It was another bitterly cold day out in Ottawa, and the Hill was buzzing with news of Senator Brazeau’s arrest and removal from caucus. Thomas Mulcair was off at an event elsewhere, which left it up to Megan Leslie to lead off by asking about the Saskatchewan push-poll, but once again fell into that basic trap of asking about party business and not government operations. Harper reminded her that while the party position was well known, the commission had its work to do. Leslie then turned to the question of Senate ethics, and Brazeau’s arrest. Harper assured her that Brazeau was removed from caucus, and that it was of a personal nature and not with regards to Senate business. Peggy Nash was up next, asking why the government wouldn’t extend Kevin Page’s term until his his successor is chosen — unless they had something to hide in the budget. Clement simply repeated that there was a process in place to find his replacement, and they were respecting that process. For the Liberals, Ralph Goodale was up asking about possible gerrymandering of the Saskatchewan boundaries, to which Harper assured him that the process was underway and included Parliamentary input, before insinuating that Goodale didn’t care about rural communities. Dominic LeBlanc was up for the final question of the round, asking about household debt, for which Shelly Glover read off some good news talking points.
Tag Archives: Patrick Brazeau
Roundup: Knee-jerk populism vs. the Charter
In another stunning bout of knee-jerk populism, Jason Kenney has seized on the story of a Canadian dual-citizen blowing up a bus in Bulgaria, coupled it with a dubious Private Member’s Bill about stripping the citizenship of dual-citizens who engage in acts of war against the country, talked about amending it to include terrorism, and viola – ready for the media. How predictable, and how so very, very flawed. For one, it’ll never stand up to the Charter, because Canadians, no matter where they may have been born, are all equal under the law. Also, it shows contempt for process because he’s trying to hijack a PMB that probably shouldn’t have been voteable in the first place. It’s worse that Kenney wants to try and ram through unconstitutional measures into the PMB process, which would get a mere couple of hours of committee study before heading back to the Chamber for a mere two more hours of debate. Yeah, he may need to rethink this whole proposition.
QP: Oh, those awful Liberals
Dear readers, you know that I normally have a pretty high tolerance for the shenanigans of Question Period on a daily basis. But today, that tolerance was sorely tested. This was nothing to do with decorum, but rather with the complete absence of substance in today’s debate. And as ugly of a day as it was, I nevertheless will give you the recap (and hope that my rage doesn’t boil over yet again while recounting the tale).
It began during Members’ Statements, when the Conservatives, one after another, stood up to denounce the Liberals because David McGuinty, in his frustration after a Natural Resources committee hearing, said that if the Conservatives were going to act provincially when it comes to resource development then they should run for municipal council or the provincial legislature. Apparently this was what the Conservatives needed to re-open the psychic wounds of the National Energy Programme (which they already conflate with other global market forces, but that’s another story) and woe be to the Liberal arrogance that has kept them from getting a seat in Western Canada lo these many years. They would all crowd around whichever Alberta MP was speaking, and fill the frame – even Blake Richards, who sits in the nosebleeds, they nevertheless got more Alberta MPs to crowd around behind him to fill the frame. Solidarity, and all of that. And the NDP? Well, Dan Harris declared that he was going to put “facts” on the table in the face of Conservative distortions about his party’s policies – and then proceeded to lay out the same talking points about corporate taxes that completely distort the way they work. Apparently one distortion deserves another.
Roundup: Following a failed policy really badly
While Canada continues to follow Australia’s failed policies around detaining asylum seekers, there are some important differences – in Australia, the dedicated refugee detention centres are focused on their wellbeing, and are designed not to be prisons. In Canada, detained refugee claimants are sent to overcrowded provincial jails, with the convicted criminal populations. Yeah, this is really going to end well.
On the Robocon file, online postings from before the 2011 election match the complaints that Elections Canada was getting about calls telling people that their polling locations had changed. Meanwhile, over in the Federal Court case where those six ridings are being challenged, the Conservative party lawyer has filed a factum that says that there’s no evidence that these calls actually dissuaded anyone from voting.
Kady O’Malley outlines the next steps in the battle over Omnibus Budget Bill 2: The Revenge.