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.
Tag Archives: Public Service
Roundup: Of gaffes and grandchildren
I think by this point we can pretty much acknowledge that Joe Oliver is not anyone’s best choice to communicate a message – he wasn’t as Natural Resources minister, with his “foreign-funded radicals” warnings about environmentalists, and certainly not as finance minister given his Tuesday night gaffe with CBC’s Amanda Lang. There, he said that any problems with raising the TFSA limit might not happen until 2080, and that he’d leave it for “Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s granddaughter to solve that problem.” Not only did he admit that there was a problem with it, but he decided it’s best to leave it to the next generation – not to mention his prediction that the Harper family will become some kind of dynastic rules of Canada – because we’ve seen so many of those. When opposition parties made hay of it, Harper came out to defend Oliver’s comments, but we have heard this warning before, from the PBO who drafted a report looking at the hole in future budgets that this kind of measure would create, and it’s not inconsiderable, so no, the question being put to Oliver by Lang was more than reasonable, and it would have been irresponsible for her not to ask it. In other post-budget news, here are the opposition positions on many of the pieces therein. There was mention in the budget about “expanding and modernising” the Honours system, but there are almost no details about what that means other than a new website. Pierre Poilievre said the money being given to the Ottawa police is for “fighting jihadis” – except it’s not, but rather for things like demonstrations or visits by foreign dignitaries. Oops. Mike Moffatt looks at the very optimistic budget projections on the price of oil. The budget nearly doubles what it gives to SIRC, but we’ll see if they’ll be expected to do more with it, given that they are already under-resourced. Paul Wells puts absolutely everybody to shame and writes about the budget as political document, and it’s so on point I want to weep.
Roundup: Arctic Council changing hands
It’s the end of Leona Aglukkaq’s two years as Chair of the Arctic Council on Canada’s behalf, and well, there’s not a lot to show for it. That’s not much of a surprise considering what we’ve seen of Aglukkaq in any of her roles so far. As the Americans prepare to head up their turn as Chair, we’re hearing a lot about their priorities, much of it having to do with climate change – you know, that thing at Aglukkaq likes to scold provincial governments about while doing next to nothing on the file herself, while simultaneously taking credit for the reductions that Ontario achieved by shuttering their coal-fired electricity plants. Aglukkaq instead pats herself on the back for encouraging private sector investment in the Arctic, but we haven’t really heard much in the way of good economic news in the North – instead, we’ve heard much more about the skyrocketing food prices and the lack of political will to do much about Nutrition North, or even for the government to acknowledge that problems exist with it. Like so many things during her time in federal politics, Algukkaq seems absent even from the conversation, so you can’t even say that she’s more talk than action. I’m not sure why anyone might have expected this to go any differently.
Roundup: A possible return to deficits
The Parliamentary Budget Officer gave his pre-budget analysis, and said that while the books look balanced this year, the government’s continued focus on tax breaks, spending announcements and the low oil price environment could mean heading back into deficit in two years – not too surprising really if you’ve been paying attention. Part of the fiscal breathing room the government is using right now is coming from their decision to freeze EI rates rather than let them fall to a level that reflects the actual unemployment rate, which sounds a lot like the kinds of things they used to curse Paul Martin for doing. And then there are the asset sales, such as all of those GM shares – possibly sold at a loss – that just pad the books in the short term. But hey, they can claim to balance the budget without raising taxes (err, except for all of those tariffs that they raised this year) and try and sell that as sound economic management going into the election. The actual numbers tell a different story, as we’ve seen, but hey, why mess with a narrative?
Roundup: The unspoken morale problem
As the results of the Senate audit draw closer, and senators are complaining anonymously about the way in which it’s being handled by the Auditor General’s office (and those that they’ve subcontracted to), what has been missing from the reporting is the blow to morale that has taken place in the institution. The constant air of suspicion, the questioning of expenses that should be no problem (like stamps for Xmas cards being sent to the States, or as the article describes, single phone calls and sandwiches) has made not only for some unhappy senators and staff, but it’s sucked the life out of the place, and their focus on the grown-up policy work of parliament – which we should expect from the Commons but don’t end up getting – is being completely sidetracked by the way this audit is being handled, and the time that it is consuming. It’s also to the point of invasive, where one senator mentioned that she had been asked for her personal journals by auditors. And the problem has become that because of the actions of those couple of bad apples – Duffy, Wallin, Brazeau, and Harb – that all senators are under a cloud of suspicion and are unable to push back without it looking like they have something to hide, rather than the fact that there is a genuine feeling like they are being abused by auditors who don’t understand the role of the Senate. One does have to wonder if there won’t be any long-term damage to what is going on, especially as blame is being laid on the institution, and not on the person who made appointments without due diligence.
Roundup: Gearing up the political advertising
As we move closer to an election, there is going to be a lot of talk about political ads. An awful lot of talk. One of those talks is going to be about third-party advertising, and how much we’ll see because the federal spending limits are low as to render them fairly marginal, not that it’s stopped groups like Unifor or the National Citizens Coalition from grousing that the limits are too small for them to be of any good. Curiously, Stephen Harper used to be against these kinds of limits but he’s been in power for nine years and has done nothing about it, but you’ll have to guess as to why he’s had such a change of heart. Another thing we’ll see more of are social media ads which are cheap to produce and distribute, and can be used to refine and retool until they are considered “ready” to go for a major national buy – assuming that they don’t already get “earned” attention from news outlets without them having to actually pay for them to get wide distribution. Of course, we can look forward to being bombarded by ads outside of the writ period over the summer, so we should all be thoroughly sick of it by the time the election rolls around in October.
Roundup: Yes, governing is political
Your best political read of the weekend was a Twitter essay from Philippe Lagassé, so I’ll leave you to it.
https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/569515068326457344
https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/569515450780020736
https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/569515909972434945
https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/569516334192701440
https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/569516761273532418
https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/569517336677507073
https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/569517603938369536
https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/569517862274142209
https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/569518893456171008
https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/569530939325296641
https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/569531442990088193
https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/569532019685908480
https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/569532280991055872
Lagassé, who was part of the fighter jet replacement options analysis task force, reminded us then as reminds us now that we need to stop behaving like we should be in a technocracy, that there are political considerations and debates that need to be had, and that ministers decide things for which there is always a political calculation. This is not a bad thing, though we may disagree with the final decision. The great thing is that we can hold those who made the decisions to account – something you can’t really do in a technocracy, so can we please stop pretending that it’s the way our system is supposed to operate?
Roundup: The Adams nomination
Day three of the Eve Adams floor crossing fallout, and once you wade through some of the sexist columns and tiresome Biblical references, a few things start to emerge. Adams had a very interesting interview on CP24 yesterday, and the host pressed her on a lot of issues and Adams seemed to have some coherent answers about changing her mind about income splitting when Flaherty came out with his objections, and that she was a loyal foot soldier for the Conservatives so their excuses about being happy to be rid of her are ringing hollow. She also said that she would be moving to riding she plans to run in, Eglington Lawrence, and that has already begun reaching out to the community there. The riding president says she’s welcome to run, but reminds everyone that it’s an open nomination. Trudeau told the media while in Winnipeg that he gave some reflection to accepting Adams into the fold, and said that it was Adams’ willingness to do the tough slog to win a difficult riding was what convinced him – and I think that’s borne out it in the fact that it’s going to be an open, contested nomination, and that Adams is going to have to do the hard work of convincing the grassroots members that she is the leopard who has changed her spots. And it’s going to be tough – here is one of the nomination candidates that she will be running against, and it’s going to be tough for her to beat someone of his credentials. I also believe that having Adams lose in a fair fight is part of Trudeau’s actual plan, where he gets the news value of her embarrassing the PM and then saying that the open nomination system worked. The fact that she was slotted into the riding’s nomination race without consultation seems to fit with that fact. But then again, what do I know?
Roundup: The problem with SIRC
Of the many hats that Bob Rae has worn over his long and storied careers in Canadian politics, one of them was as a member of the Security and Intelligence Review Committee for a period of five years. Remember, this is the body that the government claims is providing oversight to CSIS, and that they’re “robust,” “doing a good job,” and “are the envy of the world.” No, seriously – they have said all of those things. Rae, meanwhile, notes that SIRC has limited resources for the size of the job they have, but more than that, they haven’t been paid attention to by the government itself. In other words, no matter what their reports say, and how scathing they are, the government’s response is pretty much to pat them on the head, say thanks, and ignore them. Issues like the limited mandate and compartmentalisation of what they’re supposed to be reviewing makes their jobs almost impossible to get a proper picture. The Privacy Commissioner has pointed out that the silos make their own job difficult to do because they can’t see what’s going on either. And then there are security agencies like CBSA – which gained a lost of powers post-9/11 – who have no independent oversight at all. But hey, any oversight is just “needless red tape” – also a phrase this government has used – and would somehow detract from trying to fight terrorists. All of this just adds to the fact that giving CSIS new powers without any additional oversight sounds like a more alarming proposition all the time.
Roundup: Candour, oversight, and the lack thereof
As Parliament debates a pair of bills on expanding the powers of CSIS, a case involving CSIS and foreign wiretaps was granted leave by the Supreme Court, meaning it’ll be heard sometime later this year. Why this is important is because it involves a Federal Court judge chastening CSIS for basically misleading the court into what they were going to do with a warrant they obtained, and if you’ve paid attention to what the Conservatives has been saying about their new anti-terror bill this past week, it’s been a lot of “we don’t need oversight because they’ll need judicial warrants!” Well, as this case shows, sometimes CSIS doesn’t tell these judges the truth when they go to get those warrants, so you see where the problem lies. Meanwhile, Terry Milewski shows us the times when SIRC didn’t really do their job when it comes to overseeing CSIS – just as the government insists that they’re “robust oversight.” Oh, and there were those times when CSIS wasn’t really honest with SIRC either. But by all means, let’s keep insisting that the status quo of a review committee is just fine instead of actual oversight. Nothing to see here, move along. And while the government continues to insist that oversight over intelligence agencies are “needless red tape,” Aaron Wherry reminds us that red tape is pretty much the role of Parliament, meant to constrain the powers of government.