Tag Archives: Syria

QP: Shifting focus to fighter jets

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After the big “family photo” on the steps of the building this morning, and a speech marking the 150th anniversary of the legislature of Canada meeting on Parliament Hill, we got into the business of the day. While Trudeau was on the Hill in the morning, he was on his way to Toronto and absent from QP today. Rona Ambrose led off, mini-lectern on neighbouring desk, and asked about measures to bring Yazidi girls to Canada as refugees. John McCallum noted that refugees are prioritised based on need as determined by the UN, and that he was proud of their record. Ambrose turned to the question of fighter jets, and wondered why they would get new jets if they didn’t use the ones we have to fight ISIS. Harjit Sajjan noted that that he had received a briefing on the mission in Iraq, but didn’t really answer. Ambrose listed off the sins of Liberal procurement past, and wondered how this time would be different. Sajjan retorted that the previous government cut $3 billion from the defence budget. Denis Lebel was concerned about pulling out of the the F-35 programme and how that would affect the aerospace industry in Montreal, and Sajjan noted that no decision had been made. When Lebel tried to press about the other allies who had adopted the F-35, Sajjan noted that they were not fully operational and they were taking the time to make the right choice. Thomas Mulcair led off for the NDP, asking about a statement that Senator Pratte made about the need to pass C-10 quickly. Marc Garneau said there was no deal, but this was about avoiding future litigation. Mulcair wanted assurances that there was no deal, and Garneau plainly stated there wasn’t one. Mulcair turned to tax havens by KPMG, and Diane Lebouthillier noted that there were investigations and court cases ongoing. Mulcair said that if it was in the courts it would be public, but pivoted to the Super Hornets and sole-sourcing. Sajjan repeated that no decision was made.

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Roundup: A short history of trans rights bills

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The government is unveiling their promised trans rights bill today, and throughout the day, you’ll be reminded that other trans rights bills have been introduced in the House, and twice died in the Senate, and there will be a general sense of the NDP trying to anoint themselves in this glow of having been the fearless pioneers on this file. And it’s true – they did introduce previous trans rights bills, some of them more successful than others. But there is more to the story than is usually presented, and as someone who used to cover this file extensively (back in my Xtra! and the much lamented Outlooks days), it’s a little more complicated than is often presented. And yes, the NDP have largely introduced iterations of this bill but the sponsor, then-MP Bill Siksay, was too far down the Order of Precedence for it to be ever debated. During the 40th Parliament, however, he was high enough on the Order that the bill came up for debate, and narrowly passed the Commons. By the time it reached the Senate, however, it had mere days before the government was defeated. The Senate has no mechanisms by which to accelerate a private members’ bill, and the justice committee – where it would have been sent to – was jammed full of “tough on crime” bills and a private members’ bill never would have been able to come up for debate (as government bills always take priority). Nevertheless, the Senate was blamed for “ragging the puck” and it died when Parliament dissolved and an election was called. By this time, Siksay had announced that he was not going to run again, and Liberal MP Hedy Fry had said that she would re-introduce the bill in his stead if re-elected. She was, and fulfilled his promise. The NDP’s newly elected MP Randall Garrison was named the party’s new LGBT critic, and he was incensed that Fry had re-introduced the bill and decided to table his own version, but because you can’t have two identical bills on the Order Paper, he needed to come up with some creative drafting in order to differentiate the two bills. And then, by sheer fate, his name came up right before Fry’s on the Order of Precedence when the lottery was drawn, so he went ahead with his poorly drafted bill, while Fry’s version of the same bill was not put forward (and she went on to introduce a cyberbullying bill that was defeated). Not only did Garrison’s bill go ahead, but he decided to introduce amendments that would partially gut the bill and do things like put in definitions for “gender identity” into the text (something that would put it out of step with any other protected grounds in legislation). The resulting bill was a dog’s breakfast, and he managed to squeak it past the Commons, but he actually lost some Conservative support because it was such a hot mess. And when it reached the Senate, there were concerns. Conservative Senator Don Plett had some particular concerns and wanted to raise amendments, and while this whole “bathroom bill” nonsense began circulating, his amendments, while not great, were blown out of proportion by supporters of the bill as being far more odious than they were. And that bill eventually died on the Order Paper when Parliament dissolved, but while the NDP railed against the Senate as “killing” a bill that the Commons passed, they ignored the fact that it was objectively a bad bill and this was more of a mercy killing. And now, we have a government who has committed to making this one of their priorities, and they are, which we should applaud.

Update: The differences between Fry’s and Garrison’s bill weren’t as pronounced as I remember the debate being. Apologies to all involved, and thanks to Justin Ling for the correction. The amendments, however, were a dog’s breakfast.

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QP: Tax credit meanies

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While Justin Trudeau was at Gleason gym in Brooklyn, and the Duffy verdict being read out a few blocks away, QP was ramping up for another scintillating session. In the lead up to QP, MPs sang a round of “Happy Birthday” and “God Save the Queen” in honour of Her Majesty’s 90th birthday, followed by a moment of silence for the National Day of Mourning. Rona Ambrose led off, complaining about the demise of the child sport tax credit. Bill Morneau reminded her that the new Child Tax Benefit offers more money for all families to use as they see fit. Ambrose asked again in French, got the same answer, and then moved onto complaining that the Liberals voted down her motion to declare ISIS a genocide. Stéphane Dion reminded her that the official recognition of genocide was serious and should only happen after an international investigation, which is what he was pushing for. Denis Lebel was up next, asking about the aluminium industry in Quebec. David Lemetti reminded him that they are working on the issue. Lebel asked about the issue of diafiltered milk, and Jean-Claude Poissant, responded that they were working on it. Thomas Mulcair was up next, and denounced Bill C-10, refusing to call Marc Garneau by his title. Garneau responded that they were going to rush the bill, which the NDP trie to kill. Mulcair then suggested that it was Carolyn Bennett who let the Catholic Church off the hook for Residential Schools. Bennett listed the dates to prove that it was the previous government, and the government couldn’t force the Church to do anything. Mulcair then changed topics to the Saudi arms deal, at which point Dion repeated Mulcair’s statements on honouring the agreement during the election. Mulcair thundered that the Liberals weren’t defending human rights, and Dion kept reminding Mulcair of his own words on the contract.

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QP: Imagining conflicts over cocktails

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Despite it being Monday, none of the leaders were in the House (save, as always, Elizabeth May), which is starting to feel like a bad old habit making a comeback. Denis Lebel led off for the Conservatives, first offering condolences for the Quebec family that died in the Ecuador earthquake, and asked for an update on Canada’s efforts. Marie-Claude Bibeau noted the support they were offering to that country. Lebel then pivoted to a demand to know which taxes the Liberals plan on raising to pay for their spending. Bill Morneau responded that they were investing as it was the right time to do so. Lebel switched to English to decry the lack of transparency, to which Morneau insisted that they were being open and transparent, and said that they only showed two years in the budget so as to show that they have work to do. Andrew Scheer bemoaned the “mean-spirited” ways in which the budget rolled back Conservative programmes like income splitting. Morneau insisted that the new measures would help more families than the old programmes. Scheer then launched into a question laden with lame sports puns, but Morneau repeated his assertions. Peter Julian decried a cocktail party that CRA officials attended along with firms like KPMG. Diane Lebouthillier noted that it was an event held by the Chartered Professional Accountants, which many employees are members of. Peter Julian tried again, ramping up the conflict of interest accusations, and got the same answer. Hélène Laverdière worried that human rights were not on the ambassador’s priority list in Saudi Arabia. Pamela Goldsmith-Jones said that Canada does not miss any opportunity to raise human rights with anyone including Saudi Arabia, nor did they miss an opportunity for positive engagement. Laverdière asked again in French, and Goldsmith-Jones reminded the NDP that they supported the LAV sales as well.

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Roundup: Fair Vote Canada’s shambolic release

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It’s not everyday that you get a completely unhinged press release in your inbox, but holy cow did Fair Vote Canada come out with a doozy yesterday. It’s hard to know where to start with such a work of “shambolic genius,” as Colby Cosh put it.

You see, according to the geniuses at Fair Vote Canada, they have cleverly parsed that when Trudeau pledged to “make every vote count” (a boneheaded statement because every vote already counts), he was referring to their slogan, and therefore he must really advocate for Proportional Representation, and because Trudeau has said he has no pre-conceived ideas about what the outcome of the consultations on electoral reform would be, he must really mean that he’s just trying to figure out which proportional representation system to use, because that’s what he’s signalled by using their slogan. Genius, I tell you. Genius!

But Wait… There’s More!™

While referring to Parliament as “the law factory” (Seriously? Seriously?!), they started invoking the Charter to claim that “equal treatment and equal benefit under the law” must mean that Canadian citizens are entitled to having their votes represented in direct proportion to the votes cast. Which is insane and ridiculous because that’s not how our system works at all, and is completely wrong when it comes to jurisprudence. You see, the Supreme Court of Canada has already rejected this line of reasoning, both in terms of the deviation of voting power (i.e. unequal riding sizes) for the purposes of better governance, but also with attempted challenges to the First-Past-The-Post system in the Quebec courts, which were roundly rejected and which the Supreme Court of Canada refused to grant leave to appeal. That means that as far as they’re concerned, the law is settled, and for Fair Vote Canada to try and advance this line of argument is futile and wrong. Because the law is settled. But considering that the whole basis for their advocacy of PR is rooted in sore loserism at the ballot box, it makes complete sense that they are also sore losers when it comes to the judicial system as well.

Moral of the story: Fair Vote Canada has long used falsehoods and logical fallacies to advance their case. This ridiculous and completely specious release is just one more in a dishonest string of arguments they’ve made and will continue to make as this debate heats up in the coming months.

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Roundup: Independence and the line of accountability

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The punditariat continues to lose their minds over Senate independence, and I’m almost at the point of exasperation with it. After years – decades – of hand-wringing about how senators aren’t independent enough to do their jobs of sober second thought, we are suddenly overcome with hand-wringing about them being too independent and the government being unable to pass legislation (as though the opposition having a Senate majority has never happened in our country’s history before…oh, wait). It’s kind of like how We The Media keep demanding MPs be independent and vote for their constituents’ wishes and so on, and yet the moment one of them shows a little bit of backbone, we thunder that the leader is losing control of his or her caucus. Because that’s helpful. And so, Campbell Clark bemoans that poor Peter Harder doesn’t have any levers of power in the Senate to do Trudeau’s bidding, and lo, he may not even have much of an office budget either (though he can always ask the Internal Economy to increase it – this is not something that is set in stone for all time). Add to that, Clark worries that all of those new independent senators are going to have to find some new process of working things out – completely ignoring that they have already started getting that ball rolling with the Independent Working Group. It’s like he hasn’t paid attention to what is actually going on there and has been going on for the past several weeks. Meanwhile, Chantal Hébert looks at André Pratte’s history and notes his differences with Trudeau’s philosophy, then bemoans that with all of those incoming senators, that the party leader won’t be responsible for their behaviour as they once might have been. And what is Hébert ignoring? Only the most fundamental principle in Canadian democracy – Responsible Government. Trudeau will be responsible to voters for the conduct of his appointees, whether he can whip them or not. That is a fundamental tenet of our system. If he makes a bunch of dud appointments, then guess what – voters can have their say, just as they had their say with Harper after the extent of the ClusterDuff business came out in court. This is a basic concept, and it’s disappointing that a long-time observer of Canadian politics has to be reminded of it.

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QP: Women ask the questions 

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It being International Women’s Day, one could be sure that outside of the leader’s round, we would see a majority of women MPs asking questions, and lo and behold, that was the case. Rona Ambrose led off, mini-lectern on Scheer’s neighbouring desk, and she asked about the Yazidi women targeted by ISIS and bringing them over as refugees. Justin Trudeau reminded her of the commitments they made to bring over refugees, and that they achieved their goal of 25,000 Syrian refugees . Ambrose repeated yesterday’s question about his visit to the Centre for American Progress, to which Trudeau responded that when he was there two years ago, he spoke out in favour of Keystone XL. Ambrose then tried to insist that Trudeau help Bombardier by agreeing to their supply day motion on the Toronto Island airport. Trudeau asked her not to pit region against region for political gain. Kelley Block was up next, and insisted that the Liberals let the Toronto Island airport expand so that Porter can buy Bombardier C-series jets (as though the tens that they would buy would totally make the difference). Marc Garneau praised Air Canada’s intent to purchase those jets, and when Block asked again, Garneau chastised her for not respecting the tripartite agreement with the city and provincial governments. Thomas Mulcair was up next, and demanded a childcare plan. Trudeau hit back that Mulcair would be deciding what to cut if he had been elected in order to balance the budget. Mulcair then used women’s access to EI to badger the government for defeating their opposition day motion. Trudeau responded that they were taking action, and there would be more to come in the budget. Mulcair raised the issue of tax cheats getting amnesty deals, and Trudeau noted it was under the previous government and they would investigate if need be. Mulcair demanded action, citing special treatment for the rich, and Trudeau reminded him of his pledge to give childcare dollars to millionaires.

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QP: Sad to see them go

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On a snowy day in Ottawa, the parties were riled up after their caucus meetings, and ready to go for QP. Rona Ambrose led off, this time putting her mini-lectern on Andrew Scheer’s desk in order to get a different camera angle, and she wondered if the government was making up their deficit plans and they go along. Justin Trudeau chided the Conservatives for their decade of low growth, and noted their commitment to growth. Ambrose asked the same question in French, and Trudeau responded that they were creating jobs. Ambrose then moved to the issue of the CF-18s and noted an American General was “sad to see them go.” Trudeau retorted that our allies were glad that we stepped up our role in the fight against ISIS. Jason Kenney asked a meandering question about deficits and taxes, for which Trudeau praised investment in infrastructure, jobs and the middle class. Kenney wondered which taxes they would increase to pay for their deficits, to which Trudeau noted that the Conservatives had no idea about how to create growth in the economy. Thomas Mulcair was up next, and mentioned a First Nations community that was declaring a state of emergency for their everyday existence, and Trudeau thanked him for raising the issue and noted their promise to reset the relationship with First Nations. Mulcair moved to the question of a commitment to build a maintenance centre for Bombardier C-Series jets, for which Trudeau praised the agreement with Air Canada and Bombardier. Mulcair asked again in French, got the same answer, and for his final question, Mulcair demanded the stock option tax loophole, but Trudeau told him to wait for the budget.

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Roundup: Doing the policy heavy lifting

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If you were to turn to the Big Book of Canadian Political Journalism Clichés, you’d find pages of tiresome and frankly libellous descriptions of the Senate of Canada. And oh, look – The Canadian Press drew from a number of them to craft the lead of their latest piece: “Canada’s Senate, often accused of being an anachronism, is being asked to wrestle with the futuristic dream of driverless cars.” Of course, the accusations of being an anachronism often come from clueless political journalists who recite the received wisdom around the Upper Chamber with little or no critical insight or understanding of Chamber, its actual role, or its operations, and they treat it like a joke, which makes ledes like this commonplace. “Isn’t it hilarious that the Senate is supposed to look at future technology? Aren’t they all ancient, napping in the Chamber? LOL,” and so on. And then this line a little further down in the piece: “His request for a Senate study is part of the Trudeau government’s attempt to recast the much-maligned upper house as an independent and valued institution that has an important parliamentary role to play.” Um, no, it doesn’t need to be recast as having an important role to play because they’ve always had it. The Senate has been doing the kinds of cutting-edge policy study and research that the Commons can’t or won’t for decades. Just in the last parliament alone, they studied things like BitCoin and crypto-currencies, and they have been debating legislation on growing issues like genetic privacy that the Commons continues to shirk while they snipe at one another over partisan issues. But hey, when asked to do a comprehensive study on the regulatory, policy and technical issues that need to be addressed by the growing field of driverless cars, hey, it’s all a big joke because it’s the Senate. That kind of tiresome attitude is part of why the studies and reports that come out of the Senate – which in many ways acts like a built-in think tank for Parliament (and a hugely cost-effective one at that) – tend to go under the radar. Some reports get a couple of days of press, such as the very good report on the Canada-US price differential (which the previous government then largely ignored when they went to craft legislation to close that gap – an issue now moot thanks to our falling dollar), but for the most part, the media will ignore the studies. It’s really a shame because there is a lot of good work in there that is worth a lot more discussion and attention, lest it gather dust on a shelf. But why actually turn to those studies when we can make jokes about the Senate, malign its denizens thanks to the actions of a couple of bad apples, and ignore the actual work while grumbling that they aren’t elected? It’s too bad that We The Media can’t take these things more seriously, as we would all be better off as an informed citizenry as a result.

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Roundup: Weak sauce mea culpa

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It only took a hundred days, but the NDP membership finally got some kind of a public mea culpa from leader Thomas Mulcair over the way the last election went down, and good news – he takes full responsibility for what happened! But much as Rebecca Blaikie’s interim report goes soft on what Mulcair did wrong, Mulcair’s own reckoning of events is still going pretty soft on things that happened as opposed to some of the myths that are being built up. Things like the balanced budget pledge, which Mulcair said overshadowed the “social democratic economic vision” where they thought they could squeeze all kinds of money out of corporate taxes, CEOs and tax havens, which any competent economist will remind you that you certainly can’t get the kind of money they’re talking from any of those sources. Mulcair goes soft on the observation that they lacked an over-arching narrative that could be easily communicated, when problem was less of a lack of an overall message, but a really poor message that they settled on, which was then badly communicated because, well, the message was poor to begin with. The message, of course, being “good, competent public administration,” and after Canadians had put up with a prime minister who had all of the pizzazz of dull wood varnish, Mulcair would show up to debates, smize like his life depended on it, and proceeded to look like someone on Valium because he was more intent on controlling his temper than he was in engaging with real ideas to present rather than some tired – and in come cases baffling – talking points. And this is what they sent up against most dynamic and charismatic political leader in over a generation. Couple this with some pretty disastrous policy rollouts – recall the initial release of their “costed platform” that didn’t actually have any breakdowns of numbers, but had some nonsense headings like “helping Canadians in need” that journalists rightly questioned, and when we did get numbers, they were based on some wrong assumptions. Campaigns matter, and both Mulcair and Blaikie have been downplaying that it was a poorly run campaign. Mulcair’s letter also contained some rather cryptic references to “overhauling the way caucus works,” but it’s vague, and isn’t owning up to their over-centralization that made the Conservatives’ centralisation efforts look elementary. That centralization has been carrying on to this day, which, when compared to the Liberals’ governing by cabinet rather than the leader’s office, and where their ministers are answering the bulk of their questions off-the-cuff and on their feet while the NDP (Mulcair included) have their scripts in front of them every time they rise in the Chamber, it looks stifling and controlling. So far, I’m not seeing much of a willingness to confront these truths so that they can do something to change them, which the party membership is going to have to weight when the leadership review comes in April.

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