Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Conservatives unhappy with Poilievre’s ‘bombastic’ style on elections overhaul bill

Conservative Party insiders say there’s dissatisfaction within the Conservative caucus over Democratic Reform Minister Pierre Poilievre’s handling of the elections reform Bill C-23 and recently-recommended changes by a Senate committee are an opportunity for the minister to change tack and adopt a more conciliatory approach.

Opposition MPs aren’t buying the unanimously-supported Senate recommendations released last week, though, and they’re continuing to call for the bill to be withdrawn.

Multiple sources told The Hill Times that there’s discontent within Conservative ranks over how Mr. Poilievre (Nepean-Carleton, Ont.) has defended the bill in the media and on the Hill, describing his approach as “shrill, bombastic, and smarmy.”

 “There’s a lot of dissatisfaction with how Pierre Poilievre’s handled it within caucus. As the face of the bill, I don’t think people are pleased with being seen as arrogant and confrontational,” said one former Conservative staffer. “At the same time, no one wants the job that he has, right? He can have it. No one’s standing in the wings saying, ‘Let me take those questions.’”

Another Conservative source said that some members of the Tory caucus are unhappy “not about substance, but approach” in defending Bill C-23 from public criticism.

 “There’s concern about the tone of it, and the opportunity it creates for opponents to frame the government as tone-deaf bullies. They don’t want much more of that at the moment,” another Tory said on background.

Mr. Poilievre has been on the defensive against critics of Bill C-23, the Fair Elections Act, since the legislation was tabled in the House at the beginning of February. Current and former public officials—including Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand, former auditor general Sheila Fraser, the opposition parties, dozens of academics and civil society groups—have criticized the bill, saying it would disenfranchise vulnerable voters, muzzle Elections Canada, create campaign spending loopholes, and further politicize staffing at polling stations.

Mr. Poilievre has dismissed the bill’s critics as “elites” and attempted to portray Mr. Mayrand as power hungry. The bill is currently being reviewed by the Procedure and House Affairs Committee, which is on a tight deadline to return the bill to the House for third reading by May 1, while the government intends to pass the bill into law before Parliament adjourns for summer recess in June. The minister also requested a concurrent pre-study of the bill by the Senate Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee, which released a series of recommended changes to the legislation last week.

The Senate committee tabled its recommendations on April 15 after hearing from 21 witnesses over three days, including Mr. Poilievre, Mr. Mayrand, Ms. Fraser, former B.C. chief electoral officer Harry Neufeld, and Commissioner of Canada Elections Yves Côté.

The committee’s recommendations include requiring authorities at homeless shelters, student and seniors’ residences and other facilities to provide attestations of name and address to those who request them so that they’re able to prove their residency under C-23’s new voter identification rules. The committee also recommended authorizing communication between the chief electoral officer and the commissioner of Canada elections, requiring telemarketing firms to retain campaign call records for three years after an election, allowing Elections Canada to continue to promote democracy to young people, and allowing the chief electoral officer and the commissioner of Canada elections to communicate with the public about problems in the electoral system.

 The committee also endorsed the removal of a spending loophole that would allow parties to exclude money spent on contacting prior donors for fundraising during a campaign from being counted as an election expense. Experts have said the provision would allow for creative accounting and would benefit the Conservatives the most, since they have the longest list of recent donors.

One of the Conservative sources, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the recommendations are an opportunity for Mr. Poilievre to take a more conciliatory approach.

“It gives him room to make changes if he wants. We’ll see what he does in the end, but he can’t dismiss the recommendations outright, especially coming from people he’s worked with in the past,” the source observed.

Mr. Poilievre’s spokesperson, Gabrielle Renaud-Mattey, couldn’t comment on whether the minister was considering the Senate’s recommended amendments, saying only that he’s studying them carefully.

“Let’s not forget that we still have a ways to go with the House of Commons committee and their study of the bill,” she said. “It will go back to [the Procedure and House Affairs Committee] in the weeks to come and at the end of the month we’ll have a pretty good idea of where we’re going with what.”

 Conservative Senator Linda Frum, a member of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, told The Hill Times that there’s apparent support for the committee’s recommendations amongst Conservative Senators who did not participate in the pre-study.

“It would appear so. I can only base that on the emails I’ve received from my colleagues, and I’ve received a number of very supportive emails from people—we’re not altogether right now, but I would say yes,” she said when asked whether support for the changes was widespread among her Conservative colleagues in the Upper Chamber.

Conservative Senator Denise Batters, also a member of the committee, said that she thought the bill was “very strong, right from the get-go,” but added that the recommendations would “strengthen an already good bill.” She said that she’s uncertain what will happen if the government sends the bill to the Senate unamended.

“That’s a hypothetical, we’ll see what happens. … Just as the minister has said he’s open to considering recommendations that we have made, I’m sure people on our side of Parliament Hill will also keep an open mind if there’s reasons that particular items can’t be achieved as we’ve recommended,” she said.

Alberta Conservative Senator Scott Tannas, who did not participate in the pre-study, said that the recommendations were positive, but added that he supports the current bill.

“I’m prepared to support the bill as is. If our Senate colleagues see some of their changes incorporated, so much the better,” he said in an interview. “I haven’t spoken with any Senators regarding the proposed changes, but I would say the committee has a number of deeply respected Senators—including chair [Conservative Senator] Runciman—and I’d be surprised if caucus support for their recommendations was anything less than strong.”

But Liberal Senator and committee deputy chair George Baker told The Hill Times that Conservative members of the committee would have to “do a 180-degree turn” to back down from the recommendations that they’ve supported unanimously alongside the committee’s three Liberal Senators.

“Those [Conservative] Senators would almost have to turn themselves inside out to not continue to support those recommendations if this bill is sent back to them without those amendments,” he said, adding that the government should adopt the recommendations now or risk having the bill sent back. “If [the government] doesn’t have those nine amendments, we’re going to make those amendments and send the bill back. If that happens, then the bill will not be passed by the June deadline … Then the bill stands in the position it was in until the House of Commons returns in the fall, but this is leading into an election year.”

Sen. Baker lauded his Conservative colleagues for acting independently, without interference from the Prime Minister’s Office.

“These people did something remarkable at a particular moment when most people believe that the Prime Minister’s Office controls everything and does not allow any leeway with Conservative members. This decision of the Conservative Senators is, I think, a courageous decision and reflects impartiality,” he said.

The recommendations overlook other controversial elements in C-23, such as the partisan appointment of central poll supervisors and the elimination of vouching and voter information cards. Experts testifying at the Senate committee’s pre-study said that the elimination of vouching could disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters and violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Oppositions MPs from both the Liberal Party and NDP panned the Senate’s recommendations and reiterated calls for the legislation to be withdrawn.

NDP MP Craig Scott (Toronto-Danforth, Ont.), his party’s democratic reform critic, said the Senate’s recommendations only further complicate the ongoing review of Bill C-23 by the Procedure and House Affairs Committee (PROC), which he’s a member of.

“They did a number of things that diverted attention from what was going on at PROC. They have now tried to outflank the House of Commons even before our committee study is finished, let alone the report stage, let alone the third reading stage,” he told The Hill Times. “This is completely inappropriate — it’s a cynical, calculated political move that’s trying to resurrect the name of the Senate and at the same time put a favourable gloss on Poilievre’s bill.”

 Toronto Star columnist Tim Harper and the Globe and Mail’s Jeffrey Simpson wrote in columns last week that the Senate recommendations were a government orchestration, a way to provide cover and for the government to appear conciliatory while making only minor changes to the bill.

But one source speaking on condition of anonymity told The Hill Times that Mr. Poilievre lobbied at least two Conservative members of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee on April 11 before it finalized its report. The minister didn’t want two of the committee’s recommendations—those allowing the chief electoral officer to inform the public of problems he finds in the electoral system and allowing Elections Canada to continue certain educational programs—included in the interim report, the source said.

Ms. Renaud-Mattey said the minister didn’t have any role in drafting the report.

“The Senate [committee] wrote the report and we had nothing to do with it,” she told The Hill Times. “But whether or not his colleagues approached him and talked to him, they do this all the time. If a Senator approaches the minister with any question, any concern, wants to talk to him, he always has an open door.”

Sen. Frum also denied Mr. Poilievre did any lobbying to influence the Senate report.

“All of the recommendations that are in the report were the result of consultations and meetings that the Conservative members of the committee held together after we heard all the testimony,” she said. “The minister had absolutely no input into it whatsoever.”

Mr. Scott was also dissatisfied with the Senate committee’s recommendation that authorities provide attestation letters for voters’ residency as a remedy to the elimination of vouching.

“These clowns, I’m going to use the word ‘clowns,’ are turning around and pretending that this is a solution to disenfranchisement under Bill C-23. It’s an absolute joke,” said Mr. Scott, who has called for the bill to be withdrawn. “There’s far too many interconnected elements in this bill that actually damage our democracy so much that it would be completely naive to think that this government would accept even a small fraction of the needed amendments that would be needed to take the bill apart and reconstruct it.”

Liberal MP Scott Simms (Bonavista-Gander-Grand Falls-Windsor, Nfld.), his party’s democratic reform critic, agreed that the government should take Bill C-23 back to the drawing board, despite the Senate’s recommended changes.

“I think you have to withdraw it right now and just start again,” he said. “Withdraw it and start again and this time do consultations before you table the bill or table the bill with the changes and put it to committee before second reading. There’s just been no consultation process on this whatsoever.”

The House Affairs Committee studying the bill will conduct one more day of hearings when MPs return from a two-week break April 28, before going into a rushed clause-by-clause review that’s scheduled to end May 1.

Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com/
Author: CHRIS PLECASH, MARK BURGESS, LAURA RYCKEWAERT

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