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OTTAWA Opposition members shut down a parliamentary committee hearing Wednesday after the Liberal government once again refused to let a political aide appear to answer questions about the now-dead deal with WE Charity.

Members of the House of Commons' ethics committee had asked Amitpal Singh, a senior adviser to Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, to testify after a majority of MPs passed a Conservative-sponsored motion to that effect last week.

The motion allowed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to appear before the committee in his place.

But the Liberal government, which has ordered political staff not to appear before committees, deployed Associate Finance Minister Mona Fortier to instead appear for Singh, who worked for Bill Morneau when he was finance minister.

It was the second time a minister appeared instead of a ministerial aide after government House leader Pablo Rodriguez took the place of Trudeau's director of policy earlier this week.

While the committee ultimately decided to hear what Rodriguez had to say on Monday, opposition members refused to do the same with Fortier and instead used their majority to adjourn the meeting after only 20 minutes.

"By blocking witnesses from testifying ... against an order of the House of Commons, the government is devaluing and disrespecting Canada's Parliament," Conservative ethics critic Michael Barrett told the committee before asking that it adjourn.

The motion passed in the House of Commons last Thursday called on Singh, Trudeau policy director Rick Theis and the prime ministers senior adviser, Ben Chin, to appear before the ethics committee to answer questions on the WE deal.

It also called for Defence Minister Harjit Sajjans former chief of staff, Zita Astravas, who now holds the same position in Public Safety Minister Bill Blairs office, to appear before the Commons defence committee to discuss sexual misconduct in the military.

Trudeau was invited to attend on their behalf if the government wanted.

The government has in turn accused opposition members of trying to intimidate and mistreat non-elected political staff and argued that ministers are ultimately responsible for those who work in their offices.

Rodriguez and Liberal committee members have also accused the opposition of trying to score cheap political points by dragging out the ethics committee's study on WE, suggesting there was little more to learn about how the deal came together.

Prior to the committee adjourning, Bloc Quebecois MP Rheal Fortin accused the government in French of "blatantly defying" the House of Commons by ignoring the motion calling for senior political staff or Trudeau to appear.

"I always thought that Canada was supposed to be a democratic country where decisions were taken democratically and where a decision by the House held some value," he said. "And yet members of the government side are blatantly defying the House."

The sole-sourced deal with WE was announced last spring and would have seen the Toronto-based youth organization paid $43.5 million to run the Canada Student Services Grant program, which was designed to reward students who volunteered during the COVID-19 pandemic.

WE later backed out of the agreement following questions and concerns about its close ties to members of the prime ministers family, before the $543-million program was cancelled entirely.

The Liberals and WE co-founders Craig and Marc Kielburger have insisted that it was non-partisan civil servants who came up with the idea of having the organization run the grant program.

But the Conservatives have held up some of the thousands of email exchanges and other documents released by the government in August, after Trudeau testified, as evidence the arrangement was directed by the Liberals.

The ethics commissioner is currently investigating both Trudeau and Morneau, who abruptly resigned as finance minister and left federal politics in August, for potential conflicts of interest in relation to the deal.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 31, 2021.

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Opposition shuts WE hearing as Liberals again refuse to let staffer testify - Kamloops This Week

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'If the liberals don't want to play fair game, be transparent and be responsible, voters will eventually have to remind them about that,' NDP MP Alexandre Boulerice said

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OTTAWA Opposition MPs once again lambasted the Liberals for devaluing, disrespecting and being in defiance of Parliament after blocking a second staffer from testifying in front of the federal ethics committee on the WE Charity scandal.

By blocking witnesses from testifying, ordering witnesses to testify against an order of the House of Commons, the government is devaluing and disrespecting Canadas Parliament, an outraged Michael Barrett, a Conservative MP, said during the Wednesday meeting.

NDP and Bloc Qubcois MPs were equally vocal in their critiques of the Liberals decision to send Associate Finance Minister Mona Fortier to testify instead of the finance ministers Senior Policy Advisory, Amitpal Singh.

This is serious Were talking about a decision to oppose an order from the House of Commons. This is defiance, said Bloc Qubcois MP Rhal Fortin.

If I was one of the ministers who had ordered one of my staff not to testify, I would be very uncomfortable. Id even be uncomfortable in front of my family, he added.

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In an interview after the 20-minute meeting, which oppositions MPs voted to end before Fortier could say a word, NDP MP Alexandre Boulerice said the Liberals decision meant they had something to hide from Canadians.

Its completely ridiculous and ludicrous. If the liberals dont want to play fair game, be transparent and be responsible, voters will eventually have to remind them about that, he said.

The latest clash between opposition parties and the Liberal government stems from a Conservative motion passed by the House of Commons last week that summoned a series of Liberal staffers to testify during the ethics committees WE Charity study (as well as another to the national defense committee on an unrelated topic).

The ethics committee study has largely focused on the Liberal governments and Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus familys close ties to WE Charity, to which Ottawa sole-sourced a $912-million student volunteer grant program last summer before the charity organization pulled out of the deal.

Rick Theis, director of policy to the prime minister, was scheduled to testify on Monday, and Singh was slated by the committee to appear on Wednesday.

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Both were directly involved in the creation of the Canada Student Service Grant and subsequent deal with WE last spring.

But last Sunday, Government House Leader Pablo Rodriguez wrote to the committee informing them that Theis was instructed to ignore the summons.

Staff are not elected members of the House, they do not have the same rights and privileges as MPs. Calling staff to testify at committee is at odds with the long-standing principle of ministerial responsibility, Rodriguez wrote.

Accordingly, Mr. Rick Theis, director of policy to the prime minister, has been instructed to not appear before the committee. In his place, I will attend the meeting on behalf of the government.

The decision was ill-received by opposition members at the time, but they still accepted to grill Rodriguez, who ultimately deflected most questions on the WE deal because he was never involved in it.

Then, on Tuesday, Minister Mona Fortier wrote a similar missive to members regarding Amitpal Singhs planned Wednesday appearance, all the while accusing opposition parties of playing political games.

Cabinet ministers are accountable to the House of Commons for the decisions of the government, and of their trusted political staff, Fortier wrote. Mr. Amitpal Singh has been instructed to not appear before the committee. In his place, I will attend the meeting.

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She also argued that multiple federal committees had already held countless meetings over the last nine months and received thousands of pages of documents regarding the WE Charity deal.

An order from the House is serious, Bloc MP Rhal Fortin retorted to the letter Wednesday, while noting the irony of how the Bloc a Quebecois separatist party was defending the authority of the federal parliament.

Democracy is a cardinal value, he continued. I always thought that Canada was a democratic country in which decisions were taken in a democratic way.

In the wake of the governments refusal to allow Theis and Singh to testify, Fortin brought forward a new motion Wednesday that would advise the speaker of the house of commons of both mens absence, despite the will of the committee.

Members of the ethics committee are expected to vote on the motion during their next meeting.

Email: cnardi@postmedia.com | Twitter: ChrisGNardi

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Opposition MPs blast Liberal 'defiance' after second staffer blocked from testifying on WE - National Post

If prime minister Scott Morrison wants a circuit-breaker for the gendered political turmoil besetting his precarious Coalition government, unilaterally declaring gender quotas for federal Coalition MPs would be a masterstroke.

Even Coalition voters on balance now support quotas for women (48% supporting and 43% against) according to the latest Essential poll, with net support among voters overall doubling from +6% in 2019 to +12% in this weeks poll.

Note, Im suggesting he should bring in gender quotas, not quotas for women. Benefits flow from diversity, not women. If three-quarters of Coalition MPs in Canberra were women instead of men as is the case today, gender quotas would rebalance things in the direction of men.

Changing the rhetoric from quotas for women to gender quotas makes it harder for troglodytes to block this sensible extension of the quota approach the Coalition routinely uses elsewhere for example, the longstanding quota ensuring the Nationals get a fair share of ministers on the frontbench.

Quota opponents could be further disarmed if the policy applied only to winnable seats as they open up in the future, making sitting members safe from change.

Morrison could also take up the shift evident internationally from 50/50 quotas to the more flexible 40/40/20 approach adopted, for example, by global law firms Baker MacKenzie in 2019 and Norton Rose Fulbright in 2020.

This 40% women, 40% men, with 20% open approach to leadership appointments not only gives organisations a bit of elbow room in achieving gender diversity but makes room for other kinds of diversity too.

The Male Champions of Change group of Australian business leaders advocated this in its 40:40:20 For Gender Balance report in 2019, aimed to help organisations reap the diversity dividend now clear in management research.

The report provides hard numbers on the superior results achieved by organisations not dominated by one gender. It shows how to overcome the problem of merit being defined by, and reinforcing, the status quo.

Crucially, this is a report endorsed by 255 leading Australian directors and chief executives, including Commonwealth Bank CEO Matt Comyn, Wesfarmers managing director Rob Scott and Golf Australia CEO James Sutherland to name a few.

There would be a fair degree of overlap between the Male Champions of Change group and the Coalitions donor list come election time. If gender quotas are good enough for them and their organisations, why not for the federal Coalition?

Finally, this is a change which can be picked up and announced right away. Morrison has an action deficit. Declaring the beginning of the gender quota era in the Coalition, using the Male Champions of Change report as his template, would show him actually doing something, not just dodging, delaying and announcing another process.

Stubbornness stands in the way of Morrison making this necessary and politically sensible move.

Guardian Australia political editor Katharine Murphy last week noted the prime ministers practice of almost exclusively addressing men at risk of voting Labor in his public rhetoric. It is reminiscent of former US president Donald Trumps 2020 presidential election tactic. Trump lost.

As with Trump, its unlikely to be enough for Morrison to hold on to men at risk of voting Labor when he is at risk, because of his one-sided handling of the last few weeks, of losing an equal or bigger number of women who voted Liberal at the 2019 federal election.

Nor is it as though this is a new problem. The broad church Liberal party of which John Howard used to boast even as he worked to narrow it, is no more.

Instead of being Liberals, small l liberal moderates now sit as independents between government and opposition MPs on parliaments crossbench: Helen Haines (Indi), Zali Steggall (Warringah) and Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo) so far. Similar moderates are eyeing Wentworth, Hughes, Calare and Groom.

A contemporary Robert Menzies would do a strategic appreciation of the situation and realise he had to bring the small l liberals back into the tent before the cumulative seat loss became fatal.

Looking back on the formation of the Liberals in 1944, Menzies singled out two people for special praise. One was May Couchman, Victorian president of the Australian Womens National League whose members Menzies said did far more electoral work than most men. Over a six-month period, Couchman folded the League into the Liberal Partys Womens Section, significantly strengthening Menzies fledgeling political creation.

Morrison may be no Menzies but, as a former state party secretary and in 2019 victor in an apparently unwinnable federal election, he is not without some political smarts.

Putting his prime ministerial prestige on the line to get the Liberal partys state branches to adopt 40/40/20 gender quotas, and to urge the Nationals to do the same, is not just the right thing to do. It would be very smart politics too.

Chris Wallace is an associate professor at the 50/50 Foundation, Faculty of Business Government and Law, University of Canberra. She tweets at @c_s_wallace

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Bringing in gender quotas in the Liberal party is not just right it's smart politics too - The Guardian

Leader of the Government in the House of Commons Pablo Rodriguez responds to a question during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Dec. 11, 2020.

PATRICK DOYLE/The Canadian Press

The Liberals blocked a senior adviser to the Prime Minister from testifying about the WE Charity controversy on Monday and instead sent House Leader Pablo Rodriguez to answer questions about an affair that he told committee he had little involvement in.

The House of Commons passed a motion on Thursday calling for Rick Theis, the Prime Ministers director of policy and cabinet affairs, to appear at the ethics committee on Monday; for Amitpal Singh, the Deputy Prime Ministers policy adviser, to appear on Wednesday; and for Ben Chin, the Prime Ministers senior adviser, to appear on April 8.

We fundamentally disagree with the decision of the Opposition to use its powers to intimidate and mistreat staff members who work in political offices, Mr. Rodriguez told the committee Monday.

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Bloc Qubcois MP Rhal Fortin said the concept of ministerial responsibility should not prevent MPs from calling witnesses who can establish key facts, which he said Mr. Rodriguez was often unable to do on Monday.

Well, the facts, the only way to get them is to hear directly from the people who are implicated in this, Mr. Fortin said.

The Liberals voted against the House motion but it passed with the unanimous support of the four opposition parties. All three staff members are named in documents regarding the cancelled Canada Student Service Grant. The WE organization was awarded the contract to administer the $543.5-million grant program but the entire plan was tossed after it triggered the Prime Ministers third conflict of interest controversy in five years.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former finance Minister Bill Morneau both had family members with direct financial ties to WE Charity when cabinet awarded it the contract to administer the program through an uncompetitive process. Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Morneau later apologized for failing to recuse themselves from the decision.

The Liberals and senior civil servants say cabinet awarded the work to WE on the advice of the public service. The opposition has been pushing to verify that by hearing directly from political staff.

Mr. Rodriguez said the Liberal government would ignore the parliamentary order for the staff to appear. Similarly, the Liberals have decided to ignore calls for the Defence Ministers former chief of staff to testify at the defence committee.

Unelected political staff members are accountable to members of cabinet. And cabinet is accountable to Parliament, he told the committee, adding that the Conservatives subscribed to the same position when they were in government.

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The Liberals have inconsistently applied that policy, though, with Mr. Trudeaus chief of staff testifying at the finance committee just last year. And on March 8, a Liberal MP called for Ray Novak to testify at the defence committee based on his time in the Prime Ministers Office under Stephen Harper.

Mr. Fortin asked Mr. Rodriguez to point him to the rules that allow the minister to contravene an order of the House of Commons, and said the committee should report the failed appearance of Mr. Theis to the House.

Its considered good form for the accountable minister to testify rather than staff, said Philippe Lagass, an associate professor at Carleton University who studies the Canadian government and the Westminster system. But he added theres nothing that prevents a committee from calling whomever they want.

There are no formal rules stating that political staff cant be called to testify before committee, he said.

Mr. Rodriguez said he spoke with Mr. Theis on Sunday and Monday to prepare for the committee meeting but was often unable to answer committee questions.

Asked whether Mr. Theis had been contacted by the RCMP or by an officer of Parliament, Mr. Rodriguez said not that I know of.

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Mr. Theis had a meeting on May 5 with WE Charity co-founders Craig and Marc Kielburger and the organizations director of government and stakeholder relations, Sofia Marquez. That meeting fell on the same date that WE was able to retroactively claim expenses. Asked whether that was a coincidence, Mr. Rodriguez said it was only one conversation.

Conservative MP Jacques Gourde asked the minister why he showed up at committee if he couldnt provide more clarity.

NDP MP Charlie Angus said his efforts to get the final information to wrap up the committees study of the WE controversy have been met by an angry stonewall from the Liberals.

At a March 15 committee hearing, Craig Kielburger was asked to explain why he sent Mr. Chin a LinkedIn message on June 27 where he thanked him for helping shape our latest program with the govt.

Mr. Chin replied: Great to hear from you Craig. Lets get our young working!

Craig Kielburger said the message was sent by his assistant.

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The Conservatives said the messages appeared to contradict the governments claim that Liberal politicians and staffers were not involved in the decision to have the management of the proposed student volunteer program outsourced to the WE organization.

Similarly, last June, the National Post reported on a June 12 video conference call in which Marc Kielburger told WE staff about the organization running the student grant program.

The Prime Ministers Office kindly called us and said, you know that announcement we just made? Would you be interested in helping us actually implement it?

Marc Kielburger later said he misspoke and that the call had come from a federal public servant.

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Liberals block senior staff from testifying on WE controversy - The Globe and Mail

The Trudeau Liberals are surging ahead of the Conservatives, with the governing party widening its lead as the national immunization campaign picks up, according to a new Abacus Data survey released Thursday.

The survey shared exclusively with The Hill Times suggested that 38 per cent of Canadians would back the Liberals, if an election were held now, enough to put them over the seats needed to recoup its majority status in Parliament, compared to 30 per cent who would tick off Conservative on the ballot. Thats up five points compared to the week before and the largest lead the Liberals have had over the official opposition since October 2020, according to the polling firms tracking data. The NDP, meanwhile, was at 17 per cent, down by two percentage points, while the Greens were at six per cent (also down by two).

It also suggested that the political conditions in seat-rich Ontario and Quebec were favourable to the Liberals, with the governing party holding a 16-point lead in the former at 44 per cent, while it has a seven-point advantage over the Bloc Qubcois in the latter province at 37 per cent. Unsurprisingly, the Conservatives continued to enjoy the strongest support in the Prairies at around 50 per cent.

I think people are more optimistic about the vaccines, and when theyre going to be able to get one, said David Coletto, CEO of Abacus Data, in a phone interview. We even see far more people think theyre going to get it by June than did even a few weeks ago. So that explains some of the improvement that the Liberals have seen and their vote.

Canada is on pace to receive at least 44 million COVID-19 vaccines doses by June, barring potential interruptions in deliveries. And while the Trudeau government is upbeat that the flow of vaccine deliveries will continue to ramp up, public health authorities have warned that Canada is in the midst of a race to vaccinate Canadians against the more contagious variants of concerns. The government has indicated Canadians eligible for the shot can expect to be fully vaccinated by the end of the summer.

At the same time, Mr. Coletto noted, with politics being about alternatives, the boost could also be linked to voters not being as enthusiastic about the Conservatives new leader.

Erin OToole has had a tough few weeks, coming out of a convention that should have given him a nice bounce and focus, he said.

Mr. OTooles (Durham, Ont.) ongoing push to cast his party as open to change and welcoming of left-leaning voters hit a snag at its policy convention after grassroots members voted down a proposal that included a recognition that climate change is real. Climate change, in the 2019 election, was consistently ranked among the top priorities driving voters considerations at the ballot box.

The Liberals lift didnt directly come at the expense of the Conservatives, whose support didnt shrink from the week before, but Abacus survey suggested that some voters perceptions of Mr. OToole have soured. In gauging respondents impressions of him, the survey suggested his popularity has dipped among left-leaning voters who may have been open to backing his party, along with those who occupy the centre and the right, since he won the leadership race last August.

The survey suggested that Mr. OToole only enjoyed a positive impression among 19 per cent of respondents, and that he registered the lowest rating since it started tracking his popularity. The biggest dips registered were among those who identify as left leaning (a drop of 15 points), compared to those at the centre (11 points) and on the right (14 points).

Thats the signal that something happened in between the two weeks of our survey that caused some people to say, Well, I liked him last week, but I dont really like this week, he said.

Mr. Coletto drew a direct link between the defeat of the proposal and the dip in his popularity as a likely explanation for the change. Its defeat suggested that Mr. OToole still has a ways to go in convincing some conservatives the party needs to be more aligned with the broader public on climate change.

Experience over the years shows that the voters tend to not like, or find appeal with, the leader and a party that doesnt seem united internally, he said. Its almost like Canadians are saying, Get your own house in order, before you ask us to give you the keys to the country.

Mr. Trudeau fared better on this metric as well. The prime minister had 39 per cent of respondents indicating they had a positive impression of him.

Pollster David Coletto says the Liberals lift didnt come directly at the expense of the Conservatives. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade

The survey of 2,000 Canadians was conducted between March 25 and 30, amid growing concerns that Canada is already in, or at the brink of, a third wave of the pandemic.

Though the poll suggested that Liberals were the clear favourites to preside over a majority, the temptation of provoking parties into triggering an election may be dampened by concerns about the spread of more contagious, deadlier variants, which have been steadily driving up infection rates and ICU admissions of late.

Those concerns, the survey suggested, have gained resonance with the public; around 34 per cent, or one-in-three respondents, said theyve become more worried about the pandemic.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Que.) has repeatedly brushed off suggestions that his party is eager to send voters to the polls in the spring, arguing that his focus is on ushering the vaccination campaign along. He told former CBC host Peter Mansbridge last week that the government already has a mandate to push forward with its upcoming budget and doesnt need to call an election.

If those favourable numbers for the Liberals continue to hold, the anticipated third wave is brought under control, and vaccinations continue uninterrupted over the weeks ahead, Mr. Coletto said there could be an opening for them to push for an election in May, perhaps not long after the budget is released. (The budget is expected April 19.)

It all depends on how bad this third wave really gets. And early indications are, its gonna get pretty bad, he added.

Mr. Coletto noted his polling firm has begun tracking voters enthusiasm for change since the last campaign. The data suggested that anger directed at the prime minister has subsided, he added, which means that it will be harder for opposition parties to mobilize and animate supporters.

In the 2019 election, Mr. Trudeau took a beating over a series of unforced errors, including his handling of the SNC-Lavalin affair and accusations that he interfered in that fraud and corruption case against the Quebec-based company to protect his political interests.

This appears to be an electorate that is going to be far more interested in hearing about what people are going to do, as opposed to attacking the incumbent for what they did, he said. And, I think, the pandemic has played a big part in that.

British Columbias political landscape appeared to be more competitive. The Liberals, Conservatives, and the NDP were locked in a three-way race, with support for each hovering between 28 and 31 per cent.

With 338 seats in the House of Commons, the Liberals need to win at least 170 seats in the next election for a majority. It won 157 in 2019, and currently controls 154, while the Conservatives have 120. The balance of power has shifted between the Bloc Qubcois, which commands 32 seats, and the NDP, which has 24.

The Hill Times

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Trudeau Liberals surge ahead over Conservatives, as O'Toole's favourability dips across the spectrum, poll suggests - The Hill Times