Tag Archives: National Unity

Roundup: Dubious travel bans

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As a new policy announcement yesterday, Stephen Harper said that if the Conservatives were to continue to form government after the election, they would introduce legislation to curb “terrorist tourism,” all of which is an entirely ridiculous plan, whether it’s as an issue of mobility rights, of letting the RCMP or CSIS determine who is a “professional journalist” or humanitarian organisation, or the fact that this betrays any shred of libertarianism that the Conservatives profess to hold. (But then again, we already knew that they’re not an ideological party, but rather right-flavoured populists, right?) Justin Trudeau says this is just a distration from economic issues and that Harper has to answer more questions about limiting rights, while Thomas Mulcair doubted the move’s efficacy (while continually repeating that they’re not going to be against any move that reduces terrorism). Anyway, Paul Wells demolished the whole thing in a series of tweets.

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Roundup: Reorganizing Elections Canada?

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It sounds like the election reform bill will be tabled soon – possibly this week – and sources are saying that it will reorganize Elections Canada, removing the Commissioner of Elections from the organisation into its own standalone office. It also sounds like the Chief Electoral Officer has not thus far been consulted on the bill, so we’ll see just how problematic that actually ends up being.

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Roundup: Unnecessary supplemental estimates?

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The Parliamentary Budget Officer wonders why the government is looking for $5.4 billion in the supplementary estimates tabled yesterday, considering that they underspent $10 billion for each of the past three year. It’s another example of the lack of transparency that his government engages in when reporting to the House its fiscal responsibilities. And hey, maybe MPs should be scrutinising these estimates and asking questions, rather than the PBO doing their homework for them – once again. But math is hard, and so on.

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Roundup: The tale of the second cheque

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Boom! The ClusterDuff exploded yet again yesterday, with yet more revelations from Senator Mike Duffy, who took advantage of what could be his final days of the protection of parliamentary privilege, and laid out yet more accusations against the PMO. This after a morning where Stephen Harper took to the radio waves and declared that Nigel Wright had been fired, in direct contradiction to all previous assertions that Wright resigned. So while the Commons fixated on this contradiction, Senator Duffy took the floor in the Senate, and detonated his next bomb – that there was not one cheque, but two, and that the talk of an RBC loan was actually a script from the PMO that he had been made to deliver. That second cheque was from the Conservative party lawyer, Arthur Hamilton, which paid for Duffy’s legal fees – and this time, he provided documents to prove it. The party doesn’t deny covering the legal expenses, saying that they will sometimes pay the legal fees of their caucus members. This is likely an indication, according to John Geddes, that the party was still keen to defend him and by extension their decision to appoint him as a PEI senator, with their particular reading of those rules. While Duffy contended that there remains a whole other email chain in the hands of his lawyers that he wants to see turned over to the RCMP, though an envelope was later handed to the CBC which appeared to cast some doubt as to Duffy’s version of events – or at the very least was a good trial run as to his scripting around where the money came from. If there is one bright side to all of this it’s the level of engagement that the public is demonstrating, and the fact that senators are pointing to the number of emails they are receiving from people who want to see due process – and one senator that I spoke with this afternoon brought this up without prompting. And while these senators have zero sympathy for their three embattled peers, they at least want to ensure that there is process followed.

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QP: The aftershocks of Duffy’s bombshell

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With Parliament Hill still reeling from last night’s ClusterDuff bombshell, and all leaders were in the House, waiting for the big show. It got started with Mulcair asking if Harper threatened Duffy with expulsion on February 13th. Harper said that he didn’t threaten him with expulsion, but he did think the expenses were inappropriate and ordered them repaid or he’d be thrown out of caucus. Mulcair asked if Harper had said that it wasn’t about the rules, but the perception. Harper denied saying that, and gave another rousing defence of following the rules made before the entire expenses. Mulcair pushed, and asked if Wright was present for that discussion. Harper, getting punchy, said that it was a statement before the entire caucus, and did not order Wright to write the cheque, and because that action was wrong, Wright was no longer in his office. When Mulcair asked if Ray Novak was party to those discussions, Harper insisted that Novak was not one of the people that Wright named as being involved, and he obviously wasn’t involved as he never would have approved it. Justin Trudeau began by pointing out that leaders take responsibility, and named the people that Harper hired or appointed at the centre of the scandal. Harper rejected the premise, and hit back at Duffy, saying that since Duffy felt he hadn’t done anything wrong, it was why he was no longer in caucus. Trudeau demanded that Harper answer questions under oath around the affair, but Harper hit back, saying that Trudeau was too willing to let Senator Harb back into caucus (which is not exactly true).

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QP: The long-awaited showdown

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As the minutes counted down before Question Period, Thomas Mulcair, without his usual mini-lectern on his desk, glared across the aisle, while Stephen Harper casually flipped through a briefing binder, and the Members’ Statements were going on around them. At the appointed hour, the Speaker called for Oral Questions, and the rumble began. Mulcair asked if the prime minister regretted any of his own actions in the ClusterDuff affair. Harper got up and said that he expected people to follow the rules, and if mistakes are made then they would have consequences. Mulcair asked if Harper was telling the truth on June 5th when he said that nobody else knew of the deal between Wright and Duffy. Harper said that Wright took full responsibility, and that he accepted that. Mulcair tried again, but got some economic boosterism in reply. Mulcair pushed, asking if anyone had even asked whether they knew the payment was wrong. Harper tried to veer the topic back to the economy, and when Mulcair, somewhat rhetorically asked if Canadians could trust Harper to tell the truth, but Harper tried to further insinuate that the NDP were against CETA, and that their position kept changing. For the Liberals, Justin Trudeau got up and threw a curve-ball, congratulating Harper and everyone who worked hard to get the EU trade agreement, and asked when the full text would be available. Harper accepted the plaudits, and said more details would be forthcoming. Trudeau segued to the fact that leaders took responsibility for when things when wrong as well as when things went right, and that he was responsible for the various appointments at the centre of the ClusterDuff affair. Harper responded that he was clear about people paying the price when rules aren’t followed.

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Roundup: Voting down legislative stunts

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Not one, but two opposition stunts were voted down in the Commons yesterday. The first was the NDP’s opposition day motion on Senate abolition, which they, the Bloc and Elizabeth May voted in support of, and was defeated 186-101. The other was the Bloc’s motion to repeal the Clarity Act, which only they voted in support of, the NDP “totally not whipped” into voting down, and it went to its defeat 283-5. Bob Rae called out the NDP for their “total incoherence” on their Clarity Act/Unity Bill position, and deemed the party to be an unstable coalition in the wake of their “orange wave” fortunes. And now, with these votes out of the way, one can hope that the opposition parties get back to their actual jobs of holding the government to account rather than to continue with stunts and grudge-matches, but that’s probably asking too much. Sadly.

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Roundup: Wallin’s celebrity senatorial status

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Senator Pamela Wallin takes the Toronto Star on a tour of her Saskatchewan hometown, and talks about her travel expenses, including the fact that it’s not easy to get to Wadena from Ottawa, and that because she’s an honorary captain in the Air Force, she has to travel to events at airbases around the country. Meanwhile, Senator Segal writes about his proposition to hold a referendum on Senate abolition as a means of getting people talking about the institution, but given the state of civic illiteracy in this country, my sense is that it’s a very dangerous proposition, and is akin to asking people if they want to remove their pancreas if they don’t know what it does. Senator McInnis thinks an elected Upper Chamber would have more “credibility,” but he doesn’t discuss any of the other consequences of such an action, including gridlock or battles over who has more “democratic legitimacy” and therefore clout. Jesse Klein writes about electoral and Senate reform while relying on meaningless emotional and romantic terms like “fairness” without paying enough attention to either current electoral realities or the actual consequences of the changes.

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Roundup: The politics of the Senate reference

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The big move by the government yesterday was to send a list of reference questions to the Supreme Court with regards to Senate reform – and yes, abolition. The six questions – more like fifteen with the sub-clauses – come at a time when the notion is being mulled over by the Quebec courts at the behest of the provincial government, and the Supreme Court may opt to hold off on their deliberations until that decision is rendered, so that they can take it into consideration. And then comes the politics behind it all – the government claims this will “speed up” the reform process after years of opposition delay – never mind that this reference process could take up to two years, and the only ones stalling were the government themselves because they never brought their bills forward for debate (not that said bills were actually constitutionally sound). It also buys them time to keep the issue alive for the next election and as a fundraising issue for their base, but also provides them options when it comes to considering next steps, because they may need them if they want to continue this rather foolhardy pursuit. The Liberals are playing the smug game of “We wanted this reference six years ago – thanks for catching up.” And the NDP are accusing the government of “more delay” – even though they simply argue for abolition and give nonsense talking points about how much money they would save if that happened (forgetting of course that all of said “savings” and more would entirely be consumed in the interminable court challenges that would come from flawed legislation that would otherwise be caught in the Senate). And there are the legal arguments – is it really unconstitutional, or is the fact that the Prime Minister is still recommending appointments to the Governor General enough to avoid having to go the route of a constitutional amendment, no matter that they’re ensuring that these appointments are “elected,” and that the “democratic mandate” of these newly empowered Senators will have a tangible – and detrimental – effect on the way our system operates. I argue that the Supreme Court justices aren’t morons and will see a backdoor attempt for what it is and call bullshit. Other constitutional scholars aren’t so sure, and say that according to the letter of the law, it looks just fine. But politics – especially the way our Parliament operates – is more than just the letter of the law. It’s an organic whole, and surely that needs to be taken into consideration when a blatant backdoor proposal designed to get around doing the hard work of constitutional negotiation will have a serious and measurable effect on our democratic process. That has to count for something.

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Roundup: Context on Clarity and “Unity”

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Political scientist Emmett Macfarlane takes apart the NDP’s “Unity Act” on replacing the Clarity Act with the Sherbrooke Declaration. Shorter version: the NDP is wrong about everything in it. Paul Wells then takes a crack at it, and reminds the NDP of just what was in the Supreme Court reference, and about the importance of this little thing called the constitution, and how anything to do with secession is actually pretty complex business, what with amending it in order to take Quebec out, and how there are explicit sections in that Supreme Court reference that the NDP are outright ignoring. Meanwhile, it seems that the bare minimum would be even less than that because the NDP’s proposal doesn’t take voter turnout into account. So yeah, there’s that.

Senator Patrick Brazeau and Conservative MP Royal Gallipeau were publicly belittling Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence at a local fundraiser for a provincial candidate. Gallipeau did have some more constructive comments afterward regarding his visit to Victoria Island over the Christmas break, but it still is a bit distasteful what went down.

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