The President of Germany was visiting the Centre Block today, no matter that Harper was still in New York for the United Nations, and Justin Trudeau was off campaigning in Oshawa, leaving Thomas Mulcair once again the only major leader present. He led off by asking about the Prime Minister’s revelation in New York that we were being asked to contribute more troops to Iraq. Rob Nicholson responded by saying that the request was just received and that it would be reviewed, along with our current non-combat mission at the end of the 30 days. Mulcair wanted the letter made public, and asked how many more troops were being asked. Nicholson repeated that it would all be part of the review. Mulcair wanted the disclosure of the permission given by Iraq, to which Nicholson assured him that they had proper permission. Mulcair moved onto the burgeoning refugee crisis in Turkey, to which Chris Alexander gave a pro forma response about how many refugees from Iraq we have already settled and how many more we planned to. Mulcair pressed for detail on Syrian refugees, and Alexander said that more than 1500 Syrian refugees were present in Canada. Marc Garneau led off for the Liberals, and asked for details on the new Iraq request, and that it would be brought for debate in the House. Nicholson repeated that they would be reviewing everything. Joyce Murray noted the recall of Parliament in the UK to debate their Iraq deployment, to which Nicholson invited the opposition to use their supply days to debate further. Adam Vaughan reiterated the need for debate in parliament before any deployment was extended, and Nicholson noted how forthcoming the government has been.
Tag Archives: Fiscal Austerity
Roundup: Voices from the past
A number of has-been pro-life (and homophobic) former Liberal MPs sent out an open letter to Justin Trudeau decrying his decree that a woman’s right to choose is a Charter issue and not a matter of conscience. They decried it as “anti-democratic,” never mind the fact that this was the policy voted on by the party’s membership during the policy convention before Trudeau won the leadership. Oops. The pedigree of these former MPs is also worth mentioning, as several of them quit the party to join the Reform Party, while others left over the same-sex marriage issue. Not surprising, most Liberals simply shrugged off the whole thing, while Trudeau tweeted out a fairly decent comeback.
The days when old men get to decide what a woman does with her body are long gone. Times have changed for the better. #LPC defends rights.
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) September 18, 2014
QP: About this local issue…
With both Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau off in Southern Ontario for events, Thomas Mulcair was the only major leader in the Commons. He led off by asking about the coming demolition of the Mirabel airport — likely because he has Quebec seats to shore up, and Lisa Raitt responded first by reminding him that she’s a she and not a he, and that it’s the Montreal Airport Authority that is the responsible authority. Mulcair shot back that he was referring to the Minister of Infrastructure, before he angrily wondered when the government when the government would listen to indigenous women about missing and murdered indigenous women. Kellie Leitch responded that families were thanking her for the Action Plan™ being tabled. Mulcair then switched to the bus-train collision in Ottawa a year ago, and asked about a train derailment in Slave Lake. Raitt was back up, and said they were working on rail safety. Chris Charlton was up next and bemoaned the declaration of bankruptcy by US Steel in Hamilton, which Mike Lake gave a somewhat shrugging response, and when Charlton demanded that the government protect the pensions of the affected retired workers, Kevin Sorensen touted all the ways they have cut taxes. Ralph Goodale was up for the Liberals, asking about job losses in the last month and suggested changing the EI tax credit to one where employers get a credit for a net job created. Sorensen insisted that the Liberals were making up policy on the fly, and made random potshots at the Liberal record on EI. Goodale’s final question was about the latest report on income splitting and how it would affect provincial budgets. Sorensen responded that Harper said that income splitting was a good policy. Well if Harper says so…
Roundup: Back with a countdown
Parliament is back! Yay! Now let’s obsess about how everything is a pre-election narrative, start polling relentlessly, and speculate wildly about the mere possibility that there would be an early election call without any hint of a justification for there to be one! Oh man, aren’t fixed election dates and the year-long campaigning in advance of them just the bestest thing ever?
Roundup: A tax credit, not a cut
Joe Oliver announced cuts to EI premiums for small businesses yesterday – but it’s not quite as easy as it sounds. It’s actually more of a tax credit only on the employer side, and only for two years, which Oliver insists is not a sign of worry, but “confidence” that they’re on the right path. Um, okay. Economist Stephen Gordon, meanwhile, shows that this kind of tax credit is actually more counterproductive because it encourages these businesses to stay small for tax reasons, and that by not actually cutting payroll taxes, they are not actually creating the right conditions for all small businesses to hire.
Roundup: A drunken intrusion, NBD
In a bizarre twist, a nineteen year-old has come forward as the intruder in Justin Trudeau’s home, and claimed that it was all a drunken mistake – that he was trying to find his friend’s place with similar entry instructions, and that when he realized he was in the wrong place he briefly considered stealing the knives and some electronics in the kitchen before changing his mind and writing the note, intending it as an apology. And because he was drunk and didn’t mean any harm, the police have opted not to lay charges, but rather issue him a formal caution – because apparently drunkenness excuses trespassing, and the vaguely threatening note on a row of butcher knives.
Roundup: Another NDP MP walks out
NDP MP Sana Hassainia has quit the party and will sit as an independent, unhappy with Mulcair’s leadership and his position on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. She alleged that because she supported Brian Topp in the leadership, she was punished for it by being removed from a committee and being moved to the nosebleed seats. In response, the party slammed her attendance record without mentioning that she has given birth twice since being elected – while Hassainia said that they weren’t very accommodating to her needs as a new mother while crowing about how progressive they are with all of those young mothers and soon-to-be young mothers in their caucus. She hasn’t decided if she’ll run again in 2015. But given the party’s attempt to throw her under the bus, this tweet pretty much says it all:
https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/502166443845513216
Roundup: “Emergency” finance committee meeting
NDP MPs have forced an emergency recall of the Commons finance committee in order to discuss the issue of CRA’s “aggressive” audits of charities. It’s slated to be behind closed doors, so we’ll see what comes of it, but the NDP’s revenue critic, Murray Rankin, says that the committee can provide a “safe space” for these charities to air their grievances about the costly and time consuming processes that they’re being subjected to. I’m not really sure what it will accomplish however, since the CRA is not going to say that they’re taking political direction for these audits, and the government is just going to say “they’re arm’s length, we don’t give them direction,” and the charities will moan about how hard done they are by the whole process. I’m honestly not sure how edifying such a process going to be, assuming that the Conservative MPs on the committee sign on to holding said hearings (which is doubtful). It’s also worth noting that the NDP made this recall notice while the Liberals are holding their summer caucus retreat in Edmonton, which they knew was taking place at the same time, leading one to wonder whether someone was trying to be cute about the whole thing rather than being respectful of another party’s processes and calling the meeting for another date.
Roundup: Another hit of distraction sauce
The NDP are set to crack open that bottle of distraction sauce as the Board of Internal Economy sits today to discuss the issue of “satellite offices.” The distraction – that they want the meeting open to the public (so that they can showboat and obstruct, like they did when Thomas Mulcair went before the Procedure and House Affairs Committee while calling it “transparency”) and when their wish is denied, they can rail to the media about how terrible the state of affairs is, and how it’s all a conviction by a “kangaroo court” that’s all just partisans being mean to them because they’re just so awesome, and all of that. The goal, of course, is to try and lose the substance of the story around their satellite offices amidst all of the other noise that they’re generating around it. Because that’s how you maturely handle a misspending issue in Canadian politics.
Roundup: Adams withdraws
The announcement came at 10 PM on the Friday before a long weekend – in other words, trying to bury it. That announcement? That Conservative MP Eve Adams is bowing out of the Oakville North–Burlington nomination race in order to “focus on her health,” as she hasn’t been following her doctor’s orders about slowing down to focus on recovering from the concussion she received earlier in the year. Or at least, that’s the official excuse, but one has to wonder if it was because she found out that she was about to be disqualified after the shenanigans that she and her opponent accused one another of in the acrimonious nomination race. No word if she plans to run in her current riding (where speculation was she didn’t want to run again because she would be back up against a popular former Liberal MP who wouldn’t be impeded by the Orange Wave this time), or if this is her quietly bowing out of federal politics after 2015 entirely.