Tag Archives: Speaker Scheer

Roundup: Stuck on the Norman questions

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Yesterday’s somewhat bizarre Question Period, with the Conservatives focusing on a single question around Vice Admiral Mark Norman, certainly got the attention of media outlets, but it wasn’t all positive news, given how they it was also pointed out how they were lacking in any kind of prosecutorial style or killer instinct around it. It was just repetitive. Many of the points they made also didn’t seem to land – such as saying the PM had already “tried and convicted” Norman when he remarked that the courts would sort it out before Norman had even been charged – something that they are trying to use to insinuate that the whole affair is politically motivated.

As a reminder, Norman’s lawyers are looking for records from PMO, PCP, DND, the Department of Public Services and Procurement Canada, the Department of Justice, the Treasury Board, and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, and that the documents being demanded include cabinet minutes, briefing materials and memos, and some ask for all forms of communication including emails and Blackberry messages. Those have all been deemed Cabinet confidence, which the Canada Evidence Actallows government to keep secret – the danger there, however, being that the court could decide that if the government doesn’t turn them over that the trial isn’t a fair one, and they could dismiss the case. As I remarked in my QP recap, I think the possibilities exist that some form of access could be negotiated that could mean a court-appointed officer could examine them to determine what is relevant as they do in cases of national security-related secrecy (like terrorism trials or people being held on security certificates), because the laundry list being demanded by Norman’s defence could very well be a fishing expedition and they want as broad a swath as possible to try and find something, anything, of use. (It’s also likely that the information is not only Cabinet confidence, but also commercially sensitive, which adds new layers of complication).

The other interesting fact that is still playing out is the fact that another public servant has been named as an alleged leaker, but he has yet to be charged, and this fact is making the Conservative suspicious that this is making Norman out to be a political scapegoat. Or rather, that’s the claim they’re making as they put on their dog and pony show about trying to make this into some kind of a cover-up, but we have nothing to point to this one way or another – just innuendo, which is enough to make political hay out of.

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Roundup: Official residence refuseniks

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In a piece in the Huffington Post that gives yet another farewell from Andrew Scheer to the office of the Speaker, we find that at least two of the people running for the job – Mauril Bélanger and Yasmin Ratansi – are vowing that if elected Speaker, they wouldn’t use the official residence in Kingsmere. While Bélanger could certainly make the case as an Ottawa resident that there’s no real need, anyone else eschewing the use of the residence is, frankly, being obtuse. Scheer makes some good points – that the National Capital Commission needs to spend money to keep the place functional anyway, so it’s not a huge savings if that’s the motivation, and the fact that the “luxurious” apartment the Speaker gets in the Centre Block is anything but (the piece has photos of it, and well, I would hesitate to call it a two star), and it’s not really healthy to live at the office. Beyond that, the whole point of having an official residence is that it’s to be used for entertaining – MPs, diplomats, and even journalists during the annual barbecue at Kingsmere every June. That entertaining can be pretty important, particularly among MPs. Speaker Milliken used to hold dinners that always included MPs of different parties so that they could get to know each other better outside of the Commons – something that is increasingly important with the demise of evening sittings and the fact that MPs simply don’t socialise together the way they used to. Vowing to do away with the official residence – and the space to hold this kind of necessary entertaining – is not being frugal, it’s playing into cheap politics that ultimately serves nobody, and in fact feeds into the toxicity that surrounds the perception of politics as it is. None of this is actually some kind of luxury five-star extravagance that is soaking the taxpayer. It’s relatively modest, but reflects the office – one of the reasons why we have official residences to begin with. Rejecting it, even for symbolism, does nobody any favours.

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Roundup: Balanced budgets are magic

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Balanced budgets became word of the day on the campaign – Harper warning of permanent deficits if either opposition party gets in, Mulcair promising a balanced budget in 2016-17, and Trudeau hedging by not promising it immediately, given he doesn’t know the real state of the country’s books and we have some global economic turbulence going on. And then things started getting bizarre, with fiscal hawks praising NDP restraint (with no idea how they plan to achieve balance), and the Liberals attacking the NDP as promising more austerity to achieve said balance at a time of recession. And yes, the NDP’s new “star candidate” of the former finance minister of Saskatchewan said they would cut things, but some of the clues the party has dropped – things like “corporate tax giveaways” – are small change, and they even included the Senate on their list of things to cut, which makes me laugh uproariously because a) abolition will never happen, b) you’re not going to cut the Senate’s budget without either starting a war between the two chambers or starving them of the resources necessary to study and pass the legislation the Commons wants passed, and c) any savings they think they’re going to book from Senate abolition would be eaten up and then some with court challenges of flawed bills and Royal Commissions for policy work the Senate did at a cost-effective manner. But keep dreaming. I tackled the subject of party spending promises in my column here, but in the meantime, here are some economists smarter than I, who are similarly doubtful about these balanced budget pledges, for very good reason.

https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/636170339878174720

https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/636355620640133120

https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/636355876203429888

https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/636357120372379648

https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/636357255332536320

https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/636357563399938048

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Roundup: Offering instead of being asked

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Remember how Harper told that New York business office that the Americans had asked us to contribute more troops to the situation in Iraq? Well, US officials are saying that no, Canada offered by asking what more they could do to help combat the scourge of ISIS. It was bad enough that Harper let this particular announcement slip to a foreign audience away from the House of Commons, but for his characterisation to be different than our allies’ gives rise to his trustworthiness in saying such things – not something you really want when you’re trying to ensure that parliament is onside on these deployments. Harper’s people insist that there’s no real difference in the stories, but it’s fairly hard to swallow. Thomas Mulcair, meanwhile, continues to bang on about the need for a vote on any deployment – never mind that Paul Dewar went on TV to say that other deployments, like sending HMCS Toronto to the Black Sea, was totally different because it’s a NATO exercise. John Baird said that the government would likely put it to a vote if the mission expands into something like an air campaign where Canada sends CF-18s. The problem with Mulcair’s continually demanding a vote – and the government offering one – is that it allows the government to launder the Crown prerogative and use the out come of said vote as political cover, hindering the opposition from doing its job of holding the government to account. “Oh, the House decided on this. End of story.” It remains unclear why Mulcair can’t see that point.

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QP: A few answers on Iraq

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Before Question Period got underway, the Speaker rose to make a statement. Scheer gave a reminder about his role as it is laid out in O’Brien and Bosc, and reminded members that the current practice, upheld by successive Speakers, is that he has no authority over the content of answers, quoting Speaker Milliken several times. He reminded them that it is up to MPs to give him those powers, but did caution MPs to be more judicious in their language. When things got started officially, Thomas Mulcair asked about the end date of the engagement in Iraq. With Harper off in New York, James Bezan stood up to tell him that the clock started on September 5th, and chided the NDP for offering no suggestions for stopping ISIS. Mulcair made a dig about Bezan not being a member of government before asking how many soldiers were on the ground at present. Bezan deferred, but when Mulcair pressed, Bezan said that the commitment was for 69 personnel who would provide assistance to Kurdish forces. Mulcair demanded a vote on deployment, and Bezan noted all of the other deployments that they didn’t demand a vote for. For his final question, Mulcair demanded a full public inquiry into missing and murdered Aboriginal women. Kellie Leitch said that families of victims were thankful to the government for coming forward with their Action Plan™. For his question, Justin Trudeau cited a report saying that this generation of Canadians would be worse off than their parents, and wondered what the government was doing to change that. Joe Oliver responded by touting assistance for low-income Canadians. Citing the inter-generational wealth gap, Trudeau wondered if the government would vote for their EI credit proposal, but Joe Oliver responded by reading his previous statement in French. Trudeau pressed on their plans for the vote, but Oliver said that the last thing the Liberals were qualified to talk about was EI.

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QP: Don’t question the Speaker

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With Stephen Harper out of the Commons, likely prepping for his trip to the UN, the other leaders were present and accounted for. Thomas Mulcair led off by asking if a statement by James Bezan about the end date for the Iraq, but Paul Calandra ignored the question entirely and accused an NDP fundraiser of saying terrible things about Israel. Mulcair brought the point back to Iraq, while Calandra tried to hammer the fundraiser’s comments. When Calandra tried a third time, Mulcair challenged the Speaker’s neutrality for not shutting him down. Scheer, unimpressed, cut Mulcair’s last two questions and went directly to Justin Trudeau, who asked about job creation. Joe Oliver touted job internship programmes and so on, but didn’t offer much else. Trudeau moved onto Harper’s absence from the climate conference in New York. Colin Carrie dutifully got up to read some prepared statements, much as he did yesterday. Trudeau brought up action taken by premiers for carbon pricing, to which Carrie read another statement.

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Roundup: Internal pushback on prostitution bill

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One of the key Conservative voices on abolishing prostitution, Joy Smith, says that there are things she wants to see fixed in the government’s new bill, which are about the areas where sex workers themselves could still be charged, especially with the provisions around things like being near schools, given that there have never been cases that she’s aware of where sex workers have been trying to sell sex in front of schools in daylight hours. That said, she still wants the Nordic Model to go ahead, and produces conflated arguments around child prostitution, human trafficking, and the bizarre future dystopia where a woman can’t get EI unless she’s applied for work at a brothel, to back up her claims. Meanwhile, the Liberals have formally declared that they will oppose the bill, and listed their reasons why. Brent Rathgeber is also not a fan, seeing this as a cynical ploy to move the base against the courts, while only lawyers and social workers will come out ahead and sex workers won’t get any harm reduction. Even parts of the Conservative base aren’t that keen over the bill. Over in Maclean’s, Colby Cosh writes about where social conservatism and second wave feminism overlap on this issue of sex work, which is all about seeing women sex workers as all victims.

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Roundup: So long, Alison Redford

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In a somewhat surprising move, Alberta premier Alison Redford resigned last night, effective Sunday evening. It sounds like she’ll be staying on as MLA for the time being, but man, that’ll be a tough gig. Jen Gerson notes that for all of her skill at policy, Redford lacked political instincts and was in fact the victim of her own transparency laws as her own spending came to light. Colby Cosh reminds us that this really had little to do with the cost of the South Africa trip, but was a long simmering series of problems that kept building until Redford finally collapsed under the weight of them.

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QP: The post-Olympic high

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With the Olympics now over, and MPs giving glowing statements about our medal winners, and the Liberals revved up after their weekend convention, one could almost hope for a punchy QP. Sadly, with a large number of empty seats in the chamber and only one major leader present, it wasn’t going to really be an exiting day. Thomas Mulcair led off by asking for an update on the Ukrainian situation, to which Chris Alexander read a pro-forma statement. Mulcair segued to the elections bill, and demanded to know why Senate committees could hold consultative hearings across the country, but not the committee charged with the bill. Pierre Poilievre insisted that they were listening to Canadians and that the NDP didn’t bother to read the bill. Mulcair and Poilievre had a couple of back-and-forths , after which Speaker Scheer cautioned Mulcair to stop using the word “cheating.” Mulcair stood up and declared that the Conservatives were trying to pre-cheat the next election, and sat down, no question. Scheer said nothing, and moved on. Ralph Goodale was up for the Liberals and asked about that report on the foundering middle class and noted the ways in which the government raised taxes. Kevin Sorensen insisted rather vigorously that his government had cut taxes, and wouldn’t be dissuaded otherwise. Marc Garneau asked the same in French, not that Sorensen’s answer changed.

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Roundup: Fantino’s bungled meeting

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Oh Julian Fantino – you’ve really done it this time. When a group of veterans came to meet him about the closure of eight service facilities, Fantino was an hour late, sending his parliamentary secretary and two MPs who are also veterans to assure them that the changes won’t really impact them, which just incensed the veterans. And when Fantino did show up, things got heated, and he stormed out saying that he wasn’t going to be finger-pointed to as one of the veterans was emphatically saying “You’re going to promise me that I won’t see any changes in service,” at which point said veterans filed down to the press theatre and denounced Fantino and the government. And it was quite the press conference to watch. To cap it off, Fantino put out a press release to highlight the “roundtable” held and to express his disappointment with PSAC, who brought the veterans to the Hill. Yeah, good job there. On a similar note, Fantino’s department is demanding repayment for $581 from the family of a soldier who committed suicide. No, seriously.

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