Tag Archives: NSICOP

QP: Alleging a national security breach

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For what was possible the last time in person for the spring sitting, Justin Trudeau was present in the Chamber, with only Mark Gerretsen on the Liberal benches with him. Erin O’Toole led off, and he immediately launched into the National Microbiology Lab firings, accusing the government of hiding the truth. Trudeau refuted this, and said that they we looking to share the information in the right way, which was why they were asking NSICOP to look into it, and that unredacted documents had already been provided to it. O’Toole tried to make the case that the government broke national security laws around the Lab, but Trudeau repeated his response. O’Toole threw out a bunch of possibly non-sequitur facts about the Wuhan lab in China and tried to tie them to the Winnipeg lab, and Trudeau chided the Conservatives for ignoring oversight of national security, which is why they created NSICOP. O’Toole tried to accuse Trudeau of advancing China’s interests, and Trudeau gave the somewhat tired response that the Conservatives were focused on political games while he was working for Canadians against foreign threats. O’Toole then repeated his first question in French, and Trudeau repeated his response about NSICOP.

Yves-François Blanchet was up for the Bloc, and he complained that Trudeau mused about COVID masks and Quebec’s “secularism” law, and Trudeau remarked that he supports Quebeckers’ rights to challenge that law in court. Blanchet was irate that people were linking Bill 21 with the rise in Islamophobia, but Trudeau instead spoke about the importance of the Court Challenges programme, which was why his government restored its funding.

Jagmeet Singh appeared by video for the NDP, and in French, demanded an end to the lawsuits related to Indigenous children. Trudeau said it was false, they were not suing the children, but acknowledged that they deserve compensation and were negotiating it — but didn’t explain the purpose of the litigation. Singh repeated the question in English, and Trudeau repeated his answer, and once again did not explain the litigation.

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QP: Magical solutions to housing shortages

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We had initially been promised the prime minister’s attendance today, but given events, he and the other party leaders all decided to jet off together to the vigil in London, Ontario, for the Muslim family that was killed in a hate crime on Sunday night. Candice Bergen led off by video, requesting an update on what the government was doing to support the Muslim community in the wake of the tragedy. Bill Blair listed off some supports, and made the point about Canada trying to “be the country we aspire to be,” which I thought was probably one of the better articulations out there, rather than the usual “this isn’t us” denialism. Bergen then demanded to know why unredacted documents related to the two fired scientists had not been turned over to the House of Commons as had been ordered, for which Patty Hajdu reminded her that she turned those documents over to NSICOP, which was the proper venue for it. Bergen accused the government of being in contempt of Parliament, and tied the lab to the investigation into the origins of COVID in Wuhan, thus fuelling more conspiracy theories, and Hajdu warned her about conflating issues. Gérard Deltell took over in French and tried to insist that NSICOP was the personal committee of the prime minister and that they couldn’t know what was turned over to it – which is a very dangerous move to politicise the committee like that – and Hajdu corrected him that the committee is multi-partisan and has the ability to review these kinds of documents. Deltell tried again, and got the same pushback from Hajdu.

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and demanded action to solve the delays to temporary foreign workers in Quebec. Marco Mendicino insisted that he was hard at work with his Quebec counterpart and they were on target. Yves Perron took over and demanded immediate action on the arrival of those workers, and Mendicino reminded him that they have doubled the number of arrivals over the past decade.

Rachel Blaney demanded immediate action on the motion that passed yesterday on ending litigation against First Nations children and residential schools survivors, for which Carolyn Bennett praised the intent of the motion, but stated that they contain complex legal issues that should not be resolved unilaterally on the floor of the House of Commons. Charlie Angus repeated the question with added sanctimony, and Bennett read that the court ordered an independent review of the compensation which could include greater amounts for some survivors, which the government was funding.

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QP: Mona Fortier reminds us she exists

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It was a scorcher in the Nation’s Capital, and once again, the only Liberal MP in the Chamber was Mark Gerretsen. Candice Bergen led off by video, and she complained that the million jobs promised by the end of June had not materialized, and compared our job numbers to the Americans’, and demanded a plan to re-open the economy – as though that were a federal call. Mona Fortier assured her eight out of every ten jobs lost at the start of the pandemic had already been recovered, and that international credit ratings have pointed out Canada’s plan was sound. Bergen railed about job losses and accused the government of being more concerned about their travel itineraries than Canadians, for which Fortier reminded her of the good new of the Q1 GDP numbers (which really weren’t great, considering how much of those numbers were tied up in real estate). Bergen then blamed the federal government for the third wave of the pandemic (when she knows full well it was premiers who reopened too early and locked down too late), and Fortier listed measures taken to help businesses in lockdowns and as part of the recovery. Gérard Deltell took over in French and railed about jobs, for which Fortier repeated the “good news” in the GDP numbers. Deltell seemed to think the lockdowns were completely over when complaining that jobs had not completely recovered, and Fortier recited good news talking points about the wage subsidy. 

Alain Therrien led off for the Bloc, and he demanded that the federal government extend Quebec’s Bill 101 to federally-regulated industries because the Official Languages Act only protects bilingualism and not French, and Mélanie Joly assured him they were protecting French. Therrien complained this wasn’t good enough because the federal bureaucracy had a high failure rate, and Joly stated that they were working to strengthen the Act and the Commissioner’s powers, and to extend the Act to industries in federal jurisdiction in the private sector.

Alexandre Boulerice led for the NDP by video, and he demanded the government support their motion on abandoning litigation involving First Nations children and survivors, for which Mark a Miller noted that they support parts of the notion but there are jurisdiction issues to be litigated, and they were negotiating compensation. Charlie Angus repeated the question in English with added sanctimony, and Miller repeated slowly that every First Nations child that has suffered at the hands of the child welfare system will get just and fair compensation.

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Roundup: Trying to politicize NSICOP

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The fight for documents related to the National Microbiology Lab firings from 2019 has been intensifying in the House of Commons, both in the Conservatives working on a privilege fight over access to unredacted documents, but also in the way they have been treating the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP). While not perfect, NSICOP is at least some level of oversight of the national security apparatuses of this country by parliamentarians (though not an actual parliamentary committee), which is more than existed previously. They have tried to dismiss it as somehow partisan, which it’s not – all parties are represented on the committee (though the Bloc seat is currently vacant), and say that the prime minister’s office controls it (as it’s an executive body and not a parliamentary one). But they have the power to have their members resign in protest if they felt that the PMO was bigfooting them, and they haven’t, which means that these objections are about politics – particularly as they are building a bunch of bullshit conspiracy theories around the two firings in order to score cheap points.

As a reminder, the Conservatives were dismantling some of the national security oversight, neutering the Inspector General at CSIS and making poor appointments to the only other real civilian oversight of national security agencies in the country. This is at least a point in Trudeau’s favour – he overhauled and strengthened the various oversight mechanisms of all of these bodies, including the creation of NSICOP, which does valuable work.

With that in mind, here is Stephanie Carvin with some thoughts on this fight, and check out this thread from Philippe Lagassé for more thoughts as to how NSICOP is currently structured and how it compares internationally.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1400446108376174594

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1400446110653689856

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1400446112931225601

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1400446115099680773

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1400479339528003594

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QP: Demanding a show of urgency on Calls to Action

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For Wednesday, proto-PMQ day, Justin Trudeau was present with his one other MP, Mark Gerretsen, because of course he was. Erin O’Toole led off, script on his mini-lectern, and he mentions the Kamloops mass graves, and wanted urgent action on several of the Calls to Action in the Truth and Reconciliation report. Trudeau had a script to read that they accepted all of the calls to action, and are working with Indigenous communities to fulfil those calls, including millions of dollars from Budget 2019. O’Toole insisted that this wasn’t good enough and wanted “urgent” action, for which Trudeau insisted that they have been taking it seriously, and that they are working with the communities, but mentioned that this fresh sense of urgency comes from non-Indigenous Canadians, but Indigenous people have been living with this. O’Toole tried to sound somber in saying that the families deserved a precise roadmap to achieving these calls to action, and Trudeau slowed down to annunciate that they were working in a culturally appropriate and trauma-informed way, and then slammed the Conservatives for not giving funding when the Commission asked for it in 2019. O’Toole insisted that they needed to “show urgency” and that this wasn’t time for political rhetoric — and yet that was all he was offering. Trudeau repeated that they are moving forward and put the boots to the Conservatives for fighting the UNDRIP bill. O’Toole then switched to French to repeat his first question about the renounced funding, and Trudeau reiterated that they are taking action and allocated funding.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he wanted time allocation on Bill C-10, musing that perhaps the government wanted the bill to fail so that they could blame the Conservatives, and Trudeau condemned the games the Conservatives were playing in committee to delay the bill while praising the aims of the bill. Blanchet then meandered about protecting French, before returning to C-10 as a mechanism to do so, and Trudeau thanked him for recognising the cultural protections in the bill, which was why they were trying to get it passed.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he returned to the topic of the mass grave, and once again raised the court cases against Indigenous children and survivors (though, as a lawyer, Singh should know that narrow points of law do need to be contested when they create bad precedents). Trudeau somewhat sharply reminded him that they support compensation and moving forward in culturally appropriate ways. Singh repeated the question in French, and got much the same reply.

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QP: Leaning harder into the Winnipeg Lab conspiracy theory

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It was the prime minister’s first appearance in the Chamber since the discovery of the mass grave in Kamloops last week, and he was joined once again by Mark Gerretsen. Erin O’Toole led off, and with his script before him, he asked for swift action on the Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission around the residential schools. Justin Trudeau gave some platitudes about reconciliation and mentions their investments in those Calls to Action. O’Toole then moved onto the National Microbiology Lab, and deliberately conflated the issue around the two fired scientists with the global demand for answers around the origin of COVID, for which Trudeau reminded him that there are mechanisms to review national security matters. O’Toole dismissed NSICOP as the prime minister’s “secret committee” and tried to conflate the issue around those scientists, for which Trudeau hit back about the secrecy of the Harper government and their refusal to subject national security agencies to independent oversight. O’Toole switched to French to repeat his first question on the two scientists, for which Trudeau reminded him of the oversight mechanisms. O’Toole switched back to English to try and tie in this with approvals for foreign investment from China and Huawei, and Trudeau replied that the Conservatives never hesitate to play politics with national security, before he returned to his praise of the creation of NSICOP.

Yves-François Blanchet rose for the Bloc, and pressed for the swift passage of Bill C-10 in spite of Conservative opposition, for which Trudeau praised the cooperation of other parties in trying to pass the bill, and that they hoped to pass it before summer. Blanchet warned that if it did not pass by summer, there would be a heavy political price to pay in Quebec, and Trudeau reminded him that they have been there for artists since the beginning, starting with reversing the Harper-era cuts, and that it was the Conservatives blocking culture.

Jagmeet Singh led for the NDP, and he raised the court challenges around Indigenous children and residential school survivors (which are about narrow points of law and not compensation). Trudeau stated that every survivor deserves compensation and they are working on that, and they have also been guiding “transformative change” around Indigenous child and family services. Singh repeated the question in French, and got much the same answer.

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Roundup: A broken system thwarting foreign agents

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Something in the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) annual report, made public this week caught my eye, which talked about how the “critical election incident protocol panel” – the body set up in order to have some sort of way to help deal with any detected foreign interference during an election (given the whole Russian interference thing south of the border in previous of their elections) – needs to include more traditional espionage as part of their warning triggers. Why? Because, as NSICOP says, foreign agents could try to infiltrate political parties to exert influence, whether it’s in nomination meetings, or volunteering in campaign offices.

I will admit that I laughed.

Not because foreign interference isn’t serious – because it is – but because the joke would be on them, given that grassroots members no longer have any influence in our political system since we have made the system entirely leader-driven. Nomination meetings are being gamed by leaders’ offices to the point where it’s difficult to determine just how free and fair any of them are these days – that is, when leaders aren’t outright appointing candidates (as Justin Trudeau did with Marci Ien and Ya’ara Saks for the by-elections late last year). Trying to hijack nomination contests at the best of times is exceedingly difficult because of the requirement for the leader’s signature (or their proxies, thanks to the garbage Reform Act), which was part of why that requirement was created back in 1970 – officially to keep the Chief Electoral Officer from needing to adjudicate nomination disputes, but anecdotally about heading off pro-life groups trying to hijack Liberal nominations. Foreign agents trying to use the same tactics would have fairly marginal chances of success once their involvement became known.

This is less of an indictment of the use of party infiltration as a tactic of foreign agents, but rather of how our system has degenerated. Because we insisted on moving to leadership contests that became quasi-presidential primaries, we have upended the entire grassroots nature of our parties, and now everything is top-down, leader driven. It shouldn’t be this way, and yet this is where we are.

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Roundup: Ending the defence committee study

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Something unexpected happened yesterday, in that the Defence committee voted to end the study on the allegations against General Jonathan Vance – the Liberals moving the motion, and the Bloc supporting it (which was the real surprise). Of course, ending the study comes with a number of different narratives. For the Conservatives and the NDP, this is all about the government trying to “cover up” what happened, because they won’t allow staffers to testify – nor should they. The concept of ministerial responsibility is inviolable in our constitutional framework, and the government should be fighting to maintain it, and yes, they have put the minister forward in this case several times, so that does matter. For the Liberals’ decision to move to end the study, it’s also at the request of some victims’ groups, who have stated that every past government is at fault, and that the committee is simply using the victims in order to score partisan points – and they are 100 percent correct in that assertion.

I do find it disturbing, however, that in most of the reporting on what has gone on, media have followed the opposition narrative that staffers are being “blocked” from appearing, and that the only time that ministerial responsibility is mentioned, it’s in quotes and being both-sidesed in terms of the government’s response. This is a real problem because it is undermining this fundamental principle in our democracy. This is something that should be explained, including why it’s wholly improper for the opposition to be demanding that this important principle be violated, and why when the Conservatives were in government, they repeatedly invoked the same principle as well to keep their staffers away from committee. Constitutional principles matter – they’re not just to be dismissed as a “process story” as so many journalists and editors are wont to do in this city, and it cheapens the discourse when this context is being left out of the stories, and when the government’s correct position is being spun as being improper.

Of course, if the government is going to claim ministerial responsibility, that doesn’t just mean Sajjan has to show up (which, to his credit, he did for six hours) – Sajjan has to actually take responsibility as well, and he hasn’t. And more to the point, Sajjan should fall on his sword for this, because he did drop the ball. He remained way too incurious about the allegations and whether an investigation was being carried out – which is not the same as involving himself in the investigation or meddling in it. It’s basic due diligence for someone who is responsible to Parliament for the armed forces and its leadership, and he failed in that due diligence. Sajjan has no choice but to resign over this, and it will be a giant sign that Justin Trudeau is not taking this seriously if he doesn’t insist on a resignation in short order.

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Roundup: More alike than unalike

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The NDP decided that the bilateral meeting between Justin Trudeau and Joe Biden was the perfect time to take to shitposting about it, in the form of a juvenile mock-up of the agenda items, and making their remarks on them. Because this is where we’re at in this country – our two main opposition parties have decided that the online tactics of shitposting are definitely the way to win the hearts and minds of Canadian voters.

In the NDP’s case, this is not only about trolling Trudeau, but also Biden, because they have made a concerted effort to appeal to the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez/Bernie Sanders fanbase – consistent with their lifting their policy ideas wholesale, no matter whether or not they have any relevance in the Canadian context. This tends to involve a certain amount of trying to “win the Internet,” whether it’s with Jagmeet Singh adopting TikTok memes, or the culmination of this attempt to co-opt American Democrat cred when Singh and Ocasio-Cortez played Among Us over Twitch as part of a fundraiser. As a more centrist, compromise candidate, Biden is seen as a betrayal of the progressive wing of the Democrats, and you can bet that the Canadian New Democrats trying to appeal to them is going to cash in on that as much as possible.

None of this should be too surprising, however – the NDP have long-since abandoned any real sense of ideology for the sake of being left-flavoured populists, running after flavours of the week and pursuing policies that don’t actually make sense for their own purported principles (like their demand to cut the HST off of home heating, which would only disproportionately reward the wealthy). In this way, they have been more like the Conservatives than unalike for a while now, but with this full-on embrace of shitposting (as opposed to simply the mendacious omission of jurisdictional boundaries in their demands) just drives that point home.

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Roundup: Trudeau in isolation

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The pace of COVID-19 news was relentless yesterday, culminating in the news that Sophie Grégoire Trudeau had tested positive for the virus following her trip to the UK, and that the prime minister would be isolated for the next two weeks as a result. He’d already announced earlier in the day that he was self-isolating while his wife was undergoing testing, and that he would be working from home, but it also meant the cancellation of the First Ministers Meeting – to be held later today by phone – and the indefinite postponement of said first ministers meeting with Indigenous leaders. Not to be outdone, Jagmeet Singh also announced that he was self-isolating because he was feeling “unwell.” And while more events get cancelled, Peter MacKay and Erin O’Toole have stated they will suspend public campaign activities for the time being (though one suspects that this will simply escalate into a shitpost war online as they battle for votes in that space).

The big question now is whether or not Parliament will suspend for the coming weeks, and there are moves afoot – the Senate has been recalled to sit tomorrow (they usually don’t sit Fridays), and the talk is that the Commons will pass the New NAFTA tomorrow morning, and send it to the Senate immediately for passage so that if there is a decision to suspend, that will be out of the way. And it should be noted that the Senate did to pre-study on the bill while it was still in the Commons, so that will expedite the passage in the Senate, provided that twelve different senators don’t feel the need to give useless Second Reading speeches (because that’s a real danger these days).

Once again, Maclean’s has resources on symptoms and how to get tested.

Meanwhile, Paul Wells gives a decent reading of the year to date, and makes the case that First Ministers’ meetings are pretty useless these days so the cancellation of this one is not a big loss. Heather Scoffield ensures that you know where to place the blame for the markets crashing and wiping out retirement savings. And here’s infectious disease specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch on what we can expect over the next two weeks.

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