Stephen Harper’s Maternal and Child Health summit begins today in Toronto, with some luminaries in attendance like Ban Ki-Moon, the Aga Khan, and Melinda Gates. Critics are quick to say that our foreign aid dollars have not only been decreasing, but are being funnelled into this kind of cynical initiative that does more to fuel domestic concerns – after all, who doesn’t love an mom and apple pie issue like ensuring that infant mortality is reduced – not to mention those who criticise that these same programmes are not doing anything about reproductive health and access to safe abortions for women in developing countries. But on the other hand, we do seem to be making a difference and are visibly standing up for the issue, for what it’s worth. There are also concerns that the government is not being accountable for its Maternal and Child Health spending, that despite all of the data it’s putting out, it’s scattered and the dots don’t connect, making it hard to track or put together an overall picture.
The Chief of Defence Staff appeared before a Commons committee yesterday to address the problems of sexual assault in the Canadian Forces as was revealed in Maclean’s last month, and he insisted it’s not part of military culture. That said, he didn’t seem to offer much in the way of assurances that things were being dealt with swiftly, and while an outside review is being organized, he also wouldn’t say that there is a problem, just that they need to do better.
The group representing restaurant owners across the country are demanding an urgent meeting with the Prime Minister over the freeze on temporary foreign workers, saying that it will have a bigger impact on Canadian jobs – especially students and young people – if this situation isn’t resolved right away.
Retired Supreme Court Justice John Major doesn’t have kind things to say about the way the government has handled the Nadon situation.
A group of small business and medium-sized owners are calling on the government to scrap aspects of the omnibus budget bill revolving around changing trademark legislation, which would make it comply more with international conventions. Where the NDP tried to score points is the fact that the CEO of Giant Tiger was among them, and the son of Giant Tiger’s founder is currently a Conservative MP.
First Nations chiefs have voted to reject the First Nations education bill and call on the government to withdraw it and negotiate a new agreement on transfer payments to First Nations. A third of chiefs abstained from the vote, while none opposed. Some of the frustrations are the fact that the government is asking disparate First Nations, each with unique circumstances, to come up with a single solution – though one can understand why the government doesn’t want to set up hundreds of individual agreements. Nevertheless, the government has agreed to withdraw the bill, but expressed its disappointment and said that there won’t be new funds until the education system is reformed.
Natural resources minister Greg Rickford is setting up two different groups to help deal with First Nations in the west in order to work with them around resource extraction and pipeline projects. This was part of the recommendations by Douglas Eyford in his report to the government on the subject.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer did the math and found that the government’s tax changes have taken out some $30 billion out of government coffers every year, which the Conservatives are patting themselves on the back for seeing as they’re looking to starve the beast.
Tony Clement is invoking cabinet confidence to avoid answering Order Paper questions on compensation deals around the Canada-Europe free trade agreement. That actually makes some level of sense, given that the deal isn’t finalized, and that treaty negotiations are a Crown prerogative, hence confined to cabinet until made public.
Energy economist Andrew Leach looks at the Kinder-Morgan TransMountain pipeline expansion hearings, notes the almost wilful blindness of the National Energy Board, and whether they have actually done a needs assessment for the pipeline.
Michael Chong’s Reform Act saw its first hour of Second Reading debate last night. Aaron Wherry provided the backgrounder for the bill here, while my previous column reminds us why it’s not a panacea for our democratic ills. Carleton University professor Jonathan Malloy notes that this is but one more technical reform in a series of technical reforms, but real reform requires that MPs take the agency to make the changes.
Former Harper senior advisor Bruce Carson said that Harper knew about his prior convictions prior to hiring him, despite Harper later proclaiming ignorance. Carson went on to give his particular observations about Harper, and the way that the PMO seems to be generating into a self-feeding cycle where only one opinion ever circulates anymore, to the detriment of everyone involved.
Kady O’Malley looks at the by-election race in Scarborough–Agincourt, and wonders if the current abortion faux-battle and comments by the former MP, Jim Karygiannis, would hurt the Liberals there. Pundit’s Guide isn’t so sure.
And my column this week takes on the notion that Thomas Mulcair is the “master of Question Period,” as some have called him lately, and gives a more reasoned assessment of his QP performance, and that of the other leaders.