QP: Back to the buffoonery

After a really good QP, and one that was a little better than average, there we no hopes for a good show as none of the leaders were present — Harper was entertaining the president of Chile, while Mulcair and Trudeau were each giving speeches in Montreal and Toronto respectively. That left Megan Leslie to lead off, with the kinds of preambles and soliloquies that we expect from QP scripts, and James Moore — the designated back-up PM du jour — gave a boilerplate about how Wright admitted doing wrong, and by the way, your leader is covering up corruption in Montreal. Leslie tried to ask about former Senator Bert Brown’s travel expenses — which has precisely zero do do with government operations and should have been disallowed. Moore mentioned Elections Canada had all of the campaign expense files, and returned to the point about Mulcair covering up corruption. Leslie then moved onto the appropriateness of Nigel Wright getting severance pay, which was followed up by David Christopherson, who tried to tie it to Harper’s comments about David Dodge back in 2005. Moore said that Wright would get the minimum amount owed to him by law and nothing more. Ralph Goodale was up for the Liberals and brought up Nigel Wright’s emails to Senator Duffy, but Moore’s dodge/counter-punch was about Liberal Senator Pana Merchant’s husband’s offshore account. When Goodale wondered why Duffy’s wage weren’t being garnisheed to ensure that he paid the $90,000 he personally owed, not that Moore’s answer changed, nor did it change when Stéphane Dion tried to impress upon him the illegality of Wright’s payment.

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QP: But what about the mayor of Laval?

After yesterday’s standout QP performance, the question was going to be whether lightning could strike twice. Mulcair opted not to use his mini-lectern for a second day in a row, and with notes on his desk, asked briefly about the emails between Senator Mike Duffy and Nigel Wright. Harper highlighted that Duffy was no longer in caucus was being investigated by the appropriate authorities. Mulcair then asked if the RCMP had asked PMO for said emails, and Harper insisted they were cooperating — unlike Mulcair sitting on a bribery allegation for some 17 years. Mulcair tried to press on what was discussed in Cabinet, but Harper insisted that this wasn’t public business and therefore not discussed in cabinet. Mulcair wanted to know how Harper could be sure that it was a personal cheque, and Harper said that he would take Wright at his word — and by the way, you sat on a bribery allegation for 17 years. Justin Trudeau was up next and returned to the February 20 email and wanted it to be made public, but Harper went back to his talking point about about cooperating with authorities. Trudeau brought up the media contacting the PMO in the afternoon of May 14th and the identical talking points from Duffy and the PMO that evening, but Harper continued to insist he found out on the morning of the 15th. When Trudeau pressed, Harper brought up Liberal Senator Pana Merchant’s husband’s offshore accounts, to much applause.

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Roundup: Back to answer questions – or not

The House is back today, and so is QP, but it remains to be seen if Stephen Harper will deign to make an appearance or not. He rarely shows up on a Monday unless he has travel or other duties later in the week. But when he does show up, whether it’s today or Tuesday, there will finally be an opportunity for him to start answering questions in the House about the whole Clusterduff affair. Meanwhile, Senator Marjorie Lebreton continues to insist that there wasn’t any document trail between Nigel Wright and Senator Mike Duffy, and that she doesn’t really run things in the Senate. That said, she is considering allowing the Internal Economy committee hearings into the Duffy audit to be held in public – were it to actually be her call as opposed to the committee’s – but it should be noted that any testimony made in public then falls under privilege. In other words, it can’t be used by police. Sure, it can guide them as to where to look and come up with their own evidence, but it is a consideration that should be made. Oh, and a former RCMP superintendent says that it certainly looks like there are grounds for criminal charges with the whole expenses issue, and that breach of trust – which is an indictable offence (and would be grounds for automatic dismissal from the Senate) is likely the route that the RMCP would take.

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Roundup: Inconsistent timelines and poor vetting

The ClusterDuff continues to be the gift that keeps on giving, the more we look into it. The big question raised yesterday was with regards to the timeline of what Harper knew when, which doesn’t add up to his established statements once you factor in when CTV’s Robert Fife started asking questions to the PMO, which should have raised flags to Harper that something was going on. (Global posts their own timeline of events here, while Maclean’s has an infographic to explain how everything fits together to date). As well, despite the PMO characterizing it as normal that they would be in communication with Commons and Senate committees in order to draft lines in response to their studies and reports, Liberal Senate leader James Cowan says those kinds of conversations are not normal. It would also seem to be a bit of a red flag about the PMO interfering into committee and Senate business. It also seems that Duffy and his lawyer were in the room at the time when then Internal Economy Committee voted to make the edits to his report that toned down the language (or “whitewashing” it, as it were), which also seems pretty peculiar.

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Roundup: Chasing answers in Peru

It only took a week, a trip to Peru and a question from a foreign journalist before Stephen Harper finally said that he was sorry over the whole Nigel Wright/Mike Duffy affair. Well, he was sorry that Wright giving the cheque happened – we’re not quite sure yet if he’s sorry that he appointed Duffy to the Senate. (Video here). So, there’s that.

Meanwhile, back home, the NDP have decided to launch a new campaign, that they say will be part of the next election, about trying to abolish the Senate. Because you know, the constitution is something that can be changed on a whim, in particular because abolition would require the unanimous consent of the provinces. In other words, Mulcair is promising to do the impossible because he won’t have to follow through with it, and he can blame the provinces if he forms government. Yay using constitutional vandalism as though there were no consequences as a political tactic! Here’s a great post on the short-sighted ridiculousness for this kind of abolition rhetoric.

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Roundup: Wallin recuses herself

As far as exits go, it was not inconspicuous, and delivered at that golden hour of five to six on the Friday before a long weekend. With the briefest of press releases, Senator Pamela Wallin announced that she has “recused herself” from Conservative caucus until the conclusion of the forensic audit into her travel expenses was complete – which she has been fully cooperative with, she was quick to point out. And word has it that this was not exactly a voluntary move either, but a pre-emptive move in advance of the audit being released that will show that she has to repay even more than the $40,000 she already has – and that said audit will be forwarded directly to the RCMP. More than that, however, her recusal is a necessary strategic move by the Prime Minister. Why? Because when Tuesday rolls around and the NDP stand up in Question Period to bray about how awful the Senate is and all of these scandal-plagued Senators need to be investigated by some outside body, Harper or his designated back-up PM du jour can stand up and say simply that these individuals are no longer in caucus, so it’s no longer their concern and they’ll let the Senate deal with it. And to a certain extent it’s correct that the Senate has to deal with this on their own and there’s nothing that the Commons or the cabinet can do about it, but Harper can’t wash his hands of this. Duffy, Wallin, Brazeau – they were all his appointments. And under our system of government, it means that he and he alone gets to wear this one, no matter what.

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Roundup: Robocall charges laid

Former Guelph Conservative campaign worker Michael Sona has been charged in connection to the misleading robocall affair in the last election. Sona continues to insist he is innocent – without the access or means to pull it off – but one former Elections Canada lawyer suspects that they may be hoping he’ll take a deal and provide more information in exchange for a lesser charge or to have the charges dropped.

In its annual report on plans and priorities, HRSDC notes the likelihood of another incident of loss of personal data because of the proliferation of mobile storage devices, as well as retiring employees who don’t necessarily tell their successors where they’ve left everything. (And as someone who has dealt with records management in federal departments before, let me say that upon retirement, some employees simply shove everything into a box and leave it in a basement for years – not cool).

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Roundup: A Métis victory

The Métis of Manitoba won a Supreme Court ruling yesterday that states that the government didn’t fully implement the 1870 promise that led to the creation of Manitoba in the first place. And while there was no remedy attached – so no, Winnipeg, you don’t have to worry about being displaced – it will be interesting to see how this moves forward now that there is this recognition.

Jim Flaherty met with private sector economists yesterday and declared that he was confident in the budget – whenever it may be tabled – thanks to good job numbers.

Jason Kenney says that the lower-than-promised refugee resettlement numbers are due in large part to the civil war in Syria. After promising to resettle a large number of Iraqi refugees who had fled to Syria, well, we can’t process them effectively with a civil war in that country having wreaked havoc with diplomatic missions and resettlement logistics.

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Roundup: Fallout from a Thursday Gong Show

So, yesterday was a busy day. Bit of a gong show really. But let’s start with the more shocking news – that NDP MP Claude Patry crossed over to the Bloc. Okay, well, it’s actually not all that shocking. Paul Wells has predicted this since 2011, and it could very well be the first of many. A rather shamefaced Thomas Mulcair took to a microphone and rather sulkily declared that Patry had voted in favour of an NDP PMB that would require MPs to resign and run in a by-election if they wanted to cross the floor – not that said bill passed, and Patry indicated that the vote was whipped, and has let it be known that the rigid party discipline of the NDP is one of the reasons that he decided to take his leave. And I’m going to be a bit counter-intuitive here, but I say that Patry is under no obligation to run in a by-election. He was elected to fill the seat, and that means that voters have put their trust in him to exercise his judgement, and if his judgement is that the NDP was no longer where his values lay, then he should be free to exercise that judgement and leave the party. Despite what people may think, seats are not filled based solely on the basis of party affiliation – yes, it is a major part of the decision on the part of many voters, but we are also voting for a person to fill that seat – not a robot wearing party colours to recite the speeches prepared for him by Central Command and vote on command. And guess what – the accountability mechanism is that if those voters don’t believe he made the right choice in his judgement, they can vote him out in the next election. Michael Den Tandt writes that Patry’s defection is a mess of Mulcair’s own making.

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Roundup: Awaiting the Whatcott decision

It’s going to be an interesting day as the Supreme Court rules on the Whatcott trial, which will be a major ruling around hate speech laws in this country.

The police records for Senator Patrick Brazeau’s arrest warrant have been released, and all of the details are here – grabbing, punching, spitting, stair-pushing, and so on.

In other Senate news, the CBC polled Senators as to their residence, and of the 104 Senators, 17 refused to respond as to where they lived – 16 of those Conservatives (the sole Liberal being Mac Harb, who is currently under investigation). They have an interactive  chart of their responses. Meanwhile, Senator Patterson, who is also having his residency questioned, made the mistake of running away from reporters yesterday, but when they caught up to him said that he is a resident of Nunavut (he is the former premier of the NWT when they were a single territory), and that he’s cooperating fully with the audit. It has also been noticed that Harper was less strident in his defence of Senator Wallin and her repayment of undisclosed expenses yesterday. Oh, and while Charlie Angus may rail on about how the awful Senate is keeping everyone in the dark, it may be worthwhile to remember that there a) hasn’t been time to complete any of the audits, and b) that MPs’ expenses are just as opaque if not more so than those of Senators, so if he wants transparency then he can open up his own books while he’s at it.

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