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Canadian PoliGAF - 42nd Parliament: Sunny Ways in Trudeaupia
- Thread starter matthewwhatever
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excelsiorlef
Member
Yep.
It was all about protecting Jean Charest.
It's not coincidence that she lost her seat in the election while Charest was the only PC (and 1 of 2 overall to even have one) to retain his seat.
She also never even got to sit in Parliament, which is kinda sad. She also wasn't half bad for a PC politician
killer rin
Member
Someone should make a thread for this (I can't because I'm on my phone)
Liberal Party passes resolution to develop a Minimum Income http://winnipeg2016.liberal.ca/policy/poverty-reduction-minimum-income/
Liberal Party passes resolution to develop a Minimum Income http://winnipeg2016.liberal.ca/policy/poverty-reduction-minimum-income/
excelsiorlef
Member
It's too bad this will take years, if ever, to actually happen.
I'm not sure if that actually qualifies as cold feet. They're right in that whatever system they choose must have broad-based support from the general public -- otherwise, it'll be interpreted as a power grab. That's what they're primarily afraid of if they switch to Ranked Ballot.
If anything, I can see an adoption of Mixed Member Representation -- a compromise between Ranked Ballot and Proportional Representation. Not my most favorite system, but it can bring the NDP into the fold.
If anything, I can see an adoption of Mixed Member Representation -- a compromise between Ranked Ballot and Proportional Representation. Not my most favorite system, but it can bring the NDP into the fold.
Trudeau promised us that 2015 will be the last fptp election and it will be because Trudeau is an honest guy
Idk but I think we will get electoral reform first before Marijuana legislation once Trudeau's first mandate is finished
So refreshing to see good governance even if it's a bit early to say that but so far the liberals are doing good
Idk but I think we will get electoral reform first before Marijuana legislation once Trudeau's first mandate is finished
So refreshing to see good governance even if it's a bit early to say that but so far the liberals are doing good
Looks like cold feet to me. Every statement implies that the "broad" nature of their majority somehow means that it is truly representative, and thus sufficient representation.
Basically that article is "the natural governing party of Canada is back doing its natural governance, better than ever."
MMPR *is* proportional representation (one of several kinds). It is not a compromise. Ranked ballot is the compromise, allowing strategic voting to function 'properly' by enshrining it into the system.
Sometimes people refer to MMPR as "semi-proportional", but that's because the voting inputs that go into it are not all proportional. If the compensatory seats are set up properly, the outcome is proportional (at least as far as possible).
So apparently there's an all-party committee looking into the whole Elbowgate thing?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-elbow-all-party-committee-1.3608576?cmp=rss
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-elbow-all-party-committee-1.3608576?cmp=rss
He breached privilege, for which there have to be at least discussions about consequences. Nothing will happen without the consent of the liberals anyways, since they'll form a majority on the committee (as they do on most committees), so relax.
This is *normal* for a severe breach of privilege (which this was, no matter how much people want to pretend it was Trudeau helping an old lady across the street). Note that the breach is primarily him grabbing Brown, not so much the elbow bump (though I'm sure that will come up as well).
Ah okay, that makes sense. Thanks for the clarification!
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
I think the Keith Martin example in the article is a prime example of why there probably does not need to be an all-party committee about it; grabbing the mace is patently against the rules and an abusive move... and the appropriate punishment is to suspend a member until they've apologized... I don't think there's a material distinction between Trudeau being called to apologize in some formal context versus the several apologies he's already made.
Apologies are basically the only mechanism we have for parliamentary behaviour. Even if a member announces "the member opposite is a real piece of shit", the expected punishment is that they apologize and withdraw the remark, and if they refuse to, they're ejected from parliament.
I guess you could argue this creates a low-accountability situation where you can get away with stuff as long as you appear contrite afterward, but that's a system that works. The disincentive for Trudeau to pull anything else like this is the media coverage, not parliamentary sanction.
Do you have some information not contained in that article about how Keith Martin's breach was handled? Because it seems like you're implying that it didn't go through a similar procedure.
I think it's really important to recognize that the Liberals consented to send this to committee (they had to), a Liberal Speaker agreed it was a breach of privilege justifying it going to committee, and when they come to a decision it will have come with the consent of a majority Liberal committee and will be adopted by a majority Liberal House.
To frame this as some kind of abuse of procedure is ridiculous. If it is, it's a Liberal abuse of procedure. But it's not. They'll do their business and whatever happens will happen.
Mulcair blew shit out of proportion, focusing on the wrong thing and playing it up in a way that made no sense. But when there's a significant breach of privilege the house should act on it correctly. I see no evidence they aren't.
I think it's really important to recognize that the Liberals consented to send this to committee (they had to), a Liberal Speaker agreed it was a breach of privilege justifying it going to committee, and when they come to a decision it will have come with the consent of a majority Liberal committee and will be adopted by a majority Liberal House.
To frame this as some kind of abuse of procedure is ridiculous. If it is, it's a Liberal abuse of procedure. But it's not. They'll do their business and whatever happens will happen.
Mulcair blew shit out of proportion, focusing on the wrong thing and playing it up in a way that made no sense. But when there's a significant breach of privilege the house should act on it correctly. I see no evidence they aren't.
I think what he's saying is that it's redundant, not an abuse of procedure. With the instance of the mace, the end goal was to get an apology from an unapologetic person. What's the end goal here? To get another apology, where Trudeau is just standing in a different spot, but says all the same things?
Ok, but if so the Liberals are effectively doing it to themselves. At no stage in this have the opposition been capable of *forcing* any of these actions. That's the joy of a majority government.
This kind of defensiveness, treating the position of power you've found yourself in as a position to be fortified and immune to criticism, is the kind of thinking that led the CPC down their garden path to hell. People are still in the mode of thinking that the Liberals are vulnerable in ways they aren't anymore, and they really need to snap out of it.
This kind of defensiveness, treating the position of power you've found yourself in as a position to be fortified and immune to criticism, is the kind of thinking that led the CPC down their garden path to hell. People are still in the mode of thinking that the Liberals are vulnerable in ways they aren't anymore, and they really need to snap out of it.
I would mostly agree, but (take this with all the grains of salt you need, still super new to politics) this committee was proposed by the conservatives and the NDP, right? If the liberals were like "nah, this is played out already" and swung their weight around to quash this, that would easily be turned by the opposition into the liberals being heavy handed autocrats, or whatever hyperbole Canadian opposition politics use, right? So the liberals are just picking their battles - super important after already getting some tarnish on their shiny new government.
Which brings us back around to whether it makes sense to do this committee:
- It makes sense procedurally, in the same way that any action taken in breach of privilege makes sense (particularly when the ruling party made the breach): It went through established procedures and people talked about what to do about it and will eventually come to a decision.
- If the liberals felt it wasn't worth the political capital that would be expended fighting it, then it was correct in that sense too. Probably if they'd seen post-facto poll numbers they wouldn't have agreed, but at the time it seemed like the politic thing to do.
Frankly, that article just looks like Keith Martin wanted some attention again and called up the CBC to give them a quote and they ran with an article on it.
- It makes sense procedurally, in the same way that any action taken in breach of privilege makes sense (particularly when the ruling party made the breach): It went through established procedures and people talked about what to do about it and will eventually come to a decision.
- If the liberals felt it wasn't worth the political capital that would be expended fighting it, then it was correct in that sense too. Probably if they'd seen post-facto poll numbers they wouldn't have agreed, but at the time it seemed like the politic thing to do.
Frankly, that article just looks like Keith Martin wanted some attention again and called up the CBC to give them a quote and they ran with an article on it.
100% on point. The mechanism against bad behavior in the 21st century is media optics -- which works amazingly well provided the media and public are paying attention.
As an aside, Brousseau accepted the apology for the Elbow and wants to move on. http://ipolitics.ca/2016/05/31/elbowgate-apology-accepted/
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
Sorry, I don't think I quite spelled out how I was getting from A to Z. My position is that given that all parties recognize that Trudeau acted in error, and given that the end game is that a committee compels him to apologize, and given that he's already apologized, and given that no one is materially disputing the facts or intention of his actions, I just view this as moot. In the Martin case he appears to have been unapologetic, thus the need to go through the process. My point in mentioning the example was to observe that the most punitive possible outcome of this process has already occurred without the process.
I do know it's the case that typically in the event of a member being verbally abusive in the house, if it's an isolated incident, it normally ends with the speaker ruling the remarks out of order and compelling the member to withdraw them and apologize. Further investigation is not typically needed if everyone agrees what happened, everyone agrees it was wrong, everyone agrees what the appropriate remedy is, and the remedy is taken. Obviously this is not Trudeau making a verbally abusive remark, but my point is just trying to provide the scaffolding for things we might compare it to.
Yes my position is not that referring it to a committee is wrong or abusive, it's that it is superfluous.
This is not downplaying the severity of the breach in decorum, just acknowledging that I don't think recording testimony about what happened, Zaptruding the footage, and compelling the nth apology on the subject adds much to either our understanding of what occurring or the ability of the house or the public to hold Trudeau responsible for it.
If your position is that you think the committee has powers in excess of compelling an apology, and that there's a non-zero chance this ends with some actual sanction of note against Trudeau, then I guess my objection is vacated, but I find that highly unlikely. Abuse that is far more severe for which the perpertrators were far less apologetic typically ends with the member apologizing, or if they fail to do so, being ejected from the house until they do. I can't recall any case of a member suffering any kind of ongoing or escalating sanction for such behaviour.
On the strategic dynamics, I suspect the Liberals have agreed because they internally believe that the public doesn't care (so it's just the opposition wasting capital), that Trudeau's many many apologies came off as sincere. I assume the opposition has calculated that keeping scandal in the public eye works to erode Trudeau's honeymoon. Not sure who is correct on that point.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
Jesus fucking christ, this thing again? >_<
Eh? My position is that the likelyhood of even him being compelled to apologize again is not 100%, let alone something more. The Liberals have all the power here, and if he apologizes it will be because Liberals make him apologize.
Anyways. I'm gonna leave it there and we can agree to disagree. I think people are being extremely over-defensive of Trudeau, as if he's powerless in this situation, but he's not. Also, at this point, the reason this is still a story is largely because of people *defending* Trudeau (as is the case in this article), not because of people criticizing him. So I'll go back to not contributing to the noise.
So, moving on, Derek Fildebrandt is back in the Wildrose caucus in Alberta, with Brian Jean having backed down almost completely. Apparently he has to get a social media manager.
Previously there was rumour of five conditions he'd have to meet that basically meant he'd be powerless, but I guess not.
Can't wait for him to shoot his mouth off again.
FWIW, apparently the whole thing got dropped a few hours ago; but when I saw the news article early this morning I was so confused.
matthewwhatever
Member
Given that polling seems to side overwhelmingly with the Liberals on this issue, I'm going to assume the answer to that question is pretty obvious.
Thankfully, this afternoon the House Procedure Committee unanimously decided to drop the matter, so we and the rest of the world can move on to other things.
...
Like Maxime Bernier deciding to commit electoral suicide by crossing Quebec's dairy farmers. Whatever the merits and problems of supply management, I can't see this ending well for him.
Bernier is a libertarian at heart, so making this political play may be more about establishing his political principles and winning the leadership votes rather than his Quebec constituents.
Having said that, he does state that dairy farmers should have time-limited compensation in the form of a temporary levy...
matthewwhatever
Member
It's absolutely him trying to establish himself as the libertarian maverick candidate, and I don't begrudge him for making taking the stance -- I certainly see the argument for ending supply management, even if I'm not sure where I fall on the issue -- but I think it makes it a lot harder for him to win the CPC leadership. Most people don't care about supply management, but the people who do care really, really care about it, and almost all of those people are on the side opposite him, and in turn a lot of those people are very heavily concentrated in Quebec. I know he's beloved in his home riding, but his very narrow shot at winning Conservative leadership requires consolidating his home province behind him as the favoured son candidate -- and if he's writing off those agricultural ridings, there's no way he does that.
I can see all of those points, yes. Perhaps it's just a little calculus on his part, hoping that his name and as potential CPC leader would carry him in Quebec.
Do politicians looking to end supply side management for certain sectors of the economy ever follow up on what has actually happened in Australia and New Zealand when they use them as examples, because in most cases I've seen, it's not as rosy as their claims make it seems. Unless they're setting the bar at "Australia and New Zealand still have fresh produce and milk in the country"
The thing about free trade is that as much as they tout it as being cheaper and more choice for the consumer, there is a serious lack of evidence that it does the former.
The problem with wide-open market policies is that it's incredibly hard to predict who the market "chooses" to win. It's one thing to say that free trade will let in more players, it's another to let in large international conglomerates and decimate your domestic base. Rarely do "free" markets favor small players.
An analogy can be made to Alberta privatizing its liquor sales: while it increased variety and choice, it actually increased the average price of a selection of liquors: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/busi...on+Albertans+what+promised/8827230/story.html
So in his case, as in most when I see Australia and New Zealand trotted out, it's just playing to a segment of the population that lathers up over more open markets.
Yes, exactly. Both the CPC and Liberals are guilty of pushing 'open markets' and 'free trade' as some sort of panacea to market problems, when the real issues are far more complex than simple trade barriers.
matthewwhatever
Member
Yikes: Hunter Tootoo resigns as fisheries minister, leaves Liberal caucus
Seamus O'Regan took some time off a few months ago to deal with alcoholism, but he wasn't asked to leave caucus. If Tootoo is out of both, this must be pretty serious.
Seamus O'Regan took some time off a few months ago to deal with alcoholism, but he wasn't asked to leave caucus. If Tootoo is out of both, this must be pretty serious.
He's a good man, so I hope his treatment and recovery goes well.
matthewwhatever
Member
Wow...did not see this coming: Liberals back NDP electoral reform committee, give up majority control
I actually think this makes electoral reform happening less likely, rather than more -- because I can't see multi-party agreement happening -- but we'll see.
I actually think this makes electoral reform happening less likely, rather than more -- because I can't see multi-party agreement happening -- but we'll see.
This was really the only possible route forward to implement some form of voting method change without it looking like the Liberals were stacking the deck in favour of themselves. This makes me slightly more optimistic actually.
I agree that this also provides an out if the Liberals want to back away from their promise and not implement electoral reform. Including others in this way will allow them to push the blame onto other parties, say there is no consensus etc.
I agree that this also provides an out if the Liberals want to back away from their promise and not implement electoral reform. Including others in this way will allow them to push the blame onto other parties, say there is no consensus etc.
Yup. No voting reform now. The Liberals have previous said that they preferably want one of the major opposition parties' support, and there's zero chance that any of them see eye to eye with the Liberals.
Good move. Libs have to work with NDP, Bloc and GP on this while the Cons are sulking in the corner. I don't think the NDP and Greens want a referendum either.
Elsewhere, that was pretty funny and disturbing at the same time:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/chinese-foreign-minister-berates-reporter-1.3611510
Chinese minister is not used to free press. It's important to have good relations all around, but I sure hope the Libs aren't planning to get too buddy-buddy with the chinese and russian governements (and the Saudis...).
Elsewhere, that was pretty funny and disturbing at the same time:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/chinese-foreign-minister-berates-reporter-1.3611510
Chinese minister is not used to free press. It's important to have good relations all around, but I sure hope the Libs aren't planning to get too buddy-buddy with the chinese and russian governements (and the Saudis...).
dragonfart28
Banned
I'd rather have no change than a rigged ranked ballot.
This is a big win for democracy.
This is a big win for democracy.
As one of those people, I don't know how to feel. I wasn't in favour of ranked ballots, so a plus there, but this could just grind to a halt over partisan bullshit.
If something positive actually comes from this move, I will cheer on Trudeau for the move or blame his government when it crumbles and they back down.
killer rin
Member
As an NDPer I'm in favour of this move. Some people are worried that the panel is now going to devolve into petty bickering with no concensus, but the way I see it is that the NDP and the Greens both support some form of PR with their vote behind MMP for a total of 3 votes which if the Liberals go along on that path will enable them to have their goal of a broad concensus
dragonfart28
Banned
Go PR or go home.
There is no compromise.
(I don't care if it's MMP or single transferable)
There is no compromise.
(I don't care if it's MMP or single transferable)
In the past there have been a lot of sitting Liberals have that supported proportional representation. If there are no ulterior motives and the Liberals are genuinely interested in going forward with the method of voting that can gather the greatest consensus support, then this committee arrangement increases the possibility of proportional representation being the committee choice.
If the Liberals are solidly set on having the committee arrive at the ranked ballot outcome, then they could dangle the possibility of working with the NDP/Greens and implementing prop rep in front of the Conservatives in order to try to convince the Conservatives to support ranked ballots. I'm not sure if the Conservatives consider proportional representation to be a dramatically worse outcome enough for them to switch away from their current mindset that FPTP is fine and we need a referendum, but I think the Conservatives would be foolish to not to support ranked ballots in such a situation. There are plenty of ridings in Canada where Conservative is the second choice party of Liberal supporters. In a situation where the Liberal party becomes unpopular, ranked ballots would elect plenty of Conservatives.
The example of Australia shows that ranked ballots won't result in any upheavals of the existing alternation of governing between two big parties. I'm sure the Conservatives are generally in favour of this status quo.
It does provide an out, but they have an out no matter what anyways: in a stacked one they could just implement in name only reform, which would be much much worse than nothing at all because it would kill the file for a long time.
I'm happy about this move, and I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt that it's an effort to cooperate rather than take an easy out. Any other mechanism of starting this process would have had less legitimacy even if the results had been "better", and legitimacy is the entire point.
In other news, my MP was the one who raised the price flag at the parliament buildings yesterday, so that's cool.
dragonfart28
Banned
Rona Ambrose accusing Liberals and NDP of backroom deals lol
She better get used to it. With a new electoral system, it will be an every day occurence.
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