News that the family of that Syrian boy who drowned off the coast of Turkey was trying to get to Canada and had been rejected touched off a political firestorm yesterday, and it wasn’t until hours later that some clarity was brought to the situation – that the sister of the boy’s father was in Canada and applying to sponsor her family, starting with her older brother, then the child’s father and his family (which included a wife and another son, all of whom were lost when their boat capsized). Chris Alexander made a show of “suspending his campaign” to come to Ottawa to meet with officials, but his campaign really wasn’t suspended – he just wasn’t door-knocking, and then he hid out from the media in the airport and ended up going out a back way in order to avoid them. Statements from the aunt in Vancouver and the government clarified some of the statements around the events with their refugee application, but much of the damage had already been done, and the government looks poorly for it – particularly because of the slow pace at which they are assisting refugees in the area, and padding their figures with those refugees from Iraq, and the fact that they appear to be cherry-picking those from religious and ethnic minorities. Harper hasn’t really helped, insisting that this is really about ISIS and saying that it’s more important that we carry on the fight against them – never mind that a) Assad and the Syrian government forces have killed more Syrians by far than ISIS or any other faction, and b) air strikes are not going to stop ISIS and the government knows it. He also insists that we’re one of the most generous countries in assisting refugees, but the numbers simply don’t show that. University of Ottawa professor Roland Paris shares some thoughts on the situation, while Scott Gilmore argues that we should take in twenty times the number of refugees being promised now, up to as many as 200,000, which we could pay for by cancelling a couple of boutique tax credits. Michael Petrou notes the real problem of the war in Syria.
Tag Archives: Omar Khadr
Roundup: Stampede politics
It’s Stampede time in Calgary, and all of the party leaders are headed out there to play the part. Curiously, all of them will be there at the same time rather than spacing their presence out a bit as they have in previous years, and both Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau are putting in appearances in the Stampede Parade. Speaking as a former Calgarian, Stampede is a peculiar kind of phenomenon – long-time Calgarians will try to flee the city for it because it’s so much insanity (much of it alcohol-induced. It’s no secret that post-Stampede you see a spike in sexually transmitted infections, and a baby boom nine months later). But because Calgary is one of those cities with a large in-migration population, it becomes this exercise in conformity, where people will shell out hundreds of dollars in order to get the right wardrobe to participate, and subject themselves to awful country music in order to fit in and show that they’re really Calgarians. It makes for a very interesting political contrast as well – last weekend you most of the party leaders in the Toronto Pride Parade, which is all about diversity and difference (and congratulations to the Conservatives for finally opting to participate this year); this weekend they’re at Stampede, which is about looking the part in order to fit in. Both are seen as necessary stops in order to show themselves off to those different political bases. That each leader gets judged on how well they can dress for Stampede is also an interesting exercise (and a far less forgiving one than the suits that they normally wear). It shows how strange the Canadian political landscape can be, and the summer barbecue circuit – particularly during an election campaign.
Roundup: Rise of the Potemkin bills
It is likely the final sitting week of the House of Commons this week, and they can’t go home soon enough. With the whole sorry affair now running on fumes, and all parties reduced to reading their platforms’ press releases instead of doing any actual work, it’s for the best – really. Of course, that hasn’t stopped the Conservatives from introducing a raft of new bills, and making zero headway on them – like the way they insisted on a standalone bill for the Universal Childcare Benefit, and haven’t done anything with it, even though they rammed through their omnibus budget implementation bill, where you think such a provision would actually be relevant. Of course, it’s all political. Some of it is about laying markers for the campaign and things they want to do in the next parliament. Some of it is about checking off items from the Speech From the Throne (like the genetic privacy bill, which is terrible and completely useless, by the way). And then there are a number of tough-on-crime bills that are just hanging there that they’ll try to claim the opposition stalled and dragged their feet on – never mind that it’s the government that sets the agenda, and they’ve not only not brought them forward but wasted a bunch of time on things like concurrence debates on months old committee reports (like the sham of a Health Committee report on the “dangers of marijuana”) when they could have been passing any of these “urgent” bills that they had to table in the dying days. But since they’re not serious about moving forward on any number of these bills, it looks like the anticipated workload in the Senate to tie off things before they too rise for the summer is going to be less than expected, and hopefully that means taking down a few of the more objectionable private members bills (like Michael Chong’s toxic Reform Act) with them when they go. Just remember that if they start to claim that they just couldn’t get this stuff through that it’s all a big charade and they need to be called out on it.
Roundup: Re-starting the CPP debate
Talk of expanding the Canada Pension Plan was dominating the discussion yesterday, but much of it seemed to be in a bit of a vacuum. To recap, the Conservatives, having largely eschewed any talk of CPP expansion as “job-killing payroll taxes” to date (despite some positive noises having been made by Jim Flaherty at one point), say they’re going to consult on voluntary expansion, but haven’t approached any of the provinces, which they need to do. The Liberals are moving in the direction of making an expansion mandatory, which the NDP have already largely been in favour of. For some context, Maclean’s spoke to a pension expert about the situation, and they reposted an piece from Kevin Milligan about what different expansion models could look like (and it’s also a reminder that none of this is about poor seniors, who are already taken care of by other programmes). The Ottawa Citizen also has a Q&A about the discussion as well. What should also bear mentioning is that voluntary increased contributions, if not done in a certain way, could dramatically increase the administration costs of CPP since it will require individual management of accounts – something that the current system does not currently need. Dramatically increasing costs will make CPP a less efficient vehicle for retirement savings, and may start to look like a commercial pension instead. If the government is insistent on a voluntary expansion as one of a number of options (like TFSAs and pooled registered plans), then this cost factor could be an important determiner in what that could look like.
Roundup: The galling abuse of the Information Commissioner
The Information Commissioner is very unhappy about the government’s move to retroactively change the law to protect the RCMP for destroying gun registry records despite promises to her office that they wouldn’t in order to fulfil Access to Information requests. That the RCMP broke the law by destroying the information, and the government is protecting them by retroactively changing the law and putting that change in the middle of the omnibus budget bill, sets a very bad precedent, she warns, and she’s right. While the government wanted the long-gun registry data destroyed for political purposes, there was other information of value in the data that wound up being destroyed that had little to do with any future attempts at recreating a registry – something the Conservatives have long been afraid of, and are pressing for the hasty destruction of data to impede. And the way she characterises this is genuinely frightening – that they are backdating changes to the law to make something legal after a finding of wrongdoing. She uses the example of the Sponsorship Scandal – what if the Liberal government of the day retroactively changed the law so that the Auditor General was ousted from her jurisdiction after the fact. It’s unconscionable. What’s even more galling is the way that the prime minister is shrugging this off as just “fixing a loophole.” No, it’s not. It’s wilfully undermining the Commissioner and her ability to do her job, which this government has already made nearly impossible through starving her office budget and wanton disregard of their obligations under the Access to Information regime. All while they call themselves “open and transparent.” It’s grotesque, abusive, and in violation of their obligations as the government of the day. And if anything is any more upsetting about this situation, it’s that the opposition parties were too busy electioneering in QP instead of raising bloody hell about this issue – the Liberals not asking until nearly the end, and the NDP not raising it at all. Thanks for doing your jobs in holding this kind of unconscionable behaviour to account, MPs. Gold stars all around.
Roundup: Speaker Housakos’ telling silence
It was with some interest that I listened to the first major interview with new Senate Speaker Leo Housakos over the weekend, and in it, there was the requisite amount of tough talk with regards to the recent spending allegations that some senators face. To wit, Speaker Housakos spoke of recognising their problems internally, bringing in the Auditor General on their own, the willingness to name any names that the AG does in his report, and as far as the three suspended senators are concerned, those suspensions are likely to continue into the next parliament until their legal situations have been resolved one way or another. Where Housakos did not talk tough, but instead shied away from answering, was regarding questions of the complicity of some senators in changing the internal audit to protect Mike Duffy. Housakos mumbled about it being before the courts, but as the Speaker and the new head of the Internal Economy committee, he had an opportunity to make a statement about past practices that will no longer be tolerated, or the staking a claim about Senate independence and severing the ties to the PMO, or anything like that. He didn’t, and it’s not too surprising to me because Housakos is known as someone who is close to the PMO, in with a tight cabal that surrounds the current Government Leader in the Senate, Claude Carignan. In other words, Housakos is no Pierre-Claude Nolin, who had some fairly high-minded ideals about the Senate and its independence, particularly after the Supreme Court’s reference decision. The fact that Housakos did not make any claims for institutional independence is telling, and reminds us that he bears watching so as to ensure that he personally does not become implicated in more of the PMO machinations into the Upper Chamber and its workings. The Senate needs an independent Speaker, and I’m not sure that Housakos is it. Meanwhileback in the Commons, the government refuses to answer questions on residency requirements for appointing senators.
Roundup: Tales of internal audits
The issue that dominated Question Period and the headlines yesterday – that the PMO was trying to direct the Senate’s Internal Economy Committee to protect Duffy from internal audits – is one that needs a bit of a deep breath before we freak out about it. For starters, we need to be aware that Duffy and his lawyer are deliberately stoking this in order to direct the attention toward Harper and the PMO as their way of exculpating Duffy. Number two, that any “conspiracy” within the Senate to protect Duffy has largely been limited to a couple of players and not the chamber as a whole. In this case, it seems to be largely three key players – then-leader Marjory LeBreton, Harper loyalist Carolyn Stewart Olsen, and David Tkachuk. That Stewart Olsen might be doing Harper’s bidding is no surprise, and while Tkachuk should have known better than to take PMO direction, he has been playing his own power games within the Senate (including a few nasty leaks to the media designed to undermine people). The other thing that should be pointed out is that Senate administration – the Clerk and a senior staffer conducting an internal audit – were trying to point to the nebulous rules around residency and were getting pushback from Stewart Olsen and Tkachuk, and in Stewart Olsen’s case, the motives were likely self-interested given her own problematic residency situation at the time. That internal audit was not killed, in part because of legal action threatened by the Clerk, but it does point to the fact that while rules could be nebulous, the staff was trying to ensure that there was some due diligence, and Duffy would have been caught up in that exercise. That the PMO was trying to take the heat off of Duffy with a later external audit is concerning, but should be for the rest of the Senate. They have institutional independence for a reason, and they are betraying their role when they take that kind of direction. Of course, Harper created the situation where a number of senators would take direction by flooding the chamber with so many pliable rookies at once who wouldn’t hesitate to take orders. It’s one of the things that the late Speaker Nolin was trying to change – getting senators, particularly those in his own caucus, to take their roles more seriously. None of this should detract from the fact that Duffy still bears responsibility for his own actions, and that senators themselves should be telling the PMO to shove off. We shouldn’t let Duffy and his lawyer play us to confirm those facts.
Roundup: Overreading mandates
In the wake of Tuesday’s election victory in Alberta, there has been no shortage of jubilation and outright triumphalism amongst NDP-types here in Ottawa, who have rushed to claim their own share of the victory – or at least the reflected glory – while mouthing trite sayings like “only New Democrats can defeat Conservatives!” without actually understanding the actual facts on the ground. There was no shortage of congratulations for either Thomas Mulcair – who future Alberta premier Rachel Notley quite explicitly distanced herself from during the campaign – or Linda Duncan, their only federal MP, as though she was somehow a key player in that victory. But amidst all of this self-congratulation comes to mind a warning that Bob Rae made after the last federal election – be careful not to over-read your mandate, advice that applies not only to the federal, but also the provincial NDP. To wit, I would posit that Tuesday night was not so much a victory for the NDP as it was a defeat for Jim Prentice and the Progressive Conservatives in Alberta, which Notley was able to capitalise on. It’s not like there was much else in the way of alternatives – she was articulate and had some experience as an MLA, whereas the Alberta Liberals were rudderless and in a tailspin after the departure of Raj Sherman, and the Wildrose had Brian Jean for a leader for all of five minutes before the election was called. Absolutely none of this has to do with some great leftward shift in the province. No, Virginia, Alberta did not suddenly become a bastion of socialists. Quite the opposite, as Notley has run on a relatively centrist, populist platform that has all but repudiated a number of planks of her federal cousins, and she will live in constant awareness that it could all be gone by the next election if the political right’s vote coalesces around Wildrose, or the centrist vote in the province fragments once again around a hypothetical renewed Alberta Liberal brand, or gains by the Alberta Party to replace them. None of this leaves a lot of room for Mulcair and the federal NDP to make gains, particularly as their particular brand is much more hostile to the oilsands and pipelines than Notley is. Alberta may have had a desire for change, but there are no guarantees as to how that translates federally. Meanwhile, federal NDP MPs are giving advice to their new rookie provincial cousins. Paul Wells sets up the eventual victory by Notley, while Colby Cosh cautions about some of the lessons to take from the election. Kathleen Petty gives us a reminder of some of the political demographics and history that has played out in Alberta over the length of the PC dynasty there, most especially that the party was built on centrism.
Roundup: Risk or propaganda?
It really was pretty galling when the tweets started rolling in yesterday morning – after admonishing the media to pay close attention and be very careful not to show the faces of any of the Special Forces troops in Iraq while they covered the Prime Minister’s surprise visit, the PM’s own media team went ahead and did it without a second thought. Oops. When this was pointed out, they took the videos down and tried to make some excuses, and later in the day, the Chief of Defence staff called the risk “minimal,” but maybe that’s because the PM’s 24/Seven videos get a mere tens of viewers, half of them from the media trying to see what they weren’t allowed to cover while the PM had his own team of propagandists doing the work for them. But the thing is, this wasn’t the first time this particular screw-up happened either. No, just a few weeks ago, Jason Kenney tweeted some of those faces that were not supposed to have been shown when he posted photos of the ramp ceremony of Sgt. Doiron, and I’m not sure that he delivered so much as an apology. And while Marc Garneau did ask whether this was a matter of incompetence, it also needs to be called out that neither of the opposition parties took this rather serious breach of operational security and government incompetence was asked about in QP until the second round for the NDP, the third for the Liberals. If a government is putting troops in danger because they want to bolster their image for propaganda videos, they deserve to be raked over the coals for it. It’s too bad that the opposition parties can’t be bothered to do their jobs.
Roundup: Trudeau makes a move
After months of anticipation, the Liberals unveiled the first real plank of their policy book yesterday, being their tax plan as it relates to middle class families. By restructuring the current universal childcare benefit, eliminating income splitting, and introducing a new tax bracket on those earning over $200,000 per year, Trudeau has proposed a income tax cut for the “middle class,” along with childcare benefits that will be more means tested than the current system, all under the banner of “fairness.” Immediately the government was apoplectic, and Pierre Poilievre, incredulously, tried to spin it as the Trudeau Tax™ and that somehow eliminating the doubling of TFSAs was a “tax hike” on those earning more than $60,000 per year (never mind that that income was already taxed, and that bracket got the income tax cut). The NDP insisted that the plan wouldn’t give a tax cut to “two-thirds” of Canadians, but when challenged on how they would cut those taxes, they instead pivoted to “childcare!” Emmett Macfarlane is glad there are now concrete proposals to debate, while John Geddes has three questions about the proposal. Kevin Milligan and Lindsay Tedds give more of the economic details and analysis.