The Liberals’ not-so-catchy catch phrase: evidence-based policy

By John Geddes - Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 5:44 PM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Blair Gable

The most frequently repeated phrase printed in today’s program at the Liberal party convention here in Ottawa and tossed around in sessions by delegates is “evidence-based policy.”

As a political slogan, it might not have a bright future. But as shorthand for what has emerged as the prevailing criticism of the way the governing Conservatives devise policy, the phrase does the job.

The realization that Stephen Harper’s government doesn’t bother much with assembling evidence to support its main policies started to set soon after he won power in 2006. I didn’t realize how self-conscious the Tories were about brushing off expert opinion, and even dismissing data, until I heard former Harper chief of staff Ian Brodie speak to the subject in 2009.

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The Liberals' wake and some parting remarks

By Mitchel Raphael - Monday, May 23, 2011 at 9:35 AM - 33 Comments

A new day: Peter Milliken with Ted Hsu

The final humiliation: a cash bar

Last week the Liberals gathered the night before what would be their final caucus meeting with both defeated and elected MPs. One Liberal staffer called the party a “wake”; a Hill security guard predicted it would end early because it was a cash bar. Surviving Toronto Liberal MP Kirsty Duncan arrived with a bandaged hand that will need surgery. “I fell on Wednesday and the government fell on the Friday,” she says. Five weeks campaigning didn’t help: “Even when you break your hand,” said Duncan, “people still want to shake it.” Some days ended with Duncan in excruciating pain. Defeated MP Marlene Jennings arrived with a white cane, announcing that she is now officially vision-impaired. The one person who spoke at the party was surviving MP Ralph Goodale, but no one seemed to be listening; former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff left before Goodale spoke. The Liberals’ only two rookie MPs were there: Sean Casey from Charlottetown and Ted Hsu from Kingston, Ont., which was previously represented by Speaker Peter Milliken. Hsu’s win was a surprise for the Conservatives, who for years said that once Milliken retired they would easily win the riding.

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On the way out

By Erica Alini - Wednesday, May 18, 2011 at 3:27 PM - 1 Comment

The CBC talks to Mark Holland on his exit from Ottawa.

I remember coming to this place on a Gr. 8 class trip, it was my first time in these buildings, and just being filled with a sense of awe and wonder and looking at them for all the possibility they held: a place where you could change the country, a place where you could make a difference. It was a little bit hard coming up here today and looking at those same buildings and feeling pain, that the experience, maybe for now, maybe forever, is at an end. I tried to let go of that as fast as I could and reconnect with that sense of awe, because these are the same buildings, they hold the same promise. They can do fantastic and remarkable things. It’s all in how you look at it. And that’s a choice. I choose to look at it through the same eyes that I looked at it when I was that kid coming through here for the first time. I don’t ever want that to change, because this is a remarkable place, amazing things can happen here and I can never lose sight of that.

Other exit interviews are here.

On second thought

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 12:56 PM - 82 Comments

From their scrum yesterday, Michael Ignatieff and Mark Holland explain the Liberal side’s decision to oppose Bill S-10.

Ignatieff: We’ve taken a long hard look at S-10, this mandatory minimum proposal of the government. We’ve tried to amend it, to no avail. It’s going to add huge amounts of money to Canadian prison costs. It’s going to target young – young people, you know, a guy who gets messed up with Tylenol 3 or has six marijuana plants, gets a mandatory minimum. We just think this is not the right way to go for Canadian justice policy. It follows a failed American model so we’re going to vote against it.

Holland: Canadian churches, Canadian health care providers and those on the front lines of stopping crime and stopping victimization in this country say this bill won’t work. And this bill will burden us with billions of dollars in new costs for prisons. It will send us down the same path California walked, the same path that the United Kingdom is now trying to undo. We simply can’t afford it. It will crush us. It will steal from priorities like health care and education and at the end of the day make our communities less safe.

Of note: when Parliament resumed business last month, the Conservatives vowed that no votes, aside from the budget, would be considered matters of confidence.

Back to work (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 31, 2011 at 5:02 PM - 8 Comments

A statement from Conservative backbencher Phil McColeman, tabled shortly before Question Period this afternoon.

Mr. Speaker, today the House resumes sitting and I can proudly say that on this side of the House Conservative members are eager and ready to get to work for Canadians. This work includes moving on important crime bills that remain before the public safety committee. It is my hope that our eagerness is shared by opposition members across the way. Unfortunately, I am afraid that it already seems to be business as usual for some Liberals. Today the member for Ajax—Pickering is again sticking up for criminals and promoting the failed prison farm system, a program with a dismal rate of success of less than 1%, which loses millions of tax dollars each year. I call on the Liberal Party public safety critic and his coalition partners to work with us to get results for law-abiding Canadians and victims and to stop putting criminals’ rights before those of victims.

An equally objective statement from Liberal Rodger Cuzner after the jump. Continue…

Just business

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 31, 2011 at 11:39 AM - 43 Comments

The Conservatives are rather critical of Liberal MP Mark Holland, but it’s apparently just business.

Party officials say their interest stems not from any animus toward Mr. Holland. Instead, they feel they made inroads in his riding in the 2008 campaign and think it’s winnable this time.

Mr. Holland should perhaps take solace then that stuff such as this and this was not personal in nature.

Look south

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 11, 2011 at 4:44 PM - 62 Comments

Conservative backbencher Brent Rathgeber looks to the United States, seemingly to explain his government’s approach to crime.

answer to Mark Holland’s challenge to name a “single jurisdiction where higher rates of incarceration led to a lower crime rate”-easy–USA.

from 1988 to 2008, fed and state prisoner pop from 1M to 2.3M–violent crime cut in 1/2 and overall crime rate down 25% (NY Times 2/3/2009).

That drop in the crime rate is noted in a New York Times piece from March 2, 2009—a piece based on a Pew Center study that raised concerns about the fact that correctional spending in the United States was “outpacing budget growth in education, transportation and public assistance.”

Of course, it is difficult to draw a direct line between the incarceration rate and the crime rate (see this chat with Pew’s Susan K. Urahn and her comparison of Florida and New York). Were it so easy, one might imagine that the United States, with the highest incarceration rate in the world, would now be the most peaceful.

When the Economist looked at the American justice system last year, it noted some of the research and thinking in this regard. Continue…

A plea for decency

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 at 5:06 PM - 13 Comments

I wasn’t in the House this afternoon on account of other commitments, but I’m told that shortly after Question Period, Speaker Peter Milliken rose to rule on a point of order previously raised by Liberal Derek Lee. Mr. Lee complained last month that a statement by Conservative MP Phil McColeman should have been ruled out of order as a personal attack on Liberal Mark Holland. That the time allotted for statements by members—15 minutes each day normally reserved for noting charitable causes, the accomplishments of constituents and such—was being used to launch partisan attacks was identified as a problem last March by Speaker Milliken, a problem he attempted to addresses with limited success.

The prepared text of Mr. Milliken’s ruling today follows. Coincidentally, in an essay for the current issue of Canadian Parliamentary Review, former government House leader Jay Hill calls for the Speaker to more strictly enforce order upon the proceedings. Continue…

Kevin Sorenson Maverick Watch

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 11:52 AM - 21 Comments

A Conservative manages to discuss a piece of legislation related to the justice system without either claiming total righteousness or depicting the opposition parties as unholy.

The Conservative chairman of the Commons public safety committee says a proposed law that would bar thousands of Canadians from ever applying for a criminal records pardon may have to be amended … The minister has said we’ll have to look at this,” Sorenson said this week. “There can be amendments.”

After impugning Liberal Mark Holland earlier this week, the Public Safety Minister went after the NDP’s Don Davies yesterday (Mr. Davies, like Mr. Holland, felt it necessary to correct the record). For sheer bloody-minded obsessiveness though, Mr. Toews topped himself this week during an interview with Steve Paikin, in which, when questioned about the current difference in crime policy between the Liberal opposition and the Conservative government, referred, while mispronouncing the man’s name, to comments made by solicitor general Jean-Pierre Goyer in 1971. Mr. Toews was 19 years old when those remarks were uttered. The Liberal party’s current public safety critic, Mr. Holland, wasn’t even born at the time.

The Commons: Let's not jump to conclusions, for once

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 6:25 PM - 80 Comments

The Scene. However dark and dreary the capital can be in the late stages of November, there is Parliament Hill to warm the soul—the lights illuminating the Peace Tower, festive decorations lining Centre Block’s main hall, the impressive Christmas tree in the foyer and, of course, the flickering glow of alleged impropriety emanating from the House of Commons.

The bearer of good tidings this day was Mark Holland, he of the dramatic enunciation, youthful righteousness and nice taste in neckwear. ”Mr. Speaker, two weeks before the government made public a decision to block Taseko’s bid for a controversial mine, shares in the company mysteriously crashed. In a matter of hours, 30 million shares traded hands, 10 times normal. At one point, investors dumped 2.7 million shares in 40 seconds, obliterating hundreds of millions of dollars in the blink of an eye,” he reported.

The scene thus set, the Liberal tabled his interpretation of events. ”Someone somewhere in the Conservative government leaked,” he declared. “Insiders got wildly rich and investors got hammered. The government has known this for six weeks. Has it launched an investigation, called in the RCMP or done anything at all?”

Up came John Baird, well-armed with a confusing series of sentences. Continue…

Deep thoughts

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 24, 2010 at 2:00 PM - 23 Comments

On Monday, several Conservative MPs were reported to be less-than-completely scornful when three former convicts appeared before the public safety committee to express concerns about the government’s recent moves to restrict pardons.

Nonetheless, so it was yesterday that a government backbencher, Phil McColeman, was sent up to report that the Liberal public safety critic had, at that committee meeting, been “quick to advocate on behalf of convicted criminals.”

And so it was that the Liberal critic, Mark Holland, stood after Question Period to complain that this was untrue.

And so it was that Mr. McColeman, the duly elected member for Brant, responded as follows. Continue…

The Backbench Top Ten

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, October 31, 2010 at 5:43 PM - 0 Comments

Our weekly, and wholly arbitrary, ranking of the ten most worthy, or at least entertaining, MPs, excluding the Prime Minister, cabinet members and party leaders. A celebration of all that is great and ridiculous about the House of Commons. Last week’s rankings appear in parentheses. Continue…

The Backbench Top Ten

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, October 24, 2010 at 1:31 PM - 0 Comments

Our weekly, and wholly arbitrary, ranking of the ten most worthy, or at least entertaining, MPs, excluding the Prime Minister, cabinet members and party leaders. A celebration of all that is great and ridiculous about the House of Commons. Last week’s rankings appear in parentheses. Continue…

The Backbench Top Ten

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, October 17, 2010 at 3:35 PM - 0 Comments

Our weekly, and wholly arbitrary, ranking of the ten most worthy, or at least entertaining, MPs, excluding the Prime Minister, cabinet members and party leaders. A celebration of all that is great and ridiculous about the House of Commons. Last week’s rankings appear in parentheses. Continue…

The Backbench Top Ten

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, October 10, 2010 at 4:14 PM - 0 Comments

Our weekly, and wholly arbitrary, ranking of the ten most worthy, or at least entertaining, MPs, excluding the Prime Minister, cabinet members and party leaders. A celebration of all that is great and ridiculous about the House of Commons. Last week’s rankings appear in parentheses. Continue…

The Backbench Top Ten

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, October 3, 2010 at 1:38 PM - 0 Comments

Our weekly, and wholly arbitrary, ranking of the ten most worthy, or at least entertaining, MPs, excluding the Prime Minister, cabinet members and party leaders. A celebration of all that is great and ridiculous about the House of Commons. Last week’s rankings appear in parentheses. Continue…

The Backbench Top Ten

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, September 26, 2010 at 2:37 PM - 0 Comments

We resume our weekly, and wholly arbitrary, ranking of the ten most worthy, or at least entertaining, MPs, excluding the Prime Minister, cabinet members and party leaders. A celebration of all that is great and ridiculous about the House of Commons. Last week’s rankings appear in parentheses. Continue…

The gun registry, the vote, the after-party

By Mitchel Raphael - Friday, September 24, 2010 at 11:35 AM - 0 Comments

This week saw the big showdown over the long-gun registry. MPs voted 153-151 in favour of a Liberal motion that kills Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner’s private member’s bill to get rid of the registry. Just before the vote, a small group of young protesters stood in front of the Peace Tower demanding the registry be scrapped.

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Bruce Hyer after the vote. He was one of the few NDP MPs who voted to keep the registry.

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The Liberals held a victory party at D’Arcy McGee’s pub after the vote.

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Junius explains that gun-registry math

By Colby Cosh - Wednesday, September 22, 2010 at 1:34 AM - 0 Comments

The Globe and Mail has finally explained where a Toronto Chief of Police and dozens of gullible journalists and politicians got the idea that the national firearms registry costs $4 million a year. I’ve watched this figure get repeated countless times over the past month or so, and every single time I kept returning with furrowed brow to the Treasury Board estimates, which put the combined operating and transfers cost of firearms registration at $22 million, just to the RCMP, for 2010-11. (The overall cost for registries and licensing infrastructure comes to $78 million.)

That’s not counting the costs to other federal agencies—most especially the cost to Corrections Canada, estimated loosely at $10 million for fiscal ’08-’09. Certainly the commentators who were soiling themselves over the PBO’s estimates for penological costs of Conservative law-and-order measures wouldn’t want to just ignore the money spent on keeping gun-registry offenders locked up longer, would they? Including the cost in registrant time and effort would drive the figure higher still; surely the Globe is bound to be giving the program a break in only revising the cost upward by a factor of 16½.

If the Globe is right, it seems only a bit of sloppily written verbiage in the new report on the registry—interpreted by dissimulators with badges, and faithfully broadcast by writers with poor financial instincts—could possibly have led anyone to believe the gun registry is a bargain. (The Firearms Centre in Miramichi has 240 federal employees, guys! $4 million wouldn’t cover 12 weeks of payroll expenses, right?) And maybe I’m just some Western flake, but in retrospect it does seem as though the propagation of $4 million figure was possible only because the RCMP played undisguised politics with the report, dawdling over a “translation” (a tactic that the Conservatives somehow ended up taking most of the blame for) and making sure to pass it around to friendly, gullible media outlets in a timely way before the vote on C-391. All of which, now, can serve only the electoral interests of the Conservatives themselves—keeping alive the hated totem and allowing them to exploit the real financial numbers in their search for a Commons majority.

[UPDATE, 10:22 am: Or not. The Citizen's board smacks down the Globe this morning, and the Globe seems to have mis-identified the source of the figure within the report—the actual source being a reference to another report to the RCMP by a government IT consultancy, Pleiad Canada. So could we have that document, or is it already too late to bother?]

One week later

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, July 4, 2010 at 12:44 PM - 79 Comments

Thoughts from Tabatha Southey, Lisa Rochon, Elaine McCoy, Aaron Leaf and Roland Paris. Torontoist has the 14 essential video clips of G20 weekend and an interview with the hero of the one below. The Star tells the stories of the TTC employee who was tackled and the protesters who got engaged. Dalton McGuinty speaks and punts. The CCLA is considering a lawsuit. And Mark Holland wants federal compensation for business that were trashed.

48 hours of hindsight

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, June 30, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 86 Comments

With more than 1,000 people arrested, the G20 is seemingly the largest mass arrest in Canadian history. The Toronto police are happy to showcase the seized weapons and condiments, but now concede the “secret” “new” “law” never really existed. The mayor is displeased. The Star gets a look at the infamous detention facility. Two Post photographers talk about their time there. A Globe reporter writes about her experience at Queen & Spadina. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association says police action was, at times, “disproportionate, arbitrary and excessive.” Amnesty International wants an independent review. Mark Holland demands answers. The NDP has questions too.

Roland Paris weighs the cost. Tim Powers justifies the trouble. Brian Topp condemns the riot. James Morton defends the police. The Economist considers. Jon Stewart mocks. Steve Paikin laments.

The Backbench Top Ten

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, June 20, 2010 at 4:15 PM - 15 Comments

One last time before pausing for the summer: our weekly, and wholly arbitrary, ranking of the ten most worthy, or at least entertaining, MPs, excluding the Prime Minister, cabinet members and party leaders. A celebration of all that is great and ridiculous about the House of Commons. Last week’s rankings appear in parentheses. Continue…

The Commons: A day like any other

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 8:35 PM - 40 Comments

The Scene. As Bob Rae began the first question of the last Question Period before this third session of the 40th Parliament pauses for the summer, a respectful silence took hold.

The subject matter was this morning’s release of the final report from the inquiry into the Air India bombing. Mr. Rae commended the government and the inquiry’s commissioner. The Prime Minister stood and added his thanks to Justice Major. Mr. Rae probed for specific details of the government’s expected response, Mr. Harper offered assurances. The two danced quite delicately on the edge of combativeness, this adversarial system at its most sensitive.

Not until the Speaker called on the polarizing member for Ajax-Pickering, the Liberal Mark Holland, did the noise return to the chamber, government members groaning and moaning as Mr. Holland abruptly and loudly changed topics. Continue…

The Commons: A bridge too far

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 at 6:46 PM - 43 Comments

The Scene. The leader of Her Majestry’s loyal opposition very nearly growled at the Prime Minister. And having lamented the agenda, expense and organization of this month’s G8 and G20 summits, he turned metaphorical.

“A bake sale would not be run like this. A children’s birthday party would not be planned like this,” Michael Ignatieff posited. “Canadians have to pay the bill. How is the Prime Minister going to explain to Canadians that he has lost control of Canada’s summit?”

The Prime Minister stood and translated this into terms he could understand. “Mr. Speaker,” he said, “the Liberal Party seems extremely angry that Canada is leading the world right now in terms of the economy.”

“Mr. Speaker, we always cheer Canada,” Mr. Ignatieff responded.

The government side jeered.

“But we cannot cheer $1.3 billion in waste,” the Liberal leader finished.

With the grand and overarching condemnation thus stated, the Liberal leader turned to his assistant prosecutors to explore the specifics. Continue…