Tag Archives: The Senate

Roundup: A cover-up leads to an admission

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The day was largely spent fretting over the state of the investigation into downed flight PS752 – particularly given the news that Iranian officials had already bulldozed the site before international investigators could arrive, ensuring a cover-up was underway. The Ukrainian government was insisting to the Iranians that Canadians be involved, and we got word that a mere two visas had been issued for Canadian consular officials so far (though François-Philippe Champagne did say that he was expecting more to be approved soon). Champagne later announced the creation of an international working group, comprised of the countries whose citizens were all killed aboard the flight, to press Iran for answers, while in the back channels, there is talk that Canadian officials are telling the Americans that they should have been informed of their plans to kill the Iranian general, given that we’re coalition partners. Amidst all of this, mourning continued across the country. (The National Post compiles profiles of the victims here).

And then, something surprising happened – Iranian officials, including their president, admitted publicly that it was indeed one of their missiles that shot down the aircraft accidentally, and that it was human error that they plan to prosecute those responsible, as well as profound apologies and expressions of regret (while taking a swipe at American “adventurism” in the process). It was a marked change of tone after days of denial, insisting that it was “impossible” that they could have shot it down, and what looked to be a cover-up in the making. One suspects that this will have a profound shift in the narrative in the days ahead, and that Iran will be prepared to pay some kind of compensation, just as what happened in 1988 when the Americans admitted they accidentally shot down an Iranian airliner.

Meanwhile, Adnan R. Khan walks through how the accidental missile strike could have happened, while Colby Cosh offers more parallels and reminders to the 1988 incident of the Americans shooting down the Iranian plane then, how it is remembered differently in the West than it is in Iran, and how our amnesia to is affects the reactions – particularly from those who are howling about “murder” and demanding the prime minister be angry about it. As if to prove the point, Heather Scoffield demands some righteous indignation from Trudeau, and for some of that to be directed to Trump for what his recklessness has cost us – as though that would help the situation or not cause even more problems for Canada down the road.

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Roundup: Testing names in the field

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Over the weekend, I got a call from a public opinion research company who was doing a survey on the Conservative leadership race. While many of the questions were fairly loaded or leading when it came to things like carbon pricing, and there were a lot of questions relating to just how progressive one thinks a future Conservative leader should be, I was most fascinated by the testing about potential candidates. There was an open-ended opportunity to provide a name that one might think could entice voters to switch to the Conservative party, followed by a list of names where one was invited to rank how much it would make you switch your vote for the Conservatives. That list: Gerard Deltell, former Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney, Doug Ford, Jason Kenney, Jean Charest, Peter MacKay, Rona Ambrose, Lisa Raitt, Pierre Poilievre, Erin O’Toole, and Christy Clark. The inclusion of Carney is a head-scratcher considering that there was a Big Deal a few years ago about his apparently sniffing around the Liberals about a possible future leadership bid, while the fact that Michael Chong was left out despite his previous leadership run and the fact that he has stated he is seriously considering another go of it. So anyway, make of the list what you will, but those are the names that someone is testing.

Meanwhile, the first “official” declared candidate is Bryan Brulotte, a one-time Progressive Conservative staffer and failed candidate, who is pitching a negative income tax and “luxury tax” in lieu of a carbon price. Pierre Poilievre is also planning to announce his candidacy today, with John Baird chairing his campaign – though one wonders if that will conflict with his post-mortem report on how the party botched the election.

On that note, here’s Jess Morgan’s argument why he would be the absolute worst thing, while Paul Wells sizes up what we know of the race to date, and what kinds of choices the party faces in the process.

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Roundup: Mandate letters and the minister for everything

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Yesterday was the day that Justin Trudeau released the mandate letters for his ministers, giving us a glimpse as to what their marching orders will be (which is still a fairly novel transparency and accountability measure in this country, it needs to be said). The National Post counted up some 288 projects listed in those mandates, some of them holdovers from the previous parliament (which isn’t surprising considering that  many of them were fairly ambitious and transformational and were not achievable within four years). But there were also a number of things missing from several of those letters that should have been dealt with – particularly on the justice file.

As with the previous parliament, each of the letters has an identical preamble, advising the ministers to “govern in a positive, open and collaborative way,” because it’s a hung parliament and all of that. In terms of specific points in the letters, there are issues like discussions with province over pharmacare, shortening wait times for airport screenings, tax cuts for green tech companies, reforming the medical assistance in dying laws, advancing international efforts to ban “killer robots,” procuring new fighter jets and modernizing NORAD. One of the more alarming mentions was in Bill Morneau’s letter, advising him to review and possibly modify the financial stress test applied to mortgages, which is a Very Bad Thing, and means that the real estate lobby is winning its air war over the good common sense of the Governor of the Bank of Canada and the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions. (Seriously – there is no excuse for encouraging bad debt).

And then there is Chrystia Freeland’s letter, which is expansive and makes her in essence a “minister of everything” who is assigned to basically work with a number of other ministers to advance their priorities, whether it’s carbon pricing, getting resources to market, breaking down internal trade barriers, facilitating pharmacare talks, working on pan-Canadian childcare, gun control, regional economic development agencies, and advancing reconciliation. This leaves questions as to what exactly Trudeau will be doing while Freeland does all the work – leaving her to either take the fall while Trudeau gets to take the credit. This having been said, it’s just as likely that she wanted a full plate of projects rather than simply spending her weeks heading to provincial capitals to meet with premiers once the New NAFTA is ratified, but she certainly has her work cut out for her, ensuring that enough of these promises are fulfilled before the inevitable early election call that comes in a hung parliament.

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Roundup: Immutable committee math

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In a move that is possibly quite disappointing, the Liberals got unanimous consent yesterday to suspend the sections of the Standing Orders governing the powers of parliamentary secretaries – which could be an issue if they plan to put them back on committees with voting powers and the ability to move motions and so on. Some of you may recall that when this was the standard practice during the Conservative era, these committees simply became branch plants of the ministers’ offices, and everything was stage-managed within an inch of their lives.

However.

I also have it on good authority that this may not be exactly as it seems. Part of the problem is that there is a shortage of warm bodies in the Liberal ranks to fill the committees, particularly if you have a Cabinet of 37 out of 157 seats, and what looks to be a prospective parliamentary secretary list of at least 46 (given that Economic Development with have separate parliamentary secretaries for each regional economic development agency). Then, subtract the Speaker and the Assistant Deputy Speaker, who can’t sit on committees, and that leaves them with 72 MPs (maybe less – a couple may also remain assigned to NSICOP, which pulled them from other committees in the previous parliament) to distribute across 27 standing and joint committees, where the parliamentary math in the current hung parliament would see four Liberal MPs per committee. Quite simply, they don’t have enough.

What I’ve been told by my sources is that what they may wind up doing is allowing parliamentary secretaries to sit as regular committee members on committees that aren’t those aligned with their minister, so that they would essentially be pulling double (or possibly triple) duty, especially if they remain on the committees aligned with their minister in a non-voting capacity. It’s not pretty, but it may be what winds up being necessary if they intend to live up to their promise to keep parliamentary secretaries from being voting members of their interested committees. (Are we ready to start having a discussion about having a more reasonable number of MPs for a country of our size? Because seriously, not having enough bodies is an actual problem that has consequences for the efficacy of the institution).

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Roundup: A promise weaselled out on

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A very important bill has been introduced in the Senate, that has been attempted on more than a few occasions now, and it’s a sign of a promise that the Liberals weaselled out on in the past. The bill? To restore Parliament’s ability to control government borrowing by way of votes – you know, like Parliament is supposed to do as part of their job of holding government to account by means of controlling the public purse. You see, back in the Harper era, they hid the change in one of their massive omnibus budget bills that stripped Parliament of the ability to vote on new borrowing, and instead turned it over to Cabinet. Senators caught it too late, and the bill passed, and whoops, no more ability for Parliament to hold government to account for it any longer. Senator Wilfred Moore introduced a bill to revert this practice on a couple of occasions, and Senator Joseph Day carried on with it in the previous Parliament, and has just reintroduced it in this one.

https://twitter.com/SenDayNB/status/1204502292076154880

The Liberals were all in favour of this back when they were in opposition, and made a big show about promising to restore this to Parliament – and then they weaselled out on it. What they did instead was introduced a debt ceiling of $1.168 trillion, after which Parliament would need to vote to extend it, and said that Cabinet only needed to report to Parliament every three years about the money it has borrowed, starting in 2020. Let me reiterate – they weaselled out of this promise, and at least there are senators who are alive to why this is important for Parliament.

These are principles that go back to Runnymede, and the Magna Carta in 1215, and made more explicit in 1688 when the king wasn’t able to borrow money without Parliament’s consent. The Conservatives broke this important principle of Parliament for their convenience. That the Liberals have refused to act on their promise to restore it is a black mark against them.

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Roundup: Contemplating compromised committees

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As the summoning of the new Parliament draws ever closer, we’re seeing more stories about the procedural intricacies of the first few sitting days, and the coming confidence vote on or before the 10th because of the Supply cycle and the need to pass the Supplementary Estimates before that date. Fair enough – those can be expected to pass pretty handily because nobody is going to want to head right back to the polls (and I wouldn’t expect the Governor General to grant an immediate election either – the developing convention is waiting at least six months, providing there is another viable governing party, though that would be the real trick given the current seat maths).

This all having been said, there was something in this interview with Pablo Rodriguez, the new Government House Leader, which sticks in my craw, and that’s the talk about possibly undoing the rule changes that prevent parliamentary secretaries from being voting members on Commons committees, and I. Just. Cannot. Even.

While the chances of this happening are fairly slim, given that it would require opposition support and they are unlikely to get it, it’s still crazy-making. This reflex to go super political in a hung parliament is understandable but deeply frustrating because it undermines the whole raison d’être of Parliament, which is to hold the government to account, and committees are one very big piece of the accountability puzzle. Parliamentary secretaries should have no business even being near committees because it undermines their independence. It’s bad enough that under the previous parliament, they were still on the committee in a non-voting capacity, but it still allowed ministers’ offices to attempt to stage manage what went on (to varying degrees, depending on which committee it was). Having the parliamentary secretaries as voting members simply turns committees into the branch plants of ministers’ offices, and we saw this play out for the better part of a decade under Stephen Harper. Committees are not there to simply take orders from the minister and waste everyone’s time, and it would be hugely disappointing if the Liberals returned to that way of thinking simply because it’s a hung parliament. If we think that the only time to let Parliament function properly is if there’s a majority for the government, then it’s a sad state of affairs for our democracy.

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Roundup: The call is coming from inside the caucus room

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The hits just keep coming for Andrew Scheer, as one of his MPs came out vocally against his leadership yesterday. In the wake of the fairly low-key announcement of his Shadow Cabinet, it was quickly noticed that Ed Fast was not on said list, and Fast himself said that he was asked to be part of it and he declined, saying that Scheer should be surrounded by people loyal to his leadership, while Fast has concerns about it. Up until this moment, Scheer’s loyalists were dismissing those vocally and publicly calling for Scheer to step down as being Toronto elites and sore losers that go back to leadership rivals. Fast’s public denouncement puts a lie to this narrative.

Let’s face it – public dissent in caucus is rare because we have virtually eliminated all of the incentives for it. Our bastardized leadership selection process has leaders claiming a “democratic legitimacy” that they use to intimidate MPs into not challenging them, because it goes against the “will of the grassroots” (and to hell with that MP’s voters, apparently). We gave party leaders the power to sign off on nomination forms with the purest of intentions and it quickly got perverted into a tool of blackmail and iron-fisted discipline. Pretty much the only time MPs will speak out is if they have nothing to lose, and Fast is in that position – he could retire tomorrow and be all the better for it. And it’s when the dissent goes public that leaders really need to worry because that means that it’s happening by those inside the caucus room who aren’t saying anything out loud. Provincially, we’ve seen instances of it taking only one or two MLAs coming out publicly for leaders to see the writing on the wall and resign. The caucus may be bigger in Ottawa, but the sentiment is increasingly out in the open – that can’t be sustainable.

Scheer later went to the annual UCP convention in Calgary, where he was predictably given a fairly warm welcome– but he shouldn’t rest on this applause because he doesn’t need to win Alberta – he already has their votes, and they’re not enough to carry the country, no matter how much they increase their vote share. He needs seats in Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic Canada, and he is having a hard time cracking those areas, in particular because of his social conservatism and the UCP convention isn’t going to be the place to go to get honest feedback about that problem. It’s a bubble, and a trap that becomes too easy to feel that there is nothing wrong if he stays in it too long.

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Roundup: Putting Alleslev at the fore

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As expected, Andrew Scheer named Leona Alleslev as his new deputy leader yesterday, but left the majority of his House leadership team in place. Alleslev is a bit of a curious choice, given that she was a Liberal until a little over a year ago until she crossed the floor in a huff (and in conversation with MPs, it seems that a large part of her reason for crossing was because she was essentially being ignored by the PMO when she was trying to step up, and she felt unappreciated for her efforts, which is fair enough). There were plenty of sarcastic responses from long-time Conservatives over Twitter, given how she campaigned against Stephen Harper in 2015. Others Conservatives – Scheer loyalists in particular – were trying to insist that Alleslev represented the way the party needed to bring Blue Liberals into the fold – but this assertion is fairly problematic given that the Venn Diagram of Blue Liberals and Red Tories would show a fairly significant crossover in areas of being socially progressive, which is partly where the Conservatives are having problems right now. As well, it’s hard to qualify Alleslev as reaching out to those voters when she goes on TV and just parrots all of Scheer’s talking points, particularly around the environment, to the point where she was contradicting her previous statements and trying to walk them back when called on them. I’m not sure how demonstrating groupthink is reaching out to new voters. It’s also hard not to be cynical about Alleslev’s appointment as a box-ticking exercise about her being both a woman and from the GTA as the political reasons as to why she was chosen.

Scheer also took the opportunity to vow that he was staying on as leader, and insisted that the party needed to pull together behind him. This while Stephen Harper’s former campaign manager, Jenni Byrne, also called for his ouster, and there also talk about how Conservatives in Alberta are angry that he wasn’t able to defeat Trudeau in spite of Trudeau doing his level best to defeat himself in some cases.

In amidst this, Lisa Raitt was also keeping herself in the media, putting out the supposition into the public sphere that the more xenophobic populism that reared its head during the party’s last leadership campaign branded them during the election, and that it changed the perceptions around the party. (Raitt is also defending Scheer and saying that his weakness is that he doesn’t come off as a “strong man” on any particular area). And while Raitt is trying to insist that the likes of Kellie Leitch (and eventually Maxime Bernier’s Twitter persona) were somehow isolated incidents, she ignores the fact that Scheer himself promulgated far-right conspiracy theories about the UN Compact on Global Migration, that his comms team spread racist memes about irregular border crossings, that he offered succour to avowed racists because he thought he could use them to “own the Libs,” and that even though he knew that the xenophobia and far-right element of the “yellow vesters” had taken over that so-called “convoy” to Ottawa, he nevertheless still met with them – in full view of their xenophobic signs and symbols – and then took weeks to actually denounce white supremacy when called on it. So I’m having a hard time giving Raitt the benefit of the doubt for this theory of hers.

Meanwhile, Matt Gurney posits that Scheer’s ability to survive now turns on whether he can convince enough people that he can actually do better in the next election – and that’s becoming harder to do. Paul Wells poses more questions that the Conservatives need to consider regarding Scheer, the direction of the party, and their ability to build a winning coalition internally that has proved fairly elusive in recent decades.

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Roundup: Lowest cost and least economically-damaging

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The Ecofiscal Commission released their final report yesterday, and said that Canada will have to increase carbon prices to $210 per tonne by 2030 is the cheapest and most effective way to reach our climate targets, though certainly not the only way – regulation or subsidies are also possible, but less effective and far more costly. Increasing carbon prices would also mean increased rebates under the current federal backstop (but provinces could certainly recycle revenues in other ways, and some provinces could entirely eliminate their income taxes with said revenue), which would have other knock-on economic effects, but for simplicity and cost, they point toward carbon prices. (It’s worth noting that this analysis didn’t cover the output-based pricing system for large emitters, which helps take things like trade-exposure into account to provide those industries more time to adjust).

Predictably, the Conservatives freaked out and started a new round of social media shitposts about how this was the Liberal plan all along, and they would prevent the cost of everything from going up, etcetera, etcetera, but that’s a dishonest position because other models, like regulation and subsidies, drive up the costs just as much, but they tend to be passed onto consumers in a hidden way, whereas straight-up carbon pricing is transparent and makes it easier for consumers to make better choices (which addresses the demand-side of carbon emissions).

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/1199747804727513089

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/1199753818763862016

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/1199755545063952385

To that end, here is the Ecofiscal Commission’s Chris Ragan making the case in his own words, while Heather Scoffield suggests that premiers Kenney and Ford should be thanking Trudeau for imposing the federal carbon backstop because it’s a less economically damaging way of reducing emissions than their plans to date have been.

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Roundup: Frivolous lawsuits that help no one

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Because climate lawsuits on behalf of youths are apparently all the rage, another one has been launched, this time against the Ford government in Ontario, because of their cancellation of the cap-and-trade system and their challenging of the federal carbon price. I can barely even.

So, to recap: Lawsuits are about getting individual remedies, and these actions are not designed to do so. They are using “novel” Charter arguments, which are an abuse of process. It’s also trying to use the courts to impose public policy solutions, which is not the job of the courts. That’s not their function, and trying to use the courts because you lost at politics is not how things work. And further to that point, the courts are already overburdened, and these kind of frivolous suits – and that’s exactly what they are – waste everyone’s time and court resources, and I would fully expect the courts to impose costs on those who brought forward these complaints that waste everyone’s time.

I spent an afternoon on the Twitter machine of being accused of not taking climate action seriously because I made these points about this lawsuit, which is not the case at all. My point – as exemplified by the (very good) lawyer who joined in the fight over Twitter, is that this is a political problem, not a legal one. You don’t use a saw to hammer a nail, which is what this lawsuit is attempting to do. The courts are not the place for this because they can’t force a government to come up with a climate change plan that meets the expectations of scientists – that’s not how life works, and it’s not how democracy works. And sure, young people are frustrated with the slow action so far, but democracy depends on people organising, and that means doing the hard work of getting involved in riding associations, changing party policy though conventions, and agitating internally to do something. And it means organising. I can’t stress this enough – organise, organise, organise. Protest votes won’t get you anywhere – and let’s face it, that’s what Green votes are. That’s how you make change in politics, and the sooner that young people realise this – and you can join parties as young as sixteen and start volunteering and voting on nominations and resolutions – the more you will be effecting meaningful change. (Want to learn more about how that works? Read my book).

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