Tag Archives: Private Members’ Business

Roundup: Legal fictions around the carbon levy refusal

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While we all emerge from our holiday slumber, the big story domestically remains that Saskatchewan is planning to move ahead with their plans to stop collecting the carbon levy on heat, and hoping that they won’t suffer any repercussions for it. This includes trying to put forward some legal fictions like trying to register the Government of Saskatchewan that’s the seller of natural gas and electricity rather than Crown corporations like SaskEnergy, which the federal government would be well within their rights to reject outright because it’s a fig leaf attempting to protect those Crown corps for breaking federal law. And to add to that, the provincial minister has been spinning the falsehood that the federal “pause” on heating oil won’t reduce the rebate, and that the rebates in his province should be secure if they stop collecting the levy, which is also false–the rebates will be reduced because that money comes from collecting the carbon price—it’s not a federal entitlement programme out of general revenue.

Here’s University of Alberta’s Andrew Leach with more:

In case you missed it:

  • My Xtra story on the Ontario court decision that ruled that calling queer people and drag queens “groomers” is a slur and is not protected speech.
  • My weekend column on an NDP private member’s bill initiative on a Middle East peace plan that looks like a Kickstarter, but is promising things it cannot deliver.
  • My column on the complete lack of serious responses in any of the Conservatives’ year-ender interviews (and the ongoing attempts to justify their Ukraine votes).
  • My year-ender column traces how the shift and fragmentation of social media turned the our politics into an even more toxic snake pit than ever.
  • My latest column on Poilievre’s “debt bomb” disinformation documentary and why it’s just hysteria to rile up the Boomers and Gen-Xers.
  • My Loonie Politics Quick Take on the way the housing issue is going to dominate the political scene for the foreseeable part of 2024.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Kyiv and Kharkiv have come under heavy bombardment in the past several days, in particular striking apartment buildings. There have been Ukrainian drone strikes in the Russian province of Belgorod.

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Roundup: The problem with feel-good legislation

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There was a story out over the weekend about a recently-passed private member’s bill about cancers being faced by firefighters, but how it’s, well, a little bit useless. As well-meaning as the bill is, and there are a lot of well-meaning private members’ bills, it’s also one of those terrible “national strategy” bills that plague our Parliament year-in and year-out.

The thing about “national strategy” bills are that they’re trying to legislate in areas of provincial jurisdiction, largely around healthcare, but sometimes around certain environmental concerns, and so on. Because MPs know that people are about these issues that aren’t in their areas of jurisdiction, they instead come up with these feel-good bills that call on the federal government to coordinate with provinces to create a “national strategy” about whatever the issue is, in the hopes that they’ll come to some common ground, or the like. But also remember that these bills are not only about an area of provincial jurisdiction, but they also can’t spend any money, so they don’t create any incentives that the federal government can use to bring provinces on-side. So about the most that these bills tend to do is raise some awareness about the issue in question in the media (as is demonstrated by the CBC piece over the weekend that I’m referencing here), but aside from that, it’s a lot of thoughts and prayers.

My point here is largely that we see these bills time and again, which largely raise a lot of false hopes, and which can be a bit of a waste of peoples’ time. MPs get one shot a private member’s bill in any given parliament, and a lot of them don’t even get that because of the fact that it’s a lottery system that determines the order in which they appear, and for them to waste that shot on a feel-good bill that doesn’t actually do anything just gets tiresome after a while, and it can be really hard on the people whose hopes have been raised for nothing to happen, because it’s just a feel-good bill.

Ukraine Dispatch:

One civilian was killed by Russian shelling on Kharkiv, and seven wounded in a Russian attack on Zaporizhzhia. Elsewhere, there appears to have been a blast on the Russian bridge connecting Russia to occupied Crimea.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1680525991418929156

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Roundup: You’re not going to get a royal recommendation

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Another day, and another warning from the Speaker that a private member’s bill is going to need a royal recommendation before the final vote, and it won’t get it, so be prepared to waste everyone’s time on a doomed bill that won’t go anywhere. This is becoming increasingly routine in this parliament, where MPs keep advancing these bills that have no hope of passage up for debate, apparently because they want to be seen talking about the issue, and maybe shaming the government for not supporting it, as with this particular bill on enhancing OAS and GIS benefits for seniors between 65 and 74 (ignoring that they are enriched for seniors over 75 because many of them have exhausted their savings by that point).

But seriously—a private member’s bill cannot spend money. Only a government bill can do so, because they’re the government, and they need that expenditure approved by Parliament. This is fundamental to how parliamentary democracy works. These clear delineations in roles exists for a reason, and the role of MPs who are not in Cabinet is to hold Cabinet to account, and the primary way to do that is through the power of the public purse. You cannot hold them to account if you too are spending public money with abandon because you have at that point blurred the responsibilities and the lines of accountability. This shouldn’t be difficult for MPs to learn and grasp, but unfortunately, they have picked up a lot of bad habits and wrong-headed beliefs over the past number of years, and it’s becoming quite obvious that they either refuse to learn how the Chamber and the institution work, or they simply don’t care and would rather waste everyone’s time.

Ukraine Dispatch:

The Ukrainian commander in the ruins of Bakhmut says that Russian Wagner Group mercenaries have stepped up their attacks in recent days, while Russia is denying claims that Ukrainian forces have made advancements in Bakhmut over the past couple of days. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that the spring counter-offensive is being delayed because they need more western weapons. This while the UK has opted to send newer cruise missiles to Ukraine, who have the longest range of any of their arsenal to date. Zelenskyy also says he has approved a plan to reform criminal and law enforcement systems, which is a requirement for future EU membership.

https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/1656535955338063873

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Roundup: Marinating ideas or wasting precious time?

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As his weekend think piece, the CBC’s Aaron Wherry extolled the virtues of MPs who aim high with their private members’ bills, even if they don’t go anywhere. I am of particular mixed feelings about this, because while I can get behind the notion that sometimes the big ideas need to marinate in the public consciousness for a while, whether that was cannabis legalisation, single-event sports betting, or trans rights, we also need to be cognisant that a whole lot of private members’ business is, well, a giant waste of everyone’s time, particularly when you have MPs who table dozens of bills and motions in any single session that will never see the light of day, but consume time they should be spending doing their actual jobs of holding government to account, as well as media attention for something that is dead on arrival.

It’s hard not to conclude that PMBs aren’t being abused in the current iteration of the Standing Orders. We’re seeing a growing number of bills that need royal recommendations still get debated all the way up to the final vote, which essentially means that everyone’s time has been wasted because it’s not going to proceed, and that MP could have used their spot for something that could have gone somewhere instead, rather than hoping that the government was going to grant the recommendation that late in the game. There is a never-ending supply of bills to amend riding names and declare national days, weeks, or months about some ethno-cultural group or cause, individual tweaks to the Criminal Code that have distorted all semblance of proportionality in our sentencing principles, or attempts at tax expenditures that are a loophole to the prohibition against proposing spending (because the rubric is that you are forgoing tax revenue, as though that didn’t come with its own costs), and when you do get the big issues, I’m really not sure that two hours of scripted speeches being read into the void is really exercising the national consciousness on the issue.

Maybe I’m just horribly cynical, but I don’t see the benefits of this particular exercise like I would if there was an actual grassroots process to formulate policy that the party adopts (and I especially have a problem when MPs use their spots to put forward policy positions because it surrenders their rights and privileges as MPs for the party’s sake, most especially if it’s a stunt on the party’s behalf—looking especially at you, NDP). Time is one of the most precious resources in Parliament, and the amount of time and resources that gets wasted on these bills that will never see the light of day just makes a mockery of the process.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 221:

After being encircled by Ukrainian forces, Russians retreated from the city of Lyman, which has been a logistics hub for the Donetsk region. In the meantime, Russians have targeted humanitarian convoys, because of course they did. Meanwhile, ten torture sites have been found in Izium, which Russia controlled for six months, and at least thirty people found in the mass grave outside of the city bore marks associated with torture.

https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1576248108690079745

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Roundup: Using the invasion of Ukraine for crass domestic gain

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We are now on day seven of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Kyiv still stands, in spite of the convoy of Russian vehicles headed in its direction. Russians bombed Kyiv’s main television tower, as well as a Holocaust cemetery, which really bolster’s Putin’s claim that he is trying to “de-Nazify” the country. In fact, Russia is bombing more cities and inflicting more damage, and killing more civilians, which led to a response by the International Criminal Court to indict Putin for war crimes. Oh, and to compound the humanitarian crisis, some of Ukraine’s neighbours aren’t accepting non-white refugees who were in Ukraine, which is a big problem.

Here in Canada, yet more incremental sanctions were announced, along with more aid and supplies being sent, and new measures include ships that are of Russian origin or registry being denied entry into Canadian waters. Chrystia Freeland is warning that more severe sanctions will hurt Canadians as well, which people keep forgetting is a reason why sanctions can be so tough to implement, but here we are.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, are making a number of demands which are not necessarily reasonable, such as their continued insistence that the Russian Ambassador be expelled, and the recall of our Ambassador in Moscow. Expelling ambassadors should be the absolute last case situation, because we need channels to talk, especially when the going gets tough. It was more justified with the Iranians because they were running an intimidation ring from their embassy, which does not appear to be the case with the Russians. The fundamental problem is that the Conservatives have adopted this mindset where they treat diplomacy as a cookie you get for good behaviour, which is not the point of diplomacy. That’s why we have diplomacy—to do the hard stuff, and you can’t do that if you keep kicking out opposing ambassadors every time you get in a huff about something. It’s poor practice, and is frankly a specious understanding of how the world works. Even more to the point, their continued insistence that this crisis is a good idea to push their “ethical oil” nonsense and to make the case for “drill, baby, drill,” no matter that it is a literal impossibility to meet Europe’s energy needs any time before the end of the decade, by which point we should be into rapid decarbonisation. But they have narratives that they are wedded to, no matter how crass or inappropriate, and they’re going to stick with them.

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Roundup: A century of women in the House

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The CBC has a look back at 100 years since the first woman was elected to Parliament, and as with the present-day discourse, it’s largely about how other women’s voice were excluded, be they Indigenous, racialized, or otherwise. Yes, early feminists and women who were elected to public office were problematic—the Famous Five were very racist and proponents of eugenics. (So was the founder of the NDP, Tommy Douglas, for that matter, but he is rarely called out as being problematic as early white women in officer were, but that’s a whole other topic altogether).

So while we have a lot more diverse women in Parliament these days, we absolutely do need to do better, and much of that relies on the parties themselves. I would normally say that the grassroots riding associations should have a big role to play in recruiting more diverse women to run for them, but my enthusiasm for grassroots politics is currently being held in check by the fact that overly powerful leaders’ offices have been essentially bigfooting those processes, and so many nominations are being run centrally, if not using outright appointments over the past few cycles, after there was a big push toward “open nominations” for one or two election cycles. And the worst part is that some of this is explicitly about nominating more women to run for office, but in an effort to say that they have more women running, most of the parties will simply run them in unwinnable ridings so that they can say they had them running, but not jeopardise their chances in that riding by running someone who doesn’t fit the popular conception, which perpetuates the problem. And before you say “But the NDP!” I have watched them time and again monkey with their own rules around nominations to run a straight white male in ridings with hugely diverse populations if they think they can win. (Think Robert Chisholm or Joe Cressy). The parties have a big role to play in getting more diverse women to run, and the Liberals were really good about this for an election cycle or two with a sound recruitment strategy, but I’m not sure it’s carried forward as well in the last election cycle.

Meanwhile, I also find myself frustrated by the notion that hybrid sittings are some kind of panacea to women running for office, because it’s based on a few bad assumptions. One of those is the fact that hybrid sittings are demonstrably bad – they are more toxic, and they have a human cost on the interpreters, and using the excuse that this allows more women to run for office should not be contingent upon interpreters needing to injure themselves in order to make it happen. The other is that it simply perpetuates the notion that women must be the primary childcare providers. There are a lot of accommodations for MPs who have small children, and they can develop more as time goes by (and seriously, they need to get over this notion that they can’t hire nannies), but some accommodations—like hybrid sittings—exact a cost that is too high for the benefit. There have to be better ways.

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QP: Not a question, but a direct plea

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On what promises to be the second last QP of the spring sitting, the three opposition leaders were all present, while Justin Trudeau as only available remotely, being in quarantine, once again leading only Mark Gerretsen in the Chamber. Erin O’Toole led off in person, in French, where he read a script about the military ombudsman’s comments on ministerial interference in investigations. Trudeau assured him they were working on the structural and cultural change necessary, including appointing Louise Arbour to reviewing the situation. O’Toole repeated the allegations in French, but didn’t phrase it as a question, but turned it into a plea to Canadians to vote out the Liberals. Trudeau repeated his same response in English. O’Toole then turned to the non-story about the Liberals paying for data services to a company owned by a friend of the prime minister. Trudeau stated this was for constituency casework, which was kept separate from political databases, and all rules were followed. O’Toole tried to turn this into an expansive statement about Liberal “corruption,” and demanded to know if any other contracts were given to Tom Pitfield, and Trudeau talked around the Conservatives slinging mud and hoping to see what would stick. O’Toole produced a document that claims that a contract was given to Pitfield, and Trudeau reiterated that the Conservatives were only focused on narratives and not facts, that all parties use case management databases, and all rules were followed.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, in person, and complained about the new border measures announced yesterday, complaining they were arbitrary. Trudeau insisted this was part of a gradual reopening and more stages would be announced soon. Blanchet complained there were more rules than variants, and Trudeau said that while the leader of the Bloc may want simple answer, but they needed to ensure that Canadians were kept safe. 

Jagmeet Singh led for the NDP, and he railed about that military ombudsman’s report, and Trudeau read that they have been committed to structural and cultural change, and that they have taken more concrete actions recently, including some new appointments and $236 million in the budget. Singh switched to French to complain that some benefit were being reduced, and Trudeau recited that they were there for as long as Canadians needed them, and pleaded with the NDP to pass the budget.

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Roundup: Bloc motion denied by Wilson-Raybould

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The Bloc tried very hard yesterday to push a motion in the House of Commons that would essentially declare that the Commons agreed with Quebec’s Bill 96, thus trying to politically disarm any of the objections to the plans to unilaterally amend the constitution to insert clauses on Quebec being a “nation” and that its only language was French. They were thwarted by Jody Wilson-Raybould, who was the only one to deny them unanimous consent – as well she should, because everyone is trying to be too-clever-by-half on this whole thing, and that’s bound to wind up in tears at some point down the road.

Paul Wells explained some of this earlier in the week in his lengthy column on Trudeau’s quest for Quebec votes, and essentially Trudeau was saying that sure, Quebec could move this unilateral move to the constitution if it didn’t impact on other rights, which is the real trick – the whole point of Bill 96 is to weaken the rights of anglophones in the province, up to and including taking away their constitutional guarantee to be able to hear a trial in English. Jagmeet Singh similarly tried the same tactic in saying that the proposed constitutional changes are “symbolic,” and won’t impact anyone outside of Quebec (never mind that they will impact anglophones in the province). Everyone seems to think they’re clever and that there will be no long-term repercussions from this, because they all want to get on François Legault’s good side before the next election, whenever that happens, because he’s still wildly popular in the province (almost disconcertingly so). This is hardly a serious way to run a country.

Meanwhile, here’s Thomas Mulcair, a veteran of the linguistic wars in Quebec, explaining why Bill 96 is really a sneak attack on the linguistic rights that he spent his career fighting for, and it’s well worth your time to read, because it has some additional context on what the current provincial government has been up to leading up to this point.

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Roundup: Flirting with unconstitutional legislation

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The bill to mandate sexual assault training for judges was a bad idea from the start, when Rona Ambrose first tabled it years ago, and the current iteration that this government is putting forward is little better, especially now that MPs have decided they need to start amending it to add other things. While Ambrose’s initial bill was blatantly unconstitutional (that the Commons passed on a whim because of the political syllogism: Something needs to be done, this is something, therefore we must do this), and needed to be gutted in the Senate to make it acceptable, the current version was more or less acceptable (barring one or two possible issues), but it seems that MPs want to make it blatantly unconstitutional again.

Former Supreme Court of Canada executive legal officer Gib van Ert warned back in February that this bill would be an invitation to demand that judges take training in other areas than just sexual assault, and lo and behold, we are there, with demands for the “social context of systemic racism.”

https://twitter.com/btaplatt/status/1321246603781570560

van Ert makes the point that if judges need to be seen as independent, then bills like this, where politicians appear to be giving them marching orders, is a bad look and will undermine the justice system. But since when to populist impulses consider the consequences of their actions? They don’t.

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Roundup: Party positions and individual agency

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The weaponization of private members’ business continues unabated in Parliament, as the Conservatives put out an attack yesterday that claims that the Liberals want to “legalize” hard drugs because maverick backbencher Nathaniel Erskine-Smith tabled a private members’ bill that calls on the decriminalization of small personal amounts in order to better treat addiction as a public health issue and to not criminalize people with addictions – something that has worked in some countries. The lie, of course, is both in claiming that this was official government policy, and that it was calling for legalization – because who cares about truth or facts when there is fear to be mongered?

The bigger problem here? What it does to how private members’ business is treated in the House of Commons, and more to the point, there is a very big potential for this to blow up in Scheer’s face because of Cathay Wagantall’s sex-selective abortion bill currently on the Order Paper. And yes, let’s not be obtuse about this – the media feeds this particular weaponization, both in how they made this kind of abortion bill an Issue during the election, and how we both demand that MPs be both independent and yet castigate the leader for “losing control” when any MP shows any glimmer of independence. (And for the record, Scheer has not said anything about Wagantall’s bill, other than to have his spokesperson say that he “discouraged” such bills).

I know that everyone is going to be cute about these bills, and how if they get tabled the party “must” support the position because everything is so centrally controlled, and so on, but this is part of what poisons the system. Insisting that everyone be marching in lockstep from other parties ensures that the same insistence is made about your own party, and it removes any agency from MPs. They’re MPs, not gods damned battle droids. If we want drones to simply read speeches into the record and vote according the leader’s office, then why do we even bother with MPs? Why bother with parliament at all? The Conservatives’ release is embarrassing, and they should be ashamed of themselves for it (which of course would imply that they’re capable of shame, but I have my doubts about that one too).

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