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BY MIKE LAPOINTE
Following recent evidence showing that renewable
energy hasn’t shared the same fate as oil and gas, which have seen recent and dramatic drops in demand amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Green Party MP Eliza-beth May is calling on the federal government to support the renew-able sector over the beleaguered oil sands, with a number of environmental advocates saying the feds should take advantage of a “once-in-a-generation chance” to pursue a “resilient recovery” through increased stimulus for clean energy.
When speaking to reporters about the economy on May 6, Ms. May (Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.), said that it’s going to be “years”
BY SAMANTHA WRIGHT ALLEN
COVID-19 is expected to cause further delays to an already
“overwhelmed” system, warns Canada’s information commis-sioner, while also calling for stable funding to her office,
which already faces a 49 per cent increase in complaints.
Outside of the pandemic, Caro-line Maynard says her office has
at least 5,000 outstanding com-plaints, from the 3,346 on file as of March 2019. While she hasn’t yet
Oil demand drop, renewable energy resiliency prompts calls for federal clean energy investment in economic recovery
Canada’s information czar says feds need to send ‘serious message’ about access innovation amid COVID-19
Continued on page 16
Continued on page 15
News NewsClean energy Access to information
THIRTY-FIRST YEAR, NO. 1729 Canada’s PolitiCs and Government newsPaPer WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2020 $5.00
Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard says the limitations some departments are facing to fill access requests, like needing to print out electronic documents, are ‘ridiculous.’
Hill Climbers
p.17
BY LAURA RYCKEWAERT
After a slow start to the year, Senators are playing catch-up
on proposed plans for the Centre Block building’s renovation and construction of the final Visitors’
BY SAMANTHA WRIGHT ALLEN
COVID-19 is offering important les-sons for Canada’s approach to cli-
mate change and the need for green programs to be built into economic
recovery, say some of the groups lob-bying the ministers focused on these files and pushing them to the top of the list during the pandemic.
Over the last two months, Natu-ral Resources Minister Seamus
O’Regan (St. John’s South–Mount Pearl, N.L.) and Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson (North Vancouver, B.C.) have been among the top three most lob-bied in cabinet, according to a
Hill Times analysis of the federal lobby registry on May 18. Their departments also appeared among the most in demand last month, with Natural Resources up 104 per cent compared to April 2019, with 169 mentions, and Environment Canada up 16 per cent with 100 communications report mentions.
The 2,176 communications in April 2020 put overall lobbying
Senate playing catch-up on Centre Block renovation plans, but Red Chamber’s footprint to remain untouched
Continued on page 12 Continued on page 14
News
News
Centre Block reno
Lobbying
Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard says the government needs to send a 'serious message' to departments so they proactively disclose documents and find innovative ways to respond to access requests with COVID-19 likely to add to the backlog. Photograph courtesy of Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
The kids are not alright p. 10
Who’s up to the post-Year of
Tragedy challenge? Les Whittington p. 11
Dalphond ‘disappointed’
in Senate’s regressing
reforms p. 4 Heard on
the Hill p.2
Environment, resource development agenda among April’s top-lobbied files
Parliamentarians commemorated the life of a Snowbird public affairs officer
following a crash in Kamloops, B.C., which happened less than a month after six mem-bers of the Canadian Forces were killed in a helicopter crash off the coast of Greece.
Snowbirds spokesperson Captain Jen-nifer Casey was killed in the crash on May 17 and pilot Captain Richard MacDougall
was injured.“This has been
a very difficult few weeks for mem-bers of the Cana-dian Armed Forces,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters on May 19.
The Snowbirds had been perform-ing aerial shows across Canada as part of Opera-tion Inspiration in tribute to those on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic.
Capt. Casey was a journalist in Hali-
fax before joining the Armed Forces in 2014.“The Snowbirds have been traveling
across the country for the past few weeks lifting Canadians’ spirits as part of Opera-tion Inspiration. This is a tragic end to a tour that has brought much needed joy to so many,” Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer said in a statement.
Kamloops-area Conservative MP Cathy McLeod noted the crash in a series of tweets.
“We were thrilled as they [the Snow-birds] undertook Operation Inspiration with the goal of boosting morale as we have all endured COVID-19. We watched with pride yesterday as they arrived in Kamloops,” she wrote.
“Just as they were there for us, I know that everyone in Kamloops and every Canadian is there for the Snowbird family now,” Ms. McLeod added.
Tory pundit Rachel Curran joins Facebook’s public policy group
A former staffer in Stephen Harper’s of-fice as prime minister has joined Facebook Canada’s public policy team.
Rachel Curran announced her new job in a tweet on May 18, her first day in the new gig.
“I have long been passionate about social media platforms as essential tools of democracy. They are a critical means of organization and communication, often for those who have not traditionally had a voice or influence in political spheres,” she wrote.
“In the current context, where we can-not easily meet face-to-face, I am even more appreciative of these platforms as critical tools of personal and professional connection,” Ms. Curran added.
Ms. Curran worked in the Prime Min-ister’s Office from 2009 to 2015, first as policy adviser for social affairs and ending as policy director for the last four years of the Harper government.
More recently, she’s appeared as a Conservative pundit on CBC’s Power and Politics, and founded government rela-tions firm Wellington Advocacy with fellow Harper PMO alum Nick Koolsbergen. She’s also been part of the faculty of Car-leton University’s political management master’s program.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2020 | THE HILL TIMES2
by Neil Moss
Heard on the Hill
‘A very difficult few weeks’: MPs pay tribute to Snowbirds fatal crash victim Jennifer Casey
A Snowbird plane crashed in Kamloops, B.C. on May 17, leading to the death of public affairs officer Captain Jennifer Casey. Captain Richard MacDougall, the plane’s pilot, was injured in the crash. The Hill Times photograph by Sam Garcia
Jennifer Casey joined the Snowbirds as a public affairs officer in 2018. Photograph courtesy of the Department of National Defence
Bill Fox’s Trump, Trudeau, Tweets, Truth will be published in September. Book cover image courtesy of McGill-Queen’s University Press
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Donald Trump have relatively little in common, but, among that short list is the fact that both were household names before they led their countries. A new book by a former Hill reporter and past political communications czar looks at the political capital given to those who are “well-known for being well-known.”
Bill Fox’s Trump, Trudeau, Tweets, Truth takes a look at the past to understand the present.
“Discussing how the military-industrial complex of the 1950s gave way to today’s celebrity-distribution complex, Bill Fox examines the amount of power accorded to people well-known for being well-known, from Donald Trump to Justin Trudeau,” the book’s description reads.
“Taking on a Canadian perspective, Fox addresses the disturbing cries of ‘fake’ news in the post-truth age and demonstrates how journalism, no longer the domain of a select few political reporters and editors, has be-come decentralized and disaggregated.”
Mr. Fox is a former bureau chief for The Toronto Star in both Ottawa and Wash-ington. He later became spokesperson for then-opposition leader Brian Mulroney and then director of communications in Mr. Mulroney’s office as prime minister follow-ing the 1984 federal election.
The 320-page book is due to be released by McGill-Queen’s University Press in September.
Four Senators will take part in a webi-nar to discuss the future of the National Autism Strategy on May 22.
Participating in the webinar will be non-affliated Senator Jim Munson, Conserva-tive Senator Leo Housakos, and Indepen-dent Senators Wanda Thomas Bernard and Peter Boehm.
Sen. Munson has been a vocal advocate for autism-related causes, including spon-soring Bill S-206 in the 41st Parliament, which led to April 2 being declared World Autism Awareness Day. He also partici-pated in the Senate Social Affairs, Science, and Technology Committee’s report on autism treatment funding in 2007, titled Pay Now or Pay Later: Autism Families in Crisis.
During the last election, the Canadian Autism Spectrum Disorder Alliance said it had received a pledge from the Liberals to develop a National Autism Strategy, ac-cording to a CTV report.
The webinar will take place through Zoom on May 22 from 3-4 p.m. Senators will also be answering written questions from viewers during a planned Q&A seg-ment of the webinar.
[email protected] Hill Times
Former Mulroney comms master pens book on political communication in post-truth age
Senators to discuss National Autism Strategy in webinar this week
As MPs adjust to the new normal of life during the coronavirus pandemic, Infra-structure Minister Catherine McKenna has taken up stationary swimming in an above-ground pool.
Ms. McKenna posted a Twitter video showing off her new set-up, which features a pulley chord to keep her in place as she swims in the compact pool.
“Getting this sorted out is how I spent the long weekend,” she tweeted. “And now I can get my swim on. I feel better already!”
In normal times, Ms. McKenna partici-
pates in a weekly swim with Parliamentar-ians from all political stripes at the pool in the Château Laurier on Thursdays at 6:45 a.m.
Along with the MP for Ottawa Centre, Ont., participants have included Conserva-tive MPs Steven Blaney and David Sweet, Liberal MPs Anthony Housefather and William Amos, and Green Party Parliamen-tary Leader Elizabeth May.
Ms. McKenna was previously the captain of the University of Toronto swim team.
A pandemic can’t keep Catherine McKenna out of the pool
Non-affliated Senator Jim Munson will be one of four members of the Red Chamber taking part in a webinar on a National Autism Strategy. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade
Rachel Curran, pictured at the Manning Conference on March 24, 2019, started her new job at Facebook Canada on May 18. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade
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PREPRESS
Committed to Canadians.Here’s how.Over the last two months, we’ve spoken to millions of Canadians and small business owners. Many are facing fi nancial uncertainty, and there is
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Helping Canadians with immediate reliefWith payment deferrals, we’ve freed up $4.6 billion in mortgage payments, plus deferrals on over $2.7 billion in credit cards and loans to date,
to help millions of Canadians feel more secure and use their money where they need it most. We have also made $48 billion in additional credit
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Doing more for those who need it mostWorking with partners in the public and private sectors, we identifi ed communities most in need and followed up with signifi cant donations to
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cba.ca/committed-to-canadians
The Hills Times
4
The equality of Senators, a foundational institutional
principle, is being tested by the leadership of two main groups in the Senate, the Independent Senators Group (ISG) and the Conservatives.
When I joined the Senate to contribute to a constitutionally valid modernization of the Up-per House of our Parliament, I was not sure how independence would fit in a place dominated by political parties and their whips since 1867. But I hoped that the new appointment process would bring meaningful change to the culture of the institution.
Two years since my appoint-ment, I am disappointed about current trends in the Senate. Though the shift to more indepen-dent Senators has produced a re-cord of legislative contributions, and improvements in gender and minority representation, it seems some old habits are picking up steam.
On one hand, a diminishing Conservative caucus resists any change, including rule changes they previously supported to reduce obstruction and increase transparency. Even the aboli-tion of the two-hour long dinner break cannot find acceptance, a reform adopted by the House of Commons in 1982. In reality, the Conservatives are scared to lose obstructive powers that they have exercised for years against bills adopted by the elected MPs, including government bills and private members’ bills. As ap-
pointed office holders, they know these anti-democratic practices cannot be justified to the House of Commons or the public. Rather than face these issues head on, the Conservatives change the subject, claiming to work to preserve the Westminster model. However, they refer to a version of the Westminster model that does not exist.
On the other hand, in its cen-tral strategy, the ISG is reacting to Conservative intransigence by engaging in a confrontational dy-namic, confident that its majority shall always prevail. Thus, in the recent months, the ISG bargained hard to get a clear majority of the standing committees’ chairs
to allocate to its members, and to have the sole power to nominate the Speaker pro tempore (deputy speaker). The strategy of the ISG leadership is to take a hard line on some symbolic rule changes that exacerbate conflict between groups, and that extend obstruc-
tive powers to all Senate groups, rather than reducing this problem.
In its new majoritarian po-sitioning, the ISG resists non-affiliated Senators obtaining, as a right, committee seats and potentially becoming the chair or vice-chair of committees, because group membership is seen as a prerequisite. Simply put, opportu-nities to participate equally in the Senate’s work depend on mem-bership in a group—a traditional mechanism of party discipline.
Even more consequential, on March 11, 2020, Senator Yuen Pau Woo, the ISG facilitator, sec-onded by Senator Don Plett, the Conservative leader, secured the suspension, without debate, of a
long-established principle found at subsection 12-2(3) of the Rules of the Senate: “Senators appointed to committees shall serve for the duration of the session.” Both leaderships managed to replace this rule with its opposite: “if a Senator ceases to be a member of
a particular recognized party or recognized parliamentary group for any reason, he or she simulta-neously cease to be a member of any committee… with the resulting vacancy to be filled by the leader or facilitator of the party or group to which the Senator had belonged.” This departure from the Rules of the Senate protects the leadership of the two largest groups from los-ing members to other groups.
In short, the old dynamic of “fear and favour,” to quote Sena-tor Peter Harder, is now the rule in the ISG like in the Conserva-tive caucus, which the ISG op-poses politically.
Instead of using its majority to develop a new model based on
equality, in its central strategy, the ISG is now pursuing majoritari-anism without realizing that to replace party dominance by group dominance preserves the basic aspect of the old system that pre-vented the realization of the intent of the framers of our Constitution.
How do we reboot?Maybe by starting with a basic
principle: all Senators are equal in rights, privileges, and duties, regardless of their political views or group affiliation.
Each Senator must be free to act independently and to vote with his or her conscience, once duly informed and in consider-ation of the Senate’s role.
Each Senator must be provid-ed access to sufficient resources and to adequate opportunities to discharge her or his duties in the Chamber and at committees.
The allocation of seats on standing committees should, as a right, be proportional to the com-position of the Senate, including the non-affiliated Senators. In the U.K. House of Commons, the al-location of seats is determined by the Speaker based on the compo-sition of the Commons.
The selection of the individu-als to populate the committees should be left to the relevant group, or to those that are non-affiliated Senators.
The selection of the chairs of the committees should be made by the Senate as a whole, as in the U.K. House of Commons.
The Speaker pro tempore should be elected by a secret ballot, as the House of Commons elects its Speaker.
Deprived of the power to offer rewards and impose penalties, leaderships in the Senate will no longer be in a position to con-trol, bluntly or discretely, “their” members.
Finally, party dominance or group dominance must be avoided, as is the case in the House of Lords where none of the four groups (Conservatives, Labour, Liberal-Democrats, and Crossbenchers) can ever expect to have a majority. For example, the Parliament of Canada Act and the Rules of the Senate could state that no recognized group in the Senate can have more than 35 or 40 members.
The overall result would be an Upper Chamber where Senators, appointed until the age of 75, can be independent from leaderships and equal in the fulfillment of the Senate’s constitutional role. Like at the House of Lords, this role is to perform a complementary function to the House of Com-mons by providing sober second thought in reviewing bills and suggesting improvements, and by conducting a less-partisan oversight of government action and expenses. It is not resisting the will of the elected Chamber, except in cases of unconstitu-tional legislation or violations of fundamental rights. Canadians deserve that.
Pierre J. Dalphond is an Inde-pendent Senator from Quebec (De Lorimier).
The Hill Times
Opinion
WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2020 | THE HILL TIMES
All Senators are equal in rights, privileges, and duties Though the shift to more independent Senators has produced a record of legislative contributions, and improvements in gender and minority representation, it seems some old habits are picking up steam.
ISG Senator Pierre J. Dalphond
Opinion
In March, ISG Facilitator Yuen Pau Woo and Conservative Senate Leader Don Plett secured the suspension of a Senate principle that allowed Senators to keep their committee seats regardless of affiliation in the Chamber. The Hill Times photographs by Andrew Meade
Party or group dominance in the Senate should be avoided, as it is in the U.K. House of Lords, writes Sen. Pierre Dalphond. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade
Let’s build a more resilient Canada
COVID-19 has disrupted our way of life, and immediate relief has rightfully been the priority of governments. But as the conversation in Canada evolves to one of economic recovery, import-ant questions arise.What does recovery look like? How can we deliver a cleaner, innovative and diverse economy? How do we ensure recovery measures aren’t just shov-el-ready but shovel-worthy?
Federal and provincial government stimu-lus and recovery efforts can create jobs, encourage economic diversification and equity, spur cleantech innovation, cut both carbon pollution and illness-causing air pollution, and make Canada more resil-ient.
We ask Canadian governments to commit to a three-part recovery and resilience plan:
1. Invest stimulus into Canada’s fast-growing clean energy and cleantech sectors and businesses committed to the local production and export of world-leading low- and zero-carbon commodities;
2. Act quickly to support clean energy and cleantech solutions and business-es by expanding existing initiatives and programs; and
3. Share loud and clear that Canada will continue and expand on its best-in-class climate and environmen-tal policies.
We can’t leave any sector or region behind. That means training and retraining for Canadians whose past jobs may not return, in programs that can and should start now while unemployed workers are sitting at home.
The clean energy sector employs 298,000 Canadians in a wide range of jobs: insulating homes, developing clean technologies and energy storage solu-
tions, manufacturing electric vehicles and deploying charging infrastructure, building and maintaining wind, solar and hydro projects, producing renewable fuels and more.
Climate leadership is also enhancing competitiveness and creating new oppor-tunities in other sectors of the economy. These include present and future jobs in low-carbon concrete, steel and alumi-num, the auto sector, sustainably produced mass timber, agriculture, and mining or supplying the metals and minerals used in many clean technolo-gies.
A resilient recovery creates winners across the country. The time is now to invest in people and projects that will diversify our economy and improve our health and wellbeing.
It’s how we build a more resilient Canada.
Over 200 signatories representing over 2,000 Canadian companies have signed on to support a resilient recovery. Add your organization at resilientrecovery.ca
Acquire Industries Ltd., AddÉnergie, AES, Ameresco Canada Inc., American Clean Energy Solutions Inc., Arterran Renewables Ltd., Atticus Financial Group, Autochargers.ca Corporation, Avalon Mechanical Consultants Ltd., Ayur Financial Strategies Inc., Barkley Project Group, BayWa r.e Solar Systems Inc., BC Bioenergy Network, Black Current, Bonlook, Building Future, Innovation, Business on Camera, C Returns Inc, Canada Clean Fuels, Canadian Association of, Physicians for the Environment, Canadian Council of Canadians, CAPSolar,, Carbon Axion, Carbon Busters Inc., Carbon Free Group, Carboniq, Cellufuel, ChargeHub - MogileTechnologies Inc., ChargeLab, Chinook Power Corp., Citoyen concerné, City Green, Clean Foundation, CoEnergy Co-operative, Collected Conscience, Consolidated Biofuels, Eavor Technolo-gies Inc., EcoGen Energy & Build, EcoSafe Zero Waste, EH2 Solar, energyhub.org, EnergyX Solutions Inc., Enersion, Enliten, Ensyn Technologies, Envigour Policy Consulting, EnviroCentre, envision SYNERGY, Equilibrium Engineering, Es design, Exactus Energy, Firefly GHG Consulting, Fluent Energy Consulting, Fort Capital Partners, Fulcrum Projects Ltd., Geotab Inc., Go Wild Solar Solutions, GOOD Company, Great Canadian Solar Ltd., Great Canadian Solar, Halton Environmental Network, Huron Clean Energy, IAQ Inc, Impact Engineering, Innoltek, InnovÉÉ, Institut du véhicule innovant (IVI), iSun Energy, JE&M CONSULTING LTD., Jupiter Hydro Inc., Konnecta, Kootenay Solar Corp., L & A Energy Consulting Ltd., LanzaTech Inc., Letenda, Light house, LINCit, Maison du développement durable des Laurentides, MANTLE314, Melka Consulting, MKB & Co., MKI, Montroc Consulting Inc., Naked Snacks, Nergica, Nerva Energy Group Inc., New Power Post, NISP Canada, Noventa Energy, Nutana Power, Okanagan Solar, Okos Smart Homes Inc., Ottawa Renewable Energy Co-operative, Pacific Rim Engineered Products, Pantero, Passmore Group Inc., Pisces RPM, Polaris Strategy, Posterity Group, Provencher Roy Design Intérieur, PyroGenesis Canada Inc., R & G Stategic Communications, RainGrid Inc., rareEarth Project, Marketing Ltd., Recharge Véhicule Électrique, ReFeed Canada, Renewble Energy Group, RESCo Energy Inc., Saskatchewan Electric Vehicle Association, SES Consulting, Signature Electric Ltd., Sketch Nanotechnologies, Sol Power Projects, Solaires Entreprises Inc., SolarShare ,Soluna Energy Inc., Somerset Foundation, Spark Charging Solutions Inc., Spectergy, Steeper Energy, Sustainable Hamilton Burlington, Sustainable Marine Energy, Sustainable Resources Management Inc., S.W.E.B, SWTCH, TBL Communications, Trottier Family Foundation, United Chargers Inc., Upswing Solutions, VadimUS, Verbio, Volta Technique, Waste to Energy Generating Inc., Water Rangers, Waterfall Group and more at resilientrecovery.ca
6
OTTAWA—Congratulations Conservatives, you played
yourselves.On May 12, Ekos Research
released its latest polling results that captured political support amid the coronavirus pandemic. And boy, were they revealing. The landscape has changed dramati-
cally over the last few months since the federal election in October, when the Liberals were handed a minority in Parliament. Now they’re dominating nearly every demographic imaginable.
The Liberals are about to catch a charge with all this homiciding.
Overall, the Liberal Party leads the Conservative Party by 14.4 percentage points, nation-ally, with Conservatives at 28.3 per cent and Liberals at 42.7 per cent. This is a far cry from the results of Election 43, which saw the Conservatives capture the popular vote at 34.4 per cent, compared to the Liberals’ 33.1 per cent, thereby setting up the Hillary Clinton “but we won the popular vote” argument. What an ignominious freefall in the span of seven months. Must be all those efficiencies they found.
The most damning statistic, and possibly the most egregious result, is the Tories’ forfeiture of the women’s vote: the Liberals are crushing the Tories by about 30 percentage points (50 per cent versus 21 per cent, respectively).
*Laughs in feminism.*In The Toronto Star, econo-
mist Armine Yalnizyan called this “the first service-driven downturn in history.” In previous recessions, goods and manufac-turing were affected first, thereby hitting the male workforce first, followed by recoveries led by an increase in female labour partici-pation. This time, services have been hit first, and that changes the demographics affected, she
said. “The service sector—par-ticularly sectors hit first like education and child care, retail, personal services and restau-rants—is more female-dominat-ed. Usually paid less than men, and more likely to hold part-time jobs and work for multiple employers than men, the service sector’s gender-skew challenges governments to improve exist-ing income supports to prevent desperate and counter-productive economic survival plans.”
The current economic down-turn isn’t called a “shecession” because it’s neatly hashtagable; rather it’s due to the fact that 63 per cent of the job losses were those held by women, and women lost more hours of work than men. Women are also the es-sential workers because it is still women who do the majority of caregiving. And in our society, caregiving labour is severely undervalued and underpaid. This is particularly true of single mothers, women of colour, and immigrant women who work in these sectors.
The Tory squawking over the perils of big government doesn’t hit the same when your precari-ous work doesn’t provide proper benefits or child care and is a breeding ground for COVID-19, such as Amazon warehouses and Cargill meat plants. It’s no surprise this line of messaging from older, white men, who have the privilege to rage about debt and deficits (in a historically low-interest-rate environment) while
ignoring the risk to life, isn’t resonating with women.
This party can’t read a room.It’s easy to see how the Con-
servatives got here: they went full Republican. The same unteth-ered rage that the Republicans showed Barack Obama during his presidency is the same unhinged hatred Conservatives have for Justin Trudeau. This dispropor-tionate response to a democrati-cally elected prime minister led them to seek allies such as Fox News. In 2017, Peter Kent and Mi-chelle Rempel Garner appeared on Fox News to “educate” Ameri-cans about the Omar Khadr case, a man whose Charter and human rights were trampled on by their lord and saviour, Stephen Harper.
The dog whistles have become louder in recent years, as the Conservatives have embraced, or at least stayed silent about, the racism of the far-right they spent so much energy courting. See: United We Roll “protests,” which used a combination of xenophobia, anti-Semitism (the term “globalist” is code for “Jews”) and general racism to support—checks notes—Big Oil. A CBC piece on the issue noted, “The rally has also been associated with Yellow Vests Canada, a group whose Facebook page is rife with racist and xenophobic views, particularly towards Muslims and immigrants. In fact, the United We Roll convoy was originally named the Yellow Vest Convoy, but was changed due to the obviously problematic association.”
By the way, 69 per cent of Conservative supporters think that there are too many non-white immigrants in Canada, accord-ing to an April 2019 Ekos poll, meaning they’re racists. In terms of the Tory base, which came first, the chicken or the egg? Did the Conservative Party, which began its most recent assault on im-migration with Harper’s “barbaric cultural practices” hotline, radical-ize its base, or was their messag-ing attractive to already hardened white supremacists? It’s difficult to tell, but at this rate they’re syn-onymous with one another.
Take Derek Sloan. Last week, I wrote about the threat of disin-formation coming from people and institutions of authority who platform conspiracy theories, mis-information, and general garbage opinions. Sloan’s racist diatribe against Dr. Tam was a white supremacist conspiracy theory elevated to the mainstream by someone running for the leader of the modern Conservative party. Far-right conspirators “allege that Tam is a long-time Chinese spy, sent to rise through the public health bureaucracy to one day use the coronavirus scare as a way to increase Chinese influ-ence. They wonder whether her loyalties can really be vouched for and warn that she may import the Chinese government’s heavy-handed ideologies and methods at the expense of Canadians’ rights,” according to an op-ed in Foreign Policy. The Conservatives spoke volumes with their silence. What they’re finding out is that bet-ting against inclusion is betting against winning national elec-tions.
Erica Ifill is a co-host of the Bad+Bitchy podcast.
The Hill Times
OTTAWA—A key date has been passed in the Conservative
Party’s leadership race. Friday, May 15 was the last day for people to join the party to vote in the contest. Peter MacKay’s team claims to have out-done his competitors in signing people up. While it is hard to verify the accuracy of the campaign’s assertion, it is done to signify that Team Mackay has momentum. Something that’s been suggested, anecdotally, in many places, that they do not have.
Leadership campaigns of any party are reservoirs of bullshit. Nothing exemplifies this better than membership sign-up num-bers and candidate endorsements. Both are public relations tools designed to project enthusiasm and winnability for the recipi-ent candidate. They are used to motivate volunteers, raise money, attempt to shape media cover-age, and, most of all, convince the designated electorate to vote for the winner.
Getting some high-profile in-dividuals’ endorsement only ever matters if that person gets out, organizes, and delivers votes on election day. As for membership tallies, having a person sign up is one thing, getting them to vote is entirely another. Longstanding party members are more likely to vote than new arrivals.
Years ago, during leadership races of the past, I remember my father and I put my mother and some other cousins on the elec-toral lists. They had no idea they were on the list until the robocalls started coming and thereafter the renewal forms arrived in the mail. Let’s just say Dad and I got a good, expletive-laden rant about our unique approach from those family members impacted. I can assure you the Powers family
were not the prime movers with this approach.
Hopefully, with three months to go before the new leader of the Conservative Party is chosen, the campaigns will get a bit more ad-venturous and maybe even discuss some of the big ideas the party needs to embrace. Yes, some of you will know this is a familiar refrain from me. But it needs voicing again.
The Conservative Party’s lead-ership campaign to date has been an utter snoozefest. Of course, it is difficult to capture much of the public conscience during the pan-demic, but still, there are three months ahead to hope for better. Some of the drowsy nature of the campaign is by design, unless you are Derek Sloan and your ap-proach is shock and blah.
Front runners MacKay and Erin O’Toole have been cautious, sticking to rock-ribbed Conserva-tive voters’ favourite themes—Trudeau the inept, carbon taxa-tion, reigning in China, etc. That is the predictable playbook of the well-trained but overly mechanis-tic Harper-era advisers they have. They are guided by a “win the leadership first and worry about the rest later” mantra.
But if it makes everything so bland and predictable, is that the best way to retool? For very good
reason, those strategies worked for Stephen Harper, but it is time to evolve.
A final word on the man the CPC leadership candidates are looking to replace: Andrew Scheer. It was disappointing to discover on the weekend that the issue of dual citizenship was back in the news because he had not followed through on his renuncia-tion process. That is his personal choice, but why again was it left to the media to dig up and for Scheer to limply explain?
Scheer’s poor handling of the citizenship debate during the election cut right to his credibility. I suppose it speaks to his political skill set that he did not recognize the story could bite him again if he did not manage it properly. And he did not. The conversa-tion has returned, and while he is still the leader, it impacts the credibility of the organization. Another reason why it would be great for a big ideas discussion among Conservative leadership candidates, so no one would have to walk down that memory lane.
Tim Powers is vice-chairman of Summa Strategies and manag-ing director of Abacus Data. He is a former adviser to Conservative political leaders.
The Hill Times
Comment
It’s time for a Conservative eye exam because the Tories can’t read the room
Big ideas needed in CPC’s snoozefest of a leadership race
The same untethered rage that the Republicans showed Barack Obama during his presidency is the same unhinged hatred Conservatives have for Justin Trudeau—and right now it isn’t helping their cause.
Hopefully, with three months to go before the new leader of the Conservative Party is chosen, the campaigns will get a bit more adventurous and maybe even discuss some of the big ideas the party needs to embrace.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2020 | THE HILL TIMES
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8
After a few weeks of study, the Pro-cedure and House Affairs Commit-
tee put out report on May 15 about the potential peaks and pitfalls of having the House of Commons sit virtually.
As was to be expected, there was hardly raving consensus on the way forward. The committee’s 51-page report came appended with two dissenting reports, one each from the Conservatives and NDP. But what the group did seem to agree on was that the last few weeks of virtual committee meetings have shown that there’s room for House business to be done without cramming everyone into the Chamber.
While the committee report recom-mends that “the House of Commons move to additional virtual proceedings, dur-ing the current pandemic, for all regular business of the House,” the Conservatives don’t want to see anything but in-person sittings “to consider legislation, a budget or an Address in Reply,” kiboshing the idea of hybrid sittings that would have MPs participating both in-person and online.
The House of Commons administra-tion has indicated that this type of system is ready to go, with a brief from House Speaker Anthony Rota, who has partici-pated in a test run of the system, outlin-ing this his team “is tooled to support the House’s function as a deliberative assembly engaged in debate.”
The prospect of conducting votes virtually is something that does require more thought and study, but to imme-diately put the brakes on being able to
debate bills seems needlessly obstruc-tive in this pandemic environment, when there’s a seemingly viable solution being presented.
Why should the Liberals’ prospective legislation about a buyback program for now-prohibited firearms be restricted to MPs who can physically get themselves to Ottawa safely when there’s a workable virtual platform for them to ask questions and debate the forthcoming bill?
On May 25, the current agreement to suspend the House runs out, and if past is prologue, there will not be an agreement before that date rolls around to push the adjournment any longer.
The Conservatives have already said they want Parliament to properly re-sume, and on May 19 the Bloc Québécois outlined the demands they want to see met before giving support for a further suspension of the House.
Among these is that the Liberals and the Conservatives respect the agree-ment between parties regarding how many of each parties’ MPs are in the Chamber. The Bloc said that while they, the NDP, and the Greens have been keeping to the prescribed, agreed-upon number of bums in seats, the two largest parties have not.
As Conservative MP Scott Reid demonstrated a few weeks (years?) ago, if MPs want to be in the House, there’s nothing that can keep them out. Providing a platform online for elected officials to meaningfully participate can and should happen, as soon as possible.
The Hill Times
In these unprecedented times, govern-ments must act rapidly to tackle the
COVID-19 pandemic. Because the deci-sions of policymakers have particularly significant impacts on communities, it is critical that their decisions be guided by a common set of principles. The actions being taken by governments around the world are being immediately felt and will have long-term implications.
Unfortunately, we are already bearing witness to some unintended consequences causing harm. For example, polio eradica-tion immunization campaigns have been halted; major increases in population sur-veillance are sweeping across nations; and impoverished populations who lack the means to practice self-isolation and social distancing are being persecuted.
Across all stages of the COVID-19 response, I call on Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau and the Government of Canada to stay guided by the following principles:• Do no harm;• Put people first;• Protect human rights and vulnerable
populations;• Universal in access to social support
and new COVID-19 medicines and vac-cines;
• Guided by the science and deliberate in not allowing ulterior motives influence;
• Transparent, accountable, and participa-tory in an approach to engage a diverse array of stakeholders;
• Global in solidarity, coordination, and resource sharing; and
• Future-focused to ensure actions taken now support the rebuilding of a more equitable and just world for all.
Robyn Christine Waite Ottawa, Ont.
It wasn’t just the Nazis who experiment-ed with eugenics.
Sweden also surreptitiously enforced the practice until the mid 1970s, steril-izing “undesirables” without informed consent. Canada also has had its dark chapters with medical experimentation on people with mentally disabilities in institutions.
So, it is not unreasonable to consider whether a variant of eugenics has framed our attitudes to seniors—in particular, the conditions where frail elders are placed in institutional settings and conditions that have facilitated the ravaging of the virus.
In addition to this, after the pandemic crisis has passed, are there conditions in those settings that encourage a more rapid physical and cognitive deteriora-tion than aging at home? How does the labelling of seniors as a burden and “bed blockers” also not smack of a eugenics mindset, where seniors are treated as second-class citizens?
Where are the human rights watch-dogs? Are our human-rights bodies as vocal, historically, regarding complaints linked to grounds of age, including medi-cal care and financial well-being, or has cost efficiency been the steering model?
How has a deeply ingrained, but more subtle, mindset inherited from eugenics steered our policies and priorities as to
who is dispensable and who can simply be hidden off the grid in institutional settings, because they are deemed to be burdens and bed blockers?
What do we plan to do to address this and where do disability and age sit in our human-rights bodies’ priorities versus race or ethnicity or issues impacting First Nations?
What role has eugenics continued to play, including as a contributor to the devastation no longer able to be hidden in long-term care and other seniors housing “solutions”? And how does it still inform our less-than-stellar record of access to judicial remedies that have also been outsourced to industry to save on costs to the Crown and add to the silo mental-ity of fragmented oversight for assisted living and long-term care and seniors’ residences.
And finally, rather than pointing to Sweden as an example, how up to date are those in favour of that country’s ap-proach to COVID-19 on what the statistics are now revealing about the downside to the Swedish approach and its dark his-tory of dabbling in eugenics?
Sometimes cheap comes at huge public cost—as we are learning from our defective supply chain.
Bev Kennedy Fredericton, N.B.
It’s time to flip the switch on virtual sittings
Governments must be guided by a common set of principles in response to the coronavirus
Treatment of seniors is reminiscent of the worst mind sets, says reader
Editorial Letters to the Editor
WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2020 | THE HILL TIMES
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9
Among the questions that loomed after September
11, 2001, was how intelligence agencies would handle the power they’d acquired through a conflu-ence of unprecedented public license, massive funding, and new technology.
As the internet fuelled a post-9/11 revolution in covert capabili-ties, that explosion in resources
funded a multinational empire of contractors, freelancers, and off-the-books operatives. The degree to which that power—telegraphed in the early post-9/11 narratives of the Iraq intelligence fiasco and the reporting that legitimized it—undermined democracy in the world’s sole superpower was evident in the hacking of the Senate Intelligence Committee by the CIA over the post-9/11 torture report and the Edward Snowden revelations of global surveillance by what had become a borderless behemoth of intelligence agen-cies, including Canada’s.
Two decades on from 9/11, it’s hard not to be struck by the irony that a fateful power shift from elected to unelected hands in Washington and elsewhere, justified by the need to protect democracy and uphold freedom, has produced a global bedlam of bullying authoritarians, stolen elections, weaponized imbe-ciles, and hourly instalments of intelligence-style, intelligence-insulting narrative warfare that has commodified deceit on an unprecedented scale.
The intelligence community has been the dog that didn’t bark in the battle against what has proven to be a greater threat than terrorism to the rules-based international or-der: a reality-hijacking cocktail of corruption, propaganda, and—for lack of a less melodramatic, more accurate term—weaponized evil;
a Third World War waged with an industrial escalation of disinforma-tion campaigns, deception opera-tions, psychological warfare, and every other trick in Espionage for Dummies.
If the intelligence community isn’t fighting fire with fire in a war it’s ideally equipped to win, what is it doing?
Much of this has been ratio-nalized by the concurrent, two-de-cade expansion of China’s power as the bad cop in a systematic degradation of democracy and American influence across the globe. In their annual threat re-port before Congress in February 2019, U.S. intelligence officials of-fered an explanation for the past two decades preposterous even by today’s stratospheric standards of preposterousness.
“While we were sleeping in the last decade and a half, China had a remarkable rise in capabilities that are stunning,” said then-director of national intelligence Dan Coats.
You do not have to have spent the past two decades as an intel-ligence asset, target, or operative to know that the post-9/11 era has been anything but drowsy for spooks. What were those doubled intelligence budgets spent on if not the gathering, analyzing, and acting upon of information about a geopolitical power realignment so obvious to the naked eye that some of us wrote quite a few words about it in real time, includ-ing from Washington? The War on Terror didn’t come with blinders to the rest of reality and was not conducted by somnambulists.
How does a dog not only not bark but not twitch during an assault so brazen that it produced the relentless, deadly lunacy of Donald Trump’s presidency … and still spend $500 billion? If the intelligence community wasn’t bugging, tracking, hack-ing, and counter-operating against global anti-democracy interests, who was it bugging, tracking, hacking, and counter-operating against?
Now, with a global pandemic being leveraged as a power grab by those same anti-democracy interests and a presidential elec-tion under attack by not just Rus-sia and other usual suspects, but also by the incumbent himself, can the intelligence community marshal its formidable outcome-curating powers to thwart cor-ruption, restore sanity, and save democracy?
Taking public responsibility for the integrity of the process that will produce November’s U.S. election result might be a good start. If that fails, at least people will know precisely what sort of war they’re dealing with. It seems—so far, at least—it’s not a cold one.
Lisa Van Dusen is associate editor of Policy Magazine and was a Washington and New York-based editor at UPI, AP, and ABC. She writes a weekly column for The Hill Times.
The Hill Times
By Chris Allen, Jonathan Black, Jonathan Holmes, & Jay Thomson
At the end of April, the House of Commons held its first-
ever and historical virtual Parlia-ment through the all-Member of Parliament Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. The session used video conferencing, just like thousands of Canadians have been doing over the past few weeks to connect with family and friends, to access online educa-tion and emergency services, and to continue working. For its part, this session brought together our hundreds of federally elected officials for a true test of virtual democracy.
Unfortunately, the virtual ses-sion was not without its issues. Over the three hours, several participants had trouble hear-ing the Member speaking and many had difficulty accessing the simultaneous interpretation. As a result, there may never have been so many Points of Order within one sitting. Nevertheless, the event was an overall success as it allowed our MPs to debate as they were elected to do, albeit confined to their homes like the rest of us. The prime minister and cabinet ministers were able to provide updates and were presented with questions posed
on behalf of constituents across the country.
That being said, the ability of a Member to fully participate in the session was largely dependent on where they live—that is because the quality of their internet con-nection is dependent on where they live. For example, Minister of Natural Resources Seamus O’Regan, joining from Newfound-land and Labrador, could barely be understood due to a poor internet connection. Kyle Seeback, from southwestern Ontario, also complained about connectivity is-sues. And eastern Saskatchewan’s Cathay Wagantall found herself
sidelined from the virtual proceed-ings after several unsuccessful attempts to join in from home.
While the majority of Canadi-ans live in urban centres with good broadband connections, millions of others outside those centres continue to have issues connecting. The trouble MPs had participating in their recent virtual parliamenta-ry session serves as a perfect illus-tration of Canada’s shortcomings when it comes to universal access to high-quality broadband internet service. The federal, provincial, and territorial governments have designated broadband internet as an essential service during this current pandemic; however, more government support is needed to ensure that service is available to Canadians living in our rural and remote communities.
As governments look at ways for Canada to recover both finan-cially and socially from the COV-ID-19 pandemic, making expedited investments into rural broadband must be high on their list. In-creased and expedited government investments in Canada’s broad-band infrastructure will advance the ability of all Canadians to participate in our digital economy, which will be crucial for stimulat-ing economic recovery by generat-ing employment opportunities and promoting business growth.
Hundreds of locally based, independent internet provid-ers in this country are keeping Canadians connected through this current crisis. They also seek to expand their networks so they can connect even more, but the reality is that low population densities in the areas they serve mean it will be uneconomic to do so without government help. With the right amount of fund-ing, properly allocated, and partnerships with government, however, they will be able to reach many more Canadians, and do it soon.
For Canada, the return on this kind of government investment is clear: with universal access to quality broadband services, more Canadians will be able to fully participate in and contribute to our modern economy and help to get us quickly back on our feet. And no Parliamentarian, regard-less of what riding they represent across this vast and great country, will again be deprived of the ability to fulfill their democratic duties because of a problem con-necting.
Chris Allen is a board member of the British Columbia Broad-band Association, Jonathan Black is executive director of the Canadian Association of Wireless Internet Service Providers, Jona-than Holmes is executive director of the Independent Telecommu-nications Providers Association, and Jay Thomson is CEO of the Canadian Communication Sys-tems Alliance.
The Hill Times
Opinion
THE HILL TIMES | WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2020
Can the intelligence community save democracy?
Boost of federal support needed for better cross-Canada internet connectivity
Amid an escalation of covert warfare tactics changing the global balance of power, perhaps Western intelligence agencies could start counter-operating.
With universal access to quality broadband services, more Canadians will be able to fully participate in and contribute to our modern economy and help to get us quickly back on our feet.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence pictured April 16 during a COVID-19 task force briefing. With a global pandemic being leveraged and a presidential election under attack by not just Russia and other usual suspects, but also by the incumbent himself, can the intelligence community marshal its formidable outcome-curating powers to thwart corruption, restore sanity, and save democracy? Photograph courtesy of The White House’s Flickr/Joyce N. Boghosian
Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan could barely be understood during the April 28 inaugural virtual meeting of the House’s special COVID-19 Pandemic Committee due to a poor internet connection. Screencap via ParlVu
Lisa Van Dusen
What Fresh Hell
10
Canada is failing its children. As a country, we have been
steadily dropping in global rank-ings over the past decade when it comes to the well-being of our eight million children. One-third of kids in Canada do not enjoy a safe and healthy childhood. Poverty plagues far too many children; half of First Nations children on reserve live in pov-erty and a quarter of our young people sometimes go to bed or school hungry.
Canadians are coming to terms with the repercussions of the COVID-19 crisis, and a reck-oning is at hand for our young-est citizens. While the pandemic affects all Canadians, children and youth are particularly at risk. Arguably, one of the greatest immediate impacts is the sudden and extensive disruption of their lives, with kids finding that their sources of security, stimulation, and stability have been suddenly ripped away.
COVID-19 has magnified the inequity and gaps that exist in Canadian society. Children, through their dependence on par-ents or caregivers, are affected by the economic pressures and stresses that arise from the cur-rent economic crisis. Kids who
experience family violence no longer have a safe refuge while at school or in daycare programs, they no longer have access to a predictable meal, and face an increased risk of abuse due to the economic downturn. Simply put, social isolation is as much an enemy to these children, as the proximity to a trusted adult can often save their lives.
First Nations, Métis, and Inuit children living in remote and ru-ral communities are particularly vulnerable due to overcrowded
housing, lack of clean water, and limited access to hospitals in case they do become sick. We need to be gravely concerned about children who face in-creased vulnerability in resi-dential care, group homes, and other settings that do not have the necessary infection preven-tion teams or equipment. While these concerns existed prior to COVID’s emergence, now they
are brought sharply into focus and demand our immediate at-tention and action.
Besides the many urgent fund-ing needs, the government must also consider the mid- and longer-term needs of organizations serving children and youth who are facing a backlog of service provision with limited resources and restricted fundraising capa-bilities. Children’s hospitals need significant funding to support the immediate needs of their patients as they transition to virtual sup-
ports and rapidly scale up mental health programs. Child protection agencies need funding to support programming to assist children and youth in and out of care.
A silver lining arising from this devastating pandemic is the emerg-ing response of federal, provincial, and municipal governments to chil-dren. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau frequently speaks directly to chil-dren and answers their questions in
his weekly weekend morning press conferences. For those brief mo-ments, our often-forgotten citizens are given the focus they need.
The federal government has also committed funding for emer-gency shelters for women and kids fleeing violence and support for Kids Help Phone and the Breakfast Clubs of Canada. To be clear, these funds are just the beginning of what is needed and by no means are sufficient. The government must make significant investments to fulfill its obligation to provide for and to protect children.
One proven and effective strat-egy involves the establishment of a Commissioner of Children and Youth, which would move Canada in the direction of fulfilling our obli-gations to ensure the provision and protection of kids. In times of crisis such as these, the concerns of our children and youth have often gone unheard and unnoticed. We must not repeat history. Children and youth deserve a representative that will advocate for their protection and prioritize their well-being in times of peace and in times of crisis. They deserve someone dedicated to ensuring that every child can live in conditions of optimal social, physi-cal, mental, cultural, and spiritual development. They deserve a Com-missioner for Children and Youth.
Senator Rosemary Moodie is an Independent Senator for Toronto and a neonatologist and pediatrician. Sara Austin is the founder and CEO of Children First Canada and a longstanding advocate for children.
The Hill Times
OTTAWA—On April 29, an RCAF Cyclone helicopter
crashed in the Mediterranean Sea while returning to the HMCS Fredericton from a training mis-sion. Word of this tragedy was first reported by Greek news out-
lets and it was soon circulating on Canadian social media platforms.
Most mainstream media reporters were leery that this story could in fact be “fake news” as the Greek media were report-ing the downed helicopter to be a Sikorsky Sea King, which are no longer in service with the Royal Canadian Navy.
When the Department of Na-tional Defence did issue a formal statement on April 30, Canadians were advised that “one member of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) was killed … and five other members remain missing follow-ing an accident involving a Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) CH-
148 Cyclone helicopter.”We were also informed that
the “HMCS Fredericton and NATO allies continue to search for the other five members of the helicopter’s crew.” Details as to the cause of the crash were un-known and media were informed that the crew of the HMCS Fred-ericton “had lost contact with the helicopter” prior to the crash.
When this story did break in Canada, with official confirma-tion complete with the name of the individual killed and the names of the five “confirmed missing,” it resonated throughout the military community like a wildfire. The scenario painted was
that of a mystery crash spark-ing a major search and rescue operation by the NATO naval task group.
Commentators pondered the vastness of the Ionian Sea posing a challenge for the searchers, and social media posters prayed for the rescue of the five missing members.
Late in the afternoon on May 1, a full 48 hours after the crash, DND issued an updated statement wherein the “confirmed missing” were now “presumed deceased.” No longer was it a “search and rescue” operation, it had transi-tioned into a “search and recov-ery” task.
As a nation united in grief, Canada mourned the loss of Cap-tains Brenden Ian MacDonald, Kevin Hagen, Maxime Miron-Morin, Sub-Lieutenants Abbigail Cowbrough and Matthew Pyke, and Master-Corporal Matthew Cousins.
Once the initial shock of this tragedy subsided, additional details of the crash began to sur-face. It turns out that the Cyclone was in sight of the Fredericton at the time of the accident. In full view, in fact, as the helicopter was allegedly doing a low-level flypast as part of a photoshoot when it suddenly and violently plunged into the waves.
DND has since confirmed that eyewitness testimony will be part of their official investigation into the cause of the crash. With this being the case, one has to wonder why the Canadian media, myself included, were being fed such deceptive details in the initial 48 hours.
To wit; the Fredericton did not “lose contact” with the helicopter if the crew actually watched it crash. The search site would have involved a few hundred square feet of ocean, not the entire Ionian Sea.
What makes no sense is why someone in the DND communi-cation chain of command would have felt it a good idea to change the details to add some unneces-sary mystery to the incident, not to mention generating false hope among the friends and family of the five “confirmed missing.”
There would be no need to cover up the fact that the helicopter was doing a photo pass at the time, as ev-eryone familiar with RCN operations knows this is a routine exercise.
I understand that DND would want to have complete certainty before announcing the death of the crew to the public. However, if from the outset we were told the Cyclone crash was witnessed by sailors aboard Fredericton and no survivors were seen, that would have been more accurate.
In this era of “fake news” by malign actors, we need our offi-cial sources to provide us with ac-curate details. In this case, DND was inexplicably off the mark.
Scott Taylor is the editor and publisher of Esprit de Corps magazine.
The Hill Times
Opinion
WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2020 | THE HILL TIMES
Independent Senator Rosemary Moodie & Sara Austin
Opinion
The hidden crisis of COVID-19: the kids are not alright
Canadians deserved better than deceptive details about chopper crash
The establishment of a Commissioner of Children and Youth would move Canada in the direction of fulfilling our obligations to ensure the provision and protection of kids.
In this era of ‘fake news’ by malign actors, we need our official sources to provide us with accurate details. In this case, DND was inexplicably off the mark.
Chief of the Defence Staff General Jonathan Vance is pictured at an April 30 press conference about the RCAF Cyclone helicopter that crashed the previous day. Initial information from the Department of National Defence indicated the HMCS Fredericton ‘lost contact’ with the helicopter, when it was later revealed that it went down in sight of the ship. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade
Arguably, one of the greatest immediate impacts of the coronavirus is the sudden and extensive disruption of children’s lives, with kids finding that their sources of security, stimulation, and stability have been suddenly ripped away, write Senator Rosemary Moodie and Sara Austin. Photograph courtesy of Pixabay
Scott Taylor
Inside Defence
11
OTTAWA—Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who came
to power touting “sunny ways,” is now presiding over Canada in what can only be called the Year of Tragedy.
The death of a member of the Snowbirds team engaged in a cross-country flight program to cheer up Canadians during CO-VID-19 is only the latest. There’s the pandemic itself, which has at least temporarily brought modern life to a halt and produced a death toll here of 6,000.
In January, the country was already in shock over the 57 Canadians killed in the shooting down of a passenger jet in Iran. And then Canada experienced its worse mass murder ever when a man with a known, but un-checked, history of domestic vio-lence and gun obsession in Nova Scotia killed 22 people. The more managerial, almost dour tone Trudeau settled on after the fall election—presumably a response to the Blackface scandal and the Liberals’ minority government status—has been fitting.
As with everything else, the virus raises questions about Trudeau’s future and, beyond that, about how the wider national political scene will be transformed. The prime minister is being given pretty good marks for his handling of the pandemic once it hit emergency levels. And the federal government has responded to the unprecedented emergency in the only way pos-sible—rolling out hundreds of billions of dollars in financial support. But as Canadians look back post-COVID, the prevail-ing view may be that the prime minister put too much faith in the inherently over-cautious views of health bureaucrats and acted too
slowly and too incrementally to head off widespread infections and economic devastation.
No one (leaving aside Donald Trump and his fantasies) thinks the road back to prosperity will be easy. The short-term chal-lenge will be getting the economy back on its feet in the midst of formidable uncertainties raised by Canadians’ addiction to debt, the collapse of real estate, wide-spread bankruptcies, financial market weakness, unprecedented joblessness, potential inflation, and governments that will have used up all their fiscal ammuni-tion.
Longer term, Canada will have to retool its medical system, undertake major adjustments to its globally attuned, and in some cases, foreign-dominated manu-facturing sector, and give thought to profoundly rethinking the structure of the economy when it comes to capital investment, employment, education/training, and financial supports for work-ing people.
As a political matter, one has to wonder what’s ahead for Trudeau, who didn’t even want to run for Liberal leader because of his family until it became clear in 2011 he was the party’s best hope for a comeback. By the time the recovery takes shape in a couple of years (assuming the minor-ity government lasts that long), it’s not hard to imagine Trudeau bowing out. Getting the country through COVID would be more than enough for anyone’s legacy. And the Liberal figure who now seems most likely to succeed Trudeau, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, is coming through the crisis without much, if any, damage to her reputa-tion. On the other hand, Trudeau may feel he has to stay on to deal with a very significant array of unfinished business such as Indigenous reconciliation and
climate change, not to mention the COVID rebuild—issues whose resolution would at the least require one more mandate.
Another factor will be how formidable the other major par-ties appear over the next year. The large burst of support for gener-ous government programs during the epidemic should theoretically help the NDP. But Jagmeet Singh, for all his worthwhile ideas, can’t seem to get much traction. And the outlook for the Conservatives seems murkier by the day, with outgoing leader Andrew Scheer accusing Canadians grappling with the emergency of being lazy and Ontario MP and leadership
candidate Derek Sloan dragging the (apparently apathetic) party into racist territory by attack-ing Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam. The appeals to the far right and social conservatives needed to win the leadership may leave the winner—presumably Erin O’Toole over Peter MacKay at this point—so hemmed in as to preclude a wider appeal to the more centrist voters the party will need to win an election.
There is also the question of whether the warmed-over Harper mindset of small government, lower taxes, and the evil of gov-ernment budget deficits will reso-nate if Canadians’ COVID-driven
buy-in on the value of collective supports and active government adheres.
If the pandemic were not enough of a challenge, the pos-sible socio-economic upheaval afterwards will play out against what could be a more fractured federal-provincial landscape, escalating demands for action on climate change, dangerous trade protectionist trends, and resumed tensions over Indigenous issues. The task will be daunting, whether it’s Trudeau or someone else carry-ing the prime minister’s mantle.
Les Whittington is a regular columnist for The Hill Times.
The Hill Times
Comment
Beyond COVID-19: an unchartable political course for months, maybe years No one (leaving aside Donald Trump and his fantasies) thinks the road back to prosperity will be easy. The task will be daunting, whether it’s Trudeau or someone else carrying the prime minister’s mantle.
THE HILL TIMES | WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2020
As with everything else, the virus raises questions about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s future and, beyond that, about how the wider national political scene will be transformed, writes Les Whittington. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland—pictured arriving in the House of Commons for a meeting of the Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic on May 6—is the Liberal figure seeming most likely to succeed Justin Trudeau and is coming through the crisis without much, if any, damage to her reputation, writes Les Whittington. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, pictured at a press conference in the West Block on April 29, can’t seem to get much traction, despite a large burst of support for generous government programs, writes Les Whittington. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade
Les Whittington
Need to Know
12 13
OTTAWA—Forty years ago today, I was standing in the Verdun Auditorium in
south-centre Montreal, when a woman said to me in French, “This is proof we can be good Québécois and Canadians at the same time.” It was a key message of the tumultu-ous six weeks that led to the historic victory of the “No” side in the Quebec referendum.
I was reminded of that night recently when the Journal de Quebec published a series of negative commentaries on the “failure” of the 1980 referendum and “what if” the “Oui” had won.
The series was a pre-emptive strike against the anniver-sary of this shining moment in Canadian history from Journal publisher and former Parti Québécois leader Pierre-Karl Péladeau.
As an organizer in that campaign, I remember it as if it were yesterday, and I have a differ-ent perspective. In mid-March 1980, I had left my job as a radio reporter to join the “Non” campaign as a co-ordinator for five Montreal ridings for only $125 a week. Over a period of six weeks, working 18 hours a day, I had the chance to observe the campaign from close proximity.
When we began, the odds were stacked against the “Non” side. There had been an ineffective federal advertising blitz encour-aging people to say “Non Merci!” and the PQ had obliterated the Liberals in the National Assembly debate. The 107-word question was as soft as possible, asking for a “man-date to negotiate sovereignty-association.” Led by the charismatic René Lévesque, the PQ was a 200,000 person juggernaut.
Working out of a rundown factory in east-end Montreal, the “Non” campaign led by then-Quebec Liberal leader Claude Ryan was a complex group of political parties,
francophones, anglophones, and allophones. We were hampered by our diversity, compared to the monolithic PQ. At first, there was a decision to focus on the nationalist vote: our slogan, “Mon Non est Québécois” was a play on words, encouraging francophone Quebecers to vote “Non.” The Canadian flag was put aside.
Then the “Yvette” movement changed the campaign, when PQ minister Lise Pay-ette compared federalist women to the doc-ile school girl in an old Quebec text book. This enraged feminist federalists, and are-nas everywhere were packed with women from Montreal to Matane. Their contribu-tion was a fervent display of pro-Canadian passion and the Canadian flag alongside the fleur de lis. The campaign developed momentum, and we worked harder.
At the Paul Sauvé arena rally on May 14, we pulled out all the stops to fill the house. I was put in charge of accompanying then-prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who had been accused by Lévesque of being less a Québécois because he had an Anglo middle name. Trudeau took the podium last, and brought the house down with promises of constitutional renewal, and a reply to Lévesque: “Yes, my name is Elliott, mais mon nom est Québécois!”
On May 19, we worked until midnight training thousands of campaign workers, and met at HQ five hours later. May 20 was an unseasonably hot day, and reports indi-cated people were lined up in the heat as the “Oui” blocked polls in our strong ridings. I was among dozens of workers armed with writs to free entry into polling stations. That evening, I was attacked by a security guard when I prevented polls from being blocked in an allophone neighbourhood. Then, bat-tered and bruised, I went to Verdun Audito-rium with my colleagues to celebrate.
The atmosphere of collegiality and purpose was one of the great joys of that campaign. I formed friendships that have lasted a lifetime. Sadly, COVID-19 pre-vents us from gather-ing to celebrate. But, like war veterans, we have our memories.
I will always believe we won because we weren’t afraid to show a passion for Canada to counter the fervour of the indépendentistes, and we found compro-mises between the po-sitions of a wide variety of parties. Like any Canadian success, we
had passion for an idea, the capacity to express it, and the ability to work together.
Admittedly, the national unity road has been bumpy since, with language battles and the notoriously tight 1995 referendum. But, given the turbulence in the world over the last four decades, of war, genocide, reces-sion, and now, COVID-19, only the smallest of minds think Quebec and Canada would have been better off with a “Oui” in 1980.
Andrew Caddell is retired from Global Affairs Canada, where he was a senior policy adviser. He previously worked as an adviser to Liberal governments. He is a fel-low with the Canadian Global Affairs Insti-tute and a principal of QIT Canada. He can be reached at [email protected].
The Hill Times
Welcome Centre, with the Upper Cham-ber’s oversight subcommittee still being formed, but Alberta Senator Scott Tannas says he thinks so long as it gets underway soon, Senators will still get one last proper kick at the can.
“Now that decisions are getting made, it is important that we have one last look to make sure that everything that’s in there we are satisfied [with], or we’re satisfied as to why we’re not going to get our way,” said Sen. Tannas, who chaired the Senate Inter-nal Economy, Budgets, and Administration Committee’s subcommittee on the Long Term Vision and Plan (LTVP) during the last Parliament. The LTVP is the govern-ment’s name for its massive, decades-long, and multi-billion-dollar effort to renovate the Parliamentary Precinct.
“I’m a little bit frustrated that we are having to play catch-up on some of these things,” he said, but noted that the subcom-mittee’s ability to focus on the matter and “carve out good, solid blocks of time” and previous work to advocate for Senators’ ideas and concerns should make that pos-sible.
The subcommittee was “active” in pro-viding “a lot of input” last year, said Sen. Tannas, and in the absence of Senators, the Senate administration has been busy weighing in on plans in recent months.
“If we can get it up and going in the next couple of weeks maximum—a week even better—and we can start stepping through the issues I think we can get everything that needs to get accomplished, accomplished and get kind of caught back up” by the end of June.
Sen. Tannas, who is now interim leader of the new Canadian Senators Group, is no longer a member of the Internal Economy Committee but is still able to attend and weigh in at meetings, including those of its subcommittees—albeit without any voting powers—and plans to do so.
The Senate Internal Economy Commit-tee was briefed on design options for Centre Block’s renovation and construction of the final phase of the Visitors’ Welcome Centre (VWC) by Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) assistant deputy minister Rob Wright and director general of the Cen-tre Block project Jennifer Garrett on May 14.
MPs got a similar briefing, focused on options for the House of Commons Cham-ber and the VWC, on Feb. 18. A month later, the House Board of Internal Economy finalized its new MP working group to oversee and provide feedback on Centre Block renovation plans.
But the Senate had a slow start to the year, parliamentary-work wise, in particu-lar due to disagreement and negotiations over the budgets to be allocated to each Senate group—in light of the CSG’s forma-tion in November 2019—which in turn held up talks to finalize the new make up of Senate committees.
While the Internal Economy Committee, as an executive committee, was able to meet through this time, it was busy with debate over budget allocations and reviews of a draft harassment policy and financial state-ments for the 2018-19 fiscal year. On April 14, in its first virtual meeting after adjourn-
ing to the COVID-19 pandemic, CIBA settled on its vice-chairs and began the work of nailing down the composition of its own subcommittees, five of which were finalized on May 14, including the subcommittee on the LTVP, which will include one extra member,
with one seat allocated for a non-affiliated Senator, along with two seats for the Independent Senators Group, one for the Conservatives, and one for the CSG.
Membership of these subcom-mittees now needs to be estab-lished, after which its meeting schedule will be set.
But Senators now face a significant time crunch—even greater than the one that caused MPs concern in February.
In January, Ms. Garrett indi-cated PSPC is targeting a “spring, summer time frame” to finalize schematic design plans for Centre Block’s renovation. MPs and Senators alike have repeatedly stressed the importance of over-sight and input from Parliamen-tarians on renovation plans.
“For the Centre Block specifi-cally, we are at a critical juncture
requiring Parliament’s input to finalize design and determine a baseline cost, schedule, and scope,” Mr. Wright told Senators on May 14.
Some “key decisions are re-quired to maintain momentum in the implementation of the LTVP,” he said.
In ending the meeting May 14, Ontario ISG Senator Sabi Mar-wah, Internal Economy Commit-tee chair, stressed the importance of getting the LTVP subcommittee up and running “quicker than the others, because there are some very urgent issues that need to be dealt with.”
“I’m really worried about that; they’re moving at a pace that’s very, very fast and we’re going to get left behind if we don’t get up and running and voice our concerns and our issues quickly,” he said.
Sen. Tannas lamented the Senate’s “foot-dragging” at the start of the session and said it’s an “important” lesson to all that “when it’s time to do something, get it done.”
“There were a number of mo-ments over the last many months
where we had the opportunity to do something and let it slide and didn’t follow through. Right up until the moments before we ad-journed the Senate and all went home because of COVID, there was a day there where we could have populated committees and got things rolling. We chose not to do that, and I’m as much to blame as any of the other leaders in not insisting,” he said.
One thing Senators didn’t get on May 14 were cost estimates for the proposed design options, something MPs had requested in March. Quebec ISG Senator Marc Forest, a member of the Inter-nal Economy Committee, told the CBC he plans to ask Public Services Minister Anita Anand (Oakville, Ont.) to appear to explain the lack of such informa-tion.
That said, Mr. Wright indicated the department expects “some ad-ditional costs” to the project—as with others in the precinct—as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, noting industry estimates of a five per cent increase in site costs due to impacts on productivity, ad-ditional efforts to compartmental-ize work sites and add new wash stations and bathroom facilities, and to provide more personal protective equipment.
Senate office space a top concern in Centre Block reno: PSPC
With the number of Senators staying static, the Red Chamber will keep its existing footprint in Centre Block, Ms. Garrett con-firmed, but is set to lose capacity in its north and south visitors’ galleries.
As with the House Chamber, those steep galleries present “sig-nificant accessibility limitations” and do not meet modern codes, and to address that, she estimated the Senate will lose 25 per cent capacity, from 274 seats to rough-ly 200. The House is projected to lose even more capacity, from 578 seats to an estimated 316.
MPs are faced with tough deci-sions over how best to renovate the House of Commons Chamber to ensure it can accommodate fu-ture Parliaments, with it already having been stretched to fit in the existing 338 MPs. That number is expected to grow to around 460 in 50 years’ time.
By contrast, key decisions fac-ing Senators, as laid out by PSPC, relate to the size and location of Senators’ offices in Centre Block, and the size and operational capability of the Visitors’ Welcome Centre, along with the configura-tion of its entrances.
Currently, there are 25 Sena-tor office suites in Centre Block, excluding the Senate Speaker’s suites, but modern accommoda-tion standards require more space per office unit, said Ms. Garrett, and with limited space available in the Centre Block, and the need to accommodate other renovation
requirements, it will mean a re-duction in the number of offices.
Designers are currently “pursuing an opportunity” to add Senate offices to the sixth floor, which could allow space for 22 to 23 offices “based on current design test fits,” she said. On top of this, they’ve identified 600 square metres of “unused space” over the Hall of Honour, which “provides an opportunity to cre-ate new, shared touch-down space to support Parliamentarians who have offices outside the Centre Block.” As well, Ms. Garrett noted the Senate administration has asked PSPC to look into a partial or complete infill of Centre Block’s eastern-most courtyard to potentially fit in another six to nine Senate offices.
MPs will similarly see their of-fice space reduced, from 69 to an estimated 44, according to PSPC.
Adding to the crunch for space is the fact that committee room requirements have changed signifi-cantly. Senate standards now re-
quire all rooms to be broadcast- and video conferencing-capable, and in-clude support space for translation, TV control rooms, IT rooms, food services, cloakrooms, and furniture storage, noted Ms. Garrett.
The Senate has told PSPC it requires 10 broadcast-capable committee rooms. PSPC has said it’s taking a “campus approach” to accommodating this ask, looking at Centre Block, the VWC, the East Block, and Block 2 along Wellington Street—the overhaul of which is part of the next phase of the LTVP—to find space.
Mr. Wright noted that the planned architectural design com-petition for Block 2—bounded by Wellington and Sparks Streets, and Metcalfe and O’Connor Streets—would be launched soon; an advance procurement notice for the competition was first made public in January.
Among the decisions PSPC wants from Senators by this spring is whether or not—and if so, how—Parliamentarians will take part in the jury that will oversee this competition, and decisions on its requirements for the block.
As with MPs, PSPC presented three options for the final phase of the underground Visitors’ Wel-come Centre, the first phase of which was constructed alongside renovations to the West Block building. Once complete, the VWC will connect the West Block, Centre Block, and East Block underground and serve as the new public entrance for all three. The Senate has also requested a multi-purpose room to be located in the VWC; previous asks for an exercise room with showers and lockers and a separate cafeteria for Senators have since been scrapped.
The smallest option would allow for one large committee room for the Senate, along with “limited” parliamentary business and material-handling spaces, and a boutique and tour co-ordination space for the Library of Parlia-ment. The medium-sized option would also fit in a multimedia room, a multipurpose room, postal and printing services, three Senate committee rooms (one small, one medium, and one large), space for storage and Senate administra-tion offices, a “curated parliamen-tary program” for visitors, and a re-located Charles Lynch room for press conferences. The largest option would allow for all three committee rooms to be large.
As well, Senators have been asked to weigh in on entrance op-tions for the final VWC, specifically, whether to have one consolidated entrance for the entire complex, or separate entrances for the public and for House and Senate visitors, and whether to have the entrance(s) hug the Vaux Wall or extend further into Parliament Hill’s lawns.
Having three entrances would increase “operational costs,” but the Parliamentary Protective Service has indicated it’s “neu-tral from a security perspective” whether there are one or three, said Mr. Wright. He noted there currently isn’t “unanimity” be-tween the various stakeholders—the House, the Senate, the Library, and the PPS—on “which is best.”
Accessibility in general, from mobility to ensuring space for sign-language interpretation, was a top concern for Senators, who requested more details on an “accessibility working group” that Mr. Wright indicated PSPC is working with as it finalizes schematic design plans for Centre Block’s renovation.
[email protected] The Hill Times
The 1980 referendum campaign: a shining Canadian moment
Senate playing catch-up on Centre Block renovation plans, but Red Chamber’s footprint to remain untouched
Given the turbulence in the world over the last four decades, of war, genocide, recession, and now, COVID-19, only the smallest of minds think Quebec and Canada would have been better off with a ‘Oui’ in 1980.
‘We’re going to get left behind if we don’t get up and running and voice our concerns and our issues quickly,’ says ISG Senator Sabi Marwah of design plans for Centre Block’s renovation.
Comment News News
WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2020 | THE HILL TIMES THE HILL TIMES | WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2020
Centre Block reno Centre Block reno
Continued from page 1
The Centre Block building, as pictured on April 1. Public Services and Procurement Canada is working to finalize schematic design plans for Centre Block's renovation by late spring or early summer. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade
CSG Senator Scott Tannas, pictured tuning in for the the Senate Internal Economy’s virtual meeting on May 14. Screenshot courtesy of SenVu
PSPC assistant deputy minister Rob Wright, pictured May 14. Screenshot courtesy of SenVu
PSPC director general Jennifer Garrett, pictured May 14. Screenshot courtesy of SenVu
Andrew Caddell
With All Due Respect
Former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau pictured delivering a speech during the 1980 referendum. The 'Non' campaign won because we weren’t afraid to show a passion for Canada to counter the fervour of the indépendentistes, and we found compromises between the positions of a wide variety of parties, writes Andrew Caddell. Photographs courtesy of the Library and Archives Canada/Robert Cooper
14
down 12.5 per cent compared to April 2019. While most depart-ments saw their number rise, meetings with MPs and their staff were down 63 per cent, with only 384 communications reported compared to 1,039 in 2019. The re-verse was true the month before, when March communications with MPs and their staff went up 113 per cent, with 697 mentions compared to 328 in March 2019.
But the pace of communica-tions with other departments in April were almost all up, including Innovation by 34 per cent (mentioned in 268 reports), Finance Canada by 56 per cent (266), Natural Resources by 80 per cent (149), and Employment and Social Development Canada (up 142 per cent to 128 mentions). Health Minister Patty Hajdu’s (Thunder Bay-Superior North, Ont.) numbers dropped most no-tably, from 16 mentions in March down to two in early April, with the Canadian Medical Associa-tion and the Canadian Nurses Association.
Mr. O’Regan was the most-lobbied minister in March, men-tioned in 35 filings, and dropped down to second spot in April, with 28, behind Innovation Minis-ter Navdeep Bains’ (Mississauga-Malton, Ont.) 30. Mr. O’Regan’s April dance card is full of those in the oil and gas sector, as well as business and forestry, includ-ing several mentions from the Canadian Association of Petro-leum Producers, Cenovus Energy Inc., Chevron Canada Limited, ExxonMobil Canada Ltd., and the International Union of Operating Engineers.
Mr. Wilkinson, meanwhile remained the third most-lobbied in April and March, with 22 and 23 mentions, respectively. The organizations that reached out include oil and forestry compa-nies, universities, and groups like Ducks Unlimited Canada, the David Suzuki Foundation, CARE Canada, the Canadian Steel Producers Association, Chemistry Industry Association of Canada, and Woodfibre LNG.
Neither are regulars at the government’s daily briefings, but as The Canadian Press reported,
Mr. Wilkinson and his predeces-sor, now-Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna (Ottawa Centre, Ont.), have been “quietly” working on a recovery program that could zero in on clean tech and climate change.
It made sense to reach out in March to the B.C. MP and former fisheries minister because there are so many common interests, said Lasse Gustavsson, CEO of Ocean Wise Conservation As-sociation, which is headquartered at the Vancouver Aquarium and has more than 40 scientists work-ing in its research and education program.
After closing its doors in March, the aquarium lost 85 per cent of its revenue and cut 65 per cent of its staff. “It’s clear” it is dependent on government support for its survival and was making that case in recent meetings, he said.
He echoed the assessment of other environment groups pushing for green programs to form the bulk of the govern-ment’s recovery efforts. One new ad-vocacy group focused on green recovery, called the Task Force for Resil-ient Recovery, the CBC reported, includes Gerald Butts, the former chief adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Que.).
Governments have more li-cense now to push transformation in a moment like this, said Mr. Gustavsson.
“In crisis, as a politician you have permission to do things that were more difficult before the criticism,” he said. “We will toler-ate the change.”
Elliot Hughes, a senior ad-viser at Summa Strategies who previously worked in the Liberal finance and defence minister’s offices, said he sees these minis-ters as popular points of contact, in part, because this moment is “an inflection point” for where Canada proceeds on climate.
There’s clearly going to be “a before and after” with the econ-omy, and with so much money already being spent on Canada’s COVID-19 response, it “makes the decisions on what money is being spent after the crisis really crucial,” said Mr. Hughes, as an indication of what the govern-ment is going to get behind to drive the economic recovery.
In “a strange way,” he said he sees the approach to the pandem-ic and climate change as similar, because it’s difficult to see what’s hurting us and causing economic hardship, but the evidence is ever-present and demands response.
“I very much think the two are linked in that the next normal economy for Canada, it’s going to be a green economy,” he said, and the only question is how quickly the change comes.
Offering a similar comparison, Mr. Gustavsson said COVID-19 brings a lesson that the better prepared Canada is for disrup-tion, “the less chaos we will have.” The ocean, as the largest active carbon sink on Earth and where Ocean Wise focuses the bulk of its research, is a key component in the fight against climate change, he added.
“This is just a rehearsal for the big transformation that we need to go through. There’s a couple things we can learn: deep change is possible and it can happen fast,” he said. “This was not a choice.
We didn’t move into dealing with COVID-19 because we were well prepared and we wanted to.”
Greg D’Avignon, president of the Business Council of B.C. (BCBC), said after the pandemic Canada will have to “fight for every nickel of GDP growth and every job we can recreate” in a world that’s going to be hyper-competitive.
“This is an opportunity to rethink and reimagine Canada in a competitive global world that’s going to be more isolated with shorter supply chains,” said Mr. D’Avignon, whose group met with Mr. Wilkinson in March and April.
“If the world’s going to consume en-ergy, we need to posi-tion ourselves so they consume Canadian energy,” like lique-fied natural gas in B.C., he said, point-ing to the group’s Low Carbon Indus-trial Strategy which argues B.C. products, on average, represent half the greenhouse gas intensity of prod-ucts sold elsewhere, and thus are a better choice for the envi-ronment.
He dismissed as “ridiculous” the dec-laration that the oil
patch is “dead” by Green parlia-mentary leader Elizabeth May (Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.) and Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-Fran-çois Blanchet (Beloeil-Chambly, Que.), adding lowering the carbon economy is possible but this ap-proach is just “aspirational.”
This disruption has shown the government can work at greater speed, but that doesn’t mean add-ing to processes, which he said has put Canada behind in competitive-ness. For example, the government delayed bringing in planned regu-lations for the Clean Fuel Standard.
BCBC was also among busi-ness groups arguing for delaying the implementation of anything that would bring “uncertainty or added business cost.”
There’s already too much un-certainty and limited cash flow for
most businesses, including those in the “devastated” oil sector and those expected to go in the field to do the environmental assess-ment work, added Mr. D’Avignon, who also updated Mr. Wilkinson its recent polls, asking more than 1,300 businesses about federal programs and the impact of the coronavirus. More than half of the businesses were temporarily shut down and 38 per cent wondered if they would reopen, he said.
It appears Canada is “getting ready to pivot to recovery,” said Derek Nighbor, president of the Forest Products Association of Canada, and that brings forward questions about stimulus spend-ing and green infrastructure. The industry has “embraced the green agenda,” he said, but there needs to be smart regulation so Canada can move to quickly recover.“We can’t be layering burdensome tax requirements” on businesses “fighting for their lives,” he said, and this moment calls for a “pru-dent and thoughtful approach” to regulatory policy frameworks to avoid unintended consequences.
Mr. Nighbor said he’s been impressed by the volume of work and speed of the government’s response to date, noting there’ve been waves to the group’s advoca-cy over the course of the pandemic.
The first was around the forestry sector’s essential service designation, given wood chips from sawmills go to pulp mills for key products like masks and gowns, toilet paper, and sanitary wipes. It was important to raise awareness with officials about the sector and keeping the Canada-U.S. border open to trade. The next wave was focused on health and safety, he added, noting many of their members freed up per-sonal protective equipment from their operations to address gaps in local hospitals, and now he said the focus is on liquidity and cash flow support for businesses.
The International Union of Op-erating Engineers had two meet-ings with Mr. O’Regan, since the sector where its members have been affected have been those working in the oil industry.
The pandemic and an “ill-timed pricing war” has made it “a perfect storm when it comes to that in-dustry,” said the union’s Canadian director, Lionel Railton.
As for the pandemic being a moment to shift direction on Can-ada’s climate response, his focus is on “just transition” for the thou-sands who work in the industry.
“It’s really more about iden-tifying how those workers have been impacted and then talking to the government about what systems or joint programs we can bring to bear to help train the workers who are being displaced,” he said, adding he still sees some life in the oil and gas sector, with projects like the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion still in the works.
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Environment, resource development agenda among April’s top-lobbied files ‘Deep change is possible and it can happen fast,’ says the CEO of Ocean Wise Conservation Association, which helped push the environment minister to be among the most-lobbied in cabinet in the last two months.
News
WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2020 | THE HILL TIMES
Lobbying
Continued from page 1
Over the last two months in lobbying, Natural Resources Minister Seamus O'Regan and Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, have both cracked the top three in cabinet. The Hill Times photographs by Andrew Meade
Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains was the most lobbied minister in April. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade
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for the oil sector to come back to where it was prior to the economic fallout from the pandemic, “if at all.”
In response to a follow-up question from CBC’s Julie Van Dusen, Ms. May then remarked that “oil is dead,” and that “for people in the sector, it’s very important that there be just-transition funds, that there be strategies that go to every worker, every community.”
In an interview with The Hill Times on May 15, Ms. May, the Green’s parliamen-tary leader, said what she was referring to in that exchange “was that there’s no point in imagining that it makes any sense for the federal government to try to bail out any company operating in the oil sands, because there is no saving them.”
“The disruptive technology is here—the fact that in a pandemic, when demand for everything is down, even against those headwinds, demand for renewable en-ergy is up,” said Ms. May, referring to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) recent report anticipating a five per cent increase in demand for renewable energy in 2020, and that a full 30 per cent of electricity around the world will be generated from renewable energy by year’s end.
Renewable energy has so far been the energy source most resilient to COVID-19 lockdown measures, according to the report, which also finds that a faster global economic recovery would have a “minimal impact” on renewable energy production, “though it would enable more new renew-ables-based projects to be completed.”
“If recovery is slower, renewable energy would still increase, making renewables
the energy source the most resilient to the COVID-19 current crisis,” according to the report.
Oil price futures plummeted dramatical-ly on April 20, with the West Texas Interme-diate (WTI) benchmark closing in negative territory at -$37.63 a barrel. The WTI, the main oil benchmark for North America, closed at $31.82 on May 18. Brent crude dropped to $19.33 a barrel on April 21, and closed at $34.81 a barrel on May 18.
“When you have a product, where the break-even point is far higher than the price you can get for the foreseeable future, and by the time you might get any kind of demand for that product, nobody wants it, so putting money into oil sands as a strategy to help rebuild our economy post-pandemic is a huge loser,” said Ms. May. “I don’t know when it will occur to Trudeau and his cabinet that continuing to build the Trans Mountain Pipeline as a Canadian government operation, that will cost us $10- to $12-billion more than it already has makes no sense at all.”
Ms. May said “we have an amazing chance to do a really large societal re-think.”
“The only thing I regret about reac-tion to what I said was the idea that I was being unkind to Alberta—I want people in Alberta to have good jobs, I want people in Alberta’s economy to come back,” said Ms. May. “If you want people to come back, you don’t hand them a life preserver made of concrete.”
Asked by reporters to respond to Ms. May’s comment on May 7, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Que.) said he didn’t “share that assessment.”
“As we move forward towards a differ-ent energy mix, as we move forward to lower fossil-fuel emissions, lower green-house gas emissions, we need the innova-tion, the hard work, and the vision and the creativity of people working right now in the energy sector,” he said.
Economic recovery about ‘building resiliency for the long term’
Sarah Petrevan, policy director at Clean Energy Canada, said the stage is set for the government to back renewable projects as an important piece in Canada’s economic recovery following the pandemic.
“Economic recovery is about building resiliency for the long term, and when you
start looking at those efforts, you can cer-tainly achieve multiple objectives through that,” said Ms. Petrevan. “Job creation, clean tech innovation, economic diversification, cutting pollution, just making Canada gen-erally more resilient.”
“That is certainly a piece where I could see renewables playing a role,” said Ms. Petrevan.
Her organization is one of 260 signa-tories to an open letter representing 2,098 companies asking the government to pursue a “resilient recovery” by committing to a three-part recovery plan that would see stimulus investment in Canada’s clean energy sector, expand existing clean en-ergy initiatives and programs, and clearly signal the country will continue to expand on environmental policies.
Stephen Cornish, CEO of the David Suzuki Foundation, told The Hill Times that there’s a once-in-a-generation opportunity with mid- and long-term stimulus to build the type of economy that he wants to see.
“I think it’s important that we not only look sector by sector, but look across the economy from a systems view to see how the investments of today will put us in good stead for tomorrow and make our economy and our country more resilient, more regional, more equitable, and better able to face future shocks down the road,” said Mr. Cornish.
The West is already the energy capital of Canada, but also has everything it needs to remain the energy capital of Canada well into the future, according to Mr. Cor-nish.
“We know that Regina has the same solar potential as Mexico, we know that geothermal capacity in Alberta has only scratched the surface, they have the trained workforce from welders to pipe fitters—they have the know-how to get these things done,” said Mr. Cornish. “It would be really amazing to see solar and geo-thermal leap over natural gas to head towards the hydrogen fuel cells of tomorrow.”
Canada tried to rebuild the same economy it already had in place following the 2008 recession, said Mr. Cornish, with only a few strings attached to bailouts for the auto industry.
“And one of the reasons our manufac-turing sector in Canada is not competitive is because of our high energy costs,” said Mr. Cornish. “So if we go to renewables and drive our energy costs down, then that opens up a whole area for manufacturing and for jobs, and there could be stipula-tions on some of this funding that it be linked to made-in-Canada production.”
Economy has ‘significant amount of activity’ pinned to hydrocarbons
Aaron Henry, senior director of natural resources and sustainable growth at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, recently penned a piece arguing that those
calling for the recent “oil price meltdown” to be used as a catalyst to drive Canada’s renewable energy transition are “invest-ing in a false flag,” and that climate policy goals will actually be hampered without federal liquidity support for the oil and gas sector.
“We are an economy which has a sig-nificant amount of activity pinned to our hydrocarbons, so it’s a real question of how can we actually leverage that asset in the best possible way, while also actually continuing to build opportunities of it,” said Mr. Henry in a May 19 interview with The Hill Times. “There certainly is a lot that can happen in terms of both clean technology [and] improving the overall health of the renewable ecosystem in Canada as it gets connected to our hydrocarbons and man-aging that emission intensity.”
Mr. Henry said Canada is looking at a pathway that is going to involve significant transformation and that the process will require more than asking people to simply change their consumption habits. “The reality is, the energy systems already are integrated,” he said, and, “in many respects, Canada’s recent climate policy pieces have increased that integration.”
“We’re looking at an energy system that is fully integrated throughout all aspects of society, and this is where I think that’s where we’ve sort of lost sight,” said Mr. Henry, who added that when comments like “oil is dead” are made, “you’re really overlooking the fact that these players who are generally driving these major invest-ments, to investing in these technologies, are oil and gas producers that are becom-ing increasingly integrated.”
“What they are asking for here is an opportunity to demonstrate that leadership, so if we’re going to think about a clean technology-led, infrastructure-led recovery, then they need to be involved and given the tools to [do so],” said Mr. Henry.
The Liberals’ climate change plan contains more than 50 different measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while ensuring Canadians seize the economic op-portunities that can be enabled by a transi-tion to a low-carbon future, according to a press release from Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson (North Vancouver, B.C.) on Earth Day, April 22.
“We are investing in clean energy, build-ing greener communities, expanding public transit, phasing out coal power, introducing new standards so our cars run on cleaner fuels, banning harmful single-use plastics, investing in clean technology, and more,” according to Mr. Wilkinson.
The environment minister also told The Canadian Press on May 15 that although the government’s plan on banning some single-use plastics will likely be delayed, the governments remains firmly committed to its environmental agenda.
[email protected] Hill Times
Oil demand drop, renewable energy resiliency prompts calls for federal clean energy investment in economic recovery Demand for renewable energy is set to increase in 2020, according to the International Energy Agency. ‘We have an amazing chance to do a really large societal rethink,’ says Green Party MP Elizabeth May.
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THE HILL TIMES | WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2020
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Continued from page 1
Green Party MP Elizabeth May, left, Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, right. Ms. May says ‘the disruptive technology is here—the fact that, in a pandemic, when demand for everything is down, even against those headwinds, demand for renewable energy is up.’ The Hill Times photographs by Andrew Meade
16
seen an increase corresponding with the novel coronavirus, she said she expects they will come.
Ms. Maynard said she’s worried the system and government isn’t prepared for an increase in access re-quests that often accompany a crisis.
It’s “ridiculous,” for example, that some offices are printing documents they have electroni-cally to process in the access sys-tem—just one of the limitations she’s heard is causing delays.
While her team was fully operational when they moved to work-from-home in March, that wasn’t the case for many gov-ernment institutions, she noted, which will likely translate to more complaints to her office.
A “serious message” needs to come from Treasury Board Presi-dent Jean-Yves Duclos (Québec, Que.) directing departments to start thinking about innovations to respond to access files and calling for more information to be proac-tively disclosed. In an April 28 letter, she warned of the impact of chronic underfunding, according to The Canadian Press, which reported the government is eyeing new technol-ogy to clear the backlog.
All government operations have been impacted by COVID-19 and the Treasury Board Secretariat has given “guidance” for institutions to make “best efforts” to respond to such requests and proactively pub-lish information, “in accordance with operational realities,” said spokesper-son Martin Potvin by email.
He said Mr. Duclos appreci-ated Ms. Maynard’s feedback and has committed to making COVID-related information available, and when workplace restrictions begin to be lifted, outstanding requests will be addressed.
Asked about the backlog, Mr. Potvin didn’t provide any numbers but said the secretariat is looking into new technologies to ease any backlog due to the pandemic, and at what “tools and capacities” ATIP offices need to improve their abil-ity to process requests remotely.
With her office’s annual report due this month, an upcoming man-datory parliamentary review of the access law, and predictions that CO-
VID-19 will add to the backlog, The Hill Times spoke with Ms. Maynard about how the system is working. This interview has been edited for grammar, clarity, and length.
You sent a letter to Minister Du-clos [on April 28], saying that the COVID-19 has put the system in a critical phase that may soon be beyond repair. What do you see happening?
“Historically, we’ve seen anytime there’s a crisis, there’s an increase in access requests. What I’m wor-ried about is we already have a very busy and overwhelmed access system in all depart-ments, and now that all of the departments are working from home, a lot of them are work-ing on issues related to COVID.
“I’m really worried. Canadians, they need answers, and they are asking for more and more information, so they won’t stop. And it’s their right. I just want them to realize that it’s going to be probably an increase in requests, and they should be ready for that, which I don’t think right now we are.”
Have you received a response and what action do you think is required?
“The President of the Treasury Board confirmed that he is aware [and] from his remarks I under-stand he was aware of the serious-ness of the situation. I think we need a message from him and from our prime minister—a seri-ous message from the leaders—to all the institutions for them to start thinking about innovations and more information being proactive-ly disclosed … really providing an open and transparent [system].
“That should be a big oppor-tunity right now, when there’s a crisis like this, to give the infor-
mation without waiting for it to be asked. I think they need also to start thinking about new tools, new technology, new ways of communicating with Canadians.”
Some agencies still aren’t accept-ing requests or saying they’re on hold. We’re now two months into this pandemic, do you think there’s a responsibility to adopt some of those innovative techniques now and does it concern you that responses aren’t happening?
“Actually, the [Access to Information] Act doesn’t allow institutions to suspend applica-
tion requests and I’m a little wor-ried about these types of answers and I’ve made the Treasury Board president aware of that, too. I want him to remind institutions of their obligation and responsi-bilities under the act. I think it’s interesting that people don’t have access to emails or electronic documents. You would think that in 2020, most people are work-ing, in the new age, electroni-cally. What I’m told is that a lot of institutions are still printing documents that they have elec-tronically to process it through the access software. So that’s one of the limitations that they have, which, I think, it’s ridiculous.”
From what you observed, how has the coronavirus affected the backlogs that are being reported?
“We haven’t heard anything because I don’t have access to the administration of it. Treasury Board is the one that [has] that information. We know they’re doing a survey every week with institutions asking them how many are fully operating and what kind of limitations they have. We’ve seen, on our end, an increase in responses to our requests for complaints. Some institutions took a little longer to connect their employees from home.
“Because of that, yes, it’s going to affect the backlog for sure. The access units were already over-whelmed. There was a lack of resources and I think that when they go back—if they were not fully operating—that’s definitely going to affect them.”
How has it affected your volume? Do you have a percentage increase over the last month or so?
“The complaints have not increased. In the last two years, we’ve had an increase in administra-tive complaints, mainly related to the [Immigra-
tion, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada] … so that hasn’t slowed down, but comparing to last year, the complaints number seems to be very similar. But I suspect that a lot of people haven’t received a response yet. So I suspect we’ll see an increase in the next few months.”
You’ve already in the last year de-scribed funding to your office as a stop-gap approach. How much new funding would you recom-mend for it to stop being a stop-gap? And what would you like your permanent budget to sit at?
“Right now what I’m asking is, at least, to give it to me [fund-
ing] on a permanent basis, at a minimum, the same amount that we received in the last four years, which is $3-million a year. Ide-ally, I would get more than that because then I can also innovate and, and make [better] processes and hire more investigators. But if I was to get the money, at least on a permanent basis, I could keep my investigators that I hire, I could have a longer plan.”
So ideally, how much would you like?“I don’t think I can say how
much I asked [the government for]. Forty-five investigators would be what I would need to start maintaining the rhythm of the complaints that are coming in and going at the backlog so that we could reduce it and not overwhelm institutions with our own requests. Because that’s the issue that we have, too—even if I have, let’s say $8-million, and I can hire 100 inves-tigators, institutions are not going to be able to sustain my requests.”
How many investigators do you have now?
“Right now we have 62.”
There’s an upcoming manda-tory parliamentary review of the access law. How do you think it’s working and do you recommend any changes?
“We haven’t heard anything ex-cept that Mr. Duclos has confirmed that it’s going to be started this summer before the anniversary date, which is June 21, and he’s confirmed that my office will be consulted, so that’s great news. We have started a little working group looking at the act to prepare for this and we will present recommendations to Parliament and to the government, mainly with respect to timelines and exemptions and exclusions that we think need to be reviewed.
“One example is the cabinet confidences, and the fact that we are not allowed to see the docu-ments. I think that we should be allowed to see it.”
Your office’s annual report is also due soon. What are some high-lights on the year?
“I’m trying to come up with a brand new look and feel, like add-ing more information about dif-ferent institutions, good practices, lessons learned.”
How many outstanding com-plaints are there?
“At least 5,000.”
That’s up from about 3,000 last year.“I think we finished with 5,500
complaints closed, and that was a record for the office. But we received over 6,000 new cases, so my inventory keeps going up.”
Given that, how is our system working? Is it broken? How would you describe it?
“It’s definitely in need of love. We need three things: we need in-vestments in resources and money; we need innovation in new systems; and we need a new culture. We defi-nitely need the leaders to show that they are believing in openness and transparency so that the govern-ment switches from a secretive type of culture to an open and transpar-ent culture. This is the thing that I think Canadians deserve.”
[email protected] The Hill Times
Canada’s information czar says feds need to send ‘serious message’ about access innovation amid COVID-19Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard says the limitations some departments are facing to fill access requests, like needing to print out electronic documents, are ‘ridiculous.’
News
WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2020 | THE HILL TIMES
Access to information
Continued from page 1
Caroline Maynard says her office already has at least 5,000 outstanding complaints—up 49 per cent from the 3,300 reported to end last year. The Hill Times photograph by Sam Garcia
The President of the Treasury Board Jean-Yves Duclos is aware of the ‘seriousness of the situation,’ with access delays, according to the information commissioner. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade
AN APARTMENT NEAR PARLIAMENT HILL—International Development
Minister Karina Gould has added a press secretary to her ministerial team, with Guillaume Dumas taking on the role in March.
Mr. Dumas previously spent a year, from August 2018 to August 2019, as a press and public affairs officer with the of-fice of the Consulate General of France in Toronto, as noted on his LinkedIn profile.
Since then, he’s been a bilingual writer and editor for Elections Canada on an as-needed—or casual—basis, and in Febru-ary, served as a revision deputy returning officer for Elections Ontario for the Feb. 27 provincial byelections in Ottawa-Vanier and Orléans. Both ridings were ultimately held by Ontario Liberals.
Mr. Dumas has previously spent five months each working as a social media officer for the European Parliament, as an assistant to the press officer of the Canadian Embassy in Paris, France, and as a writer for the Federation of Canadian
Municipalities. He’s also spent less than a year as a communications aide with the Regional Council of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and later as a communications aide with the commune of Sainte-Foy-Lès-Lyon in France, amongst other past roles.
In Ms. Gould’s office, he’s working under the minister’s director of communi-cations, Louis Bélanger, who also currently oversees special assistant for communica-tions Margaret Jaques.
Samantha Smitiuch has also recently been brought on board the international development minister’s team as a senior adviser for operations.
Ms. Smitiuch was previously working on the Hill as an assistant to Ms. Gould in her office as the Liberal MP for Burlington, Ont., having moved to Ottawa from Toronto at the beginning of 2019 to do so. Before then, she’d been working as a Liberal staffer at Queen’s Park, last as a regional adviser for the southwest in the Ontario Liberal caucus services office.
A graduate of Queen’s University, Ms. Smitiuch is also a former operations adviser to then-education minister Mitzie Hunter, having also previously done op-erations work for then-finance minister Dwight Duncan and then-energy minister Bob Chiarelli, and is a former executive assistant to then-parliamentary secre-
tary to Ontario’s health minister Indira Naidoo-Harris and a former president of the Ontario Young Liberals, as listed on her LinkedIn page.
Sher Rodrigo is director of operations to Ms. Gould.
Geoffroi Montpetit remains chief of staff in the international development minister’s office, as previously reported. The team also currently includes: Hanna Button, director of policy; Helen Gao, policy adviser; Matthew Hall, policy ad-viser; Russell Milon, director of parliamen-tary affairs; David Frank-Savoie, special assistant; and ministerial driver Shawn Sylvestre.
Simard exits Innovation Minister Bains’ office
Innovation, Science, and Industry Minister Navdeep Bains is in need of a new lead media contact following the recent exit of Véronique Simard.
Ms. Simard marked her last day in the minister’s office, and on the Hill, on May 15, and is set to join the private sector.
Ms. Simard joined Mr. Bains’ office as a senior adviser for communications and media relations, serving as his de facto press secretary, in December, after the cabinet shuffle that followed the 2019 fed-eral election. Before then, she’d been press secretary to then-employment minister Patty Hajdu for a little more than a year and a half.
During the election, Ms. Simard was part of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s leader’s tour advance team, travelling ahead of the Liberal leader to scope out locations and plan events.
A former assistant consultant with Hill and Knowlton Strategies, Ms. Simard first began working on Parliament Hill in April 2016, starting as an assistant to Liberal MP Steven MacKinnon, who’s represented Gatineau, Que., since 2015. A year later, she joined the Prime Minister’s Office as executive assistant to then-executive direc-tor of communications and planning Kate Purchase; she left the top office in May 2018 to join Ms. Hajdu’s team.
Ms. Simard no doubt had a strange and busy last few months on the Hill, with her boss, Mr. Bains, tasked with helping with the re-tooling of industries in Canada to address needs arising from the COVID-19 pandemic—like increased demand for personal protective equipment and hand sanitizer—among other things. Mr. Bains is part of the special cabinet committee on COVID-19 and has been part of a number of ministerial briefings over recent weeks, with Ms. Simard having been spotted ac-companying him.
Parliamentary affairs and issues man-agement adviser Alexander Jagric has stepped in as acting press secretary to Mr. Bains as of May 18. He similarly joined Mr. Bains’ team in December and before then had been working for Transport Minister Marc Garneau since January 2016, ending as a senior special assistant for issues management and communications.
Vanessa Hage-Moussa is director of communications to Mr. Bains and currently also oversees communications advisers Mollie Anderson and Shauna Roddey.
Ryan Dunn is chief of staff to the in-novation minister. The team of political staffers supporting Mr. Bains also cur-rently includes: Sarah Hussaini, policy director; Parvinder Sachdeva, deputy policy director; Celine Caira, policy adviser; Lambert Lorrain, policy adviser; Marco Chan, policy adviser; Michael Power, director of parliamentary affairs; Sam Eberlee, parliamentary affairs and issues management adviser; Tasha Ismail, director of operations; Theresa McMa-nus, operations adviser; and Timothy Logan, special assistant for B.C. regional affairs.
There are also two parliamentary secre-tary assistants on board: Amanda Woodley who supports Liberal MP Will Amos as parliamentary secretary for science and is also a special assistant for policy to Mr. Bains; and Sean Matthew O’Neill, who’s an assistant to Liberal MP Ali Ehsassi as the parliamentary secretary for innovation and industry.
[email protected] Hill Times
Meanwhile, Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains recently bade farewell to his lead media contact, Véronique Simard.
THE HILL TIMES | WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2020
by Laura Ryckewaert
hill climbers
17
New press secretary in International Development Minister Gould’s office
International Development Minister Karina Gould, pictured during the Before Times at a European Union Day reception at the National Arts Centre on May 8, 2019, with EU Ambassador to Canada Peteris Ustubs. The Hill Times photograph by Sam Garcia
Guillaume Dumas is press secretary to the international development minister. Photograph courtesy of LinkedIn
Samantha Smitiuch is now a senior adviser for operations to Ms. Gould. Photograph courtesy of LinkedIn
Innovation, Science, and Industry Minister Navdeep Bains, pictured at a ministerial briefing on COVID-19 in the West Block on March 20. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade
Véronique Simard, pictured along with other cabinet staffers at a March 20 ministerial briefing on COVID-19 in the West Block building. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade
Alexander Jagric is now acting press secretary to Mr. Bains. Photograph courtesy of LinkedIn
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WEDNESDAY, MAY 20House Not Sitting—The House has been
suspended until Monday, May 25, and the spring schedule is still not confirmed due to the global pandemic. However, during this adjournment time, a Special COVID-19 Pandemic Committee has been established, composed of all members of the House, to meet on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. The Wednesday meeting will be in per-son, while the Tuesday and Thursday sessions will be held virtually. As per the original sitting calendar, if the House resumes on May 25, it will sit for four weeks, until its scheduled adjournment on June 23, but none of this has been confirmed yet. The House was also scheduled to adjourn again for three months and to return in the fall on Monday, Sept. 21, for three straight weeks. It was scheduled to adjourn for one week and to sit again from Oct. 19 until Nov. 6. It was scheduled to break again for one week and to sit again from Nov. 16 to Dec. 11. And that would be it for 2020. We’ll update you once the House calendar has been confirmed.
Senate Not Sitting—The Senate has extended its suspension due to the COVID-19 virus until June 2. The June possible sitting days were June 1, 5, 8, 12, 15, and 19. The Senate was sched-uled to sit June 2-4; June 9-11; June 16-18; and June 22, 23, it was scheduled to break on June 24 for St. Jean Baptiste Day; and it was scheduled to sit June 25 and June 26. The Senate was scheduled to break from June 29 until Sept. 22. The Senate’s possible September sitting days are Sept. 21, 25, 28. It’s scheduled to sit Sept. 22-24 and Sept. 29-Oct. 1, with a possible sitting day on Friday, Oct. 2. The possible Senate sitting days are Oct. 5, 9, 19, 23, 26, and 30. It’s scheduled to sit Oct. 6-8; it takes a break from Oct. 12-16; it will sit Oct. 20-22; and Oct. 27-29. The November possible Senate days are: Nov. 2, 6, 16, 20, 23, 27, 30. It’s scheduled to sit Nov. 3-5; it will take a break from Nov. 9-13; it will sit Nov. 17-19; and Nov. 24-26. The possible December Senate sitting days are: Dec. 4, 7, and 11. The Senate is scheduled to sit Dec. 1-3; Dec. 8-10 and it will sit Dec. 14-18. We’ll also update you once the Senate calendar has been confirmed.
Keeping Food on the Table—The C.D. Howe Institute hosts a webinar on “Keeping Food On the Table: COVID-19 and the Canadian Food Supply Chain,” featuring Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, professor, food distribution and policy, Dalhousie University; Keith Currie, president, Ontario Federation of Agriculture; and Barry Sawyer, national council vice-president, United Food and Commercial Workers of Canada. C.D. Howe Institute members and their guests can register online for the event, which takes place Wednes-day, May 20, from 12:30-1:30 p.m.
Policies for the Great Global Shutdown and Beyond—Bank of Canada Deputy Governor Timothy Lane will deliver remarks on “Policies for the Great Global Shut-down and Beyond” at a videoconference hosted by the CFA Society Winnipeg and the Manitoba Association for Business Economics, on Wednesday, May 20, at 2 p.m. EST. A webcast of the speech will be available on the Bank of Canada’s website.
FRIDAY, MAY 22Implementing Financial Sector Policy Reforms
in Africa— By implementing policy and insti-tutional reforms such as the establishment of a new capital requirement for banks and the revocation of licenses of insolvent financial institutions, Ghana has accomplished what arguably amounts to the most sweeping clean-up of financial services in the nation’s history. Dr. Ernest Addison, Governor of the Bank of Ghana, will deliver remarks on “Implementing Financial Sector Policy Reforms in Africa,” a webinar hosted by McGill University as part of a Max Bell School MPP Complexity Seminar with Nii Addy. Friday, May 22, at 11 a.m. Register online.
An Afternoon with Rick Hansen— Be part of history as Rick Hansen donates the entire collection from his Man In Motion World Tour to the Canadian Museum of History. It will become part of the National Collec-tion, preserved for its significance to Canada. In con-versation with Dr. Jenny Ellison, curator of Sports and Leisure, Hansen will share behind-the-scenes stories of the Man In Motion World Tour and reflect upon key artifacts that shaped his journey. Join live on the museum’s Facebook and YouTube pages on Friday, May 22 at 2 p.m. After the event, visit Museum at Home to view the discussion and dig deeper into the Man In Motion World Tour Collection.
Senators at Home: Honing in on the National Autism Strategy—The Canadian Autism Spectrum Disorder Alliance hosts a webinar, “Senators at Home: Honing in on the National Autism Strategy.” Senators Jim Munson, Leo Housakos, Wanda Thomas Bernard, and Peter Boehm will discuss the what and why that should underlie the National Autism Strategy. Friday, May 22, from 3-4 p.m. (This event was postponed from May 15.) Register via Eventbrite.
TUESDAY, MAY 26The Implementation of CUSMA: Relevance
Post-COVID-19— The ratification of CUSMA is experiencing delays but is still on the horizon for Canada, the United States and Mexico. Join the C.D. Howe Institute to hear Mexico’s Undersec-retary of Foreign Trade, Luz María de la Mora present on the new trade deal’s implementation and fostering a more prosperous relationship be-tween Mexico and Canada. C.D. Howe Institute members and their guests can register online for the event, which takes place Tuesday, May 26, from 12:30-1:30 p.m.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 27Looking Through the Retro-Scope—Former pre-
mier of British Columbia Christy Clark will speak on “Looking Through the Retro-Scope,” exploring why policy makers missed so many opportunities to prepare for the pandemic, and why governments frequently fail to learn from history, hosted by McGill University, at 4:30 p.m. Register online.
THURSDAY, MAY 28–SATURDAY, JUNE 6 Hot Docs Festival Online—Hot Docs will be pre-
sented online this year because of the pandemic, from May 28 to June 6. Introduced at the 2017 Hot Docs Festival, the $50,000 award and cash prize have traditionally been given to the Canadian feature documentary screened at the Hot Docs Festival that receives the highest average rating as determined by audience poll. This year, the award will honour the top five Canadian documentaries in the audience poll and will present each direc-tor with a cash prize of $10,000. The Hot Docs Festival Online will offer more than 135 official selections for at-home audiences to stream directly from www.hotdocs.ca on its recently launched Hot Docs at Home TVOD platform. Although the festival wraps on June 6, a majority of films will be available for extended post-festival viewing until June 24. The film lineup is available at www.hotdocs.ca/festivalonline.
The Parliamentary Calendar is a free events listing. Send in your political, cultural, diplo-matic, or governmental event in a paragraph with all the relevant details under the subject line ‘Parliamentary Calendar’ to [email protected] by Wednesday at noon before the Monday paper or by Friday at noon for the Wednesday paper. We can’t guarantee inclusion of every event, but we will definitely do our best. Events can be updated daily online, too.
The Hill Times
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Events
THE HILL TIMES | WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2020
Extra! Extra! Read the full Parliamentary Calendar online
Parties of the pastThe Hill Times photographs by Sam Garcia
With COVID-19 putting a pause on diplomatic gatherings in Ottawa, The Hill Times is offering a look back with (some never-before-seen) images of celebrations and special
events that have occurred at this time in years past.
Cameroon marks 50 years of ties with Canada
Azerbaijan throws independence day fête
Ottawa welcomes new Haitian leader
Cameroon High Commissioner Solomon Anu’a-Gheyle Azoh-Mbi gives a speech at a May 23, 2012, party marking his country’s national day and 50 years of diplomatic relations with Canada.
Jillian Stirk, then-Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade assistant deputy minister for Europe, shares a toast with Mr. Azoh-Mbi.
Michael Smith, then-high commissioner for the Bahamas, looks on as his wife, Suzanne Smith, greets Mr. Anu’a-Gheyle Azoh-Mbi and his wife, Mercy Azoh Mbi.
Then-Zimbabwean Ambassador Florence Chideya and Mr. Shafiyev.
The Hill Times Publisher Anne Marie Creskey is greeted by then-Ambassador of Azerbaijan Farid Shafiyev and his wife, Ulkar Shafiyeva at the country’s national day party on May 14, 2012.
Then-Lithuanian Ambassador Ginte Damusis and then-Swedish Ambassador Teppo Tauriainen.
Esprit de Corps publisher Scott Taylor greets Mr. Shafiyev and Ms. Shafiyev.
Then-Haitian president-elect Réné Préval and then-Governor General Michaëlle Jean attend a reception in honour of Mr. Préval’s honour on April 30, 2006.
Then-Foreign Minister Peter McKay, former MP Barbara Jean McDougall and Mr. Préval.
Then-Argentinian Ambassador Arturo Bothamley, then-Haitian Ambassador Robert H. Tippenhauer, and Mr. Préval.
Special COVID-19 committee meets in House on May 20 as scheduled adjournment end looms
Parliamentary Calendar
Inside Ottawa includes:• Federal riding profiles • MP contact details, both Hill and constituency• House committee clerks and membership• Senators’ contact details and committee membership• Current photos in colour• Prime Minister’s Office and Privy Council Office staff contacts• Ministers’ offices staff contacts• Speaker’s office contacts• Committee charts with current photos• List of shadow cabinet and opposition critics• Key political, government and media contacts• Sitting calendar 2020• Renumeration• Session tip sheet
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