Despite the short window of planning, the Day of Honour went off rather well yesterday, and Stephen Harper didn’t commit a gigantic breach of protocol when he turned over the last flag from Kabul – inside of an ornately carved baton carried by a group of soldiers who passed it along in a relay from the base at Trenton – over to the Governor General after it had been passed to him. This was a last-minute addition to the programme, no doubt sparked by the outcry about the planned breach of protocol. Nevertheless, the fact that Harper inserted himself into that handing off of the flag innately politicised the whole affair, and taints the whole separation from the government of the day by which the military operates. It’s why they answer to Her Majesty and the Governor General is the Commander-in-Chief – so that they are not tied to the politics of the day. And yet Harper needed to become part of that, his presidential envy still evident. While the ceremony included soldiers giving thanks for support and the GG and Harper giving thanks to them on behalf of the country, events took place around the country, Thomas Mulcair in Montreal and Justin Trudeau in Calgary. John Geddes has a fantastic recap of events here, with photos from the event here. Kady O’Malley Storifies how MPs marked the day both in Ottawa and across the country. PostMedia talks to soldiers who are proud of their accomplishments in Afghanistan.
Tag Archives: Governor General
Roundup: Ridiculous paranoia and shameless misspeaking
The Fair Elections Act was back front and centre in the House yesterday, with the NDP’s opposition day motion to hold cross-country hearings on the bill. Aaron Wherry heard back from Pierre Poilievre on the problems with vouching, and from the former BC Chief Electoral Officer who wrote a report on said issue, who doesn’t think it should be eliminated by simply streamlined. There are concerns that the changes in the Act could prevent the Chief Electoral Officer from reporting to Parliament on the investigation into the fraudulent robocalls (Poilievre insists it won’t be the case). The provision that both chambers of Parliament would need to sign off on future online voting experiments is bringing out the paranoia that the Conservative-dominated Senate will kill all future attempts, out of spite or something (because the Senate has never been dominated by an opposition party before apparently – and seriously, grow up). And then, to top it all off, Conservative MP Brad Butt decided that no, he didn’t actually witness voter fraud by people taking discarded voter identification cards and then using them illicitly – he just “misspoke.” Multiple times. In the House and in committee. Oh, but now he considers the matter to be “closed,” so stop asking. Yes, apparently he is that shameless.
Roundup: Preston Manning’s misdirected concerns
In a frankly bizarre op-ed, Preston Manning tries to accuse the Press Gallery for lacking proper ethics because the Parliamentary Press Gallery guidelines don’t have a section on ethical guidelines in their handbook – err, except that each member is subject to their own employer’s code of ethics. Also, the Press Gallery is not a monolith, but simply a means of organising ourselves in order to have proper access to do our jobs on the Hill. That Manning tries to somehow equate this to the Senate scandals and Mike Duffy’s role therein lacks any cohesive logic and makes one wonder how this passed the comment editor’s gaze at the Globe and Mail. Does he think that the Gallery could have somehow stopped him before he was appointed? That his constant lobbying for a Senate seat should have been dealt with – as though anyone took it seriously and not as a kind of sad and frankly pathetic long-running joke? Susan Delacourt gives Manning a respectful reply and cautions him that what he’s demanding of the media will mean more access by the government – something the current government is not a big fan of.
Roundup: Unimpressed with transformation plans
Kevin Page is none too pleased with what he hears about the “Blueprint 2020” plan to reform the public service, saying it’s a lot of nothing, and that change needs to come from the bottom up rather than being imposed top-down. He’s also critical of the public service for remaining silent in the face of these changes being imposed on them, and that their expert financial and policy advice will suffer as a result.
When she was Minsiter of Public Works, Rona Ambrose approved a list of 29 historical Canadian women to be used when naming future federal buildings. Of course that list has been redacted, so we don’t know exactly which names have been approved.
Roundup: A coming loss to the Senate
It won’t happen for six months, but the news came out yesterday that Conservative Senator Hugh Segal will be retiring from the Upper Chamber before his term is complete, in June. Segal, one of the remaining Red Tories and a bit of a rebel who has pushed back against some of the government’s more egregious bills and actions, will be taking on the new position of Master of Massey College. Given that he has been one of the voices of sanity in the Conservative caucus, it will be a definite blow to the Senate’s membership and to the quality of debate. It will also mean the loss of expertise in foreign affairs, as Segal has also been our representative to the Commonwealth, and served on the Eminent Persons panel that saw the creation of the Commonwealth Charter.
Roundup: Michael Chong’s attempt to save Parliament
The story that grabbed everyone’s attention yesterday was the fact that maverick Conservative MP Michael Chong is set to table a bill that would amend the Parliament of Canada Act in order to give riding associations the power to control nomination races instead of the party leader, while giving the party’s National Council the ability to have a veto in place in the event of a hijacked nomination race. This would eliminate the party leader’s ability to threaten MPs that he or she would refuse to sign their nomination papers if they step out of line. It’s the kind of reform that many people have been advocating for some time now, and would remove a substantial lever that the leader currently wields. The bill is also rumoured to contain clauses that would require that caucus chairs be elected and have rules for expelling and re-admitting MPs from caucus, and that the party by-laws must allow for the caucus review of a leader. Those are more problematic suggestions, and the caucus review is especially problematic for a couple of reasons. Number one is that unless leadership selection rules are changed so that it is the caucus that elects the leader, the argument will be that they don’t have the democratic legitimacy to remove said leader – one of the biggest problems with moving to the “more democratic” system whereby the party membership elects the leader (or as the Liberals recently demonstrated, anyone who totally swears that they don’t belong to another party), because that system obliterates accountability. As well, the power to challenge a leader already exists within our system of Responsible Government, whereby all anyone needs to do is declare a loss of confidence in the Prime Minister, and if they can get enough caucus support in the vote – along with the opposition – that leader will go down to defeat. It just requires enough MPs to have the backbone to follow through on it. Paul Calandra insists that his party already allows MPs to have direct input into legislation, which I’m not sure is the point of the bill. Andrew Coyne thinks this bill can save Parliament, and I agree that the first portion would go a long way, but the other portions are more problematic and we should treat them cautiously.
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: Applying the Rathgeber principle
Former Conservative MP Brent Rathgeber is pleased that the Senate blocked the union transparency bill, and is similarly happy that they called it the “Rathgeber amendment.” In his blog post, he rather gleefully calls it a stick in the eye of the PMO, and praise the Senators for not only doing their constitutional duty, but for pointing out the absurdity of the PMO looking for transparency from others when it wouldn’t apply it to their own mandarins. Tim Harper and John Ivison both look at the Senate demonstrating their mettle, and proving that they’re not simply there to rubber stamp bills.
Roundup: The GG and the Chief
Despite Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence’s demand that the Governor General be part of a meeting with the Prime Minister as a condition of ending her hunger strike, His Excellency has said that it’s not his place to meet with her over political issues, and will defer until given political instruction to do so – which is how things work under Responsible Government, in case anyone has any doubts.
Jason Kenney plans to re-launch the federal skilled workers immigration programme by May, which he hopes to keep more foreign-trained doctors and engineers from driving cabs (never mind that the biggest holdup to credential recognition is provincial regulatory bodies).
As was promised, the government has moved to eliminate gun show regulations – not that they were ever actually implemented in the first place.
Roundup: A wee little cabinet shuffle
Stephen Harper surprised everyone yesterday with a wee little cabinet shuffle – Julian Fantino is going to CIDA in Oda’s place, and Bernard Valcourt gets the associate deputy minister position for defence while retaining his ACOA portfolio and the Francophonie. Fantino is an…interesting choice, considering he’s spent his career being the guy who as getting tough on crime and now he’s being the face of Canada’s compassion and aid. As for Valcourt, he’s a Mulroney-era veteran who is moving a up the ladder a little bit, but considering how marginalised the military procurement file has become in the advent of the era of the procurement secretariat, it makes one wonder why they bothered to retain the portfolio. Also, interesting that Peter MacKay and John Duncan are staying put despite major gaffes of their own, and more evidence that Harper will refuse to make changes in order to avoid admitting that he made a mistake with his choices.
The government is tightening temporary foreign worker rules so that it will exclude exotic dancers, escorts and people who work in massage parlours, as they’re more “vulnerable to exploitation.” Of course, one suspects that this will just drive this all that much further underground and rather than have people documented so that they have access to some kind of assistance if they are being exploited, they’ll just be classified as “hostesses” or “servers” (provided they take a drink order) and it won’t actually have an effect on exploitation of human trafficking (assuming of course that we’re not just conflating human trafficking with the sex trade, as they are not the same thing).