Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- John Quiggin examines - and refutes - a few key complaints about fairer taxes on the wealthy. But Kathryn May reports that the Cons are eager to use public resources to investigate and punish public servants who have exposed the problems with the Canada Revenue Agency, rather than lifting a finger to actually bring in needed revenue.

- The Canadian Labour Congress makes the case to expand the Canada Pension Plan to ensure a secure retirement for all Canadian workers. And James Fitz-Morris reports that the Saskatchewan Party's constant obstruction doesn't look like it will stand in the way of an enhanced CPP.

- Kevin Page, Pat Martin and Bob Plamondon argue that we need Parliament to reassert control over the use of public money. And the Star-Phoenix rightly questions the fact that the Sask Party continues to withhold the information needed to assess big-money P3 projects, while hiding behind the consultants who make their money off the industry.

- Jim Bronskill reports on the Libs' noises about a long-overdue review of federal access to information legislation - though of course there's a massive difference between making promises and following through. And on that front, Tom Parkin highlights a few of the promises which are already being left in the rear-view mirror - with a common theme that the Libs' claims to progressive values have been quickly abandoned.

- Finally, Doug Saunders writes that while the words may have changed, the theme of racial prejudice is still far too widespread.

On dividing lines

For the most part, Joan Bryden's report signals that there isn't much controversy left arising out of Alexandre Boulerice's comments about niqabs in the civil service. But it's worth asking whether the trial balloon floated by Boulerice serves any purpose whatsoever:

Martin added that he has no problem with Boulerice's suggestion that a pan-Canadian commission — along the lines of Quebec's Bouchard-Taylor commission in 2007 — should be created to find a consensus on how far the country should go to accommodate minority cultural and religious practices.

However, Dewar, whose riding is home to many civil servants, said there is no issue to resolve; he's never had a single complaint about public servants covering their faces.

"Why would you have a study on something that doesn't exist?"

Dewar is right to note that there's no apparent problem to solve which would merit study by a commission. But even if there were some complaints being raised about face coverings, we also shouldn't ignore the fact that there are existing answers as to how much accommodation is required.

In addition to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, individual rights are also protected by the Canadian Human Rights Act, which prohibits discriminatory treatment based on national or ethnic origin and religion unless there's a bona fide requirement which justifies that treatment.

In the case of a civil servant, that would mean that any prohibition against wearing a niqab would have to be justified by evidence that having a covered face prevents an individual from performing a job. And nothing in the current discussion suggests that's an even remotely reasonable position.

The effect of a commission would then be at best to confirm the existing standard, and at worst to establish some new threshold which prioritizes an explicit distaste for minority cultural practices ahead of the current balance between individual beliefs and practices and bona fide job requirements.

Which is to say that Boulerice's call for a commission should be dismissed as quickly as any call to discriminate based on niqabs in particular. He's entitled to his personal views, but not to try to use public policy to require individuals to conform to them. And the NDP should take the important opportunity to be the only party standing up for that principle in stark contrast to the Cons and Libs, rather than looking for some arbitrary dividing line of its own.

Update: Haroon Siddiqui makes a similar point. 

[Edit: fixed wording.]

New column day

Here, on how the Cons' secretive giveaway of what's left of the Canadian Wheat Board can only be explained by their desire to eliminate collective marketing in favour of total corporate control.

For further reading...
- Janyce McGregor reported on the Cons' refusal to consider allowing the Farmers of North America to bid on the Wheat Board's remaining assets. And Karl Nerenberg followed up on the Cons' excuses in Parliament.
- Dougald Lamont rightly sees the Cons as forcing producers toward the "bozo zone" of racing to the bottom in quality and price.
- And even the Globe and Mail recognizes the dangers of giving away public assets through a secretive process when there are bidders willing to ensure both some return in the short term, and a viable business structure in the long term.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Bruce Livesey discusses Tony Blair's role in corporatizing social democracy. And Stephen Elliott-Buckley writes that there's little reason to listen to the policy prescriptions of a financial elite class which is conspicuously ensuring that its future bears no resemblance to that of the general population.

- Jane Taber interviews Donald Savoie about the importance of our public service - and the decline it's seen in recent years:

What happened?

It was wrong to think that we could make the public sector look like the private sector. Well, frankly, it started with Margaret Thatcher. She arrived in 1980 and she said, ‘I don’t want bureaucrats to tell me what I ought to do to do in terms of policy. We won a majority mandate so we will define policy. What I want the bureaucracy to be good at is to be good managers.’ Mandarins are not known to be good managers. So when Thatcher arrived and said, ‘I want you to become better managers,’ she drew a blank. They didn’t have any ideas about management. So, she said, ‘Right, I am going to go to the private sector.’ So, she got a lot of private sector advisors in as did Ronald Reagan and Brian Mulroney. We didn’t realize that the private sector plays by its own rules and businesses are good at what they do but they don’t have to deal with 12 officers of Parliament, they don’t have to deal with the [media]. The private sector remedy did not work. It demoralized the public sector.

Why should we care?

Show me a weak country and I will show you a country with a weak public service. Every country needs a referee and the referee has to be the public service. No country can operate without a referee. You take the public service out of Canadian society and you will have chaos.

- pogge discusses what looks to be a glaring loophole in Canada's Access to Information Act - as a recent decision has determined that a government institution can delay an initial reply indefinitely without recourse. Meanwhile, Pat Martin is leading the charge to fix a few additional problems with our access-to-information legislation. And Newfoundland and Labrador are conducting a thorough review of their legislation - albeit only after the government rammed through highly dubious changes which made the system far more opaque than it was before.

- Alison contrasts the Cons' cringeworthy partisan ads against Elections Canada's entirely unobjectionable messages about voting which the Cons want to ban.

- Finally, Thomas Ponniah discusses the founding and first steps of the Tommy Douglas Institute.

Strength in diversity

I'll deal in more detail with the prospect of Pat Martin running for the NDP's leadership as a pro-merger candidate. But before getting into its ultimate significance, let's note how the media's coverage distorts what Martin's trial balloon actually figures to mean.

No, the prospect of different views being represented in a leadership campaign - on the possibility of merger or other issues - isn't a threat to party unity. Instead, it's exactly what any party should want in ensuring that different ideas are fully debated among its membership and disparate points of view are represented in deciding on its future direction. And whether or not Martin or another candidate gains any traction from the idea, the NDP should be stronger for its being one of many subjects of discussion in advance of a leadership convention.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Adam Radwanski points out how Stephen Harper's continuing Senate embarrassment figures to play into the NDP's hands:

If Mr. Harper was looking to signal once and for all that he’s abandoned his populist roots, he could scarcely have done better than Wednesday’s Senate appointments. Little more than two weeks ago, Josée Verner, Larry Smith and Fabian Manning were all rejected by voters in their ridings – the latter two after biding their time with supposedly temporary gigs in the Red Chamber. Now, all three will have the opportunity to serve in Parliament anyway, at what is theoretically a higher level, courtesy of the leader who only a few weeks ago was still extolling the virtues of an elected Senate.
...
(F)or the New Democrats, this is a dream issue...It will give Mr. Layton, who has argued that the Senate should be abolished altogether, an opportunity to continue positioning himself as the outsider standing up for ordinary Canadians against Ottawa’s culture of entitlement – a message that will be key to any future success west of Ontario.

The Conservatives spent much of the recent campaign enjoying the NDP’s surge, because it mostly came at the expense of the Liberals. But for all that Mr. Harper might relish the prospect of his only national opposition coming from a party firmly to the left of centre, he might enjoy it a little else if that party starts challenging him on what was once safe Conservative turf. A few more announcements like Wednesday’s, and that might start to be a real concern.

- And the NDP looks to be making sure that the Cons can't wriggle their way out of their responsibility for perpetuating a bloated and non-representative upper chamber.

- John Cartwright nicely sums up how our economy is designed to avoid providing good jobs:

With millions of baby boomers retiring in the next decade, one would think that the law of supply and demand for skills would allow new employees to ask for better standards, not worse. But the CEOs already have figured out a response to that. First, the massive increase in the temporary foreign worker program has allowed entire sectors to keep wages low. And second, they have relentlessly attacked collective agreements in both the public and private sectors, resulting in many workers being thankful to keep what they have, let alone improve standards. Nobody mentions that Air Canada agents and Canada Post letter carriers earn less than the average wage in Toronto. The constant, shrill accusations are that these men and women are overpaid and need to accept even less.

That is why the anti-union rhetoric repeated daily by business think-tanks, columnists and politicians is so useful in the CEOs’ strategy. Only unions possess the power to frustrate their plans, and weakening unions is the key to lowering wages and benefits in tomorrow’s economy. The fact is the standard of living that so many take for granted was achieved through struggle. Whether by unionization or other forms of collective action such as the women’s movement, it was always opposed by the elites on Bay Street.

It is the labour movement that has advocated so strongly to improve standards for all working Canadians, as we did with the fight for maternity benefits and to increase the minimum wage. Labour is at the forefront of the efforts to improve retirement security for all. And labour continues to demand that we create a just society and economy that offers good jobs for all.

If you are under the age of 35, pay close attention. Your standard of living, and that of your children, is being decided right now in the boardroom, the workplace and even on the picket line. Sooner rather than later, you will need to pick a side.

- And Jim Stanford highlights the Harper Cons' leading role in attacking workers:

The government has thrown away any guise of neutrality. It has abandoned the principle of leaving free collective bargaining up to the private parties. It invokes phony arguments about the economic recovery, to justify virtually anything it wants to do.

We must also remember that the government could play a more constructive role in resolving the underlying problems that have contributed to theconflicts at Air Canada, Canada Post, and many other bargaining tables.

We need to expand the Canada Pension Plan, which is the most universal, portable, efficient, and secure pension system in the land. We need stable, long-run funding rules for defined-benefit pensions, and an insurance system to backstop pension plans when companies get into trouble.

These are things that government could do to strengthen workers’ pensions, and improve the chances that hard-working Canadians can retire with dignity and security. Instead, this government just jumped right into the middle of collective bargaining, clearly on the side of corporations, to help take pensions away from workers.

- Not that we should expect the Cons to be honest about what they're doing - any more than they're being in hiding their slashing of the public service from the likes of Paul Wells:

(I)t may be a bit ambitious for The Hill Times to put the name “breakout summary of the total reduction in spending” on the information Treasury Board actually provided, because what TBS actually provided was the number “$720 million.” Then they say, if you want to know more, “please” consult the Public Accounts “in the fall.” Handy reminder: it’s June.

But that’s only my third-favourite part. My second-favourite part is where they invite reporters to “contact individual departments or agencies” for more information on their Strategic Review cuts, because boy howdy, that sure has been working well for me so far.

And my first-most-favourite part of this whole email is the little note to me at the bottom where, “for additional information,” they “invite” me “to consult the Budget documentation.” Which made me laugh a long time, because it was the Budget documentation that got me asking these questions in the first place. In March.

Meanwhile Bill Curry at the Globe has been doing excellent work chronicling the real scope and effect of the cuts. He’s not getting a stitch of information from the government, of course; he’s getting it from the public-sector unions, in dribs and drabs as the layoff notices are handed out.

Duly noted. Real information on these cuts will not be coming from the government, at least not before fall.

Parliament In Review: June 13, 2011

As I'd suspected, there looks to be plenty of material for a review post from just a day's worth of events in the House of Commons. So here's an inaugural daily review of what you may have missed in Ottawa yesterday - with a few themes I'll be developing in future posts.

The Big Idea

While it hasn't received much attention in the media, one of the main points of discussion since Parliament resumed has been the structure of the Cons' tax credits - which in areas ranging from volunteer firefighting to childrens' arts participation are set up as non-refundable credits which offer absolutely no benefit to less-well-off Canadians participating in the activities the Cons claim to want to encourage. And yesterday saw plenty more questions and comments on the subject, with MPs including Randall Garrison and Marc Garneau highlighting the issue. And Pat Martin noted that we can look forward to a more systematic review by the NDP:

(W)e are in the process of doing an analysis, perhaps the first in-depth analysis, of many of the tiny incremental tax credits that the Conservatives have offered Canadians over the last two or even three budget. We are breaking this down by quintile to see who is actually availing themselves of the tax credits being offered.

What we are finding, and it is not ready for publication yet because it is not quite finished, is that the tax credits that are targeted for the sports tax credit or the children's art and music tax credit, for instance, will probably not help many poor kids participate in sports who would not otherwise be participating or participate in music, dance, theatre or art who would not otherwise be participating. It is those who are availing themselves of it who are already participating in that program.

Which is to say that we can expect plenty of focus on the Cons' choice to hand money only to those who need it least in the days and years to come.

Value Statement of the Day

Mathieu Ravignat summed up what Pontiac's voters chose instead of Lawrence Cannon:

The good people in the Pontiac voted New Democrat for the first time and they know exactly what they voted for. They voted for a more respectful government. They voted for a perspective that does not reduce Canadians to economic units, an option which understands that there is more to being a Canadian citizen than paying taxes, that there is such thing as the good life in a country that has at its heart the principle of caring for each other. They voted for a stronger, more social Canada, with a strong place for Quebec in it; a Canada where after a productive life one can take a much deserved rest; a Canada where universal health care is a fact, not simply an empty phrase; a Canada which enables families to make ends meet, that helps create new innovative green jobs; and a Canada which leaves to our children, my children, a beautiful environment filled with diverse ecosystems because it is a good in itself and not a means.

Vote of the Day

Yes, the NDP's budget amendment was defeated and the Cons' budget passed. But it's worth noting that the division from last week continued - with the NDP, Libs and Greens each voting for the amendment and against the budget, while the Bloc voted with the Cons both times.

Gotcha

Amidst the criticism of the Cons over their G8 pork-barrelling and dishonesty, Alexandre Boulerice pointed out how the Auditor General's concerns about a shockingly nonexistent paper trail contradicts the Cons' own 2006 platform, which included a commitment to “oblige public officials to create the records necessary to document their actions and decisions”.

The Stimulus Continues

Over the past few days, one of the NDP's main questions on the budget has been the reason why the Cons refuse to extend the eco-energy retrofit program for more than a single year. But James Lunney's answer to Chris Charlton raises plenty more questions than it resolves:

There is a difference between permanent measures and those that are meant to stimulate activity. The member is aware that we are running a deficit and were severely criticized for that. When we were coming up with the economic action plan, opposition parties were annoyed that we were not operating fast enough and wanted us to spend more, but we have an obligation to balance our budget.
...
We have an opportunity in next year's budget, if we need further stimulus, to move ahead with a program. In the meantime, we are hoping as many Canadians as possible will take advantage of it this year to keep people working and move ahead with energy efficiency in their homes. It is a well-appreciated program that is supported by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the Canadian Home Builders' Association.

Now, as best I can tell the Cons' consistent party line to date has been that their stimulus program as announced in 2009 has been wound down, and that there's effectively no need to further stimulate Canada's economy. So it's rather a surprise to hear both that there's still a need for stimulus spending, and that retrofitting is still being classified as such.

Non-Answer of the Day

Anna-Marie Day asked a simple question as to whether the Cons would consider an anti-poverty program. Patricia Davidson responded with the Cons' patented economic word salad - featuring precisely zero mention of poverty.

Of course, an honourable mention has to go to Cheryl Gallant, ducking a doubly embarrassing question from Gerry Byrne about search-and-rescue priorities with a chorus of "Sea Kings! Sea Kings! Sea Kings!"

In Brief

A few more interventions worth noting: Peter Stoffer's question on what a Conservative Canada actually means; Annick Papillon's focus on the social and economic costs of inequality; Andre Bellavance's unsuccessful attempt to push the NDP's Isabelle Morin on the federal government's role in health care; and Jonathan Genest-Jourdain's focus on developing an alliance between Quebec, Coaster, Innu and Naskapi communities in Manicouagan.

More like this

It may be only a start in comparing the Harper Cons' bloated communication spending to the much smaller amounts of party funding being targeted for slashing. But it's nonetheless a plus to see both national opposition parties in Parliament pointing out the amount of money being spent on self-promotion by the Cons - and Pat Martin's explanation in particular looks to be worth highlighting:

Liberals are accusing the Conservatives of spending millions of Taxpayers' money on government ads to trick their way to a majority government.

"Mr. Harper is a cheat," Liberal House Leader David McGuinty told QMI Agency. "He is trying to take public money to cheat his way into a majority."

Liberals say the Tories are using unprecedented means - through government advertising, taxpayer-funded direct mail campaigns and extra spending on communications staff - to make Canadians forget the feds have posted a record setting $55.6 billion deficit.
...
NDP MP Pat Martin said he believes the Tories are spending more because it is "a lot more expensive to peddle unpopular positions."

"In a period of fiscal restraint, when every government department is being asked to tighten their belt, the communications budget of the PMO is exploding," he said.

Even MPs, Martin notes, have had their budgets frozen.

"It's hypocritical and dishonest."

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading...

- The Ottawa Citizen weighs in on the Cons' out-of-control communication costs:

Harper's press secretary Andrew MacDougall defended the increase in communications staff in the Prime Minister's Office, however, by saying government communications are more important than ever because "Canadians are worried about the economy and what their government is doing to address it. So it's important to return every phone call and have the prime minister out there communicating."

Except that is not what the government is doing. Centralizing communications in the PMO does not necessarily mean more communicating; it might just mean that the information that is communicated is more controlled and spun than ever. When it comes to communications, Canadians are getting less for more money and, especially now, that should concern everyone.

- I don't entirely agree with Matt Taibbi's sense of inevitability. But otherwise, it's hard to argue with his take on what's made it more difficult to rally public support behind worthwhile causes:

Common sense sounds great, but if you’re too freaking lazy to penetrate the mysteries of carbon dioxide—if you haven’t mastered the whole concept of breathing by the time you’re old enough to serve in the U.S. Congress—you’re not going to get the credit default swap, the synthetic collateralized debt obligation, the interest rate swap, etc. And understanding these instruments and how they were used (or misused) is the difference between perceiving how Wall Street made its money in the last decades as normal capitalist business and seeing the truth of what it often was instead, which was simple fraud and crime. It’s not an accident that Bachmann emerged in the summer of 2010 (right as she was forming the House of Tea Party Caucus) as one of the fiercest opponents of financial regulatory reform; her primary complaint with the deeply flawed reform bill sponsored by Senator Chris Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank was that it would "end free checking accounts."

Our world isn’t about ideology anymore. It’s about complexity. We live in a complex bureaucratic state with complex laws and complex business practices, and the few organizations with the corporate will power to master these complexities will inevitably own the political power.

- And while the occasional attempt to develop a similar countermessage might be worth a shot, it only makes matters worse to go all out in accepting and even pushing the idea that small, simple, short-term gains in the context of a worsening society are all that really matter. Which brings us to the Libs:

Federal Liberal insiders said on Tuesday the party is shifting strategy in response to the political forces that propelled Mr. Ford into office.
...
(M)ore specifically, insiders said the Liberals will abandon nanny state proposals like universal child care and put forward boutique proposals that would cost relatively little and target areas where many Canadians are hurting – such as their family-care plan, which would give family caregivers a six-month employment-insurance benefit similar to parental leave and a family-care tax benefit for low- and moderate-income earners modelled on the child tax benefit.

And the framing may be even worse than the policy focus: what exactly do the Libs think they have to gain by deriding public programs in wingnut terms like "nanny state"?

- In fairness, though, at least one NDP MP seems to have his eye off the ball as well.

- And finally, the weirdest part of the potash developments over the last couple of days is the Cons' apparent refusal for anybody to take credit for the recommendation to let BHP Billiton take over PCS. While it's true enough that there's a difference between a departmental recommendation and a final decision, it strikes me as highly implausible that the former wasn't based at least in part on political direction as well - and the fact that Stephen Harper is distancing himself from both sides of the picture looks to suggest that he expects plenty of fallout from the outcome.

On rush jobs

Not surprisingly, the Cons are making up excuses as to why their dumpster bill should go unchallenged. But let's see just how well the excuse holds up to scrutiny.

Here's the Cons' spokesflack explaining why nobody should bother looking at 880 pages worth of Harper-driven legislative amendments, many of which have nothing to do with the budget they're tied to:

“The all-party House of Commons Finance Committee has scrutinized C-9 and passed it without amendment,” Mr. Chisholm noted.

So what actually happened at the Finance Committee, which covered those 880 pages in a grand total of seven meetings? Let's take a look to see if anybody can reasonably claim that concerns about the bill were actually given proper scrutiny.

The first meeting to study C-9 took place on April 22. On that day, the Finance Committee received approximately 80 minutes to ask questions about the first three parts of C-9, covering 97 sections of statutory changes. And Finance Committee Chair James Rajotte helpfully described the workload associated with the bill as follows:

Okay, it looks like we've finished 3 of 24 parts today.

I do want to very much thank the witness for being here.

Colleagues, you may want to hear this. We have 21 parts left of the bill. We have 62 witnesses who have been requested on this bill. There are some time sensitive issues here that need to be done, at least in the government's view, by June.

Not surprisingly, at least some opposition members were somewhat concerned with having to jam that many witnesses in along with the sheer size of the bill. But when NDP MP Pat Martin suggested splitting up the bill, here's what he was told:

Mr. Pat Martin:
My only observation, on the NDP's part, is that you could always split the bill as a third option. You didn't have to stuff in all of these controversial things that have really nothing to do with the budget, like the environmental assessment review, etc.

Break out the time-sensitive parts of this bill and I think it would pass speedily, and leave the controversial stuff for further analysis later on.

The Chair:
I appreciate that, but as you know from reading your O'Brien and Bosc book, a committee has to deal with a bill as sent to it by the House of Commons. So we have no choice as a committee other than to deal with the bill in its present form.

So in case there's any doubt as to whether the fact that the bill wasn't split up at the Finance Committee level means that anybody actually approved of having it rammed through all at once, the answer is a flat "no".

The Finance Committee's April 27 meeting, which lasted two and a half hours (including a forty-five minute break for a vote in the House of Commons), finished off only two parts of the bill. But since one of those parts was the massive Part 5 dealing with customs tariffs, the meeting made for MPs' lone opportunity to deal with a grand total of 1,548 sections of C-9. So shall we ask if anybody honestly believes that an average of four seconds of scrutiny per section is plenty of time to evaluate the Cons' budget legislation?

Thanks in large part to Rajotte's admonitions that MPs "be as brief as possible in our questions" and "try to get through...as many parts as we can today" as well as a decision to limit questioning to five-minute rounds, the Finance Committee's two-hour meeting on April 29 managed to breeze through parts 6 through 14 of the bill, covering 136 sections. (And they'd have made it further if the Vice Chair's attempt to simply declare five parts dealt with without any questions had succeeded.) As part of their effort to give the budget implementation proper scrutiny, MPs received helpful answers such as these ones dealing with the Cons' claim to have saved a bundle of money by eliminating positions which didn't actually cost anything:

Mr. Robert Carrier:
At how much do you estimate the real savings from the elimination of these positions?

Ms. Claudette Lévesque:
We did not evaluate that... It was not just a computing exercise, it was an exercise to try to evaluate the efficiency of the various boards and to ensure the best governance. If all 245 positions had been filled, we estimate that the costs — this is a very rough estimate that we did with Treasury Board — including the per diems, the honorariums, travel costs and everything associated with these boards, would be $1,000,000 to $1,250,000 for the 245 positions.

Mr. Robert Carrier:
That is assuming these positions would be filled. Is that a realistic assumption? Could these positions, even though 90% of them are presently vacant, be potentially filled or are these rather useless positions that you want to eliminate in the interest of efficiency?

Ms. Claudette Lévesque:
I am unable to comment. Obviously, these positions are filled by Governor in Council appointments. So this would be on the advice of the minister in charge of that portfolio. I could not say regarding any given position whether it could have been filled, but as a result of the assessment it was decided that they were no longer necessary.

At the Finance Committee's next meeting on May 4, Rajotte helpfully signalled that he wanted to be done dealing with the bill by the end of that week. The two-hour meeting dealt with Parts 15-19 of C-9 (266 sections in total), including the thorny issues of Canada Post and AECL.

Along the way, the Cons decided that any information about what effect the amendments might actually have on Canada Post had to be withheld from the MPs assessing the bill:

Mr. Thomas Mulcair:
As an elected member, I want to see those analyses that have been done by your department. Can I have them?

Ms. Katherine Moynihan:
I imagine the studies will be subject to the Cabinet confidence policy.
...

Mr. Thomas Mulcair:
The thing is, the Cabinet in question is asking us to vote for or against a bill, based on information we don't have. It is a great pleasure to meet you this afternoon, Ms. Moynihan, but you are giving me nothing that clarifies it for me and enables me to make that decision.

Mr. Ted Menzies:
I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: Go ahead.

Mr. Ted Menzies: Having been a minister, Mr. Mulcair would know that there is cabinet confidentiality.

If you wish that information, rather than asking this witness, I would suggest that you ask the minister—
...
Mr. Thomas Mulcair:
We've just been told that studies and scenarios and modelling have been done as to the potential costs. The member of Parliament who is sitting in the corner over there decided that he knows that they're cabinet documents. We have no such information. If he has been given access to cabinet documents, we should be given the same access, because he's just a member of Parliament, as we are.

The Chair:
As the chair, I will make the request that if there are any documents that can be made available to the committee, please make them available to the clerk and they will be made available to all members.

The May 5 meeting began with Rajotte declaring his intention to complete the committee's review of the five remaining parts of the bill, including Part 20 dealing with environmental assessments, Part 21 making changes to the Canada Labour Code, and Part 23 amending Canada's telecommunications ownership laws. The committee didn't quite make it to the end, but managed to skim over Parts 20-23 (32 total sections) in two hours.

The two-hour May 6 meeting covered Part 24, then got started with the first six organizations on the committee's witness list. On May 11, a three-hour meeting dealt with 11 organizations' views on the environmental assessment and nuclear issues. On May 12, a 95-minute meeting dealt with a panel of six organizations on a grab bag of issues within C-9.

Finally, the May 13 meeting raced through votes on all sections of the bill in under half an hour - with a number of provisions passing thanks only to the chair breaking a tie in the absence of a full Lib slate. A statement by NDP MP Pat Martin made for the only substantive discussion - but it led to this response from Dean Del Mastro:

(A)s the member would well know, bills are often brought before the House. We don't presuppose at committee whether a bill would pass or not; that's why we have standing votes in the House of Commons.

The member presupposes that the absence of a given member is in fact determining whether these clauses or this bill would succeed or fail. I'd suggest that it's not fair to project onto anyone whether something would pass or fail if the membership were in fact somewhat different.

So in committee, the Cons told the NDP that it shouldn't worry too much about what happened there since the House would have its say. But now that the bill has passed committee, they're claiming that the House has no business doing just that.

To sum up, then, the 2208 sections of C-9 were dealt with in committee for a total of roughly 18 hours - meaning that on average 122 sections were dealt with per hour, or over two per minute of committee time. That amount includes questions to officials, outside organizations' presentations and comments from the MPs involved. And needless to say, the breakneck pace came due thanks in large part to the Cons' constant demands that the process be sped up and the level of detail pared down - and with the usual obstacles put in the way of other parties' attempts to gather information.

So the only available conclusion is that the Cons have been working at all turns to make sure that C-9 doesn't receive the type of scrutiny it deserves. And the fact that they managed to strongarm the Libs at a previous point in the process most certainly doesn't entitle them to declare that there's no point in changing that reality now.

(Edit: fixed wording.)

Deep thought and burning question

Judging from Kady's account of this afternoon's committee hearing, I'd be highly interested to see how Pat Martin would have handled Jaffer if he wasn't wimping out.

(And is anybody else wondering if Martin's reluctance to have Jaffer testify - never mentioned until after the motion summoning Jaffer was already passed - might have been intended to clear the way for his particularly strident questioning?)

Addition by subtraction

For those wondering when the opposition parties might start exercising their power to review federal spending (and I know at least one opinion columnist has done so, though it isn't turning up on my review this morning), here's your answer. It turns out that Pat Martin's motion to cut off funding for asbestos promotion wasn't his only move to rein in expenses, as he's now planning to directly challenge the Cons' bloated advertising budget:

(NDP MP Pat) Martin said "telling the public 10 times a night at primetime the government is spending money on an Economic Action Plan" clearly crosses the line of responsible use of public funds. This in mind, Mr. Martin said he will attempt to have the millions PCO spent on advertising management withdrawn from the central agency's budget.

"When the estimates come before our [Government Operations and Estimates Committee] I intend to put forward a motion to subtract from the estimates of the Privy Council an amount equal to the amount they've been spending on advertising for their Economic Action Plan," he said.

Of course, it seems all too likely that the newest move will be met with the same lack of interest by the Libs. But it'll be a shame if so - as this would seem to offer an ideal opportunity to force the Cons to defend their own waste of public funds, while also serving as another means of shifting the balance of power between Parliament and the PMO. And considering that the Cons themselves are still painting themselves as responsibile financial managers, it might not even be out of the question that a joint opposition effort could force the Cons into cutting some of their more egregious giveaways.

On poor excuses

We'll have to wait and see if the Libs even try to defend yesterday's utter failure on their own opposition motion. But they've offered an excuse for their vote to keep funding pro-asbestos propaganda - and predictably it's not one that makes an ounce of sense given the Libs' position on the Cons' budget generally:

(NDP MP Pat) Martin moved a motion at the Natural Resources committee of the House of Commons to eliminate the $250,000 in yearly funding Canada gives to the Chrysotile Institute, a Quebec-based advocacy group for the asbestos industry in Canada.

However, none of the other parties supported his motion and it was defeated. Martin was livid and heckled the Liberals as they voted no.

"How do you stand up with no spine?" he barked at Geoff Regan, the Liberal natural resources critic.
...
After waffling, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff came out last year in favour of banning exports of asbestos from Canada, a position (Lib MP Geoff) Regan says the party still holds. However, he said amending the estimates as Martin wanted would have been a confidence matter that could have triggered an election.

"I don't want any part of these electioneering games," Regan told the Winnipeg Free Press last week.

So what's the problem with that spin? Well, last anybody checked, the budget vote in the House of Commons was also "a confidence matter that could have triggered an election". And the Libs didn't vote with the government on the budget as a whole: instead, they cast as many "no" votes as they figured they could afford without risking bringing down the government, and otherwise instructed MPs not to vote one way or the other. Which meant that the budget passed with zero Lib votes in favour.

Had Regan and the other Libs followed the same strategy on the asbestos vote, they'd all have been able to vote "no" in keeping with their party's supposed position. After all, the Bloc has taken a consistent pro-asbestos stance - so no matter how many Libs voted against the motion, there was no danger of the vote serving to trigger an election. And even if they'd feared the Bloc might switch sides, the Libs could have safely abstained from the vote, secure in the knowledge that the Cons would carry the day.

But rather than following their normal election-avoidance strategy, the Libs on the Natural Resources committee chose to take a direct stand in favour of asbestos promotion - voting their approval for continued funding rather than merely holding back just enough opposition to avoid an election. Which would seem to signal that contrary to their claimed policy on the issue, the Libs are in fact more in favour of the asbestos funding than they are the Cons' budget as a whole.

On projection

Someone is definitely showing a degree of pathological desire to destroy the Liberal Party which seems to override any interest in interacting with the real world. But it's not the NDP by a long shot.

The theory:

(According to "various and sundry Conservative pundits, both official and unofficial"), the Conservatives are counting on the NDP eventually coming around to their point of view, on the theory that Jack Layton and company’s almost pathological desire to destroy the Liberal Party forever will override any short-term concern over losing a few million dollars a year.

The reality:

"This is huge. This is so audacious and outrageous," said Pat Martin, an NDP MP from Winnipeg. "This means war."

...

"They're using the update to hurt their rivals ... it's playing Karl Rove politics - getting people upset against the political class generally," said NDP finance critic Thomas Mulcair, referring to a former adviser to U.S. President George W. Bush.

Timing is everything

The Citizen reports on what exactly the Cons managed to accomplish by filibustering the Ethics Committee in its attempts to investigate Conadscam. And the timing of the hearings figures to offer a strong example of why the Cons' style of obstructionism can easily come back to haunt a party:

A Commons committee plans to hold rare summer hearings into alleged violations of Canada's election laws by the Conservatives after a months-long Tory filibuster of the plan ended before Parliament shut down yesterday.

Opposition MPs, who form a majority on the ethics committee, voted late yesterday to open hearings into a scheme under which the Conservatives allegedly transferred money for advertising in and out of local ridings in the final days of the 2006 election in a bid to get around national campaign spending limits.

New Democrat MP Pat Martin said he expects the hearings to begin in late July with Elections Canada officials as the first witnesses. The committee also wants to hear testimony from ministers and others who are alleged to have been part of the scheme, he said.

"We really can't allow another election to take place until this action is either clarified or stopped because clearly it's a recipe for exceeding the spending limits if it's allowed to continue," said Mr. Martin, a member of the committee.

Now, if the Cons had simply allowed the committee to do its work this spring, it's likely that the hearings would already be done with. And in light of the other activity in Ottawa - including the Libs' capitulations in the House of Commons, the usual flow of legislation, and the news coming from other committees - it seems relatively likely that the hearings could have been lost in the shuffle, or at least subject to relatively limited exposure.

But now, the hearings will take place at a time when the political scene is otherwise silent. By the time the committee starts sitting again in late July, stories about the leaders' time on the barbecue circuit will be growing old, meaning that the Conadscam hearings should be timed just right to become the dominant political story of the summer. And it's hard to see what the Cons could have in their back pocket to deflect attention for more than a day or so at a time.

Mind you, there's always the option of proroguing Parliament before the hearings start. But especially given that any speculation about prorogation has focused on the Cons' desire to hold off on a fall sitting until after their November policy convention, that course of action could leave the Cons and the country in serious trouble if any crisis demands Parliamentary intervention in the meantime - not to mention undercutting the claims of Parliamentary privilege which Con MPs are currently using to avoid having to avoid the courts. And there could hardly be a more sure signal that the Cons are scared to death of Conadscam than for them to put Parliament as a whole on hold solely to avoid having to answer for their actions.

As a result, the Cons' attempt to suppress any talk about Conadscam seems only to have resulted in committee hearings taking place when they'll raise the profile of the scandal the most. And by the time the hearings are done, the Cons may very well end up wishing they hadn't stonewalled when they still had the chance to cooperate.

On alternatives

Leftdog highlights a pattern within the Cons where one MP hires a family member of another MP for constituency or ministerial work using parliamentary funds. And it's worth wondering whether the apparent nepotism is based more a desire to provide additional public funds to MPs and their families, or instead on a lack of other qualified members to fill the positions. Either way, though, the part of the story which most deserves to be pointed out is that at least one federal party doesn't allow the same type of practices within its ranks:

The hiring of family members is not a new phenomenon on Parliament Hill. In the early 1990s, two Progressive Conservative MPs were found to have employed each other's daughters, effectively skating around the prohibition of directly hiring children. An RCMP investigation cleared them of wrongdoing. More recently, then-Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien was accused of nepotism when his daughter, a lawyer, was appointed to a federal position on a 2010 Olympics organizing committee - an allegation his office rejected.

In Opposition, the Harper Conservatives railed against patronage and cronyism they claimed was endemic in the Liberal governments.

"They've been touters of public virtues and they do have that burden of having to be purer than Ceasar's wife," said Parliamentary expert Ned Franks, professor emeritus at Queen's University...

Manitoba New Democrat Pat Martin said his own son landed an eight-week summer job for another NDP MP in 1998. Two years later, then-leader Alexa McDonough intervened to stop an MP from hiring a colleague's relative and created a party policy against the practice, Martin said. He says he agrees with the approach.

"Nepotism and patronage are two of the same species," he said. "It's that who-you-know kind of politics that makes Canadians gag." While hiring other MPs' relatives may be allowed under House rules, it "doesn't pass the smell test," he said.

In other words, while the Cons railed against the Libs' cronyism in opposition, they've once again lost any concern for the misuse of the spoils of power now that they stand to enjoy them. And indeed at least a couple of their supporters have tried to draw specious distinctions as to why Con nepotism is entirely appropriate, or even criticize the fact that the story was even reported.

But while anybody hoping the Cons would do better than the Libs in the ethics department may have reason to be bitterly disappointed, that doesn't mean they have to be resigned to that level of politics.

After all, the NDP hasn't only pointed out the problems with funneling money to family members when other parties have done, but has also set the bar for itself at the level which it demands from its competitors. Which means that Canadian voters rightly cynical about the Cons and Libs can take heart that one federal party both stands by its ethical principles, and does more than than the bare minimum to keep its operations clean.

In agreement

The Globe and Mail reports that Lib Ethics Committee Chair Paul Szabo agrees with NDP MP Pat Martin's take that for now, Cadscam should be dealt with by the RCMP rather than the committee:

(E)ven the Liberal chairman of (the ethics) committee does not agree that it is the right venue for an airing of the facts in the Cadman case.

“The best outcome here to clear the water is for an RCMP investigation,” Paul Szabo said. “We're not a court. We can't lay charges. It would just delay, ultimately, the process.”

Which would seem to give those principled Libs who have spent the last couple of days bashing Martin for saying the exact same thing a choice if they want to be consistent: they can either turn their vitriol against Szabo as well on the substance of the matter, or alternatively start slamming Elizabeth May for being the lone holdout against a united national opposition front. But needless to say, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for either to happen.

On pre-electioneering

It doesn't appear to have received much attention in the midst of a busy week in Canadian politics. But Pat Martin's suggestion that Elections Canada regulate political party advertising outside of election campaigns as well as within them is one which deserves plenty more discussion (note: follow second headline link for article):

The Conservatives' spring offensive TV ads and the Liberals' recent radio ads are not considered election expenses, so the sky's the limit, but Canada's Chief Electoral Officer should finally impose limits on the amount of money registered political parties can spend on pre-writ campaigning, says NDP MP Pat Martin.

Mr. Martin (Winnipeg Centre, Man.) said political parties with larger campaign war chests have an unfair advantage over those that don't.

"Financing politics in Canada is a complete free-for-all. It's like the Wild West without regulation or limits where brute force wins the day and whoever has the bigger gun dominates, at least when you're outside the writ period, which is contrary to the stated objective of getting big money out of politics to create a level playing field. So, I think the new chief electoral officer should consider a spending limit on advertising in between elections..." said Mr. Martin in an interview with The Hill Times...

In light of the flurry of advertising this spring, Martin's idea will likely resonate with Canadians who are tired of constant campaigning. At the same time, though, there's almost certainly some room for refinement of the idea based on when the ad expenditures take place.

In particular, I wonder whether it's possible to distinguish between non-election advertising generally, and that which is timed to coincide with a planned start to a campaign (so as to serve effectively as election advertising). It would seem reasonable to make an effort to account for money spent on advertising in the week or month before the writ is dropped as an election expense - as the parties will presumably have plenty of knowledge as to when the election period is likely to start, and will gain just as much within an election from spending money a day before the campaign starts as the day after. Meanwhile, a separate limit on expenses which don't fall immediately before an election period could help to reduce public fatigue with political advertising.

Of course, there's another factor at play which may be easily overlooked based on the Cons' currently holding a resource advantage in party money and pressure-group support as well as the reins of power. If additional limits are placed only on political party advertising, then that could create an artificial advantage for both the governing party (which of course can effectively win advertising for itself through program announcements), and any party with relatively coordinated outside support which could engage in favourable advertising outside the writ period.

All of which means that there's plenty more that can be done to limit the pervasiveness of political advertising - along with many factors that need to be taken into consideration in shaping such a system. But it's definitely worth considering how it's possible to both reduce the influence of money in politics, and discourage political parties from taking as large a bite out of the airwaves as they do...and hopefully Martin's suggestion will help to get that discussion going.

Renewing the call

With the Wajid Khan situation serving as a prime example of why insider loans can make a mess of electoral financing rules, the NDP is repeating its message that it's time to close the loan loophole:

The New Democratic Party is calling for government to close the loophole in the Canada Elections Act that allows “loans” to become de facto donations. NDP MP Pat Martin says the recent Liberal leadership loan debacle and ongoing case of Wajid Khan provide ample evidence for the government to act on behalf of ordinary Canadians and plug the loophole.

“This is about fairness for ordinary people. The Elections Act is supposed to create a level playing field,” says Martin. “But it’s too easy to circumvent the donation limits with a shell game of so-called ‘loans’.”

The NDP tried to stop the “loans loophole” at the committee stage of the Federal Accountability Act. They proposed amendments so that loans made to candidates:

can be made only through banks, credit unions, or other financial institutions;
and no person may co-sign or guarantee a loan to an amount greater than their personal donation limits, less any direct contribution.
The amendments were defeated by the Liberals and Conservatives.

It may not be likely that such an action will be any more popular with either of the two largest parties than it was when Martin brought the issue up last year. But with the Libs' leadership race now over and the Libs presumably eager to denounce both Khan's tactics and the Cons' lack of accountability, it may not be beyond the realm of possibility that the opposition parties could team up to finally make the needed changes to close the gap.

And even if the Libs are still too focused on their own big-money donors/"creditors" to play along, it's always worth pointing out the continued influence of big-money loans in Canada's political system...as well as the determination of some to preserve that status quo.