Shortly after the final report on the MMIW Inquiry was delivered, the prime minister got on a plane for Vancouver, leaving QP behind. Andrew Scheer led off, and raising the MMIW Inquiry report, wanted more action on human trafficking. Seamus O’Regan stood up and recited their thanks for the report and stated that they would work on a national action plan in response. Scheer the switched to French to lament attacks on the free press, per their Supply Day motion, and wanted the government to stop stacking the deck. Pablo Rodriguez stated that the Conservatives devoted a full day toward attacking journalists, and that the government would support them. Scheer turned to English to whinge about Unifor being on the advisory panel, and Rodriguez stated that they needed to hear from employers and employees in the sector. Alain Rayes took over to ask again in French, and Rodriguez repeated response, and then they went a second round of other same. Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and he returned to the MMIW Inquiry report, and tried to make it about him by asking the prime minister to join him in responding to it in a list of areas. O’Regan reiterated his previous response with an added list of steps they have already started taking, and when Singh asked again in French, O’Regan read the French version of his script. Singh then turned to a demand that the government adopt his climate change plan, and Jonathan Wilkinson read that the NDP’s plan simply adopted most of what the government said doing already. Singh tried again in English, deploying the “New Deal” terminology, and got the same response from Wilkinson.
Tag Archives: National Security
QP: Jerry Dias says hello
Wednesday, caucus day, and the benches were full as all of the leaders were present for the day. Andrew Scheer led off in French, accusing Justin Trudeau of being the best thing that could have happened to Donald Trump, and called the New NAFTA a “historic humiliation.” Trudeau reminded him that the Conservatives first demanded capitulation, then praised the deal, and now they were all over the map. Scheer suggested, in English, that the steel and aluminium tariff deal contained a hidden quota, and Trudeau reiterated that the Conservatives had no consistent position. Scheer insisted that any better would have been the one that Trudeau got, and Trudeau reminded him that they couldn’t get other trade deals like CETA done while he did. Scheer then pivoted to the question of Unifor’s presence on the media bailout advisory committee, and Trudeau reminded him that the panel needed to hear not only from media owners but also the employees, while the Conservatives have a history of attacking labour. Scheer tried to carry on, and he rambled about spending limits, when Trudeau brought up the Conservatives’ changes to the Elections Act. Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and he demanded that the federal government join BC’s lawsuit against drug companies for the opioid crisis, and Trudeau took up a script to list actions the government has been taking. Singh tried again in French, and got the French version of the same script. Singh then demanded the government join US Democrats to fix the New NAFTA, and Trudeau took up a new script to read that the NDP criticised the deal in the House of Commons but privately praised it. Singh changed to English to accuse Trudeau of using misleading quotes, and Trudeau read some more quotes in response.
QP: Rigging a dangerous game
Justin Trudeau was away for Monday, but Andrew Scheer was present. Before things got underway, Elizabeth May led her new MP, Paul Manly, into the Chamber in order to take his seat. Scheer led off, demanding to know why Unifor was on the panel to help determine who gets funding for the media bailout and called it the Liberals stacking of the deck. Pablo Rodriguez said that Scheer was playing a dangerous game, and that any suggestion that journalists could be bought was insulting while the government was supporting the industry as a number of daily newspapers had closed in recent years. Scheer tried again, and got the same response, and then Scheer railed that government had not limited their own spending on ads in advance of an election, to which Karina Gould read a statement about how the government has focused their advertising and cut it in half. Steven Blaney stood up to repeat the question on Unifor being on the panel in French, and Rodriguez gave him much the same response, and they went another round of the same. Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and he demanded the government adopt their Pharmacare plan, to which Ginette Petitpas Taylor insisted that she listens to all sides and they have a national plan in the works while they have taken other measures. Singh tried again in French, got much the same response, before Singh lauded US Democrats’ attempts to change the New NAFTA, to which Chrystia Freeland insisted that they held out for a good deal. Singh tried again in English, and Freeland urged Singh to talk to some actual Canadian workers.
Paul Manly now taking his seat as an MP. May and Manley have been moved over to where Philpott and JWR sit. #HoC #cdnpoli
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) May 27, 2019
Some Conservative MPs are shouting that journalists have already been bought, then look up to the gallery and give an “aren’t I clever?” expression. #QP
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) May 27, 2019
Roundup: Rationalizing a deciding vote
Yesterday, Independent Senator Paula Simons wrote a piece for Maclean’s to explain her vote last week that essentially ensured that the Senate’s transport committee would not vote to report Bill C-48 (the west coast tanker ban) back to the Senate without amendments. It’s a mere delay to the bill, ultimately, and it’s likely that the full Senate will vote to reject the committee report and may entertain another amendment or two at Third Reading, but I would be mighty surprised if this bill didn’t get pass largely unmolested. But as much as I do respect the good Senator, I will take exception to a few of the things she wrote in her piece.
The biggest thing I will always, always object to is when senators say that it’s not their job to defeat bills passed by the democratically elected House of Commons. That’s false – it’s absolutely their job under the Constitution – that’s why it has an unlimited veto. The question is when they should use it, and I’m not sure that this is a good example of a bill, because it doesn’t fail any particular constitutional tests (Jason Kenney’s nonsense rhetoric aside). But for as much as Simons prevaricates on the question of how appropriate it is to block bills in the newly empowered “independent” mindset of the Senate (insert more back-patting about the lack of whips here), she then says that the other tradition is to defend her region, which she did. I have reservations about this line of thinking, because it gives rise to parochialism and some of the flawed thinking that gave rise to a bogus school of thought that believed that a “Triple-E” Senate could somehow force the hand of a government with a majority in the Commons (rather than just become a repository for 105 new backbenchers). If she really were defending her region, she should remember that her region includes BC, whose northern coast the bill is intended to defend. As well, her concerns ignore the process that Trans Mountain has been undergoing for the past year – just because it hasn’t started construction doesn’t mean it won’t, and trying to provide an alternate route that was proved far more problematic in the past – witness the Federal Court of Appeal decision regarding Northern Gateway – I’m now sure that she’s doing anyone any favours by letting the rhetoric of Kenney and the oil industry dominate her thinking.
In the meantime, we should brace ourselves for another round of obnoxious talk about the “Salisbury Convention” (which doesn’t apply to Canada and never has), and about the original intent of the Senate. It won’t be edifying.
https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1130956002029916162
Roundup: Mark Norman and the culture of leaks
As the Conservatives try to keep the Mark Norman affair in the news – currently demanding committee hearings with a laundry list of witnesses, as though that had any chance of happening this close to an election when Parliament is seized with trying to get as many bills through the process as they can – there are a couple of new bits of information that I have a hard time fitting into the established factual matrix. The one that the CBC published yesterday was that it was revealed that Norman was authorized by the Harper Cabinet to communicate with Davie Shipyard – because they were using Norman to doing an end-run around the then-Chief of Defence Staff, who was opposed to the lease and refit of the supply ship. I’m not sure entirely how this would be the piece of information to exonerate him, given that he’s alleged to have leaked the news of the pause on the process to a lobbyist and a reporter as a way of pressuring the government to restarting it (which they did in short order). You also have to wonder why Peter MacKay would have sat on this bit of information for all of these months only to pull it out now rather than defend Norman in public with it. None of it makes any actual sense, but that’s where we are.
In light of the case, the National Post has a piece about the use of leaks in Ottawa, and the currency around them – how governments use them to manipulate journalists, how bureaucrats use them to even scores, and very occasionally they’re used to hold people to account. The question the piece asks is why, in a city of leaks, Norman was being made an example of, but I’m not sure it’s a question we’ll get an answer to anytime soon. While it’s a good overview, I keep going back to The Thick of It, and the discussion around leaks during the Goolding Inquiry, when Malcolm Tucker described leaks as essential to release the pressure going on in government, lest things get dark if they didn’t. And I do think there’s an element of that, but given the exercise we just went through during the Double-Hyphen Affair, and the competing leaks and denials, I find myself wondering if We The Media need to exercise a bit more self-reflection in our use of them, rather than simply allowing ourselves to be manipulated because we think it’ll be good for our careers. (Or maybe I’m just being naïve).
Roundup: Questions about that Senate poll
There is some drama going down at the Senate’s internal economy committee over Senator Donna Dasko’s poll on the Senate appointment process. Conservative senators say the poll is really partisan and should be a personal expense, whereas Dasko says they just don’t like the results and are trying to shoot the messenger. But I will have to say that I’m leaning more toward the Conservative side on this one because Senator Yuen Pau Woo – the “facilitator” of the Independent Senators Group – and others have been using this poll to push the Senate appointment process as an election issue, knowing full well that Andrew Scheer plans a return to partisan appointments and Jagmeet Singh follows the NDP dogma of preferring to abolish the Senate (but good luck getting the unanimous consent of the provinces). That is de facto partisan, whether Woo and the Independents believe it to be or not (and it’s somewhat galling that they don’t see this as being partisan, and yet they refuse to engage in the horse trading on managing bills in the Senate, because they see that as a partisan activity when it most certainly is not).
We all know that I didn’t find the poll particularly illuminating, because it could have asked Canadians if they wanted a pony and would have achieved similar results. I do especially find it objectionable that these senators are using it to justify their world view of the Senate, which is and of itself a problem – their particular disdain for everything that came before, dismissing it as being partisan and hence evil and wrong, is part of what has caused the myriad of problems the Senate is now facing with its Order Paper crisis and committees that aren’t functioning, because they don’t understand how Parliament or politics works and they don’t care to. But now they have a poll to point to that says that Canadians like the independent appointments process, as though that justifies everything. It doesn’t and it creates more problems in the long term.
Roundup: Beyak suspended
It was inevitable, but the Senate has voted to suspend Senator Lynn Beyak without pay for the remainder of his Parliament in accordance with the recommendation from the Senate’s ethics committee after the findings of the Ethics Officer that letters Beyak posted to her website were racist and breached the ethics code for senators. Beyak got her chance to defend herself yesterday before the vote, and she insisted that she has done nothing wrong, that there’s nothing racist about the “truth” (as she sees it), and she thinks that her website is a beacon of positivity because she’s trying to assert that residential schools for Indigenous children weren’t all bad.
In terms of next steps, Beyak will likely reappear at the start of the next parliament, following the election, where she will be given another chance to apologise, and prove that she understands why those letters were racist (something she has been completely incapable of comprehending to date – and the Ethics Officer did point out that this was an issue of comprehension, not malice). At that point, if she still refuses to see the error of her ways, the Senate could revisit the matter and vote to suspend her again for that parliamentary session (meaning until there is a prorogation or dissolution), and if that extends past two years, there is the possibility that they could declare the seat vacant at that point. More likely will be pressure to simply vote to expel Beyak for the Senate because she has been unrepentant in exposing the Senate to disrepute for her racist actions – at which point she may get the hint and do the honourable thing and just resign, but she does seem to be sticking to her guns here. Regardless, this suspension is now the first stage in a two-stage process of dealing with the problem. But those who want Beyak to be out immediately will need to be patient, because the power to expel a senator can’t be used casually.
Senate QP: Some of Goodale’s Regina Monologues
While his planned appearance had been postponed a few weeks earlier due to “unforeseen circumstances,” Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale was in the Senate for Question Period, which curiously interrupted a vote bell, as the rules of the Senate allow. Senator Plett led off, asking about the gun control bill and the amendments that the committee is debating, asking if he would “instruct” the Independent senators to kill the amendments of not, to which Goodale quipped that he would never presume to tell senators what to do. When Plett tried to press as to whether the government would entertain amendments, Goodale gave a paean about the need for debate and votes.
Linda Frum raised the House of Commons voting to list the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization, and eleven months later, they had not been. Goodale reminded her that there is a detailed process under law that was being followed, and noted that some of their subsidies had already been listed.
Roundup: Forcing a partial denunciation
While Andrew Scheer was goading Justin Trudeau to carry on with his libel lawsuit against him, it seems that Trudeau did manage to get Andrew Scheer to do one thing that he has thus far avoided, which was an actual denunciation of white nationalism, and that he actually said those words rather than talking around them. He didn’t denounce Faith Goldy for appearing with him at that “convoy” rally, and he didn’t say anything about his cherry-picking of wilful blindness of the “Yellow Vest” contingent with their racist and whites supremacist messages at that rally, but it was a start. Baby steps.
Part of the backdrop for this was an exchange between Senator Leo Housakos and Chrystia Freeland at a Senate committee hearing on Tuesday, where Housakos said he didn’t see any white suprematist threat (which he later said was poorly worded), and Freeland laying down the law on it.
Conservative Senator Leo Housakos yesterday asked me if white supremacy is a threat. Watch our exchange: pic.twitter.com/1z2pGMDdQz
— Chrystia Freeland (@cafreeland) April 10, 2019
My point remains, contrary to the attempted smears by you and your colleagues, on @andrewscheer no Western, democratic politician condones extremism of any kind, including white supremacy. Extremism in ALL forms is a threat to our way of life, not just one or the other. And
— Senator Leo Housakos (@SenatorHousakos) April 10, 2019
Amidst this drama, the head of CSIS was appearing at a different Senate committee, this time to talk about Bill C-59, the national security bill, and he did state that the intelligence service was becoming more and more preoccupied with the threat of white nationalists and far-right extremists, even though religious extremism was still one of their largest focuses. It’s something that is of concern and we can’t ignore the winking and nudges that absolutely takes place, or especially the blind eyes that get turned, but we do seem to be having a conversation about it, so that’s probably a good start.
Roundup: An important first report
While everyone was focused on Jane Philpott’s attempt to claim that the provisions in the garbage Reform Act weren’t met as it regards her expulsion from caucus, a much more important event was taking place, which was the release of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians’ first public report. This is the first time that Canada has seen any kind of public oversight into our national security and intelligence services, and it was important to see. One of the things that they focused in on was the oversight of military intelligence operations, for which the military thanked them for their suggestions on improving governance, but balked at the proposal for a legislative framework.
Nevertheless, the expert in this stuff is Stephanie Carvin, so I will turn over the reactions to her (full thread starts here):
https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1115716056247676929
https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1115717071185301504
https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1115717072657502210
https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1115678714291871746
https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1115683292928299008
https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1115688317452935168