Thursday, October 31, 2013

Political letters: May and Duncan

MP Elizabeth May wrote today, as she does from time-to-time.
Usually I'm not moved to action by such letters,  recognizing  them for the fundraising efforts they regularly are.
However, this one raised a very important point, pointing to continuing manipulation of the rules of the House of Commons by the Conservative Government, which make it difficult for her to do her job. She identified this rule change as "a motion to require that members, who are either independent or are members of recognized parties with fewer than 12 MPs, submit amendments to committee 48 hours prior to the start of clause by clause consideration of any bill" and demonstrated this was clearly aimed at her interventions in the past.
She further noted that the "Conservative approach, of rejecting any and all amendments while simultaneously abbreviating debate opportunities, is a perversion of the parliamentary process. It is a new and hyper-partisan approach to the legislative process."
And then, as expected, came the request to add my name and email address to a petition...appeals to fill Green Party coffers guaranteed to follow.
That said, I think she's right to be both offended and worried. And she's right that her privilege in the House is ultimately our privilege.
So I wrote a reply:

Ms May:
I am persuaded by your explanation of how the rights of individual MPs are being abridged by the governing Conservatives.
However, I will not put my name on a petition on the letterhead of the Green Party of Canada, as I do not support that party, either federally or provincially.
I will, however, write to John Duncan, my MP, and will add a copy to the Prime Minister and the Minister of State for Democratic Reform.

Sincerely,

And followed that with a letter to my MP:

Dear Minister Duncan,
I have just received a letter from Elizabeth May, MP, detailing the latest roadblock your party has put in her way, making it difficult for her to be an effective Member of Parliament.
She writes, "The Conservative approach, of rejecting any and all amendments while simultaneously abbreviating debate opportunities, is a perversion of the parliamentary process. It is a new and hyper-partisan approach to the legislative process."
Although I am not a supporter of her party, her arguments and examples make sense to me, as I would hope they make sense to you. As you served many years as an Opposition MP, I would hope that you would abhor anything that frustrates the job of such MPs, on the grounds that her Vancouver Island constituents deserve an effective voice just as much as your Vancouver Island constituents.
And I would hope you speak up accordingly.
Yours very sincerely,


Just the latest anti-democratic initiative from a government that claims the following:

Canada's commitment to open government is part of the federal government's efforts to foster greater openness and accountability, to provide Canadians with more opportunities to learn about and participate in government, to drive innovation and economic opportunities for all Canadians and, at the same time, create a more cost effective, efficient and responsive government.

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

The Ryder

The news has hardly broken, and already I'm fed up with the hand-wringing reporting.
Apparently Ryder Hesjedal was introduced to EPO doping by Danish cyclist and team-mate Michael Rasmussen.  In 2003.
This is news? Maybe in 2003 it would have been, but in 2013?
Does the fact that he may have doped in 2003, when he was an unknown mountain-biker trying to make the Canadian team, automatically mean we must assume he doped for the Giro d'Italia in 2012?
I'd be astonished if Hesjedal had been able to resist in 2003, when the testing was either non-existent or lax, and literally all competitive cyclists were either doping or not winning, and equally astonished if he hadn't been able to resist in 2012, when everybody suspected the top riders.
In fact, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be talking about this at all today if he hadn't doped in 2003, because almost none of us would know his name now!

(Reminds me of that scene in "The Greatest Story Ever Told", where the louche guy pretending to be the Devil is talking to Max von Sydow, who is pretending to be Jesus of Nazareth. The Devil, from his cave high up the mountain points out all the lands below, and tells Jesus all will be his, if only he changes Teams.
Jesus refuses.
But we all know how that turned out.)

Oct 31: I admire the way Hesjedal got out in front of this story.  The flak-catchers for the Unsavoury Mayor et al could benefit from taking note.
Not that the two cases are in any way comperable.

Monday, October 21, 2013

Mike Duffy's corner

The Canadian Senate, that bastion of pork-barrel privilege, is threatening to suspend, without pay, or benefits, or recourse, Senators Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin, and Patrick Brazeau, all Stephen Harper appointees.
Or, constitutionally-more-correctly, they were recent appointments by the Queen of Canada in Council, which for practical purposes means much the same thing.
They are, to various degrees, contesting this, although all the available evidence so far is that they are guilty of fairly outrageous piggery, even by the slippery standards of the Canadian Senate.
Therefore it is somewhat to my surprise that I find myself in Mike Duffy's corner.
Also Pamela Wallin's. Maybe even Patrick Brazeau's, although that's going to require rather more effort.
That doesn't mean I'm making an argument in favour of keeping the Senate as it is; quite the contrary: I'm a committed abolitionist.
Anyway, a status-quo Senate is not what's on offer, and what the senators are proposing wouldn't improve the Senate. Rather, what they propose to do would render it even more useless than it already is.
Imagine a Senate with a majority of hyper-partisan appointees in the mould of Duffy and Wallin who had the power to silence those inconvenient senators who didn't agree with that majority. Could anything be more redundant? The whole point of senators being appointed is that they cannot be silenced, unless, in the words of the Wikipedia entry, "…he or she fails to attend the Senate for two consecutive parliamentary sessions. Furthermore, senators lose their seats if they are found guilty of treason, an indictable offence, or any "infamous crime"; are declared bankrupt or insolvent; or cease to be qualified." None of the three the Senate proposes to suspend fit those criteria at present, and even if they did, it shouldn't be up to their fellow-senators to discipline them. Once appointed, any senator who continues to clear that low threshold is in until he or she either quits or turns 75.
That's the law, in spite of the fact that Stephen Harper extracted promises of resignation after 8 years from some present members.
So the Senate has no right to render them ineffective in the senate context, no matter how many orders or entreaties they get from the Prime Minister's office. Only the Queen or Her representative in Canada can sign those papers.
What I particularly appreciate about all this is that Stephen Harper came into office on promises to "reform" the Senate, on promises to make it more relevant. So far he has delivered only a partisan atrocity, an embarrassment of flag-waving Conservative cheerleaders even less relevant than the mostly-irrelevant Liberal majorities that preceded them.
So I'm with Mike, Pam, and maybe even Patrick: long may they be burrs under the Conservative saddle, long may they remind Mr Harper of why his nasty brand of politics is often corrosive, and long may they remind us why we'd be better off without not just them, but the entire institution.