At long last, the budget implementation bill was tabled yesterday, and at around 125 pages, it’s far less of the omnibus bills that the government was so fond of last year. Not that it’s too unexpected, given that the budget itself was a pretty thin document, and so Flaherty’s joke is that this one is a “minibus.” It does have a number of measures including the tariff changes, the attempt to revive the National Securities Regulator, integrating CIDA into Foreign Affairs, and taking things like Winterlude and Canada Day back from the National Capital Commission.
Tag Archives: Liberal Rebuilding
Roundup: No information on the cuts
Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page can’t get any information on government cuts, and feels the government is deliberately keeping people in the dark. Pat Martin says that the government should provide the PBO with the information so that MPs know what they’re voting on. Or, you know, MPs could compel the production of papers using the powers they already have and demand to know for themselves rather than involving a middleman like the PBO.
The NDP have agreed to wrap up the committee hearings into the Auditor General’s report on the F-35 procurement process because they heard from the witnesses they wanted to during their Potemkin committee hearing in the summer. You know, the one that’s not official, and not on the record? Good job.
Roundup: One year post-Layton
Today marks the one-year anniversary of Jack Layton’s death, and there will be a number of memorial events taking place. Olivia Chow reflects on her life without Layton, while the public remains in the dark about just what kind of cancer it was that he died of, which raises questions about the secrecy we allow political leaders when it comes to questions of their health during elections.
Elections Canada has updated its figures on robo-call complaints it’s investigating (1394 complaints in 234 ridings), but it won’t turn over its documents to the Federal Court for the Council of Canadians’ court challenge of the results in seven ridings. (And really, it’s about interfering with their own ongoing investigation, not a conspiracy).
Here’s a recounting of the NDP’s Potemkin committee hearing on the F-35s yesterday. We don’t actually have any standing defence policy that their procurement can be applied towards, and apparently they’re still in the early testing phases so we won’t even have a realistic idea about their capabilities for several more years.
Roundup: Taking cabinet off the trade file
Stephen Harper’s chief of staff, Nigel Wright, is taking a lead role in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, as opposed to our actual international trade minister. Not unsurprisingly, it’s ruffled a few feathers. While everyone has plenty of praise for the minister, Ed Fast, it does seem that most of the federal cabinet is there purely for symbolic reasons and to reward well-behaved MPs these days. That said, it underlines the importance that this government is placing on trade deals as a large part of their economic agenda.
Harper is currently off at the G20 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico. John Geddes explains the Euro bailout/IMF issue facing Harper here.
Roundup: Six days of debate
So you know that 420-ish page omnibus budget bill, that affects some fifty Acts, completely rewrites the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, the Fisheries Act, the Species At Risk Act, removes the Inspector General from CSIS, disappears the immigration backlog and all manner of other measures? Has been subjected to time allocation. The government, feeling generous, is giving it some six days of debate, which really means twenty-something hours in the House at Second Reading, which is hardly anything at all for a bill of this magnitude. The Senate at least will begin pre-studying the bill next week and actually breaking it up into appropriate committees, which the Commons won’t be doing (though as a half-measure, the government will allow a sub-committee at Finance to study all of those environmental changes, which I’m sure will last all of a week, tops). I think John Ivison put it best:
It makes you wonder: What is the point of Parliament? Why not have one whopper of a bill once a year, allow MPs to give it a cursory skim and then send them back to their constituencies to do the ceremonial work of opening supermarkets and attending Rotary barbecues?
If the abuse of time allocation and omnibus legislation continues, that may very well be the way things are headed.
Where the Liberal “party without walls” will lead
Wednesday morning, the Liberals are going to be marking the one-year anniversary of their stunning electoral defeat by doing something that has the potential to be political suicide. And they’re doing it with cheers and applause.
Back at their policy convention in January, the party decided adopt a new set of leadership rules that allow a new class of membership to vote in the next leadership contest. Indeed, this new class – known as “supporters,” don’t have to be party members, but simply have to promise that they’re totally not a member of another party, and voila, they can cast their ballot for the next Liberal leader. What could possibly go wrong?
Roundup: Defence procurement versus policy
Courtesy of iPolitics.ca’s Colin Horgan is an excellent piece about the apparent fact that defence procurement now seems to be driving policy, rather than the other way around (possible paywall). You know, the way it should be when a military is under civilian control, rather than when the civilian government bows to the whims of the military. Meanwhile, there is more expert opinion that cabinet had to have known about the full costs of the F-35 procurement, given the way in which Industry Canada and Public Works needed to be quieted down to get around the regular process (which I remind you is still very much at the heart of this issue – not just the price tag).
Stephen Harper announced a new programme yesterday that will give support payments for the parents of murdered and missing children that will allow them to take paid leave from work to deal with the situation. Maclean’s John Geddes, meanwhile, raises a red flag about the rhetoric Harper was using at the announcement, talking about child sex offenders getting lax house arrest sentences, when this is obviously not the case, and galling for Harper to bring it up.
The CBC’s Laura Payton asks four very important questions about those prison closures.
There was a bizarre little incident in the Manitoba legislature this past week where Conservative MP Shelly Glover and three of her caucus colleagues took to the legislature to launch bitter partisan barbs at the provincial NDP government over the issue of changes to the immigration programme. Glover feels the federal government deserves far more credit for the provincial successes and complains that the province isn’t paying their fair share, despite the fact that the province foots the bills for things like social services, education and health care. But as far as Glover was concerned, it was a case of yay Harper Conservatives, boo provincial NDP.
It seems that Enbridge nearly pulled out of a Pacific Ocean management plan over fears that Tides Canada’s involvement would hijack it – even though they were not in a position to do so. It also appears that this incident led up to Joe Oliver’s infamous “radicals” open letter.
Bob Rae talks about the need for the Liberal Party change its ways, and admitting that they have yet to absorb all of the lessons of the last election. Meanwhile, Paul Wells notes the party’s message that they will respond to Conservative attack ads – eventually.
Here’s an interesting look at the meaning of our tendency to nickel-and-dime politicians, and the continual insistence that they get paid too much.
And on 4/20, Thomas Mulcair tried to clarify his position on marijuana, which is decriminalisation but not legalisation, apparently. The Young Liberals have been making great hay of this, plastering downtown Ottawa with pictures of an angry Mulcair face with his quote from Global TV in which he subscribes the “potent pot” myth.