Politics in 2013

[Rifleman62]

Billary.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here is an editorial, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Ottawa Citizen, with which I fully agree:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/editorials/Editorial+Sober+second+thoughts/8798553/story.html

Editorial: Sober second thoughts


BY OTTAWA CITIZEN EDITORIAL, OTTAWA CITIZEN

AUGUST 16, 2013

The Wallin affair looks to become the proverbial snowflake that caused an avalanche. With the auditor general intending to look at the expense claims of all senators, and the current investigation raising questions about lobbying practices, what at first seemed to be a minor case of bookkeeping abuse may well have much larger consequences.

According to news reports, Auditor General Michael Ferguson plans an examination of the spending practices of every member of the upper chamber. Not only will the performance audit look at individual senators, it will also consider how well the institution manages its resources. That should induce some sober second thinking.

Presumably there’ll also be some rethinking among the lobbyists who troll the parliamentarian precinct looking for political backing on their interests. As the Citizen’s Glen McGregor reports, a listing of events from Wallin’s electronic calender shows she regularly met with corporations and non-profit groups. Nothing wrong with that, of course — it doesn’t appear that Wallin herself broken any lobbying rules — only it seems some of these organizations didn’t bother to report the meetings to the federal lobbying commissioner as required by law. Wallin’s e-calender entries clearly raise concerns about the nature of contacts between public officials and non-governmental agents. This, too, should be included in the auditor general’s inquiries.

Even better, though, the prime minister should open MPs’ books for a look. Stephen Harper won his majority government largely on a commitment to open and accountable government. While the expense scandal reflects badly on this commitment, Harper could turn it to his advantage — at least in the public mind — by having the auditor general examine MPs’ expense ledgers and e-calendar listings. (That includes those of the prime minister and his cabinet.)

To be sure, such an exercise in accountability must not become a witch hunt. The majority of MPs and senators are, no doubt, honest in their accounting and their conduct. But this Senate expense scandal has created the widespread public perception, rightly or wrongly, that something is rotten on Parliament Hill. A thorough examination of expense practices would be a good way to excise that something.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

As I have said before, quoting the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, "Sunshine is the best disinfectant." And we need some "sunshine" in both chambers and in the hallways (lobbies).

Sadly, the witch hunt, against which the Citizen's editorial board warns, is already well underway, led by the Conservative government.

But, kudos to the Senate for taking a beau risque ~ we can be sure that some Senators will be caught in the Auditor General's dragnet; we must demand that the prime minister open the windows of the House of Commons, too, and let the "sunshine" (the AG) in.

 

[Kirkhill]

Right with you right up until you move from "Parliament (Upper or Lower)" to "Government". How do you manage the application of sunlight in an organization that categorizes information.

What do you do with entries in the e-calendars that include words like: restricted, secret, top secret, cosmic, noforn, five eyes.....?  And why do I, a civilian, already recognize some of those classifications in any event?

I don't believe Government can operate in sunlight.  Parliament is something else. 

But the Government has to operate in Parliament.

But that is the role of trusted members of parliament,  acting with the blessing of their constituents as Burkean representatives and as loyalists of  Her Majest in name of the state - whether in Government or in Opposition.

The witch-hunting press, seeking easy headline fodder - well they can go play with their nether regions. 

But what do you do when the MPs feed the Press?

 

[Edward Campbell]

Right with you right up until you move from "Parliament (Upper or Lower)" to "Government". How do you manage the application of sunlight in an organization that categorizes information.

What do you do with entries in the e-calendars that include words like: restricted, secret, top secret, cosmic, noforn, five eyes.....?  And why do I, a civilian, already recognize some of those classifications in any event?

I don't believe Government can operate in sunlight.  Parliament is something else. 

But the Government has to operate in Parliament.

But that is the role of trusted members of parliament,  acting with the blessing of their constituents as Burkean representatives and as loyalists of  Her Majest in name of the state - whether in Government or in Opposition.

The witch-hunting press, seeking easy headline fodder - well they can go play with their nether regions. 

But what do you do when the MPs feed the Press?

There are legitimate secrets, things about which you and and the Auditor General I have no business asking, and which need to be kept secret from friend and foe alike. The media hates this idea but it's a fact of life.

Past governments weakened security laws and regulations and, I suspect, it is very, very hard to get them back to a proper level.

But civil servants and military folks alike are careless with security and they often misuse it in order to obey the first commandment of public service: "don't embarrass the minister." Using security to shield politicians and bureaucrats from embarrassment is worse than revealing real secrets, because it degrades the entire system.

 

[Kirkhill]

There are legitimate secrets, things about which you and and the Auditor General I have no business asking, and which need to be kept secret from friend and foe alike. The media hates this idea but it's a fact of life.

Past governments weakened security laws and regulations and, I suspect, it is very, very hard to get them back to a proper level.

But civil servants and military folks alike are careless with security and they often misuse it in order to obey the first commandment of public service: "don't embarrass the minister." Using security to shield politicians and bureaucrats from embarrassment is worse than revealing real secrets, because it degrades the entire system.

Agreed on all points. 

I merely point out that all systems are built on the need to trust fallible people.  I have seen a lot of efficiency studies.  Generally high efficiency outcomes are only generated by narrowly defining the operational environment.  More typically a well run, self-aware operation will operate in the 70 to 80% range.  That still leaves a lot of room for screw-ups and addressing their outcomes.

Government can not narrowly define its operational environment.  Screw-ups have to be accepted as a part of life.  The trick is in the managing of the screw-ups.

 

[dapaterson]

The trick is in the managing of the screw-ups.

So you're saying not to name the screw-ups to the Senate?

 

[Kirkhill]

So you're saying not to name the screw-ups to the Senate?

Well, on the 70% efficiency basis, the appointer will screw-up 30% of the time, meaning that some 30 Senators are beyond all hope of redemption.  The remain 75 will screw up 30% of the time.  So if 70% of the Senate is right 70% of the time then 49% of the time the Senate will be in non-screw up mode.

A dollar coin is in non-screw up mode 50% of the time.




There's a proposal for Senate reform.  Hire a cadre of bodies in Black and White striped shirts and issue them a 1 Dollar coin.

Every bill passed by Parliament goes to the Coin for a line by line review.  Heads it stays in the bill.  Tails it is dropped.  The amended bill goes back to Parliament for third reading.

What's the going rate for a CFL ref in the Off Season?

 

[X Royal]

On Monday, Stephen Harper announced that he will prorogue Parliament until October.
This is getting far too common for this government in my opinion.
3 times is truly pushing it.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Prorogation is a normal, healthy part of the life of parliaments. It allows the government to "push the rest button" on its legislative agenda, and start afresh with a new throne speech. Wikipedia has a useful little article which does two things:

    1. Distinguishes between a recess, prorogation and dissolution; and

    2. Highlights a few controversial prorogations ~ Macdonald in 1873, Chrétien in 2002, Harper in 2008 and McGuinty, in Ontario, in 2012. But given how often parliaments have been prorogued, over 100 times in the past 145 years, it is a normal event.
       
Some prime ministers prorogued rarely ~ Trudeau kept the 32nd Parliament in session, without proroguing, for 1325 days in 1980-83, and others have prorogued a lot ~ Louis St Laurent had seven sessions in the 21st Parliament which lasted only slightly longer, 1367 days, from 1949 to 1953. I don't think there is any correlation between the quality of politics and prorogation. I think the 21st Parliament was one of the most productive in Canadian history and the 32nd was one of the worst.


Edit to correct grammar ~ an incomplete sentence.   :-[

 

[Journeyman]

Wikipedia has a useful little article....

Ah, the difference between "opinions" and "informed opinions"

Perhaps I'll forward that to the local NDP Association President, who was all over the local media proclaiming the sky's falling, and how everyone is up in arms over this (I'm going to assume that his circle of confidants tend to be NDP Assn members, or otherwise fellow-travellers).

 

[Retired AF Guy]

Ah, the difference between "opinions" and "informed opinions"

Perhaps I'll forward that to the local NDP Association President, who was all over the local media proclaiming the sky's falling, and how everyone is up in arms over this (I'm going to assume that his circle of confidants tend to be NDP Assn members, or otherwise fellow-travellers).

While you're at it, ask him/her how many times Bobbie Rae prorogued government while premier of Ontario.

 

[The Bread Guy]

While you're at it, ask him/her how many times Bobbie Rae prorogued government while premier of Ontario.

Like the song says, "Once, twice, three times a lady".

 

[Edward Campbell]

While I understand the government's desire to express "muted concern over Quebec’s plans to legislate a new approach to minority accommodation," it is an area which should be left alone.

Premier Marois and the Parti québécois have two aims:

    1. To appease the many French Canadian voters, especially those outside of Montreal, who are both a) afraid for the future of the French language in North America, and b) generally hostile to people who are "different;" and

    2. To reclaim an old club from the activist/protest bag of the 1960s ~ to make the "forces of order," the national government and the Anglo media, in this case, overreact to provocative actions and confirm in the minds of the undecided
        that Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver are hostile to Quebec's "legitimate aspirations" as a "nation" and want Quebec to conform to a homogeneous pan-Canadian model.

It would be better for Ottawa to wait and allow Quebec courts to overturn Quebec laws.

 

[Kirkhill]

While I understand the government's desire to express "muted concern over Quebec’s plans to legislate a new approach to minority accommodation," it is an area which should be left alone.

Premier Marois and the Parti québécois have two aims:

    1. To appease the many French Canadian voters, especially those outside of Montreal, who are both a) afraid for the future of the French language in North America, and b) generally hostile to people who are "different;" and

    2. To reclaim an old club from the activist/protest bag of the 1960s ~ to make the "forces of order," the national government and the Anglo media, in this case, overreact to provocative actions and confirm in the minds of the undecided
        that Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver are hostile to Quebec's "legitimate aspirations" as a "nation" and want Quebec to conform to a homogeneous pan-Canadian model.

It would be better for Ottawa to wait and allow Quebec courts to overturn Quebec laws.

Given the current internation zeitgeist how might one respond to a resurrected Arcand?  And lest I be considered overly provocative with that I would note that Arcand had a contemporary across the water, name of Mosely.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I think the Good Grey Globe's Brian Gable is correct, Justin Trudeau has, successfully, "changed the channel" on Prime Minister Harper:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/damage-claim/article13538502/#dashboard/follows/

Reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail

 

[vonGarvin]

I think the Good Grey Globe's Brian Gable is correct, Justin Trudeau has, successfully, "changed the channel" on Prime Minister Harper:

And thereby demonstrates that democracy, as we know it, is nothing more than a popularity contest that has nothing to do with governance and good government.

 

[Edward Campbell]

And thereby demonstrates that democracy, as we know it, is nothing more than a popularity contest that has nothing to do with governance and good government.

The popular vote/majority rules part of democracy is, indeed, somewhat remote from good governance, but the popularity issues, the "beauty contest" is not the only, maybe not even the most important part of democracy. There are other key facts: rule of law, equality at law ~ for governors and governed alike, respect for laws and social institutions and the very existence of institutions, big and small, global, national, regional and local, themselves.

The popular vote system is our primary inheritance from the Athenian Agrora, I suppose, and I guess we want to endow our democracy with such classical roots. But it took a lot of work, Roman work and English "work" stand out, to make a system based on laws, not men, because the heritage of Athens is a form of mob rule based on "bread and circuses."

 

[Edward Campbell]

So, step one is complete: Mike Duffy quits Tory caucus citing 'distracting' controversy, says the Globe and Mail's headline writer.

Step two is for Nigel Wright to resign and for Prime Minister Harper - uncharacteristically, to be sure - to shoulder some of the responsibility for picking senators (Brazeau and Duffy (and Wallin?)) who have abused the public trust.

Step three is for the Senate (aided by the RCMP?) to expel Sens Brazeau, Duffy and Harb (and Wallin?) for breach of trust.

Well, Sen Harb has saved the Senate from the messy business of firing him. One wonders if Sens Brazeau, Duffy and Wallin will follow and maybe others when the AG has done his work.

 

[George Wallace]

Well, Sen Harb has saved the Senate from the messy business of firing him. One wonders if Sens Brazeau, Duffy and Wallin will follow and maybe others when the AG has done his work.

Sen Harb has been there long enough to collect a Pension.  The others have not.

 

[Edward Campbell]

While I understand the government's desire to express "muted concern over Quebec’s plans to legislate a new approach to minority accommodation," it is an area which should be left alone.

Premier Marois and the Parti québécois have two aims:

    1. To appease the many French Canadian voters, especially those outside of Montreal, who are both a) afraid for the future of the French language in North America, and b) generally hostile to people who are "different;" and

    2. To reclaim an old club from the activist/protest bag of the 1960s ~ to make the "forces of order," the national government and the Anglo media, in this case, overreact to provocative actions and confirm in the minds of the undecided
        that Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver are hostile to Quebec's "legitimate aspirations" as a "nation" and want Quebec to conform to a homogeneous pan-Canadian model.

It would be better for Ottawa to wait and allow Quebec courts to overturn Quebec laws.

Both John Ivison, National Post, and John Ibbitson, Globe and Mail disagree with me as these two articles, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the respective journals, attest:

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/08/26/john-ivison-tory-silence-on-the-religious-symbols-ban-is-pure-politics/

Tory silence on Quebec’s proposed religious symbols ban is pure politics

John Ivison

13/08/26

John Baird, Canada’s foreign affairs minister, and Andrew Bennett, the ambassador for religious freedom, met with Nigerian community leaders Monday to discuss measures to stem religious persecution and discrimination in that beleaguered country.

Following the meeting, Mr. Baird was asked what he thought about the Parti Québécois government’s plans to bring in a “Charter of Quebec Values” that would reportedly ban conspicuous religious symbols from public institutions like hospitals, government buildings and daycares.

The normally garrulous Conservative minister turned bashful all of a sudden. The mandate of the new Office of Religious Freedom is foreign policy, he said.

His boss, Stephen Harper, has been similarly taciturn, while the official comment from the Prime Minister’s Office when the story broke was that the debate will be held at the provincial level. Jason Kenney, the new employment minister, was unable to contain himself on Twitter last week, saying that freedom of religion is a “universal principle.” Even he appears to have received the memo from the PMO that further interventions are unwelcome and has been silent since then.

But if the Office of Religious Freedom is to have any credibility, surely it must speak out about discrimination in its own backyard?

If the government that set it up is to be plausible when it claims it is a champion of inclusiveness and human rights, surely it must condemn intolerance?

This subtle racism is clearly targeted at wearers of kippas, turbans and hijabs; it is not-so-subtle pandering to the baser instincts of white Quebeckers by a minority separatist government that needs to divert attention from its ineptitude on the economy (unemployment in the province rose to 7.6% from 7% in the year to July, the only province other than PEI to see an increase).

Pauline Marois, the Quebec premier, remains coy on the details of her latest foray into the morass of identity politics, which she claimed Sunday will be a unifying force. “What divides Quebeckers is not diversity, it’s the absence of clear rules,” she said.

Justin Trudeau, the Liberal leader, was right when he said that the world is laughing at Quebec over this blatant attempt to motivate “fear of the other” for political gain.

“I don’t think this is who we are and I don’t think it honours us to have a government that doesn’t know our generosity and openness of spirit as a people,” he said.

Those words will find admirers across English Canada, even if it’s far from clear that Mr. Trudeau is right about the better angels of many Quebeckers. But it’s what Canadians expect from their prime minister.

So why are the Conservatives — and NDP leader Tom Mulcair — reluctant to wade into the debate (Mr. Mulcair said Monday he wants to wait and see what’s in the text before condemning it)?

Simple — it’s smart, if cynical, politics. A new QMI Agency poll Monday suggested 67% of all respondents — 77% of francophones — say there is already “too much” religious accommodation. Two-thirds of francophones say a Charter of Quebec Values is a “good idea.”

If you are a political party whose vital signs are experiencing a revival in Quebec — albeit from grave to critical — annoying three-quarters of the electorate is not a route back to good health.

Mr. Harper spent the summer overhauling his Quebec team, making Denis Lebel, the infrastructure minister, his regional lieutenant, and bringing in a new top adviser, former staffer Catherine Loubier. The game plan is to be more alive to the sensibilities of francophone Quebeckers. The first fruit of the policy was a bump in the polls — up to 38% in the Quebec City region where the party lost all its seats in 2011 — even if this was largely because of old-fashioned pork-barrelling, when Mr. Harper committed funding to open up a steep road to winter drivers through the National Battlefields Park.

But at some point soon, the prime minister will have to call the PQ’s plan what it is — a disgrace. We can hardly march around the globe hectoring despots for religious discrimination when Canadian citizens are seeing their freedom of expression restricted, in order to boost the electoral prospects of a party that laughingly calls itself progressive.

William O. Douglas, the eminent former U.S. Supreme Court Justice, once said freedom of speech (and by extension, expression) should not be regulated “like diseased cattle and impure butter.”

Mr. Harper should borrow that line, even if it costs him votes in Quebec.

National Post

And


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/globe-politics-insider/why-staying-out-of-quebecs-secularism-debate-is-dangerous-for-thomas-mulcair/article13964959/#dashboard/follows/

Why staying out of Quebec’s secularism debate is dangerous for Thomas Mulcair

SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

John Ibbitson
The Globe and Mail

Published Tuesday, Aug. 27 2013

Thomas Mulcair’s reluctance to be drawn into the debate surrounding a proposed charter of secular values for Quebec is perfectly reasonable. It is also politically dangerous.

Parti Quebecois Premier Pauline Marois appears ready and willing to inflame linguistic and cultural tensions within Quebec in the name of protecting the province’s secular values. As well as fomenting divisions within the province, the charter is bound to anger Canadians outside it, where it will be seen as a blatant assault on freedom of religion and the rights of minorities. No federal party is at greater danger of being consumed by the resulting furor than the NDP.

The good news, which came Monday, is that the opposition parties in Quebec do not appear willing to play the PQ’s game. Francois Legault, leader of the Coalition Avenir Quebec, said the PQ’s proposal was “too radical,” though a less comprehensive version of the charter might be allowed to pass.

If the CAQ teams up with Liberals to defeat the proposed charter, or if the final document is sufficiently moderate, this tempest may pass.

But there can be no good that comes out of this for the NDP. The most Mr. Mulcair can hope for is to limit the bad.

Proposals for a Charter of Quebec Values will be introduced into the National Assembly in the autumn, but details have already leaked out. If the reports are true, all public officials, from doctors to daycare workers, will be prohibited from wearing religious clothing or symbols at work. A crucifix around the neck would be as illegal as a turban.

Several polls show that the proposal is popular with Quebec francophones–65 per cent of whom support the idea of the charter, according to a poll by Leger Marketing–but unpopular with anglophones and allophones (those whose native tongue is neither English nor French).

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau wasted no time in condemning the charter. “To force people into a situation where they have to decide between their job and their religion or decide whether or not they are Quebeckers first or Muslim first – for me, that’s not a question we should be asking people to think about, as Canadians or as Quebeckers,” he said last week.

The federal Conservatives have been more circumspect. “Canadians believe that freedom of religion and conscience are universal values and we would hope that these are values and principles that would be respected,” Jason Kenney, wearing his hat as multiculturalism minister, told reporters last week.

But Prime Minister Stephen Harper will almost certainly criticize the charter, sooner or later. Immigrant voters outside Quebec are a key element in the Conservative electoral coalition and the Conservative base will have no time for another act of Quebecois cultural exceptionalism.

It is the NDP who currently dominate Quebec federally. Many of the same voters who helped the NDP virtually sweep the province in the last election support the secular charter. Mr. Mulcair will not want to alienate them.

Outside Quebec, however, the party risks losing support if it is seen to accept a law that limits religious freedom.

For example, the NDP has high hopes of making gains in Saskatchewan in the next election. But Saskatchewan voters will not warm to a party that appears to waffle on the right of Quebec government workers to profess their religion in public.

On Monday, Mr. Mulcair took a stand, sort of. “Bouchard-Taylor made a series of well-balanced recommendations,” he told reporters, referring to the 2008 report on “reasonable accommodation” that was co-chaired by the historian Gerald Bouchard and the philosopher Charles Taylor. “If there’s anything in what Madame Marois is proposing that goes against that, then for us, it’s an absolute nonstarter and we will stand up strongly against it.”

The report recommended, among other things, that officials in the justice system, such as judges, crown prosecutors and prison guards, should not be allowed to display religious symbols at work, but that other public servants could wear what they chose.

That also appears to be roughly the position of the CAQ (though Mr. Legault would add teachers to the list). If the PQ’s charter does indeed extend the ban to all public servants, then the CAQ is likely to combine with the Liberals to defeat the charter. If the PQ retreats to something along the lines of Bouchard-Taylor, then the new law may pass with only grumbles instead of howls.

But if Ms. Marois is determined to fight for a militant version of the charter, perhaps even fighting an election on the issue, then the NDP’s nuanced position could be seen as insufficiently secular among French voters and excessively restrictive by voters outside Quebec.

Which, to repeat, means that no good can come from any of this for the NDP. Mr. Mulcair can only cross his fingers and hopes it all goes away, so that people can return their focus to the latest outrage in the Senate.

John Ibbitson is the chief political writer in Ottawa.

I understand both the righteous indignation of John Ivison and the, somewhat cooler, political perspective of John Ibbitson but I'm afraid even trotting out the estimable William O Douglas cannot persuade me that we want to play into Premier Marois' hands and make this an Anglo Canada vs Franco Québec battle. I remain convinced that this will offend Québec's own judges and they will strike it down on their own.

Make no mistake: it is small minded, racist, xenophobic legislation, unworthy of a modern, civilized, liberal state, but it is Québec's duty to sort out its own society. French speaking Québec is drifting, steadily, towards third world status, thanks to generations of failed political leaders - from Duplessis through Lesage, Lévesque and Bourassa and, now, Marois - and an unhealthy focus on domestic chauvinism.