Canada Post has announced that it will phase out urban home delivery over the next five years in favour of community mailboxes. Not only that, but they will raise stamps to $1 apiece, and that they will reduce their workforce by attrition. The government supports this plan, while the postal union and seniors groups are opposed. CBC has six myths and realities about Canada Post. PostMedia breaks down the numbers at Canada Post. The CEO of Canada Post, Deepak Chopra (no, not that Deepak Chopra) also serves on the board of directors of the Conference Board of Canada, whose reports seemed to suggest these very changes. Andrew Coyne argues that this is the time to eliminate Canada Post’s monopoly.
Tag Archives: Patrick Brazeau
Roundup: A lost learning moment
It was an unusual scene, where the Speaker of the Senate arranged a media event inside the Senate chamber. His purpose was two-fold – to give a bit of a lesson to journalists about the history and role of the institution, as he was alarmed that the kinds of misinformation that he’d seen in the media over the past several months; he also wanted to try and answer as many questions as he could at once. Unfortunately, much of the former goal as a “learning moment” seemed lost on many of my media colleagues as they started asking him questions as though he were the person in charge, as opposed to the presiding officer, and as such, it’s not up to him if they end up calling Michael Runia or Senator Gerstein before committee, but rather, it has to be a decision of the Senate. What they did find out was that the Senate is cooperating on getting those emails requested by the RCMP, and that parliamentary privilege cannot shield senators from an investigation.
Roundup: Missing Perrin emails found
The Privy Council Office has found those emails from former PMO legal advisor Benjamin Perrin after all, despite previously telling the RCMP that they had been deleted.Oops. And yes, they promise to turn them over to the RMCP right away. It’s also probably just a coincidence that the advisory was sent out at 9 PM on a Sunday while the Prime Minister was wowing the crowd at a certain Jewish fundraising dinner as well, right? Meanwhile, Tonda MacCharles reconstructs that fateful February day when Nigel Wright made the decision to repay Duffy and tries to figure out where it all went wrong. CBC finds out what happened to Chris Montgomery, the Senate staffer who objected to the PMO interference with the Duffy audit report.
Roundup: Appalling arguments about federalism
Day two of the Senate reference hearings at the Supreme Court saw submissions from the rest of the provinces and territories (minus the Yukon) – some of whom had appallingly bad arguments, which the Justices picked apart to their logical ends – as well as Francophone groups and a couple of senators. The Francophone groups, in particular those outside of Quebec, pointed out the Senate’s role in protecting linguistic minorities that wouldn’t stand up the same way during elections. Senator Serge Joyal, however, had the most eloquent of all submissions so far, and as someone who was in the room when they drafted the constitution in 1982 and who helped draft the amending formula to it, he provided some much needed perspective, as well as on the entrenchment of the system of constitutional monarchy and Responsible Government that included two chambers in 1982 (hence why there is no mechanism to abolish the Senate – because it was unthinkable). Paul Wells points out that regardless of the arguments made to date, there is pretty much no chance that the Senate could be abolished, and that the reforms couldn’t happen without a constitutional amendment. Senator Elaine McCoy weighs in after the first day’s submissions, and calls out the government’s reform plans as red herrings.
Roundup: Assaulting the dignity of Parliament
It’s not the least bit surprising, but it should remain shocking every time it happens. Jim Flaherty announced yesterday that the fall economic update will be released next week, when the House is not sitting, and will be read in Edmonton and not the House of Commons. In other words, one more slap in the face to Parliament by a government that does its level best to devalue it at every opportunity. Because why not go for the cheap optics of a controlled message and release, instead of ensuring the dignity and sanctity of parliament are upheld.
Roundup: Brad Wall’s sound and fury signifying nothing
The news had the NDP crowing, but it’s a lot of sound and fury signifying almost nothing. Over in Saskatchewan, Brad Wall’s government decided to repeal their senate “nominee election” legislation, and pass a motion to declare that they are calling for Senate abolition. Which is all well and good, but that legislation was of dubious constitutionality since the Senate is federal jurisdiction, the selection of Senators explicitly spelled out in the constitution as a Governor-in-Council appointment, not to mention that Wall refused to actually hold these “elections” because Ottawa wouldn’t pay for them. And then there’s the fact that abolition would require the unanimous consent of the provinces to achieve. So Brad Wall set out a marker, for what it’s worth – but it’s hardly going to get any ball rolling, especially before the Supreme Court hears the reference case.
Roundup: Suspensions and scripts
It is done – Senators Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau have been suspended without pay after two weeks of anguished debate in the Senate about the role of fairness and due process, with the official motion here for your perusal. And once it was all over, Senator Carignan, the Leader of the Government in the Senate, went out to the Foyer to dutifully read a PMO script about how the “Trudeau Liberals” were trying to defend those Senators – not only an odd characterisation considering that Justin Trudeau hasn’t appointed any of those senators (though a couple of his father’s appointments do remain), nor does he control them. And now begins the wailing and beating of breasts at the need to update the financial rules of the Senate, a process that has been ongoing for a couple of years now. John Geddes paints the scene of the evening’s events here. Michael Den Tandt writes that these expulsions will reinforce the “Angry Harper” narrative. I muse about the loss of due process in the face of political expediency here.
Due process versus the culture of expediency
Stephen Harper’s culture of expediency has marked every single aspect of the ClusterDuff affair, from its genesis with the appointment of those senators in 2009, to the abrogation of due process that took place in the Senate tonight to their suspension without pay. Those appointments, made in haste and without proper due diligence, created the crisis of the independence of the Senate that we find ourselves in currently – but it was politically expedient for Harper to declare that he wasn’t going to appoint “unelected” senators until it became expedient for him to appoint a glut of them at once and strain the ability of the chamber to absorb them.
Roundup: Leading the RCMP, distracting the public
Senator Mike Duffy’s scorched-earth campaign continues as the CBC has obtained a letter the RCMP wrote last Friday, seeking documents from the PMO that were all mentioned in Duffy’s address to the Senate last week. Because that is something that these kinds of statements under privilege can do – direct the police where to continue their investigation. PMO, incidentally, says they’ve not received any such letter. But it has to be said that it would seem to shift the focus of the investigation from Duffy’s misspending to an attempt by the PMO to bribe, or otherwise influence a sitting legislator – a distraction that Duffy likely welcomes as he seeks to keep attention away from his own actions.
Roundup: The tale of the second cheque
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.