Even if it could, Senate reform shouldn’t proceed without the provinces – or the people

To the surprise of everyone in the Ottawa bubble, Her Majesty’s Minister of State for Democratic Reform, Pierre Poilievre, held a press availability Wednesday not to slam the Liberals for some alleged sins, but to actually speak to an issue of policy substance: the government’s Supreme Court reference on Senate reform.

The minister discussed the factum the government has presented to the court outlining its position, marking the first time the words “Pierre Poilievre” and “factum” have appeared in the same sentence. The government has put several questions to the court, essentially seeking clarity around what reforms Parliament can make on its own, what reforms would require provincial approval, and what level of provincial approval would be required for outright abolition, ie. unanimity, or seven provinces with half the population.

The Harper government’s position is that it can proceed unilaterally on Senate reform. I’m not a legal expert, but most of those I’ve seen weigh-in say, while it can proceed unilaterally in some ways, substantive reform does mean constitutional reform. And while the feds can make some changes to areas of sole federal interest on its own, substantive reforms would likely go beyond that.

But I’ll let the legal experts, and of course the Supreme Court, hash that one out. There’s what’s legal, and what’s right. And even if the courts said the feds could substantively reform or even abolish the Senate without the provinces, I’d argue they lack the moral authority to do so and would be making a mistake if they tried.

I’ve written extensively on the Senate in the past. Most recently I’ve argued what I’d like the Senate to be – an upper chamber with equal representation by province or region with clearly defined powers, to serve as a regional counter-weight to what should be a purely representation by population lower chamber in the House of Commons. With uneven population growth across the country, I think that’s an important piece to have in our parliament. The provinces have an undeniable interest in ensuring regional voices are heard and represented fairly in parliament; it’s difficult to argue this is purely a federal matter.

However, I would go beyond just requiring provincial approval through the amending formula for substantive Senate reform or unanimity for abolition. The people must be involved too. When Stephen Harper first came to Ottawa as a staffer and later a Reform MP in 1993, he was a leader in a party that believed in consulting the people on such matters via referendum. It’s time he returned to his roots.

Before we proceed down the road to reforming or abolishing the Senate, which would be a pretty major change to our democracy, the people must become involved. We need to have a debate in this country around how we want to be represented, and what we want our democracy and our parliament to look like.

And then we should vote in a national referendum, and the federal and provincial governments should proceed as the people direct.

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Flawed Conservative logic: Anti-semitism and weightism

Now is the time when we juxtapose at A BCer in Toronto.

The Conservatives want you to know that Liberal MP Irwin Cottler is a big whiner for being pissed off the Conservatives sent taxpayer funded flyers to his riding all but accusing him of anti-semitism:

Federal Conservatives say Liberal MP Irwin Cotler is pretending to play the victim as he attempts to wring an apology for a flyer they sent to his riding that he says accuses him of being anti-Semitic.

Quoting a conservative columnist, Tory MP Pierre Poilievre told a Commons committee on Tuesday that politicians live to be unjustly accused of something because “the opportunities to play victim are too tempting.”

“I think that puts some of this into its proper context,” Mr. Poilievre said.

But if you imply in a tweet that A Conservative may be a few pounds over their ideal weight, well, how dare you, apologize immediately, how dare you pick on me, shame!

Mr. Del Mastro: Mr. Speaker, I am in fact saddened to rise on this point of order because I had hoped members in the House would not sink to this level. However, this morning the member for Scarborough Southwest made an entry on Twitter that I find particularly demeaning, discriminatory and unbecoming of a member of Parliament. This morning in the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, I had to put up with the abhorrent behaviour of a partisan chair who pays no attention to the rules governing parliamentary committees whatsoever. However, during that meeting I provided the respect that each member is in fact due. The member for Scarborough Southwest wrote on her Twitter, and I apologize as I will have to use my name, “In committee this morning, MP Del Mastro should grow up not out.”

I hear some people in the House laughing and that is unfortunate. I apologize for not being perfect and perhaps my stature does not meet the criteria that some members in the House set, but I have actually battled that problem since birth. I apologize for not actually fitting into the requirements. I am still hearing the chastising going on. It is this kind of arrogance and elitism that will be the downfall of the Liberal Party if this continues. I am giving the member the opportunity to apologize. The actions of the members in committee this morning do nothing to discourage me. They only encourage me. I would ask the member to take the opportunity to apologize for what she wrote. She may wish to consider that a number of her own constituents are less than perfect and she represents them as well.

So, if you're scoring at home, according to Conservative logic, say something unkind about an MP's girth on twitter is arrogant elitism that requires a self-aggrandizing sob-story speech in the House of Commons and for every media outlet that will have you.

But if an MP, a leader in the Jewish community respected across the country for his character and integrity, opts to defend himself from scurrilous accusations of anti-semitism that call his very character and life's work into question? Well, he's just a whiner that's playing the victim-card and should shut-up.

“I think that puts some of this into its proper context."

Indeed, Pierre.

Indeed.

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Are the Conservatives push-polling?

Are the Conservatives doing some push-polling? In the Ottawa area it appears they might be, as someone claiming to conducting a poll on behalf of Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre, was asking poll questions far more designed to influence public opinion than to measure it.

Unfortunately, one of the calls went to a CBC producer:

So, there's this phone, see? And this phone just so happened to belong to a CBC producer in Ottawa. And last night, just as it was born to do, it RANG!

On the other end was an actual non-recorded human voice -- male -- conducting a poll on behalf of her local Conservative MP, Pierre Poilievre.

Curious, she participated in the poll, which was clearly trying to gauge her interest in an election now and who she'd support -- while ever-so-subtly reminding her about the home renovation tax credit and federal infrastructure money to build the Strandherd Bridge in her riding, brought to her by the Harper government.

The pollster was very quick and unscientific didn't ask her name, age or occupation, she said.

Said CBC producer also found the language used by the pollster interesting. He didn't use the word "Liberal," but used Michael Ignatieff's name. But when the pollster referred to the other parties, he did so by party name.

He also asked if she'd support the "Ignatieff-NDP-Bloc coalition" and was unresponsive when she asked him about the current Conservative-NDP interlude/bromance/whatchamacallit in the House of Commons.

"Really no sense of humour with these guys," our producer said.

One wonders if the Conservatives are using their substantial campaign war chest to make misleading push-polling calls across the country. Has anyone else received similar calls?

Push-polling. Once-again, the Conservatives importing the finest Republican tactics. Then again, it could have been worse...

Bush's campaign strategists, including Karl Rove, devised a push poll against John McCain. South Carolina voters were asked "Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?". They had no interest in the actual percentages in the poll, the goal was to suggest that [McCain had a black child]. This was particularly vicious since McCain was campaining with his adopted [dark skinned] Bangladeshi daughter

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Conservatives hiding the facts on EI

We know the Conservatives have pretty much killed the EI reform panel. And it seems they're now spending more time trying to blame others for their unwillingness to approach the issue seriously and actually discuss reforming EI then they did actually trying to reform it.

You'll recall the Conservatives essentially blew the panel up when they prodded the independent civil service into doing a "costing" of the Liberal EI reform proposal. But rather than cost the actual Liberal proposal, the Conservatives asked them to include a slew of things the Liberal proposal didn't in order to get a vastly inflated number, an inflated number they could then use as an excuse for doing nothing on the issue, while hiding behind the civil service when challenged on the fictitious nature of their numbers.

The Liberals rightly challenged them on this and asked the parliamentary budget officer, Kevin Page, to do his own costing of the Liberal proposal. After all, Canadians deserve to know the real numbers. Page is working on it, but there's one little problem:

The Parliamentary Budget Officer hasn't received all the information requested of HRSDC Deputy Minister Janice Charette, which includes data, analysis and assumptions underlying the government's cost projections. The office said that, if necessary, it would produce the analysis in the next two weeks, even without the information.

Meanwhile, while the government continues to try to block a truly independent and fair costing of the Liberal EI reform proposal, Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre is still sticking to the Conservatives' fictitious, fantasy land costing, using the independent civil service as a shield for his party's political gamesmanship.

The Conservatives, it seems, are concerned that if the public knows the real cost of the Liberal plan, the government's inflexibility on the issue, and the fact they've yet to even release a proposal of their own, will be quite negative. Unable to win the argument on its merits, they need to stack the deck. They need to cheat to win.

If they're confident in their positions, let's have the real numbers and then let the people decide. Stop trying to hide the truth, and to withhold the information Page needs to do an independent costing.

And Pierre and company should have the guts to stop hiding behind the independent civil service, who should not be used as partisan blockers for a weak quarterback afraid of getting sacked.

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Conservatives lie on EI reform, and they lie badly

Not only are the Conservatives lying to Canadians about employment insurance reform, they're engaging a supposedly non-partisan civil service to help them do it.

Here's the screeching messaging that ConBot Pierre Poilievre's guys took to the media tonight, after the Liberals and Conservatives sat down for what was supposed to be constructive dialogue on EI reform:

A government analysis said the Liberal proposal to slash the minimum work requirement to qualify for employment insurance benefits to 360 hours across the country could exceed $4 billion a year.

A senior Conservative official circulated a synopsis of the cost analysis to reporters.

It said the proposed change could cost four times more than the $1 billion cited by Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, who has promoted the 360-hour standard as a means of easing the plight of the unemployed during the economic recession.

Wow, $4 billion! More than four times what the Liberals said! Wow, that's crazy, dammed Liberals will bankrupt us, rawrrrr!

Except no, its a bald-faced Conservative lie. It's all nonsense.

During the meeting, Liberals said, federal officials admitted that their estimate of the number of people affected by the “360” plan includes new entrants to the work force, re-entrants and those receiving special benefits, such as maternity leave — none of whom Mr. Ignatieff's proposal is intended to cover.

Mr. Ignatieff's intention is to cover only those unemployed workers who've paid into the EI system but haven't worked sufficient hours to qualify for jobless benefits. Based on HRSDC's own figures, that would be 9.6 per cent — or about 150,000 to 160,000 — of the current 1.6 million unemployed Canadians.

You see, rather than ask the civil servants to cost what the Liberals have actually proposed, the Conservatives had them cost a fantasy-land proposal with all sorts of stuff they pulled out of thin air, in order to get a vastly inflated number they could throw around say "rawrrr, Liberals bad!"

The Conservatives directed government officials to cost a proposal that is not the Liberal proposal.

Instead of costing the Liberal proposal to include laid-off workers who have paid into the EI system but are ineligible due to a lack of hours, the Conservatives unilaterally decided to cost a proposal that would extend eligibility significantly beyond this group, more than doubling the number of potential beneficiaries.

At today's meeting of the working group, department officials confirmed that the costing of the real Liberal proposal would be approximately $6,900 per additional beneficiary, which is in line with estimates from TD Bank Economics. This validates Liberal calculations that a 360-hour proposal would cost approximately $1.0-1.5 billion.

It's not just that the Conservatives lie. We all know they do. But they're just so fricking obvious about it. They had the public service cost a fantasyland proposal and now they're hiding behind the independence of our civil service for their political lies.

Ottawa MP Pierre Poilievre, a Conservative member of the working group, insisted the costing is accurate, produced by “an independent and non-partisan public service.”

And while they're busy artificially inflating the Liberal proposal for EI reform, we can't cost the Conservative proposal because THEY DON'T HAVE ONE.

So, in the absence of one I'm going to cost their proposal: one gazillion billion trillion quadrillion dollars. Prove me wrong, Pierre.

P.S. Who is the "senior government source" that leaked the BS report to the media. Tell me media, are you in the habit of protecting anonymous sources that flat-out lie to you and use you as pawns? Because I know that'd piss me off.

More from Steve and Scott.

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Harper's picks for the EI panel

A busy day at the day job leaves little time for blogging, but I did notice over at O'Malley's that Stephen Harper has made his three picks for the Conservative spots on the EI summer working group with the Liberals.

In addition to HRSD minister Diane Finley and your friend and mine, Pierre Poilievre, Harper has appointed Malcom Brown, senior assistant deputy minister, HRSD.

While much of the discussion is focusing on the lightning-rod that is Poilievre, I noted that I find it interesting Harper has given one of the three "Conservative" spots to what appears to be a non-political, senior civil servant. Poilievre's appointment aside, I think having someone with an intimate knowledge of the mechanics of EI on the committee is a good thing.

I'm curious, though, how this will impact any vote or consensus on final recommendations by the committee. The composition was 3-3, but now its 3 Lib 2 Con 1 civil servant. Will Brown be expected to vote with Finley and Poilievre? Will he be free to vote his conscious, and possibly side with the Liberals? Or does it really matter anyways?

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Stephen Harper and cosmopolitans

What is it with the Conservative Party of Canada and ignorance of the English language? I mean, say what you will about Brian Mulroney, but the man swallowed the frickin' Blarney Stone. He could string some words together.

But these guys? Boy, I don't know. Stockwell Day had no idea "spearchucker" meant something other than "person who throws spears" and, of course, Pierre Poilievre claims ignorance of the meanings of the phrase "Tar baby."

And now we get this from The Globe's Lysiane Gagnon (h/t to Susan Delacourt):

At worst, there is the suspicion that a cosmopolitan such as Mr. Ignatieff is not a loyal Canadian.

(In both French and English, the word “cosmopolitan” has some pejorative connotations, depending on the context. In France, the word cosmopolite is used by anti-Semites as a code word for Jew.)

I'm actually going to have to claim ignorance on this one too, as this connotation is news to me. But then, so is using the word cosmopolitan in a negative sense, as the Conservatives are doing.

And so did Joe Stalin, by the way:

After World War II, Stalin's anti-Semitism was revealed in a series of public attacks against Jews in the Soviet Union. Jews were labeled "cosmopolitans without a homeland," code for not being patriotic enough. By 1949, these attacks led to the abolition of the JAC, and the dismissals and arrests of thousands of Jews.

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50 billion reasons why Pierre Poilievre hasn't apologized

I really don't think Pierre Poilievre is a racist. I do think he's a moron, but he's not a racist moron. He's also not an idiot, and with this whole “tar baby” controversy he's serving a very real purpose for the Conservatives right now: he has us talking about what an moron Pierre Poilievre is instead of the Conservatives' $50 billion deficit, the economy, and the growing call for action across the country on employment insurance reform.

Now, I don't know if Poilievre either didn't genuinely know the racial connotations of the term, or just intended to stir the pot through its use. If it was just genuine misunderstanding, the logical thing to do would be to just apologize, to say yeah, I didn't know what it meant, I didn't intend it in that context, I withdraw it, Liberals suck. End of story.

That would be the logical strategy. Instead, Poilievre, along with the PMO communications apparatus and his cabinet colleagues, have decided to stand and fight for the right to use terms with clear and obvious racial connotations. Seems like a weird decision, right?

Not necessarily. Whether Poilievre's use of the term was innocent or it was a plant, this has given the Conservatives to distract attention away from the economy, away from the biggest deficit, and onto Poilievre's being a moron. It has caused quite the media brouhaha, and it has certainly distracted the blogsphere.

And like a good team player, Poilievre is willing to take the hit. After all, we all already know he's a moron anyway. He also won his riding by a massive plurality, so he needn't worry there.

Let's not buy into the Conservatives' attempt to change the channel. Poilievre being a moron is old news.

What isn't old news is a $50 billion deficit that Jim Flaherty insisted just one month ago would be much, much smaller. What isn't old news is Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall joining BC's Gordon Campbell, Alberta's Ed Stemlach and Ontario's Dalton McGuinty in calling for EI reform, calls Stephen Harper has not only denied but openly ridiculed.

Actually, if there is one lesson to take from this, it's that they must really be freaked-out about their massive deficit, about their arrogant inaction on EI, about the economy and its potential to hurt them, if they're willing to go to the wall to defend their right to use racially-charged language. You can almost smell the desperation.

So, let's remember. Yes, you're a moron, but it's still the economy, Pierre.

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Calling Canadian libel lawyers with heart

Surely somewhere in Canada there is an experienced libel lawyer willing to help an unfairly maligned journalist and author find justice? I surely hope there is. Justice shouldn't only be open to the wealthy, and the rich should not be allowed to bully the poor without consequence. Is there a Canadian libel lawyer out there willing to take Tom Zytaruk's case on pro bono and win one for the little guy?

Zytaruk also has a column worth reading in today's Surrey Now.

And to Mr. Big Mouth Pierre Poilievre, be a man and repeat your accusations outside of the House, without the shield of parliamentary privilege to protect you.

Cadman biographer threatens to sue Conservatives

Updated Fri. Feb. 13 2009 4:49 PM ET

The Canadian Press

OTTAWA -- Chuck Cadman's biographer says he might sue members of the Conservative government for what he calls a smear on his reputation.

But facing a Tory party with deep pockets, Tom Zytaruk says he would first need a lawyer willing to work for free.

He says he's fed up watching Conservatives sully his reputation.

"This arrogant government knows they can say and do whatever they want -- or feels they can," Zytaruk said in an interview.

"What can little Joe regular Canadian do in response? They're laughing at me."
(more)

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Changing the channel

Think this news will get stories of Pierre Poilievre's unacceptable and shameful behaviour off the front pages? I suspect so...

Manitoba judge Jeffrey Oliphant will head the public inquiry into the Mulroney-Schreiber affair, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Thursday.

Judge Oliphant, 64, is associate chief justice of Manitoba's Court of Queen's Bench.

The announcement came seven months after Mr. Harper first promised a formal investigation into former prime minister Brian Mulroney's controversial financial dealings with arms lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber.

“The government is acting on its commitment to establish a public inquiry into this matter,” Mr. Harper said in a statement. “A number of questions remain unanswered and it is in the public interest to investigate further and to find answers.”

If you believe the timing of this announcement is coincidental, then I've got a bridge in New York to sell you. Stephen must be really pissed at Pierre for ruining his news cycle, giving Harper a scant few hours of glow from what should have been a great day for the Conservatives, and for Canada, yesterday.

So instead of enjoying a few further days of positive media coverage, Harper is forced to announce the appointment of a judge to reside over the Mulroney-Schrieber inquiry to deflect from Pierre's embarrassment, an announcement I'm sure he would have prefered to dump and bury some sleepy Friday afternoon instead.

If there's a cabinet shuffle upcoming, expect Pierre to be relegated to the backbenches where he belongs.

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A question for Mr. Poilievre

Cher Pierre,

You say the right to funnel money from the national party to the local party for purely national advertising, and get reimbursed with taxpayer money for that spending, is somehow possibly equated with "free speech".

If that's so then why, pray tell, did your Conservative Party make it illegal for me to donate more than $1000 to the political party of my choice? Isn't that impugning my right to free speech?

Are you and Mr. Harper saying the Conservative Party's right to free speech, and the right to free speech of third-party groups like the National Citizen's Coalition, is somehow more important than the right of an individual Canadian citizen to free speech, or less worth defending? Why is that exactly Pierre?

Just curious.

Jeff

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Suing Poilievre?

The following press release was posted on the Liberal Web site this afternoon, relating to the fallout from this sorry episode (transcript here). As they say, interesting...

Liberals Demand Apology from Pierre Poilievre
February 28, 2007

Ottawa – Lawyers on behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada and Liberal MP Navdeep Bains today delivered a letter to Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre demanding that he withdraw his false, misleading and defamatory statements made during an interview on CFRA radio in Ottawa on February 22, 2007.

The statements were calculated to cause damage to the Liberal Party of Canada and to injure the reputation of Mr. Bains and to discredit Mr. Bains as a person and as an elected official. The letter serves as Notice of Action as required by section 5(1) of the Ontario Libel and Slander Act.

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