On powers of appointment

Andrew Coyne has rightly pointed out the gall the Senate is showing in nixing Michael Chong's watered-down Reform Act (even if there's something to a few of the criticisms). But let's not miss the most absurd suggestion of all as to who should be given increased power over a party's leadership (emphasis added):

“I just don’t think this kind of things should be left in the hands of caucus, when our process for electing leaders [is] in the hands of the grassroots,” [Con Senator David] Wells said. He suggested the bill be amended to require a minimum consent of 50 per cent of MPs and senators to call for a leadership review.

That's right: in the name of grassroots involvement, the Cons are actually arguing that unelected Senate hacks should have the authority to determine when a leadership review is necessary.

It's not entirely clear whether Wells wants a majority to be required in each chamber, or only based on the combined total in both. In the latter case, the Senate's new authority would extend to having the ability to force a review even when neither members nor elected MPs want one if the numbers allow it. (And lest that seem like a distant hypothetical, it would have been possible for Lib Senators to require a review without a single MP's support before they played around with their Senate affiliations.)

But even if Wells merely wants senators to have a veto over a possible leadership test, the end result would be to exacerbate what already makes the Senate toxic. Faced with the possibility that a party's senators might hold the power to force a leadership review, any Prime Minister would have a strong incentive to appoint the most beaten-down of trained seals rather than anybody willing to exercise an ounce of independent thought.

All of which figures to suit Harper and his party rather well. But it also highlights why Canada deserves better than a second chamber dedicated to assuring its own uselessness.

New column day

Here, on how Michael Chong's Reform Act privileges members of Parliament over party members and supporters - and how there's far more reason for concern about a lack of genuine grassroots input as matters stand now than about the influence of MPs.

For further reading...
- I'll point to Andrew Coyne passim as the main cheerleader for the Reform Act. I refer in the column to some of the points made by Alice Funke and Don Lenihan. And Aaron Wherry surveys a few more responses - including Jeff Jedras' proposal for a standardized primary system (which would seem to set up exactly the neutrally-administered party membership lists needed to support a membership-based review mechanism).
- And on the question of how our federal parties handle leadership reviews by membership, the NDP, Conservative and Liberal constitutions are available in PDF form. And while the former provides for a leadership review vote "(a)t every convention that is not a leadership convention" (section 3(a)(v)), the latter two each rule out any leadership reviews except after a general election (sections 10.7 and 71(1), respectively).

[Edit: added link.]

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Alison chronicles how the definition of "accountability" has changed since the Cons' own actions started to come under the microscope, while Paul Wells writes about the three different interests at play in the Cons' scandal. And Tonda MacCharles explores how the Senate bribery scandal developed - though her willingness to take Con talking points at face value seems questionable given how consistently they've crumbled when compared to actual evidence, particularly when the likes of Chantal Hebert and Don Martin are eviscerating the Cons' ever-more-farcical spin.

- Meanwhile, Don Lenihan discusses why gratuitous secrecy does nothing but damage to the legitimacy of political decisions:

There’s an old saying that information is power. If I have it and you don’t, I’ve got a leg up on you, right? Well, actually, no. As politicians and bureaucrats are learning—often the hard way—the reverse is at least as likely to be true: real power calls for openness and transparency, not secrecy.

The Senate scandal leaps to mind. Everyone now agrees that if the PMO had just let the Senate enquiry take its course, it would all be behind them.

But my topic here is on how ministers conduct regular business. At the moment, secrecy reigns, even though it often benefits no one—least of all, ministers.
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A minister that learns to trust these processes, rather than trying to manage them, will find that his/her decisions get far more traction. Making them even more open and transparent will only further strengthen and legitimate the results.

So there is a lesson here for all governments: when strategy is allowed to trump process—say, by hiding critical information from those with a genuine stake in the issue—the risk of failure rises exponentially. Secrecy, in other words, is a shoddy way to make policy.

- Linda McQuaig comments on Justin Trudeau's unwillingness to distinguish between genuine debate and personal attacks. And Dan Tan highlights the enormous gap between Trudeau's recent attempt to claim Layton's legacy, and his effort at the time to deny Layton's principled politics any place on the federal scene.

- Althia Raj reports on Michael Chong's bill to limit the authority of party leaders, while Andrew Coyne rushes to support the proposal. But I'd think it's important to distinguish between correcting the unintended effects of past legislation (particularly the power held by party leaders to control nomination processes) and imposing new requirements which might produce similarly undesirable outcomes - which looks like a real risk in making caucus management and leadership reviews a matter of legislation.

- Finally, David McGrane discusses the place of marketing in Canada's political system - though his view of how a marketing culture can better target political appeals seems to describe some future ideal state rather than the current culture of ad saturation, robocalls and constant mailouts.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Marc Lee reminds us that income disparities are only a small part of the picture of an increasingly unequal economy - with wealth inequality looking far worse:

These numbers are striking, with 58% of wealth in the hands of the top 10%. But we hit a bit of a wall when it comes to looking further up. There does tend to be a bit of fractal pattern that happens with distribution, so if the top 10% get 58% of the wealth, a rough estimate is that the top 1% would get 58% of the income of the top 10%, so about one-third of the total wealth. Meanwhile, the bottom half of households have a teensy 3% of total wealth, with the bottom 10% completely underwater (liabilities greater than assets, or negative net worth).

- Dr. Dawg documents the Cons' latest Parliamentary abuses:

Closure is not a new measure, but using it on the very first day of debate, as it was last evening, is uncommon, and using it so routinely is, I believe, unprecedented.

Parliamentary committees, too, have been effectively shut down by the ruling Conservatives: in the past, when they were in a minority, the tactic was maximum disruption.

And the war on various independent watchdogs/agencies continues apace. One after another, they have been hobbled or neutered. Dictatorship, after all, doesn’t require independent assessment.

Harper’s Conservatives—elected by only 39% of those who voted—have shown themselves to be literally contemptuous of parliamentary tradition, and the rule of law.

In a nutshell, the Conservatives hate democracy. Canadians are just beginning to realize, I think, how viscerally and deeply this hatred runs.

- In the department of taking good news where we can get it, at least one Con MP is willing to discuss climate change as a problem. But while Michael Chong deserves full credit for joining the multi-party climate change caucus, it surely speaks volumes that the rest of his party-mates can't be bothered.

- Finally, Stephen Maher unloads on Tony Clement and the party that's keeping him in Cabinet:

Clement's defence is that the mayors made the recommendations, which they didn't, and that Baird made the decision, which he didn't.

We need to know why there was no paperwork for the auditor general, because we are up Muskoka River without a paddle if politicians are able to hide their files from the auditor general, the only official with the power to pierce the veil of secrecy in Ottawa.

Clement's explanations are gibberish, and he does not appear to have the judgment necessary for his current job as president of Treasury Board, the minister in charge of enforcing spending rules.
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Clement owes his seat and his job to Harper, and he seems to do whatever the prime minister asks, cheerfully acting as Harper's smiling spear carrier on ugly files, such as the government's unsuccessful push to shut down Vancouver's Insite program for drug addicts, and the successful push to kill the mandatory long-form census.

Prime ministers need loyal servants, so even though Clement's G8 shenanigans show that he is farcically ill-equipped to carry out his job, Harper is unlikely to move him or to force him to fully account for the rule-breaking porkfest in Muskoka.

Burning question

Sure, one could interpret Michael Chong's motion on Question Period reform as mavericky. Or one could look at the wording of his statement - featuring a "we" which seems to signal approval from on high - and hold out some ill-placed hope that something will come of it. But isn't the more likely conclusion that the Cons want to be seen pretending to be constructive before an election which will cut short whatever work gets started?