The tale of Eve Adams and her nomination race got even more sordid yesterday as all kinds of other allegations started appearing out of the woodwork, now that attention is being paid to her. First came word that the riding association was appealing directly to Harper to investigate her activities, with regard to things like her access to the party database, her purchasing the colour-coded maps, that she was door-knocking and telling people that she had been asked by Harper to run in that particular riding, and generally trying to bigfoot the nomination race. (Letter here). Harper in turn asked the party to investigate. After this was made public, the owner of an Ottawa gas station called the media to let them know that he had also asked the PMO to investigate Adams’ behaviour after she had a meltdown tantrum over a $6 carwash that she was unsatisfied with. It has been suggested that all of these leaks are being made public in order to have her discredited and lose the nomination race that way, rather than have Harper or the party disqualify her from afar. It’s not such an outlandish theory either.
Tag Archives: Prostitution
QP: Shuffled sparring partners
After two weeks away, MPs were back and ready to carry on with the Grand Inquest of the Nation. With Harper still off in Europe, it was a question as to whether there would be a front-bench babysitter answering questions, or just ministers and parliamentary secretaries in the leaders’ round. Thomas Mulcair led off by asking about the situation in Ukraine, and David Anderson read a pro forma statement about travel bans and economic sanctions. Mulcair then turned to the Supreme Court ruling on the Nadon reference, and wondered if the government would accept the ruling. Peter MacKay stood up to reiterate that they got legal opinions beforehand, that they were surprised by the decision, and they felt that Nadon was a legal expert, and would study the decision. Mulcair then asked if the new minister of finance would abandon the national securities regulator project. Joe Oliver, in his debut answer in his new role, but said that he would wait for the new critic to ask in order to be fair to him after he took such a major pay cut. Mulcair then moved onto the elections bill, and Pierre Poilievre invited Mulcair to call witnesses before the committee, saying the bill would “protect” our system of democracy. Scott Brison led off for the Liberals, and asked about the coming cuts to infrastructure funds. Denis Lebel answered that they were increasing funds. Brison reminded him that the funding commitments were back-end loaded and that communities would have to hike property taxes in the interim, but Lebel insisted the preamble was wrong. Marc Garneau took another stab at the question in French, and got the same answer from Lebel.
Roundup: Nicholson doubles down
The issue of retired General Andrew Leslie’s moving benefit payment continued on Monday, and perhaps even gained some steam as Rob Nicholson decided to double down on the partisanship, saying that it was indicative of a “Liberal sense of entitlement,” and claimed that Leslie was wrong when he said that he wasn’t aware of how much they totalled. Never mind that Leslie said that it was a private company that dealt with everything, and that the expenses were almost entirely due to real estate fees (which, on a million dollar house, would be close to that $72,000). Oh, and Nicholson also called it moving from “mansion to mansion,” which none of the photos really showed any house too mansion-like. The Auditor General assessed the programme from which he gained this benefit a few years ago, and that if Rob Nicholson wants to turn the blame to anyone, it may be the real estate companies that his department contracts out to. (Also, that if Nicholson thinks that every departing soldier who avails himself of the programme needs to do an independent assessment, he’s asking a lot of said veterans). Thirteen retired generals have made similar intra-city moves in the past few years, which may be prompting the review, but it would take away from the universality of the benefit. One former general used this benefit to move to the UAE – even though he was disgraced and tossed out for having sex with a subordinate. (This is the same former general currently in an Afghan jail over an issue with the private security company he works for). Andrew Cohen dissects the partisan tenor of the attack, and wonders why anyone would want to serve the public if this is the suspicion and abuse they are subjected to.
Roundup: Reorganizing Elections Canada?
It sounds like the election reform bill will be tabled soon – possibly this week – and sources are saying that it will reorganize Elections Canada, removing the Commissioner of Elections from the organisation into its own standalone office. It also sounds like the Chief Electoral Officer has not thus far been consulted on the bill, so we’ll see just how problematic that actually ends up being.
QP: Undaunted in 2014
The first QP of 2014 was ready to get underway, and Members’ Statements were dominated by Holocaust Remembrance Day statements and condolences for the lives lost in the Quebec nursing home fire. Before things got started, the four new MPs got marched into the House by both Justin Trudeau and Stephen Harper, and they took their seats. Mulcair started off by wishing everyone a Happy New Year, and asked his first question about the situation in Ukraine. Harper assured him that they too were concerned about it. Mulcair moved onto the suicide crisis within the Canadian Forces, and wondered if the PM would make this a personal priority. Harper assured him of the quality of mental health programmes available to members of the Forces. Moving on, Mulcair asked banking and ATM fees — a topic of his “affordability tour.” Harper gave some bland assurances, before Mulcair moved onto a question of Access to Information documents around the Senate scandal that the Privy Council Office refused to release — which makes sense as they are almost certainly legal opinions, given that the Senate is not a government department, and legal opinions are protected information. Harper insisted that the ATIP process is independent of government. Mulcair’s last turn was to bring up the alleged mortgage fraud perpetuated by retired Senator Mac Harb, which has absolutely nothing to do with government business. But rather than the Speaker shutting down such a blatantly out of bounds question, Harper got up and noted the independence of the RCMP’s investigations. Justin Trudeau was up, and noted that the provinces had rejected the Canada Job Grant programme, and wondered if the government would abandon it. Harper said that they remained committed to closing the skills gap across the country. Trudeau hammered away at the issue with his remaining questions, but Harper insisted that they were doing their part for job creation.
Roundup: Trudeau’s mistakes and the sanctimonious reaction
Justin Trudeau admitted that a couple of errors were made in relation to travel claims that should have been charged to the Speaker’s Bureau he belongs to rather than his MP expenses, dating back to 2009 and 2010. He said that it was human error, repaid them by personal cheque, and said that had there been better disclosure rules – like his party has put into place – this would have been caught sooner. And then the partisan spin happened. The NDP tried to somehow wedge this into a kind of Nigel Wright scenario, which makes no sense whatsoever. There were also sanctimonious cries about how he swore he never used his MP expenses for his outside work – and it seems pretty clear that it was a mistake, where the claims were bundled incorrectly, but now we apparently can’t take his word for anything – gods help us if any of his denouncers have ever made a mistake before. Liberal partisans, meanwhile, note that the NDP are the most opaque about their own expenses, for what it’s worth. And for everyone who cries that it should be an MP’s job to speak publicly, I would ask where exactly in an MP’s job description is being a motivational speaker? It’s not. An MP’s job is to hold the government to account and to scrutinise the public accounts, though you’d be hard pressed to find an MP who actually does that these days – I can think of a mere handful. Trying to claim that their job is something else is one more reason why the state of parliament has become so abysmal.
Roundup: An immunity deal
One of the key figures in the case of the misleading Guelph robocalls has made an immunity deal with Elections Canada in order to give his testimony. Andrew Prescott, whose account was used in connection with the calls, has previously denied wrongdoing, and Michael Sona remains the only person charged to date, and he too maintains his innocence.
Jason Kenney is sounding like there may be some flexibility in the Canada Job Grant programme after all – but it would still mean no new funding, just that the provincial matching component would come from the federal government instead. That would mean fewer grants available overall, and the provinces would still lose that $300 million in funding annually. Kenney also announced that they are harmonizing apprenticeship programmes across the Atlantic provinces.
Roundup: Neil Young vs. the facts
Canadian rock legend Neil Young has resumed his attack against the oilsands and the government, but along the way has decided that he’d make up a bunch of facts about the place. Things like the air quality there, which is supposed to be this burning toxic smog. Except that it’s not. My father works in the area, and has yet to say anything about the air quality, and he lived in China for several years and knows what poor air quality is really like. Or Young’s assertion that all of the oil sands product is headed to China. Really? How exactly is it getting to the coast? You know that whole issue about the Northern Gateway pipeline, or the possibility of rail transporting oil to Kitimat, which isn’t actually accepting those shipments because tankers aren’t coming into that inlet just yet? Yeah, that. It’s too bad that Young couldn’t inject a little bit of fact into his argument because while there are plenty of reasons to argue against the development of the oilsands, one might think that reality might be a good place to start.
Roundup: Dismal job numbers
There was some abysmal job numbers released yesterday, which sent the dollar plummeting, and a fresh round of wailing and gnashing of teeth from opposition MPs who demand a jobs strategy, which one imagines pretty much means new infrastructure programmes. Maclean’s Econowatch says that the numbers are showing that Flaherty’s wait-and-see approach to the economic recovery seems to be failing.
It appears that the government has already spent some $1.7 billion on the Sikorsky Cyclone helicopters, despite only a couple of training versions having thus far been delivered (but not actually accepted by the government because they’re not up to snuff). The price tag and the fact that the government decided to proceed with the process as is leads critics to believe the procurement has become “too big to fail.”
Roundup: Nobody panic, it’s just avian flu
H5N1 Avian Flu has claimed a life in Alberta – someone who contracted it while in China and started feeling ill on the plane ride home. Health officials are saying not to panic as it has so far resisted human-to-human transmission, and those closest to the affected person are being treated with Tamiflu, but the fact that this is going on while H1N1 is back in the news in Alberta, where ten people have died there from that particular virus is certainly causing some alarm.