Tag Archives: Mélanie Joly

Roundup: No undoing these elections

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In Alberta, the province’s municipal affairs minister has declared that he can’t vacate a seat on Calgary’s city council given the revelations that surfaced against one councillor from a time before his election, when he was a police officer. And this is actually a good thing – you do not want to give provincial governments the power to suddenly start vacating seats on municipal councils in their province, because that can very, very easily be weaponised to settle scores, particularly when there is friction between the municipal and provincial governments. (Seriously, given the rank incompetence of several provincial governments, you do not want them to have this power, no matter that it may sound nice for this particular circumstance).

There is a certain amount of resonance in this with the situation around ousted Liberal candidate and now independent MP Kevin Vuong, While there is some social media backlash over his visit to a local business that needed their MP’s help on a CRA issue, there are plenty of people who are demanding that something be done about his election, be it having the Speaker declare his seat vacant or the like, but I worry about that because of the implications for what it means as a precedent (especially given the fact that charges were not pursued in the allegations against him, which a gulf from the kind of conviction that would ordinarily be used as an excuse to declare such a vacancy). There needs to be a very high bar because this is democracy, and one of the things that happens in a democracy is that sometimes the people get it wrong for whatever the reason, and in this case, there is the added issue that the party did a closed-door acclamation process rather than an open nomination, so they have to wear this as well.

In both of these cases, there is something of an object lesson about why it’s important to get things right when you’re considering who you’re voting for (and why local journalism matters). There is nobody who can swoop down and save you from your bad choices, so it’s very, very important that you choose wisely.

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Roundup: Time to change the dress code?

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NDP MP Randall Garrison is pushing for the House of Commons to update is dress code, in particular around the gendered rules that men need to wear a jacket and tie in the Chamber in order to speak and vote. Part of Garrison’s stated motivation is to make it easier for future trans and non-binary MPs, even though accommodations are already routinely made, such as allowing Indigenous MPs to wear beaded necklaces or other symbols in place of a tie. I don’t see why it would be any different to accommodate a trans or non-binary MP in a similar manner without any fuss – a mere notice to the Speaker would suffice.

On the one hand, there is a certain amount of archaic assumption in the “contemporary business attire” around jackets and ties for men, and only men – there is no dress code for women in the Chamber (and these rules apply to those of us who sit in the Press Gallery in the Chamber, incidentally). Business attire in the current context is starting to slide down the scale – particularly in this era of work-from-home – so I’m leery of loosening the restrictions too much, particularly as it is not beyond the realm of possibility that you would have a bunch of MPs in track suits, yoga or sweat pants, hoodies, and mom jeans (and I have seen male MPs in mom jeans with jacket and tie in the Chamber, which was not a pleasant sight). Printed t-shirts are also a very real concern, because we will immediately slip into them being used as props, particularly during Members’ Statements, and we do not want that to happen. On the same token, I wouldn’t have minded imposing a few more rules for women in the Chamber, such as mandating jackets as part of “business attire,” because sometimes the definitions of what constitutes “business attire” for some female MPs has been particularly…challenging. (Flashback to the old Megan Leslie Outfit Watch on my former blog).

I get that ties suck. I really do. I used to really hate them, but I’ve somewhat reluctantly grown to accept them and now I have no issue with it. And once we’re into late May and early June and the humidity starts to climb, wearing suits is not fun (and whereas I have threatened to show up to the Gallery in shorts and sandals – but with jacket and tie – one reporter has actually done so and was my hero for the day). But at the same time, I think there should be some kinds of standards, for both men and women, because frankly there can be a demonstrated lack of both maturity and good taste among MPs and there need to be some guidelines. Can they be loosened a little? Sure, that should be okay, and maybe we won’t require a tie at all times – within reason. It does merit a discussion in any case.

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Roundup: A refreshed Cabinet for a new parliament

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So, that was the big Cabinet shuffle. It was extensive, and we saw three ministers dropped entirely (not the first time), a few promotions, a few demotions, and a lot more hybrid and chimeric ministries which will make governance a challenge to say the least. Nevertheless, here we are. Some observations:

  • This was not a new Cabinet or ministry – this was just a shuffle. It’s also not a third term or mandate, because we don’t have those in Canada – it’s the third parliament that the current ministry has spanned.
  • Marc Garneau’s exclusion from Cabinet has fuelled rumours he’s about to become ambassador to France. My presumption is that Bardish Chagger’s exclusion is because she is going to be the new Whip, as the old Whip and his deputy are now in Cabinet. Jim Carr’s departure may be health-related.
  • After Trudeau had rather bravely centralized all of the economic development agencies under one roof and didn’t have them beholden to local ministers and the corrupting influence that offers, he has relented and re-established the practice of regional economic development ministers again, and undone the work of trying to clean up the mess they create.
  • The most important portfolios – finance, defence, foreign affairs – are now all held by women. Anita Anand is the second woman defence minister in Canadian history (the first being Kim Campbell), and her background as a law professor specializing in governance can only help in a role where there has been a crisis in civilian oversight. As foreign affairs minister, Mélanie Joly will have to deal with the tensions between the US and China (and our general lack of a coherent foreign policy).
  • Splitting up Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness was a good and necessary thing; giving Bill Blair emergency preparedness and not public safety is an even better thing because Blair was essentially at risk of capture in the role as a former police chief (with a questionable record around actions of the Toronto Police during the G20 to boot).
  • There are nine new faces in this configuration of Cabinet, and more diversity – the first Black woman since Jean Augustine, the first out lesbian minister, and the queerest Cabinet in Canadian history.
  • Putting Steven Guilbeault in environment may yet be a huge disaster given how badly he mismanaged Bill C-10, but Jonathan Wilkinson in natural resources will likely mean a steadier hand on some of those files where the two overlap.
  • Carving off an associate health minister portfolio for Carolyn Bennett to deal with addictions and mental health is a bit of a throwback to when she was the first minister of state for the newly-created Public Health Agency of Canada, back in the Paul Martin era. Jean-Yves Duclos in health – an economist who did a lot of work on poverty reduction – means he’s not going to be fooled by provinces trying to get more money out of the federal government that they plan to spend elsewhere.
  • Trudeau says he plans to lead the Liberals in the next election, but I’m not sure I believe him, and of course he’d say that now. He wouldn’t actually say he plans to leave until it comes time to do so, lest he turn himself into a lame duck without any moral authority to get anything done.

And now, the talking heads. Aaron Wherry hears from a Senior Liberal Source™ that the message of this Cabinet is the need for urgent delivery of promises. Heather Scoffield makes note of the activists leading the environment and housing files. Jason Markusoff highlights the squirming that Jason Kenney and others are doing now that Steven Guilbeault is the environment minister. Althia Raj sees some attempted legacy-building in Trudeau’s choices.

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Roundup: Let’s just ignore the toxic spring

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We are coming out of the first week of the campaign, and we still see a bunch of pundits and talking heads questioning why the Liberals called it in the first place, and I have to wonder just how much they paid attention to what went on during the last session of Parliament. It was a toxic environment – the most toxic I have seen in over a decade. Non-money bills didn’t advance for months because of procedural warfare, and at least one pandemic support bill was months late in being able to deliver for people who needed it. Committees were holding witch-hunts and the civil service was busy sending millions of pages to committees on wild goose chases. But did anyone bother to explain this? Not really, because then it would become a “process story,” which we are supposed to be allergic to. Putting the events of the spring into context, along with some of the considerations about timing (there are municipal elections in Quebec and Alberta in October) should be part of the media’s job, so that we’re not just being stenographers to what the parties are telling us (so we can then both-sides it). But that might be too much effort.

Of course, this is Justin Trudeau, and while he was perfectly happy to point out the obstruction on the days leading up to dissolution, once the campaign started, he was all about his upbeat, positive narratives, and talking about people being given a say in the “most important election since 1945,” because that’s his campaign persona and style – upbeat, upbeat, upbeat. Happy-clappy at all times. That doesn’t mean that those of us who follow Parliament can’t look past it and point out what was going on.

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Roundup: Taking a “pause” when it comes to China

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In what appears to have been done by email over the long weekend, Alberta’s provincial government has asked its universities to pause any relationships with China, and wants a report on current activities, citing theft of intellectual property. And it’s a real problem, but this may not have been the best way to deal with it. With that in mind here is Stephanie Carvin with more:

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Roundup: Not the provinces’ cash cow

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Everything got off to an earlier start yesterday, beginning with the ministerial presser, during which Marc Miller announced another $650 million being allocated to Indigenous communities for healthcare, which would also include added income supports for those living on-reserve, as well as some $85 million to build new shelters for women on reserves. Marc Garneau also announced that the ban on cruise ship docking in Canadian waters was going to be extended to October 31st, which will impact the economies of these communities, but also limits potential vectors for the pandemic. When pressed about the issue of airline ticket refunds, Garneau reiterated the warning that the sector could fail if they were forced to refund all of the tickets, though later on, prime minister Justin Trudeau indicated that there were talks ongoing.

For his presser, Trudeau started off by talking about his teleconference with the premiers and spoke about sick leave being one of the items on the agenda, and it was later in the Q&A that he said that he was offering for the federal government to assume most of the responsibility for the costs, rather than putting it on business owners, but it sounds like some premiers remain rather cool to the idea. After reiterating the earlier Miller/Garneau announcement, Trudeau took questions, which included mention that he was trying to get premiers to agree to some modified orders at the Canada-US border that would allow family reunification, such as cases like the Canadian woman who was trying to get the American father of her unborn child into the country before she gave birth – but again, there are premiers who are not keen. After the questions, Trudeau then gave an unprompted statement on anti-Black racism as a result of what’s going on in the US – that there is a need to stand up as a society, that there needs to be more respect, and that we have work to do as well in Canada. He called on all Canadians to stand together in solidarity, as they know how deeply people are being affected by what we are seeing on the news.

Something else raised in Trudeau’s Q&A was a letter sent to him by five of his Toronto-area backbenchers, calling on him to lead the country in national standards on long-term care, and to press Ontario for a full public inquiry into what happened with the breakdown in care (which I maintain won’t tell us anything we don’t already know). Trudeau praised them for their efforts, and talked about the ongoing talks with provinces, but two of those MPs were on Power & Politics later in the day, and something that I was also glad to hear was Judy Sgro saying that while they wanted federal leadership, they both were respecting that this is provincial jurisdiction and they also didn’t want the provinces treating the federal government like a “cash cow” when you have premiers like Ford demanding more federal funds to fix their own long-term care mess. My own patience for provinces crying out for federal funds to fix the problems in their own jurisdiction is wearing mighty thin, particularly as most of those provinces have broad taxation powers at their disposal (though some of those provinces have less tax room available to them – Ontario, however, is not one of them). Premiers don’t want to have anything on their books and would rather it come from Ottawa’s, so that they don’t have to look like the bad guy when it comes to paying for their own programmes – never mind that there’s really only one taxpayer in the end.

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Roundup: Look at all the chimeric ministers

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With the usual bit of pomp and circumstance, the Cabinet has been shuffled in advance of Parliament being summoned. It is bigger by two bodies, there are seven new faces, a few new portfolios – and baffling ones at that – a few being folded back into their original ministries, and yes, gender parity was maintained throughout. The Cabinet committees are also getting a shuffle, which gives you a glimpse at what they see the focus will be, and spoiler alert, it’s very domestic and inward-looking – not much of a surprise in a hung parliament where there are few plaudits or seats to be won on foreign affairs files. It’s also no surprise that it’s Quebec and Ontario-heavy, and largely representing urban ridings, because that’s where the Liberals won their seats.

And thus, the biggest headline is of course that Chrystia Freeland has been moved from foreign affairs to intergovernmental affairs, but with the added heft of being named deputy prime minister – the first time this title has been employed since Paul Martin, and Freeland assures us that it’s going to come with some heft and not just be ceremonial. She’s also retaining the Canada-US file, so that there remains continuity and a steady hand on the tiller as the New NAFTA completes the ratification process. It also would seem to indicate that it gives her the ability to keep a number of fingers in a number of pies, but we’ll have to wait for her mandate letter to see what specifics it outlines, though the expectations that she will have to manage national unity in this somewhat fractious period is a tall order. Jonathan Wilkinson moving to environment has been matched with the expected talk about his upbringing and education in Saskatchewan, so as to show that he understands the prairies as he takes on the environment portfolio. Jim Carr is out of Cabinet officially, but he will remain on a Cabinet committee and be the prime minister’s “special representative” to the prairie provinces, which is supposed to be a less taxing role as he deals with cancer treatments (though I don’t see how that couldn’t be a recipe for high blood pressure, but maybe that’s just me). Two other ministers were demoted – Kirsty Duncan, who will become deputy House Leader, and Ginette Petitpas Taylor, who will become the deputy Whip – though it should be noted that both House Leader and Whip are of added importance in a hung parliament.

The opposition reaction was not unexpected, though I have to say the Conservatives’ talking point was far pissier than I would have guessed – none of the usual “we look forward to working together, but we’ll keep our eyes on you,” kind of thing – no, this was bitter, and spiteful in its tone and language. Even Jason Kenney was classier in his response (but we all know that lasts about five minutes). That’ll make for a fun next few years if they keep this up.

As for some of my own observations, I was struck by the need to name a new Quebec lieutenant, given that Trudeau used to say that they had a Quebec general (meaning him), so no need, and lo, did the Conservatives had meltdowns over it. Likewise, there was thought under the previous parliament that they would eliminate all of those regional development ministers and put them all under Navdeep Bains (whose ministry has rebranded again from Industry, to Innovation, Science and Economic Development, and is now Innovation, Science, and Industry), which kept a lot of the kinds of nepotism that was rampant in those regional development agencies at bay. Now Trudeau has hived off the economic development portfolio into its own ministry, to be headed by Mélanie Joly, but she’ll have six parliamentary secretaries – one for each development agency region, which feels like the whole attempt to break those bonds is backsliding. Science as a standalone portfolio was folded back into Bains’ domain, but the very specific project that Kirsty Duncan was tasked with when she was given the portfolio four years ago was completed, so it made a certain amount of sense. Democratic Institutions is gone, folded back into Privy Council Office and any of its functions Dominic LeBlanc will fulfill in his role as President of the Queen’s Privy Council (which is a role that is traditionally secondary to another portfolio). Trudeau continued to keep his Leader of the Government in the Senate out of Cabinet, which is a mistake, but why listen to me? (I’m also hearing rumours that Senator Peter Harder is on his way out of the job, so stay tuned). The fact that David Lametti got a new oath as minister of justice and Attorney General to reflect the recommendations of the McLellan Report was noteworthy. But overall, my biggest observation is that Trudeau is doubling down on the kinds of chimeric ministries that tend to straddle departments, which makes for difficult accountability and confusing lines of authority on files. The most egregious of the new portfolios was the “Minister of Middle Class™ Prosperity,” which is a fairly bullshit title to attach to the fact that she’s also the Associate Minister of Finance, which should have been significant in the fact that it’s the closest we’ve been to a woman finance minister at the federal level, but dressing it up in this performative hand-waving about the Middle Class™ (which is not about an actual class but about feelings) is all the kinds of nonsense that keeps this government unable to communicate its way out of a wet paper bag, and it’s just so infuriating.

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In hot takes, Chantal Hébert sees the move of Freeland as the defining one of this shuffle, and notes that it could either be just what they need, or it could be a kamikaze mission for Freeland. Susan Delacourt sees the composition of the new Cabinet as one that corrects past mistakes and of taking on lessons learned. Robert Hiltz points to the two polarities of this Cabinet – the farce of the Minister of Middle Class™ Prosperity, and the menace of putting Bill Blair in charge of public safety. Paul Wells makes the trenchant observation that carving up ministries across several ministers has the effect of creating multiple redundancies that will make more central control necessary – and I think he’s right about that. (Also, for fun, Maclean’s timed the hugs Trudeau gave his ministers, which didn’t compare to some from 2015).

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Roundup: It’s Cabinet Shuffle Day!

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We are now well into Cabinet leak territory, and right now the news is that Chrystia Freeland will indeed be moving – but we don’t know where. We do know that François-Philippe Champagne will replace her at Foreign Affairs, that Pablo Rodriguez will be the new Government House Leader (after we already heard that Steven Guilbeault will take over Canadian Heritage), plus Seamus O’Regan moving to Natural Resources, that Jonathan Wilkinson is taking over Environment and Catherine McKenna will take over Infrastructure. We’re also hearing from Quebec media that Jean-Yves Duclos will take over Treasury Board, and that Mélanie Joly is due for a promotion – but no hint as to what it means otherwise. Still no word on Public Safety, which is a huge portfolio that will need a very skilled hand to deal with in the absence of Ralph Goodale.

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Meanwhile, some of the other roles that Trudeau needs to decide who are not in Cabinet will include the whip, parliamentary secretaries, and considerations for committee chairs (though he won’t have the final say on those as they are ostensibly elected by the committees themselves, and it’s the whips who largely determine who will sit on which committee). Committees are especially important in a hung parliament, so this could mean big roles for those who didn’t make it into Cabinet.

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Roundup: No, this election won’t be good for electoral reform

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I know that I really shouldn’t give bad columns more coverage, but I can’t help myself, because this is just the first of many that we are doubtlessly going to see in the coming months – that a Doug Ford win on Thursday could get the ball rolling on electoral reform, at least in Ontario. It’s a specious argument, but it’s attractive to a certain class of voter and wonk, so brace yourselves, because this red herring will be coming at you hard in the coming month.

Part of the problem with this particular column is that it doesn’t really make the argument why electoral reform is the logical follow-through for a Ford-led government, because most of the complaints have to do with how Ford won the leadership instead of Christine Elliott. This is not the fault of the electoral system – it’s the fault of our very broken leadership selection system and would largely be corrected if we returned to the system of caucus selection of leaders that our system is designed for. If we had that in place, Elliott would likely have been chosen because she was in caucus at the time that Patrick Brown challenged for the post (while he was still a federal MP, in case you’d forgotten). That would be two dark chapters in the Ontario PC party that could have been avoided, but I digress. The argument here should be that the Ford gong show should be an object lesson in how we need to restore proper leadership processes, where caucus can select and remove leaders in order to ensure that there is proper accountability and more importantly that leaders can’t throw their weight around, that caucus has more power to keep the leader in check. Sadly, that’s not the argument we got.

The balance of the column is a bunch of whinging that parties got majority mandates with less than 40 percent of the popular vote – never mind that the popular vote is a logical fallacy. It’s not a real thing – it’s an extrapolation that magnifies the sense of unfairness by those whose parties did not win, but it’s not a real thing because general elections are not a single event, they’re a series of simultaneous but separate elections for individual seats, and yes, that matters greatly in how the system works, how parliaments are formed, and in the agency afforded to individual MPs.

The other implicit argument being made in pieces like these, though this pieces doesn’t come out and say it, is that proportional representation will likely deliver us a series of coalition governments by nice leftist parties, and we’ll get solar panels on roofs, and great social programs, and no divisive politics because they’ll be forced to cooperate. Won’t it be great? Err, except that’s not what happens, and if anyone thinks it’ll be nice leftist coalitions in perpetuity, they should perhaps look at what’s going on in Europe right now, and how the populist mood there and in North America would have consequences in our own elections that wouldn’t be mitigated like our current brokerage system does, and that could be an even bigger problem. But that’s not the established electoral reform/PR narrative, even though it should be.

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Senate QP: Joly is consulting and making investments

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In a bit of procedural quirkiness, Senate QP interrupted a vote bell to go to ministerial Question Period with special guest star, heritage minister Mélanie Joly, with the intention that the bell resume afterward. Odd, but that’s what happens sometimes. Senator Boisvenu led off, for a change, railing about the cost of the Parliament Hill skating rink while the prime minister told veterans they were asking for too much (which isn’t quite true, but whatever). Joly first said that Canada 150 was a great success and said that the rink saw thousands of visitors.

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