It’s not a huge surprise, but Jim Prentice won the PC leadership in Alberta, and now needs to win a seat in a by-election. The turnout for said leadership was incredibly poor in comparison to leadership contests past, which some are reading as a bad sign for the state of the party. The fact that their e-voting system was one giant colossal disaster didn’t help either, and once again serves as a warning as to why paper ballots remain best. It also serves as one more reminder as to why we need to return to the system of caucus choosing the leadership, given how ridiculous the whole contest was from start to finish. (Also, please stop using the term “premier-designate.” It’s not a Thing.)
Tag Archives: Jim Prentice
Roundup: Return of the fiscal imbalance
Well, the premiers have met and have spoken and they think the federal government should pony up some more money – try to act surprised, everyone! Not only that, but they’re trying to revive the term “fiscal imbalance,” because it seemed to work the last time. In particular, they want more money for health to deal with an aging population (despite being guaranteed increases for the next decade) and reliable infrastructure funding (which is a bit more of a legitimate gripe considering the way the government back-loaded the Building Canada Fund). There was some talk about trade and labour mobility agreements, but nothing earth shattering on the interprovincial trade barrier file. Christy Clark noted that the topic of the constitution was not up for discussion – not even to bring Quebec into the fold at long last. Getting in his two cents, New Brunswick premier David Alward (who may not be premier for much longer, as his province is in an election) took the opportunity to lash out at Justin Trudeau for his saying that they should put a hold on more fracking until more studies of its impacts can be done. Alward says that New Brunswick can’t wait because it needs the jobs now.
Roundup: Being cute before committee
And that was Mulcair’s appearance at committee – chippy, evasive, too-cute-by-half, and when he did answer a question, he did it in a sarcastic and fulsome manner (in the actual sense of the word) so as to run out the clock. The answers were full of selective facts and half-truths, raised incorrect facts about Conservatives supposedly co-locating constituency and party offices (in point of fact they were merely in the same strip mall, even though NDP staffers tweeted out photos taken from an angle so that the party sign was in the same shot as the constituency office sign, and thus constructing a wholly disingenuous image). When the NDP members of the committee weren’t busying themselves trying to run out the clock with frivolous points of order, they and Mulcair gave obsequious paeans to how wonderfully the NDP were doing as the official opposition and how the other parties were trying to punish them for it. And when it was all over, their MPs and staffers pronounced both in the House and over social media that they demonstrated “real accountability” and showed how to answer questions. In other words, they behaved as appallingly as the Conservatives do in their evasions and talking points, and patted themselves on the back for it. Well done, everyone! You’ve done parliamentary democracy proud. The committee, afterward, ordered an investigation into who has been leaking information from this whole saga to the media. Meanwhile, CTV has learned that some of those “parliamentary” staff were working in the Bourassa by-election, which may have been run out of that Montreal office. Oh, but they were “on leave,” so it doesn’t count, which makes the insistence that there are strict lines between party and “parliamentary” staff because they have separate unions all the more dubious (as a tweet from this one Liberal partisan demonstrates). At the same time, an investigation by House of Commons administration has advised the Board of Internal Economy that NDP MP Guy Caron broke the rules by sending partisan mailers into Bourassa around the time of the by-election using House resources. Oh, but they always follow the rules, remember? Here is the At Issue panel taking on the day’s events.