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There are too many news stories I want to spend time on, so it’s time for a quick-fire round of government failures.

SCC rightly calls Crown out for long-term dishonourable conduct, sends it back to the parties to negotiate anyway.

Last week, in Ontario (Attorney General) v. Restoule, 2024 SCC 27, all nine members of the Supreme Court of Canada, speaking through Justice Jamal, said the Crown had dishonourably breached its duties for 150 years:

The Robinson Treaties of 1850 comprise the Robinson-Huron Treaty and the Robinson-Superior Treaty. Under these treaties, the Anishinaabe of the northern shores of Lake Huron and Lake Superior ceded their vast territories in exchange for, among other things, an annual payment in perpetuity. The annuities were to be increased over time under certain circumstances. However, for almost 150 years, the annuities have been frozen at a shocking $4 per person, after the first and only increase was made in 1875. Today, in what can only be described as a mockery of the Crown’s treaty promise to the Anishinaabe of the upper Great Lakes, the annuities are distributed to individual treaty beneficiaries by giving them $4 each.

Peter Zimonjic did a good synopsis for CBC News, “Crown made a ‘mockery’ of 2 treaties with First Nations for 150 years, Supreme Court rules,” including explaining that:

The ruling does not award a settlement to the Huron or Superior Anishinaabe First Nations, but sets out the obligations of the Crown to negotiate an increase to resource revenues retrospectively, and into the future. 

If the Crown fails to “exercise its discretion” in a satisfactory manner within the next six months, then the issue can ultimately be brought back before the courts.

I find this a bit disappointing as a remedy given the vehemence of words like “mockery” and “dishonourable.” It is in fact my personal prediction that the Crown won’t even figure out what the word “retrospectively” means within six months, much less negotiate an honourable settlement.

I can understand that the Court didn’t want to set an amount itself. If the Court’s goal is to guide and set boundaries for the perpetual / treaty relationship, then sure, legitimacy comes from negotiations between the parties themselves. The point is presumably for the government to learn to live up to the principles it says are foundational. But I also wonder if there were behind-the-scenes discussions about a possible constitutional crisis if the Court took a more directive approach.

In any event, it is my eternal wish for braver judicial remedies in the face of decades of bad faith government operations. I think an interesting approach here would have been for the Supreme Court to allow the appeal after six months to be directly to itself, rather than forcing First Nations groups back through every level of court again, meaning years more delay before appropriate payments are made.

That seems like it would have been a significantly symbolic departure from judicial norms to reflect the gravity of 150 years of dishonour by the Crown.

Federal Liberals decide protecting vulnerable workers is too politically costly, let the racists win instead.

Another good article by Emily Leedham for Press Progress, “Rise of Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric to Blame for Liberals’ Delay on Giving Undocumented Workers’ Status, Advocates Say“:

Trudeau’s Liberals have backtracked on rolling out a “broad and comprehensive”program to grant undocumented workers status, drawing criticism from migrant rights advocates who say the government is legitimizing far-right, anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Immigration Minister Marc Miller cited changes in Canada’s “political atmosphere” and a “lack of consensus” among Canadians as a reason to abandon his planned regularization program for undocumented workers. 

Yes, members of the Trudeau government, it is certainly a fact that you are never going to get consensus from racists with respect to human rights. Perhaps you should stop letting your policy be dictated by bigots and corporate interests and actually start leading if you want people who believe in human rights to vote for you.

“Regularization is the litmus test of Trudeau’s commitments. It’s a litmus test of his feminist commitments, his commitments to queer people, his commitments to immigrants, his commitment to welcoming refugees, because this is the group of people who have been forced to become undocumented because of decades of an unfair system under multiple governments and mandates.” – Hussan Syed, Executive Director, Migrant Workers Alliance for Change

MPs don’t bother to listen, witnesses walk out (!).

The House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women convened for a rare summer meeting yesterday, ostensibly to study the “Impacts of Violent Crime Against Women.”

This is a significant societal issue: Stats Can notes that “between 2011 and 2021, 1,125 women and girls were victims of gender-related homicide in Canada, which averages to about 102 women and girls per year.” That’s approximately two femicide deaths per week in Canada (a comparative statistic I was always tempted to try to work into my briefing notes for committees studying terrorism).

But, rather than listen to the witnesses who had prepared and appeared to speak on the meeting’s ostensible topic, MPs let the “emergency” meeting deteriorate into procedural nesting dolls and partisan attacks, and the witnesses eventually walked out.

The meeting itself can be viewed on ParlVu. Anita Vandenbeld is the first Liberal witness to ask questions, at 11:47. “I want to reassure you very much that all of us care very deeply” about the issue of violence against women, she says, before launching into a recitation of Liberal bills that don’t appear to be preventing 102 Canadian women and girls per year from being murdered for gender-related reasons.

“If anyone tries to say that there’s anyone in this room who doesn’t care about this issue, I think that they are playing partisan games,” Anita Vandenbeld says, before grinding the meeting to a halt by moving a motion to resume a different debate that the Committee adjourned more than two years ago.

Just before 12:10, you can see the witnesses have turned their backs on the MPs, and five minutes later they try one more time to be heard (12:15:45). “Your mic is not on and no one…” says Committee Chair Shelby Kramp-Neuman (Conservative). “At this point we’re not, we don’t have space to acknowledge, in this space right now…” she trails off, “this space” referring to the meeting convened to hear these witnesses.

The witnesses walk out, and the Chair, whose mic is still on, can be heard asking the Clerk if she can adjourn the meeting. No. It continues for 25 more minutes before MPs give up on even pretending to be productive.

I think walking out in disgust at partisan bullshit can absolutely be the right call.