The illusion - and delusion - of Senate control

My final column of 2013 is now up on Loonie Politics, which looks at the notion that somehow the PMO is really pulling all of the strings in the Senate. Given the chamber's institutional independence and the fleeting ways in which the PMO can try to influence or persuade, I deconstruct this assertion, and show just how illusory that kind of control tends to be.

Vacant senate seats breaking Confederation’s promises

My column this week on Loonie Politics (up a little early because of Christmas) looks at the swirling speculation around Senate vacancies, as well as the fashion of the pundit class musing that the Prime Minister should simply cease to make appointments in the hopes that attrition will kill the Senate from lack of membership - as though it were constitutionally feasible. Add to this a little bit of history and some institutional observation, and my column was born.

A bashful Speaker Scheer helps no one

My column this week on Loonie Politics looks back at the last year of Question Period, and the performance of Speaker Scheer in particular. Being a regular attendee of QP, it can become frustrating to see that rules aren't being applied consistently, and that the Speaker isn't delivering any rulings with a sense of gravitas, and hence this week's column came to be.

Rent-a-Tories, Liberal Supporters, and the death of accountability

My column this week on Loonie Politics is up, and continues to look at the issue of Michael Chong's Reform Act 2013. The issue of how parties choose leaders as having a longer-term impact remains a focus in this week's piece, and I get to employ one of the best political quotes from the past decade, being one from retired Senator Lowell Murray, about the loss of the party as the interlocutor between the citizens and the government.

The "Reform Act's" Missing Link

I had my first column posted today on the website Loonie Politics, which will be carried weekly. I wrote about the new Reform Act that Conservative MP Michael Chong tabled today, and identified some of the areas of it that concern me from a perspective of both history and civic literacy. I've studied much of this issue as part of the research I did for my forthcoming book on civic literacy, and was please to be able to apply it to this current reform proposal and offer what I could to the debate.