Tag Archives: Pamela Wallin

Roundup: The Economist Party fact-checks

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With the Liberals casting the NDP federal minimum wage proposal as a mirage, and the NDP insisting that they haven’t deceived anyone (never mind that the Huffington Post did a piece asking ordinary people about what they thought of the pledge, only to learn it applies to federally-regulated industries, which won’t affect most people, and lo and behold, the people asked felt deceived. Imagine that!) While the NDP claim it will affect over 100,000 people, the Economist Party crunched the numbers, and found them lacking.

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https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/632640839819264000

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https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/632642099620376576

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Senate QP: What about labour trusts?

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For what was likely to to be the final QP of the parliament — for realsies this time — unless the Senate Liberals are able to come up with some new procedural tricksyness to delay C-377 further. There were only two statements today — Canada Day and the museums in Montreal over the summer — and after speeding through Routine Proceedings, Senator Cowan rose for QP. He led off noting the government studiously avoided answering questions yesterday, and how Bill C-377 could turn mutual funds and TFSAs into “labour trusts” and triggering disclosure obligations. Answering for the government, Senator Carignan evaded, saying it was important to pass the bill and noted unions posting on Twitter that they were working with the NDP in preparation for the election. Cowan noted that had nothing to do with his question, and demanded an answer on “labour trusts.” Carignan continued to evade, noting mandatory union dues. Cowan was not swayed and wanted an answer on the issue of the expert testimony on how the legislation would catch those funds. Carignan said that he was there to answer questions and not play “interpretation games” — which is ridiculous because it was a legitimate question about the substance of the bill. Cowan tried asking a different way — would they be okay with people’s private information going online if they were caught up in a “labour trust” interpretation, at which point Carignan babbled about legal opinions. Cowan, at the end of his patience, said that Carignan’s refusal to answer meant that he was okay with people having their financial information being made public. Carignan retreated to his mandatory union dues talking points. Senator Moore rose on a supplemental, asking if Carignan was okay with his own mutual funds and TFSAs being made public under the bill. Carignan went on a homily about the time he had Quebecor shares that he had to sell. Moore tried again, and got no answer.

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Roundup: Lunney and his martyrdom

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Surprising news on Parliament Hill yesterday was that Conservative MP James Lunney decided he’s going to quit caucus and sit as an independent because his freedom of religion is being suppressed at the senior levels, citing the group of Christian “leaders” who held a press conference on Parliament Hill last week to decry that they are being denied professional and economic opportunity in law, medicine and academia. What that tends to be code for is the fact that they don’t like the that Law Societies around the country don’t want to accredit Trinity Western University’s law school for its homophobic code of conduct, that doctors have to refer people for birth control, and one presumes with academia it’s about things like creationism or “intelligent design.” Lunney went so far in his press release to bemoan the social media firestorm when he defended an Ontario PC MPP who felt that schools should teach creationism. Lunney himself has questioned the science of climate change and given credence to discredited theories like vaccines being linked to autism. And while he has already announced that he won’t run again, what I find most disconcerting is that Lunney is martyring himself for this supposed cause of religious freedom when it’s not that at all. While the Ottawa Citizen editorial put it best, that religious freedom is about not having the state tell you what to believe, it also makes the point that it doesn’t mean your beliefs can’t be questioned or even mocked or satirized. What is most problematic is that this false notion of religious freedom that Lunney and the Charles McVety crowd was moaning about last week is the very same justification for those blatantly anti-gay laws being passed in places like Indiana, where “freedom of religion” is being used as the statutory means to discriminate against gays and lesbians. And in fact, it’s insulting to those who are actually suffering from religious prosecution. I’m not saying they have the numbers here to try and agitate for those kinds of laws, and it would never pass the Charter test regardless, but that mentality remains alarming.

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QP: The Wright connection

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Wednesday, caucus day, and everyone was present and ready to go. Thomas Mulcair led off, asking if the prime minister was planning an extension or expansion of the Iraq mission. Stephen Harper responded by first thanking the House for its support of the mission and then said that no decision had been made and he would let them know when it had. Mulcair asked again in French, and got the same response. Mulcair then switched to the topic of the Ethics Commissioner’s report on Diane Finley, and wondered about Nigel Wright’s role in the affair. Harper responded that she used her discretion while acting in good faith, and would take the advice of the Commissioner going forward. Mulcair pressed, but got the same response that she acted in good faith. Mulcair tried to push on the quote about Nigel Wright being asked to “sort out” the issue, but Harper tried to distance himself. Justin Trudeau was up next, and wanted the Prime Minister to explain to the half-million Muslims in the country how he found their faith to be “anti-women.” Harper responded by reading condemnations from Jewish groups about elements in Trudeau’s speech on Monday. Trudeau pointed out that Harper used to oppose Sihk’s wearing turbans in the RCMP, and Trudeau responded by reading some Muslim groups defending the no-niqabs-in-citizenship-ceremonies position. Trudeau then moved to Jason Kenney’s misleading photos on Twitter, to which Kenney doubled down, insisting we were in Iraq to protect women and girls from ISIS. So, no apology then.

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Roundup: The many reactions to Trudeau’s speech

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Justin Trudeau’s Monday night speech in Toronto certainly has a lot of people talking, and it’s not just the trolls on Twitter! His attempt to reclaim “liberty” for the Liberals instead of the Conservatives, who like to talk a lot about freedom (particularly from taxes and big nanny state governments) is certainly going to cause a reaction, and did it ever. Jason Kenney, not surprisingly, was not a fan and railed about “politically correct Liberals” not thinking critically about Muslim women wearing niqabs. Michael Den Tandt sees the speech as trying to create a narrative framework for the Liberals going forward, and notes it gained from the timing of things like Chris Alexander conflating the hijab and the niqab, Jason Kenney’s Twitter Machine misadventures, or John Williamson’s racist statement about “whities” and brown people. (The NDP, conversely, are going on about how Trudeau can talk liberty when he plans to vote for C-51, which they see as a threat to liberty). Terry Milewski sees this as another shot fired in a nascent culture war about the niqab, and notes that just as Trudeau compared the current climate against Muslims with the anti-Semitism during the 1940s, while Stephen Blaney turned around and invoked the Holocaust to defend C-51. Aaron Wherry looks at the speech in contrast to the Federal Court ruling on the niqab in citizenship ceremonies, and the subsequent debates about religion and feminism that the Conservatives and Liberals are having.

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QP: Questions on combat and friendly fire

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Tuesday in the Commons, and all of the leaders were present, making it a question of whether everyone would be tiptoeing around the friendly fire question again. Thomas Mulcair led off by asking why Kurdish forces weren’t aware of the presence of Canadian troops on the front lines. Stephen Harper responded that it was not a combat situation but friendly fire, and that the spoke with the Iraqi prime minister about it, while investigations were ongoing. Mulcair pointed out that previous friendly fire deaths on a training mission were counted as combat deaths, and why not this incident. Harper noted that there are risks but they were not expecting to come under fire, and noted that it was better we fight them over there than over here. Mulcair tried to insist in a pair of questions why Canadian soldiers were on the front line, which wasn’t was voted on in Parliament, and Harper retorted that Parliament voted for it because it was the right thing to do. Mulcair repeated words that Harper said prior to the vote to prove his point, but Harper claimed there were “falsehoods” in that question and noted that the forces were acting according to their guidelines. Justin Trudeau was up next, and noted some of Jason Kenney’s many Twitter gaffes of late — including when he tweeted about the death of Nathan Cirillo — and wondered if he had been repremanded. Harper insisted that Kenney had taken over a difficult portfolio, and was doing well. Trudeau retorted about the recent statements by Chris Alexander and John Williamson dividing Canadians when they should be dealing with the economy — and when would the budget be tabled. Harper noted that Trudeau was playing games of his own with division. Trudeau repeated the question in French, and Harper went after him for pandering to the “anti-woman” culture that gives rise to the niqab.

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Roundup: What to do about Dean?

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The question of what to do about Dean Del Mastro has seized the Commons, and the government seems amenable to going along with the NDP motion to suspend him without pay immediately, and further send the matter to the Procedure and House Affairs committee for further study, particularly for what it means for his staff and his constituents. This is a bit of a change from the government’s original position of wanting the committee to rule before they did, but apparently they’re going with the flow of public opinion on the matter. (The NDP’s unwillingness to let debate collapse so that the vote can proceed on its own accord, however, means that the government will likely invoke closure to ensure a vote later today). There is also a battle raging over Del Mastro’s pension benefits, while the NDP used a committee hearing on John Williamson’s private member’s bill to try to lay a trap. The bill would see MPs lose their pension if convicted of an indictable offence, and the NDP moved an amendment to specifically include elections expenses, which the government defeated because it wasn’t necessary, and wouldn’t apply to the Del Mastro case anyway – not that it stopped Mulcair and the NDP of using Question Period to say the government was trying to protect Mulcair. Because apparently they’re not yet too clever for their own good.

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Roundup: “Captain Canada” remaining neutral

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An election has been called in Quebec, but in Ottawa, Thomas Mulcair has declared that as there is no provincial NDP, he will remain “neutral.” And yes, he did just last weekend insist that he was going to be “Captain Canada” and fight for national unity. To that end, he says that he’ll support the federalist side (recall that he was once a provincial Liberal), but he doesn’t want people to vote only on that issue, especially because there are some Quebec Liberals who are in favour of private healthcare and so on. But wait – he also said that Marois would try to force a referendum if she wins a majority. So, he doesn’t want federalism to be the only factor, but it’s a major factor because she’ll launch a referendum that nobody wants. No doubt this has nothing to do with keeping the soft nationalists in the party fold. The Liberals, meanwhile, are on the attack saying that Mulcair can’t be neutral while the issue of separatism is on the table, while the Conservatives (who aren’t a big presence in the province) are holding back but saying that they would prefer Quebeckers choose the federalist option. Aren’t Quebec politics fun?

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Roundup: Hysteria over a difference of opinion

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All of the tongues were wagging yesterday as it appeared that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty started backing away from the government’s promise to implement income splitting for families once the budget gets balanced. Unfortunately, this also resulted in a number of hyperbolic lines of copy, with things like “split in the caucus,” because there can’t be disagreement without it being a major issue, which in turn makes the tendency for rigid message control all the more prevalent (although, it is a bigger issue when it’s the PM and finance minister who can’t agree, but let’s keep things within reason). Or all the musings about Flaherty “being in the doghouse” because Harper himself was answering questions in QP – which people started complaining about. Seriously – Harper was answering questions! Like a Prime Minister! This is a good thing, people! John Geddes puts Flaherty’s musings in with the context of his broader freelancing from the party line of late, while Kevin Milligan offers an overview on the research into income splitting. Andrew Coyne writes that the rift between Harper and Flaherty on clear party policy shows that perhaps Flaherty should think about stepping down.

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Roundup: Poilievre’s questionable moves

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Being released today is the new election reform act brought forward by the government which promises to reshape Elections Canada. And yes, the opposition is nervous. Already there are questions as to why Pierre Poilievre was selective in his answers to the House yesterday during QP when he said that he had met with the Chief Electoral Officer about the bill. That meeting, however, was before it was drafted, and not about the actual provision or language of the bill, which is kind of a big deal. One of the big questions about the bill is the provision that the new Commissioner of Elections be appointed by the Director of Public Prosecutions rather than the Chief Electoral Officer, and how that will affect his or her independence. Oh, and the most egregious part? That Poilievre is having his press conference to announce the bill before the technical briefing for reporters takes place. You know, so they won’t have time to read it or understand it before asking questions. Because that’s not a cynical move designed to frustrate the media and keep things as opaque as possible.

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