Tag Archives: F-35 Fighters

Roundup: A marginal, ineffective drug announcement

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A pattern is quickly emerging from the Conservatives as they roll out policy in this election – it’s all marginal, and it’s all populist, with little to no actual sense in the real world. First it was peanuts worth of tax credits for home renos (with zero economic justification), then a promise to ban “terror tourism” (with no real workable way to do it that would meet the Charter test). Yesterday was little different, with a lame announcement about tough-on-drugs, claiming that their anti-drug strategy is “working” (Really? How?), misrepresenting the issue of legalisation (with rhetoric that suggested that if they criminalise smoking that’ll help stop the problem), and throwing a bit or money at a fairly useless measure while ignoring proven steps like safe-injection sites, which not only reduce harm but do help get addicts into treatment. So with that, I’ll leave it to Dan Gardner to eviscerate this proposal:

https://twitter.com/dgardner/status/631237498203561984

https://twitter.com/dgardner/status/631238055802736640

https://twitter.com/dgardner/status/631243919854964745

https://twitter.com/dgardner/status/631244615224569857

https://twitter.com/dgardner/status/631245901890199552

https://twitter.com/dgardner/status/631246164130566145

https://twitter.com/dgardner/status/631247495054671872

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Roundup: Stampede politics

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It’s Stampede time in Calgary, and all of the party leaders are headed out there to play the part. Curiously, all of them will be there at the same time rather than spacing their presence out a bit as they have in previous years, and both Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau are putting in appearances in the Stampede Parade. Speaking as a former Calgarian, Stampede is a peculiar kind of phenomenon – long-time Calgarians will try to flee the city for it because it’s so much insanity (much of it alcohol-induced. It’s no secret that post-Stampede you see a spike in sexually transmitted infections, and a baby boom nine months later). But because Calgary is one of those cities with a large in-migration population, it becomes this exercise in conformity, where people will shell out hundreds of dollars in order to get the right wardrobe to participate, and subject themselves to awful country music in order to fit in and show that they’re really Calgarians. It makes for a very interesting political contrast as well – last weekend you most of the party leaders in the Toronto Pride Parade, which is all about diversity and difference (and congratulations to the Conservatives for finally opting to participate this year); this weekend they’re at Stampede, which is about looking the part in order to fit in. Both are seen as necessary stops in order to show themselves off to those different political bases. That each leader gets judged on how well they can dress for Stampede is also an interesting exercise (and a far less forgiving one than the suits that they normally wear). It shows how strange the Canadian political landscape can be, and the summer barbecue circuit – particularly during an election campaign.

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Roundup: Who’s a racist?

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In the fading lights of the 41st Parliament, the Liberals have been trying to get back to the process of painting the government like a bunch of intolerant rednecks, first with Judy Sgro’s question on Wednesday tying in the rise in hate crime statistics against Muslims to government rhetoric (for which the Conservatives got right offended), and then again yesterday when John McCallum tied in that issue to statements that Chris Alexander had made about people with their faces covered taking the citizenship oath and talk of terrorists. But when McCallum hammered Alexander on his comments – and clearly they were complete non sequiturs – Alexander responded by reaching into history and invoking Mackenzie King’s more racists immigration policies and called the Liberals the Racist Party. No, seriously. And when asked for clarification in a walking scrum after QP, Alexander insisted his party was blameless for policies before then, and accused said journalists of being partisans. (Remember when Chris Alexander was the talented golden child who was supposed to be so smart? Yeah, not so much). Paul Wells, upon hearing this, took to the blog machine and completely schooled Alexander on how wrong he really is, because it was totally off base. That said, this kind of cheap points-scoring just highlights the way things are starting to go off the rails, and I think it’s fair that the fixed election date is certainly responsible for part of this. Normally I’d be all in favour of MPs sticking around to pass a couple of more bills before they head off for the summer, but by this point the Commons has thoroughly proven itself to be incapable of being grown-ups any longer. Time to send them home.

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Roundup: Don’t sideline Canada Gazette

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It’s not a sexy topic, but the fact that Parliament is giving itself the power to start making regulatory changes without publishing them in Canada Gazette is actually pretty worrying. It’s just regulations, right? Well, the issue is that by spreading out proposals, it makes it more difficult for proposed regulations to get proper consultation before they’re implemented. That’s a pretty big deal because so much of what constitutes our governance regime comes in the form of regulations that are empowered by legislation. That way, Parliament isn’t bogged down with niggling technical details that MPs have no expertise in determining, and allows them to focus on the “bigger picture,” while civil servants deal with the minutiae. The Governor in Council then gets to implement those regulations that the civil service comes up with, and Parliament can hold government to account for those regulations they implement. By not requiring everything to go through the Gazette, it makes the exercise of accountability that much harder, which is not how we should be operating in a system of Responsible Government.

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QP: Childcare spaces across governments past

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The day after the by-election, but the Commons was on the more subdued side. All three major leaders were present today, and Thomas Mulcair led off by asking about failed childcare plans from previous governments, and wondered how many spaces the current government delivered. Stephen Harper noted that NDP plans would benefit a mere ten percent of Canadians, while the measures his government announced would benefit all families with children. Mulcair poked about the government giving money for the rich, while Harper accused him of looking to take money away from families. Mulcair wondered why Harper was borrowing money to pay for the tax cuts he announced, but Harper continued to insist that their plans would put money in the pockets of “real working Canadians.” Mulcair veered into money being “stolen” from the EI fund, but Harper retorted that the EI would raise EI premiums. For his final question, Mulcair asked if the government would agree with their proposals for dealing with harassment on the Hill. Harper responded that their government has policies in place and would be happy to share them with the Board of Internal Economy. Justin Trudeau rose to ask if the government would support on his bill on increasing transparency. Harper retorted that it was rich for the Liberals to talk about transparency given that they voted against all kinds of bills that claimed to be about transparency (but most really weren’t). Trudeau asked about the government’s commitment to GHG reductions for the Copenhagen targets, to which Harper said it was rich for the Liberals to talk about emissions when they went up under their government. When Trudeau brought up the deal between the U.S. and China on emissions, Harper bashed back about the lack of Liberal action on Kyoto targets.

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Roundup: Theatrical tough talk

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It’s a bit of a strange thing, but we’re told that Stephen Harper decided to play tough at the G-20 summit in Australia, where he apparently told Russian president Vladimir Putin to “get out of Ukraine” while shaking his hand. And while the PMO tried to spin it as Putin “reacting negatively,” what the Russians say the response was, was “That’s impossible because we’re not in Ukraine.” This should have been predictable given the series of denials to date, while the only other response would logically have been “Make me,” thus calling Harper out on his bluff since we don’t exactly have the military capabilities to take on Russia. We just don’t. Harper’s chest-puffery follows on that of Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who had previously apparently told Putin off for the downing of that Malaysian Air flight over western Ukraine, as it contained 38 Australian nationals. Given that we know that Harper and Abbott are members of the mutual admiration society, that they would engage in copycat techniques is not unsurprising, but still – it all comes across as stagey the whole way through – especially the way the PMO started boasting to the media there. Shortly before that, while in New Zealand, Harper said that he wants to ensure that any fight in the region of Iraq is against ISIS, and not against any government, meaning the Assad regime in Syria. He doesn’t want to go there, feeling the solution to that civil war remains a political one.

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Roundup: Cheap diplomacy, symbolic loss

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The Harper government’s shoestring approach to diplomacy, typified by an attitude of serving ginger ale and Ritz crackers as being “good enough” for hosting diplomatic functions, has not been without controversy, especially when it comes to the illogical sale of a number of diplomatic properties and residences around the globe in the name of fiscal austerity. Many of these sales have been controversial, and the looming sale of our diplomatic residence in Rome is even more so, because of the symbolic links to our troops liberating Italy during the Second World War, and the property was basically given to Canada as thanks. The government, however, denies that there are such links, and has spun a tale of how lavish the place is and how costly it is to maintain – never mind that the former Canadian ambassador to Italy is on the record disputing everything the current government says. But hey, it’s totally cool that we project an image to the world that we’re Mickey Mouse cheapskates who have the taste and class of backwater rubes right? Prestige isn’t our brand, according to this government, nor do we have any appetite for symbolic links to the past. Let’s just do it all on the cheap. Because that always works out well.

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Roundup: Shrugging off other harassment allegations

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A suit was filed in Ontario Superior Court yesterday alleging harassment by an NDP MP Sylvain Chicoine, according to a former staffer – but it’s not quite the same as the other allegations that have gripped the Hill this week. Instead, it was another staffer in that office that harassed the female staffer who filed the suit, while she alleged that nothing was done because Chicoine acted in a sexist and misogynist manner by doing nothing about it, until he eventually fired her. The party closed ranks around Chicoine by saying that the staffer’s union had investigated and found nothing to be amiss, but were silent about the fact that they offered her a lesser data-entry job in the leader’s office if she agreed to drop her suit. Mulcair tried to claim that it had nothing to do with Chicoine but was simply a dispute between staffers – not true, according to the suit – and even went so far as to opine that as a lawyer, he thought her case was without merit – a rather unusual move for someone who was so concerned about re-victimization of other complainants just a day before. The change in tone between the two incidents is quite something.

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Roundup: 18 causes of a disaster

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The Transportation Safety Board’s final report into the Lac-Mégantic disaster was released yesterday, and it was pretty damning when it comes to the responsibility that Transport Canada bears for not doing their audits or following up on it with a rail line that was found to be deficient in its compliance several times. (Video recreation of the disaster here). In the end, they came up with 18 different reasons for the disaster, that had one of them been addressed properly, things could have wound up differently. Part of the problem remains the lack of a proper safety culture, which has been criticized by no less than the Auditor General and a Senate committee report, and yet we’re not really seeing movement on it quickly enough. Paul Wells notes the government’s weak response, and asks about just what kind of responsibility they are going to take.

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Roundup: About those single-engine fighters…

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US and UK officials are preparing a joint order to inspect all of the engines on the current F-35 fleet after one of them caught fire in Florida earlier this week, which prompted the fleet to be grounded. Why is this significant – other than the constant assurances that this is the most technologically advanced fighter but it can’t seem to get anything right? Well, it’s only got one engine. And when asked why this would be suitable for Canada, with its vast Arctic and coastal patrol ranges, where having a second engine is a pretty useful thing in case one fails, Peter MacKay bluntly said that the F-35 engine wouldn’t fail, and left it at that. Well, now it looks like they indeed have failed. Oops. Perhaps cabinet should take this fact into consider as they weigh the options analysis.

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