon him the illegality of Wright’s payment.
Roundup: Duffy and Brazeau are totally helping their cause
Not that it’s a big surprise, but Senator Patrick Brazeau has vowed to fight the order that he repay those living expense in the wake of that Senate audit. While he does have a point that he was cooperative and that he met all four residency requirements, unlike the other two Senators, but that doesn’t change the fact that he spent a mere ten percent of the time. Government leader in the Senate has threatened that if Senator Brazeau and Harb don’t repay their expenses – with interest – immediately, the Senate will garnish their wages, which they can do. It’s also not clear with which court they can try to challenge these audit results and the orders that the Senate itself will be voting to enforce, seeing as Parliament is actually the highest court in the land. Meanwhile, Charlie Angus wants the legal opinion that LeBreton solicited regarding Senator Mike Duffy’s eligibility to sit in the Senate based on his residency – which told LeBreton that everything was fine – made public. (As an aside, one does wonder just how many legal opinions on the Commons side are made public.) LeBreton replied that Duffy owns property and maintains a residence in the province he represents, so case closed. Ah, but perhaps not, as it was revealed last night that that there appears to have been a deal struck between Harper’s chief of staff to help Duffy with his repayment two days before he announced it, and while the PM’s spokesperson has said on the record that no taxpayer funds were used, that likely means party funds. I suppose the party may consider it fair compensation after Duffy did all of that fundraising for them, but yeah, this is totally not helping his case any more than Brazeau and Harb’s fight is helping their own. But seriously, the rest of you – the behaviour of three individual Senators is not actually indicative of the institution as a whole, and shouldn’t undo the good work that the other hundred Senators are actually doing, within the rules. The Senate’s strength as an institution is stronger than the damage caused by a couple of bad apples, and people need to be reminded of that.
QP: Billions in non sequiturs
Despite it being only a Thursday, Elizabeth May was the only leader in the House. Harper wasn’t even present for the many self-congratulatory Members’ Statements about the second anniversary of the “strong, stable, national majority Conservative government.” In the absence of Thomas Mulcair, it was up to Libby Davies to read off a pair of questions about the improperly tracked $3.1 billion in anti-terrorism funds, to which James Moore, the designated back-up PM du jour, read off the Auditor General’s assurances that the money was not actually misspent. Davies moved onto the topic of search and rescue and threw in a mention for the need to reopen the Kitsilano Coast Guard station. Moore insisted that they were making investments and changes to the system as evidenced by this morning’s announcement. Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe repeated the same in French — without a script — the twist being about the Quebec City substation (MacKay: We are making these necessary investments; Clement: The AG stated that there was no evidence of misspending). For the Liberals, Bob Rae led off — and got a round of applause from the Conservative benches for it — and asked about the “stealth campaign” of raising taxes, be they payroll or tariffs. Moore insisted that it was a ridiculous question, and lauded the many ways in which the government has lowered taxes. For his final question, Rae asked about withdrawals from the Interparliamentary Union, to which Moore replied that there was no withdrawal on the world stage.
QP: Pure demagoguery
Monday in the House, and most of the leaders were absent. Thomas Mulcair was present, and read off a pair of questions about the temporary foreign workers programme changes. Jason Kenney, the designated back-up PM du jour, stood up to insist him that Mulcair was wrong, and that these workers would be paid at the prevailing rate range, and only if Canadians were being paid at that same rate, and added that they need to ensure that the unemployed accept jobs in their regions. Mulcair transitioned the the lockout at US Steel, to which Kenney insisted that the question was pure demagoguery, and this was about a labour dispute. Chris Charlton stood up to ask the very same temporary foreign workers programme questions, to which Kenney gave her the same response, and brought up the many times that the NDP were begging him to allow more of said workers in their ridings. Marc Garneau led off for the Liberals, asking about the “payroll tax” of EI premiums. Kenney stood up to insist that the Liberals wanted more benefits without the increase in premiums, and that they wanted to repeal the GST cuts. For his last question, Garneau revisited last week’s theme of youth unemployment, to which Kenney insisted that no government has done more than theirs to help youth employment.
Roundup: Bring on the updated elections rules
The government announced yesterday that it will unveil its “comprehensive” election rules reform bill on Thursday to deal with things like misleading robocalls, and possibly the utter dogs breakfast that are the rules around leadership race financing. That said, the Chief Electoral Officer has not yet been consulted on said legislation, which you might think is a big deal (not that this government is big on consulting, as much as they might claim that they are). And before anyone says it, no, I don’t actually think that the Conservatives are trying to cover up activity in the last election done under their name. I’ve heard enough from the Conservatives that they are just as concerned about the issue as anyone else – despite some of their workers or volunteers feeling otherwise – and this will likely be a genuine attempt to crack down on the problem.
Roundup: MPs head home while the F-35 storm rages on
The House has risen, and the MPs are all headed back to their ridings. Not the Senate though – they’re still sitting, and I’ll be heading up their for Senate QP later today.
Okay, so now the big news from yesterday – the KPMG report on the F-35 procurement process. With a cost now pegged at $46 billion over 42 years, the government says that it’s officially pushing the reset button on the process – or is it? The former ADM of procurement at National Defence, Alan Williams, says that it’s meaningless unless the department redraws the Statement of Requirements to make stealth a “rated feature” with a point value rather than a pass/fail and it then goes for open tender. There’s also the problem of attrition and the additional costs of buying replacement aircraft, which is outside of the $9 billion procurement envelope being set. John Geddes rips apart Peter MacKay’s remorseless performance yesterday, and notes that the officials noted that it will be difficult to keep the aerospace contracts for supplying F-35 parts if we don’t end up going with that plane. John Ivison goes through the process and finds that if the Conservatives still end up going with the F-35s, it will look like incompetence. Andrew Coyne takes offence that the government continues to spin the numbers and calls bullshit – it’s not 42 years, but $46 million over 30 years, and that the government tacked on those extra 12 years to cover “development and acquisition,” which costs a few hundred million, but by making it look like a little over a billion dollars a year, the government is trying to make it look more palatable. Paul Wells notes the Conservatives’ tendency toward hubris when they should be listening to their critics, who do have a point. Of course, the US “fiscal cliff” may end up killing the F-35s as it would slash their defence spending.