Musical interlude

Andy Moor & Ashley Wallbridge feat. Meighan Nealon - Faces


Edit: fixed formatting.

On rulings

For all the attention paid to Peter Milliken's ruling this week, I haven't yet seen any commentary pointing out the contrast between the unequivocal statement of the supremacy of Parliament that has been rightly praised, and the rather weak remedy linked to the finding that the Cons have breached their obligations to Parliament. And it's worth pointing out not only that the disconnect exists, but also why it seems to have come about.

So I'll offer a reminder that Milliken's ruling results in a shorter timeline and more apparent pressure on the government than any of the opposition parties has ever been willing to demand. And it's not reasonable to expect a decision-maker to grant an outcome substantially better than the winning side of a dispute has bothered to ask for.

Once again, the opposition parties' willingness to compromise has resulted in their being in a worse position than if they'd actually stuck to the principle of genuine governmental accountability - both to Parliament and to the public. And the absolute certainty that Harper will play them against each other during Milliken's 14-day period (secure in the knowledge that agreement with one eliminates any risk of a finding of contempt) only makes it all the more likely that the result will be less of the truth coming out than should be expected.

Smiling while lying to you

Following up on my first quick post on the TILMA/WEPA/WAKKAWAKKAWAKKA (or whatever it's now being called to throw the public off the scent), its worth taking a closer look at what Brad Wall has locked Saskatchewan into following consultations which reached a strong consensus that it had no interest in being bound by the TILMA. Indeed, let's focus particularly on the two areas where Wall claims to have taken the province's concerns into account as a result of the public's distaste for the TILMA.

Wall claims to have dealt with two issues to try to assuage dissatisfaction with the TILMA: Crown corporations, and municipalities. So let's look through the WEPA as compared to the TILMA to see what's changed when it comes to those entities.

Predictably, the answer is: pretty much nothing.

Crown corporations are dealt with specifically exactly three times in the WEPA. Article 14 makes them generally subject to the agreement's procurement rules; Part IV labels them as "government entities"; and Appendix I gives them a reprieve from the effects of Article 14 until July 1, 2012.

And what's the significance of Crowns being "government entities"? Article 2.2 states as follows:

Each Party is responsible for compliance with this Agreement by its
government entities.

So every Crown is fully subject to every provision of the WEPA from the date it goes into effect, with only one limited, temporary exemption. Needless to say, that's Brad Wall's kind of protection for Saskatchewan's Crowns.

How does that compare to the TILMA? There...Article 14 makes Crowns generally subject to the agreement's procurement rules. Part IV labels them as "government entities" which are subject to the general provisions of the agreement. And Appendix I gives B.C. Crowns a partial temporary reprieve from the effects of Article 14 which expired April 1, 2010.

Not surprisingly, the same goes for municipalities. Of the seven mentions of municipalities in the WEPA, six are found in provisions identical to those contained in the TILMA, including provisions making them subject to the agreement as government entities. And the lone exception is the same time-limited exemption to the application of Article 14 alone that applies to Crowns.

In sum, Wall's claims run head-first into the fact that the WEPA in fact binds Crowns and municipalities alike by exactly the same rules as the TILMA. In each case, that's subject to exactly one, temporary exception - in an area where municipalities at least are generally bound by the Agreement on Internal Trade anyway. So the only available conclusion is that Wall simply doesn't care what the province has already told him about the exact provisions he's now signed onto.

Of course, it shouldn't be much of a surprise that the latest effort to permanently shackle Western provincial governments involves just as much blatant deception as the first one. (After all, the initial spin about the TILMA - pretending the agreement featured some obligation to harmonize regulations to the higher standard applicable in one of the provinces involved - bore absolutely no resemblance to what was actually included.) But there's no reason why Wall should pay anything but a dear political price for so shamelessly lying to his province - particularly given some of the other areas where he can be fully expected to follow in Gordon Campbell's misleading footsteps given the chance.

Update: Fixed wording above based on Erin's correct observation that the AIT generally doesn't apply to Crown corporation procurement.

Burning question

So what on earth has the Sask Party been doing behind closed doors all these months if it was just going to lock Saskatchewan into the TILMA all along?

Blogging break ahead

I'm off to an undisclosed location until next weekend, with little or no blogging in the meantime. But if you're looking for a way to pass some time and do some good in the interim, why not help one of your friendly neighbourhood Saskatchewan NDP riding associations meet its goals for the Local Victories Challenge?

Battlefords-Lloydminster
Blackstrap (Darien Moore)
Cypress Hills-Grasslands
Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River (Lawrence Joseph)
Palliser (Noah Evanchuk)
Prince Albert (Valerie Mushinski)
Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre
Regina-Qu'Appelle
Saskatoon-Humboldt (Denise Kouri)
Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar (Nettie Wiebe)
Saskatoon-Wanuskewin (John Parry)
Souris-Moose Mountain
Wascana
Yorkton-Melville

Musical interlude

A day earlier than usual - because who can wait?

Cary Brothers - Ride (Tiesto Remix)


Edit: fixed formatting.

Worth watching

By way of follow-up to this morning's post, the one area where there's serious reason for concern about the abuse of letters to the editor and other expressions of opinion is where they're submitted by individuals paid to support a particular position, particularly out of public funds. And Kent offers up reason for concern that it's NDP Watch itself that's resulting in public money being misused for partisan purposes.

On delay and distraction

Not to pick on Susan Delacourt too much in the wake of yesterday's post. But she goes astray again in not only drawing the questionable analogy between Peter Milliken's function as speaker and Michaelle Jean's as Governor General, but now suggesting that it's somehow a "compromise" to drag the Supreme Court of Canada into the mix as well:

Governor General Michaëlle Jean granted Harper a request to prorogue Parliament, but reportedly made clear, in a two-hour discussion with the Prime Minister, that the government was being granted the stay of execution on condition that it co-operate better with the majority opposition in the Commons.

Now, a little more than a year later, Harper’s refusal to co-operate with this parliamentary order could be viewed as defiance of the governor general’s instructions. In that case, if this dispute lands in front of Jean again, she may have no choice but to dissolve Parliament, recognizing that it has become dysfunctional.

The Supreme Court, however, could represent a compromise of sorts. If Milliken sides with the argument that Parliament prevails over government, the Justice Department may well draft a formal reference to the Supreme Court – in the form of a constitutional, not a political question – about which laws have precedence in the case of a dispute.

In other words, rather than going to the governor general, and almost certainly an election, the problem would head to the Supreme Court, where everyone could buy some time.

Now, the most basic problem is that "buying time" isn't a compromise position at all. When the dispute revolves around the government using every delay tactic at its disposal to avoid allowing the opposition to do its job even in the wake of an explicit order of the House of Commons, anything that merely pushes matters back even further is a full win for the Cons and a loss for Canada.

Leaving that aside, though, I'm at a loss to figure out the supposed relevance of Jean's rumoured conversation with Harper during the coalition showdown. It would seem obvious enough that whatever Jean may have said during their December 2008 meeting falls short of setting any binding obligations on Harper. (Though if she thought the conversation important, one would think Delacourt would be particularly suspicious about the delay involved given that Jean likely wouldn't be in the GG position by the time the Supreme Court reached any decision.)

But more importantly, the only way a "dispute would land in front of Jean" again would be if Harper demanded either prorogation or dissolution - the former of which she's apparently decided to allow as a matter of course, the latter of which would put an election squarely on Harper's shoulders rather than Jean's. So ultimately, Delacourt's effort to shift responsibility to Jean and/or the Supreme Court serves only to distract from where it properly belongs.

All of which is to say that Delacourt seems to be trying to be too cute by half at every turn in seeking compromises where none exist. We've long since reached the point where conflict avoidance means allowing a secretive government to abuse its power by preventing either elected representatives or responsible tribunals from holding it to account. And it does nobody but the Cons any good to portray their position of "give Harper what he wants or the country gets it" as justifying an effort to meet halfway.

"So absurd as to defy comprehension"

The Star Phoenix editorial board weighs in on the Sask Party's negligence in handling the province's kidney transplant program:

The "Patient First" recommendation by its health care consultant Tony Dagnone apparently forgotten, the government is doing only now what it should have done months ago if it's objective was to recruit transplant specialists whose skillsets would replace urologists and vascular surgeons.

That this direction was taken without apparent consultation with Dr. Ahmed Shoker, head of the transplant program, is so absurd as to defy comprehension.

No wonder that he says he's "frustrated and losing hope." As Dr. Shoker points out, even a continued and prolonged delay in restarting the transplant program has potentially damaging consequences, with the skills of all team members eroding over time.

Even when it comes to the issue of dollars and cents, to keep each transplant patient on dialysis costs about $40,000 a year while the first year costs of a transplant are about $25,000. There should be every incentive in the world for budget-conscious politicians and bureaucrats to obtain the required transplants as soon as possible, without having people languish on dialysis for months or years.
...
(Don) McMorris says the government will bend its rules about paying only for the procedure itself when patients are sent out of province for treatment, and pay for the cost of travel and accommodation for each kidney transplant patient and a caregiver.

This only further adds to the cost of the out-of-province transplants paid for by the government, which has deemed the remuneration demands of vascular surgeons as too excessive.

Some public explanation of the cost-benefit considerations in this issue would be highly welcome, given the high personal price being paid by Saskatchewan patients and a once-renowned kidney transplant program that's slowly being eroded through neglect.

On concerned citizens

I'm not a huge fan of the all-negative, all-the-time concept behind the Sask Party Watch and NDP Watch blogs. But on the balance, a couple more sources of information and discussion on the province's political scene figure to be a plus.

That is, to the extent they actually focus on anything of relevance to the parties involved. But NDP Watch looks to be going much further in trying to pretend that any letter to the editor originating with a worker in Saskatchewan must be part of some grand commie conspiracy, rather than reflecting the viewpoint of an "average citizen" worth listening to.

So let's set the record straight.

The fact that somebody writing a letter is involved in a union or business, or has been a candidate at some time in the past, doesn't mean that they lose their right to express their personal opinion. And the more the Sask Party's backers try to portray community involvement as somehow disqualifying one as an "average citizen", the more important it'll be for people to buck that trend to build a system where their participation isn't seen as an unwelcome intrusion.

Regina Dewdney - Kaitlin Stocks Seeking NDP Nomination

LRT is once again ahead of the game on the NDP's Regina Dewdney nomination race, as Kaitlin Stocks has been confirmed as the challenger to incumbent Kevin Yates - and looks to be off to a strong start with 110 fans already.

As I noted in my earlier post, the road is never easy for a challenger to a sitting MLA. But I maintain that it's a plus to see the kind of enthusiasm involved in such a challenge (and I'm not alone in that assessment). So kudos to Kaitlin for throwing her hat in the ring, and I'll be looking forward to seeing how the nomination race plays out.

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?)

On tourist opportunities

There's rightly been plenty of attention paid to how the Sask Party's negligence has put Saskatchewan's kidney transplant program on hold. But it's particularly worth noting what the Wall government's response has been - as it seems far more interested in building capacity elsewhere rather than using what's already available in Saskatchewan.

Here's Health Minister Don McMorris from yesterday's Hansard on what he's doing in the short term:

(I)n the meantime, Mr. Speaker, we are working with Edmonton to try and increase their capacity. But, Mr. Speaker, more than that, I've instructed the Ministry of Health not only to look across into Alberta, but across Canada to see where we can find capacity so that our citizens will receive care. In fact if it's out of the country, Mr. Speaker, we'd entertain that thought too, Mr. Speaker. We want to ensure that our citizens receive the timely care that they receive. Mr. Speaker, we've just heard that one more patient will be accepted into Edmonton. As of today or yesterday, Mr. Speaker, we have five that are willing or able to receive treatment elsewhere. We're looking for those places.

Now, it's worth noting that the availability of transplants elsewhere makes for cold comfort for the 101 patients on the waiting list who aren't willing or able to go elsewhere. But for those few who are able to go out of province or country, those options are apparently on the table as McMorris sends our resources elsewhere to compensate for his falling asleep on the job.

In contrast, McMorris is apparently deliberately ignoring the possibility of getting the province's own program started back up. Here's McMorris in response to Judy Junor's observation that Saskatchewan now has as many specialists available as it did when the program was previously run successfully:

All three of those specialities are involved in the transplant program, Mr. Speaker. And they are saying that the way the program was run in the past is not the way that it can be run in the future.

That's why we're working with the Health ministry, the Saskatoon Health Region, and the three professional . . . the specialities that make up a transplant program to ensure that we have a transplant program that is secure into the future, that isn't reliant on one physician going sick and the program failing, Mr. Speaker. That isn't the program we want to see. In the short time, we're guaranteeing and ensuring and working as hard as we possibly can that citizens of Saskatchewan will get their care elsewhere.

Now, it's fair enough if one wants to make the point that the system as it existed ought to be changed for the future. And presumably all parties will want to make sure that improvements are made regardless of when Saskatchewan's program is started back up.

But given an obvious option between restarting a transplant system which relies on a suboptimal but workable complement of staff and continuing indefinitely with no transplant availability at all, the Sask Party has inexplicably chosen the latter. And the fact that the Sask Party is apparently perfectly happy sending patients elsewhere for care (or denying it altogether for those who can't travel) because it prefers total failure to an imperfect system should raise plenty of alarm bells for Saskatchewan's patients.

On Parliamentary knowledge

For all the accolades Susan Delacourt is receiving for her latest, I'd argue that her view that the current detainee document issue resembles the coalition showdown is completely off base - or at the very least that despite the common theme of the Harper Cons flouting whatever power they can get their hands on, the roles are actually reversed.

Of course, we don't know exactly how or why Michaelle Jean decided what she did. But all indications are that she saw her role as the delegate exercising the Crown's authority to mean generally taking the instructions of the Prime Minister, with no room for input from the opposition parties or anybody else aside from her own chosen advisers due to the limits of "constitutional knowledge".

If there's any analogy to be drawn, it's that Peter Milliken derives his authority entirely from the House of Commons, and is responsible for administrating the will of the House alone. And accordingly, any decision should be based primarily on the order passed by Parliament - with any representations from both sides serving only to assist in interpreting and applying it, rather than influencing the outcome based on political considerations.

Update: EFL reminds us of the historical context as to the Speaker's role.

On confidence

I've made the point before. But since it seems to need repeating, let's go over this again. There's no reason why any vote dealing with document disclosure should cause an election. And it's a sign of bad faith that the Cons are looking to pretend that's the only option if the opposition parties affirm the supremacy of Parliament.

To see why that's so, keep in mind just what it is that Parliament has voted on. The order giving rise to the current allegation of contempt isn't directed at non-confidence in the government, and indeed it implicitly rules out any intention to cause a change in government by ordering the government in power to deliver the listed documents to Parliament.

And any enforcement will be even more clearly aimed at accountability for the current government rather than an attempt to topple it. Of the two draft motions, Derek Lee's explicitly states that it "shall not be taken to be an expression of confidence or non-confidence in the Government by this House", while Jack Harris' is less direct but makes clear that "other business" will continue following the adoption of an anticipated declaration of contempt. And both are aimed solely at requiring the production of documents by two responsible individuals rather than disrupting the operations of the government.

Of course, it's true that Harper could decide to treat any given contempt motion as a matter of confidence if he's eager to provoke a needless election. But that's no less true for, say, an opposition day motion on prorogation. Or a bill on child care or climate change. And thankfully, we're not at the point where anybody is pretending that those offer Harper any reason to stomp his feet and demand a trip to the polls.

But for some obscure reason, far too many commentators seem eager to argue that Parliament's efforts to secure needed information somehow serve as a reason for Harper to force an election. And it's worth responding that it's Harper alone who should bear responsibility for doing so without justification - lest we otherwise face the mooted possibility that the Speaker will cut away at Parliamentary supremacy based on nothing more than the risk that Harper will abuse some of his other power in response to a correct ruling.

(Edit: fixed wording.)

The next challenge

The NDP has managed to get noticed for operating based on the apparently remarkable notion that Parliament should be a place to discuss serious issues. Though naturally even that hasn't happened without some furious pushback from the other federal parties.

With that in mind, how effectively can the NDP now pitch the position that it's possible for people to reasonably disagree on a hot-button issue, even as the Cons and Libs both crank their rhetoric level up to 11? Stay tuned.

Aim at foot. Fire.

Shorter Garry Breitkreuz:

I'm positively mortified that some of our closed-door violent rhetoric got let out in the open.

Tuesday Afternoon Links

- Alison and EFL have each offered their own takes on the Cons' maneuver to force through the Colombia free trade bill. But I'd raise another question: if it's that easy to dictate Parliament's agenda on a majority vote with no notice, why doesn't the opposition do so more often?

- This week's must-read is Rabble's series documenting Jason Kenney's office's interference in George Galloway's planned visit to Canada.

- Auditor General Sheila Fraser is rightly concerned that ancient technology will make it impossible for the federal government to collect taxes or deliver benefits in the near future. Fraser of course isn't to be confused with the Fraser Institute, which is presumably giddy about the prospect.

- But don't worry: it's not as if the federal government is paying the costs of its own policy anyway.

- Finally, while there's been no lack of attention to the Cons' refusal to say when they might get around to supplying documents to the Military Police Complaints Commission, isn't it even more striking that the government has the nerve to whine that the MPCC is bothering to ask for them?

Mr. Prefontaine said numerous requests from the commission are making life difficult for government record keepers because they have to keep screening more of them as new demands are made.

On perverse incentives

Lisa Austin highlights some of the inherent problems with how our access to information systems are currently designed (which the Cons are of course exploiting to their fullest) - but also notes that there's a straightforward solution:

One of the central problems with our access laws is that many important exemptions are discretionary. This means that the government “may” disclose the information that falls under such an exemption, but does not have to. In theory, this permits more disclosure than mandatory exemptions, but the problem lies with who exercises the discretion to disclose. The answer? The very government that might be embarrassed by disclosure.
...
Usually,...deference is highly appropriate, as the decision-making body that is granted discretion often has specialized knowledge and expertise. In this case, it is a perverse consequence of a poorly designed regime: Those who have the strongest conflict with the public interest are precisely those empowered to determine the public interest.
...
The problem of government discretion, built into the very structure of the law, is exacerbated by the numerous other ways in which the government can manipulate the processing of requests to avoid political embarrassment.

Many of these have been documented by the current interim information commissioner of Canada, past information commissioner reports and numerous media stories. They include creating administrative processes and pressures that interfere with the independence of access to information co-ordinators. They include not creating records in the first place if there is a worry that they might be subject to an access request. They include simply not providing the funding and leadership to make the access regime work.
...
(J)ust as the current political context has provided us with ample evidence of Canada’s lack of open government, it can also provide us with its political solution.

The government is outnumbered. Perhaps the other parties will join together and do the right thing: Reform the legislation.

On regressives

Shorter Fraser Institute:

And in the state of nature, without such concepts as an "economy" or "currency" to facilitate governing structures, humankind paid no taxes at all. How we long to return to those days!!!

Update: Not surprisingly, Progressive Economics Forum has a more thorough debunking.

I'm particularly impressed with the chutzpah involved in labelling deficits as "deferred taxes". But given the Fraser Institute's habit of labelling any government income as a "tax", doesn't that effectively mean that its label of "taxes" in fact means the amount spent by government, rather than the amount raised?