Tag Archives: The Monarchy

Roundup: Performative or procedurally correct?

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The NDP held their first post-election caucus meeting yesterday, saying goodbye to departing MPs and welcoming their rookies and returning MPs, and when they met the press afterward, Jagmeet Singh announced that he is going to press for pharmacare and for the government to abandon their application for judicial review the Human Rights Tribunal compensation for First Nations youth. But there are problems with both – on the former, he is proposing the party’s first private members’ bill be taken up with the matter, and on the latter, the substantive problems with the Tribunal likely exceeding its statutory authority to make that kind of compensation order is kind of a big deal and as a lawyer, you would think he might have an appreciation for bad jurisprudence while still pushing for the government to go ahead with the compensation that they said they would honour. But you know, performative outrage.

Which brings me back to the notion of pharmacare legislation. The whole promise is built on both bad practice and bad procedure. Remember that when it comes to private members’ bills, they are allocated by lottery, meaning that it’s random as to who gets what slot, and Singh is not proposing as leader to take away the slot of the first NDP MP whose name comes up so that he can dictate what bill will be presented. That’s not only heavy-handed, but it actively removes the independence of that MP (which the NDP is used to doing while pretending they don’t, but let’s call a spade a spade). So much for any of the issues that MP cares about – the leader demanded their spot. The second and more important aspect is that private members’ bills can’t initiate government spending, and pharmacare is provincial jurisdiction, meaning that it’s depending on negotiating with premiers. The bill, essentially, is out of order, unless it becomes an exercise in demanding a national strategy, which the NDP love to do, but one of their MPs went on TV last night to say that they intend to use it to lay out the framework they want to implement. I can pretty much guarantee you that it means the bill will be dead on arrival, and that the committee that decides on what private members’ business is voteable will decide that it’s not. (The sponsor who was forced to give up their spot for this bill will then demand that the Commons vote to override the committee, and when they don’t, the NDP will wail and gnash their teeth that the Liberals don’t care about Pharmacare, which is a script so predictable it might as well be a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie).

What the NDP could do instead is use their first Supply Day to debate a motion on Pharmacare, which would then have a vote and let them scream and moan if the Liberals don’t adopt it for the reason that they’ve already committed to the implementation plan in the Hopkins report (which the NDP decry as not being fast enough), but at least that would be procedurally sound. But their apologists have been telling me on Twitter that all private members’ bills are theatre and only exist to make a point (untrue), or that they could simply get a minister to agree to it in order to spend the funds (never going to happen), but hey, it’s a minority parliament so the NDP can pretend to dictate terms as though they actually had bargaining given the seat maths. It’s too bad that they can’t be both performative and procedurally correct.

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Roundup: It’s TMX Day

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Today is the day that the government will make their decision on the Trans Mountain Expansion, and it should not be a surprise to say that they are almost certainly going to approve it, having spent $4.5 billion on the existing pipeline to “de-risk” the project, and far more in political capital at the cost of some of their BC, Indigenous, and environmental base while trying to insist that this is necessary for the transition to a cleaner economy. Of course, if they could communicate their way out of a wet paper bag, it might help them to make that case, but they seem incapable of it. The real question is going to be what kinds of changes to the route will be made in order to accommodate Indigenous groups, or other conditions to be mandated as part of it.

There will be much talk about the “pipeline crunch” that the TMX will hope to address, which has to do with added oilsands production and not enough ways to get it to market, given ongoing delays on the American side of both Enbridge Line 3 and Keystone XL – projects which have been approved in Canada, and the Line 3 construction has been ongoing on the Canadian side. But as much as TMX will help, we also need to remember that the projected growth capacity is limited, which is another reason why Energy East doesn’t make economic sense. The concern that the sector needs all kinds of new pipelines isn’t actually borne out in the data (as Andrew Leach has pointed out repeatedly, including here).

On a related note, the government has rejected most of the Senate amendments to Bill C-48, on the tanker ban, but did agree to the five-year legislative review period, but as much as industry groups are demanding that this bill and Bill C-69 be killed, it’s not going to happen.

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Roundup: Harder tries to play hero again

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After hosting most of the Alberta senators to a lunch in Edmonton, Alberta premier Jason Kenney has written a letter to Senator Peter Harder, Leader of the Government in the Senate – err, “government representative,” to say that he and the leaders of the other two main parties in Alberta are willing to accept Bill C-69 if they keep it as amended by the committee. Those amendments, mind you, were largely all written by industry lobbyists, and gut much of what the bill was trying to accomplish, which was an overhaul of the environmental assessment process, because what’s on the books now (which is the process that Harper gutted in 2012) isn’t working and is only resulting in court challenges.

And Harder? Well, after his whip – err, “government liaison,” Senator Grant Mitchell, has been pushing for the bills to pass largely unamended, Harder says that he now wants to send this bill as amended back to the Commons, as well as the recommendation that Bill C-48 (the tanker ban) – though I’m not sure how that would happen given the de facto committee recommendation is that it not proceed – and let them decide whether or not to keep the amendments. Let the government deal with it – or rather, wear the decision for not accepting the amendments so that Kenney will turn his ire to Trudeau, and not the Senate. Because Harder is such a hero like that (while making up parts of his job description that don’t actually exist).

Meanwhile, former Senator Hugh Segal is taking to the pages of the Globe and Mail to warn the Senate against defeating C-48 because he says it would contradict the Salisbury Convention. *sigh* No. The Salisbury Convention doesn’t exist in Canada, no matter how many times Harder of luminaries like Segal bring it up. It’s contrary to the Constitution, we don’t have the same historical reasons for why Salisbury was adopted in the House of Lords, and it also goes against the whole notion of a more “independent” Senate. Nor is C-48 an election promise so far as anyone can gather, which is a trigger for Salisbury – if it existed (which it doesn’t in Canada). There are plenty of reasons why the Senate shouldn’t defeat C-48, but making up that it’s contrary to Salisbury isn’t one of them.

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Roundup: No contrition

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Despite the Liberals having floated that the notion that Justin Trudeau may be striking a more conciliatory tone over his handling of the Double-Hyphen Affair, when he called an early morning press conference before getting on a plane to Iqaluit (and having to turn back because of weather), Trudeau was decidedly not conciliatory. Or apologetic. But he did say that they were always learning lessons, and this too was one more of them. Of course, I’m not really sure how conciliatory he really could be – he has basically boxed himself into a corner where he can’t admit wrongdoing, because that would mean he undermined the rule of law, but he also has to look like he’s sensitive enough as to why Jody Wilson-Raybould resigned while still trying to brazen it out. It’s one hell of a juggling act, but nobody seems to be buying it. And so, while mouthing words about leadership styles and trying to put forward the notion that Wilson-Raybould didn’t come to him with her concerns where the door was open, one of his soon-to-be departing MPs, Celina Caesar-Chavannes tweeted that she tried to do so, twice, and was apparently rebuffed (and then refused all media entreaties to clarify). So there’s that.

In related content, some Indigenous and Métis leaders say that Wilson-Raybould could have effected real change had she taken over the Indigenous Services portfolio that she rebuffed. Here’s a list of outstanding questions we have after discrepancies between Wilson-Raybould’s testimony, and that of Gerald Butts and Michael Wernick. And since the opposition members of the justice committee have seen fit to recall the committee next week, they may have the opportunity to call past witnesses back…again. The National Postrounds-up the international and Quebec reactions to the ongoing story. And of course there are the premiers of Saskatchewan and Alberta (and Brad Wall) whinging that this shows special consideration for Quebec-based jobs, while conveniently ignoring that Trudeau bought a pipeline and has been shovelling federal dollars into the energy sector of late. Here’s a look at what a 10-year ban on federal contracts could mean for SCN-Lavalin, as they are now lobbying for leniency if they are convicted, and updates to the integrity framework could be flexible enough that they could avoid debarment.

In pundit reaction, Chris Selley is having none of Butts’ explanations for the Cabinet shuffle math. Jason Lietaer offers suggestions as to how Trudeau could have fixed the situation (but that would mean showing contrition, which is risky for him to do). John Geddes makes the point about how Trudeau promised not to centralise power in his office, but certainly appears to have anyway. Robert Hiltz has a hard time figuring out just what lessons Trudeau says he’s learned, given that he seems oblivious to it all.

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Roundup: Objections to the waiver

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At first it seemed like today was going to be the big day. Jody Wilson-Raybould had agreed to meet the justice committee to tell “her truth.” On his way into Cabinet, Justin Trudeau said he was “pleased” that she would be able to appear at committee. The committee agreed to give her the thirty minutes she requested off the top instead of the usual five or ten for an opening statement. Some MPs wanted to try and get the hearing moved from after QP to beforehand (never mind that it’s when all of the parties hold their caucus meetings) in order to be able to ask the PM any questions that might arise from the testimony. And then, surprising probably nobody who paid attention, Wilson-Raybould sent another letter to committee, expressing her “concerns” that the Order in Council that waived solicitor-client privilege wasn’t enough for her to tell the full story.

At this point, it’s starting to feel like a game – that Wilson-Raybould’s attempt to keep controlling the narrative is running out of runway, given that Michael Wernick called her out and Justin Trudeau went and waived solicitor-client privilege (unnecessarily, if you listen to some of the legal commentary out there), and now she’s trying to sow doubt that she’s still not completely free to speak, in order to keep up the narrative that she’s the victim or the hero, distracting from her poor record as justice minister. And it’s starting to feel like the more song and dance that she keeps putting up in order to keep from speaking, the less there is to what she has to say. But maybe I’m getting cynical after a decade on the Hill.

Meanwhile, former litigator Andrew Roman takes a deeper look into the portents of doom for SNC-Lavalin if they were subject to prosecution and even a ten-year ban from federal contracts, and finds them to be less dire than advertised, which makes any alleged wrongdoing by the government to protect them all the more baffling.

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Roundup: It’s Statute of Westminster Day!

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Today is the anniversary of the Statute of Westminster, which you should be very excited about. Why is it important? Because in 1931, this is not only the Act of Parliament that gave Canada its sovereignty in terms of setting our own foreign policy – essentially meaning we were now a real country and no longer a glorified colony – but more importantly, it also created the Canadian Crown. In fact, this is where the Crown became divisible, and suddenly the Crown of the United Kingdom split off to become the Crowns of Canada, New Zealand, the Irish Free State, South Africa, Newfoundland, and Australia. The realms have changed since then, but the principle remains – that the King (now Queen) was no longer just the King of the United Kingdom, but that each realm had their own separate legal Crown as well. This is an important milestone in Canadian history, and we should pay much more attention to it than we traditionally do – particularly if you’re a fan of the Canadian monarchy because this is where it all began for us.

With this in mind, here’s Philippe Lagassé explaining the consequences of the Statute with regards to royal succession and the compromises that resulted from it.

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Roundup: A (likely) electoral false alarm

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There were a few eyebrows raised in the Parliamentary Precinct yesterday when news came from the Procedure and House Affairs committee that the Chief Electoral Officer said that they intend to be ready for an election by the end of April, never mind that the fixed election date is October, and suddenly there was a renewed (but brief) round of election speculation fever (which was then suffocated by the Kavanagh hearings south of the border). Stéphane Perrault noted that they can basically run an election anytime under the previous contest’s rules, but they need lead time for future changes, which puts a clock on the current bill at committee if they want to have a chance for any of the changes to be implemented by next year’s election – and that assumes fairly swift passage in the Senate, which they may not get (particularly if the Conservatives are determined to slow passage of the bill down in committee as it stands).

Of course, I’m pretty sure that a spring election is not going to happen, simply because Trudeau’s agenda still has too many boxes without checkmarks – which is also why I suspect that we haven’t had a prorogation. And looking at how Trudeau has organised his agenda, so much of it has been backloaded to the final year, with plenty of spillover for him to ask for re-election in order to keep it going. (Things are also delayed, one suspects, because NAFTA talks have derailed things in the PMO, and sucked up much of the talent and brainpower. Suffice to say, I’m not taking any talk about an early election with any seriousness.

Meanwhile, more eyebrows were raised when Conservative MP Michelle Rempel claimed that she was being told to prepare for a fall election, which we’re 99 percent sure is just a new fundraising ploy, for what that’s worth.

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Roundup: Her Excellency’s many issues

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The floodgates have opened, and stories about the difficult first year that Her Excellency Julie Payette has been having as Governor General have been fast and furious. From concerns that she’s still living at Rideau Gate rather than Rideau Hall despite there being renovated living quarters now available, to concerns about her not telling her security detail where she’s at, the concerns on the ground that she’s breaking convention by not visiting every province in her first year, were all warm-ups for this wide-ranging piece in the National Post that compiles a lot of the things we’ve been hearing unofficially in Ottawa, about what a struggle the year has been. While some of it is growing pains, and some of it are potentially unfair comparisons to having previously appointed Governors General who were superhuman in their ability to take on a volume of work (and in the case of someone like Adrienne Clarkson, write all of her own speeches for 500+ engagements in a year), I was particularly disturbed by the fact that the Liberal Research Bureau was doing the background checks and vetting for the appointment when Trudeau should have kept the Vice-Regal Appointments Committee in operation (and the only reason anyone can think as to why he disbanded it was that it was Harper’s creation and it was simply an act of pettiness). The fact that they didn’t properly prepare her for the role is also a big red flag as to the seriousness with which they undertook the process and the decision. I hope that these are just growing pains and that they’ll sort themselves out, but given how badly this government has managed its appointment processes so far, it really leaves one questioning some of the competence of the senior ranks of this government.

If there’s a silver lining to all of this, I would say that I hope it means that it might encourage some of these charities and organisations that the GG used to be the patron of might look instead to members of the royal family. This could very well be a golden opportunity to start re-forging some links with our monarchy, and getting more royals on our shores to have a lot more face-time and remining both royals and Canadians that we have bonds that need to be strengthened, lest they atrophy. It’s also a particularly good time given the addition of Megan, Duchess of Sussex, to the family, and the fact that she spent that much time in Toronto gives her that connection already, and we should be capitalising on it (not to mention the fact that Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, has Canadian ancestors including a pre-Confederation Prime Ministers, and we should be milking that connection for all it’s worth too).

Meanwhile, here’s a look at Payette finally getting to Humbolt, Saskatchewan, six months later, and the fact that she’s been reluctant to visit other sites of tragedies, like Fredericton after the recent shootings there.

Special note: If you’re concerned about the tornado that hit this area, they were to the west of Ottawa, and across the river in Gatineau, and nowhere near the Parliamentary precinct. I wasn’t affected, and my power didn’t go out (hence why you’re getting this morning’s roundup).

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Roundup: Performative obeisance

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Brave anonymous Conservatives have gone to the media to describe how they asked Andrew Scheer to let them vote to remove Maxime Bernier from caucus. Scheer, smartly, said no, but the whole affair is sordid and more than a little gross. The reasons these brave anonymous Conservatives gave for looking to oust Bernier was because he apparently lied to caucus when he said he was going to shelve his book project and then reposted the chapter that had already been made public on his website. But it’s not really about Bernier’s supposed sins, but rather it’s another instance of MPs being performative in their demonstrations of obeisance to Scheer as the leader, which is antithetical to how a Westminster system should operate.

Scheer knows that booting Bernier would cause a rift in the party, where all of the Ayn Rand-reading wannabe-libertarians in the party would storm off after him in a huff, possibly forming a libertarian splinter party in their wake (never mind the fact that Bernier isn’t actually that smart as a politician, as charismatic as he may be, and it would likely all end in tears). But Scheer has to preserve the big tent – or at least the illusion thereof, because gods know that he’s already alienated Red Tories and free-market conservatives with his pursuit of boneheaded populism – and so he’s going to keep Bernier around. Not in his shadow cabinet, apparently, because Bernier has become a liability in his attempt to portray himself as a greater defender of Supply Management than thou, but Bernier will at least be there in the room, tolerated. For what that’s worth.

More importantly, this is but one more sign about how venal and degenerate political parties in this country have become as they’ve been hollowed out and serve as little more than personality cults thanks to the bastardized leadership contest rules that each has adopted. Because leaders are chosen in such a broken manner, it has given them the appearance of “democratic legitimacy” that is antithetical to how our system operates, and rather than hold them to account, the caucuses now twist themselves into pretzels to show loyalty to the brand of the leader rather than the ideals of the party. And until we’re willing to stand up and say no, this is a bastardization of our system, it will only continue to get worse (and yes, the Liberals are among the worst culprits for this). This is not how parties are supposed to work. This is not how the Westminster system is supposed to work. And yet we have brave anonymous MPs tattling on each other for thought crimes against their leaders. It’s revolting.

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Roundup: Fighting to preserve parliamentary privilege

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Senator Mike Duffy’s court challenge started yesterday, and the Senate as a whole fought back to have the Chamber excluded from his lawsuit under the rubric of parliamentary privilege. The Senate’s privileges include the ability to discipline its members – and this needs to be reiterated firmly, because as a self-governing body with institutional independence, that’s the only way that senators can be disciplined outside of a criminal process. This is also why there is a differentiation when it comes to the judge asking the hypothetical about the Speaker shooting someone – privilege does not necessarily cover criminality.

Part of what Duffy’s lawyers are trying to argue was that the Senate’s punishment of his suspension without pay should be subject to judicial review because he was acquitted of all charges by the Ontario Superior Court. The problem is that he was found to have broken several of the Senate’s rules, regardless of what the court found, and the Senate is empowered to deal with those breaches as they see fit – not to mention, it was also about making sure that discipline was seen to be done, which was important for a body that was facing scandal and public outrage. This doesn’t mean that they went about it in the best way, however – the pressure (especially coming from PMO, which the Senate leadership at the time capitulated to) wanted to have these suspensions out of the way immediately, and so Duffy’s interventions were cut short, and Senator Pamela Wallin never got her chance to defend herself at all because of the haste. Due process was not necessarily followed, and yes, that’s a problem. However, that is not a problem that can be sorted by means of judicial review, because that would undermine the Senate’s ability to be self-governing (just like the Senate subjecting itself to external financial control like the Auditor General wants would undermine its privileges and ability to be self-governing).

It can’t be understated how damaging it will be if we let the courts start interfering in the operations of Parliament, in either the Commons or the Senate. The constant injunctions to legislation, the threats of lawsuits, the massive breach of the doctrine of separation of powers – it’s not something that we should mess with. Duffy may feel he was treated unfairly – and maybe he was to an extent – but it’s no reason to start pulling bricks out of the wall when it comes to privilege. And if the judge has any sense, she’ll respect that separation and take the Senate out of the lawsuit.

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