Politics Briefing: Liberal tax changes may be tough to square with promises

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Good morning,

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. The B.C. government says it will hold a third referendum on electoral reform next year. Voters have rejected a switch to a form of proportional representation twice before, in 2005 and 2009. But a referendum was a key demand of the third-place Greens for propping up the minority NDP government. The New Democrats doesn't yet know which system it will propose to voters, or whether they'll give multiple options to choose from.

This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Chris Hannay in Ottawa, Mayaz Alam in Toronto and James Keller in Vancouver. If you're reading this on the web or someone forwarded this email newsletter to you, you can sign up for Politics Briefing and all Globe newsletters here. Have any feedback? Let us know what you think.

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CANADIAN HEADLINES

Finance Minister Bill Morneau says the government's tax proposals were designed in such a way that they don't hurt the handing down of small businesses from one generation to the next. But experts in his department admit it's easier said than done. "We're still struggling to find another approach to this," one told the Senate finance committee yesterday. Meanwhile, Liberal MP Wayne Long of New Brunswick says he may be censured by his party for speaking out against the proposed tax changes.

In a rare show of cross-partisanship, the House of Commons voted unanimously for two bills last night: One helps journalist protect their sources, and the other targets human-rights abusers. The latter, a bill modeled after the U.S. Congress's Magnitsky Act, has already drawn threats of reprisal from Russia.

The federal government says it will charge GST on recreational marijuana, as well as the previously announced excise tax, once the drug becomes legalized. The challenge is keeping the price of legal cannabis at a level where it is competitive with the black market. Alberta plans to allow marijuana users to consume the drug anywhere smoking is allowed, but the government isn't yet sure where it will be sold. The NDP government has announced a blueprint for how it will handle legal marijuana next year, as it becomes clear that the rules will differ greatly between provinces.  Alberta is waiting for public feedback before deciding whether to rely on government-owned stores or allow private shops. Ontario plans to set up a monopoly of government-owned stores, while consumption will only be allowed inside private homes. B.C., which has not finalized its plans, is considering a mixed public-private model. In New Brunswick, a Crown corporation will regulate marijuana, but it's not clear where it will be sold.

B.C.'s children's watchdog says gaps within the child-welfare system allowed a troubled teen to languish in hospital for months before he killed himself. Bernard Richard, B.C.'s Representative for Children and Youth, says the case underscores the lack of support for families of young people with complex mental-health needs. His report recommends the province establish a single continuum of mental health services for children and youth, which would span social services, health and education. The provincial government says it accepts that there are "huge gaps" that need to be closed.

Jeff Callaway, former president of the Wildrose Party, has dropped out of the leadership race for the United Conservative Party and is backing former federal cabinet minister Jason Kenney.

The federal government says it will replace the plaque on the recently opened National Holocaust Monument after it was pointed out that it did not mention Jewish people.

And Julie Payette is another in a line of Canadian-born governors-general who have served only one monarch in the past 60 years. But what will happen when the Queen finally passes on the crown?

The Globe and Mail editorial board on federal party leaders: "Voting-behaviour experts note that millennials are more apt to expect to be wooed by politicians, whom they are less likely to believe, than previous generations did. An on-demand, free-delivery and bespoke world craves individualized attention and that ever-elusive quality, authenticity. It's a different kind of electorate: highly educated, secular, culturally diverse, technologically savvy."

Shauna Singh Baldwin (The Globe and Mail) on NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Sikh principles: "The word Sikh means a learner – that's why everyone can be a Sikh. I hope Mr. Singh's election makes it less cool to be ignorant and fear-filled. Make it unacceptable to be ignorant of other Canadians. Each one, teach one about yourself. Each one, interview one to learn about one another. And each one learn one more language besides French and English."

Robert Everett-Green (The Globe and Mail) on Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly: "Several things dragged the Minister down, some quite unnecessarily. It was a mistake for her to pose as a champion of consumers while waving away a tax that would have cost Netflix subscribers less than a dollar a month. She seemed not to realize that tax fairness is also a potent issue – especially when the lack of it directly penalizes Canadian companies competing with Neflix for audiences. Or, more likely, she was instructed not to let anything divert her from the mission of keeping Neflix tax-free."

John Ibbitson (The Globe and Mail) on issues around marijuana legalization: "When marijuana use becomes legal next July, more people will drive drugged. Because there is no breath-analysis machine available, police will have a hard time detecting these drivers and securing convictions. Proposed measures to make it easier for police to lay a charge are cumbersome, expensive and possibly unconstitutional."

Peter Shawn Taylor (The Globe and Mail) on revenue-neutral carbon taxes: "The dream of a revenue-neutral carbon tax is over. The notion of carbon tax perfection has always centred on revenue neutrality − whatever governments reaped by taxing carbon dioxide emissions would be returned to taxpayers via tax cuts in other areas. In this way the overall cost of climate change policy would be nil. Taxpayers would be kept whole. Unfortunately, the recent provincial budget in British Columbia proves such a textbook idyll can not survive exposure to the political realm."

Armine Yalnizyan and Chris Grisdale (The Globe and Mail) on temporary foreign workers:  "The evolution of temporary-foreign-workers rules has made the system increasingly employer-driven, with little oversight. Canada now accepts more than twice the number of temporary foreign workers as permanent economic immigrants. This may work for businesses, but is a difficult way to grow a country and leads to new frictions."

Chantal Hébert (Toronto Star) on self-inflicted damage: "How many storms of its own making can Justin Trudeau's government sustain before it takes a lasting hit in public opinion? As they reach mid-mandate the ruling Liberals are apparently determined to find out."

Melanee Thomas and Amanda Bittner (Policy Options) on gender, parenting and politics: "Canada and other parliamentary democracies, the lives of members of Parliament differ, depending on their gender and parental status. While it is not news that men are more likely than women to be MPs, what is less known is that men MPs are considerably more likely to be fathers, to have more children than women MPs, and to enter politics when their children are younger. These differences may be because, unlike for nearly every other form of work, maternity and parental leave are not considered viable options for elected representatives, both in terms of public expectations and with respect to politicians' own ideas about what it means to be an MP."

Edward Greenspon and Paul Adams (iPolitics) on the rise of the millennials: "However they turn out (and their generational consciousness indicates that, in critical ways, the die is already cast), millennials are the new boomers. The factors that shaped their political consciousness are likely to produce the dominant narratives of our politics for a long time to come. Get used to it."

INTERNATIONAL HEADLINES

British Prime Minister Theresa May spoke to the party faithful in an attempt to unite Tories, still reeling after the Brexit vote and an election that diminished their standing in the House of Commons. Her efforts turned into an agonizing ordeal as a prankster handed her a pink slip and a persistent cough hampered her speech. And as this was all happening, the letters on the party's slogan  on the wall behind her began falling off.

U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has cancelled her tour of Ontario's schools, citing scheduling conflicts. Teachers' unions had levied heavy criticism against the visit because of what they see as her favouritism of private schools at the expense of the public school system.

Quebec legislators unanimously adopted a motion to condemn the "authoritarianism" of the Spanish government's response to Catalonia's independence referendum. Next Monday, Catalonia will move to declare independence from Spain.

The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee is continuing to probe possible Trump-Russia collusion during the election campaign.

And your Kafkaesque read for today: the New Yorker details how self-appointed guardians can take away everything from elderly Nevada residents, and families are usually powerless to stop it.

Former cabinet ministers Lloyd Axworthy and Allan Rock in The Globe on the Rohingya: "It did not have to be this way. When Myanmar began systematically targeting a segment of its own population, an early response from the Security Council could have changed the outcome. The Secretary-General could have marshalled the moral authority of his office and the influence of supportive states, including Canada, to galvanize global public opinion and isolate and shame any of the permanent five members of the Security Council who sought to stand in the way."

A.J. Somerset (The Globe and Mail) on gun violence: "As in the aftermath of Sandy Hook or Orlando, you might hope that this latest horror would slap some sense into the stubborn and the obtuse. The gun lobby's arguments are emptier than ever. No good guy with a concealed handgun could hope to take out a shooter firing from behind cover at 365 metres. Neither does Las Vegas prove the futility of gun control. Twelve of the guns found in the shooter's suite were fitted with bump-fire stocks, which allow a semi-automatic rifle to achieve a machine gun's rate of fire. A bump-fire stock is perfectly legal. It costs less than $100."

Lawrence Martin (The Globe and Mail) on the Republican Party: "You can get a lot of takers in this town for the proposition that the Republican Party is in its death throes, that the radical outliers have taken over, that it will go the way of Canada's old Progressive Conservatives. This will be Donald Trump's big legacy piece; crushing the establishment Republicans, finishing the process he began in the Republican primaries."