Some First Nations issues have finally been getting some play in the past couple of days in the election, after the early reiterations of positions by the parties with regards to things like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the issue of missing and murdered Aboriginal women. While Trudeau and Mulcair in recent days made repeated promises around closing funding gaps with First Nations, particularly around education, Trudeau this week made a pledge around the boil-water advisories on some 93 First Nations reserves, and said that he wants those eliminated within five years (though that number could be larger as the federal list doesn’t include BC). The question that Kady O’Malley asked, quite reasonably, is how big of a hole that puts in Trudeau’s other spending promises around infrastructure spending, as previous estimates have pegged water and wastewater systems needed on 571 First Nations around $1.2 billion. What could be more concerning to Trudeau and company is this conversation that Maclean’s had with an expert in this particular field, who said that dealing with this problem in five years is unrealistic given that the reasons for the advisories on so many communities is varied and that there can’t be a simple top-down fix for the issue. It is a complex problem that involves more than one level of government, and while the promise may be laudable, it may be necessary to temper expectations (albeit, as openly and transparently as possible) while still pushing ahead on the file, fixing as many as possible in five years but noting that eliminating the problem may take longer.
Tag Archives: Syria
Roundup: F-35s flare up again
Talk of the F-35 fighters dominated the discussion yesterday, with Harper going full-bore on trying to say that Trudeau was living on some other planet if he thought that pulling out of the F-35 programme wouldn’t “crater” the country’s aerospace industry, while Mulcair – a vocal critic of the F-35s for years – suddenly said they should stay in the competition process. Of course, it sounds increasingly like Harper is trying to indicate the F-35s are the government’s choice all along no matter the procurement process that they’re going through right now with great fanfare, while Mulcair sounds increasingly like Harper – something Trudeau probably doesn’t mind. As a reality check, there are no contracts to tear-up, because we haven’t signed or committed to anything. As well, there is no guarantee that Canada pulling out of the F-35s would damage our industry because those companies supplying parts for the aircraft were chosen for quality, and because we paid into the development process, but didn’t commit to buying the full craft itself. Not to mention, any other plane we would go with (say, the Super Hornets) would have the likelihood of as many if not more regional industrial benefits. (And while we’re on the subject of reality checks, the Liberals apparently really bungled their costing figures for the F-35s in their own backgrounders). As for how you can have an open competition but exclude the F-35s? I don’t think that’s rocket science – it seems pretty clear to me that you simply add the specification to the procurement process that it needs to have more than one engine. That would rule out the F-35 pretty effectively, no? Suffice to say, it’s a lot of sound and fury, and plenty of flashbacks to the last election where this was an issue. Paul Wells writes more about it, and how it positions the leaders.
open competition does not necessarily mean open to all. Ruling out the most expensive and most criticized is not necessarily problematic
— Steve Saideman (@smsaideman) September 21, 2015
Roundup: About those Senators who approached Mulcair
Thomas Mulcair is telling people that he’s had senators approach him to say that they would be willing to work with him to pass a hypothetical NDP government’s legislation, but he won’t name names. While this may well be true, at least to a certain extent – we have been seeing numerous examples in the past couple of weeks of Mulcair exaggerating the truth – this should be unpacked a little bit. The first and most obvious thing is that we need to put aside the Harper Derangement Syndrome conspiracy theory that all of the Conservative senators are going to simply defeat any Liberal or NDP legislation that comes through because the fact that they were Harper appointees will apparently make them extra dickish, or something. Never mind that we’ve had plenty of parliaments where the party not in power held a majority in the Senate and lo and behold, things got passed with little difficulty. This will not change in the future. The second is that these Senators all know that they have a job to do, and that’s to scrutinize bills that come before them. Most of the time they pass. Occasionally they get amended and sent back. On very rare occasions, they get defeated, almost always because those bills are either fatally flawed, out of order, or unconstitutional and got passed on a whipped vote. And if the NDP holds up that climate change bill as an example of one the Senate killed, well, it’s because it was out of order and never should have been allowed to pass the Commons. That said, they are not rubber stamps, and won’t simply pass bills because the Commons did. It’s not their job, and if Mulcair has a problem with that, there’s a Supreme Court reference decision he should read. Third is that even if Senate Liberals formed a quasi-government caucus in the Senate should the NDP form government, it’s because the system needs to operate somehow. They are likely going to have to kluge together some kind of procedural workarounds to the fact that there won’t be an actual Leader of the Government in the Senate who can answer on behalf of the government, and if a hypothetical Prime Minister Mulcair doesn’t appoint a Senate Speaker, that is pretty much a constitutional nightmare waiting to happen. But Mulcair refuses to answer these fundamental procedural issues, while at the same time, he and his people continue to do nothing but hurl insults at the Chamber and its inhabitants while promising their abolition (which won’t happen, but they’re going to try anyway), while continuing to actively ignore the constitutional obligation to make appointments. So no, I’m not reassured by these senators who have allegedly approached him, because there’s more to it than just passing bills. We have a parliamentary architecture that he continues to ignore, and that should be worrying to anyone who cares about parliamentary democracy.
Roundup: About that “costed” plan
The NDP released their “costed” fiscal plan yesterday, which was not in fact the full costing that they had promised, but rather a broad-strokes framework, full of vague line item names like “Helping Families Get Ahead” and “Help Where It’s Needed Most” rather than actually talking about their childcare plan, and their promises around the healthcare escalator. (That escalator, incidentally, has confused a lot of reporters in the room). It’s kind of ironic that after a week spent baiting the Liberals on releasing their costed platform, the NDP didn’t actually deliver theirs. Suffice to say, the analysis to date seems to be that the NDP platform relies on the Budget 2015 numbers – numbers which are no longer relevant as the price of oil has crashed even further, and GDP growth is nowhere near what was projected and likely won’t be anytime soon, which blows a hole of several billion dollars into the assumptions. It also relies on the same austerity that the Conservative budget is built upon, despite what the NDP insists. The Conservatives and Liberals immediately panned the document, but that’s not a surprise. Being as I’m not an economist, I’ll leave the comments for those who are, and they have plenty to say (with some background on how to read these kinds of documents from Kevin Milligan here):
https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/644266217994215424
https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/644266726171869184
https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/644267141714149376
https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/644267656929918976
https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/644268654381563904
https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/644269099938283520
https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/644269679876288512
https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/644270215551848448
https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/644258642158596096
@acoyne If full employment wages fall with CIT increase. My estimate based on disequilibrium GE model with bigger job impact.
— Dr. Jack Mintz (@jackmintz) September 16, 2015
https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/644306950700724224
Anyone looking at that list of NDP revenue measures is almost certainly going to say "No skin off my nose"
— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) September 17, 2015
NDP program is not a rebellion against anti-tax sentiment; it's buying into it.
— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) September 17, 2015
No-one is going to vote NDP saying to themselves, "Okay, I'll pay more in taxes, but I'm willing to pay the price"
— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) September 17, 2015
The NDP is selling a free lunch: We will raise taxes you don't have to pay, and we'll use them to buy you these goodies
— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) September 17, 2015
So any narrative that sells support for the NDP as a rejection of the CPC has got it wrong. NDP is appealing to the same anti-tax sentiment
— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) September 17, 2015
https://twitter.com/rolandparis/status/644332078855815168
NDP detail on daycare? @RosieBarton asks @thomson_ndp for the numbers (with @MichelleRempel & @JohnMcCallumLPC too) http://t.co/OszzPVZqs4
— Leslie Stojsic (@LeslieStojsic) September 16, 2015
Note to self: memorize all line by line expenditures before next @PnPCBC. FYI # is $595M in Y1 rising to $2.5B in Y4 @LeslieCBC @RosieBarton
— Andrew Thomson (@Thomson416) September 17, 2015
Roundup: No, Chong’s bill won’t give us Australian leadership spills
News of the leadership spill in Australia, ousting Tony Abbott as prime minister and ending the greatest political bromance of the Commonwealth countries (Harper and Abbott were quite the mutual admiration society), we were suddenly inundated with Twitter musings about whether that could happen in Canada, thanks to Michael Chong’s Reform Act which passed this summer. While Kady O’Malley offers the “in theory” answer, the in practice answer is that no, it couldn’t happen here, because Canada has a terrible system of leadership selection that purports to “democratise” the system with grassroots involvement, but instead created an unaccountable and presidentialised system of an overly powerful leader that has little fear of their caucus turning on them, because caucus didn’t select them. When it comes to removal, selection matters. A lot. Chong’s bill, perversely, makes an Australian situation less likely by raising the bar for leadership challenges to happen in the first place, and would instead give us situations like what happened in Manitoba where a sitting leader was challenged, and when it went to a leadership process where he still participated and won based on the grassroots support when his caucus was no longer behind him, well, it’s ugly and it’s down right unparliamentary given that a leader needs to have the confidence of his or her caucus, and when they don’t but stay in based on grassroots votes, the system breaks down. Paul Wells cautions that reforming a system usually replaces real or perceive problems with different problems, while Andrew Coyne points out that being able to dump a bad leader quickly is the lesser evil of being stuck with them.
Roundup: The grasping of straws
While we may be past the halfway mark in this campaign, we’re also well into the territory when things start getting a bit…surreal. Or utterly nonsensical. Take your pick. All of it done in the breathless hyperbolizing that parties do in order to try and make their rivals look bad. If you take a look at any Conservative press release, the sections comparing “Justin and Mulcair” are full of ridiculous non sequiturs that have little or nothing to do with the topic at hand. The Liberals are trotting out Jean Chrétien to say that Stephen Harper has “shamed” Canada (never mind that the rest of the world really doesn’t care). And the NDP have been taking the cake for some of their criticisms, which are starting to sound more like grasping at straws. They held a news conference with Charlie Angus to decry Justin Trudeau for “smearing” small businesses when he pointed out that wealthy people self-incorporate to pay lower taxes. And then Angus admitted that it’s a problem and they need to “tweak” the system, but still tried to insist Trudeau was smearing. Their line of attack about not being able to trust the Liberals not to make cuts is predicated on the 1990s, never mind the fact that the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio is nowhere near what it was the. And now Thomas Mulcair is brushing off the concerns of the premiers for his plans, whether it’s Senate abolition (which most don’t support), or childcare (which the provinces are expected to pay 40 percent of), or even their balanced budget pledge, of which provincial transfers are an issue. But he’ll have a “mandate” he says. Never mind that he sounds like he’s already over-reading it when he hasn’t even been given one. Suffice to say, the talking points from all sides are getting ridiculous. And we still have a month to go.
Roundup: Mulcair’s Senate delusions
It was Thomas Mulcair’s turn to talk to Peter Mansbridge, and it was a bit of a doozy. Not only because he too insisted that whoever wins the most seats should form government (with a bunch of “it’s a really complex constitutional question but…” thrown in), but rather because of his continued wilful ignorance about how he proposes to deal with the Senate. It’s not just about his fantasy notion that Senate abolition could ever happen (which it won’t), or that he’ll somehow be able to sit down with the premiers and make it happen right away (even if he brings the federal cheque book to the table, it’s still not going to happen). No, it’s his attitude for how he would deal with it should he form government. Not only are vacancies mounting, but he told Mansbridge that he wouldn’t even appoint a Government Leader in the Senate. This is actually a Very Big Deal. Why? Because if legislation is to pass the Senate, it needs to happen according to proper procedure, and proper procedure requires a government voice – particularly one from cabinet – to be in the Chamber to shepherd government bills through, an to answer questions on behalf of the government in Senate Question Period. Now, Harper has already been petulant about this when he refused to make his current Senate leader a member of cabinet (even though he still gets PCO support, and as we’ve learned, PMO handlers to deal with messaging), but there is still a government leader in there to do the things that he’s supposed to do. If Mulcair would be so completely cavalier as to further break an already damaged institution by refusing to let it do its job properly under the pretext of daring them to vote down bills passed by the Commons, it’s unconscionable. We have someone campaigning to be the leader of the country on a platform of thumbing his nose at the constitution, whether that’s around a refusal to make appointments, or in ensuring that it can do its job. And this is more than a question of “democratic expression” of a government that has won an election, as Mulcair phrases his bullying tactics – it’s about process. And what is democracy? Democracy IS process. Process matters, just like the constitution. Why are we giving him a free pass when he seems to be of the notion that the constitution and the institutions of parliament don’t matter?
Mulcair going on about the Senate is nonsense. LET'S IGNORE THE CONSTITUTION! IT'S JUST A SUGGESTION ANYWAY, AMIRITE? #CBCNational
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) September 10, 2015
Roundup: The slippery slope of civic ignorance
With Justin Trudeau adding his voice to those of the other leaders in completely misreading how a Westminster democracy works with the formation of government (albeit acknowledging that the incumbent does get the first crack), I think it’s quite apparent we’re in a crisis of civic literacy in this country. While Kady O’Malley gives a refresher here, there was an interesting idea posited by Leonid Sirota that we may be witnessing the birth of a new convention. I’m a bit sceptical about that, and would agree more with Emmett Macfarlane that it may be a political convention as opposed to a legal one, but it should also be a warning signal to our political actors that ignorance of the system, whether genuine or deliberate, does have broader repercussions. The system works the way it does because, well, it works. That’s why it evolved the way we did. To try and move it past that for crass political purposes demeans it, and opens a number of cans of worms that will do nothing more than create problems down the road that will be even bigger headaches. Better to learn and apply the system as it exists, rather than try to change the rules for petty reasons. Also, we need to stop dismissing these kinds of conversations as boring or pedantic because they matter. The rules matter. If we don’t point out what the rules are and that they matter, then it makes it easier for people to break them without anyone raising a fuss.
https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/641312992257277953
https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/641313435049959424
https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/641313802944946176
https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/641314338674974720
https://twitter.com/pmlagasse/status/641314592094822400
https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/641228423038238720
https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/641228866099417088
https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/641229200544808960
https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/641230837434855424
https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/641231352986124288
@pauldalyesq Or, to put it even more starkly, our elections are in effect becoming presidential ones. Indeed, there are other reasons 1/
— Leonid Sirota (@DoubleAspect) September 8, 2015
@pauldalyesq increasingly leader-centred. Leaders are the drivers and focus of campaigns; parties just vehicles for them. 3/3
— Leonid Sirota (@DoubleAspect) September 8, 2015
Roundup: Harper’s Westminster mistake
It was a fairly combative interview, as Stephen Harper sat down with the CBC’s Peter Mansbridge, but there was a fairly important point to make, which is that the understanding of the Westminster parliamentary system that he espoused was totally wrong. Harper stated that he wouldn’t try to form government if his party didn’t win the most seats, which is an interesting political commitment, but his assertion that it’s the way the convention works in a Westminster system is wrong and has nothing to do with the actual way that governments are formed. What I will say is that this certainly seems to answer all of the paranoid delusions of the Harper Derangement Syndrome-types out there who insist that he’s going to try to hold onto power at all costs, and that even if he can’t win a majority that he’s going to still test the confidence of the Chamber and call a snap election immediately if he doesn’t get it, etcetera, etcetera. That’s certainly not the message that he’s been giving, and really, he’s not a Bond villain. Making him out to be such is counterproductive and simply wrong. Here’s Mansbridge’s behind-the-scenes look at the leader interview series, the biting satirical Twitter account Canadian Median Voter weighing in on Harper’s understanding, plus a reminder that Thomas Mulcair has said pretty much the very same incorrect things, and a reminder of how things actually operate.
The party who wins the most seats becomes the government. It is called responsible government.
— The Median Voter (@CanMedianVoter) September 8, 2015
https://twitter.com/inklesspw/status/641069383729741826
https://twitter.com/markdjarvis/status/640289615987929088
Roundup: The Conservatives’ anti-refugee inertia
With opinion galvanizing around the Syrian refugee crisis, there are calls for the government to do more – even if the opposition parties’ targets remain a little on the weak side in the overall picture. Cities and provinces – in particular Quebec – are pledging to do more, but they are bound by the pace that the federal government sets. And above all, that is the real problem with Canada’s response. Chris Alexander has been subtly blaming the UNHCR for their slow and onerous process while trying to cast his government in a positive light for trying to change that, except they’re the ones who’ve made the system far more onerous in the first place. I’ve covered the refugee file for a number of years, most especially when I was writing for Xtra, and a consistent theme emerged was that every time the Conservatives changed the rules, they were making it harder for refugees to make it into the country. In a particular bid to try to keep out refugee groups that they didn’t want to deal with – Mexicans and Roma are two that immediately come to mind – they continually tinkered with the rules, going so far as to create a “designated country of origin” list to make it easier to reject and deport those groups, no matter that a high volume of them had legitimate claims. They shortened processing times on arrival to prejudice the system against them, particularly when it’s difficult to get documentation, and denied them avenues of appeal. And overseas, they’ve understaffed embassies and missions in areas with high refugee populations and outsourced refugee determination to the UNHCR, which doesn’t have the resources and capacity to do that. Here in Canada, they’ve shifted their focus to private sponsorship away from government sponsorship, and even when they try to assist private groups, they don’t give them the assistance that they really required, such as capacity building. And then there was the whole issue of cutting off healthcare for refugee claimants, which was also used as a means of disincentivising people from coming over. Add to this a focus on risk assessment and then prioritizing minority populations in places like Syria and Iraq, and suddenly it’s no wonder that they’re moving at a glacial pace when it comes to getting more refugees resettled in Canada. The lack of political will to tackle this refugee crisis has been long-standing and a long time in the making. There are plenty of things that they could do, as Joe Clark explained, such as putting people on the ground in the region, doing security checks there, relieving the UNCHR of all of the work of refugee status determination, and arranging transportation rather than offering them loans for it (because if there’s one thing that refugees need it’s to be nickel-and-dimed by the Canadian government). They have the capacity, but they’ve spent so long trying to choke off the flow of refugees that the law of inertia has taken hold, and they can’t turn the ship around. I don’t think enough people are calling them out on this fact.