It’s the end of Leona Aglukkaq’s two years as Chair of the Arctic Council on Canada’s behalf, and well, there’s not a lot to show for it. That’s not much of a surprise considering what we’ve seen of Aglukkaq in any of her roles so far. As the Americans prepare to head up their turn as Chair, we’re hearing a lot about their priorities, much of it having to do with climate change – you know, that thing at Aglukkaq likes to scold provincial governments about while doing next to nothing on the file herself, while simultaneously taking credit for the reductions that Ontario achieved by shuttering their coal-fired electricity plants. Aglukkaq instead pats herself on the back for encouraging private sector investment in the Arctic, but we haven’t really heard much in the way of good economic news in the North – instead, we’ve heard much more about the skyrocketing food prices and the lack of political will to do much about Nutrition North, or even for the government to acknowledge that problems exist with it. Like so many things during her time in federal politics, Algukkaq seems absent even from the conversation, so you can’t even say that she’s more talk than action. I’m not sure why anyone might have expected this to go any differently.
Tag Archives: Leona Aglukkaq
Roundup: A possible return to deficits
The Parliamentary Budget Officer gave his pre-budget analysis, and said that while the books look balanced this year, the government’s continued focus on tax breaks, spending announcements and the low oil price environment could mean heading back into deficit in two years – not too surprising really if you’ve been paying attention. Part of the fiscal breathing room the government is using right now is coming from their decision to freeze EI rates rather than let them fall to a level that reflects the actual unemployment rate, which sounds a lot like the kinds of things they used to curse Paul Martin for doing. And then there are the asset sales, such as all of those GM shares – possibly sold at a loss – that just pad the books in the short term. But hey, they can claim to balance the budget without raising taxes (err, except for all of those tariffs that they raised this year) and try and sell that as sound economic management going into the election. The actual numbers tell a different story, as we’ve seen, but hey, why mess with a narrative?
Roundup: A registry that’s not a registry
To the utter delight of the Conservatives, the NDP have pledged to reinstate the long-gun registry, with Mulcair uttering the line that duck hunters would only need assault rifles if they were hunting pterodactyls. But wait – an NDP aide later took issue with the characterisation that the NDP want to reinstate the registry itself – they just want to be able to track every gun. Which…pretty much implies a registry, whether there are criminal sanctions applied to it or not, so well done with that bit of cognitive dissonance. And if memory serves, the Liberals needed to have the criminal sanctions if they wanted to make the registry fit under federal laws, as it would otherwise have been provincial jurisdiction, so that may be an additional hurdle. (In case it bears reminding, the Liberals have eschewed reviving the registry).
Roundup: Buttressing the Fantino problem
You may think that Julian Fantino’s days in cabinet are numbered. Tone deaf to his file and to the particular needs of veterans, for a government that has tried to make the military a point of pride, Fantino has pretty much been a robotic disaster on par with the reprogrammed Robot from the Lost in Space reboot film. But don’t think that will be enough to convince Stephen Harper to decide it’s time to shuffle the cabinet and oust Fantino. No – that would be a sign that he made a mistake, and of weakness, and well, that simply couldn’t be done. Instead, there has been a great deal of shuffling of the deck chairs – moving retired General Walt Natynczyk to head the department as Deputy Minister, and now the PMO’s director of media relations, Stephen Lecce, has been reassigned as Fantino’s chief of staff – at least on an interim basis. In other words, everything is being done to buttress Fantino from the outside, but short of completely reinstalling his duotronic databanks with a new personality matrix, I’m not sure that it will help. I will add that Leona Aglukkaq’s decision to spend Question Period yesterday reading a newspaper while serious questions were being asked about the food crisis in her own riding were being asked was also not good optics, but as of yet, there are no calls for her resignation, not that it would have any success either, as she is too much of a needed symbol in the cabinet for Harper to let her go for any reason short of leaving briefing binders within reach of the associates of biker gangs.
QP: Demands that Fantino resign
The second-last Monday of the sitting year, and there were a large number of empty seats in the Chamber, which sadly is not too much of a surprise. Thomas Mulcair was present, and led off by asking about the AG report on mental health in veterans affairs, and the funding announcement being led over 50 years, and then accused the minister of fleeing the country. Fantino stood up and robotically insisted that he asked for the AG review and that he accepted his recommendations, before insisting that he was on a trip with veterans in Italy. Mulcair lashed out, calling him a coward, for which the Speaker cautioned him, before they went for another round. Mulcair demanded his resignation, but Fantino simply uttered robotic talking points. Mulcair changed topics to the final dismantling of the Wheat Board, to which Gerry Ritz insisted that they were still accepting bids. Mulcair then launched into Aglukkaq, but because he used “dishonesty” in his salvo, the Speaker shut him down. Ralph Goodale led for the Liberals, and calmly demanded the resignation of Fantino. Fantino simply returned to his talking points about making improvements to veterans benefits. After a second round, Fantino hit back a little more, and for the final round, Marc Garneau repeated the resignation demand in French, Fantino restored to his script about making significant improvements for those benefits.
David Anderson had to let Aglukkaq know that the question was about her so that she put down her newspaper and listen. #QP
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) December 1, 2014
Roundup: The SCC hears the assisted suicide case
The Supreme Court of Canada heard the arguments in the assisted suicide case yesterday, where the BC Civil Liberties Association’s disabled lawyer smashed the arguments of disability groups warning of a “slippery slope,” where the government put forward arguments in favour of a blanket ban that the Justices could scarcely believe, and the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada’s lawyer made specious comparisons to capital punishment. In all, it was a fascinating day at the Court, and we’ll see what decision comes down in a few months’ time. Carissima Mathen gives her recap and analysis to Power Play here.
Roundup: Contempt, tempers, and losing the plot
Thomas Mulcair’s snide exchange with the Speaker during yesterday’s QP continues to resonate around Ottawa, with reminders that Scheer doesn’t currently have the powers to police the content of answers (MPs would have to agree to give him those powers), and musings about this kind of contempt of parliament and remonstrations about how this is what makes people cynical. And the worst part? That even over the Twitter Machine, Paul Calandra continues to play the part. It has also been noted, and I fully agree, that by losing his temper and going after the Speaker, Mulcair made the story about himself rather than Calandra and his utter nonsense.
Media upset with me, gee what am I to do? Tell you what, I will stand up for Israel who are on the front lines fighting terror every day.
— Paul Calandra (@PaulCalandra) September 24, 2014
It's not up to Speaker Scheer to discipline poor answers, and you lose focus on govt stonewalling when you attack the Speaker. #QP
— Bob Rae (@BobRae48) September 23, 2014
Roundup: Distraction sauce on the satellite offices
The Commons Board of Internal Economy met yesterday, briefly, but came to no resolutions about NDP satellite offices because an hour before the meeting, the NDP delivered more documents that the committee didn’t have time to consider. And meanwhile, Peter Julian put on a big dog and pony show about the “Kangaroo Court” that is the Board, and how they want it opened up, and so on. And that’s really where the whole narrative falls apart. This tactic of releasing more documents just before the meeting smacks to me of the same thing they tried when Mulcair was called before committee, where they produced untranslated documents – something they know won’t be distributed (and usually they are the first to complain, given their Quebec-heavy caucus). And then they want the doors thrown open, so that they can put on the same demonstration of obfuscation and bafflegab that Mulcair did at committee, where he not only talked around his answers, but made untrue allegations under the protection of parliamentary privilege (lest we forget the falsehoods about Conservatives co-locating party and MP offices), all the while every NDP staffer was on Twitter proclaiming that “this is what transparency looks like.” Indeed it was. That they rather transparently want to do the very same thing at Internal Economy makes it seem all the more reasonable for the other parties to say no. Thrown into this are their demands that the Auditor General audit everybody – in order to spread blame around – and demands that Internal Economy be blown up and replaced with a more open body (thus providing yet another ground for partisan showmanship, and depriving MPs and administration a place for full and frank discussion about administrative matters) all smacks of one thing – distraction sauce. Delicious, delicious distraction sauce. You’ll pardon me if I prefer my sauce on the side.
Roundup: No charges for Wright
News from the ClusterDuff file last night as the RCMP announced that they won’t be seeking criminal charges against Nigel Wright – not that it doesn’t mean that he didn’t do anything wrong. It just means that they didn’t have enough evidence to that they felt that they could secure a conviction, which is a long way off from exoneration. The end of the RCMP investigation means that Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson’s investigation into the activities can now restart, which doesn’t mean that Wright is free and clear (not that those sanctions will be too severe – a slap on the wrist and/or being named and shamed tends to be the extent of it). It also means that he is now free to be a witness in any other ongoing investigations, such as the one into Mike Duffy himself. Wright did put out a brief statement by way of his lawyer that said that he always knew his actions were lawful – but it’s still a stretch based on this turn of events to make that kind of a declaration. It also means that Harper can’t hide behind the excuse of an RCMP investigation when asked questions in the House – unless he tries to use the investigation into Duffy as the smokescreen, which I wouldn’t put past him. CBC put together a special At Issue panel to discuss this turn of events.
Roundup: Misplaced Heartbleed blame
The big news yesterday was that the “Heartbleed Bug” had forced the shutdown of much of the Canada Revenue Agency’s website as a precaution, given that personal information that Canadians uploaded as they filed their taxes could be accessed and later decoded through the recently discovered backdoor flaws in the encryption software that some two-thirds of the Internet uses. Of course, the NDP tried to make a partisan issue out of this, and tried to say that it was because the Conservatives didn’t spend enough on cybersecurity – even though the issue has nothing to do with cybersecurity, or hacking, or malware, or anything like that. The minister, Kerry-Lynne Findlay, did later announce that the filing deadline would be extended by the number of days the site is down as they patch the bug, so that might give Canadians a few extra days to get their taxes in order. It also demonstrates how vulnerable we all are to these kinds of flaws in the basic Internet architecture that we rely on. Not affected were Canadian banks, and political party donation portals, for the record.