The brewing battle between premiers Christy Clark and Alison Redford went up a notch yesterday as Clark fired back at Redford’s suggestion that her demands for a portion of the royalties meant rewriting Confederation. Clark, not unsurprisingly, called Reford’s comments “silly” and unreasonable to suggested that she was trying to destroy Confederation. Clark’s point is that BC is taking a disproportionate share of the risk with regards to the length of the pipeline and the marine consequences, but isn’t guaranteed an adequate proportion of the revenues. She also steadfastly says that she is neither supporting nor objecting to the pipeline at this point considering that the environmental review process remains incomplete. On a side note, here’s a look at how the upcoming elections in BC and Quebec may play out at the Council of the Federation Meeting that starts today.
The head of Peter Penashue’s campaign says he’s sorry for exceeding the limits and for his lax bookkeeping. Well, so long as he’s sorry, that makes everything better, right? (Todd Russell, the former MP, who lost by a mere 79 votes, doesn’t plan to challenge the results given the recommendations, for the record). Meanwhile, Elections Canada was not interested in offering Dean Del Mastro “immunity” in exchange for more information about the funding irregularities.
On the Etobicoke Centre file, Borys Wrzesnewskyj is calling into question some of the “new evidence” that Elections Canada provided before the Supreme Court.
Hey, another elections spending scandal, this time in Alberta, where the province’s publicly owned bank apparenty violated its own policies and possibly the law in order to donate to the PC party. Now, think about that federal bill that proposes to restrict political loans to accredited financial institutions. Oh yeah, this is going to end well.
Stephen Harper met with Toronto mayor Rob Ford yesterday, and after they had a photo op and took no questions, everyone went their separate ways. So really, we have no idea what went on, but judging from the look on Harper’s face, it seems even he couldn’t much take Ford either. What Harper did say later in the day was that he wants the courts to enforce those mandatory minimums, no matter how arbitrary or inappropriate. Yeah, that solves the problem of gun crime.
Elsewhere, Harper says that the Chinese takeover of Nexen shouldn’t be presumed to be a given. CNOOC, meanwhile, has retained Hill & Knowlton to guide them through the regulatory process.
The Quebec government has signed an agreement that creates a new regional government in the James Bay area that gives the Cree in the area more authority over the territory and their own affairs.
Documents show that Bev Oda repaid five inappropriate expenses after the Savoy/$16 orange juice story came to light.
And Senator Bert Brown says that Harper has “time on his side” when it comes to Senate “reform,” since he can keep appointing “reform-minded” senators as current ones retire. But do you know what he doesn’t have on his side? The constitutional authority to do it unilaterally. Just saying.