Tag Archives: RCMP

Roundup: Green wins, and the AG’s report

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After the Green Party won their second seat in Monday night’s by-election in Nanaimo–Ladysmith, it was inevitable that we would be subjected to a litany of hot takes about what this means for the upcoming federal election, most of which I’m not going to bother reading because frankly, I’m not sure it means anything at all. The Greens have been doing well provincially on Vancouver Island, where this riding is, and more than that, this particular candidate was once an NDP candidate who was booted from the party (apparently for views about Israel), and when the Greens picked him up, he won for them, while the NDP vote collapsed. Add to that, Green wins in BC, New Brunswick and PEI were also predicated by incumbent governments who had been in place for a long time (well, in New Brunswick, it was a constant PC/Liberal swap), and that’s not necessarily the case federally. While Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh tried to spin this as “proof” that Canadians care about the environment (for which both will try to tout their party policies on the same) we can’t forget that Canadians want to do something about the environment in the same way that they want a pony – it’s a nice idea that nobody has any intention of following up on because it’s a lot of effort and mess. This has been proven time and again. I would also caution against the notion that this means that “progressive” votes are up for grabs, because the Greens, well, aren’t all that progressive. If you read their platform, it’s really quite socially conservative, and they had whole sections essentially written by “Men’s Rights Activists” because they have little to no adult supervision in their policy development process. So any hot takes you’re going to read about the by-election are probably going to be full of hot air (quite possibly this one as well).

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1125798043905818624

Auditor General’s Report

The big news out of the Auditor General’s report was of course the backlog that the Immigration and Refugee Board faces regarding asylum claimants in Canada. The Conservatives, naturally, have jumped on this to “prove” that the current government has somehow broken the system, but every single expert that was cited over the day yesterday said that the Liberals inherited a system that was already broken (some went so far as to say that the Conservatives deliberately broke it in order to force a crisis that would allow them to adopt more draconian measures – though those backfired in a spectacular way, worsening the backlog), and that they have taken steps to increase the IRB’s resources. I wrote about some of these issues a while ago, and the IRB was starting to streamline some of their processes and start making use of technology like email (no, seriously) that cut down on some of the bureaucracy they were mired in – but as with anything, these kinds of changes take time to implement and have an effect. But expect the narrative of the “broken” system to continue in the run up to the election. Meanwhile, here are the other reports:

  • Half of Canadians who call a government call centre can’t get through, which is blamed on technology that was allowed to go obsolete
  • The RCMP are still not adequately prepared to deal with active shooter situations.
  • Our tax system hasn’t kept up with e-commerce and needs modernization
  • The mechanism to prevent governments from doing partisan advertising has little documentation and rigour.

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Roundup: Kenney’s a federalist, but…

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Jason Kenney made his triumphant return to Ottawa yesterday, now bearing the title of premier of Alberta, and he went before a Senate committee to a) bluster, and b) warn that if he didn’t get his way that separatist sentiment would rise in Alberta, even though he insisted that he’s a federalist, but this was somehow beyond his control. Erm, except an actual federalist wouldn’t give oxygen to these swivel-eyed loons, nor would someone who was actually concerned about the state of the federation feed them a diet of lies and snake oil to keep them angry for the sake of electoral gain.

Part of Kenney’s bluster was his threatening to launch court challenges against Bill C-69 if it gets passed in its current form, because he claims it intrudes on provincial jurisdiction – but he’s also said a lot of bogus things about the constitutionality of his promises (up to and including his threat about holding a referendum on equalisation, which he is also now equivocating on in the media), so I’m not sure he’s got a lot of credibility to spare in this legal analysis. But these kinds of threats also put me in mind a certain sense of contagion with the court cases around the carbon tax, and according to one environmental lawyer that I interviewed recently for an upcoming article, there is a sense that the provinces are trying to lay out markers in the area of shared jurisdiction, and this may be more of that – provinces trying to grab more power for their own sake.

The thing that really bothers me about Kenney’s “I’m a federalist, but…” line is that he doesn’t seem to care how dangerous it is, and how very antithetical it runs to his so-called “open for business” shtick. Do you know what drives away business investment (beyond destroying certainty by promising to tear up the environmental regime that they were partners in developing and increasing the political risk by constantly threatening lawsuits)? Separatist sentiment. Ask Quebec what it did for them, when all of those national headquarters fled Montreal for Toronto (remember when Montreal used to be the financial capital of Canada?) and their housing market plummeted? Yeah, not sure that’s something that Kenney should be trying to repeat, even if he’s using it as a threat. Beyond that, he can’t just say “I’m a federalist, but…” and not take some responsibility for the anger he’s stoked knowing full well that he can’t deliver on those promises, which will just cause that anger to fester. I know some people are trying to claim that he’s simply trying to channel that separatist sentiment into more harmless paths, but he’s courted it rather than smacked it down. “I’m a federalist, but…” just winks to them, and it’s beyond irresponsible.

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QP: An administrative issue

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Thursday, and Justin Trudeau was off meeting with Jason Kenney, while Andrew Scheer was the only leader present. He led off, railing about further trade actions from China, and Marie-Claude Bibeau assured him that the pork issue was a simple administrative issue that was being resolved. Scheer dismissed the response and carried on with his narrative of Trudeau’s supposed weakness on the world stage and demanded action, to which Bibeau switched to English to repeat that the pork issue was administrative before lobbing a talking point that the Conservatives refused to let their promises be costed. Scheer then railed about the energy sector and claimed the Liberals were trying to kill it, to which Amarjeet Sohi debunked the response by listing the approved pipelines that were completed or nearly so, and that they would ensure projects proceed in the right way. Luc Berthold was up next to repeat the pork issue with China in French, and he got the same response about it being an administrative issue. Berthold railed that China doesn’t respect Canada because we don’t stand up to them (Err, have they spoken to a single China expert?), and Bibeau listed actions they are taking. Peter Julian was up next for the NDP, and he railed about corporations before switching to judicial appointments, to which David Lametti reminded him that they instituted an open and transparent process that is merit-based and has resulted in a more diverse bench. Julian railed about inadequate funding for women’s shelters while Loblaws got funds, to which Maryam Monsef said that they have invested in shelters, in gender based violence prevention, in carve-outs for women as part of the housing strategy, and that the NDP voted against all of it. Karine Trudel repeated the question in French, and Jean-Yves Duclos responded in French about the investments in housing for women. Trudel repeated the torqued question about judicial appointments in French, and Lametti repeated his previous response in French.

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QP: Petty diminution

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The benches were largely, but not completely, full for caucus day, but not all of the leaders were present. Andrew Scheer led off, mini-lectern on desk, and in French, he complained that Canadian tax dollars were being used by China to extend their foreign influence by way of the Asian Infrastructure Bank, and Trudeau took up a script to read that Scheer was misleading Canadians, given that the investment bank had other Western partners, and that they had projects like preventing land slides in Sri Lanka, or flood management in the Philippines. Scheer repeated the question in English, and Trudeau read the English version of the same script. Scheer accused the government of not beating their chests enough, and demanded they pull the funding from said bank, and in response, Trudeau said that they were standing up for Canadians in the world and gave a plug for their new aid package for canola farmers. Scheer claimed it was a Conservative idea, and accused Trudeau of weakness on the international stage, and Trudeau hit back by the Conservative wanted to capitulate on NAFTA, that his government saved CETA and the TPP, that they were working on the canola problem for weeks when the Conservatives had bothered a about for days. Scheer claimed Trudeau was simply being dramatic and then he cued his caucus to join him in shouting that Trudeau had done “nothing!” Trudeau gave an equally forceful retort about a decade of Conservative failures. Brigitte Sansoucy led off for the NDP to rail about the Loblaws contract instead of helping people, and Trudeau reminded her about the middle class tax cut and the Canada Child Benefit that lifted children out of poverty while the NDP voted against those measures. Charlie Angus accused the government of trying to rig judicial appointments, and Trudeau reminded him that they put on a new, transparent and open process. Angus then railed that ten government wasn’t helping the people of Kasheshewan, and Trudeau reminded him that they have been engaged in the file, that they have selected a site and are making plans for the move, but in partnership with the community. Sansoucy repeated the question in French, and Trudeau read the same response in French from a script.

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Roundup: A hung parliament in PEI

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The PEI election did not result in a Green Party majority, because shockingly, the polls were wrong. It did result in a hung parliament, which has never happened before in that province, and yet every single media outlet and then the prime minister himself declared that the progressive conservatives had won a minority. Err, except we don’t know the composition of the next government yet because the lieutenant governor hasn’t invited anyone to form government, and the seat distribution – 12 PC, 8 Green, 6 Liberal – is one where it’s not actually clear that the PCs will form government, as a Green-Liberal coalition remains more than possible. Which isn’t to say that it will happen, but there is a way in which government formation works in a Westminster system, and simply winning the most seats, even if you don’t win a majority, doesn’t mean that you get a chance to form government. It doesn’t work that way! And it would be really great if the media would stop creating this false sense that it works that way, because it doesn’t. And even if the PCs do form government, they will need one of the other parties to prop them up, and that will have a significant effect on the shape of that government. Pre-empting the lieutenant governor’s call simply invites confusion, which we should probably be avoiding.

Happily, the province’s electoral reform referendum also went down in defeat (and this is another place where the urban-rural split will likely be evident). Hopefully this means that the advocates will shut up about it because they keep losing. I know they won’t – they’re convinced that people just don’t understand or are too stupid to realise that PR is so good for them (it’s not), but you would hope that the constant defeats would be some kind of dissuasion.

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Roundup: A trio of justice issues

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There were three major law-related stories in the news yesterday, starting with the announcement that Supreme Court of Canada Justice Clement Gascon has opted to retire early, citing “personal and family reasons.” This was quickly followed by Justin Trudeau announcing that a replacement process would be launched, and would again be headed by Kim Campbell, while the Conservatives followed a few hours later with a demand that this process not go ahead until the leak from the previous process was investigated (though the Privacy Commissioner is already on that case). The thing to remember of course is that there is something of a deadline here, being the election, and it’s more than possible that the Conservatives want this delayed so that they have the possibility of naming the next judge if they should happen to form government in October. For what it’s worth.

The second story was that of the carbon tax reference at the Ontario Court of Appeal, which was live-streamed for the first time in its history. The province’s argument apparently is that if the federal government is allowed to impose a carbon tax, that they’ll start intruding into other areas of provincial jurisdiction, which is…dubious. And it sounds like the judges weren’t having much of that line of reasoning either.

https://twitter.com/cmathen/status/1117808109802663938

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1117809485395816451

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1117811576940060673

The third law story of the day was the revelation that the directive around civil litigation involving Indigenous people that Jody Wilson-Raybould instituted as one of her last acts as justice minister has been fiercely contested within the department because it many cases, it amounts to litigating badly and not actually getting the courts to resolve the legal questions that are at issue, which they argue doesn’t actually help reconciliation because you’re not dealing with underlying issues that require resolution. The piece also noted the frequent and direct political interference that Wilson-Raybould exerted on civil litigation (which she can do as Attorney General, unlike the arm’s length nature of criminal prosecutions), sometimes undermining the arguments that Crown attorneys were trying to advance in the middle of cases. It’s fascinating reading and yet more insight into what was going on with Wilson-Raybould in the lead up to her being shuffled.

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Roundup: Statute or prerogative?

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Because there was (thankfully) not a lot of news this weekend, and I just can’t about the Alberta election right now (seriously, does nobody realize the how much fire they’ve playing with by stoking anger and making unrealistic promises?) I’m instead going to leave you with some food for thought from Philippe Lagassé about the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians’ report and the calls for military intelligence to be a subjected to a statutory framework rather than carrying on operating under Crown prerogative, as they currently are. Enjoy.

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1117440021689016320

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1117441870907330560

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1117444492477353984

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1117447616806047745

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Roundup: Unenforceable garbage legislation

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As expected, the Speaker ruled yesterday that he didn’t have the jurisdiction to police whether or not the different party caucuses adhered to the Reform Act additions to the Parliament of Canada Act, and thus Jane Philpott’s complaints will fall on deaf ears (just as Erin Weir was hoping to belatedly make the same complaints about his own expulsion from NDP caucus). And then we immediately got another wave of self-righteousness over the Twitter Machine about how terrible it was that MPs couldn’t even follow their own laws just after they passed them.

To recap the whole Reform Act saga: It was a dubious prospect from the very start because it was utterly misguided in what it was trying to accomplish, which was to nominally weaken the power of the party leader and strengthen the power of MPs. Everyone was treating this as a rebuke of the “dictatorial” Stephen Harper, so it became this big optics battle, never mind that it would have done nothing about the Conservative caucus and their mood, since the vast majority of them were still convinced that Harper walked on water. And while Michael Chong may have been noble in sentiment, he chose the wrong vehicle to make his proposed changes. The right vehicle would have been reforming leadership selection processes, which are the bane of our system, but he didn’t dare do that, so we got the Reform Act instead. And because no party actually wanted to do more than mouth the platitudes of the bill, they ensured it was so completely neutered in committee and made optional, with no enforcement, that we got the eventual garbage bill passed into law because it felt good to do so.

Here’s the thing: MPs didn’t need this bill to give them any more power. They already had all the power they needed, but they either choose not to exercise it, or don’t know about their own powers because, well, most of them don’t even know their own job descriptions. (This is why I wrote my book). And Chong’s garbage bill actually limited their powers under the guise of strengthening them. But would anyone articulate that at the time (other than me, howling into the void from the pages of the National Post)? Of course not. All of the hollow platitudes were siren song. And so once again, MPs passed a meaningless (but not actually harmless — the bill is actually democratic poison) bill into law with no intention of following through on it, because it felt good. And this kind of thing keeps happening because not enough MPs are serious enough about their actual constitutional roles. We need better informed MPs, or this kind of thing will keep happening.

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QP: Concern trolling over perjury

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The Thursday before the Easter break, and neither Justin Trudeau nor Andrew Scheer were present. That left Alain Rayes to lead off in French, and he demanded that the prime minister commence his legal action right away. Bardish Chagger said that Canadians heard the truth because the PM had the courage go waive any confidences, but the legal letter was sent because the leader of the opposition keeps speaking falsehoods. Rayes dared Chagger again, and Chagger reiterated that they took the first step with the letter. Mark Strahl took over in English, with added bluster, in demanded that the prime minister see his leader in court. Chagger reiterated her points in English, and so Strahl tried again, and again, not that the answer changed. Jagmeet Singh was up next, and he wanted assurances that the government would not interfere with the Director of Public Prosecutions, to which Chagger was concerned that Singh seemed to indicate a lack of confidence in the Ethics Commissioner of other institutions. Singh demanded a public inquiry in French, to which Marc Garneau stood up to say that Canada was cooperating with the OECD. Singh then asked about big banks’ sales practices and worried the government was only worried about big corporations, and Ralph Goodale reminded him that they introduced tougher penalties against banks giving misleading information. Singh tried again in English, and Goodale repeated his response with a tone of exasperation. 

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Roundup: Forcing a partial denunciation

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While Andrew Scheer was goading Justin Trudeau to carry on with his libel lawsuit against him, it seems that Trudeau did manage to get Andrew Scheer to do one thing that he has thus far avoided, which was an actual denunciation of white nationalism, and that he actually said those words rather than talking around them. He didn’t denounce Faith Goldy for appearing with him at that “convoy” rally, and he didn’t say anything about his cherry-picking of wilful blindness of the “Yellow Vest” contingent with their racist and whites supremacist messages at that rally, but it was a start. Baby steps. 

Part of the backdrop for this was an exchange between Senator Leo Housakos and Chrystia Freeland at a Senate committee hearing on Tuesday, where Housakos said he didn’t see any white suprematist threat (which he later said was poorly worded), and Freeland laying down the law on it. 

Amidst this drama, the head of CSIS was appearing at a different Senate committee, this time to talk about Bill C-59, the national security bill, and he did state that the intelligence service was becoming more and more preoccupied with the threat of white nationalists and far-right extremists, even though religious extremism was still one of their largest focuses. It’s something that is of concern and we can’t ignore the winking and nudges that absolutely takes place, or especially the blind eyes that get turned, but we do seem to be having a conversation about it, so that’s probably a good start.

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