Breton: Forty years later, we’re due for another big rethink about Canada’s future

2025/03/24 Leave a comment

Agree:

…So why don’t we do them anymore?

The last major policy-focused one was the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (1991-96), chaired by Georges Erasmus and René Dussault. The five-volume RCAP report remains an influential document, brimming with extensive research backed by years of consultations.

Even if the report’s central recommendations were shelved, the RCAP helped to shape the national reconciliation conversation we’re having today.

Since then, however, governments have mostly avoided this approach. Why?

First, conducting a thorough, multi-year national inquiry is expensive and the current context is not one where governments are looking to spend money on large-scale enterprises with unclear outcomes.

The national political landscape also seems to be tilting toward a smaller role for government. On this note, however, it is worth mentioning that one of the main criticisms of the Macdonald Commission was that economists had co-opted it and that its report largely embraced market-based solutions.

In other words, a royal commission launched by a government does not automatically mean a bigger role for government.

Second, a royal commission may take on a life of its own and interpret its original mandate in unintended ways. Its findings cannot be predetermined, making them politically risky.

Finally, and perhaps more importantly, there’s the growing belief that complex issues can be solved with quick fixes or slogans, even when history suggests otherwise.

A recent example is internal trade barriers. For decades, these have persisted despite numerous attempts at reform. Yet, Anita Anand, then minister in charge of internal trade, suggested that interprovincial trade issues could be resolved in a month – a claim that overlooks decades of political gridlock. (Anand moved on to the innovation, science and industry portfolio under Prime Minister Mark Carney.)

It is a positive development that momentum is building to make progress on this file, but we need a long-term solution. More importantly, we need to think about this issue in relation to all the other major problems we are facing.

From fragmented fixes to a coherent vision

A royal commission doesn’t mean just kicking the can down the road. Clearly, Trump’s tariff threats need to be addressed now, not in three years, which is the usual time frame for a royal commission. Some actions can be, and should be, taken now.

But the reality remains that many of Canada’s serious structural issues are not isolated. Instead, they are deeply interconnected.

Tackling them hastily and separately risks inefficient, short-lived solutions. Instead, we need a unified, long-term approach – one that doesn’t focus just on the next election cycle but that envisions Canada’s economic future for generations to come.

Addressing these challenges requires something that seems increasingly rare: leadership with the humility to acknowledge that no single person or government has all the answers.

A government must be willing to say: We need time and different tools because the complexity of these issues demands a broader, society-wide approach. The leadership we need isn’t one that has all the solutions. It’s one that is willing to create the conditions to find them.

That’s why it might be time for the next federal government to dust off the old toolbox and bring back one of Canada’s most effective policy instruments: a new royal commission for the 21st century.

Source: Forty years later, we’re due for another big rethink about Canada’s future

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Court denies certification of $2.5-billion Black civil servants class action lawsuit

2025/03/20 1 Comment

Successful in raising the profile and issue, but ultimately failed at court. And the plaintiffs assertion that “they deserve real change” discounts the overall improvement among Black public servants in terms of hirings, promotions and separations:

A Federal Court judge on Monday dismissed a motion to certify a proposed class action lawsuit that was launched by Black public servants in 2020 who alleged there was systemic racism within the public service.

In an “order and reasons” document, Justice Jocelyne Gagne said the case did not sufficiently meet the class action requirement that the claims raise common issues.

Gagne also said the scope of the plaintiffs’ claim “simply makes it unfit for a class procedure.”

Filed in 2020, the class action sought $2.5 billion in damages because of lost salaries and promotion.

The Black Class Action Secretariat, a group created as a result of the lawsuit, is seeking long-term solutions to address systemic racism and discrimination in the public service, including compensation and the appointment of a Black equity commission.

Gagne said the court acknowledges the “profoundly sad ongoing history of discrimination suffered by Black Canadians” and that plaintiffs have faced challenges in the public service.

However, she said the plaintiffs didn’t present an adequate litigation plan and that they failed to present a ground for the court to assert jurisdiction over the case.

The document also said there are several class actions against individual federal departments and agencies alleging racial discrimination, which “overlap significantly with the present action.”

Proposed class members, the judge said, “would therefore be included in the class definition of these other class proceedings.”

The Black Class Action Secretariat said in a news release Monday that the ruling was a “major disappointment, but it is not the end of our fight for justice.”

“For five years, this has been a David vs. Goliath battle, and while today’s outcome is frustrating, it only strengthens our resolve,” the organization said.

The news release said systemic anti-Black racism has long been recognized by the federal government and that the plaintiffs will meet with their legal team to “explore next steps.”

In 2023, a grievance ruling by the Treasury Board Secretariat found that the Canadian Human Rights Commission discriminated against its Black and racialized employees. In 2024, an internal report found that public servants working at the Privy Council Office were subject to racial stereotyping, microaggressions and verbal violence.

“For decades, Black public service workers have faced systemic discrimination, and today’s decision does nothing to change that reality,” Thompson said.

A Federal Court hearing took place last fall to help determine whether the class-action lawsuit could proceed.

At the time, the federal government filed a motion to strike, asking the judge to dismiss the case. The government argued that Black public servants could file grievances or human rights complaints.

The government also called to remove Canadian Armed Forces and RCMP members, as well as Department of National Defence and Correctional Service Canada employees as class members because of similar class action lawsuits against those departments.

Thompson says the government used procedural barriers to “avoid addressing the merits of this case, rather than standing on the side of fairness and accountability.” The government has spent around $10 million fighting the class action.

“Black workers deserve more than recognition of past harms — they deserve real change,” he said.

Source: Court denies certification of $2.5-billion Black civil servants class action lawsuit

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May: Transition How-Tos [Zussman]

2025/03/17 Leave a comment

Good list, drawing from Zussman. Rings true from my experience under the Harper government (Policy Arrogance or Innocent Bias: Resetting Citizenship and Multiculturalism):

Here are a few do’s and don’ts from seasoned bureaucrats who’ve weathered many a transition:

This is a test of impartiality and neutrality. Many public servants have only worked for a Trudeau government and this will be their first transition. A new government, especially under a new party, may want to undo, change or scrap policies, programs and your pet projects. Don’t be attached to the programs you worked on — it’s not your role.

Zussman argues deputy ministers must ensure employees are prepared for these shifts and get “past the mindset that they have formed over the last decade and to think in different terms.”

Time for the PS to shine. Be well-prepared, do your homework, know the platform, and show you’re a committed, non-partisan public service that can be relied upon. That builds trust. Have some “early wins” ready for them. Don’t say things can’t be done.

Keep it professional. Don’t greet a new government like an overeager puppy. Don’t try to be their best friend or badmouth the outgoing one. Your role is simple: work with them, understand and implement their agenda, and recognize the legitimacy of their agenda. (They are elected. Public servants aren’t.) If you can’t live with that, it’s time to move on and leave.

Let them lead. Some incoming governments have been watching, planning, and know the system better than public servants assume. Treating them like rookies can backfire — especially if they’ve seen the bureaucracy in committee, dodging questions. “Let them lead the dance,” said one bureaucrat. They know what they want, and the public service’s job isn’t to teach them “government 101” but to deliver.

Expect skepticism. New coach, new game. One former deputy minister likened a newly elected government to a new coach who comes in because the previous leadership was seen as not delivering. So, expect the new government to be skeptical that the public service is up to the job and can execute its agenda. This skepticism is justified. Acknowledge and adapt to it. Demonstrate you can work under the new leadership and deliver its priorities.

Don’t assume you know what the new government’s relationship with stakeholders will be.

Don’t recycle the last government’s or minister’s contact list of stakeholders to call. That could backfire.

Be cautious.

Let the incoming team define its own relationships without speaking for the stakeholders.

Source: May: Transition How-Tos [Zussman]

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Sullivan: The Return Of The McCarthyite Chill

2025/03/15 3 Comments

Accurate:

…This is “the first arrest of many to come,” says Trump. DHS is already searching dorm rooms.

Note the astonishing breadth of this legal formula. You could, for example, be a Ukrainian exile who furiously opposes the Trump administration’s new policy toward Russia. Under the Rubio standard, if you do not have citizenship, merely expressing your views in a way that jeopardizes US foreign policy interests is now a deportable offense. The Trump administration, unless a court stops them, has effectively removed the First Amendment from tens of millions of inhabitants of this country.

It’s actually worse: if you merely potentially could say such a thing, you can be deported for a pre-crime, or rather pre-noncrime. Every noncitizen in the US now has to watch what they say about foreign policy — or else. You may have just arrived from Putin’s Russia, and are now being told by Trump: don’t think you now have free speech just because you’re in America. The US government is monitoring your every word and can deport you if you say the wrong thing. You have to wait until you’re a citizen to be free.

If the law seems McCarthyite, that’s because it was passed in 1952 and aimed specifically at Holocaust survivors from Eastern Europe suspected of communist sympathies. According to historian David Nasaw in The Last Million, “suspected Communists were denied visas while untold numbers of antisemites, Nazi collaborators, and war criminals gained entrance to the United States.” It is one of the sublime ironies of this that the ADL now supports a law that once persecuted Holocaust survivors. Back in 1950s, the ADL called it “the worst kind of legislation, discriminatory and abusive of American concepts and ideals.” Now that the ADL can use the law to go after its foes, it’s fine.

Has the law been used before to revoke visas? Yes, for the deportation of otherwise-protected diplomats who might impede relations with another country. Here’s the single lonely example of a precedent:

The case involved Mario Ruiz Massieu, the former deputy attorney general of Mexico who entered the United States in 1995 on a visa. That year, the U.S. government tried to send him back to Mexico, where he was wanted on money laundering and other charges. The secretary of state at the time, Warren Christopher, said deportation was necessary for foreign policy reasons. Allowing [him] to stay would undermine the U.S. push for judicial reforms in Mexico…

The law has never been used, so far as I have been able to discover, to target noncitizens’ free-speech rights. Take the case of Irish immigrants who, for decades, openly supported a designated terrorist organization, the IRA, and provided the majority of the material support, i.e. most of the money, to kill innocents in an allied country, the UK, which has long been America’s most reliable ally. The Dish hasn’t been able to find a single case where an Irish noncitizen was deported for seriously adversely affecting the foreign policy of the US.

I suspect, in fact, that the Trump administration chose this law precisely to avoid accusing Khalil of an actual crime. All they have to prove now is that they consider him a serious potential impediment to their conduct of foreign policy. And because they fear that a judge might test the reasonableness of that Rubio decision, they swiftly transported Khalil to a notorious jail in Louisiana, a state where a more pliant judge is likelier. For good measure, they prevented him from talking to his lawyers for days — and they still can’t speak privately. 

The White House mocked him from their X account: “SHALOM, MAHMOUD.” Take a second to absorb that monstrosity: the glib and spiteful use of a Jewish term for goodbye to a Muslim. And not from some nasty X nutter. From the president who is supposed to represent all of us, but is, in fact, a deranged, bigoted troll. 

I’m going to pause now for the unnecessary paragraph that is yet somehow necessary. I despise Hamas for its North Korean-level brainwashing of children, its Nazi-level anti-Semitism, and its barbaric use of women and children as human shields. I have absolutely no time for campus protests that go over the line into intimidation of other students. If crimes have been committed, I have no problem prosecuting. But offensive speech? It’s allowed in America. Handing out fliers? It’s how America began! A campus can (and should) discipline its students; but the federal government intervening to seize a legal resident and trying to deport him for speech — along with a dragnet for finding others to throw out — is an outrage in a free country. 

Can the Trump administration win this fight? I suspect they can. Rubio sayshe intends to deport any noncitizen who merely “supports Hamas” — not materially supports, but just supports Hamas — and not just in the past, but in the future.

But they seem to believe a visa is the same as a green card. JD Vance — who lectured Europeans on free speech online, while his own administration was using AI to police the web for dissent! — said on Fox that a green card holder “doesn’t have an indefinite right to stay in America.” The formal name for a green card is “Legal Permanent Resident”, Mr Vice President, not Legal Provisional Resident. They enter the US in the citizen line. And until now, every applicant for a green card has waited for that moment of relief when it’s finally granted, the knowledge that now you are safe and here for good. It remains one of the best days of my own life. Vance just stripped all of that away from all of us. Probably because, like the rest of these incompetent thugs, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and doesn’t much care.

For the sake of argument, let’s say all this is technically lawful, if obviously a massive stretch. A further question remains: even if it is technically legal, do we want to live in an America that tells any noncitizen that they can obey every law, and commit no errors in their immigration journey, but they are still not safe from deportation if they speak their minds … about Israel? Do we want to tell their American-citizen wives, husbands, and children that they have no right to keep their family intact because of problematic speech? 

And let’s not kid ourselves. The reason this is happening is because the government being assailed on American campuses and streets is not any government, and not even the American government, but the government of Israel. It’s part of a much broader campaign to chill criticism of the Jewish state. To give a simple example, the documentary No Other Land about the conflict on the West Bank just won an Oscar for Best Documentary. It has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 100 percent for both critic and audience scores, which damn near never happens. But try and find a place to see it in this country. You can’t stream it; no one will distribute it; the few movie theaters that do show it are brutally punished.

Of course I understand why. Antisemitism is surging on the Trump right — just this week, Joe Rogan had a Churchill-hater and Holocaust-minimizer on his show. It’s endemic on the far left. October 7 was a reminder of the horrors of the Holocaust. On campus in America, Jews have been harassed, spat on, intimidated, demonized — and the pathetic college deans have caved. I understand the outrage at these grotesque double standards. I truly do. 

But there are emotions on the other side too. I am not defending Mahmoud Khalil’s worldview, but I can note that his grandmother was forced to leave her home near Tiberias during the first wave of Zionist ethnic cleansing in 1948; she walked 40 miles to exile, giving birth along the way; and the family lived in tents in a refugee camp in Syria for decades. Now the grandson watches as Israel obliterates Gaza, with thousands of women and children dead, and the US wants to ship all the Gaza Palestinians elsewhere so Jared Kushner can set up some new White Lotuses.

I’m not asking you to agree with Khalil. I am asking you to extend the same empathy to him as you would a Jewish-American traumatized by the surge in hideous antisemitism. I’m asking you to treat him as a human being: flawed, maybe misguided, but human. Not Jewish not Arab but human. I’m not defending Khalil’s rights because I hate Israel. I am defending him because I love America. 

And stop changing the subject. The specific charge matters in a country with the rule of law: this case is not about terrorism even if you want it to be; it’s not about crime, even if you think it should be. It’s about a new McCarthyite apparatus to chill free debate on campus, make criticism of Israel legally hazardous to any noncitizen, and render every noncitizen in this country afraid to speak their mind on a vital matter. It is not a hard case. Rubio has made it a very simple one.

As for all those brave center-right defenders of free speech on campus these last few years? Just see if they are condemning this. And if they aren’t, never take them seriously on this subject again….

Source: The Return Of The McCarthyite Chill

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Winer: What to Expect When You’re Expecting Catastrophe

2025/03/14 Leave a comment

Good assessment, drawing from the experience under Hitler, appropriately so:

It’s as if the so-called shock and awe of that unholy duo—Donald Trump and Elon Musk—combined with loyalists like Kash Patel, Stephen Miller, Dan Bongino, Ed Martin, and many others, has rendered us, for the moment at least, unable to react.

Magical thinking is far from new. Adolf Hitler came to power amid similar lies and conspiracy theories. We should know where that leads. And, while MAGA may ignore the mountains of books written on fascism, the rest of us are not in the dark about what comes next.

As we brace for further actions from a cabinet catering to a serial fabulist, it is important to note that the president’s abstruse nonsense is not random. It has a history. A history that takes us in only one direction, to catastrophe.

Here, then, are things to watch for, all warnings from the well-known story of the Third Reich.

  • Daily life will take on a surreal quality and, if we do not take some action or join an organized resistance, our discussions will consist of merely repeating the latest horror.
  • People around you will forget that they once were anti-Trump.
  • The administration will issue absurd denunciations of opponents whose expertise is needed.
  • There will be parades and possibly mandatory public displays of support for the administration.
  • News sources will disappear or be radically altered.
  • MAGA will continue to believe what the leader says up until the very brink of disaster.

**

The debate about whether or not we should bring Hitler or Nazism or fascism into a contemporary political debate is obsolete. Now it is crucial that we take seriously the warnings gathered for us by survivors and writers. When you look at a photo of a Jew about to be arrested or shot and he or she is staring straight into the camera, remember that it is you they are looking at.

Source: Winer: What to Expect When You’re Expecting Catastrophe

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How reliable is the government’s economic data? Under Trump, there are real concerns

2025/03/12 Leave a comment

Legitimate worry and consistent with the apparent “wrecking ball” approach to policy and programs:

Every month, the federal government serves up a steady diet of economic reports on everything from the price of groceries to the unemployment rate. These reports are closely followed: They can move markets — and the president’s approval rating.

Businesses and investors put a lot of stock in the numbers, which are rigorously vetted and free from political spin.

Now the Trump administration is calling that trust into question.

The government recently disbanded two outside advisory committees that used to consult on the numbers, offering suggestions on ways to improve the reliability of the government data. 

At the same time, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has suggested changing the way the broadest measure of the economy — gross domestic product — is calculated.

Those moves are raising concerns about whether economic data could be manipulated for political or other purposes. 

Among those raising the alarm is Erica Groshen. She’s one of the outside experts who received a terse email last week saying her services were no longer needed, because the committee she’d served on — the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee — had been folded.

Groshen cares deeply about the reliability of government data, having previously overseen the number crunching as commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

“Statistical agencies live and die by trust,” she says. “If the numbers aren’t trustworthy, people won’t use them to make important decisions, and then you might as well not publish them.”

Source: How reliable is the government’s economic data? Under Trump, there are real concerns

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Canadians can soon get their passport in 30 business days — or it’s free

2025/03/10 Leave a comment

Good to have this kind of service guarantee although more of a reflection of current service levels than a stretch commitment:

The federal government announced on Friday that it’s going to be speeding up the processing for passports so Canadians can get their documents within 30 business days — or they’ll be free.

Under the change, any complete passport application will be processed within 30 business days or it will be free, with the passport fees to be refunded. The 30-day period does not include the mailing time of the application or the passport itself.

The 30-day limit applies whether Canadians submit their application online, in person or by mail.

Citizens’ Services Minister Terry Beech did not say when the process would begin, however, only noting it would happen later this year.

The shift by the government comes just three months after thousands of Canadians saw passport delays amid the Canada Post strike, which followed months of issues due to post-COVID-19 delays.

Beech also noted in a press release that the federal government continues to roll out its online passport renewal program, which began in December 2024, with eligible Canadians able to complete their application, pay fees and upload a professional digital photo from their computer or mobile device.

The government says the phased roll-out is being used to monitor, adapt and refine the process to ensure it is working before it’s rolled out to more Canadians in the coming months.

Source: Canadians can soon get their passport in 30 business days — or it’s free

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Lynch, Cappe and Mitchell: This is no time for ambitious federal projects

2025/03/04 Leave a comment

Good and needed commentary on Liberal over reach:

…Normally, in the period between the calling of an election and the swearing in of a government afterwards, the government of the day is supposed to refrain from making major discretionary decisions or announcements. The routine business of government carries on, as it must, but it is an important convention of our Westminster system that the government does not take the opportunity of the period between one sdministration and another to announce big decisions. This is called the “caretaker convention.” It’s a norm, a governing convention, not a law. But that doesn’t make it any less important.

Technically, we are not in a caretaker situation. While a federal election has not yet been called, it’s obvious that the circumstances today are far from a normal. Parliament has been prorogued in order that the governing Party can have the free time required to select a new prime minister. Yet however useful prorogation may have been in political or practical terms, it does impose upon the prime minister a duty of care, a duty of respect for the institutions in his charge. Making big decisions of a discretionary nature violates the spirit of the caretaker convention.

Source: Lynch, Cappe and Mitchell: This is no time for ambitious federal projects

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MacDougall: Trump’s tariffs will demand all the skill our public service can muster

2025/02/25 Leave a comment

Yep:

…The bonus of the size of the challenge is that all options will be on the table. There is no idea too crazy to get a hearing. Here are several areas of focus:

• For those in the Department of Finance, there is the immediate work of a response to tariffs. But there is also long overdue work on tax simplification and (hopefully) tax reduction. If you’re the team with the plan to put the tax code on a postcard, now is the time to present it. Canada will need to become a far more attractive place to invest and do business.

• A similar challenge awaits those in the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, who will need to keep being ambitious on competition law and the granting of basic science research. Cartels and oligopolies need to go, and scientists looking for a new home as Trump blazes the National Institutes of Health need a reason to come North.

• If you’re in the Privy Council handling intergovernmental affairs or in Natural Resources Canada handling the energy sector, now is the time to find ways to get to “yes” faster than ever before. Streamlining environmental approvals and knocking down interprovincial barriers to trade will require a major reworking of federalism as it has been practised (or not practised) for decades. And while Quebec has traditionally been a roadblock, the prospect of becoming American should create more wiggle room for how to be Canadian.

• But the most ambitious action needs to happen at National Defence and Global Affairs Canada. Canada will need to work the rooms at multilateral fora like the G7, G20 and NATO to create a coalition that can counter the new American direction. And while this must address military spending and new avenues for trade, it must also include ways for like-minded democracies to place constraints on the platforms of the “attention economy” that have done so much to skew debate around public policy.

Lenin would have loved the propaganda potential and network effects of a global Facebook. He would have loved to be Elon Musk, with his thumb on the scales of truth. We can be sure the current Vladimir in the Kremlin loves them, too. Indeed, it’s why Putin doesn’t let them operate at home while exploiting them abroad.

Source: MacDougall: Trump’s tariffs will demand all the skill our public service can muster

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The death of data: Under Trump, key information is disappearing

2025/02/22 Leave a comment

Hard to see how the USA is going to recover any time soon of the impact of the Trump/Musk administration with so few guardrails and a totally subservient Republican Congress neglecting its broader and constitutional responsibilities:

…Statistical agencies in the U.S. and elsewhere have struggled with weaker survey participation for many years. In one notable example, only about one-third of businesses approached to fill out the BLS’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey do so – about half the proportion in the 2010s.

The BLS and other agencies contend that data quality remains high, although critics point to non-response bias – the idea that non-respondents may be inherently different than those who continue to fill out questionnaires, which would skew the numbers.

If response rates continue to fall, there is a greater likelihood that economic data will become less reliable. The danger is that reports “will stop telling us about who’s doing well and who’s not well by any degree of disaggregation,” said Armine Yalnizyan, a Canadian economist and Atkinson fellow on the future of workers.

Funding is another concern, particularly as the Trump administration makes sweeping cuts. These include the termination of roughly US$900-million in Education Department contracts, spelling an end to various research projects on academic performance.

When data disappear or become less reliable, it becomes tougher to challenge the policies of the Trump White House, Ms. Yalnizyan said. “You can’t see what is really happening, so you cannot dispute what they say.”

Ms. Jarosz said the public has paid for data produced by the government – and that information should remain in the public domain.

“I think part of what is so concerning about this is it sets a really dangerous precedent that any administration could delete data they don’t like for any reason,” she said.

Source: The death of data: Under Trump, key information is disappearing

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