Tag Archives: Lynn Beyak

Roundup: Political theatre over terrorist listings

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After Question Period yesterday, Jagmeet Singh rose to propose a motion that the government get serious about tackling white supremacy, which included listing the Proud Boys as a terrorist organization. After a brief interruption where Elizabeth May wanted the Soldiers of Odin added to that list – which was ruled procedurally out of order – Singh’s motion passed, and it was a big social media coup for him, which was also turned into a fundraising pitch so that they could “keep the pressure up” on the Liberals to actually go through with it.

The problem? This is all political theatre – and dangerous political theatre at that. The motion was non-binding, and does not automatically list the Proud Boys, but serves as political direction for the relevant national security agencies to do so, but they can’t actually do that, because there are clear processes set out in law to do so. The Conservatives tried this a few years ago with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and to have them listed – which still hasn’t been done, because there’s a process, and established criteria that it appears they don’t meet the threshold of under existing Canadian law.

To add to that, this kind of precedent should be absolutely alarming because it was a year ago that there were people demanding that Indigenous protesters blockading railways be declared “terrorists,” and if this were up to votes in the Commons (though, granted, this was a motion that required unanimous consent), that could turn bad very, very fast. There are established processes for terrorist listings for a reason, and they should be respected – not being used so that MPs can pat themselves on the back and virtue-signal that they oppose white supremacy. That doesn’t solve problems and can make the jobs of legitimate national security agencies more difficult, but hey, MPs get to make some hay over Twitter, so that’s what counts, right?

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Roundup: A tough case for Beyak’s expulsion

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As the end of the fall sitting in Parliament approaches, the drama in the Senate is not abating as Independent senator Mary Jane McCallum has introduced a motion to have Senator Lynn Beyak expelled from the Chamber for her ongoing racism. There is a bit of procedural legitimacy to this: there hadn’t been a formal determination on whether or not to fully reinstate Beyak after her suspension order expired, and the debate on that was not concluded when prorogation happened. What is at play, however, is that the Senate’s ethics and conflict of interest committee had recommended that Beyak’s suspension be lifted because she did finally complete proper anti-racism training, removed the offending racist letters from her website and offered a more sincere apology to the institution. Senator Murray Sinclair publicly stated that he was willing to give her another chance at redemption. McCallum, it seems, is not.

This is going to be a very tricky to pull off, however – and would be a historic first. Normally when a senator gets into a lot of ethical trouble, they will resign so that they can preserve some sense of honour (along with their pension). Beyak, however, is unlikely to do the honourable thing, and will more than likely turn herself into some kind of free speech martyr, which is where much of the danger in McCallum’s approach lies. If this is handled ham-fistedly – as in “she’s a racist and shouldn’t be a senator” – then she is likely going to find a lot of defenders coming out of the woodwork from all sides, because they will feel that she has been a) denied procedural fairness, and b) will set a terrible precedent because as soon as one person can be expelled for their beliefs, then what belief will be on the chopping block next? Yes, racism is bad – but this is where people will start to look at slippery slopes, especially in this era of “cancel culture.” More to the point, the Ethics Officer said that she did everything that was asked of her, and the committee agreed, so trying to now argue for her suspension without an iron-clad case that she has breached the rules is going to be an uphill battle.

It’s important to remember why Senators have these kinds of protections, which is to preserve institutional independence. The Senate is one line of defence in parliament against a government with a majority of seats in the Commons who can ram through unconstitutional legislation by sheer numbers. The Senate has not only an absolute veto on everything short of constitutional amendments (for which they only have a six-month suspensive veto), but they have security of tenure so that they can’t be replaced should they stand in the way of a government trying to do something like pass an unconstitutional bill. The flip-side is that it makes problematic senators much harder to get rid of, which is generally why prime ministers should be very careful about who they appoint (which Stephen Harper very obviously was not). Yes, they can discipline their own – that comes with parliamentary privilege – but I have my doubts about McCallum’s case here. She is going to have do more than just call this institutional racism.

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Roundup: Flirting with unconstitutional legislation

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The bill to mandate sexual assault training for judges was a bad idea from the start, when Rona Ambrose first tabled it years ago, and the current iteration that this government is putting forward is little better, especially now that MPs have decided they need to start amending it to add other things. While Ambrose’s initial bill was blatantly unconstitutional (that the Commons passed on a whim because of the political syllogism: Something needs to be done, this is something, therefore we must do this), and needed to be gutted in the Senate to make it acceptable, the current version was more or less acceptable (barring one or two possible issues), but it seems that MPs want to make it blatantly unconstitutional again.

Former Supreme Court of Canada executive legal officer Gib van Ert warned back in February that this bill would be an invitation to demand that judges take training in other areas than just sexual assault, and lo and behold, we are there, with demands for the “social context of systemic racism.”

https://twitter.com/btaplatt/status/1321246603781570560

van Ert makes the point that if judges need to be seen as independent, then bills like this, where politicians appear to be giving them marching orders, is a bad look and will undermine the justice system. But since when to populist impulses consider the consequences of their actions? They don’t.

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Roundup: $2 billion unbidden

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There was a lot of reaction to the announcement that prime minister Justin Trudeau was giving an additional $2 billion to the provinces to help schools restart safely – unbidden – and those reactions were interesting. Trudeau himself made a point of saying that this was as a result of listening to his backbench Liberal MPs and parents who continued to express concerns, and that it wasn’t requested by premiers, so that’s a political marker right there. It’s also a transfer that is largely without strings – it comes in two tranches, one now, one at the end of the year, and all the provinces need to do between them is to tell Ottawa how they spent the money, so again, it’s a bit of a political test for those premiers – and it’s also giving rise to speculation that this is a sign that Trudeau is in election mode.

Reaction was mixed. Doug Ford expressed gratitude (but also falsely claimed that Ontario’s restart plans were the safest in the country, which is patently absurd), but his education minister – and his opposition critic in the NDP – derided the funds as “late to the game.” Manitoba premier Brian Pallister, for example, was somewhat non-committal, and said he’d take the money, but praised his own government’s efforts. And, hilariously, Jagmeet Singh took credit for it, saying that he had called a press conference to “make an announcement” (read: demand) about more money for schools and lo and behold, the prime minister delivered before that press conference happened. Yeah, okay then.

The complicating factor in all of this is that this is an area of sole provincial jurisdiction and there should be zero expectation for federal dollars, which is why I find myself mystified by all of the people on Twitter (and the Ontario NDP education critic) bemoaning that these funds didn’t flow in June. But if you recall, in June, Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland were negotiating with the provinces for their “Safe Restart Plan,” with $14 billion on the table which included money for schools, so it’s not like it wasn’t being discussed – the provinces were recalcitrant because they didn’t want the strings attached that come with billions of dollars. Eventually, they came to an agreement and it turned into $19 billion, and this $2 billion is on top of that, so it’s not like the federal government has been completely silent. I would also suspect that there is a bit of an implicit rebuke in this new envelope of money because provinces have been dithering on their restart plans, giving confusing options to parents with no time to evaluate them, and more critically, have been unwilling to do the important work of reducing class sizes. One could easily interpret this money as Ottawa telling them – not in so many words – to get their acts together, and they’ll look fairly magnanimous while they’re at it.

https://twitter.com/StandingHannah/status/1298685195579723776

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Roundup: Exit Morneau

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After a week of leaks about clashes, finance Bill Morneau took to a lectern late in the day on Monday to announce that he had tendered his resignation, and would be resigning both as minister and as MP. Well, first he did some back-patting over his record and couched the decision by saying that he never planned to serve more than two election cycles, and since the economic recovery would take years, it was better for someone else to step in who could carry the work through. The bombshell out of this was the face-saving gesture that he had put his name forward to be the next secretary general of the OECD, and that he had the PM’s full support in doing so – which is either really cute that he thinks he actually has a chance, or a bit pathetic in that he offered up an excuse that beggared credulity. The Q&A portion had very few answers, but this kind of pabulum is what Morneau was so good at – lots of words, not a lot of substance. When asked about the difference that he was apparently clashing with Trudeau over, Morneau mouthed that there was “vigorous discussion and debate,” and that he hoped that work on the green economy could continue and that he would try to help with the OECD (which he won’t get). He denied that he was pressured to resign, said that when it came to WE, he has been involved in philanthropy for many years and that in hindsight he wished that he had one things differently and recused himself – and yet said nothing about the donor trip he didn’t disclose. He insisted that he still wanted to contribute, and said that at the OECD, he would deal with things like international taxation and digital transformation, and use the expertise he gained as the finance minister of a G7 country to help, but, well, that’s not going to happen and we all know it.

Liberal Sources™ are saying that there won’t be an interim finance minister, though the Orders in Council say that Mona Fortier is already the Acting Minister since Morneau is out of the picture. The leading contenders for the job appear to be Jean-Yves Duclos, Chrystia Freeland, and François-Philippe Champagne.

Meanwhile, Paul Wells describes the strange circumstances that surrounded Morneau’s departure – particularly the leaks to the media about fights that Morneau lost and was gracious about, with added snark about how the departure went down. Heather Scoffield notes the good work Morneau did before agreeing that it was time for him to go. (Look for my own column on Morneau’s departure later today on Loonie Politics).

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Roundup: Armed intruder at Rideau Hall

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The big excitement for the day was that there was an Incident at Rideau Hall first thing in the morning, as a Canadian Forces member, who was armed, crashed his truck through the gates of the compound and headed over to Rideau Hall on foot, where he was then apprehended by RCMP in what sounds like a two-hour “dialogue.” Apparently he wanted to “send a message” to the prime minister – who wasn’t at home at nearby Rideau Cottage at the time, nor was the Governor General in Rideau Hall (but if you recall, she has consistently refused to move into the residence there, preferring to stay at Rideau Gate). He was arrested without incident, and has apparently made online posts about a supposed COVID-19 conspiracy theory – and it comes just a day after anti-lockdown protests were happening on Parliament Hill, featuring a former has-been wannabe party leader who shall not be named, and some of the images seen on the Hill included those of Trudeau being hanged, while others touted these kinds of COVID conspiracies. So that’s fun.

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1278788951885721602

Meanwhile, over in Alberta, the rhetoric about the plan to hold a referendum on equalization rolls along, so here is political scientist Melanee Thomas to spill some tea about just exactly what they are talking about, and why the arguments aren’t as clever as they think they are.

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Roundup: An unequivocal no to interfering in an extradition

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For his daily presser, prime minister Justin Trudeau once again praised the wage subsidy, and highlighted yet another business who had used it to great effect – part of his ongoing campaign to convince more businesses to take it up and re-hire their employees as the economic restart continues to ramp up. By way of announcements, he spoke of new resources being made available for people and businesses who had questions about the re-opening, and then spoke about a $100 million investment in the Merit Functional Foods plant in Winnipeg as part of the “Protein Supercluster,” and creating more plant-based foods in Canada. Trudeau also spoke about a $94 million investment that Minister Karina Gould would be announcing at the SheDecides Conference, which would go toward the health, and sexual and reproductive rights of vulnerable women around the world.

During the Q&A, he was asked about the situation of temporary foreign workers from Mexico, to which he said that they were working with source countries and business owners to ensure that there were proper protections in place, and warned that there would be consequences for those employers that failed their workers, as three have now died in Canada. On the subject of airlines’ pleas to reopen international travel, Trudeau said that they needed to be very careful about reopening it, otherwise we would see a new spike in cases as they are experiencing in some other countries who opened sooner and not as carefully as most of Canada has. And then there were a raft of questions on the fraught questions of the arbitrary detentions of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, the extradition of Meng Wanzhou, and Chinese officials sniping at Trudeau to stop making “irresponsible” comments that link the case, even though they themselves have done so.

If there was anything newsworthy out of that was the fact that when asked if Trudeau would consider making a deal to halt the extradition in exchange for releasing the Two Michaels, Trudeau gave an unequivocal no, that he would not make any deal that would undermine our judicial system. When presented with the notion that Kovrig’s family sought a legal opinion to say that the minister could indeed interfere, Trudeau again poured cold water on that suggestion, again citing the need to keep our judicial independence in place. It’s worth remembering that Trudeau was part of a G7 announcement about governments making a commitment not to pay ransoms in order to protect their citizens from being the targets of kidnappings around the world, and hostage diplomacy is just that. (And for all of the smartasses over social media who said “He already interfered with the judiciary with SNC-Lavalin,” he did not interfere with the judiciary – the charge was that he tried to interfere with the prosecution, which was not the same thing, and I remain unconvinced that it was what actually happened, no matter some of the unsavoury things that did happen with the deferred prosecution agreement legislation).

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Roundup: An abortion bill to position around

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The Conservatives’ abortion legislation problem has come home to roost early in the new parliament as MP Cathay Wagantall tabled a bill to ban sex-selective abortions, under the (bullshit) excuse that it reflects Canada’s commitment to gender equality. And because she’s 31 on the order of precedence for private members’ business, this will come up likely late spring or early fall. (Private members’ business is determined by lottery, and arrives on the Order Paper in batches of 30). And all eyes are on Andrew Scheer, who stated during the election that he would vote against any measures to attempt to re-open the abortion debate.

Why does this matter? Because the list of approved candidates for the Conservative leadership closed last night, and social conservatives have played kingmaker in both the last federal leadership contest, as well as the last Ontario one, which was done under the same rules. Already we’re seeing positioning among candidates, such as Erin O’Toole criticizing Peter MacKay for saying he would whip his Cabinet to vote against such a bill, saying that he would never whip anyone, Cabinet or backbench, on “moral issues.” It’s a completely transparent ploy – O’Toole is trying to ensure that he gets second-ballot support from the social conservatives when their preferred no-hope candidates get dropped off of the ranked preferential ballot. That’s how Andrew Scheer won, and it’s how Doug Ford won.

Meanwhile, it looks like it’ll be seven entrants in the race, though some approvals may yet be pending. Of those seven, three qualify as social conservatives, so the “frontrunners” like MacKay, O’Toole and maybe Marilyn Gladu will want the second and third votes from those no-hopers in the hopes of pushing them over the top. So this dynamic is very present in the leadership race, as Wagantall has put it on the table for them to debate around her.

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Roundup: A failed attempt at fundamental reform

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Fair warning that this is going to be super wonky and a dive into parliamentary nerdery, but it’s important to how our democracy functions. It seems that the government’s attempt to better reconcile our budget cycle and Estimates process has been declared a failure, and the deeply flawed system that has grown up over a number of years has once again returned, and that’s a huge disappointment because it was an important change that they were attempting.

Part of the problem here is that we don’t have a fixed budget date, but the Estimates cycle operates by a fixed calendar. What this has tended to mean is that the budget can be pushed back after the Main Estimates, which means that all of the spending that Parliament is supposed to approve winds up being reflective of the previous year’s budget, and then it’s up to the Supplementary Estimates later in the year to update the spending to what was in this year’s budget – a system that makes it difficult if not impossible to track spending, particularly as the accounting used in the Public Accounts at the end of the fiscal year is different still from both the budget and Estimates. If Parliament’s key function is to study these spending plans and expenditures and hold the government to account over them, it is a nigh-impossible task (which is one more reason why MPs have given up on doing it, and simply turned it over to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, which is a Very Bad Thing). It was Scott Brison’s pet project when he was at Treasury Board to try and better align these cycles, but that was easier said than done, particularly given some of the sclerotic processes within our civil service, and their attempt to try and get some money out the door faster with a $7 billion fund (derided by the Conservatives as a “slush fund” despite there being a list of approved items that accompanied it) never wound up actually working, and much of that money went unspent even though it was supposed to mean things happened faster. It’s a failure all around – both with this government and within the broader civil service.

I am hoping that the Liberals have taken what lessons they can from this and take more steps to rectify some of the problems, including assigning a fixed budget date so that the civil service can adjust their own cycles and processes to reflect this and the Estimates cycle can then reflect what is in the budget (and aligning the Public Accounts with these cycles would also help). This is at the very heart of how our parliament is supposed to operate, and if we can’t get this right, it’s a very, very bad sign for the health of our system.

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Roundup: Kenney looking to weaponize populist anger

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It was Throne Speech day in Alberta yesterday, and while Kenney temporarily toned down his bellicosity for the sake of decorum, the speech was still full of strange promises. While Kenney promised to reduce unemployment, he nevertheless cited the report he devised to show that spending was too high while ignoring the province’s revenue problem, meaning more cuts are still likely. He also hinted at government investment in resource projects, which is mighty odd for someone who claims to support the free market (and this thread shows some of the context of Peter Lougheed’s investments in the sector which Kenney invoked). He also tabled the first bill, which promises fine for interrupting “critical infrastructure” – such as the rail blockades – because that’ll help.

The one thing that caught my attention most of all, however, was a proposal for recall petitions that would not only target MLAs, but also municipal councillors, mayors, and even school board trustees. I cannot stress enough how boneheaded an idea this is, because it will do absolutely nothing to enhance the practice of democracy, and will in fact weaken the representative democracy – along with their plans to allow citizens to petition referendums on whatever they want. Why they are even more concerning in the current context is because I am certain that this is about Kenney looking to weaponize populist anger against anyone who stands in his way. He has a cadre of paid shitposters, both in his office and in his $30 million a year “war room” that he can deploy against anyone in the province who stands up to Kenney – most especially the mayors of Edmonton and Calgary. Even if there is a high enough bar set to trigger these, as in BC, it nevertheless undermines the practice of Responsible Government and the confidence conventions inherent in our system. We already have accountability mechanisms – they’re called elections. Recall is not only an Americanism that does not fit with our system, I have no doubt that this is about portraying dissent as illegitimate, and using recall legislation as a threat. This will only increase the ugliness that is creeping into our politics, and that Kenney is gleefully throwing these things out there is a very big problem.

Meanwhile, to top it all off, Teck Resources appears to be trolling some particular voices like Kenney who have been caterwauling the past few days, as they announced they are investing in a solar facility at a reclaimed coal mine in BC. Oh, the delicious, delicious irony of it all.

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