Tag Archives: Privilege

QP: Politicizing October 7th

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A new week in Parliament, and the prime minister was absent, but his deputy was present, and most of the other leaders stayed away as well. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he rattled off slogans before raising the privilege issue, listing off the conflicts of interest at SDTC and demanding the government turn over documents. Karina Gould said that this wasn’t true, that the matter has been referred to the committee for study, and it was up to the Conservatives to send it there. Poilievre switched to English to rattle off his slogans again, and to once again demand the government turn over the SDTC documents. Gould repeated that everything was false, that the motion was to send the matter to committee, which the Conservative don’t want to do that because they would know that they are trying to violate Charter rights with this production order. Poilievre mocked the notion that people will lose Charter rights if police get evidence (erm, you know what illegal search and seizure is, right?) and demanded the documents. Gould reiterated that this was demonstrably false and that the motion was to go to the committee, and the Conservatives were blocking that. Poilievre then turned to the October 7th commemoration, denounced antisemitic chants, and demanded the government to the same. Mélanie Joly read the names of Canadians killed in the attack, and read some remarks about the hostages. Poilievre reiterated the point about the chants, and demanded a denunciation again. Arif Virani then got up to say that their solidarity is with Jews in Israel and Canada, and that they stand up against acts against hatred in this country.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and demanded the royal recommendation for their OAS bill. Steve MacKinnon noted that he met with seniors over the weekend, and listed the measures for seniors the Bloc voted against. Therrien dismissed the “procedural issues” at the heart of the matter (my dude, democracy IS procedure), and this time Lawrence MacAulay noted their support for Supply Management and that they encourage the Senate to move on that bill.

Peter Julian rose for the NDP, and in French, decried rising rents, as though that were a federal jurisdiction. Jean-Yves Duclos said that they were right to oppose the Conservatives, trotted out the six housing units myth, and denounced Poilievre calling social housing “Soviet.” Blake Desjarlais got up to decry that the government broke housing promises to Indigenous people. Duclos noted that they have been building tens of thousand of units for Indigenous people. 

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Roundup: Filibustering their own motion

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The current privilege fight has ground business in the House of Commons to a complete halt, thanks to the tactics of the Conservatives, and they are trying to use this as some form of blackmail on the government, particularly as the government has been unable to move the legislation around the capital gains changes. Andrew Scheer even tried to be cute during the Thursday Question yesterday and said that if the government can’t conduct its own business, then they should call an election. Because of course he did.

While I won’t relitigate why this is an abuse of privilege that sets a terrifying precedent, it has been called out by the Government House Leader that the Conservatives are filibustering themselves because the whole point of this is that it’s supposed to go to the Procedure and House Affairs Committee so that it can be decided upon what should happen, but that’s inconvenient for the Conservatives. They would rather put up every single MP to speak to this issue to run out the clock, and so that they can all recite prepared scripts that scream “Liberal corruption!” even though that’s not what the Auditor General found. (Yes, there were conflicts of interest, but the government was not implicated in this at all). Gould asserts that the Conservatives are trying to keep it away from committee because the moment that committee starts calling witnesses, legal experts will point out the abuse of the parliamentary privilege powers and that this is banana republic behaviour, and she’s not wrong, but the bigger issue here is that the plan  of the Conservatives is to make the House of Commons as completely non-functional as possible through abuse of this privilege debate (which again, should have been over in a couple of hours at most with the matter sent to committee) so that they can claim further justification for an election.

If the other opposition parties wised up and stopped playing along with the Conservatives in their desire to embarrass the government for their own partisan aims, Parliament could be functioning a lot more smoothly and things they want to get passed could, but none of them seem to care much about the long-term implications of their actions (like the banana republic precedents) because scoring points is too much fun. There also remains that the government could prorogue Parliament for a day or two in order to kill the privilege motion, but that could set them up for bigger headaches, particularly as they want certain bills out of the Sente and prorogation would reset the clocks on them. In any case, the dysfunction is intentional, and the Conservatives need to be called out on the lies they are spreading to justify this behaviour.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched a major drone attack over Ukraine, targeting 15 regions; casualties included two adults and a child after a drone struck a fuel truck in Chernihiv. Ukraine did hit Russian radar stations inside the country with long-range missiles, while Ukraine’s top commander has ordered defences bolstered in the east after the loss of Vuhledar. New NATO secretary general Mark Rutte visited Kyiv as his first trip in his new role.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1841746253052321929

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QP: Poorer than Alabama

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The prime minister was jetting off to Paris for the Francophonie summit, and his deputy was off to Toronto, so other leaders also took the cue to be absent for QP. Pierre Poilievre, however, was there and started off in French by listing times the Bloc leader supported the government, and wondered if the government wanted to thank him. Jean-Yves Duclos talked about dental care, and all of the seniors getting treatment, which the Conservatives claim doesn’t exist. Poilievre then turned to the current privilege fight and that the government is refusing to turn over documents related to SDTC. Karina Gould called this out as misleading and an attempt to overturn Charter rights and politicising police independence. Poilievre repeated that in English, and Gould repeated her response with the added coda that if Poilievre doesn’t understand that, it would be worse if he does understand and doesn’t care about Charter rights. Poilievre turned to the police shooting in Toronto yesterday and trotted out the “hug-a-thug” line. Gould said that while their hearts go out to the officer, but turned to the issue of Poilievre trampling Charter rights. Poilievre complained about the Charter rights of criminals and asked the Liberls “What is wrong with you people?” After being warned by the Speaker about directing questions through the Chair. Arif Virani reminded him that bail is decided upon by provincial-appointed justices of the peace and Crown prosecutors.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and demanded a royal recommendation for their OAS bill or face an election. Steve MacKinnon pointed out that the Bloc voted against dental care when 6,900 people in his riding were signed up. Therrien pointed out the number of seniors on MacKinnon’s riding not getting the OAS enrichment, and MacKinnon reminded him that the government’s track record on taking care of seniors spoke for itself.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and complained about rent, which is a provincial jurisdiction. Duclos got up to talk about how Poilievre dismissed social housing as “soviet.” Bonita Zarrillo demanded immediate enhancement to the Disability Benefit, to which Kamal Khera read her bankrupt talking points about how historic the clearly inadequate is.

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Roundup: Setting a precedent in this privilege fight

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There was a privilege debate in the House of Commons yesterday, and it’s expected to carry forward through today, on the subject of the refusal by certain entities, including the Auditor General, to turn over documents related to Sustainable Development Technologies Canada with the intention that they be turned over to the RCMP, even though the RCMP says they don’t want them, in part because it could be tainted evidence that may not stand up in court. This has been an abuse of the Commons’ privilege around the production of papers, in large part because they’re not for the benefit of the Commons or its committees, but to turn them over to the RMCP, which is also interference in their independence. Having politicians direct the police in terms of who they want investigated is the stuff of banana republics or authoritarian regimes, and it amazes me that neither the Bloc nor the NDP could recognize that fact in their quest to use any tool at their disposal to embarrass the government.

The government’s counter-argument to this abuse of privilege is not only that this erodes the independence of officers like the AG, or the RCMP, btu this becomes a dangerous precedent when it comes to Canadians’ Charter rights, particularly around unlawful search and seizure. The Conservatives mock this argument in saying there is no Charter right for government documents, but that’s the thing about precedents when you have a party who is willing to use the authoritarian playbook to their own ends. Today it’s government documents, but how long before it’s a private individual whom they want to embarrass or to encourage police intervention? We watched the Conservatives (with the assistance of the Bloc and the NDP) haul one of the partners from GC Strategies before the bar of the House of Commons, against his doctor’s wishes because he was in the midst of a mental health crisis, because they wanted to embarrass him publicly. It looks like we’re about to get something similar with Randy Boissonnault’s former business partner, who is the subject of the second privilege debate that will be taking place, possibly later today, who has also not turned over demanded documents to the committee as they are on a witch-hunt to find “corruption” that the Ethics Commissioner has repeatedly found no evidence of. And as a reminder, there has been no evidence of any criminal behaviour with the SDTC allegations, but they are trying to find that evidence using the most ham-fisted and abusive methods possible.

Having parliament go after private citizens because they’re on private little crusades, mostly for the benefit of social media clicks, is a terrifying prospect for the future, and yet we are careening down that pathway. Speaker Fergus has been useless in putting his foot down against the abuse of Parliament’s powers in this way, and we may yet be in for another Supreme Court of Canada showdown on defining these powers and when parliamentary privilege because state-sanctioned harassment. But in the meantime, we’ll see the Conservatives drag out these privilege debates in order to derail the government’s agenda, because that’s the level of absolute dysfunction we’re at.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian guided bomb struck an apartment block in Kharkiv late Wednesday, injuring at least ten civilians. There were also drone attacks on port infrastructure in Odesa and attacks on power systems in Sumy region. Ukrainian forces are withdrawing from Vuhledar after two years of grinding combat, which some describe as a microcosm of the current state of the conflict.

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QP: Full of shameless slogans

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It being Wednesday, proto-PMQ day, the prime minister was present, while his deputy was elsewhere. All of the other leaders were also present, and for a second day in a row, before things could get started, a new MP was introduced to the Chamber, this time for the NDP. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he worried about a recent report on housing costs in Montreal, and demanded an election. Justin Trudeau said that slogans don’t build homes or meet Canadians’ needs, and that meant hard work, in partnership with municipalities. Poilievre took undue credit for conditions when he as “housing minister,” and made a list of false claims to demand an election. Trudeau said that the Conservative don’t really want to cut taxes because they voted against removing the GST on rentals, and didn’t have a plan. Poilievre kept going in French to denounce capital gains taxes before switched to English to demand an election. Trudeau, in both languages, said they are asking the wealthiest to pay a little more to build more housing. Poilievre claimed that New Brunswick was challenging the carbon levy in court (not actually true), and demanded an election. Trudeau pointed out that provinces have all lost at the Supreme Court when challenging the levy, and they won three elections on the carbon price. Poilievre read the bullshit from Scott Moe that the carbon levy means firing teachers and nurses, and again demanded an election. Trudeau said that Poilievre wants to abandon the fight against climate change and take away the rebates people rely on.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and claimed that the seniors minister said that the seniors groups on the Hill yesterday were separatists. Trudeau said that the government was already there for seniors, and that they weren’t interested in petty partisan games. (Well…) Blanchet note that the House of Commons, in different capacities, has voted for their OAS bill (which is ultimately not voteable) and demanded the PM bring his minster to order. Trudeau trotted the various times the Bloc vote against seniors.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and blamed the federal government for rental increases by “corporate landlords.” Trudeau noted the things the government was doing for affordable housing. Singh then worried about unsuitable housing for Indigenous people, decrying delays, and Trudeau noted the tripling of investments and that they are investing with Indigenous communities, and that they were actually delivering.

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Roundup: The Bloc vs the Senate

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The Bloc Québécois are getting a taste of what the Senate does and why, and they’re not happy. The Senate has been slow-walking Bill C-282, which aims to forbid a government from negotiating any further reductions to Supply Management in trade negotiations, and it’s a bad bill. Nevertheless, it passed the House of Commons, because MPs are sometimes sentimental fools and will vote for things that they think are feel-good without actually thinking through the consequences. This was one such bill, where MPs voted on it nearly unanimously because they fell all over themselves to show how much they all loved Supply Management, neverminded that it’s a bad bill. Now that it’s in the Senate, with some actually knowledgeable former senior civil servants in the Chamber who know what they’re talking about have the bill in their hands, and they’re not giving it an easy ride.

The essential complaint is that the bill constrains the royal prerogative around trade negotiations, which could have serious consequences down the road. I’m not sure it’s quite as serious as that—you can’t really bind future governments and this bill, should it pass, could be easily repealed (say, in the next budget implementation bill), but there won’t be an easy passage on this, and for good reason. The Senate exists to put a check on the populist excesses of the House of Commons, which is why they have an absolute veto (only exercised in extreme circumstances, mind you), and who can say “Hey, you guys didn’t do your due diligence, so now we’re going to.” It is their raison d’être, whether MPs like it or not, and it’s especially important for private members’ bill because they are pre-time allocated under the rules and get very little scrutiny, even when they really need it.

The Bloc, however, are trying blackmail. In Question Period yesterday, they were demanding that the government tell senators to pass the bill, or they’ll topple the government. But the government can’t tell the Senate what to do, and as I mentioned in a previous post, there is no mechanism by which the Government Leader in the Senate could fast-track such a bill, even if they wanted to, because it’s a private member’s bill. Furthermore, with a Chamber of mostly-independent senators who have a job until age 75, they are not bothered if the government falls. The blackmail doesn’t really work on them because their seats aren’t in jeopardy, and I’m not sure what the Bloc thinks they’re doing, particularly in trying to blackmail the government into passing this bill as well as their OAS bill (which remains unvoteable as they are unlikely to get a royal recommendation). In either case, they are learning the hard way that the Senate is not a rubber stamp and they can’t expect to order it around as though it were.

Ukraine Dispatch

Three people were killed in a Russian missile attack on the central city of Kryvyi Riv, and another three were killed in a drone attack on the southern city of Izmail. Nine children taken to Russia during the invasion have now been returned to their families in Ukraine thanks to help from Qatar.

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Roundup: An own-goal that makes it worse for everyone

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It was an own-goal for the media today as CTV was found to have spliced a Poilievre quote in a news story and was forced to apologise for it. Of course, this had every single Conservative salivating and insisting that this was “proof” of “fake news” and that media were trying to be unfair to Poilievre, and that this was in service of their government funding (which television outlets like CTV don’t get), and other ridiculous accusations of bias. Because that’s where we are now.

While I don’t personally know what happened, what is likely to have happened was you had someone trying to fit the story into their both-sides narrative frame and needed a short quote, and took the long paragraph from Poilievre and extracted words to come up with what they were looking for to fit the piece. It’s bad practice, but it’s almost certainly not done with malevolent intention, but because they’re overworked, under-resourced, and lacking proper editorial supervision, as with nearly every outlet these days. Because that’s where every media outlet is at, and it’s not sustainable, and things are going to continue to deteriorate if we try to keep doing what we’re doing.

This being said, the Conservatives’ war against the media is only going to get worse, and this incident, plus others, shows that they have a vested interest in catching out every single mistake from media, or to invent problems where they didn’t actually exist. For example, Poilievre likes to go on about the three corrections that The Canadian Press made to a story about his remarks, but the “corrections” were because the writer had spelled out what Poilievre was only referring to obliquely (quite deliberately) and Poilievre complained that he didn’t say what the story says he did, even though he actually did if you thought about it for more than five seconds. But this is the kind of petty, bad-faith bullshit that they’re going to engage in, and most of our media outlets are unprepared to deal with it. Legacy media is in serious trouble in this country, and it’s only going to get worse as this campaign against them from Poilievre intensifies.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian forces made a new series of strikes on Zaporizhzhia, killing one. At the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague, Ukraine is accusing Russia of trying to illegally seize control of the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait. President Zelenskyy is in the US, not only to attend the UN, but to discuss his “victory plan” with the American government.

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Roundup: Speaker Fergus on the spot in new privilege battle

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The brewing privilege battle over the Sustainable Development Technologies Canada documents is largely going under-reported, save for the National Post, but it’s going to be an interesting showdown with the Speaker about the refusal to turn over these documents. The government’s argument is that the stated purpose for demanding these documents is not for Parliamentary business, such as committee study, but because they intend to be turned over to the RCMP, which is in and of itself a problem because it does violate the separation of powers and really, really looks like politicians trying to direct the police (who have said that they don’t want the documents, because it would violate the Charter rights of any accused). I think this is a sound argument, and one that is necessary because of the ongoing abuses of privilege that the past couple of parliaments have engaged in.

Yes, Parliament has unfettered authority to send for the production of papers, but there have to be limits on this privilege, or it can be abused, and I think that this case demonstrates the limits. The complicating factor is that limits are especially difficult to maintain in a minority parliament situation because all of the opposition parties tend to be all be interested in embarrassing the government at any turn (and this is not unique to this government, but any government). It’s partly why NSICOP was fine during a majority Parliament but became the subject of political manoeuvring during the minority years—because opposition parties will try to use their leverage to embarrass a government or score points when they think they can.

I don’t envy Speaker Fergus in having to make this decision, but this kind of exercise is clearly beyond the pale. It’s not up to MPs to get information on behalf of the RCMP, and that crosses so many red lines that it should be blinding. He’s going to be criticized whatever he makes, but hopefully for the sake of precedent, he makes the right choice and rein in some of this foolishness, because once MPs feel empowered enough to do this to one organisation—SDTC in this case—they’re going to start going after anyone they disagree with ideologically on an increasing base going forward.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russians targeted a geriatric centre in Sumy, as well as the power grid, which a UN body believes is probably against international humanitarian law. Russia says they are ramping up their drone production tenfold (but that may just be all talk, given the sanctions and the availability of components).

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1836807096391676132

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Roundup: First day back, and privilege is being abused

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As you may have read in the QP recap, the first day back was full of general name-calling and childish behaviour. Before QP even got started, Karina Gould called Pierre Poilievre a “fraudster” for his whole “economic nuclear winter” bullshit, while Elizabeth May referred to the NDP as “No Discernible Principles,” and added “It’s fine for Jagmeet Singh to say that he doesn’t listen to Pierre Poilievre, but Pierre Poilievre’s words come out of Jagmeet Singh’s mouth.” Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet said the situation was akin to playing chicken with four cars, and suspected that an election may wind up happening sooner than later. That said, the Bloc said they won’t vote for any confidence motion that calls for the destruction of the carbon levy, so that’s something.

The bigger issue that has been revived, however, is the demand that the opposition parties voted for regarding documents related to Sustainable Development Technologies Canada (SDTC), which the Conservatives deride as the “green slush fund” (when it was their government that set it up). The demand for these documents is an absolute abuse of parliamentary privilege, and the Auditor General doesn’t want to respond because infringes upon her independence, and the RCMP said they don’t want the documents, which was the point of why the Conservatives moved the motion to demand them in the first place. And political shenanigans from the Conservatives aside, the fact that the Bloc and the NDP couldn’t see where this was going and why this was a Very Bad Idea speaks very poorly to their own understanding of parliament, and why these kinds of privileges shouldn’t be abused (especially the fact that they have been abusing the Law Clerk and his office to do this kind of work when it’s not his job). Most concerning is the fact that using Parliament to get the RCMP to investigate where there is no evidence of criminal activity is a big flashing warning sign of authoritarian tactics of rule by law, instead of rule of law, and we absolutely do not want to go down that path in this country, and the fact that none of the opposition parties could see that this is a problem is really worrying.

Me, regarding the state of #cdnpoli:

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2024-09-16T21:10:06.144Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia claims that they re-took two villages in western Kursk district.

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Roundup: A decision without the grassroots

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There was a shocking announcement out of BC, where the leader of the “BC United” party (former the BC Liberals, which are not the same as the federal Liberal Party) declared that he was suspending his party’s campaign in favour of supporting the upstart BC Conservatives so that they could defeat the provincial NDP in this fall’s election. It’s stunning, and while I don’t really follow BC politics closely, there are a few observations that I am qualified to make from my particular perch.

One of those observations is that BC has a history of parties forming and dissolving in opposition to the NDP, so this is just the latest iteration of the same, and yes, that kind of history does make a difference. The other, more important observation is just how much this was leader-driven, with no real chance to consult or address the grassroots members of the party, which is a very real problem. Political parties are not supposed to belong to their leaders—they are supposed to belong to the grassroots members, many of whom don’t want to have anything to do with the BC Conservatives because the party is led by a climate-denier (he was kicked out of the then-BC Liberal caucus for expressing those sentiments), and is a party that has devoted itself to culture war bullshit (particularly anti-LGBTQ sentiments) and other social conservative nonsense. A lot of right-of-centre but socially progressive voters in the province have every right to be pissed off about this development, because it should be their party and they should be the ones to make the call about whether they will field candidates and run, even if the polls are against them. And if this is an attempted party merger under the rubric of not splitting the anti-NDP vote (and papering over the very big and cultural issues that kept the parties apart since their mutual inception), it’s also being done against the will of the grassroots membership (whose party this is). It sounds like there are a lot of frustrated incumbents and would-be candidates who are incredibly unhappy with this decision, and I’m curious about what kind of fallout will happen, but this kind of move is beyond cynical.

The other thing I noticed during the press conference was the use of catastrophising language with regard to the NDP, and why the BC United leader felt it was necessary to oppose them to the detriment of his own political fortunes. These are supposed to be rivals, not enemies, and yes, that does matter in politics, especially in this day and age where the polarization has become so great because they have personalized it to such a tremendous extent. They should be grown-ups about what has happened here, but I suspect it’ll be mostly a bunch of poll-driven narratives that only serve to alienate the grassroots members, whose party once again is supposed to belong to.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian missile struck Kryvyi Rih, which was already observing an official day of mourning for the previous day’s attack that killed four, while a family of four were killed when a Russian bomb hit a home in Izmailivka in Donetsk region. Ukrainian drones continue to strike oil infrastructure in areas outside of Moscow

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