Tag Archives: Charlie Angus

Roundup: Partisan crybabies and skewered straw men

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As machinations and protestations go, the current drama in the Senate is starting to try my patience, particularly because so many of the players seem to be getting drawn off onto silly tangents at the expense of the bigger picture. In particular, the Conservative senators continuing to push this conspiracy theory that all new independent senators are just Liberals in-all-but-name is really, really throwing them off the message that Senator Peter Harder is trying to destroy the Westminster traditions of the Senate, and has a stated goal of removing any sense of official opposition from the Chamber. But when the complaints about Harder’s machinations are drowned out by their conspiracy theorizing, they’re only harming their arguments by making themselves look petty. And it is concerning what Harder has been up to, his latest move being a closed-door meeting for all senators to “discuss short-term and long-term government business.” Add to this are a number of the more established independent senators, who previously felt shut out, excusing Harder’s actions because he’s trying to bring them in, oblivious to the fact that this is how he’s trying to build his little empire.

Add to this conversation comes former senator Hugh Segal who penned an op-ed for the Ottawa Citizen, bravely skewering straw men all around him about those darned partisan senators not giving up committee spots to independent senators (when he knows full well that it’s an ongoing process and that committees don’t get reconstituted until after a prorogation), and coming to the defence of Harder, with whom he worked together all of those years ago during the Mulroney government before Harder transitioned to the civil service. Poor Peter Harder, whose budget has been cruelly limited by all of those partisan senators and how he can’t get the same budget as Leaders of the Government in the Senate past (never mind that Harder has no caucus to manage, nor is he a cabinet minister as the Government Leader post is ostensibly). Gosh, the partisan senators are just being so unfair to him. Oh, please.

So long as people are content to treat this as partisan crybabies jealously guarding their territory, we’re being kept blind as to what Harder’s attempts to reshape the Senate are going to lead to. His attempts to dismantle the Westminster structure are not about making the chamber more independent – it’s about weakening the opposition to the government’s agenda. Trying to organise coherent opposition amongst 101 loose fish is not going to cut it, and Harder knows it. The Senate’s role as a check on the government is about to take a serious blow so long as people believe Harder’s revisionist history and back-patting about how great a non-partisan Senate would be. Undermining parliament is serious business, and we shouldn’t let them get away with it because we think it’s cute that it’s making the partisans angry.

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Roundup: Trying to politicize the GG

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In a move so stunningly boneheaded that I can scarcely believe it, the NDP have gone to Rideau Hall to ask the Governor General to wade in on the Senate residency issue – because there’s nothing like trying to politicise the GG to show that you mean business about a petty issue. It’s like Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition doesn’t have a clue about what Responsible Government – the central organising principle of our democratic system – actually means. Here’s a refresher for their edification – the Governor General acts on the advice of the Prime Minister because the Prime Minister holds the confidence of the House of Commons, which is the chamber elected for the purpose of granting or withholding said confidence. The entire history of the struggle for Responsible Government in the colonies that became Canada, back in the 1830s, was because they wanted to control the appointments made by the Crown, rather than leave it up to the colonial masters in the UK. The entire history of Canadian democracy rests on the fact that it’s the elected government that advises the Crown on who to appoint, and not the other way around. And yet the NDP seem to suddenly think it’s cool to ask the GG to weigh in on which appointments he thinks are okay or not. Charlie Angus may tell you that he’s asking for an explanation and that he’s not trying to draw the GG into the “scandal,” but with all due respect, that’s a load of utter horseshit and he knows it. He’s trying to get the GG to tell him that the PM is wrong so that he has “non-partisan” authority to make the claim for him; that’s never going to happen. Ever. It is assumed that the advice the PM gives the GG is legitimate because the PM has the confidence of the Commons. That means that the quality of that advice is a ballot box issue – if we don’t like it, we get to hold that PM and that government to account by voting them out. It is not up to the GG to veto it unless it’s so egregious that it’s a blatant violation of the constitution, at which point he refuses the advice and the Prime Minister is forced to resign. But as much as Charlie Angus might like to think that Mike Duffy is some unprecedented scandal that rocks the very legitimacy of the Upper Chamber (which they don’t believe is legitimate anyway, so this is grade-A concern trolling on his part), it’s not a constitutional crisis. It’s just not. Even if Harper’s advice was dubious, it was up to Duffy to ensure that he lived up to the terms of that appointment, and ensuing he was a proper resident of PEI – which essentially would have meant a hasty house sale in Ottawa, buying a year-round residence on the Island (and not a summer cottage) tout suit, and then maybe renting an apartment or buying a small condo near Parliament Hill as his Ottawa pied à terre, being a legitimate secondary residence. Duffy did not do that. He instead got political opinions to ensure that he was okay with the summer cottage and a driver’s licence and that’s it, when clearly that was not enough. He bears as much culpability in this as the PM for making the appointment – not the GG. Charlie Angus should be utterly ashamed for this blatant attempt to politicise the GG, but I’m pretty sure he’s incapable of shame.

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Roundup: A surprise trip to Iraq

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John Baird quietly took a trip to Iraq along with is opposition critics, Paul Dewar and Marc Garneau, to meet with officials there and to pledge aid. James Cudmore looks at what Canada could contribute if we take the fight to ISIS, which could include special forces or aerial reconnaissance and support, but unlikely boots on the ground, as it’s politically unpalatable in an election year. Whatever we do, Harper has stated that it’ll be done on a tight budget because we really want to be cheap about fighting the kinds of grave threats that Harper is making them out to be.

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Roundup: A cozy Vancouver sit-down

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Stephen Harper went to Vancouver yesterday in order to meet the Board of Trade there and have a cozy little sit-down that wouldn’t be full of tough questions, and where he could repeat some talking points about how awesome the European Free Trade Agreement is going to be, and how he won’t approve pipelines unless they meet rigorous environmental standards. Of course, this message was interrupted by a couple of climate activists who got past security by coming dressed as wait staff, a stunt organised by a certain vapid narcissist whom I won’t be naming because I won’t give her the attention. Also noted in this conversation by Harper was his smacking of Barack Obama by saying that he “punted” the Keystone XL decision, which doesn’t seem to be the language of building bridges.

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Roundup: No plan B

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The country needs a new computer programme to deal with Employment Insurance claims, and Shared Services Canada and Employment and Social Developmemnt have until 2016 to do it – leaving almost no time to address any inevitable problems once they procure and install said new system, and more ominously, their presentation says, “there is no Plan B.” Missing that deadline means an escalation of costs, and I’m sure a whole host of other problems with the EI programme as a whole. But hey, it’s not like this government has ever had problems with procurements, and there has never been a boondoggle around new software before, right? Oh, wait…

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Roundup: Trying to bury a helicopter announcement

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Four-thirty on a Friday afternoon – the perfect time for a government press release that they want to bury. And lo and behold, on schedule comes the news that the government will be carrying on with the Sikorsky helicopter contract and begin decommissioning the Sea Kings next year. Err, except that those Sikorsky Cyclones won’t be fully operational until, oh, 2018 or so, and the current models that they expect our Forces to train on don’t have shielded electronics, meaning that a ship’s radar can knock them out. Oops. There was no explanation in the release as to how Sikorsky plans to get over this hurdle (as the shielding will add a lot more weight to the choppers), only that it would come at no extra cost – in fact, they already owe millions in late penalties for the ridiculous botched job that this whole procurement has already turned out to be. The best part of this drama, however? Diane Finley’s press secretary left the office immediately after sending the release, and nobody would give out his cell phone number, meaning that reporters couldn’t get a statement from the minister about this pretty big deal of a release. Because that’s the kind of professionalism we’ve come to expect from this government.

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Charlie Angus’ wrongheaded understanding of our democracy

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It was no surprise that NDP-turned-Independent MP Bruce Hyer joined the Green Party, if you’d paid the least amount of attention to the House of Commons over the past year or so. Hyer did flirt with the Liberals to a small extent, expressing support to Joyce Murray’s leadership campaign because of her stance on things like proportional representation, but really, Hyer and Elizabeth May have become quite the pair in the far corner of the Commons.

What was also not a real surprise was the outrage that the NDP would show over the move, and what should not have been a surprise was the stunning degree of civic ignorance demonstrated by Charlie Angus in his press release denouncing Hyer’s move.

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Roundup: Charlie Angus’ distraction and vilification

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At a press conference in Ottawa Friday morning, NDP MP Charlie Angus declared that he doesn’t think that the Auditor General should look at MPs’ expenses because the Senate is evil and stuff. No, really. If that wasn’t a more clear-cut case of distraction (and vilification), I’m not sure what is. The AG put out a statement outlining a few things about his forthcoming Senate audit – basically, it’s like any other audit, so stop asking him about it. Academics are hoping that this new scrutiny will sweep away the “old boys’ network” in the Senate, never mind that it’s been on its way out slowly for the past number of years as increasingly rigorous new rules have been put into place. Have similar rules been put into place on the Commons side? Well, we don’t know, because they’re not transparent, while the Senate is – not that you’ll hear Charlie Angus or Thomas Mulcair admit that. Meanwhile, it seems that Pamela Wallin was whinging about “media bullying” when they made Freedom of Information requests to Guelph University about her billing them for flights for her duties as chancellor, because you know, she’s the victim in all of this. The CBC looks at what’s next for Wallin, and also provides a fact sheet on Senators’ pay, and the key players in the expenses scandals. Meanwhile a group of psychologists – and Andrew Coyne – say that the Senate itself breeds a sense of entitlement, which doesn’t seem to explain why the problems are confined to a small minority, or why MPs and cabinet ministers fall into the very same kinds of entitled behaviours (if not even worse, because they’re the people’s chosen representatives, and a strategic genius to boot, and are therefore even more entitled).

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Roundup: 28 ineligible donations, $47K overspent

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It seems that Peter Penashue accepted 28 different improper or illegal donations during the last election, and overspent his campaign by $47,000. You know, small change, and apparently he keeps claiming that it’s not his fault. Err, except that he signed off on all of it, and as the former Chief Electoral Officer said, those signatures mean something, and when the Elections Commissioner completes his investigation, this may yet result in criminal charges – albeit not before the by-election will be called, unfortunately. Laura Payton asks the outstanding questions about what happened in the Labrador election, and Peter Penashue’s resignation – most of it revolving around the money (most of which came from the party itself, it seems). Meanwhile, the former leader of the Newfoundland and Labrador Liberals has announced that she will contest the nomination for the Labrador by-election. She may yet have to battle Todd Russell for that nomination if he decides to throw his hat back in the ring.

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Roundup: Exit Penashue

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In a surprising turn of events, Intergovernmental Affairs minister Peter Penashue resigned his seat after it was proved that he accepted improper political donations in the last election, which included free flights, an interest-free loan, and dressed up corporate donations. And then he paid back $30,000, which was more than the amount that the CBC had calculated, and they had no idea where the money came from, since the campaign was broke, hence the need for the loan. Penashue won by only 79 votes then, and plans to contest the nomination. His former Liberal Challenger, Todd Russell, has lately been fighting the Lower Churchill project because it hasn’t properly consulted with the Innu communities in the region, and is taking the next few days to consider if he’ll run again.

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