Tag Archives: Paul Martin

Roundup: A committee nobody will love

Posted on by

So, the government has put the notice on the Order Paper about forming their electoral reform committee, and there will be howls of outrage from all corners as this is going to please precisely nobody. Well, except maybe Liberals who will be controlling this process. In short, Maryam Monsef’s principles for democratic reform have been distilled to five points from eight, and the committee will be constituted of twelve MPs – six Liberals, three Conservatives, one New Democrat, one Bloc and Elizabeth May, but the Bloc MP and May won’t have voting rights in keeping with established practice. The committee will invite all MPs to hold town halls in their ridings and submit a written report back to the committee by October 1st, and the committee’s final report is to be delivered by December 1st. Of course, the NDP are going toe be livid because Liberals continue to make up a majority on the committee (which is legitimate given that they have the most seats) and that it doesn’t follow Nathan Cullen’s “proportional” idea – which, let’s be clear, was all about gaming the committee to advance his own proportional representation agenda. May is going to be upset because she’d not getting a vote, and she too is going to be railing that it won’t allow her to advance her own PR agenda. The Conservatives are going to be upset because the possibility of a referendum is not in this proposal, and they see that as their way of holding onto the status quo (which they feel favours their own chances). And I’m going to add my own particular objections that, as I’ve written previously, there are some serious problems with those principles that Monsef has laid out. We’ll see how this exercise goes, and I have a sneaking suspicion that these town halls may start to become sideshows as groups like Fair Vote Canada start trying to Astroturf them in trying to get PR advanced as the model to go forward (and given how PR advocates tend to operate, the insults and nastiness are going to start flying pretty quickly). There is also the (not unjustified) suspicion that the fix is already in, that the Liberals have their preferred model (likely ranked ballots) and that this is all a big production number to make it look like they’ve consulted Canadians, and that may very well be the case. Suffice to say, I suspect the next few months are going to be one giant headache, especially for those of us who are cognisant of the civic literacy issues at play.

https://twitter.com/InklessPW/status/730215513821982721

https://twitter.com/InklessPW/status/730216383448031233

https://twitter.com/InklessPW/status/730216678756339712

Continue reading →

Roundup: A possible pipeline

Posted on by

Pipelines will be the talk of the day, as the National Energy Board gave approval to Enbridge’s Line 3 replacement pipeline to the US late yesterday, and Candice Bergen wasted no time in putting out a press release demanding that the government approve it for the sake of jobs, and so on. Never mind that this pipeline doesn’t go to tidewater, so it won’t actually help Alberta get world price for its exports, but hey, it’s a pipeline and we are apparently in desperate need of them, except when we aren’t because they will encourage the further exploitation of oil and gas which won’t help us reach our climate goals, and all of that. But tidewater remains on everyone’s lips, as there is talk that the Northern Gateway pipeline may not be dead after all, and there is even talk that Enbridge is looking at alternate port facilities than the one that they proposed in their initial bid. There is a sense of a deadline, given that the conditional approval that the NEB gave Northern Gateway would expire by the end of this year, but it’s also hard to say that it was a real approval given the 200+ conditions that they attached to it, which may very well have been quite onerous – particularly any conditions that required First Nations buy-in when they are not keen to allow these pipelines over their territories, nor to have any terminus near the waterways that salmon depend upon for spawning, as that affects their local fisheries as well. That said, all of the agitation for Energy East will continue undaunted, no matter that it hasn’t even begun much of its environmental assessment process, nor the case for its “social licence” as Trudeau likes to call it – not that questions of process seem to matter to those who want it to happen yesterday.

Continue reading →

Roundup: First quarter results

Posted on by

The Fiscal Monitor was released yesterday, and Stephen Harper was quick to don his Prime Minister hat to tout that it showed that the government posted a $5 billion surplus for the first quarter of the fiscal year. Better than expected, he proclaimed. On track to a balanced budget! Err, except maybe not. Much of that revenue had to do with the sale of those GM shares that they used to show that the budget was in balance, and it doesn’t fully take into account the plummeting oil prices or the GDP contraction that our economy has been facing. (We’ll find out on Tuesday if we saw a second quarter of negative growth, officially putting us into a technical recession). Not unsurprisingly, the Liberals called the surplus “phony,” and pointed out things like the GM shares as proof. Here’s Stephen Gordon to put the numbers into context:

Continue reading →

Roundup: Making the AFN pitch

Posted on by

The Assembly of First Nations has been holding their General Assembly in Montreal, and both of the two main opposition leaders addressed them yesterday. As First Nations leaders try to convince their people to start flexing their political muscles, with some 51 ridings they say that they can influence, both Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau made their pitches to the assembled chiefs. For Mulcair, it was largely a recapping of pledges he had made previously, while Trudeau unveiled a much more comprehensive policy plank for the party’s election platform. The fact that the parties are making this kind of a pitch – probably the most high-profile of such pitches in recent electoral memory – is a sign to the seriousness to which Canadians are taking these issues now, where they would have been considered far more niche in elections past.

Continue reading →

Roundup: A tacit plea of no contest

Posted on by

From all accounts, it was one of the worst press conferences in recent memory. Former Liberal MP Scott Andrews, currently an independent, said he’s not going to fight to rejoin the Liberal caucus, that he accepts what was in the executive summary of the investigation into the harassment allegations, but wouldn’t say anything more concrete about whether he feels he was guilty or innocent of the allegations. There were hints, however, that he is not contesting what has been in the media – that he followed an MP home, pushed her against the wall and groped her, stopped when she told him to but subsequently referred to her as a “cockteaser.” Talking about learning the lessons of “the importance of personal space” and his “jovial Newfoundland personality” seems to indicate that he’s tacitly admitted he’s done something. The fact that he said he’s laying down partisanship, however, does raise questions, but with no answers forthcoming, we will be left to speculate. Andrews said that he hasn’t decided if he’ll run again in the next election, but even as an independent it would be a long shot. Justin Trudeau, meanwhile, says he considers the matter closed, so unless someone starts leaking the contents of the investigator’s report, this is probably the last we’ll hear about it.

Continue reading →

Roundup: The Sona trial commences

Posted on by

Michael Sona’s trial in the case of the misleading robocalls gets underway in Guelph, Ontario, today, Sona has long maintained that there is no real evidence against him other than some questionable testimony that would have occurred at a time when he was out of the country. That said, it is hoped that with other players on the stand that this trial may be the only hope for getting the real story of what happened in Guelph out there. Sona could face five years in jail and a fine of up to $5000 if found guilty.

Continue reading →

Roundup: More pledges and hints of strategy

Posted on by

As part of the pledge not to raise personal taxes should he form government, Thomas Mulcair has added one that he would never appoint a senator. Never mind that he would be constitutionally bound to do so as it’s a listed imperative in the text, or that the mounting number of absences would start to grind the legislative process to a slow halt, or the fact that once a future government does start making appointments again, it’ll create a further shock to the system that will cause more problems down the road. But hey, it’s easy to make facile promises without thinking about them, right? Paul Wells parses this promise as well as Mulcair’s other promises, like biannual first ministers meetings, to get a glimpse of what Mulcair’s emerging constitutional strategy might look like. Michael Den Tandt looks at Mulcair’s economic promises and pokes holes in the conceits that they can grow the economy and attract investment while increasing taxes on corporations, especially if all of our pension plans are dependent on those corporations turning a profit.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Applause, heckles, and a questionable accusation

Posted on by

Stephen Harper made his speech before the Knesset yesterday, and largely accused the “Stop Israel Apartheid” movement as being a new breed of more sophisticated anti-Semites. So there’s that. Ahmed Tibi, an Arab-Israeli MK and leader of the Arab Movement for Change party, heckled Harper’s speech and walked out, because he took exception to Harper’s characterisation of Israel as a democracy – considering that most of the Palestinians are disenfranchised – and that he feels that it is an apartheid state, contrary to Harper’s assertion. Michael Petrou live-blogged the speech – complete with drinking game – and made some quite apt observations about the reality of the situation in the region along the way. Petrou also dissected Tibi’s heckling criticism of Harper’s speech, and notes where Tibi gets things right and wrong. Meanwhile, Harper did announce an additional $66 million in aid for the Palestinian authority. And CBC has a full list of the delegation that Harper brought with him, while Liz Thompson finds that a large number of them are also Conservative donors.

Continue reading →

Roundup: More challenges to Justice Nadon’s appointment

Posted on by

The Quebec bar association is now demanding that the issue of Justice Marc Nadon’s eligibility to sit on the Supreme Court as a Quebec judge be sent directly to the Supreme Court to have a swift ruling, seeing as the usual process of litigation could take some five years to work its way through. Because hey, let’s politicise this appointment even further, and set a potentially dangerous precedent for these kinds of challenges. Of course, given that this issue was foreseen (witness the legal opinion it came with), the Prime Minister could have actually avoided it all by appointing a different candidate instead.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Green infrastructure dollars diverted

Posted on by

It looks like the Conservatives have been using their billion dollar “green infrastructure fund” to help fund pipelines and forestry projects. Liberal John McCallum has asked the Auditor General to investigate the fund, but hasn’t received word yet.

The government has also spent over $86,000 in rebranding the “Harper government” in government communications. It’s not really a big number in context, but age of austerity, and all of that.

Thomas Mulcair defended his comments on the resource sector at the provincial NDP convention in Saskatchewan last weekend. According to Mulcair, people from Saskatchewan believe the polluter should pay, which is what he’s trying to say. Mulcair, meanwhile, joined forces to Pauline Marois to slam Harper as being anti-Quebec in the wake of the “secret meeting” with Mulroney. Harper’s Quebec lieutenant, Christian Paradis, says his government is ready to work with the PQ if they get elected. Oh, how I wish there was a QP today for this to come up in.

Continue reading →