With rumours that the House might rise today, there was the very real possibility that this very well could be the last QP of 2013. Without Harper or Mulcair in the House, it was likely to be another fairly perfunctory day full of Paul Calandra’s classic lines of obfuscation. When things did get started, Megan Leslie decried the failure of an NDP motion at Ethics Committee to look into the once-missing Benjamin Perrin emails, and wondered who in the PMO ordered that it be shut down. John Baird, the designated back-up PM du jour, assured her that PCO took responsibility for the mistake, and the committee was in camera so he didn’t know what happened. Leslie tried again twice to no effect, and Nycole Turmel took over in French to ask if those emails proved there was “no legal agreement” around the Duffy repayment. Baird assured her that the RCMP were looking into things. Justin Trudeau was up for the Liberals, and asked about the funding gap for First Nations education. Bernard Valcourt responded by saying that they ended a comprehensive education regime, which required legislation, and that he remained committed to fixing the system that has failed those children, with funds to flow once the framework was in place. Trudeau moved onto the topic of the replacement of the Champlain Bridge, to which Denis Lebel accused the Liberals of 13 years of inaction on the bridge, but they were committed to a replacement ahead of the original schedule. For his last question, with some rhetorical flourish, Trudeau asked if anyone in the government was embarrassed by the conduct on the ClusterDuff file. Baird responded with a bit of a quip before reverting to the talking point that one person had taken responsibility and only two people were under investigation.
Tag Archives: Espionage
Roundup: A claim without evidence
John Baird and Leona Aglukkaq made the announcement yesterday that said that we made our submission to the UN regarding our Arctic sea floor claims. Apparently we have claimed the North Pole – but we don’t yet have evidence to support that claim. Um, okay. And yet this is the same party who is standing up in the House to ridicule Justin Trudeau for saying that he was going to listen to the advice of scientists before he determines if we do indeed have a claim on the North Pole or not. Because politics.
Roundup: A lost learning moment
It was an unusual scene, where the Speaker of the Senate arranged a media event inside the Senate chamber. His purpose was two-fold – to give a bit of a lesson to journalists about the history and role of the institution, as he was alarmed that the kinds of misinformation that he’d seen in the media over the past several months; he also wanted to try and answer as many questions as he could at once. Unfortunately, much of the former goal as a “learning moment” seemed lost on many of my media colleagues as they started asking him questions as though he were the person in charge, as opposed to the presiding officer, and as such, it’s not up to him if they end up calling Michael Runia or Senator Gerstein before committee, but rather, it has to be a decision of the Senate. What they did find out was that the Senate is cooperating on getting those emails requested by the RCMP, and that parliamentary privilege cannot shield senators from an investigation.
QP: Questions about missing emails
As is becoming the new norm on Mondays, Thomas Mulcair was the only main leader in the House, which meant that another soul-crushing day of Paul Calandra talking points was on the way — though one could always hope for a day free of innuendo and accusation as which happened on Friday (though we could also do without his wounded complaints about how the press didn’t like his answers). Once QP got started, Mulcair immediately asked about the reappearance of those emails from Benjamin Perrin, and asked why the story changed yet again. Pierre Poilievre took this one, somewhat surprisingly, and he quoted from the letter from PCO. Mulcair asked about the “unrelated litigation” that Perrin was involved in. Poilievre indicated that he wasn’t sure, but that they were cooperating with the RCMP. Mulcair pressed, but Poilievre simply reread from the letter. When Mulcair wondered wondered an bout the integrity of the he evidence after the government has been holding onto it for three months, and Poilievre again reiterated a passage from the letter. Dominic LeBlanc led off for the Liberals, and wanted assurances that nobody had access to those emails who was in a position to doctor or selectively delete them in any way. Poilievre assured him that they were cooperating with the RCMP. LeBlanc wondered if Harper was waiting of it all to go to trial everything was made public, but Poilievre answered with a single no.
Roundup: Missing Perrin emails found
The Privy Council Office has found those emails from former PMO legal advisor Benjamin Perrin after all, despite previously telling the RCMP that they had been deleted.Oops. And yes, they promise to turn them over to the RMCP right away. It’s also probably just a coincidence that the advisory was sent out at 9 PM on a Sunday while the Prime Minister was wowing the crowd at a certain Jewish fundraising dinner as well, right? Meanwhile, Tonda MacCharles reconstructs that fateful February day when Nigel Wright made the decision to repay Duffy and tries to figure out where it all went wrong. CBC finds out what happened to Chris Montgomery, the Senate staffer who objected to the PMO interference with the Duffy audit report.
QP: Backhanded allegations about Mulcair
With Harper off at Newmarket doing pre-budget consultations, but with the news cycle being consumed by the Conservatives on the Senate Internal Economy committee’s reluctance to call that senior partner from Deloitte before them to testify, it was likely to be a day full of non sequiturs delivered by Paul Calandra. Thomas Mulcair started off by asking why the government asked their senators to block the appearance of Michael Runia before them. Paul Calandra responded that they learned that the audit was done without interference. When Mulcair pressed, Calandra immediately turned to the “You sat on a bribe allegation for 17 years!” talking point. Mulcair changed topics, and asked about the report that CSE was conducting intelligence during the G20 in Toronto. Rob Nicholson reminded him that CSE doesn’t have the authorisation to spy on Canadians. When Mulcair asked if they did it anyway, Nicholson reminded him that they couldn’t even ask allies to spy on Canadians. Mulcair tried to tie this in with the ClusterDuff allegations, but Nicholson reminded him that CSE has judicial oversight. Joyce Murray led off for the Liberals, and asked about the suicide of two soldiers connected CFB Shilo and asked what action the minister was taking to address the issue. Nicholson offered the families his condolences and assured her that the Canadian Forces were investigating. Ralph Goodale was up next, and returned to the issue of Runia and Gerstein being blocked from testifying at committee, but Calandra tried to insist that the Liberals defended those three suspended senators. Goodale demanded to know why Gerstein remained chair of the Senate a banking committee, but Calandra continued to insist that the Liberals fought against holding those senators to account.
Roundup: Politics played with political documents
The partisan frothing at the mouth over Justin Trudeau’s hope and fear comments continues to roll along, with the NDP lashing out for its use – never mind that Jack Layton’s final letter was itself a political document and that the NDP have used it to make political hay. They also point to “Angry Mulcair” flyers that were sent out in Toronto Centre, though I’m not exactly sure that those quite added up to some of the same attacks that the NDP were using in both Toronto Centre and Bourassa – that Chrystia Freeland was not from there and shouldn’t be allowed to run (despite a caucus full of Quebec MPs who had never set foot in their ridings before being elected), or that Dubourg collected a severance allowance that Mulcair himself collected when he resigned as an MNA, not to mention the flyers with Dubourg, who is black, surrounded by bling, which one American expat commenter said would be considered a racist slur in the States. Make of this what you will. Pundit’s Guide considers the remarks a strategic over-reach that damages any prospect of cooperation between the two parties anytime soon.
Roundup: Leading the RCMP, distracting the public
Senator Mike Duffy’s scorched-earth campaign continues as the CBC has obtained a letter the RCMP wrote last Friday, seeking documents from the PMO that were all mentioned in Duffy’s address to the Senate last week. Because that is something that these kinds of statements under privilege can do – direct the police where to continue their investigation. PMO, incidentally, says they’ve not received any such letter. But it has to be said that it would seem to shift the focus of the investigation from Duffy’s misspending to an attempt by the PMO to bribe, or otherwise influence a sitting legislator – a distraction that Duffy likely welcomes as he seeks to keep attention away from his own actions.
Roundup: Populist consumer-friendly proposals
As the Speech From the Throne gets closer, we’re starting to hear more about the populist consumer-friendly agenda that will be laid out in it. Not content with just cellphone bills and airlines, James Moore was on television on Sunday talking about things like cable channels, where they will break-up the packages that the cable companies offer in favour of a la carte channel selection. Which is great, except that the CRTC has already mandated that this will actually start to happen, and some cable companies have started to offer it as a way of trying to retain customers who are starting to cut their cable in lieu of other online options, so it’s not like the Conservatives are coming out of the blue on this one. But hey, anything to try and claim some populist credit. Of course it makes one wonder what supposed free market conservatives are doing promising tonnes of new regulations when they’re supposedly in favour of smaller government, but I think we all know that these aren’t really free market conservatives we’re dealing with anymore.
Roundup: Special rules to punish Justin Trudeau
Because they are never short of such ideas, the NDP held yet another press conference yesterday to announced new proposals to make Parliament “more accountable.” What that really was code for was “let’s try to punish some Liberals, and in particular, Justin Trudeau.” You see, of their three proposals, the main one was to ban MPs and Senators from “double-dipping by banning payment for work that is part of their job as an MP or Senator.” Which is news to me because nowhere in any legal or constitutional text does it say that it’s part of a Parliamentarian’s job to be a motivational speaker. In fact, that’s the reason why certain MPs and Senators sign up to speaker’s bureaux – in order to do these kinds of gigs without having to expend their parliamentary resources on it, and because they’re not talking about matters that are related to their parliamentary duties, but usually their careers before they were in public life (Marc Garneau’s astronaut career, or Larry Smith’s football commissioner career for example), it makes sense not to treat it as part of their duties. Oh, but Justin Trudeau was able to make a successful living at this and still accepted speaking gigs after he got elected, therefore it must be awful and should be banned. Never mind that he almost always made money for the organisations that he was invited to speak at (with that one notable exception, where it was a case of organisational failure), or that the Conflict of Interest and Ethics commissioner cleared these gigs – this is strictly a case of cheap punitive politics. There can be cases made for the other two suggestions – banning parliamentarians from being on corporate boards (but family businesses are okay), and strengthening the powers of the aforementioned Commissioner – but they are less about scandals than perception. Parliamentarians have any corporate board work cleared by an ethics regime, and sure it could be strengthened, but there has yet to be a demonstrated case of any kind of influence peddling, and one suspects it’s simply a case of “corporations bad!” at work. And as for strengthening the role of the Commissioner, well, it seems to me that it’s the NDP who are in charge of the Commons Ethics committee and this has yet to make it onto the agenda when the review of her legislation is a year overdue. Perhaps if they made an effort to actually focus on that rather than play partisan silly buggers and constantly demanding investigations into the wrongdoing of individual MPs, then perhaps they might make progress on such a change.