With the three main leaders at the RCMP funeral in Moncton, it was due to be another relatively quiet day in the Commons. Libby Davies led off QP by quoting the Broadbent Institute report that said that income splitting won’t benefit nine out of ten Canadians. Kevin Sorensen said that income splitting was good for seniors, and that it would be good for families. After another fruitless round, Davis moved on to the procurement process for the fighter jet replacements, to which Diane Finley praised the independent review process that they undertook, but noted that they had not yet come to a decision. Sadia Groguhé repeated the same question in French and got the same response, her follow-up bringing up the promises for industrial benefits by some bidders, not that Finley’s response changed. Ralph Goodale led off for the Liberals, bringing up the middling performance of our economy, hoping for something more than “mediocre talking points.” He was, however, disappointed as that was all that Sorensen had to offer. Stéphane Dion closed the round, lamenting the changes to the Building Canada Fund that would mean most municipalities missing an entire construction season, though Sorensen kept up with his good news talking points.
Tag Archives: F-35 Fighters
Roundup: Tony Abbott’s man-crush
Tony Abbott had his meetings with Stephen Harper and the Governor General yesterday, but it was really clear that his man-crush was on Harper. Or “Stephen,” as he kept calling him, with effusive and somewhat obsequious praise for his being a “beacon” for centre-right parties around the world. (This after Abbott inadvertently referred to the country as “Canadia” upon his arrival Sunday). Both took hard lines against carbon taxes, as Abbott is in the process of trying to repeal the one in his country (where the Australian Senate is holding it up and may continue to until the next Senate election in two years), while Harper literally finger-wagged about how at least he was honest about not wanting to kill the country’s economy. Harper also answered a question about the prostitution bill during the press conference, and gave the same line he used regarding Insite and the harm reduction measures there – that prostitution wasn’t harmful because it’s illegal, but it’s illegal because it’s harmful, and woe to all the harm it does. Err, except that the Supreme Court ruled that the illegalities that surrounded it made it so harmful that it killed the sex workers involved. We’ll see if Harper’s reason flies with the Supreme Court when it winds its way back there. Abbott also stood by the Five Eyes intelligence partnership, and said that countries should never apologies for doing what was necessary to protect themselves. Okay then.
Roundup: Anders down in defeat
The Conservative members of the new riding of Calgary Signal Hill have spoken, and Rob Anders will not be their candidate in the next federal election. Instead, former provincial finance minister Ron Liepert has managed to win the nomination, apparently by a “comfortable majority,” even though Jason Kenney had taken to not only endorsing but also voicing a robocall on Anders’ behalf late in the game. Liepert, after winning, told Kenney to mind his own business rather angrily, incidentally. Anders has indicated that he would sit the remainder of this parliament, but hasn’t indicated what he’ll do next, though there is some speculation that he’ll still try to contest another Calgary riding’s nomination. Anders had labelled this nomination as a fight for the “soul” of the Conservative party, his “true blue” version versus a more “red Tory” Liepert (but apparently not even really), and in the aftermath, Liepert has said that his victory shows where the mainstream of the Conservative party has moved. It also shows how open nominations give the grassroots members more of a voice for who they want to represent the party on their behalf, rather than being assigned that voice for them. Aaron Wherry tries to search for meaning in this nomination upset here. (And be sure to check out the Herald’s video from the aftermath).
Roundup: The sudden demise of Jim Flaherty
Parliament Hill was in shock yesterday when news came down just minutes before Question Period was due to begin – former finance minister Jim Flaherty had died of a heart attack, three weeks after he left cabinet. A flurry of conferencing on the floor between Thomas Mulcair, Peter Van Loan, Ralph Goodale and eventually Elizabeth May erupted, and a decision was relayed to the Speaker. At the end of Members’ Statements, Scheer declared the House suspended, and opposition MPs streamed across the floor to console the Conservatives on the other side of the chamber. A few minutes later, Scheer announced that the House would stand adjourned for the remainder of the day. Harper was meeting with the President of Peru at the time, and was supposed to be holding a press conference at that time (counter-programmed against QP, for the record). Instead, the caucus filed into the Reading Room, and Harper gave a short statement, Laureen Harper standing next to him, dabbing her eyes with a Kleenex, and that was it. The doors were closed and the party mourned in private.
Roundup: A debate that won’t see the light of day
Conservative MP Stephen Fletcher is introducing two Private Member’s Bills on assisted suicide in order to get the debate on the agenda. The problem with this, of course, is that a) he would only have one slot for Private Member’s Business, so introducing two bills means one of them won’t see the light of day, and b) as Fletcher was a minister, his debate slot is at nearly the bottom of the list, as he only got it after he was dropped from cabinet, so it remains unlikely to see the light of day. Nevertheless, with the court challenges going on, it is a good reminder that Parliament should be debating these kinds of issues, but we all know that they are reluctant to, and try to fob off the hard work to the courts so that they can be seen to be dragged into doing something about it.
Roundup: Exit Flaherty
Out of the blue, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced his resignation from cabinet yesterday, but not his seat (just yet). This after Flaherty promised that he was going to run again, while simultaneously dropping hints that he was ready to wind down his political career. And it looks like Joe Oliver will be tapped to replace him as Finance minister, but no word on who would then take over the Natural Resources file. Here are some facts about Flaherty and his career, and a look back at his best ties, which were pretty much all green, which was kind of his shtick. Here’s Paul Wells’ profile of Flaherty from a couple of months ago.
Roundup: Mayrand’s concerns laid out
After a bout of procedural shenanigans and two separate time allocation votes in the Commons, Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand spoke to the Commons Procedure and House Affairs committee, giving his assessment of the Fair Elections Act. He has a couple of major concerns – the lack of powers to compel testimony, the loss of the vouching system and the likelihood that it will disenfranchise voters, and inadequate paperwork filed by candidates who get their refunds nevertheless. He spoke about the privacy concerns over turning over the lists of who actually voted over to the parties, who have zero legislated privacy safeguards, and said that the fears of voter information cards to commit fraud is a lot of sound and fury over nothing as most of the errors recorded were procedural and not substantive. In case you couldn’t guess, Pierre Poilieve shrugged off most of the whole appearance, and tried to claim that Mayrand made a number of factual errors.
Roundup: Hints and small measures from Mexico
At the “Three Amigos” summit in Mexico, things indeed seemed a bit frosty heading into it, as Harper refuses to lift the visa restrictions on Mexicans, and Obama won’t speed along the Keystone XL decision – a decision which got a whole lot trickier as a judge in Nebraska has struck down the Governor’s approved route for the pipeline, which could mean yet more delays for the project. It does, however, sound like common standards on greenhouse gas emissions may be on the way for Canada and the US. Also agreed to at the summit were a continental transportation plan, more joint research, more security agreements, and a working group to ensure the conservation of the monarch butterfly.
Roundup: Exit Chuck Strahl
Late Friday afternoon, Chuck Strahl resigned as Chair of the Security and Intelligence Review Committee, not because he’d done anything wrong in his part-time lobbying for Enbridge to the provincial government, but because he didn’t want his activities to be a distraction for the government, which is fair.
Roundup: Trying to bury a helicopter announcement
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.