Tag Archives: Robocon

Roundup: Farewell to a needed watchdog

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The former Inspector General of CSIS is decrying the dismantling of her former office, saying that the job of keeping an eye on CSIS from the inside, full-time, simply cannot be done by the Security and Intelligence Review Committee, and denied that there was any duplication of efforts (thus blowing away another of the talking point justifications for axing the office). But hey, why do we need someone to watch the watchmen? It’s not like we have anything to worry about – right?

Elections Canada’s investigators have traced alleged robo-call organiser “Pierre Poutine” as far an on open WiFi connection, where the trail grows cold.

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Roundup: Ironic elections observers?

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Jason Kenney announced that Canada will be sending 500 elections observes to Ukraine – including Ted Opitz. You know, the guy whose election the Supreme Court may very well be overturning within days. Does this count as irony?

Meanwhile, in the court case where the Council of Canadians is challenging seven other election results, the Conservative lawyers have asked for a $250,000 deposit on costs in case the challengers lose. The Council charges that the Conservatives are trying to drive up costs with obstruction and delay. As for that affidavit about voter suppression calls coming from that one call centre in Thunder Bay, the Conservatives produced an affidavit refuting it, saying that they only called supporters and in the ridings were there were actual polling station changes.

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Roundup: Pipeline review deadline set

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The federal government has imposed a December 2013 deadline on the environmental panel review of the Northern Gateway pipeline. Which is all well and good, provided that the proponent – Enbridge – has their files together and doesn’t delay their own paperwork so that other respondents can get their reviews done in time, as has happened with other panels. In fact, the government should stipulate that Enbridge should face a penalty if it engages in such behaviour, for what it’s worth.

Rumours of Katimavik’s demise may be exaggerated. It seems that with the starvation of federal funds, they are picking up sponsorship from elsewhere for programming that they offer, and may be able to carry on in some capacity after all.

Conservative MP Brent Rathgeber continues to do his job as a backbench MP and hold the government to account, this time on the policy of Supply Management. More backbench MPs should follow his lead.

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Roundup: Missed non-binding deadlines

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The government is going to miss the six-month deadline the House gave it when it passed a non-binding motion about amending the Elections Act vis-à-vis robocalls. Hands up anyone who’s actually surprised. Meanwhile, other experts say that Elections Canada already has all of the tools they need, but their problem is actually enforcement, in that they’re not doing enough of it. Meanwhile, Kady O’Malley takes a look at that Paul Calandra fundraiser that people have been talking about, and breaks down what kind of money we’re talking about, and it’s more than some people would think.

In a similar vein, the Conflict of Interest Act is overdue for its five-year review, and given the committee calendar it likely won’t be reviewed until closer to the holidays. And hey, maybe they’ll think about doing more about the mandate of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, which is pretty limited and limiting.

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Roundup: Quiet backtracking on refugee healthcare

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It seems that the federal government has quietly backtracked on some of the changes it’s making to providing health care for refugees. In particular, ministerial instructions went up on the department website which said that government-assisted refugees would continue to receive benefits, which was not the case in the lead-up to the passage of the budget implementation bill. Of course, some of the rollbacks will continue, but they won’t be quite as draconian as previously announced.

The NDP want an explanation from the outgoing Commissioner of Elections as to why he stepped down in the middle of the robo-calls investigation (never mind that his plans had been in the works for months and months).

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Roundup: The inefficient drive for efficiencies

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Remember how the government was going to offer cash rewards to employees who could make implementable money-saving solutions? Here’s how the process turned out – byzantine, bloated, inefficient, and no one getting any money in the end.

The Conservatives have finally launched a couple of weak sauce attack ads against Thomas Mulcair.

It was the Conservatives versus the Council of Canadians at the Federal Court yesterday arguing about those seven ridings the Council is fighting to get the election results overturned in.

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Roundup: No summer vacation yet for senators

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The Commons has risen for the summer, and MPs have all fled the oppressive, muggy heat of Ottawa for their ridings. The Senate will still sit for another week, possibly two, depending on how long it takes them to pass the three bills that have been identified as their current priorities – the omnibus budget bill (which they’ve been doing extensive pre-study on for the past several weeks), the refugee reform bill (which the government needs passed before June 30th, lest last year’s refugee bill comes into force before this one does), and the copyright reform bill (which is an issue with the forthcoming TPP negotiations). During the end-of-sitting press conference yesterday morning, Senate opposition leader James Cowan noted that the government has made the unusual step of bringing in time allocation on those bills (which is actually a rarity in the Senate), which limits the role that Senators are supposed to play in our system, which is of course more in-depth study of legislation and the “sober second thought” of being a step removed from partisan and electoral politics. Not that these traditional considerations have stopped the current government, but what can you do?

A new Commissioner of Elections has been appointed amidst the various robocall investigations and the spending irregularities of Dean Del Mastro. But before anyone gets any particular ideas about how this is really a surprise or some Harper conspiracy to silence those investigations, his job was posted back in February, so no one should really read too much into it. On the subject of Del Mastro, it seems that his claims that he knew nothing about the investigation into his spending have been contradicted by further affidavits by Elections Canada officials. Oops.

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Roundup: Up to 579 consecutive votes upcoming

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While you’re enjoying your weekend, give pause for the poor clerks in the Commons spending their weekends preparing for report stage voting for the omnibus budget bill. You see, the Bloc has some 22 substantive amendments, Elizabeth May has some 330 amendments tabled, and of the 503 deletion amendments the Liberals submitted and the 506 that the NDP did, well, there’s a lot to go through. Peter Van Loan says that 579 of those don’t overlap, but we need to see how those amendments will be grouped together before the marathon of votes begins sometime next week.

There are new concerns around what happened in that senior’s residence poll in Etobicoke Centre in the last election, as a third version of events surfaces.

The CBC takes a look at the weakening of civilian oversight and the increasing influence of lobbyists with military procurement – especially when it comes to the F-35s.

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Roundup: Gruesome deliveries

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It was a grisly day in Ottawa as a severed human foot was delivered to Conservative Party headquarters, and a severed hand found in a package a few hours later at a Canada Post depot. Yikes. No explanations yet, but you can be sure that everyone is pretty creeped out about this. As if that wasn’t bad enough, a torso was discovered in a suitcase in a garbage pile in Montreal, which may or may not be related.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer says that he’s still having difficulty getting numbers on the cuts, but suspects they may be deeper than advertised.

The government has decided not to appeal the court decision on veterans benefits clawbacks. This means that the government now has hundreds of millions of dollars in pension repayments to sort out.

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Roundup: Unveiling the proposed regulations

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Diane Finley has unveiled her proposed EI reform regulations, and it seems to be a lot about twice-daily emails about “appropriate” jobs in the local area to EI recipients. Which is great – provided you have a computer and Internet access, and aren’t one of those poor schmucks who has to rely on their local library for the Internet, especially seeing as the federal funding for those library computers is now at an end. The changes will also track how often one claims EI, and start taking away benefits the more you claim it. Rona Ambrose likens it to E-Harmony for jobseekers. No, seriously. Meanwhile, here is some more reaction, plus Scott Brison relays concerns from the agricultural sector in his riding with regards to these reforms’ limits on temporary foreign workers, who they say the use of actually creates more jobs for local residents. Steve Murray casts his satirical eye on the situation here.

To say nothing about him personally, John Baird has been pretty vocal about promoting GBLT rights around the world in his capacity as foreign affairs minister. With that in mind, it’s awfully curious that he was speaking at an event sponsored by an anti-gay church on the topic of religious freedom. His speech, however, was pretty bland, and offered no real clues about the still undefined Office of Religious Freedoms.

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