Conservative MP Stephen Fletcher is introducing two Private Member’s Bills on assisted suicide in order to get the debate on the agenda. The problem with this, of course, is that a) he would only have one slot for Private Member’s Business, so introducing two bills means one of them won’t see the light of day, and b) as Fletcher was a minister, his debate slot is at nearly the bottom of the list, as he only got it after he was dropped from cabinet, so it remains unlikely to see the light of day. Nevertheless, with the court challenges going on, it is a good reminder that Parliament should be debating these kinds of issues, but we all know that they are reluctant to, and try to fob off the hard work to the courts so that they can be seen to be dragged into doing something about it.
The government has come to an agreement with retired public servants about increasing the amount they pay for their supplemental benefits plan. The unions aren’t happy and said that these were negotiations with a gun to their heads, since the government would have simply legislated the changes if they didn’t go along with them, seeing as they had already booked the savings in their fiscal projections on the road to their pre-election balanced budget.
The Chief Electoral Officers of BC and the Northwest Territories also appeared in committee this week and laid out similar concerns about the Fair Elections Act to other CEOs, past and present, especially around the elimination of vouching.
The Senate banking committee says that the Registered Disability Savings Plan that the government likes to tout so much only has a 15 percent uptake rate because there are too many hurdles in place for most families to access it. But hey, the government can still brag about creating it, right?
The government is delaying making a decision on whether or not to buy the F-35 fighters until after the next election, which makes you wonder just how bad the national fighter jet procurement secretariat’s report is that they’re putting it off that long in the hopes that political hay won’t be made of it during the next election.
Documents released to Parliament suggest that Bell Canada maintains a law enforcement database that monitors Canadians’ telecom information. Also worrying is that when confronted with the information that these companies have been turning over information without warrants, the minister simply replied that they comply with the law.
Changes being debated in the Senate could mean that the Senate Ethics Officer would finally be allowed to speak to the media about her investigations.
Looking at the proposed amendments to the Reform Act, Aaron Wherry talks to a lawyer and former Liberal Party official who goes through what each could mean, and why they actually don’t serve the parties in any meaningful way and could in fact make a number of situations worse.
CBC has maps and graphs about federal spending announcements in 2013. Shiny!
The captain of the HMCS Protecteur has broken his silence, and spoke about the 11-hour fire that the ship suffered, that there was a second fire three days later when the crew was trying to restore power, and that back-up generators failed. There is little doubt that it was the most harrowing experience of his naval career.
The Board of Internal Economy has backed down from the lifetime gag orders in political staff agreements, and it now contains the common sense stuff like personal information that is covered under your average privacy legislation.
The War of 1812 made its way in the US Senate debate over the Keystone XL pipeline, and small surprise, they don’t actually know their history, claiming that they won the war, and that Canada/British North America was hostile to Americans then when they were the ones who invaded us.
The NDP accused the Liberals of data mining off a web invitation to “stand together with Canadian parliamentarians targeted by Russian sanctions.” The Liberals say they won’t attempt to fundraise off of that list (but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be one more data point for their voter identification database).
Justin Trudeau defended denying Christine Innes a green light for the nomination in Trinity Spadina, saying that there were several meetings and warnings that went unheeded about the bullying and intimidation of volunteers that went on, which is why he has no regrets. (It is also worth noting that had this been the Conservatives, Innes would be disqualified for having lost two previous elections). As well, Trudeau has said that anyone with past leadership debt will be disqualified, and it sounds like they have a deadline of November to finish paying that off. Incumbents Marc Garneau and Hedy Fry are likely those most concerned, especially as Fry still has debt from 2006, while it could also spell doom for Hot Republican Mess George Takach and David Bertschi (who also broke the rules about the debt cap).
Rob Anders says he’s considering suing his nomination challenger Ron Liepert for “defamatory comments” about those robocall allegations – and then proceeded to make a bunch of defamatory comments about Liepert.
The heated Mississauga nomination race involving Eve Adams continues to simmer as the local riding association is clearly stacked in favour of the other candidate, while there are concerns that Adams’ fiancée, party executive director Dimitri Soudas, is seen to be meddling in the race despite his declaration to recuse himself.
Brent Rathgeber, who served on the Supreme Court Selection Panel in 2011, blogs about the opaque selection process and the ways in which the government more subtly politicises it.
And CBC Radio’s The Current talks about the decreasing access of journalists to politicians, not only in Ottawa but also in Washington DC, and Parliamentary Press Gallery Laura Payton explains some of the current frustrations with decreasing access in technical briefings to new legislation.