Tag Archives: Dean Del Mastro

Roundup: Economic bluster

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The mood of the moment on the Hill is economic bluster in the light of falling oil prices and a delayed budget – not that there wasn’t some bluster around the Iraq mission to go around either. The NDP announced early on that they want an immediate fiscal update, the subject of today’s opposition day motion – along with the demand to create a budget that suits their particular terms, naturally. The government, however, spent the day playing as if nothing is really wrong. Sure, they’ve lost some manoeuvring room, but they insisted that they will a) balance the budget, b) deliver on all of their promises, and c) not make any more cuts, though one presumes that means any more cuts on top of the continued austerity programme that their whole “surplus” was built on. They can’t really explain how this will happen, other than to use the $3 billion contingency fund, to which Oliver has started talking about how it’s there to be spent and it’ll just go on the bottom line (i.e. national debt payments) otherwise. I will make the additional observations that the NDP were trying to roll the Target layoffs into their lamentations of economic doom and demands for a “jobs programme,” the Liberals were more focused on getting the actual figures for the hole in the budget that the drop in oil prices created and pointed out that Oliver has the information and wasn’t sharing it. It was a noticeable distinction.

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Roundup: Refuting Jason Kenney

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In an interesting turn of events, an unnamed senior government official was talking to The Canadian Press yesterday to refute statements that Jason Kenney had made over the weekend about the upcoming budget – more to the point, that there were more cuts on the way, and that indeed the $3 billion contingency reserve wouldn’t be used to balance the books. It’s curious for a number of reasons – that Kenney would apparently be freelancing and undercutting Joe Oliver (not that Oliver has done himself any favours with some of the answers he’s given the past few days), that these officials would go to these lengths to refute Kenney, and that they’re claiming there are no further cuts because we all know that any “surplus” the government was counting on came from a continued austerity programme, so the fact that they’re saying there won’t be further cuts is a bit hard to take – even if it’s technically that there are no cuts on top of those they have already planned. One wonders if it’s a signal as to current dividing lines in the caucus (and cabinet) around Kenney and his leadership ambitions, and any positioning that he’s engaging in before the election, so that if it doesn’t go well and Harper resigns afterward, that Kenney finds himself ready to swoop in. But like I said – it’s just speculation, which odd stories like this tend to generate. Funny that.

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Roundup: The next SCC justice

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Stephen Harper surprised pretty much everyone when he suddenly announced that the next Supreme Court justice will be Suzanne Côté, a Quebec litigator and the first woman to be appointed to the top court directly from private practice. Côté is known for her expertise commercial contracts, banks, bankruptcy, shareholder disputes, real estate law and the Competition Act, and yes, the Quebec Civil Code. What is different this time is that there was no parliamentary process when it comes to vetting the appointment in any way, or in drawing up a short list, after the disaster that was the Nadon appointment. While the government insists that they were concerned about leaks, the opposition parties have consistently insisted that any leaks came from the government side. Carissima Mathen gives some of her thoughts on the appointment.

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Roundup: Partisan government tweets

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The government continues their questionable communications strategies, as they are now asking federal departments to tweet favourable messages about the government’s new “family tax cut” programmes using hashtags like #StrongFamilies. You know, a slogan that Harper debuted at a party event back in the summer. And these tax measures? Not actually adopted by Parliament yet, so advertising about them is premature (not that it stopped them with the Canada Job Grant, and they’re doing TV ads already on the basis of these unapproved tax measures). Despite what Tony Clement will tell you about how this is important messaging from the government to let people know about their new programmes, it all smacks of partisan advertising – just like those terrible marijuana ads that use torqued and demonstrably false claims (like 400 percent stronger marijuana). Getting public servants to start bombarding social media with these kinds of partisan messages further degrades the neutrality of the civil service, and shows the government to be treating it as their own personal ad agency, which they should not be doing.

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Roundup: Two Conservative holds

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The Conservatives held both ridings in the two by-elections last night, Jim Eglinski winning in Yellowhead and Pat Perkins in Whitby–Oshawa. That said, the Liberal numbers are probably the ones to keep an eye on, because they increased a whole lot between last night and the last election. In both cases, they went from third-place to second – from something like two percent to 19 in Yellowhead, and from 14 percent to 42 in Whitby–Oshawa, taking the lead at some points in the evening. (Note: Both figures were before all polls had reported in). Liberals will tell you that it means that they have momentum in two ridings that they didn’t previously hold, while the NDP will dismiss these as unimportant by-elections in Conservative ridings, but it does seem to complicate the narrative that they’ve been trying to tell of New Democrats being the only ones who can defeat Conservatives. Their numbers didn’t tell that story once again.

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QP: Listing off “real action”

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The first day of the final four-week stretch of sitting days for the calendar year, and everyone was a little more fresh-faced and cheerful — something that won’t last too long. None of the leaders were present today, Harper still on his way back from the G20 in Brisbane, Justin Trudeau off to Whitby—Oshawa for the by-election there, and Mulcair similarly absent, even Elizabeth May absent owing to the death of her father. That left David Christopherson to lead off, denouncing the government’s lack of commitment to GHG emissions reductions coming out of the G20 in Brisbane. Leona Aglukkaq stood up to remind him that major emitters like China and the U.S. were finally coming to the table. Christopherson pressed, and Aglukkaq read off a list of “real action” that they have undertaken. Nycole Turmel asked the same question in French and got pretty much the same answers from Aglukkaq, before turning to the topic of the family tax cuts. Joe Oliver praised them and how the measures will help all kinds of families. For the final question, Turmel threw a bunch of budget cut figures hoping to make something stick, and Oliver reiterated how great his family tax cut plan was. Ralph Goodale led off for the Liberals, noting the ways that the government actually raised taxes, be it payroll taxes or tariffs, and brought it all around to income splitting. Oliver read a talking point about how great income splitting was for families. Goodale demanded that the money spent on income splitting be spent instead on incremental infrastructure investments, to which Oliver decried the Liberal plan to raise taxes. Dominic LeBlanc closed off the round with another question of income splitting versus infrastructure investment in French, to which Jason Kenney rose to say that it was sad to watch the Liberals attacking families with children.

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Roundup: Information Commissioner crisis

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Troubling news out of the Information Commissioner’s office, as Suzanne Legault says that the office is nearly broke, thanks to an increasing workload of 30 percent more complaints this year, plus budget cutbacks (and it will be even worse next year as the budget has to absorb staff salary increases). It makes one wonder about the state of court cases that the Commissioner is pursuing in the name of access to certain documents, and what it means to accepting or dealing with new complaints in a timely manner, especially if they are stretched to the breaking point as it is. Tony Clement, not surprisingly, had no comment about any of this, even though as Treasury Board president, he is the one who is supposed to ensure that there is Access to Information compliance in the civil service, which would make her far easier.

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Roundup: Two suspensions and a resignation

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Two Liberal MPs – Scott Armstrong and Massimo Pacetti – were suspended from caucus yesterday following complaints of harassment by two NDP MPs. Thus kicked off a firestorm of calls for independent investigations, bringing in the Speaker, and yes, political gamesmanship. There was, of course, a time when this kind of thing would be handled by the whips and party leaders behind closed doors, but in light of the Jian Gomeshi allegations and the conversation the nation is having about sexual harassment more broadly, Justin Trudeau felt he had no choice but to suspend the members pending an investigation, so that justice was seen to be done. But the fact that he didn’t inform the unnamed accusers – who had brought the matter to his attention in the first place – that he was doing this is suddenly bringing up accusations that he “re-victimised them,” as opposed to leaving him open to accusation that he did nothing when he was made aware of the allegations. The details of all of what happened remain sketchy, and the NDP are even more opaque on what happened and won’t confirm the details that the Liberal whip has revealed, and even the allegations are mostly couched in terms of “personal misconduct,” which both suspended MPs deny, Pacetti going so far as to say that he still don’t know what it is he’s being accused of. Aaron Wherry has collected the various letters and statements that were put out from the Liberal Whip, the Speaker, Thomas Mulcair, Trudeau, and the two suspended MPs. Chantal Hébert recalls the kinds of harassment that was on open display when she first arrived on the Hill in the late 70s. The Ottawa Citizen editorial board says that this story, now part of that conversation about sexual harassment an assault in this country, will hopefully start to bring about change. Similarly, Canadian Business discusses the need to stop treating sensitivity training with mocking, but rather as a way to shift reporting away from the victims alone and putting more onus on bystanders.

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Roundup: What to do about Dean?

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The question of what to do about Dean Del Mastro has seized the Commons, and the government seems amenable to going along with the NDP motion to suspend him without pay immediately, and further send the matter to the Procedure and House Affairs committee for further study, particularly for what it means for his staff and his constituents. This is a bit of a change from the government’s original position of wanting the committee to rule before they did, but apparently they’re going with the flow of public opinion on the matter. (The NDP’s unwillingness to let debate collapse so that the vote can proceed on its own accord, however, means that the government will likely invoke closure to ensure a vote later today). There is also a battle raging over Del Mastro’s pension benefits, while the NDP used a committee hearing on John Williamson’s private member’s bill to try to lay a trap. The bill would see MPs lose their pension if convicted of an indictable offence, and the NDP moved an amendment to specifically include elections expenses, which the government defeated because it wasn’t necessary, and wouldn’t apply to the Del Mastro case anyway – not that it stopped Mulcair and the NDP of using Question Period to say the government was trying to protect Mulcair. Because apparently they’re not yet too clever for their own good.

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QP: The morality of Del Mastro

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With Harper off to China tomorrow, today is the only day that all of the leaders would be present this week, and it was hoped that they could make it count. Thomas Mulcair led off, asking about an amendment put forward by the Conservatives at committee that would exclude those who had been convicted of elections expenses from a bill that would strip the pensions of MPs who had been convicted of a crime, and whether it was “moral.” Harper noted that the amendment had nothing to do with Del Mastro, and that the NDP opposed previous legislation to punish MPs for malfeasance. Mulcair noted that the question wasn’t answered and gave a vague accusation about voter fraud — not government business, to which Harper reminded him that the NDP has not repaid for their illegal mailings or satellite offices. Mulcair brought up Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin, to which Harper repeated his answer. Mulcair brought up a statement Harper made up previously in Del Mastro’s defence, and Harper reminded him that Del Mastro had not been in caucus for some time. For his final question, Mulcair brought up job losses, but Harper replied by noting the million net new job figures. Justin Trudeau was up for the Liberals, and asked about the unfairness of the income splitting proposal. Harper said that he was wrong and the measures announced last week would help every family and accused the Liberals of wanting to take the measures away. While Trudeau focused on the income splitting portion only in both languages, Harper wrapped it in the larger package of tax credits.

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