Tag Archives: Leona Aglukkaq

Roundup: Incoming vote-athon, part deux

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The battle for Omnibus Budget Bill 2: The Revenge is on. The Liberals have delivered three thousand amendments to the finance committee, in the full knowledge that there won’t be enough time to deal with them before it has to go back to the House, but in the hopes that procedurally, they’ll be able to deal with them there at report stage. The NDP proposed far, far fewer, but Peggy Nash says they’re more “substantive.” Elizabeth May is planning on tabling some 100 amendments of her own back in the House. Prepare for another vote-athon!

The CBC has obtained a draft copy of the government’s new foreign policy plans. Basically we want to do business with other countries at all costs, seeing as we’re being left behind. So remember the whole “we won’t sacrifice human rights on the altar of the almighty dollar” talk? Yeah, that’s now out the window.

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Roundup: Exit the Deputy Speaker

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NDP MP and deputy Speaker Denise Savoie has announced her retirement for health reasons, and her letter mentioned that the travel demands of being a west coast MP was taking its toll. This means there is yet another by-election for the Prime Minister to call, likely this autumn. As for the role of Deputy Speaker, there’s no rule that says it has to go to an opposition party but should be someone whose linguistic proficiency is opposite that of the current Speaker, meaning it will likely have to be a Francophone as opposed to current Assistant Deputy Speaker Barry Devolin. As for who that might be, well, is a harder guess because I can’t think of any Francophone NDP MPs who have enough of an understanding of the rules and procedures as nearly all of them are still newbies, so maybe Mauril Bélanger from the Liberals, as he once expressed an interest in becoming Speaker? Wild guess, but it will be interesting to see who he ends up choosing.

From Nunavut, Stephen Harper announced funding for a new Arctic research station (after cutting an existing one, mind you), that the government was launching a new search for the lost vessels of the Franklin Expedition, and named Leona Aglukkaq to be the chair of the Arctic Council. Since she’s not really doing anything as Health Minister other than reminding everyone that nothing is her jurisdiction and ignoring the advice of expert panels, she’ll have plenty of time to memorise a whole new set of talking points to recite by rote.

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Roundup: Appointing hypothetical politicians to the bench

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At a meeting of the Canadian Bar Association, Rob Nicholson said that they shouldn’t rule out giving judicial appointments to “hypothetical” sitting politicians. No, seriously. This amid continual rumours that they’re eventually one day maybe going to appoint Vic Toews to the Court of Queen’s Bench in Manitoba. He then proceeded to dodge a question about a call to review federal legal aid funding – you know, to make justice accessible to the public in an age where their government continues to make the Criminal Code increasingly complex and at times even nonsensical (if you compare mandatory minimum sentences).

Leona Aglukkaq wants the debate around healthcare to be based around facts and not rhetoric. Hahahahaha! *wipes eyes* Oh, that’s a good one. I’m guessing she’s never actually absorbed the talking points that she has so dutifully memorised.

Charlie Angus is complaining that the Director of Public Prosecutions won’t look into Dean Del Mastro’s electoral financing even though it’s not the DPP’s job, no matter that Angus would like it to be. Seriously, you can’t just invent job descriptions because you want them to do something.

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Roundup: Prepping the First Ministers’ meeting

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In the lead up to Wednesday’s Council of the Federation meeting in Halifax, the premier of Nova Scotia discusses how he finds the federal government’s aloofness to be “troubling.” Meanwhile, environmentalists are hoping to engage the premiers at said meeting, given that the proposed national energy strategy will be one of the key topics discussed. A new Senate report will add fuel to the fire on the need for such a strategy.

In a not unrelated matter, it seems that BC Premier Christy Clark is starting to talk tougher on the Northern Gateway Pipeline, and sent out two of her ministers to outline her concerns. It seems like this is reverberating enough that Joe Oliver is starting to moderate his own tone a little. Alberta Premier Alison Redford, however, is none too happy with the objections.

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