Pierre Poilievre once again affirmed his complete and utter shamelessness yesterday, as Harry Neufeld, the author of the report that Poilievre likes to cite, appeared before committee and said flat out that Polievre is misquoting the report, that he never said anything about voter fraud, and that the portions of the elections bill that remove vouching as an option should be scrapped, and if they’re not, the bill as a whole should be. But never mind that, Poilievre not only carried on selectively quoting Neufeld, and then said that Neufeld may have written the report but he couldn’t write the law. No, seriously. Because the best response to being caught out misquoting is to double down and insist that the author is wrong. Well done.
In a bit of rather brilliant procedural trickseyness, Conservative minister Kellie Leitch used provisions in the Standing Orders that allowed her to use the House’s authority to order Thomas Mulcair to appear at Procedure and House Affairs to answer for the allegations that the party is abusing their spending, either through “branch” offices or householders right before by-elections. And because the NDP didn’t have 25 MPs in the House during Routine Proceedings when the motion was moved, they couldn’t block the motion. Normally MPs can’t be compelled to appear before committee, but since this was an order of the House and not the committee, it looks like it does have the power to compel him. The NDP tried to be clever in responding by putting a motion before the committee to ask the Prime Minister to appear to answer questions about partisan activities undertaken by the PMO. Because yeah, that’ll show them.
Remember when the government made a big deal about putting the firearms registry under the control of the RCMP, and how great everything was going to be after that happened? Well, because of that Swiss rifle reclassification drama, it now sounds like the government wants to take the powers of gun control away from the very same RCMP. Because apparently appeasing a small group of dedicated voters trumps public safety, being “tough on crime,” or having any common sense on the file.
PSAC has launched a court challenge of the provisions in the previous omnibus budget implementation bill that gives the government the right to declare which public servants can go on strike and which ones can’t. A similar case out of Saskatchewan is currently working its way through at the Supreme Court of Canada.
The Privacy Commissioner is being asked to investigate after blackmail threats have been received with regards to private information relating to Residential Schools survivors – data which may have come from the Indian Residential Schools Adjudication Secretariat, though it remains unclear as to whether or not the alleged blackmailers actually have any data.
Despite the government touting all of its infrastructure funds, municipalities note that their share is really actually quite small, real money won’t be available for several years, and they have major projects that need to get underway sooner. But hey, the government can tout its big number (spread out over ten years with all kinds of pockets being reserved for this and that).
The government sounded quite chuffed with itself as they announced that they had sold Macdonald House in London, which housed High Commission offices and residences, for $565 million. Because we want to book the short-term revenues rather than having assets and real estate for legitimate diplomatic purposes in some of the most expensive cities in the world.
Veterans groups are trying to wedge open the gap between what government lawyers are saying about the lack of a social obligation toward them on the part of the government, and the rhetoric of the minister who says it exists.
John Geddes finds that the finance department isn’t really opposed to enriching the CPP – but the minister won’t ever say that, instead making (illogical) warnings of doom and job losses.
The Senate is delaying the pay raises for their staffers at the request of Treasury Board officials while they negotiate a deal with other unionized staff on the Hill.
Conservative MPs and Liberal partisans made hay over the fact that 9/11 Truthers had posted their national tour on Megan Leslie’s website’s community wall. There is a disclaimer at the bottom of said page that she doesn’t necessarily endorse the things posted there, but it’s there with her face next to it, so the optics don’t come off that well either way. Nor did the partisans trying to make an Issue out of it, for that matter.
Rob Anders’ nomination battle seems to be spiralling out of control as it has been revealed that the party has slapped him on the wrists for those improper phone calls – calls he denied his campaign was making, and which he plans to sue his rival over “defaming” him about. But never mind that – look over there! It’s the Red Tory Menace! It’s signing up all kinds of temporary Tories, and this is a battle for the soul of the party! Anders apparently isn’t a hysterical drama queen at all.
The NDP have announced their first “official” candidate in the next election, nominated in Edmonton Centre.
And Paul Wells liveblogged last night’s Quebec election debate, and once again the job is superlative.