September 12, 2019 - Loonie Politics

Well, here we are. Election 2019 is officially underway. Of course, the issuing (not dropping) of the writs of election is just a formality; election-style rhetoric never really stops in Canadian politics. But now that the formality has been executed, it is the appropriate time for me to unveil my official endorsement, which is highly coveted in all quarters and will ultimately increase the recipient's share of the popular vote by at least 10 percentage points. Thanks for the fruit baskets, by the way.

At the time of this writing, I will have been a resident of the United States for over a year and a half. If I wish to vote in Election 2019, I will need to apply to vote by mail. In order to get an absentee ballot, I must supply my most recent Canadian address and a photocopy of a document proving my Canadian citizenship. Then it's just a matter of filling in an online form and waiting a few weeks. Easy.

It was also easy to vote in Election 2015. I would have had to walk a few blocks to the polling station, but I like walking. Yet I didn't. It wasn't worth it. Spoiled ballots don't count, anyway.

Such is the dilemma this cycle. If the only vote I can conscionably cast is for a dead person, or a fictional character, or an inanimate object, or a long string of obscenities, why bother filling in that form? What's the use of an absentee ballot that won't count?

Once again, it's that bad. The individuals seeking to head Canada's government are so uniformly self-interested, hypocritical, incompetent, incurious, and dislikable and that's just a baseline that I have no choice but to endorse my dog for Prime Minister of Canada.

Fisher Morgan was born in Washington State, but as a purebred Newfoundland, his ancestral ties to Canada run deep. Like the province for whom it was named, this breed is renowned for both its handling of rough seas and its friendliness. For this reason, Fisher will simultaneously be running as the Independent Member of Parliament for Coast of Baysâ€”Centralâ€”Notre Dame, the riding which includes the town of Gander. He has never been there actually, he's never been to Canada at all, now that I think of it but that never stopped a good share of the 2011 NDP class.

In any event, what really matters is likability and relatability, qualities that Fisher possesses in spades. Having been socialized in public places since he was three months old, he is comfortable with both large crowds and one-on-one discussions with big and little humans alike, whose testimonials call him "sweet," "floofy," and "SOOOO CUTE!" As well as people, he lives in a neighbourhood with a diverse population of wildlife and has forged particularly strong bonds with the deer community and the rabbit community. We're still working on the cats, but . . . well, you know. Cats.

Like many Canadians, Fisher's favourite activities include sleeping, running around in the park, and eating bacon which brings me to his Five-Point Plan for a Very Good Canada:

Promote physical activity and the preservation of outdoor spaces through regular walks and swims.
Take action on climate change so there aren't as many sky booms.
Stop irregular crossings of squirrels into the backyard.
Offer free noggin pats and snugs to all humans who need some.
More bacon.

In addition, having been named for Admiral John Fisher, he understands what it takes for a tricoastal country to have a strong navy for example, boats and people who know how boats work.

Of course, contemporary elections are more about what a candidate is not than what they are. So let me assure you of the following: Fisher is not the sort of dog who will interrupt Question Period with loud borking or doodle in the middle of the aisle. You can see in his eyes that he will never lie to you or do anything to make you call him bad. He may get some drool on your pants, but it's only because he's just met you and he loves you. And, yes, he may nap in the middle of a committee session, but being a puppy is hard work, you know.

So, if you can't figure out which of the human mediocrities deserves your grudging support the most, don't encourage them just vote for Fisher. Who's a good Prime Minister? He is.

Photo Credit: Jess Morgan

Written by Jess Morgan

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.

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Politicians, political scientists and the public are usually in agreement that Canada's House of Commons suffers from too much party discipline, so it was perhaps a surprise earlier this week when the Greens were rebuked for not hypothetically whipping their future MPs enough.

Green party leader Elizabeth May was recently interviewed by CBC News Network's Power & Politics host Vassy Kapelos. One question was: how would you respond if a backbench Green MP wanted to introduce a private members' bill to re-open the abortion debate?

The journalist's intention was likely to expose potential consequences of Greens ostensibly eschewing party discipline. If so, May eagerly took the bait. Despite clarifying that her personal position was pro-choice, and that the Green caucus would attempt to "work to consensus" and talk an MP out of such a provocative motion, ultimately May would not invoke party discipline in such a scenario.

"â€¦I don't have the powerâ€¦ to whip votes, nor to silence MPsâ€¦ democracy will be healthier when constituents know that their MP works for them, and not for the party leader," said May.

Within hours, headlines shouted that the Greens would allow their MPs to re-open Canada's abortion debate never mind that a woman's right to choose is official Green policy. It became the main news story on several networks and was exploited heavily on social media, including by NDP candidates and supporters who attempted to construct the narrative that Greens might secretly harbour socially-conservative inclinations.

The public backlash was framed specifically around abortion, but the broader issue is really about party discipline specifically the Greens' claim that they wouldn't employ it. Is Green policy of any use for predicting the party's future voting record if no topics would be whipped, and what would happen if one Green MP asserted an agenda that clashed with party policy?

It's worth taking a step back to recognize the negative role of party discipline in Canadian politics. Critics argue it undermines democracy: if elected representatives are instructed to vote along party lines rather than in the interests of constituents, do we really have a representative democracy? In Canada we tolerate an election system riddled with flaws because it supposedly gives voters a powerful voice in local affairs, when in reality local representation is undermined by top-down decision-making from the first minister, cabinet and their unelected strategists. In practice, our politics begins to resemble the Dutch system, in which there are no ridings and people only vote for party, as candidate names do not appear on the ballot. Party machinery dominates, and elected politicians merely become numbers to ensure legislation is passed.

As Mount Royal University journalism professor Sean Holman stated at the end of Whipped, his 2013 documentary: "â€¦[P]arty disciplineâ€¦ means our democratically-elected representatives may have very little influence overâ€¦ government, and if they don't have any influence, how much of a say do voters really have?"

"â€¦[I]n the advanced parliamentary democracies, there is nowhere that has heavier, tighter party discipline than the Canadian House of Commons," Leslie Seidle, a research director with the Institute for Research on Public Policy, told the Globe and Mailin 2013. "People are kicked out of their party temporarily for what are really very minor matters."

Perhaps understandably, the young and idealistic Green party decided years ago it would refrain from using party discipline if it were to one day elect a caucus of MPs.

The idea that party discipline run amok corrodes democracy is by no means an exclusively Green notion. Many outgoing politicians of all partisan stripes have bemoaned its influence. These include former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, former Conservative MP Brent Rathgeber, and former NDP MP Bruce Hyer. It's no different at the provincial level, with former BC Liberal finance minister Carole Taylor and former Nova Scotia NDP finance minister Graham Steele both outspoken against party discipline.

Many Canadian voters agree. A spring 2016 poll by Nanos found that 74 percent of the public felt having more free votes is important, an increase from 56 percent in 2009.

Although party discipline carries a sinister reputation in Canada due to the heavy degree that it has been invoked, a party exerting some level of control over its representatives can serve a useful purpose in moderation. Discipline can help ensure voters aren't lumped with a Green MP who claims that climate change is fiction, a NDP MP who advocates for private health care, or a Conservative MP who wants to balloon state spending.

In reality, the Greens aren't completely free from party "discipline" as they claim it's just that such moderation occurs during a different period in the political cycle. Rather than (hypothetically) whipping parliamentary votes, the Greens subject prospective election candidates to scrutiny over their personal values. If a person doesn't seem a good fit for the party, they're barred from contesting an election under the Green banner. This process perhaps partly contradicts the Greens' claim that they're more membership- and constituent-oriented and less leader-centric, if all candidates have to be approved by a backroom party committee.

Is this reduced level of moderation sufficient? Fast forward to the present, and the Green party has elected two MPs, currently wields three, and looks set to enlarge its caucus next month. Predictably, the party is now coming under scrutiny for how it would react to a backbencher introducing controversial motions and rightly so.

Canada's other political parties suffer from the opposite problem: too much party discipline, which does not serve voters well. Although the Liberals, Conservatives and NDP release election platforms that clarify their policy positions, in decent decades they have usually not elaborated which topics they would and would not whip. This becomes particularly problematic when a party whips votes on topics not even covered by its platform, as the NDP has been particularly prone to do.

So how can Canadian politics reach the "Goldilocks zone" of party discipline? First, find an appropriate balance. Tolerate more whipping than the Greens currently offer, but less than the traditional big-three parties demand. Justin Trudeau has increased the number of free votes compared to the Stephen Harper era, yet parliament remains more disciplined than under Paul Martin.

Second, backbench MPs should be allowed greater freedom. These MPs remain technically outside of government since they do not hold a cabinet post, yet are usually expected to vote in accord with government. In comparison, British backbench MPs are much more likely to vote against the government and remain unpunished by party brass for doing so.

Third, parties should compile a list of topics they would and wouldn't whip, and include it in their election platforms to prevent ambiguity. This would assist voters in making their decision each election. To be fair, the Liberals have clarified three categories of topics that are whipped, but it would clearer to the electorate if each individual topic were listed.

Ultimately, the Greens are likely to discover that being completely devoid of parliamentary discipline will hinder them. Although their democratic idealism is refreshing in this era of political cynicism, having no party discipline may prove just as extreme as invoking too much. The Greens would be smart to find a more realistic middle ground as would the rest of Canada's political parties.

Expecting a combination of candidate scrutiny and caucus meetings to prevent unpalatable issues from surfacing among future Green MPs may prove naÃ¯ve even by Elizabeth May's standards.

Photo Credit: The Canadian Press

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Political dishonesty is like a hydra. You manage to lop off one head and two more pop up hissing at you. But as I recall the solution was to whack it off then cauterize the neck. And where Hercules and Iolaus used a torch I'm going to see if I can get it done with a fiery rhetorical blast at the latest Liberal lie about SNC Lavalin.

As you doubtless recall with a grimace, especially the sort of keener who frequents this site, we and our many-headed, forked-tongued political betters just staggered into the 2019 federal election in the shadow of a fresh scandal. It seems the RCMP wanted to investigate the Prime Minister and his colleagues for obstruction of justice over the shenanigans that led to the departure of Jody Wilson-Raybould (and Jane Philpott) from cabinet and caucus over a Deferred Prosecution Agreement for the Quebec engineering and lobbying giant. But they were, how shall I put it, obstructed?

It was done neatly, or at least brazenly. The Mounties needed to see certain documents they were unable to see because they were protected by cabinet confidences. And while those confidences could have been waived, they weren't. Nasty, huh?

Well no. Not to hear the PM tell it. You see, it was the Clerk of the Privy Council who waved his fingers in a magic mind-bending semicircle and said the police didn't need to see this material. Not that nice Justin Trudeau and his sunny ways. Heck no. "We respect the decisions made by our professional public servants," said the PM on slithering out of Rideau Hall after the election writs were issued. "We respect the decision made by the Clerk." See, it was totally arms-length and apolitical. Move along, people. Especially if you're wearing a cop suit.

So here's the lie I'm trying to chop off: The PM has nothing to do with the Clerk of the Privy Council. It's a flagrant falsehood because the PM, as Her Majesty's First Minister, is de facto head of the Executive Branch of government and everyone in it is ultimately answerable to him. Especially the Clerk of the Privy Council, who as head of the entire civil service is (a) appointed by the PM; (b) serves at his or her pleasure; (c) enjoys spectacular pay and perks you'll have trouble finding on their website; (d) works closely with the PM all the time on all kinds of sensitive files.

Indeed his full title is "Clerk of the Privy Council and the Secretary to the Cabinet". Whose head is the Prime Minister. As the CBC recently explained, the Clerk's "first" job "is to act as the deputy minister for the prime minister". And the website of the Privy Council Office boasts that "The Privy Council Office (PCO) supports the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. Led by the Clerk of the Privy Council, the department helps the government in implementing its vision, goals and decisions in a timely manner."

The notion that the PM and his deputy minster work at arm's length not hand in glove is absurd. To ask us to accept a man's complete exoneration by his deputy keeping key documents from the police is to seek to make us complicit in the absurdity by humiliating as well as confusing ourselves. Not least because Trudeau could overrule the Clerk any time he wanted and let the RCMP see what they want to see. So there's another head of this hydra.

As I've had occasion to note before, constitutional theory is in a bad way in Canada. Including the current obsession with putting various things "beyond the reach of politicians" to make them "non-partisan". Since our control of government is exercised through politicians, specifically legislators we elect and the ministers they supposedly scrutinize, this idea amounts to making the government a law unto itself because increasingly large parts are entirely unaccountable to Canadians. Like the Clerk of the Privy Council. If we can't get rid of him or her via the Prime Minister, and get rid of the Prime Minister via Parliament (which they apparently now can't in Britain) we have ceased to be self-governing.

So Trudeau's lie matters a great deal. And I think I just whacked it off. But since two more are likely to grow here comes the flame.

The core of this fresh lie about the SNC scandal is the independence of the Clerk of the Privy Council. Which we know all about because the lid was blown off the whole mess when Jody Wilson-Raybould revealed that she'd tape-recorded a conversation involving outrageous pressure on her as Attorney-General fromâ€¦ fromâ€¦ who was it again? Oh yeah. Michael Wernick. Clerk of the Privy Council. The guy who then appeared before Parliament mumbling weird threats about political assassination if people like him were held accountable, then quit suddenly, pension firmly in hand.

What's more, a key SNC lobbyist with ready access to the Clerk of the Privy Council was SNC board chair Kevin Lynch who was previouslyâ€¦ oh myâ€¦ Clerk of the Privy Council. Small world. Yet we're told there's nothing to see here, it's all been decided by the independent, totally reliable, non-partisan, wouldn't-recognize-the-PM-if-I-saw-him-on-the-street-or-while-twisting-a-minister's-arm Clerk of the Privy Council.

Rubbish. Tosh. And staggering effrontery. I try not to ask people how dumb I look because of the scope it furnishes for a crushingly creative response. (For instance "Did a mud-flap just speak?") But in this case we have to ask something similar.

How dumb do they think we are that we would conclude based on this history of Clerks of the Privy Council with their fingers all over the SNC scandal that if a Clerk of the Privy Council says there's no need to investigate the SNC scandal we can take his word for it?

There. That's one neck not just severed but scorched. Did something just hiss behind me?

Photo Credit: Jeff Burney, Loonie Politics

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Stump speeches are dull stuff. A series of passages loosely strung together with the common thread being theres are all message lines that need to be hit to make sure months of focus group research doesn't go to waste.

Dull as they are, at the start of an election, they're instructive for what the various parties and leaders plan to do.

They also tend to run contrary to what the press want to talk about. The press corps was focused mostly on the SNC Lavalin scandal, or if they were francophone, on the response to Quebec's Bill 21, which banned people who wear hijabs and other religious clothing from the public service. But press preoccupations on the opening days of an election are rarely where these things end up.

For one thing, the writing mass of journalists don't have the discipline to stick to just one thing for more than a day or two. The politicians, on the other hand have a dreary sort of discipline that keeps them relentlessly focused on, like, three things.

And, miserable as it sounds, all the polling and focus group research that the parties do in anticipation of the election does tend to point to certain trends within the citizenry.

The initial campaign kick-off speeches are the clearest distillation of what the parties think the election will be, or should be, about*.

So, on the first day of the campaign, let's see what the people want to be prime minister think this election is about. Some of this, you'll probably notice, runs parallel to the parties' slogans from two weeks ago. What the speeches add, are a bit of meat and just the barest touch of flavour to where the campaign is heading.

First up, Justin Trudeau's Liberals, who launched their campaign in Ottawa at the Governor General's.

Trudeau's speech focused a fair bit on what his government has done â€” things like NAFTA, the child benefit, and the "middle-class tax cut" â€” while asking Canadians to choose his party to move forward along those same lines. It's interesting to focus on the past, while making a plea to the future, without really sketching out what the future will be, beyond a continuation of the present. (The past he really warned of was the past of Stephen Harper, which would have seemed a lot more off-base, if the former prime minister hadn't already appeared in Conservative advertising.)

Andrew Scheer launched the Conservative campaign in, if you'd believe it, Trois-Rivieres, Que. Evidently, the Tories think they can pick up a few seats here in la belle province. Which, credit for ambition, I guess.

Anyway, Scheer's pitch has two prongs. One, he's all about removing taxes from things. Carbon taxes, heating taxes, and so on. This is to make life more affordable â€” whatever the hell affordable actually means. The second prong is that you can't trust Trudeau to follow through on his promises â€” none of which Scheer would approve of, but I digress â€” but you can sure trust an aw shucks guy like him. He also said because of the SNC-Lavalin scandal, Trudeau had lost the moral authority to be prime minister, adding further proof to his lack of trustability. I'm not sure Scheer is actually more trustworthy, he has a nasty truth-stretching habit, but that's the essence of his pitch.

Jagmeet Singh, meanwhile, launched the NDP campaign in London, Ont., in a Goodwill store. Which was in many ways a fitting place to give his opening speech.

In it, he used the SNC scandal as a cudgel against the Liberals, as a party willing to do anything to help a rotten corporation, at the expense of everyone else. He also tied both the Liberals and Conservatives as peas of a pod, both willing to sell out the little guy for their friends in the C-suite. This is the upshot of the SNC scandal the Conservatives can't really hone in on. They have rich corporation friends too, theirs are just different ones from the Liberals. The system is the problem, Singh says, and it's titled to the haves against the have nots. Which is where things like a national pharmacare plan and a wealth tax come in. Of the three parties, it's probably the most ambitious pitch to voters.

Just for fun, some quick predictions to wrap up: I don't think Andrew Scheer has the juice to win this one. There's something missing from the man. Whether it's honesty, or charisma, or just the collected barnacles from a lifetime spent in politics, there's something not there about him. I think Singh has a real chance to make an impression this election and improve on what has so far been a pretty disastrous time at the helm. Trudeau, though, is the interesting one. The guy is a formidable campaigner. It wasn't that long ago that he won an election that was seen as un-winnable. But now we know who he is, and have seen the difference between Trudeau the campaigner and Trudeau the prime minister. That said, I don't think there really are enough people that dislike him as strongly as the Tories assume to make up for the deficiencies of his opponents. A Liberal government is a good bet, and a majority one isn't out of reach.

***

*This does not apply to the Green Party, whose performance in the run up to this election has shown they have no idea what people want, or why they should be the party to do those things, whatever those things might be.

Photo Credit: National Post

Day: September 12, 2019

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