While the PM was fresh off the plane from New York to attend QP, just in time for his photo-PMQ exercise. Andrew Scheer led off, reading some condemnation about a child murderer being transferred from a federal prison to an Aboriginal healing lodge. Trudeau said that they have asked officials to review the decision. Scheer repeated the question in English, demanding action and not a review, and Trudeau read the same response in English. Scheer demanded that the PM reverse the decision, and this time, Trudeau read a response from Steven Blaney when he was minister in 2013 about the government not controlling the security classification. Scheer insisted that the government had tools to use to reverse the decision, to which Trudeau said that she was always classified as medium security, and they were ensuring that people do their jobs. Scheer laid on the fears that parents have about this kind of killer, and Trudeau said he would let Canadians make the determination as to who is politicising the situation, and that the prisoner in question remained in a medium security facility. Ruth Ellen Brosseau led off for the NDP, pointing to outstanding gender inequities in the Indian Act. Trudeau responded that they had taken great steps, but still had work to do. Rachel Blaney repeated the question in English, and this time Trudeau read a statement saying that the numbers in the media were inflated and incorrect, but they were still working to reform the Indian Act. Niki Ashton demanded housing for First Nations, and Trudeau said that they were moving forward to correct the situation with $8.6 billion in investments, and that their forthcoming National Housing Strategy has an Indigenous component. Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet repeated the question in French, and Trudeau reiterated the same response.
Tag Archives: Status of Women
Roundup: Oh noes! Girls in STEM!
Yesterday’s online sniping between MPs had to do with a profile of Conservative MP Rachael Harder in the Globe and Mail. In it, Harder (again) bemoaned that she feels the Liberals are trying to push their own version of feminism and added in some garden-variety whinging that the government apparently has it in for Christians (despite the fact that the PM himself has said that he’s a practicing Catholic). But Harder’s “proof” of how the government is pushing their own version of feminism is – wait for it – the fact that they’re spending money to encourage more girls to get interested in STEM careers. Wow. Such ideology!
@RachaelHarderMP – girls/women aren’t opting out of STEM because of lack of interest. They lack opportunity and are up against societal barriers that prevent them from pursuing these fields as demonstrated by decades of research.
— Jennifer Flanagan (@ActuaCEO) July 3, 2018
I will add that part of the Twitter sniping had to do with the fact that the Liberals blocked the attempt to have Harder installed as chair of the Status of Women committee, and once again, nobody has bothered to point out the fact that as critic, it would not only have been inappropriate for her to be Chair, but it would have made zero sense given that committee chairs are supposed to act in a neutral capacity and not vote unless it’s to break a (rare) tie – something that is antithetical to the role of critic that Harder held. And the fact that Andrew Scheer tried to manoeuvre her into the position was a cynical ploy to make the Liberals look like intolerant bigots (and they took the bait), but nobody dares to call that fact out. Instead, we get Harder and her supporters whinging about how mean the Liberals are to her, while Harder herself seems mystified that a party that prides itself on defending the Charter rights of Canadians would have a problem with an adherent to an ideology that would deny LGBT people full equality and which tells women that they shouldn’t have control over their bodies when it comes to reproduction. You can disagree with it, but don’t act like it’s a surprise that they draw a line there.
https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1014212083012063232
https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1014321593047224321
Roundup: Questions about Scheer’s assertions
Andrew Scheer went to Calgary yesterday to talk to that city’s Chamber of Commerce and said a few things that I feel should probably stand a bit of questioning. Like the fact that he thinks it’s a “red flag” to use taxpayer funds to backstop the Trans Mountain expansion pipeline. And it’s fair that there’s scepticism about governments essentially subsidizing private business, but it’s his assertion that “governments investing tax dollars in energy projects is not the optimal solution.” Sure, it’s not optimal, but it’s complete and total historical revisionism to suggestion that this is somehow new or novel. Given the ways that governments, both federal and provincial, have de facto subsidized the development of the oilsands with generous royalty breaks and other tax incentives has been sinking a hell of a lot of taxpayer dollars into energy projects. And yes, there was a whole national crisis that had a hand in bringing down a federal government around the government sinking money into a cross-country pipeline.
But the other statement that Scheer makes that I find a bit puzzling is this continued insistence that somehow provinces were forced to “take matters into their own hands” over the Trans Mountain issue because the federal government showed a lack of leadership. And I’m still trying to figure out how this works. For starters, which provinces is he referring to? BC, which took it upon themselves to challenge federal jurisdiction in a naked attempt to appease a coalition partner? Or Alberta, who escalated tactics on the basis of a press release? “They should use all of the tools at their disposal,” Scheer insists of the federal government, and yet I’m not sure what exactly they were supposed to do. They already have jurisdiction – trying to re-assert it would imply that there was a question when there isn’t one, and creating doubt would embolden opponents. There wasn’t anything to challenge in the courts because BC had only put out a press release, and nobody even had a clue about what specific questions BC was raising until they filed their court reference this past week. How would going half-cocked have helped matters? But demanding they “use all the tools” sounds an awful lot like hand-wavey nonsense that serves to only invoke the politician’s syllogism than it does to suggest meaningful action. Kinder Morgan, meanwhile, has used this exercise in threatening to pull out in order to exact political leverage (and the fact that a private company is attempting to blackmail governments is not a good look), but there remain questions outside of all of this as to their own obligations to fulfil the conditions imposed on them by the National Energy Board for continued approval of the project. That can’t be glossed over.
I’m also curious what else he thinks the federal government should have done to silence BC’s objections, considering that he’s also supporting the Saskatchewan government’s attempt to push back against the imposition of the federal carbon backstop price. Is his position that federal governments should bigfoot provinces to get pipelines, but that they don’t dare interfere in areas of shared jurisdiction like the environment? That’s an interesting needle to thread, and somehow, I doubt we’ll see him attempting to do so anytime soon.
QP: Poilievre makes a scene
A grey day in Ottawa, but today, most of the leaders were away. This left Candice Bergen to lead off, wondering how many organisations got job grants to protest energy projects. Jim Carr replied that they will get Trans Mountain built, preemptively called out the false equivalence between protesting energy projects and hiring students to distribute flyers with graphic images of aborted foetuses. Bergen insisted that the Liberals want to shut down the energy sector, and Carr dismissed the concerns. Bergen demanded Carr tell the prime minister that giving funding to these protesters is wrong, and Carr reminded her that the Harper government gave twice as much money to the same group. Alain Rayes took over in French to rail about the same issue, and Carr noted his recent trip to Fort McMurray to highlight the jobs in the energy sector. Rayes tried again, and in response, Carr regaled him with a tale about how they engaged in a better process of Indigenous consultation where the previous government failed. Guy Caron was up next for the NDP, demanding the government come clean that they rigged the Trans Mountain approval process, to which Carr reiterated that they engaged with Indigenous communities in unheard of consultations. Caron tried again in French, and Carr noted that all of the Access to Information documents are all online and he can look for himself as to the process. Anne Quach was up next, demanding pay equity legislation in advance of the G7, to which Patty Hajdu noted the items in the budget. Niki Ashton was first concern trolled about InCel followers, and demanded a gender-based violence strategy. Ralph Goodale said that they have put resources to tackling these issues, and that they met with G7 leaders to get that material off of the Internet.
QP: Digging up a dead horse
As spring snow fell over Ottawa, Justin Trudeau was in Paris on an official visit, while Andrew Scheer was in Calgary rather than be in Question Period. That left Lisa Raitt to lead off, dredging up the long dead and buried horse of Justin Trudeau once saying that the oilsands needed to be phased out (never mind that he clarified it was a long-term goal in moving toward a decarbonized future). Jim Carr responded that they approved Trans Mountain and have reiterated their support for it continually. Raitt worried about industry uncertainty and the “flight” of capital from the country, to which Carr reiterate that the uncertainty wasn’t coming from them but one province, and that they are having discussions with Kinder Morgan to ensure there was investor certainty. Raitt worried that this lack of confidence was coming from the federal government’s inaction, but Carr reminded her that her government didn’t get a single kilometre of pipeline built to tidewater. Gérard Deltell took over to re-ask the “phased out” question in French, and Marc Garneau reiterated Carr’s points in French, and then they went for a second round of the same. Guy Caron was up next for the NDP, railing that the federal government was imposing its will on BC, and Garneau reminded him that the pipeline was federal jurisdiction per the Supreme Court and the constitution, and they were talking with the two provinces involved. Caron switched to English to rail that BC’s government was elected on a promise to stop it and governments are supposed to keep their promises. Carr reminded him that Alberta’s government was elected on a promise to build it, but it was federal jurisdiction. Romeo Saganash got up next to decry that the government wasn’t respecting their obligations to Indigenous communities around the pipeline, and Carr reminded him that they did more consultations than the previous government did, who got smacked down by the Supreme Court of Canada over their lack of proper consultations. Saganash insisted that there were no actual agreements with Indigenous communities, but Carr said that there was no agreement between Indigenous communities, and indeed between NDP premiers, but a decision needed to be taken.
I see we’re practicing equine necromancy in #QP today.
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) April 17, 2018
QP: Twin moral panics in play
While Justin Trudeau was off to Toronto, Andrew Scheer was present for Question Period, and he led off with the role that Christopher Wylie, the infamous “Facebook whistleblower” had worked for the Liberals, and demanded answers. Scott a Brison pointed out that the Liberal Research Bureau had already issued a statement saying that they decided not to go ahead with his services and that he had no access to voter data. Scheer lamented that Trudeau didn’t answer — being cute because Trudeau was not present — and when he continued to rail about Wylie, Brison reiterate his response, and hit back with contracts the Conservatives tendered for their own data services. Alain Rayes took over in French to ask the same thing two more times, and Brison repeated his responses (albeit in English). Scheer got back up to rail about the “peoplekind” joke and the apparently scandalous news that Service Canada is not supposed to use the honourifics of “Mr.” of “Mrs.” The horror! Jean-Yves Duclos assured him that they can still use the honourifics, but that they were working to be more inclusive of all gender identities. Guy Caron led off for the NDP, condemning the lack of action on tax evasion despite the $1 billion investment to do so. Diane Lebouthillier got up to assure him that they were looking into tax evasion and had new agreements to get necessary data, and when Caron got up to rail that CRA was slapped with a $1 million fine for abusive behaviour, Lebouthillier reiterated that the case dated back to the Conservatives. Peter Julian got up to repeat the condemnation around tax evasion in English, and Lebouthillier reminded him that they now have the data they need. Julian tried one more time, throwing every thing else in the question, and Lebouthillier retorted that the OECD has recognised Canada’s leadership in data-driven combatting against tax evasion.
Scheer playing cute, demanding the PM answer when he’s not present. #QP
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) March 21, 2018
Rayes made a dig that they’re apparently no longer allowed to say “Mr.”
Cripes, guys. #QP— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) March 21, 2018
Roundup: No, committee studies shouldn’t guide government
And lo, from Toronto’s den of hipsterdom, comes the plaintive wail that a government ignoring the work of committees is a betrayal of democracy. No, seriously – this is the complaint of VICE’s parliamentary columnist (who does not reside in Ottawa, or ever darken the halls of Parliament Hill, but whatever). Brown cites the centralization of power in the PMO and the growing power of branding as the forces that eclipse these poor committees, but it’s possibly the laziest gods damned complaint you can imagine.
https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/971427684965371905
So, for Brown’s edification, here are a few points that he overlooked in his ignorance of how things actually work in Ottawa:
- The role of Commons committees is not to be driving government policy, as Brown seems to think. The role of Parliament is to hold government to account, and committees are the workhorses of doing that, particularly when it comes to scrutinizing legislation. Senate committees, it should be noted, do a much more robust job of looking at areas of concern and coming up with policy recommendations, but that’s because the Senate is Parliament’s built-in think-tank, and it operates on a less partisan basis than Commons committees, who often approach their committee work with the lens of validating their party’s pre-existing positions.
- Not all committees are created equal. He may cite the work of a few of the “high profile” committees, writing on “sexier” topics like pharmacare, but because those are higher-profile committees, you’re seeing more studies that are bound to attract attention but have little substance to offer. If he wants to get a better sense of really effective committees that do really good work, he should look at ones like Public Accounts, who do the real work that Parliament is supposed to be doing, which, again, is holding government to account.
- Committees coming up with reports that the government does not then follow is hardly a sign of PMO centralization – if he wants an example of that, it was how committees operated in the Harper era, where they were all branch plants of minsters’ offices, with parliamentary secretaries directing the government MPs to do their bidding, and having ministerial staffers providing direction throughout. Oh, and the minister would often direct the committee to study topics that were of convenience (while he or she went ahead and legislated before waiting for the committee report). The way committees are operating currently is a vastly different environment than it was just a few years ago. But he might know that if he was actually here and paid attention to these things.
You’ll excuse me if I have little time for facile analysis like this. Whinging about PMO centralization without looking at the complicity of MPs themselves in the problem is to miss the point. And to miss the whole point of Parliament in a column like this makes it clear that nobody should be paying attention to the musings of its author.
Roundup: The obtuse Atwal angles
Because the Jaspel Atwal story refuses to go away, due to equal parts of inept messaging by the government and obtuseness on the parts of both the opposition and much of the media, it seems like we should dig into a few more aspects of it. If you haven’t yet, read John Ivison’s column that threads the needle on just what the senior bureaucrats were warning about with regard to the possibility of “rogue elements” in India’s government, and the invitation that MP Randeep Sarai extended to Atwal while Atwal was already in the country. If more people read this, we would have far fewer of the questions we’re hearing about how both “versions” of the incident can be true. And hey, people familiar with both Indian politics and security services are adding that this is more than plausible.
I agree that the Prime Minister needs to be more transparent with Canadians on this issue. But are we really taking the Indian government's version of events verbatim and dismissing that of the National Security Adviser out of hand? https://t.co/XaLc8L3mAG
— John Ivison (@IvisonJ) March 1, 2018
I'm with @IvisonJ. Anyone who knows anything about Indian politics knows conspiracy is always a possibility. RT John Ivison: It is possible the Atwal affair was both a cock up and conspiracy at the same time https://t.co/Hwm378CMAO via @nationalpost
— Kevin Carmichael (@CarmichaelKevin) March 1, 2018
https://twitter.com/mrmubinshaikh/status/969083935580880896
https://twitter.com/mrmubinshaikh/status/969341369583095808
In the meantime, opposition parties are trying to use their parliamentary tools to continue to make hay of this. Ralph Goodale got hauled before the national security committee yesterday, and he was unable to give very many answers – completely understandably – and suggested that MPs use the new National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians to discuss classified issues like this. It didn’t stop the opposition from trying to call the National Security Advisor to committee, but that was blocked. But as Stephanie Carvin points out below, MPs are not great at this kind of thing, and risk doing even more damage (and We The Media aren’t helping).
https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/969329125579161601
https://twitter.com/stephaniecarvin/status/969345972978495489
https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/969361059717971980
https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/969362336405475328
https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/969363708249026585
https://twitter.com/stephaniecarvin/status/969405817609969665
https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/969406898700279809
In case you were wondering why the Conservatives dropped their planned Supply Day motion to try and wedge the government over support for a united India as a pretext to bash the Atwal issue some more, they faced an outcry of Sikhs in Canada and backed down (but are insisting that the motion is still on the Order Paper and can be debated on a future Supply Day).
In the meantime, India raised their tariffs on imports of pulses, and suddenly every single Canadian pundit joined the Conservatives in blaming it on Trudeau’s India trip and the Atwal accusations. Not one of them noted that India is having a bit of a domestic crisis with its farmers, and there is a global glut of pulse crops, which is depressing prices (for which India is trying to boost domestic production). But why look for facts when you can try to wedge it into a narrative you’ve already decided on? Cripes.
The mainstream media coverage of the global pulse glut is…typical.
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) March 2, 2018
Roundup: An involuntary nomination
The outcome at the Status of Women committee was not unexpected, had as much sulking and grousing as was to be expected. In a public and not secret vote, the Liberals and NDP members of the committee rejected the Conservatives’ choice of Rachael Harder to chair the committee, and when the Liberals nominated Karen Vecchio in her place, Vecchio tried to back out but was overruled, and those same Liberal and Conservative members voted her in.
And then the bellyaching began. A sour press release was issued about how this was somehow about “bullying and intimidation” of some poor young woman (which is a ridiculous characterisation), but that they would accept the democratic will of the committee. And the pundit class took to Twitter to decry how bizarre it was that a woman was being forced to take the chair of a committee that she didn’t want. I’m not exactly sympathetic to these cries, because this is what happens when you try to pull a stunt for the sake of being a provocateur, as Scheer is trying to do, but you don’t have the votes to back it up. Oh, and then they tried to wedge this into the frame of it being a distraction from the tax proposals, when it shouldn’t need to be said that this was a distraction of the Conservatives’ own making, owing to their particular tactical ineptitude.
To “bully and intimidate.” pic.twitter.com/CiQLbOraIJ
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) October 3, 2017
Oh my gosh, I just realized Karen Vecchio worked for Joe Preston, who was ALSO initially forcibly elected chair of PROC back in 2009!
— kady o'malley (@kady) October 3, 2017
So, here's hoping for a similarly happy ending.
— kady o'malley (@kady) October 3, 2017
Meanwhile, Liberals took to tweeting about how this would have made Harder Andrew Scheer’s “spokesperson” on the committee, which is bizarre and wrong – the chair is the committee’s spokesperson. It’s baffling that they would try to spin it in this fashion. Then again, one shouldn’t be surpised given how badly this whole affair has been for people describing how things work in Parliament. And it shouldn’t surprise me, and yet here we are, that not one journalist writing about this story, nor any pundit commenting on it, remarked about the fact that it makes no sense to put your critic forward as committee chair. None. The chair’s role is to be neutral, to run the meeting, arbitrate rules disputes and to ensure that witnesses and questioners stay within their timelines. They’re not supposed to vote unless it’s to break a tie, which shouldn’t happen very often given the numbers at play. Why would you want your critic – your point person in holding the government and in particular that associated minister, to account – to be hobbled in this way on committee, is baffling. It’s utterly incomprehensible if you follow the basics of how parliament is supposed to work. And yet nobody saw fit to call Scheer out on this fact. These details matter.
Today we rejected Andrew Scheer's choice as his spokeperson – an MP who does not support womens' reproductive health https://t.co/ElSEnt1JEV
— Pam Damoff (@PamDamoff) October 4, 2017
Roundup: All abuzz about Netflix
It’s probably not a big surprise that the story for which the most ink (physical or digital, take your pick) was spilled yesterday were the culture policy changes that Mélanie Joly announced, punctuated by the grand announcement that Netflix had committed to spending half a billion dollars over five years on Canadian productions. But in there was also news that there would be no big bailout for the news media in this country, and there would be some funding boosts for the Canada Media Fund, the Canada Music Fund and the Canada Book Fund, and a creative export strategy, along with previously announced reforms of the Copyright Board.
Suffice to say, there’s a fair amount of grumbling from traditional broadcasters that Neflix is essentially getting away with murder, not bound by the same CanCon obligations of traditional broadcasters, nor are other Internet giants like Google and Facebook being asked to contribute to the same content creation funds that traditional media are. And there is some pretty legitimate concerns about this announced Netflix deal because it’s pretty opaque – Netflix will continue to be able to operate as a black box when it comes to their subscriber data, and while Sean Casey went on Power & Politics to insist that the $500 million was new money (given that Netflix had previously told Parliament that they were already spending “hundreds of millions of dollars” in Canada), it really doesn’t seem like that’s anything new given that previous statement. Netflix also says that the money isn’t coming from the recent rate-hike in Canada, but that’s not washing with a number of people. The Financial Post has a fairly comprehensive look at the announcement here, including the fact that the announcement seems to leave a lot of the heavy lifting into the future, which probably shouldn’t be a surprise.
I do think it should be incumbent upon us to remember that Netflix has not been a net benefit to the cultural sector in Canada. The late Denis McGrath used to refer to them as a “parasite” on the Canadian broadcast sector because they put no money into the production of shows that they streamed, encouraging the cord-cutting that starved the very platforms who produced those shows that they later streamed of funding. It’s a complex problem, and a handful of Netflix originals aren’t going to be the panacea for the Canadian film and television industry. If anything, it may hasten the decline.