Tag Archives: The Senate

Roundup: You can’t replace committee travel with Zoom

Posted on by

Another day, another story where I roll my eyes and sigh because nobody can seem to grasp some pretty fundamental points. To wit: Scandal and pearl-clutching because the Senate’s audit committee is planning a trip to Westminster to consult with their counterparts there. Someone fetch a fainting couch for all of the zeros attached to the costs of the trip! And of course, we couldn’t have cheap outrage without getting a quote from the so-called Canadian Taxpayers Federation, whose continued existence depends on being the go-to source for media when they need a cheap outrage quote.

Some context to this story—the Senate’s audit committee has been a long and hard-fought battle to come into existence because the previous Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Peter Harder, was trying to steer the nascent committee in a direction that would see it be completely staffed by outsiders, which is a particular affront to Parliamentary privilege and the status of the Senate as a self-governing body in and of itself. Eventually the current composition—a mix of senators and outsider, with senators in the majority—was adopted, years after it should have been, and very much in the model that the House of Lords employs. (Note that this model had first been championed by the late Senator Elaine McCoy, and we could have saved years of fighting had people just listened to her). And because this has to do with a parliamentary body, you can’t just get advice from any audit firm in Canada, as the CTF seems to think—you need best practices from those who have dealt with the particular issues that a parliamentary body has. Of course, none of this context is in the story, because nobody pays attention to the Senate unless it’s for a cheap outrage story like this one. Of course.

Meanwhile, the most galling part of the piece is the suggestion that all of this should be done over Zoom, both out of a concern for cost and carbon emissions. And honestly, this type of suggestion needs to have a stake driven through it. This kind of work relies on human interaction, and relationship-building, and that doesn’t happen and cannot happen over Zoom. This is one of the biggest problems with hybrid sittings (which, mercifully, the Senate has ended), but which MPs refuse to believe, and apparently a few senators do too—parliament is a face-to-face institution. It cannot effectively operate remotely. The pandemic was a short-term (ish) problem that required a solution, and while this was not the best one, it was a solution that nevertheless has emboldened people to think that Parliament is a job you can do from home. It’s absolutely not, and this kind of committee travel is no exception. You cannot replace the kinds of interactions that make this travel essential over Zoom, and we need to stop thinking of Zoom as the solution to problems that aren’t actually problems.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russia launched another overnight round of attacks on Kyiv, this time with drones, but all were shot down. The commander of Ukraine’s ground forces says it’s important that they maintain their hold on Bakhmut in advance of the counter-offensive (not the least of which because it’s degrading Russia’s forces significantly). The EU is hoping to increase production of ammunition in order to help Ukraine’s efforts. And here is one Ukrainian farmer’s novel way of de-mining his fields using parts from old Russian tanks.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1653390767329558530

https://twitter.com/war_mapper/status/1653169425749508100

Continue reading →

Roundup: Keeping up the blame-shifting

Posted on by

Another day, another reminder that the premiers are engaging in blame-shifting around rising crime rates, while they pretend that this is all the fault of the federal government allegedly making changes to the bail system a couple of years ago. It’s wrong—the uptick started before that bill passed, and that bill merely codified Supreme Court of Canada rulings while actually increasing conditions and added a reverse onus for domestic violence accusations.

The federal justice minister, who has committed to some targeted changes to bail laws, keeps pointing out that this is a more complex issue, much of it revolving around mental health. And guess whose job that is? The provinces! Not only have they been under-funding it, but they largely didn’t use the last mental health transfer, negotiated by Jane Philpott, on mental health, which is why Carolyn Bennett has seen the promised mental health transfer be part of the bilateral agreements with provinces on increased health spending that will have more strings attached. To add to that, provinces are also under-funding their justice systems, and you have provinces like Manitoba where the Crown prosecutors are grieving with their employers because they’re short-staffed, over-worked and under-paid. That’s not the federal government’s fault.

But premiers don’t like to be reminded that this is their failure. They’re eager to try and cast the blame elsewhere and count on credulous media to both-sides their claims so that they won’t actually be called out on their bullshit, and the federal Conservatives are happy to amplify their blame-shifting because it gives them an issue to fundraise on. We have problems in our system, but we also have solutions, but those responsible for implementing them would rather pretend it’s not their problem. We shouldn’t let them get away with it.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian missiles are again being fired at Ukrainian cities early in the morning, and Ukrainian air defences around Kyiv appear to be holding. Over in Bakhmut, Russian forces are claiming four more blocks of territory, but Ukraine still controls the key supply route into the city. Two Ukrainian drones destroyed the fuel depot at Sevastopol in occupied Crimea, giving another sign the counter-offensive is near. Meanwhile, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that he carries a pistol with him, and was prepared to fight to the death if Russian forces had taken his headquarters.

Continue reading →

Roundup: The choices around Basic Income

Posted on by

Because I saw some news stories floating around this week yet again around Basic Income and the desire for the federal government to implement it, I wanted to point out that economist Lindsay Tedds has co-authored a book which was released yesterday on how to move beyond that discussion into better alternatives, drawing on her experience from the BC Basic Income panel that she was a part of.

To that end, here is Kevin Milligan providing some back-up on why this conversation involves choices that nobody likes to ever talk about. Funny that.

And yes, most Basic Income models keep gutting the supports for those who need them the most, and that is a problem.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1651260056866811904

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian forces pounded Bakhmut yet again, trying to destroy buildings so that the Ukrainians can’t use them as fortifications. Elsewhere, Ukraine was able to retrieve 44 POWs from Russian company, two of whom were civilians. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had an hour-long call with Chinese president Xi Jinping, which included talk of what role China could play in the peace process with Russia.

Continue reading →

Roundup: The campaign leaders testify

Posted on by

Yesterday was the big day when top campaign officials from the Liberals and Conservatives appeared at the Procedure and House Affairs committee to talk about foreign interference allegations in the previous two elections, and we learned a couple of things. One of which is that Fred DeLorey, the Conservative campaign director, is eminently reasonable and acknowledges they don’t know if there was any actual interference in those ridings they lost, or if it was the result of other factors, like their hard-line rhetoric on China, or gun-control measures (as the Liberal campaign insists). Another thing we learned is that the reporting on the CSIS “warnings” about MP Han Dong were not described accurately, and that they didn’t insist the party drop him as a candidate—which never did make sense if you listened to the actual intelligence experts who said at the time that that didn’t sound right.

There was also talk about how it takes an incredibly high threshold for a party to be able to drop a candidate, so if intelligence agencies had concerns, they would need to come up with something pretty tangible for the parties to exercise that kind of power (and don’t forget that their spending caps are determined by how many candidates they’re running, so if they need to drop one after the cut-off point to replace a name on the ballot, that creates even more headaches). There was also talk about how there needs to be more ongoing dialogue between national security agencies and parties, particularly between election cycles, because these agencies didn’t seem to understand how parties operated, which makes it hard for them to be making determinations about how any interference might be happening (and again, considering that the reported leaks had a bunch of details that didn’t make any sense, this could be the reason why).

Suffice to say, these were the people who should have been testifying the whole time rather than the dog and pony show we had with Katie Telford, which was just a waste of time and resources.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian missile struck a museum in Kupiansk, in the Kharkiv region, killing one civilian and wounding ten others. As well, a woman died from shelling in nearby Dvorichna, and two others in the eastern Donetsk region. Elsewhere, Ukrainian forces staged raids on the east side of the Dnipro river in order to degrade Russian capacity, particularly in their shelling of Kherson, in a sign that the counter-offensive is near. Ukraine is planning on a “complete transformation” of six war-torn cities that were badly damaged in the invasion, to be rebuilt under an experimental programme according to “new principles.”

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1650769182286331905

Continue reading →

Roundup: No authority to examine

Posted on by

It was not unexpected, but the Auditor General did confirm yesterday that she wasn’t going to be looking into the Trudeau Foundation’s private donations because it’s not within her wheelhouse. Which is what I’ve been saying for over a week now—the Foundation isn’t a Crown corporation, its only reporting relationship to the Industry Minister is around the status of the initial endowment, and the Conservatives put them under the Access to Information and Privacy regime in 2007 because they put all kinds of organisation with a tangential relationship to government under the regime during their performative toughness. It doesn’t fall under the Financial Administration Act, so there is no basis for the AG to examine their books.

This news of course has the Bloc somewhat apoplectic, and they insist that if she doesn’t have the authority to look into their books, then Parliament should give her that authority. Which is, frankly, boneheaded. She already has more than enough work to do. The very last thing we need to do is turn her into some kind of roving commission of inquiry for MPs to sic her upon anyone who turns their ire (through a motion in the House of Commons that she would “consider”), especially because she’s already unaccountable for her parliamentary audits. Extending those into past Parliament or Crown corporations would be a disaster.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives have bene trying to weaponise the Public Accounts Committee into looking into the Foundation, which again, is beyond their ambit. It’s especially beyond their ambit because the Auditor General hasn’t produced a report on them, and she won’t—because she has no authority to—so that particular committee has no authority to look into it. And yet, they voted on doing just so, but with the caveat of not calling any elected officials or members of the Trudeau family to testify. I can’t believe that the committee clerk didn’t warn the Chair this is out of bounds, but this is an opposition-chaired committee—in this case, Conservative John Williamson—and it sounds like he opted to ignore that warning and proceed anyway, which is incredibly poor form, especially since this whole exercise is about little more than letting Garnett Genuis perform for the cameras. And once again, we prove that ours is not a serious Parliament.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Estonia’s prime minister met with president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the northwestern city of Zhytomyr, and said that she supports Ukraine’s accession to NATO “as soon as conditions allow” (which means the war has to be over and Russian forces no longer occupying territory).

Continue reading →

Roundup: We all got played on the Telford gambit

Posted on by

Yesterday morning, we saw an exhausting series of manoeuvres that made the Liberals, the NDP and the Conservatives all pretend like they were playing 3D chess against one another, but it was none of that. First thing was that the Liberals released the final mandate of David Johnston in his role as special rapporteur on the allegations, and he has until May 23rdto make a recommendation around a public inquiry, and until October 31st for his final report (but I see the possibility for shenanigans if the recommendation for a public inquiry won’t actually be acted upon until the final report so that it can be fully informed, etc.) And if there is a recommendation for a public inquiry, Sikh organisations in this country want India to be included in any examination of foreign interference

In the meantime, Justin Trudeau said that no, the vote on the motion to send Katie Telford to committee wasn’t going to be a confidence measure (because frankly that would be stupid), and that they had decided to send Telford to the Procedure and House Affairs committee after weeks of filibustering to prevent it, just as Singh was announcing he would support the Conservative motion to bypass the filibuster by instructing the Ethics committee hear her testimony instead (which the Conservatives chair). This just blew up three weeks of trying to trying to prevent her from appearing under the principle of ministerial responsibility and not calling staffers to committee, because they didn’t have an end game for the filibuster, and we’re just going to throw centuries of Westminster parliamentary principles on the fire for the sake of scoring points—and that’s what this all is about. Scoring points, as the Liberals also used this as a test of their agreement with the NDP, which shook it.

And while all of this was taking place, Mark Holland got up in the House of Commons to apologise for misspeaking yesterday in saying that Pierre Poilievre was offered a briefing and declined it, but his confusion was that Poilievre had publicly stated he would refuse such a briefing on classified information. (Are you following?)

So while Jagmeet Singh spent the day insisting that he was the one who ended the filibuster (he wasn’t), the NDP their own procedural game they were trying to play, which was to force a concurrence debate and vote on the PROC report recommending a public inquiry into these interference allegations, but the Conservatives beat him to the punch and called for a concurrence debate on a different committee report, which just points out how nobody is actually taking this issue seriously. It’s a pissing contest and point-scoring. And at the end of this, the NDP voted against the Conservative Supply Day motion to send Telford to the Ethics committee, because it was now a moot point.

And in the end? We’ve torched more parliamentary principles and weakened our parliamentary system further, and Trudeau has spilled more blood in the water, which is only going to make things even worse because there is now a frenzy around him. The Conservatives and their bad faith politics have played all of us in this whole affair because this was never about Telford and her testimony, but merely trying to set a trap so they could claim a cover-up, and the Liberals walked right into it and flailed for weeks. We’ve set more bad precedents, and democracy is worse off than it was before, because everyone needed to score points instead of being adults over this whole situation. Everyone keeps making it worse, because they can’t help themselves. What a way to run a country.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Japan’s prime minister made an unannounced visit to Ukraine yesterday to meet with president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and to tour the massacre site at Bucha. Meanwhile, police in Avdiivka are trying to evacuate holdouts in the town, as Russian forces continue their attempts to encircle it.

https://twitter.com/gerashchenko_en/status/1638100893856944128

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1638272233054392327

Continue reading →

Roundup: The tone of the interference debate gets worse

Posted on by

Because we are in an era of bad faith and lowest-common-denominator shitposting, Pierre Poilievre called a press conference yesterday to assert that Justin Trudeau was working in China’s interests against Canada—no doubt catnip to the conspiracy theorists whom he has been trying to attract to his banner, who carry signs about “treason” and who carry nooses to rallies. Even one-time sensible moderate Michael Chong has gone on television to be “just asking questions” about Trudeau’s loyalty to Canada, which is frankly beyond the pale. (Poilievre also said some absolute nonsense about LNG in Canada and his steadfast belief that there would have been a market for it if not for red tape—never mind that proponents could find buyers and couldn’t make a business case to proceed with projects that were fully permitted).

Trudeau later responded that Poilievre’s was eroding faith in democracy with this kind of rhetoric, but that’s kind of the point with this brand of populists. They are trying to erode faith in institutions so that they can insert themselves as the solution to the problems of democracy, without needing to worry about things like minority rights. Not that Trudeau has helped, with his back-patting and platitudes, which doesn’t push back against this kind of threat. (Some good analysis here).

In the meantime, we wait for the announcement of the special rapporteur, but if the goal is to have opposition sign-off, that could be difficult. The NDP say they are cautiously optimistic, but the Bloc want someone who has pre-determined that there needs to be an inquiry, while the Conservatives are likely to engage in bad faith regardless of what happens, so the ability for there to be consensus on a name is not a hope I am holding out for. But seriously—everybody howling for a public inquiry doesn’t seem to realise that NSICOP is likely more independent, because a public inquiry would be appointed by Cabinet, with terms of reference set by Cabinet, and would report to Cabinet. The government is trying to create some distance from themselves with this rapporteur, but nobody wants to hear the actual process or procedure around the demands they’re making.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1633129536358346755

Ukraine Dispatch:

Kyiv is disavowing a group that has been making raids over the border in Russia, while other small groups within Russia are also conducting sabotage operations in opposition to Putin. Ukrainian officials have identified the soldier in a video that was executed by Russians, in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1633042812605280256

Continue reading →

Roundup: Are the rising Senate costs that alarming?

Posted on by

Because this is sometimes a media criticism blog, I have to say that the CBC story on the rise in bureaucratic expenses in the Senate is…textbook alarmism. Look at the framing. The front third of the story are quotes from senators lighting their hair on fire at the seventy percent rise in costs!, divorced from any actual facts or context. And by the time you get more than halfway down, you have a spokesperson for Senate administration explaining some of those costs, and not necessarily even noting that seven years ago, the Senate was operating at a greatly reduced capacity because Stephen Harper had avoided making any appointments in a fit of pique in the wake of the ClusterDuff scandal, and senators were keeping their heads down lest more hellfire rain down on them. But none of this is mentioned by way of comparison, and only some mention is paid to the fact that because the Senate is now broadcasting its proceedings, it takes a lot more staff to do that work, which is partly why the costs have gone up.

The other thing that nobody is really discussing among all of the alarmist rhetoric and the wailing and gnashing of teeth—obligatory in any story that mentions costs, because Canadian journalism and the CBC in particular absolutely love cheap outrage—is the fact that turning the Senate into a more “independent” chamber is going to make things more costly, because senators can no longer rely on party infrastructure to do some of that work for them on the cheap. It shouldn’t be that big of a mystery as to why displacing that will make other costs rise, but nobody wants to talk about that—only the supposed good that “independent” senators bring. (And some of them do bring good! But the Liberals in particular lost a whole lot of institutional memory and state capacity because Trudeau rather gutlessly cut his party’s senators loose rather than face what was coming with the Auditor General’s report, and pretended it was for the sake of altruism and principle).

While I have a lot of strong opinions about what is happening in the Senate these days, the so-called rise in costs is not one of them. The story here is largely a lot of nothing, dressed up in a frightening costume for clicks, but that’s the current media modus operandi, unfortunately.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 299:

There have been renewed attacks on Kyiv in the early hours, while there is a watchful eye on the Belarusian Border as Putin heads to visit his ally there. Here’s a look at the significance around Hanukkah for Ukraine’s Jewish community, while in Kherson, there are questions as to how Russian forces were able to overtake the city so easily in the first place.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Delaying the expansion of MAiD?

Posted on by

The day after the House of Commons rose for the winter break, David Lametti and Carolyn Bennett announced that they would be moving to delay the implementation of the expansion of medical assistance in dying for those who suffer solely from a mental disorder, or for mature minors with terminal conditions. The problem? The expansion date is already legislated, so they will need to pass legislation when they return at the end of January in order to make that happen, and they haven’t released any details to opposition parties about what kind of delay they’re talking about.

There are a lot of problems with this announcement. While I won’t repeat most of what I wrote in this column last week, part of the problem is that this perpetuates an unfairness for those who have an untreatable mental disorder but also have another comorbidity who can apply for MAiD while those who don’t have the comorbidity can’t, and in the process, it continues to stigmatise mental illness. That’s why the delay also goes against the Supreme Court of Canada’s finding of unconstitutionality. Meanwhile, everyone who says “mental health is health” but is pulling for this delay is making a hypocrite of themselves because you’re proving that it’s something separate. Additionally, you can’t just say the federal government shouldn’t go ahead with the expansion until more supports are offered because they cannot legislate those supports. Those have to come from the provinces, who are not bound to any federal timetable, and while yes, the federal government is negotiating a dedicated mental health transfer to the provinces, we are back to the problem of negotiating outcomes into that agreement and provinces balking at strings. We can’t divorce the fact that most of the objections to this are either socially conservatives in nature that oppose all forms of MAiD in principle, or it’s from people squeamish about mental illness and who are further perpetuating stigmatisation. I have little doubt that this is going to turn into a meltdown in February once MPs are back, and it’s going to be extremely hard on the system.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 296:

Russian forces are pounding the Donetsk region. Russia has been threatening “consequences” if the US does deliver a Patriot anti-missile system to Ukraine, without spelling out what those are, but part of the problem with America transferring the systems is that they take some 90 personnel to operate and training which they can’t provide on the ground.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Blame the premiers for the paediatric health crisis

Posted on by

The crisis in our hospitals, particularly paediatric ones, continues to get worse. In Ottawa, CHEO now has Canadian Red Cross staff assisting. In Newfoundland and Labrador, their children’s hospital had to cancel surgeries. In Alberta, they are sending children in palliative care home because they need to redeploy those staff elsewhere. So what are people doing? Telling people to bother the federal government.

No.

This is squarely on the premiers. They have been consistently underfunding their healthcare systems, even with higher transfers the federal government has been sending the past couple of years, both because of the pandemic and with additional funds intended to help reduce wait times, but has that money gone to good effect? Nope. But you have several provinces who sent out vote-buying cheques to people, nearly all of them are running surpluses, and New Brunswick and Quebec are promising tax cuts, particularly for high-earners. They have been playing chicken with the federal government, driving the crisis so that they can be sent more money with no strings attached (this is one of Danielle Smith’s many complaints), and it really looks like they want the system to collapse so they can blame the federal government and bully them into acceding to their demands. But so long as everyone keeps fixating on what the federal government is going to do to fix the problem rather than playing blame on the premiers, where it belongs, this state of affairs is going to continue. It’s only when the premiers start feeling the pressure that they’ll make changes, and right now, they are being let off the hook by too many people. Don’t let them. Put the pressure where it needs to be, and that is the premiers.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 285:

Ukrainian forces held a three-day amnesty for those looking to cross the Dnipro river in the Kherson region from the Russian-held side, in order to reunite families and get civilians to safety, but it sounds like Russian forces killed at least one person crossing the river. Meanwhile, the US’ intelligence chief says that the slower tempo of action in the conflict could wind up favouring Ukraine as Russian forces continue to be outmatched. Here’s a look at the fiscal situation Ukraine finds itself in, trying to finance the war without printing more money and driving up inflation. And here is a slideshow of the conflict.

Continue reading →