Tag Archives: Martine Ouellet

Roundup: Undead electoral reform concerns

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With BC’s electoral reform referendum on the horizon, and vague promises around it from the Ontario NDP as the election draws to a close, we’re apparently talking proportional representation again. Sigh. Over the weekend, Jean Chrétien made the particular case in his idiosyncratic way that the reason why it’s a bad system, and the core of his argument is that it doesn’t force people to engage with voters. Door knocking to win a riding? Democratic. Being a party wonk who gets in because they’re on a list? Not very democratic. It’s a way of looking at the practical inputs and outputs of the system that most people gloss over when they whinge about the popular vote (which, I will remind you, is a logical fallacy because general elections are not one single event, but 338 separate but simultaneous events) and how “unfair” it seems when viewed through this skewed lens.

As for this referendum in BC, it’s a bit of a dog’s breakfast with its two-stage vote – the first vote as to whether to keep First-Past-the-Post or to adopt a system of proportional representation; the second stage being to choose between three systems – mixed-member proportional with some regional weighting, dual-member proportional, and a hybridized system where urban ridings would have single-transferable-votes, and rural ones would have some kind of proportional system akin to MMP. But there are problems with all three choices – the regional weighting associated with their version of MMP exists nowhere in the world so we don’t know the outcomes; the dual-member proportional is a theoretical system dreamed up by some University of Alberta system that exists nowhere in the world and we really have no idea if or how it would actually work; and the split urban-rural system would never pass constitutional muster. If BC’s attorney general thinks that the Supreme Court would allow different voting systems based on where you lived, I suspect that he’s dreaming, and it would have to be one hell of an excuse to try and save this with Section 1 of the Charter (being that it’s a reasonable curtailing of your rights and freedoms in a free and democratic society). So, good luck with that.

Meanwhile, Andrew Coyne is no fan of the two-stage referendum and would rather simply prefer a single ballot where status-quo was an option like they did in PEI. Where Coyne goes wrong is when he said this as successful in PEI – it really wasn’t. They had to go some five ballots before a PR system squeaked through by the narrowest of margins with unusually low voter turnout for a province that typically takes voting very seriously. Colby Cosh, meanwhile, quite properly lambastes the whole affair as being completely gamed, because aside from the way in which they’re dubiously counting the second ballot if one system doesn’t get a majority from the start, there are still too many unknowns in the three proposals, including whether the proportional lists would be open or closed – a very huge consideration in how PR systems work, and which goes to the heart of holding governments to account in these systems. In other words, this BC referendum is shaping up to be a boondoggle from the start, which is not good for our democracy in the slightest.

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Roundup: Wynne’s final gambit

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The big news over the weekend was the extremely curious decision by Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne to essentially concede defeat of the election days before the vote and urge Liberal voters to return enough MPPs to Queen’s Park to hold the NDP or the Progressive Conservatives to a minority, ensuring that neither party gets a “blank cheque” come Friday. Wynne also stated that she wouldn’t be premier after Thursday, but that’s not quite correct – she may signal her intention to resign on Thursday, but she would still be in the job another two or three weeks during the transition period because as we know, Her Majesty must always have someone there to give her advice. That’s how Responsible Government works, after all.

This having been said, I’ve had a few people ask me what I think of the move, and I’ve had a hard time with it. So little about this election makes any kind of sense, but here we are. Some political scientists say that this is a clever long game to keep her personal unpopularity from sinking the party entirely, and that seems to be echoed by members of her own party who were blindsided by the move, but who say that it may help with people who feel that they want to still vote for the local Liberal MPP but not for a continuation of the Wynne-led government. And after some consideration, I do think this is part of the calculation – to reassure Liberal voters (particularly in safer-Liberal seats) that they can still vote for their MPP and still have an eye on the bigger picture that won’t necessarily mean a Liberal government, as opposed to the supposition that this is just about handing votes to the NDP in a bid to keep Ford out of office.

Andrea Horwath, meanwhile, is already ruling out any kind of Liberal support to in a minority situation, which is a) not wholly unexpected for someone who suddenly has a shot at forming government; but b) is also potentially a dangerous gambit should she be forced to walk back from those sentiments if she does rely on having Liberal seats to keep her government from falling in short order. And it really is up in the air right now as to where things are sitting, so I’m sure we’ll be having all kinds of conversations about government formation in the next week or two. (If you need a head start, read up in my book).

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Roundup: A possible missed deadline on election laws

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With a ticking clock over their heads – one whose useful time may already have passed – the government unveiled a new bill yesterday to reform the country’s electoral laws, to not only roll back changes that the previous government made around voter ID, that people complained made it harder for people to vote, while also enhancing some privacy safeguards, and limiting the writ period to 50 days while imposing more spending limits on pre-writ and third-party spending (so long as there’s a fixed election date). In the event that you thought there was already a bill on the Order Paper to roll back those Conservative changes, well, you’d be right, but they’ve abandoned it and rolled those changes into this new bill – a tactic they have been using with increasing frequency for whatever reason. Of course, Conservatives are already grousing that the Liberals are trying to make voter fraud easier by reducing the ID restrictions – never mind that they were never able to prove that there were problems with the pre-existing system, with one MP being forced to apologize for misleading the House after insisting that he saw people collecting voter registration cards when he actually just made the story up. But why ruin a narrative about the Liberals trying to game the next election?

The point about timing is going to be a tough one, because ideally these changes should have been made months ago if Elections Canada was to have enough time to ensure that they’ll be in effect for 2019 – and this also has to do with their need to migrate to a new data centre in advance of that election. Why the government couldn’t get this bill out months ago – or advance the previous bill on electoral measures, for that matter – is a question that they have yet to answer. As to whether Elections Canada can make these changes in time, the fact that there is now a bill that they can look to could mean that they’ve been saved in time – maybe – but we have yet to see how long it will take for them to bring it to debate and get it to the Senate, which has been keen to both amend bills and take their time doing it.

Meanwhile, Elections Canada is working with CSE and outside contractors to provide iPads to polling stations in the next election for things like voter registration so that they can eliminate some of the paper systems at advanced polls. In other words, trying to speed up the process electronically while still keeping the paper ballots that are so necessary to have proper accountability in our system.

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Roundup: Scheer’s vague hand-wavey promises

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We’ve been through a week of particularly misleading rhetoric about the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s report on the impact of a $50/tonne carbon tax on the Canadian economy, where the figures about the “damage” it would cause to our economy supposes that the money collected would be either lit on fire, or given in lump sums to individual families rather than recycled in provincial tax cuts or other measures. But confident that it reinforces their narrative, the Conservatives have been parading it around as “proof” that they are right to oppose carbon pricing. To that end, while doing the rounds on the Sunday political shows, Andrew Scheer said that his party’s climate plan – yet to be revealed, but he promises that’ll happen before the 2019 election – will both meet Paris Accord targets but won’t impose a carbon tax. That’s…special.

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Given previous Conservative positions on this, it’s likely that this will involve either magic, or some particularly onerous and costly regulations of industry that will simply internalize the costs (which get passed onto consumers) rather than having that cost be out in the open so that people can see it in front of them and make choices appropriates – you know, a market pricing mechanism that you would think a conservative party would favour over red tape and regulations. (This of course assumes that they are actually a conservative party instead of a right-flavoured populist party, which we know that they’ve become). They will claim that they had a record of carbon reduction while in office, but it had zero to do with their own politics, and everything to do with Ontario shuttering their coal-fired electricity plants and the economic downturn. Remember that their “coal-fired regulations” applied to new plants which hadn’t been built yet, and their sector-by-sector regulations were slow to roll out, and steadfastly strayed away from our biggest-emitting sectors, like the oil sands (which they still haven’t given any indication how they would mitigate their emissions without carbon pricing to drive innovation). I suspect we’re going to be looking at some hand-waving about future technology that will magically remove carbon from the atmosphere, but I leave myself room to be pleasantly surprised.

Meanwhile, on the subject of carbon pricing, here’s Andrew Leach to correct some of the performative outrage and bad economics that have been passed around in the past week.

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Roundup: The big Mali announcement

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The formal announcement was made yesterday – six helicopters (two medical evac, four armed escorts) and approximately 250 personnel are headed to Mali as part of UN peace operations, and while this initial deployment covers off for German and Dutch forces that are pulling out, time there will be spent evaluating other ways that Canada can help build capacity in the country, which will involve training troops from other countries. While there have been some 162 peacekeeper deaths so far in Mali, all but four of those are from less advanced militaries than Canada’s, and the four Western countries’ deaths were related to a helicopter accident and not hostile actions. Chrystia Freeland did a great interview that helps lay out more of the details as to why Mali and why it’s taken so long.

Opposition reaction has been swift, and a bit curious. The Conservatives are demanding a debate and a vote on the deployment (reminder: a vote is wholly inappropriate because it launders the accountability that the government should be held to regarding the mission), while the NDP keep pointing out that this will not fulfil all of the government’s peacekeeping promises (not that they have claimed that it would), while demanding more details. Former senator Roméo Dallaire says that this is a good deployment, and reiterates that Canadians training troop-contributing nations and mentoring those forces will help to modernize peacekeeping.

In terms of hot takes, John Ivison sticks to the point that this is a political move by the government designed to help them get their UN Security Council seat as opposed to having anything to do with national security – err, except that peacekeeping isn’t supposed to be about national security. That’s kind of the point.

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Roundup: Notley’s unconstitutional threats

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In Alberta, Rachel Notley’s NDP government had a Throne Speech yesterday that promised all manner of action to try to pressure BC’s NDP government when it comes to the Trans Mountain pipeline problem. Notley, however, decided to take some of Jason Kenney’s bluster and make it her own, promising the ability to block oil shipments to BC that they need for their domestic use. The problem? The Trans Mountain pipeline is regulated by the National Energy Board, meaning it’s federal jurisdiction, and that neither province can do anything to block it or affect what it carries. She’s also echoing the comments that the federal government needs to lean harder on BC, never mind that the NEB has quasi-judicial authority on the issue, and the fact that all BC has done to date is announce a study, or that the federal government has repeated “This pipeline will get built.” It’s a bunch of chest-thumping and borrowed demagoguery that ignores the historical context of what Peter Lougheed threatened in the 1980s, and is rank hypocrisy in that they’re threatening unconstitutional action to combat BC’s threatened unconstitutional action. It’s time for everyone to grow up.

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Roundup: Ouellet’s magnanimity

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The complete illogic of how the Bloc Québécois’ leadership woes continue to unfold continues to amaze. Over the weekend, the party executive emerged from a meeting to affirm their support for Marine Ouellet, but they extended the magnanimous gesture to not tear up the Bloc memberships of those seven MPs who walked out. This, of course, should surprise no one because badly our system has become corrupted by membership-driven leadership contests is that those same members who elected that leader will also help to install his or her friends into the party executive, which centralizes power for that leader. Witness Patrick Brown having Rick Dykstra installed as PC party president, or Justin Trudeau and his friend Anna Gainey. This is why the kind of rot in the PC party in Ontario happens – because the checks and balances within the party have eroded as it transforms itself into a cult of the leader. One a further note about Ouellet, Martin Patriquin notes that as Bloc fortunes continue to wane, she becomes a perfect scapegoat for the party’s demise.

As for Patrick Brown, the news of the weekend was how the party started making plans to deal with revelations of his dating history as it came out, particularly vengeful ex-girlfriends and staffers, which should have been alarm bells right then and there. But this is what happens when you try to deal with the leader that a membership-driven process delivers and who has a “democratic mandate,” whereas if caucus chose from among its ranks, they would know the kinds of open secrets about a candidate and could be steered away from choosing a leader with such skeletons on display, and furthermore, could easily deal with a leader whose vices and other personal problems came to light with swift action. This is yet another reason why caucus selection matters, if we can get past the populist impulses of the current system.

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Roundup: Government vs opposition duties

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While I’ve written on the topic before, comments made by Government House Leader Bardish Chagger on her tabled “discussion paper” on trying to make the House of Commons more “efficient” really rankled over the weekend. In particular, Chagger said the proposals were trying to find the balance between the government’s “duty to pass legislation and the opposition’s right to be heard.”

No. Just no. And here’s Philippe Lagassé to explain why.

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The whole point of Parliament is not to ensure that government passes legislation. The point is to hold it to account, and that often means slowing it down and ensuring that it doesn’t overstep its bounds, which it is wont to do. Already it’s a problem that government backbenchers don’t do their duty and due diligence when it comes to keeping a check on the government – most are happy to toe the line in order to be considered for a cabinet post, which is a problem in and of itself, and we’ve seen this attitude of being “team players” amplify in the last number of years, particularly after the minority government years, when message discipline became paramount above all else, which is why I worry about how the backbenches will react to this proposition by the government. Will they willingly surrender their responsibilities of accountability because they want to be seen as being onside with Cabinet (particularly after the recent defeats of cabinet on those private members’ bills and Senate public bills?) Maybe.

What worries me more is the way that Chagger phrased the opposition’s “right to be heard.” We’re seeing increasingly that with this government and their insistence on constant broad consultations, they will listen, then go ahead with their original plans. I worry that this is how they are starting to feel about parliament – that they’ll hear the concerns of the opposition or the Senate, and then bully through regardless. Parliament is not a focus group to “consult” with, and I’m not sure that they’re quite getting that, particularly given Chagger’s statement. Accountability is not just politely listening, and the opposition is not there to just deliver an opposing viewpoint. There needs to be a tension and counter-balance, and right now I’m not sure that this government quite gets the need for that tension, particularly when they keep mouthing platitudes about working together collaboratively and whatnot. Then again, I’m not sure that the opposition necessarily gets the extent of their responsibilities either, which is depressing. Regardless, Chagger’s case for these reforms is built on a foundation of sand. Most should be fully opposed and defeated soundly for the sake of the very existential nature of our parliament.

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