Tag Archives: Public Service

Roundup: Application versus consultation

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The head of the new Senate Appointment Advisory Board appeared at the Procedure and House Affairs committee yesterday, and has raised a few issues about this new process that are a bit troubling, which has to do with applications – rather, that there seems to be an emphasis on application rather than nominations arising out of consultations. In particular, the ability for people to apply for a seat on their own seems to be at odds with some of the design of the advisory process. Emmett Macfarlane notes that this wasn’t how he envisioned the process when he was asked to help design it, and that it not only overly bureaucratizes the process, but it sets it up for a particularly unsavoury sort to want to apply, which I concur with. Why is this important? Because we’ve only spent the past number of months watching the trial of a certain Mike Duffy, who was well known for wanting desperately to become a senator for decades, and how he viewed such an appointment as a “taskless thanks” which would also provide him with all manner of perquisites – and witness how he managed to monetize all of his relationships as a result of his appointment, as we’ve witnessed in testimony. We also lived though the bizarre spectacle that was Bert Brown, “elected” senator whose self-appointed crusade for Senate reform comprised largely of unsolicited meetings with provinces to convince them of his plan (on the Senate’s dime), and taking to the op-ed pages to basically call his detractors Nazis (I’m not sure how else you take it when he reminds you of his family’s military service in WWII as a rebuttal). Some of the best senators we’ve seen are those who never expected an appointment, and who never would have sought office on their own – people like Roméo Dallaire. It’s also why I’m not sold on the NDP fear that this process will just be elites nominating elites – a broad enough consultation will bring people of accomplishment and expertise in a wide variety of fields than just academia. But at the same time, the Senate should be a place that rewards experience and expertise rather than being a repository for randoms, given their role to scrutinise legislation and act as the country’s premier think tank. I have a hard time seeing how hot dog vendors can fulfil those roles, no matter how many people they interact with in a day.

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Roundup: Looking to avoid mistakes

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The defence minister’s slow rollout of the new plans going forward in the Iraq mission to combat ISIS has been providing the government an opening in which to be attacked by both sides, but when Harjit Sajjan hits back against the government, there have been a few cries by the Conservatives that are a wee bit defensive. When Sajjan suggests that there were failures, the Conservatives wonder aloud if that means the girls who are going to school, or the humanitarian work that’s been done over the years. Sajjan, who was on the ground in Afghanistan for three tours, and has mused openly about looking to avoid the same kinds of mistakes, has plenty of ammunition to choose from. Read any book about the mission, and you’ll find countless examples of problems of poor management, poor communication, and as Sajjan has noted, unintended consequences of actions we’ve taken that helped our enemies in the longer term, particularly with recruitment. That he wants to take the time to get a new mission on the ground in Iraq right is hardly surprising in this context, but everyone demands answers. Meanwhile, Canada’s in the bottom third of allies in NATO for defence spending, which shouldn’t surprise anyone, though it has noted that capability and spending levels are not necessarily the same thing, and that countries who meet spending targets are generally useless.

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Roundup: 10 grievances aired

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“It’s a new way to interview the prime minister!” CBC declared, as they promoted their latest gimmick – their “face-to-face” special with the prime minister, in which they selected ten Canadians from around the country to come to Ottawa, and each have a ten minute conversation with Justin Trudeau about whatever their issue is. I watched the one-hour special (not the individual interviews – sorry, but I try to have a life), and was underwhelmed. Why? Because it wasn’t actually interviewing the PM – it was ten people coming largely with a personal grievance to be aired.

While the CBC pats itself on the back about this little exercise, and good on them for trying it, I just felt like there actually wasn’t anything new here. That Trudeau agreed to do this wasn’t a surprise in the least – connecting with “ordinary Canadians” is his shtick. He spent the better part of the past three years doing just that. If the last guy agreed to do this – that would be news. Trudeau? Not so much. That it feeds into this toxic narrative that there is an “Ottawa bubble” that must be broken out of is also annoying, because it presumes that the higher-level discussions that happen here aren’t important or that they don’t matter to “ordinary Canadians” when everything that happens here does impact, whether they see it or not. And with these airing of grievances, what I saw demonstrated was an expectation from these “ordinary Canadians” that the prime minister must not only have facile solutions to complex problems – many of which are not even within his own jurisdiction – but that there was an expectation that he personally should be doing something for them, and for their personal situation. Is this the expectation that people have about the way that politics works? That there is some kind of entitlement that voters have for their problems to be solved if they complain to the people in office about them? Maybe this is a reflection of who the CBC chose for their ten people, and that it’s not more reflective of the broader population as a whole. Suffice to say, I came away from the whole thing feeling worse for having watched it, but then again, maybe I’m not the audience for these kinds of things.

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Roundup: Forcing internal reform

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With the Senate back in session, the uncertainties of how it will operate in this new environment are starting to make themselves be seen. With each passing day, the lack of Senate Question Period becomes a little more awkward, and until new government legislation starts coming down the pipe, much of their debates right now are about just how they plan to organize themselves. Part of these are the debates about breached privileges – not only the continuation of the investigation of the prima facia breach from the previous parliament about the leak of the AG report, but also Senator Housakos’ complaint that the lack of a government representative doesn’t allow senators to properly do their jobs, and a new complaint today about how the rights of independent senators are being breached in the way that committees are currently organising themselves. In this case it was Senator Wallace, who recently left the Conservative caucus of his own volition, essentially complaining that he couldn’t get a committee assignment that he’d asked for (and the only one that was offered to him he turned down). And it’s already been raised in this parliament that the way committee assignments are determined are a problem for independent senators, and it’s a debate that needs to be had – particularly if there is to be a new batch of independent senators on the way in (though I don’t expect them all to remain independent, nor should they, really). And until some real work starts to land on the Senate’s docket, these kinds of organizational debates are going to dominate for the weeks to come, which may start to reshape how the organisation functions as a whole. If Trudeau did one thing in his non-constitutional Senate reform promise, it was to force the chamber to reform itself from within. One just hopes that the end result hasn’t broken it for the sake of better optics.

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Roundup: “Elected” senatorial whinging

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One of Alberta’s “senators in waiting” is grumbling about the current Senate appointment process, believing that the people of Alberta “have spoken” when they chose his name from a list to one day fill a Senate seat for that province. The problem, of course, is that the Supreme Court declared that whole process – which was a bit of a farce from its very inception – unconstitutional. If one wants Senate elections, they need a constitutional amendment with the seven-provinces-representing-fifty-percent-of-the-population amending formula. And don’t give me the “but it’s a non-binding election” line either, as Justice Cromwell very rightly pushed back during the Senate Reference hearings, “why not hold a consultative auction then? Is that any less valid?” The thing with the excuse for Senate elections as they have existed in this country so far is that they don’t actually provide any form of accountability is because they are for a non-renewable term. With an election, the re-election is where the accountability comes in. Anyone can get elected, no matter how terrible – we’ve seen untold number of examples of this in the past, and with the process that Alberta put into place, most of their Senate “elections” were just names on a ballot – most of the time, there was little advertising, there were no televised debates, and generally only one party participated as the Liberals boycotted the process and the NDP had no interest seeing as they want the Senate abolished anyway. At least when you have MPs who more or less accidentally get elected, you can judge them the next time around to see whether they did a good job or not (and we got a taste of this with the demise of many of those NDP MPs who got elected in the “Orange Wave” in 2011). Complicating the process in the Alberta conception of Senate “consultative elections” was the notion that they were based on provincial party nominations which don’t necessarily correspond to the federal parties that Senators caucus in (or at least used to until a couple of years ago), and what would one’s platform be anyway? It’s pretty hard to make legislative promises as a Senator, and promising transparency in spending is a sideshow compared to the actual legislative duties that they are expected to perform. And if memory serves, none of the “elected” Senators that Harper appointed have put forward any bills in the Senate either. One of them is also now concern trolling about the new “independent” senators as not being accountable to a party caucus, which makes one wonder why the big fuss about electing a Senator if one simply expects them to follow party lines despite the fact that the place was created with institutional independence for the very sake of pushing back against the government. Nevertheless, the Conservatives’ democratic reform critic has decried the new Senate appointments process as an “insult to Alberta” (erm, what part of unconstitutional don’t you understand?) and now we get these demands that the results of this sham election be considered regardless of the process or the Supreme Court’s judgment. The Senate was not designed to simply create 105 new backbenchers for the Commons. It would be nice if people stopped insisting as though that were the case, which is precisely what these “elections” have given us.

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Roundup: Some answers on the Senate question

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That Senate bat-signal? It came with air raid sirens today. To recap, the government named Senator George Furey as the new Senate Speaker, which was a positive step, then they handed down their plan for their new appointment process, and amidst this all, Conservative Senator Jacques Demers quit caucus to sit as an independent. So where to begin? Well, with Furey’s appointment, it lays to rest issues around whether the government would ignore their obligation to make the appointment, and to the questions of what to do with Housakos after the allegations of his breaching senators’ privilege with the AG leaks. Senator Elaine McCoy was disappointed that Senators couldn’t choose their own Speaker, but I’m not sure she’s aware that it would require a constitutional amendment for that to happen (but one with a minor amending formula, granted). And then there the appointment panel – it’s designed much like the Vice-Regal Appointments Commission, with three permanent federal members and two ad hoc members per province with a vacancy, and they will draw up a short list for each vacancy for the Prime Minister to choose from. It’s constitutional and creates the atmosphere for the Senate to change from within, based on the recommendations from Emmett Macfarlane. The plan is to draw up a temporary process to name five Senators quickly in the New Year (two each for Manitoba and Ontario plus one for Quebec, where the representation levels are getting low), and the permanent process will then take over and fill the remaining vacancies, plus new ones as they happen. The plan is also that the provincial will give input on the appointment of board members from their province (though the federal government will appoint them for the temporary process). Christie Clark said that she’s not interested in participating, which is fine – the government can appoint BC representatives for the committee without her government’s input, and the same with Brad Wall if he joins her obstinacy. It was also announced that one of those five first appointments will be named the government leader in the Senate, but that they won’t be in cabinet and will be more of an administrator or a legislative coordinator, thus impacting on the accountability aspect (which I will write about in a future piece). It does provide a bit more clarity, however, but much remains to be worked out. As for Demers, I have little sympathy for his whinging that he didn’t want to vote on certain bills when he was in caucus, but he did it out of loyalty “to the team,” and to Harper. He had a choice. He singled out Bill C-377, which four other of his colleagues either voted against or abstained on in the final vote when they found the intestinal fortitude to do so. He could have joined them but chose not to, and only now leaves once Harper is gone. He’s a grown-up and had choices all this time.

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Roundup: A dubiously predicted rejection

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There are days when the Senate bat-signal shines in the sky, and I’m likely to sigh and say “Oh, you again.” And it’s one of those times, wherein the Hill Times writes a screaming headline about Liberal senators saying they’ll oppose an appointed Government Leader, only for the story to be about one unnamed Senate Liberal source (not even necessarily a senator) saying that they might objet to an appointment, but no one really knows because it’s all up in the air. So, chalk another one up for hyperbole without any real basis for it. Now, it does seem like there are some issues that need to be sorted, such as whether they count as a Recognized Party for budget reasons when it comes to leadership, but that would seem to me to be an issue that they could solve internally as the Senate is self-governing. And for sure, the sense of uncertainty amongst Senate Liberals is likely getting frustrating because I’m sure they’d like to know if there will be things like Senate Question Period still carrying on without a member of the government to hold to account, or how they will shepherd government bills through the Chamber, or even how they will organise seating (as there really isn’t a government and opposition side any longer), but again, it’s all up in the air. One does hope that the Liberals on the Commons side will start getting more communicative about what’s going on, seeing as having a functioning Parliament would be a good thing to get sorted, but it seems that we have to remain patient a little longer. Hyperbolic headlines don’t help.

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Roundup: Action on assisted dying

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We’re now less than a week away from the opening of Parliament, and there’s a lot for the Liberals to do. One of those things is deciding what to do about the assisted dying file, and it looks like the Liberals have planned to strike a special joint committee of MPs and senators to quickly examine the issue and provide some legislative recommendations to the government. Remember that the deadline the Supreme Court gave the government is February 6th, and they haven’t decided if they will as the Court for an extension – one they may not be granted, and one where that extension will be a burden to those on the ground who may actually need the law in a timely fashion. There are a couple of reasons why the inclusion of senators in the process is noteworthy – one is that it can help to speed up the process of passing the inevitable legislation, because it can be like a bit of pre-study, getting them involved earlier in the process in order to speed up their own deliberations on the bill when it arrives. The other reason is that the Senate was debating a bill on doctor-assisted dying in the last parliament, which had been sponsored by Conservative Senator Nancy Ruth, based on her consultations with former MP Stephen Fletcher, and had workable solutions to some of the issues raised in protecting the vulnerable. That bill was debated over several days at second reading, but never was voted on to send to committee, likely because of some foot-dragging, but that debate happened, and those same senators are still there. If it’s something that can help speed the process, it’s not a bad idea that they’re in the loop and participating in solving the problem, which could potentially get legislation in the system before that Supreme Court deadline, and with a little luck, they won’t need to ask for an extension.

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Roundup: Concern trolling on bombers and refugees

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In the wake of Friday’s attacks in Paris, and Trudeau’s trip to the G20 in Turkey, we seem to have been inundated with a whole lot of calls to carry on the bombing mission in Iraq and Syria, coupled with all manner of concern trolling from Conservative MPs and others to slow down on the refugee pledges for “security screening,” never mind that there have yet to be any verifiable links between the attackers and any actual refugees from the region. (Most of what we’ve heard has been about homegrown attackers, along with a couple of passports of dubious authenticity). Michael Petrou makes the case that keeping up the fight against ISIS with the bombing mission is evidence-based policy (plus has a video of Syrian refugees in France here), while Terry Milewski gives a look at what the mission has accomplished to date, and notes Canada’s participation in some recent victories in the region. Wesley Wark says that the aftermath of Paris shows that Canada needs to up its intelligence game. After sparring with Jason Kenney over the Twitter Machine, Paul Wells lays the smackdown on Conservatives doing backseat ministering without actually looking critically at their own policy – which is still being enacted in the region – while they second-guess what the voters decided pretty clearly on October 19th. (And it’s an amazing piece that you really must read).

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Roundup: A muzzle or a distasteful incident

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The neutrality of the civil service has been an issue lately, with the distasteful episode of the cheering (and booing) at Global Affairs last Friday on the one hand, and to a certain extent, the “un-muzzling” of scientists on the other. Michael Petrou explores the former issue here, while Paul Booth offers some advice for the “un-muzzled” here, noting that there is a balance to be struck between talking about one’s research while at the same time maintaining their role of civil servants where they are not supposed to be critical of the government of the day if they want to keep their jobs, because they have a role to play. At the heart of both is that they ultimately serve the Queen and not the government of the day, no matter how much their advice or carrying out of government policy is criticised. While ink has been spilled on the cheering as being proof that the Conservatives were right to be suspicious of “official Ottawa,” one has to note a few different thing, including simple demographics – polling data repeatedly shows, time and time again, that education levels will affect political preferences, with the Conservatives scoring best among those who only have high school diplomas, while those who have attained increasing levels of higher education increasingly support Liberals. The vast majority of the civil service is university-educated, so their sympathy with the Liberals should not be a surprise. Should they have cheered Trudeau? Probably not. I will note that for context, the one clip I saw of the cheering happened after Trudeau said that he would be taking their advice unlike the previous government, while the booing of that journalist’s questions were both to the fact that they crashed a private event, and that it was a question for which an answer had already been given earlier in the day. Not that this should excuse what happened, because they should have known better, and I know plenty of other civil servants who were also critical of what happened there. But on the other hand, we should also note that they are human, and that the Conservatives exacerbated any distrust of the civil service with excessive dickish behaviour (such as Diane Finley walking into a department she was taking over and telling the staff that they were all Liberals and that she would clean up the joint). We should hope that this kind of incident doesn’t happen again, and it may very well not. I’m also not sure how helpful it is to light our hair on fire about it either, but I could very well be wrong about that.

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