Tag Archives: Michael Chong

Roundup: Sound the independent thought alarm

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Every time I read these headlines, I sigh and shake my head a little, because here we go again. “Indigenous Liberal MP breaks ranks with government on BC’s Site C Dam” it reads. The MP is Robert-Falcon Ouellette, and by “breaking ranks,” he has questions for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans – who grants approvals for these kinds of things – and he plans to ask him in caucus next week. Oooh, someone had better sound the independent thought alarm!

It seems that most of my fellow journalists have forgotten that it’s the job of backbenchers – even those of the governing party – to hold the government (meaning cabinet) to account. They’re supposed to ask questions and to not just give them a pass. Ouellette is doing his job. But by sensationalizing it (which this headline clearly does), and portraying it as “breaking ranks” (which he’s not – there have been no votes that he’s gone off-side with) is both demeaning to his job, and it reinforces the notion that MPs are supposed to be drones parroting the lines of their leaders, which is absurd. Not only that, but We The Media nevertheless insist that MPs are supposed to do their jobs and represent their constituents and address issues and not just parrot talking points, and yet we call them out the moment that they do just that. Why? Seriously – why are we doing this? We’re actively being destructive to our democratic system when we pull this kind of nonsense. There are far better and more effective ways that this story could have been framed that don’t privilege party discipline (which again, not actually being broken here) and this notion that MPs must be in lockstep. It shouldn’t be that difficult to do. And yet here we are.

Honestly, we need to do better if we expect better democratic outcomes in this country. We are part of the problem, and we should stop being just that.

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Roundup: Petty, unhelpful suggestions

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The fact that Mike Duffy’s expenses have reignited an old and frankly tiring debate on whether Senators should be able to claim for their legitimate work expenses, or whether it’s this particular shameless senator whose expenses, however legitimate, are forever tainted. We can look and see competing editorials from the likes of Robyn Urback, who is justifiably dubious about the whole thing given the history and cloud that remains around Duffy’s primary residence, and Kady O’Malley, who notes that Duffy’s current expense claims are entirely legit so we should stop begrudging them (while not forgiving past transgressions either). But of all the commentary that I’ve seen in the past week, the least helpful comes from within the Senate itself.

When asked about the whole Duffy ordeal, the Conservative Senate leader, Claude Carignan mused about how the Senate’s rules may still need to be updated, which I’m not quite sure how much more stringent they need to be at this point considering how much they’ve come in the past two years (and for years before that), and it sounds a lot like he’s trying to play along with the attempts at cheap public outrage over the whole thing, while simultaneously ignoring the fact that Duffy’s residency issue remains a problem from the manner in which Stephen Harper appointed him, and a Harper loyalist, Carignan is almost certainly loathe to criticise that decision. But it got worse. Carignan then basically dumped the problem into the lap of Senator Peter Harder, the “government representative” as though he were somehow able to do something about it. As Carignan, a former Government Leader himself should know, it’s not up to the Government Leader to shepherd rules changes considering that Senate Rules are the domain of the appropriately named Senate Rules committee, and that expenses are the domain of the Internal Economy Committee, and last I checked, Harder is not a member of either committee, nor does he have a caucus that has senators who sit on those committees. In other words, he has no senators that he can use to exert any kind of influence over in order to make those changes. With these facts in mind, I’m not sure why Carignan would suggest that rules changes need to be spearheaded by Harder except that it’s more petty politicking, trying to undermine his (already shaky) legitimacy, while looking to absolve himself of any responsibility event though Carignan controls the largest caucus in the Chamber. If we need to have a discussion about how the residency rules need to continue to evolve, then great, let’s do that. But to try and play this particular game about it is really beneath Carignan’s position and he should know better.

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Roundup: A deal 149 years in the making – maybe

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After some last-minute negotiations at the very end of the Council of the Federation meeting in Whitehorse, the premiers finally came to an agreement – well, an agreement in principle – about interprovincial trade. It only took 149 years of confederation to reach this point, and we’re trying to be optimistic about it, but its full virtues remain to be seen as the list of exclusions has yet to be published, and we don’t know how extensive it is, or what the process for standardising regulatory hurdles between provinces is going to be (and this is things like trucking regulations that change at provincial borders, or the sizes of milk cartons, and so on). There is a great deal of pessimism in some corners about this whole thing, and it’s hard not to get caught up in it, particularly when Alberta was the holdout over local infrastructure projects, and the first question asked of the Yukon premier (who chaired the meeting) from his local press was how it would affect local jobs, playing directly into the kinds of protectionism that a trade agreement is supposed to break down. But again, we await the actual details to be delved into.

Otherwise, the other outcome of the meeting was that surprise, surprise, the premiers want to meet with the Prime Minister in the fall about healthcare funding, because they’re largely opposed to targeted spending (saying that it’s too “temporary” and not “long term”) and want the federal government to cough up more funding overall instead – 25 percent of each province’s expenditure, which seems to me that it makes it easy for a province to ramp up their spending with the assurance that Ottawa would fill that gap, again with little in the way of accountability for how those dollars are spent, or for ensuring that there is equitable access to things like homecare across the country, which is what the federal government is looking to achieve.

Meanwhile the beer spat between Saskatchewan and Alberta had some impact on the interprovincial trade talks, but for all of Brad Wall’s complaints about how terrible the changes being made to Alberta’s system would be for his province, here’s a look into how Saskatchewan’s system isn’t all that open either. But hey, a deal on wine was reached between Ontario, BC and Quebec, so that’s progress, right? Well, considering that it’s about online ordering, it’s a half-measure at best.

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Roundup: Aftermath of The Elbowing

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In the aftermath of The Elbowing, the opposition decided to use it as leverage to their advantage. The morning was spent, first with a third apology by Trudeau, followed by endless debate on a privilege motion about the incident, and because privilege motions take precedence over everything else, it essentially held the Commons hostage to endless lamentations that compared Trudeau’s actions to those of a domestic abuser and drunk driver. No, seriously. The intent was clear, however – this procedural gamesmanship would keep up until the government dropped Motion 6 – their procedural nuclear option – and eventually the government did. Of course, because they backed down after showing their hand, it means that they’re going to have a much more difficult time controlling the debate in the future, with the likes of Peter Julian and Andrew Scheer opposite Dominic LeBlanc in House Leaders’ meetings, and future attempts by the government to move their agenda forward will be hard to handle as any future attempts will be met with more emotional blackmail, and already it now looks like the assisted dying bill is going to miss its June 6th deadline because of the government’s fumbling and the opposition shenanigans.

Reactions to The Elbowing were also all over the pundit class, but possibly the one that needs to be read first comes from Ashley Csanady, who reminds us that comparing Trudeau to Jian Ghomeshi after this kind of incident is really an insult to actual survivors of violence. Kate Heartfield notes that this incident is unlikely to damage Trudeau’s brand, while Matt Gurney sees the incident as one where Trudeau was trying to stay true to brand and show Decisive Leadership™ when it all went wrong. Susan Delacourt sees this as a teachable moment for the PM and his impatience with dissent in the Commons (which I don’t entirely buy given how much leeway he’s given dissent in his own caucus), and Tim Harper also sees a disdain for dissent coming out of Trudeau. Paul Wells sees this as the culmination of the corner the Liberals have painted themselves into, promising infinite debate on an infinite number of bills, while Don Braid sees flashes of Trudeau’s father and his infamous temper in this episode.

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Roundup: A short history of trans rights bills

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The government is unveiling their promised trans rights bill today, and throughout the day, you’ll be reminded that other trans rights bills have been introduced in the House, and twice died in the Senate, and there will be a general sense of the NDP trying to anoint themselves in this glow of having been the fearless pioneers on this file. And it’s true – they did introduce previous trans rights bills, some of them more successful than others. But there is more to the story than is usually presented, and as someone who used to cover this file extensively (back in my Xtra! and the much lamented Outlooks days), it’s a little more complicated than is often presented. And yes, the NDP have largely introduced iterations of this bill but the sponsor, then-MP Bill Siksay, was too far down the Order of Precedence for it to be ever debated. During the 40th Parliament, however, he was high enough on the Order that the bill came up for debate, and narrowly passed the Commons. By the time it reached the Senate, however, it had mere days before the government was defeated. The Senate has no mechanisms by which to accelerate a private members’ bill, and the justice committee – where it would have been sent to – was jammed full of “tough on crime” bills and a private members’ bill never would have been able to come up for debate (as government bills always take priority). Nevertheless, the Senate was blamed for “ragging the puck” and it died when Parliament dissolved and an election was called. By this time, Siksay had announced that he was not going to run again, and Liberal MP Hedy Fry had said that she would re-introduce the bill in his stead if re-elected. She was, and fulfilled his promise. The NDP’s newly elected MP Randall Garrison was named the party’s new LGBT critic, and he was incensed that Fry had re-introduced the bill and decided to table his own version, but because you can’t have two identical bills on the Order Paper, he needed to come up with some creative drafting in order to differentiate the two bills. And then, by sheer fate, his name came up right before Fry’s on the Order of Precedence when the lottery was drawn, so he went ahead with his poorly drafted bill, while Fry’s version of the same bill was not put forward (and she went on to introduce a cyberbullying bill that was defeated). Not only did Garrison’s bill go ahead, but he decided to introduce amendments that would partially gut the bill and do things like put in definitions for “gender identity” into the text (something that would put it out of step with any other protected grounds in legislation). The resulting bill was a dog’s breakfast, and he managed to squeak it past the Commons, but he actually lost some Conservative support because it was such a hot mess. And when it reached the Senate, there were concerns. Conservative Senator Don Plett had some particular concerns and wanted to raise amendments, and while this whole “bathroom bill” nonsense began circulating, his amendments, while not great, were blown out of proportion by supporters of the bill as being far more odious than they were. And that bill eventually died on the Order Paper when Parliament dissolved, but while the NDP railed against the Senate as “killing” a bill that the Commons passed, they ignored the fact that it was objectively a bad bill and this was more of a mercy killing. And now, we have a government who has committed to making this one of their priorities, and they are, which we should applaud.

Update: The differences between Fry’s and Garrison’s bill weren’t as pronounced as I remember the debate being. Apologies to all involved, and thanks to Justin Ling for the correction. The amendments, however, were a dog’s breakfast.

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Roundup: Harder’s budget request

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Peter Harder is asking the Senate for a budget of $800,000 to hire nine people to assist in his “government representative duties.” While I’m not opposed to the dollar figure, I’m a bit curious about why nine staff, but let’s back up first to the precedent that is guiding this whole exercise, being Stephen Harper’s fit of pique when Marjory LeBreton resigned as Government Leader in the Senate. By that point, Harper was being badgered and hectored daily about the ClusterDuff incident, as well as Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau, and he decided that his next Government Leader, Claude Carignan, was not going to be put into cabinet so as to give the appearance of distance. Of course, it was only the appearance, as Carignan was a minister in every respect but name, including being sworn into the Privy Council (necessary to get the briefing books to answer on behalf of the government in Senate QP). But because he wasn’t a minister, he couldn’t get funding from PCO for staff and needed activities, so Carignan went to the Senate and asked for a bigger budget, and he got it, hiring a staff of 14. With Trudeau now being fairly cute with the way he is handling the “government representative” file – Harder being sworn into Privy Council and able to attend cabinet meetings – the government decided that with the Carignan precedent, Harder can simply ask the Senate for the budget he needs. Now, he is getting some pushback about getting a budget without attendant responsibilities, such as answering in QP. They referred the decision to a subcommittee (that still hasn’t been filled), but I do wonder why nine. I can understand an admin staff, a policy person or two, a comms person, but without a caucus to manage, what exactly is so labour intensive about “shepherding the government’s agenda”? That’s a bit of time management, introducing the odd debate on government legislation, but what else would he be required to do? So perhaps we’ll get some answers, but it does seem a bit odd to me.

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Roundup: Looking beyond mediocrity

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It’s Manning Networking Conference time again, and with a leadership contest in the offing, you can bet that some possible leadership hopefuls are starting to lay out a few markers (even if Nigel Wright wants them to focus more on policy). Jason Kenney is again “contemplating” a run after apparently recovering from burnout after the election (and it does bear noting that he’s only just started showing up to QP again). Peter MacKay thinks that the Conservatives can beat Trudeau of they’re smart about it, while others like Michael Chong and Diane Watts think the party needs to do better on issues like the environment. But all eyes, of course, were on Kevin O’Leary, who said a few outrageous things as he is wont to – that he wants a national referendum on pipelines, that he thinks it should be the law that a prime minister has to have run a business before they can lead the country, or that he thinks the party system is becoming doomed in the wake of a mass populist movement where people wants politicians to solve their problems regardless of political brand or label. Of the many things he did say, one that I thought merited a little more attention was his calling out the Conservatives for having become a party of mediocrity, and I do think that’s true, as it built itself around the personal brand of Stephen Harper post merger. Despite the NDP using phrases like “Bay Street buddies” in their references to the Conservatives over the past decade, there was really very little of that kind of branding to the party. It wasn’t about wealth (despite their policies actually benefitting the wealthy) or aspiration, or even markets once you really broke it down, but rather about this attempt to appeal to the suburban nuclear family in all of its messaging and the way it built programmes (but again, while they appeared to be for these suburban masses, the benefits disproportionately went to the top). Harper himself cultivated the image of being some minivan driving hockey dad, despite the fact that he was both a career politician, and it soon became clear that his kids weren’t much into hockey either (though his son was apparently quite the volleyball player, for what it’s worth). For O’Leary, whose brand is about greed being good, and a certain conspicuousness to his wealth, it’s pretty much anathema to the suburban image that Harper was crafting, and that his ministers followed suit in embodying. The closest they got to any Bay Street types was Joe Oliver, but he again was less about materialism or consumerism than he was about parroting approved Harper talking points. It is interesting that this is something that O’Leary has picked up on and would certainly be pushing back on should he decide to go ahead and pursue a leadership bid, because that would certainly be a radical shake-up for the party.

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Roundup: A faux national unity crisis

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Energy East is going to be a new crisis of national unity, comes the overwrought cries of the Conservatives in response to the opposition of several Quebec mayors, including Denis Coderre, to the pipeline. And you just have to sigh a little and shake your head, because what else can you do, particularly because you’ve got two fairly powerless mobs yelling at one another and shaking their fists? The Alberta government, mind you, isn’t stirring things up, and the Quebec government, who has more of a say in this than the local governments do, is not making the same bellicose noises against the pipeline. Instead you’ve got Brad Wall stirring the pot, trying to score points for his upcoming election, and Rona Ambrose making patently ridiculous statements about how this is supposedly like the National Energy Programme of the early 1980s, which boggles the mind. And never mind the fact that Trudeau has indicated general support for the pipeline (predicated on a proper environmental assessment and getting the requisite “social licence” from the communities that is passes through), apparently that’s not good enough either for Ambrose and the Conservatives, who continue to insist that all government positions be bellicose statements – because that worked out so well for them when they were in power. Trudeau has a meeting with Coderre this morning, and no doubt it’ll be discussed, but the fact that you have groups who aren’t involved in the decision-making trying to pit Alberta and Quebec against one another just makes it look like the two kids in the backseat who are hollering “Mom! He’s touching me!” It’s tiresome and infantile, and if they’re trying to make Trudeau look like the reasonable grown-up in all of this, well, they just might get their wish.

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Roundup: Good riddance, Reform Act

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The past couple of days, we’ve had yet more attention paid to the Reform Act, and with any luck, it’ll be the last time we pay attention to it, as the three major parties all have largely voted down – or ignored – the law after their first caucus meetings. And really, it’s for the best – it was a terrible law that did nothing like it promised. It did not help to “rebalance” the powers of MPs in the face of their leaders, and it didn’t increase the accountability of leaders, despite people claiming it would. While the original version of the bill would have made the necessary change of taking away the leader’s veto power over a nomination and replace it with a different mechanism, but that got watered down to uselessness. The rest of it was meaningless noise because the problem is less the removal of the leader than the selection. Giving the caucus the power to remove the leader in writing is ridiculous because they really can do it anytime they like and have the gonads enough to do so – Chong’s laying out percentages made it more difficult because it became a dare to get enough open supporters, rather than having one or two courageous people to go forward to the media (witness Alison Redford or Kathy Dunderdale’s resignations). So long as we select leaders by party membership, any attempt by caucus to remove a leader, no matter how justified, becomes seen as a snub to the grassroots by elites, which is the trap that Chong walked into. Party selection of leaders is what created the unaccountable situation, and the larger the membership base that selected them, the less accountable they get. And it annoys the crap out of me that political scientists everywhere don’t take the selection problem into account when they insist that the Reform Act is better than nothing. No, it wasn’t. And as Kady O’Malley quite rightly points out, it was a colossal waste of time. I would go further to add that it was a colossal, cynical waste of time. Chong had tried to move these changes at party policy conventions several times and failed, so he tried in the Commons to exert pressure there. And a number of different voices in the party have told me that this is all building to a leadership bid by Chong, and one has no doubt that he’ll try to come in as the Great Reformer, and build his brand that way. For him to use that much parliamentary time and media airtime to build this profile leaves a bad taste.

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Roundup: The return of the Reform Act

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Despite hopes that we might be rid of this nonsense, Michael Chong is back with a vengeance, plugging for parties to implement the Reform Act when their caucuses meet in the coming weeks, and hey, he’s not done spouting a bunch of complete bollocks about the new legislation! A reminder: The Reform Act is de facto useless, and de jure harmful to our system of government. I’ve outlined it all before here, here and here, so that soil is well tilled, but suffice to say, it’s not going to empower MPs like he says as MPs already have that power but simply don’t exercise it. It will, in fact, do the opposite. But then there’s some troubling statements he made on Power & Politics last night regarding his idea of the role of the Senate when it comes to leadership votes. Not only did his bill define the caucus as MPs only, but he stated that senators have no role in the selection of an interim leader because it was about (in this case) choosing the “leader of the opposition” which had nothing to do with the Senate, since MPs didn’t choose their leader. Nope – all wrong. It’s about choosing the interim party leader, not just leader in the Commons, and senators are just as much part of the party as MPs are. That makes a difference, particularly if the interim leader is going to be making organisational changes within the party structure which senators are every bit as entitled to have a say in as MPs. Also, because that leader will be able to choose who the Senate leader is going to be (well, for the Conservatives anyway – mileage may vary for future Liberal interim leadership votes), they have a vested interest in who will be chosen. Chong insisting otherwise is being disingenuous. So why is he making the big pitch – other than for the sake of his legislative legacy? Because I’m pretty sure that he’s building himself up for a permanent leadership bid as the “great reformer.” It’s too bad that his reforms are a sham that only serves to entrench what problems have grown in our system. But it’s all about looking like you’re changing things, right? It’s cynical, and sadly, a great many people (my journalistic colleagues included) will lap it right up.

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