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We is once again a touchy subject in Justin Trudeaus Liberal party.

While the hits just keep on coming about Trudeaus connections to the WE charity, the controversy has touched off grumbling in Liberal circles about the lowercase we as in, how exactly did we get into this mess, and who is we anyway in the decision-making circle around the prime minister?

Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, the Liberal MP for the Toronto riding of Beaches-East York, says he was on the phone immediately after the news emerged about WE being chosen to hand out nearly $1 billion in pandemic relief to students. He placed a call last week to the office of Diversity, Inclusion and Youth Minister Bardish Chagger whos now gone silent with the media to get an explanation.

I was struggling to understand why it was being done this way, said Erskine-Smith, a rare MP willing to go on the record on Friday about his concerns with the entire WE affair.

He made the call before he knew all the details, which have been emerging daily, about how closely WE had been working with Trudeaus family, including nearly $300,000 in speaking fees paid out to Trudeaus mother and brother.

Had I known what I know now, I would have said this was too close to the prime minister, Erskine-Smith said.

Other MPs, preferring to talk off the record on Friday, said there has been a lot of chatter in the caucus over the past week about how this WE controversy has revived concerns about team culture or lack of it in Trudeaus government.

There arent a lot of relationships between the PM and caucus, one MP said. Now, he said, with most of caucus relations taking place remotely during the pandemic, there are even fewer opportunities for MPs to have contact with the PM and the tight team around him.

It is either ironic or fitting that WE has made the Liberal we annoyed and nervous.

One MP said he was surprised to learn from news reports first in the Star, as it happens that WE had been given a contract to do work that would normally be done by the public service.

This is a real head-scratcher for me and several of my colleagues, the MP said. I like to consider myself plugged in but the first time I heard of the WE contract was when I read the controversy in the papers. I know for a fact that I was not alone.

What baffled many MPs was why the government needed to do any contracting out at all, especially after months of proving that it was nimble and adaptable enough to get COVID-19 aid directly to citizens.

This was Erskine-Smiths main concern at first: the government has generous and effective programs in place already for students and summer jobs. MPs themselves, of all stripes, are often helpful in steering that help toward where its most needed in their ridings.

So, while Erskine-Smith didnt put it this pointedly, not only was the WE decision made without input from MPs, the plan itself which has now been reversed also kept MPs out of the loop.

Its just so frustrating, he said, citing all the good work the government has been doing to provide help to citizens in this crisis. Now this is taking up so much of the conversation. Erskine-Smiths own mother asked him on Friday why this was going on, though he says his office is not being inundated with complaints, at least not yet.

The exquisitely bad timing of this controversy has Liberals frustrated too. Not only is it happening during a pandemic, but also still in the shadow of the humbling the government received during last years election.

From all accounts, Trudeau had been making genuine efforts after the election, also after last years SNC-Lavalin saga, to forge some greater connections with the Liberal team. Just this week, Trudeau handed a major ambassadors appointment to former interim leader Bob Rae a decision seen as a symbolic olive branch to Liberals who had been kept at arms length from the PMO.

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But the WE controversy is viewed by some Liberals as being about how easy it is for Trudeau and his team to lapse back into old habits of keeping to themselves and giving access and benefits only to the small number of people they trust. Many MPs chose to speak off the record on Friday precisely because they were worried about reinforcing that outsider-insider culture.

None of the MPs or Liberals I reached were calling for Trudeau to resign, as his official opponents are. But there were suggestions that the PM had to surround himself with people who ask harder questions, who would have immediately spotted that WE would hurt the Liberal we.

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Blindsided by the WE scandal, Liberal MPs wonder: How did Justin Trudeau get us into this mess? - Toronto Star

A government-ordered inquiry into the funding of legal class actions descended into acrimony on its first day of hearings when the first witness from a Liberal party thinktank was accused of misquoting a federal judge and citing unreliable figures.

James Mathias, the chief of staff at the Menzies Research Centre (MRC) and a former Liberal candidate for federal parliament, sought to defend his submission during tense exchanges with the Labor senator, Deborah ONeill, who described it as an undergraduate essay that would fail on multiple grounds.

Mathias appeared on Monday before a parliamentary committee investigating whether Australias class action industry needs tighter regulation to ensure fair and equitable outcomes for plaintiffs with the government raising concerns about the role of large companies that sometimes fund class actions.

Labor has claimed the inquiry is a sham set up by the Liberals to deny hardworking Australians any chance of defending their rights against large companies and governments with virtually limitless resources.

The first line of the submission from the MRC the Liberal party thinktank quoted the federal court justice Michael Lee as saying in a judgment on 5 June: The phrase access to justice is often misused by litigation funders to justify what at bottom is a commercial endeavour to make money out of the conduct of litigation.

It was purportedly from a judgment on class actions stemming from allegations that the Australian defence department negligently allowed toxic chemicals known as Pfas to escape from defence bases and contaminate local environments.

But Mathias, who was just 21 when he ran as a federal candidate for the Victorian seat of Holt in 2016, confirmed under questioning he had not read the full judgment cited in the submission as judgments are very long some hundreds of pages.

ONeill said the judgment was actually 37 pages long and the words you quote in the very first line of your submission are nowhere, nowhere to be found in his honours judgment.

The NSW senator said the only place that quote could be found was in an article in the legal journal Lawyerly on 9 June, titled A significant inequality of arms: Funding led to better outcomes in PFAS class action, judge says.

Mathias took that question on notice. But when ONeill accused him of misquoting and taking Justice Lee completely out of context in an attempt to convey the false impression that Justice Lee is opposed to litigation funding, Mathias said: I fundamentally reject the premise of that, senator.

In Lees judgment of 5 June, the judge made a more qualified statement that the term access to justice is commonly misused, most often by some funders who fasten upon it as an inapt rhetorical device.

He then cautioned against generalisations. While noting litigation funding is about putting in place a joint commercial enterprise aimed at making money, Lee went on to say that recognising that reality does not diminish the importance of litigation funding in allowing these class members to vindicate their claims against the commonwealth.

Referring to the alleged victims in the Pfas class actions, Lee continued: Without litigation funding, the claims of these group members would not have been litigated in an adversarial way but, rather, they would likely have been placed in the position of being supplicants requesting compensation, in circumstances where they would have been the subject of a significant inequality of arms.

ONeill also challenged Mathias over the claim in his submission that by 2019, the average amount paid to plaintiffs had fallen to just 39% of the settlement proceeds a figure that has since been quoted in several news reports..

He said it was based on a presentation contained within a PowerPoint of analysis by the law firm Herbert Smith Freehills.

In later proceedings, Andrew Saker, the managing director of litigation funder Omni Bridgeway, said he believed the 39% figure was based on incomplete data.

Saker said Herbert Smith Freehills had informed his company that the figure had been included in a PowerPoint slide for continuing legal education, it related only to settlement approvals determined by the courts, and it was not authorised for outside use.

Earlier, Mathias said he was not arguing against class actions, but for reform to ensure they remained a vehicle for justice.

We find ourselves in an environment where damages awarded to plaintiffs who have been most wronged is declining, and if you care about access to justice then you would care about the percentages that have been paid out to these people, he said during a hearing conducted via videolink.

James Paterson, the Liberal chair of the parliamentary joint committee on corporations and financial services, repeatedly asked ONeill not to interrupt or reflect on witnesses with the protection of parliamentary privilege.

ONeill told the chair she was happy to discuss the issue offline but I dont want to be berated as a senator of the Australian public by you in front of the media.

Weve got an undergraduate essay that would fail on plagiarism and [is] incorrect, put to us by the Menzies Research Centre - its just not up to standard, she said.

When Mathias attempted to ask his own question of ONeill, she shot back: When you become another young senator for the Liberal party you might be able ask me questions, but at the moment you dont have that opportunity.

When contacted for a response to the criticism of his submission, Mathias said it was astonishing that the Guardian would be siding with foreign backed, super-profitable litigation funders just because it does not like the politics of the MRC

But the shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, said the Liberal party had been humiliated at the first day of its class actions inquiry.

When setting up the inquiry in May, the attorney general, Christian Porter, cited growing concern that the lack of regulation governing the booming litigation funding industry is leading to poor justice outcomes for those who join class actions, expecting to get fair compensation for an injury or loss.

Originally posted here:
Liberal thinktank submission on class actions labelled 'an undergraduate essay that would fail' - The Guardian

Under fierce attacks from the opposition over his decision not to release the Department of Treasury's review into the government's $70 billion wage subsidy scheme, JobKeeper, Mr Morrison said he was "carefully weighing up" the important issues.

Labor has seized on modelling showing about 4800 businesses and an estimated 18,000 workers in the electorate, which takes in Queanbeyan and includes the towns of Yass, Bega and Cooma, were reliant on the subsidy.

Ms McBain and Labor's treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers have called on the government to release the review and reveal whether the $1500-a-fortnight payment would be made available beyond its September cut-out date.

"I've already flagged very clearly there will be a next phase and we are calibrating that next phase and targeting it to ensure that the support is there for those businesses and those employees who will continue to need it," Mr Morrison said.

"But for many other businesses, we're pleased to see that there has been some improvement and so these are decisions that you don't rush to meet Labor's timetable."

Dr Kotvojs, appearing alongside Mr Morrison at Lobs Hole in Kosciuszko National Park, was forced to defend a submission she made to the royal commission into the summer's bushfires.

Labor seized on the words, written by the candidate and her husband Alan Burdon in April, which called for fuel loads to be better managed and did not reference climate change.

"For us, there is only one issue fuel load. Unless this is addressed, everything else is meaningless," they wrote.

Dr Kotvojs said she believed the climate was changing and that humans were contributing to that change.

"Where I live, the fires came through our farm and we watched them coming at Cobargo, into Dignams Creek, and the areas where there been hazard reduction already occur, the fire came through low intensity and much slower," she said.

"It caused much less damage. The area where the hazard reduction hadn't occurred, the fire was just so intense. It's caused so much damage."

Labor candidate Kristy McBain is aiming to retain the seat Mike Kelly won in 2019 before leaving politics.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Ms McBain, who stood aside as Bega Valley mayor to contest the by-election, said on Tuesday that holding onto the seat vacated by two-time MP Mike Kelly was going to be "difficult".

ALP sources told The Herald that preferences from the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party would be critical for the party's chances to retaining the seat. Mr Kelly won by about 1 per cent last May.

They said it remained uncertain whether Nationals voters would give their second preference to the Liberals and there was an grassroots campaign among some party members to send a protest vote elsewhere.

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Ms McBain said the community was "really hurting" after drought, bushfire and the COVID-19 pandemic, which has shut down the tourism sector.

"I've spoken to so many business owners, so many residents. Everybody is really concerned about the future of their work, the future of their jobs," she said.

"They actually want someone that's going to go into bat for them long term. Not someone that just shows up during a by-election, but someone who's already got their runs on the board."

Rob Harris is the National Affairs Editor for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, based at Parliament House in Canberra

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Liberals confident they are in 'striking distance' of Eden-Monaro upset - Sydney Morning Herald

B.C. Liberal MLAs are using taxpayers' moneyto payfor ads in a Christian magazine that includes articles opposed to transgender rights and medically assisted dying.

The party caucus has billed more than $2,000, listed under various MLA accounts, for ads in The Light Magazine in the 18 months leading up to the end of 2019.

The story was originally reported on Monday in PressProgress, an online non-profitnews publication that bills itself as "progressive" and was founded in 2013 by the Broadbent Institute, according to its website.

Receipts showing how members of the B.C. legislaturespendtheirconstituency office allowancearepublicly available online.MLAs are allowed to bill for communications such as newsletters, flyers or advertisements.Expenses for 2020 are not yet available.

The Light Magazine is described on its website as a free Christian lifestyle magazine that discusses topics such ashealth, marriage, family, finances, faith and culture. The magazine, which is basedin Langley, B.C., says its mission is to connect Christians and encourage participation in local church life.

Past issues have promoted controversial views on topics ranging from transgender rights to medically assisted dying and conversion therapy.

An article in the magazine from 2018 details the rise of a conservative Christian movement that resulted in a document called the the West Coast Christian Accord. That accord, reprinted in The Light, condemns unconventional marriages and those who "adopt a homosexual or transgender self-perception."

In the most recent edition the magazine published an editorial about the struggle of Christianity in COVID-19 times, urging Christians to beware pundits who heighten fear and anxiety to "sell commercials."

Constituency expense receipts show various MLAs billing for ads placed with Light Christian Media Inc.

In December, long-time Langley MLA Rich Coleman alonebilled $1,428 for a Christmas ad paid to Light Christian Media Inc. bythe B.C. Liberal Caucus.

A sum of $503 was paid for an ad in the magazine's October 2019 edition, showing B.C. Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson and nine other MLAs in a Thanksgiving greeting.

That ad appears adjacent to an article on sexual temptationthat warns of the dangers ofpornography, sexual anarchy and orgies.

A few pages after the ad, there is a feature that criticizes a ban on conversion therapy as an assault on freedom of speech.

Conversion therapy is a practice that aims to change an individual's sexual orientation to heterosexual or gender identity to cisgender, which means identifying with the sex assigned to them at birth. It uses different ways in some cases,electric shocks to create aversion to certain stimuli.

In the November edition, a writer in The Light discusses the Delta Hospice Society's move to become a Christian organizationand describes the practice of medically assisted dying as "barbaric."

A promotional ad for MLA Marvin Huntis a few pages away one of many similar ads Hunt has taken out in The Light, costing just under $150 per issue.

B.C. Liberal MLA Simon Gibson also wrote a monthly column for the publication, offering spiritual advice.

His April 2019 column appearedbeside an editorial by Laura-Lynn Tyler Thompson, a former televangelist andfailedPeople's Party of Canada candidate, that criticizedSOGI 123, the sexual orientation and gender identity curriculum taught in B.C. schools.

CBC has reached out to B.C. LiberalMLAs for comment.

At 9:15 a.m. PT Tuesday, Wilkinson tweetedthat there is "no room in the B.C. Liberal Party for homophobia, transphobia or any other form of discrimination."

"Going forward, we are taking immediate steps to ensure our advertising decisions reflect those values at all times," he added.

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B.C. Liberals ran ads in Christian magazine that features content opposed to trans rights, assisted death - CBC.ca

NewsOpinionColumnistsIf we lose liberalism, we will lose civilisation, so unionists and nationalists, Tories and socialists need to defend the right to express opinions with which they disagree, writes Murdo Fraser MSP.

Tuesday, 30th June 2020, 4:45 pm

The term liberal in a political context has a variety of different meanings: in the US, it is generally taken as a description of someone on the left of politics, whilst in contrast we are more likely to use it to describe someone in the centre ground. There is, however, an older and more accurate definition of a liberal, which according to the Cambridge English Dictionary is someone who respects many different types of beliefs or behaviour. It is this view of liberalism which lies at the heart of modern British democracy, and underpins so much of our political thinking from left to right. It is also a view that today seems under attack as never before.

We see the rise of illiberal attitudes manifested in a recent series of well-publicised events, which suggest a deeply worrying strain of new intolerance amongst sections of public opinion. The best example of this is the succession of vile, vicious and misogynistic attacks made on the writer JK Rowling, whose criticism of the term people who menstruate instead of women led to accusations against her of transphobia, with various authors quitting her literary agency, and some workers at her publishing house reportedly refusing to have anything to do with her new book.

At the weekend, the Labour MP and Shadow Environment Minister, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, had to apologise to Rowling after he accused her of using her own sexual assault as justification for discriminating against trans people. Rowling has won plaudits for her courage in speaking out on issues which many in the worlds of politics and the arts are scared even to mention for fear of the vitriol that will be thrown at them.

Most concerning of all is the extreme view put forward by a vocal minority that individuals holding the views expressed by JK Rowling should not be permitted to express them; that they should be no-platformed, or cancelled. There is, according to these new Puritans, no debate around these issues, and all dissenting opinions must be crushed. This illiberalism is championed even by some politicians on the Left who would want to present themselves as paragons of tolerance.

Robert the hero and villain

We saw something similar in the recent debate over the toppling of statues, motivated by the Black Lives Matter campaign. This reached the heights of absurdity when the statue of Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn was daubed with Black Lives Matter graffiti and the words Racist King.

Whether there is any historical justification for the claim that King Robert was a racist in his attitudes is beyond my knowledge, although it would be a reasonable assumption that his views on same-sex relationships would be out of kilter with present-day sensibilities. He was, of course, a great hero who led the Scottish nation to liberation from the English oppressor. He was, at the same time, someone who murdered a rival claimant to the Scottish crown at the altar of Greyfriars Church in Dumfries, an appalling act which led to his excommunication.

Like many characters from history, Robert the Bruce was both a hero and a villain. There are few figures from the past whose reputations can survive the scrutiny of todays intolerant new Puritans. Rather than tearing down the statues of those whose morals we now question, I much prefer the wise approach favoured by Professor Sir Geoff Palmer, who believes that the statues of controversial figures should be retained but with updated plaques giving a more balanced view on their track records as is now happening with the Henry Dundas monument in Edinburgh.

If we are to have decisions taken about statues whether Charles II in Parliament Square in Edinburgh, Henry Dundas, Robert the Bruce, or Winston Churchill, these decisions have to be taken on a properly democratic basis, not driven by the views or worse still, the thuggish direct action of a tiny extremist minority who represent no one but themselves. In a liberal democracy, we cannot ever surrender to the mob.

An SNP champion of free speech

Even comedy is now under attack, with episodes of Little Britain and Fawlty Towers being removed from TV screens because some find them offensive. The intolerance that saw the Month Python film Life of Brian banned from cinemas four decades ago is today re-emerging, albeit in a different form. And we see echoes of this agenda in the SNP Governments new Hate Crimes Bill, with its worrying proposals to criminalise those who express opinions which might be deemed to stir up hatred against protected groups, a significant threat to freedom of speech.

Against this tide of illiberalism there is only one place where politicians should stand, and that is against the mob; to be a voice of reason in a tide of hysteria; and to promote calm in the face of rage. It is reassuring that there are those in all political parties who are prepared to speak up in defence of liberalism, just as there were those willing to support JK Rowling when she came under attack.

I have many political disagreements with the SNP MP Joanna Cherry, but she has been an effective champion of free speech. Last week she reminded us of an important, and pertinent, quote from George Orwell: If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

The freedom to only hear opinions with which we agree is no freedom at all. We must be prepared to defend unpopular opinions whether we agree with them personally or not. Unionist or nationalist, Tory or Socialist, we all need to stand together and declare: we are all liberals now. For without liberalism, there is no civilisation, and all we are left with are dogs fighting over the scraps.

Murdo Fraser is a Scottish Conservative MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife

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Attacks on JK Rowling, Robert the Bruce and Fawlty Towers show liberalism and free speech are at risk Murdo Fraser MSP - The Scotsman