Tag Archives: Stephen Harper

Roundup: The more substantial shuffle

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On the heels of a tiny cabinet shufflette came a much more substantial shakeup in the government’s senior ranks, particularly as it concerns deputy ministers. The Deputy Minister of Defence (a former head of CSIS) is now the PM’s new National Security Advisor, while the DM of Public Works is now an ambassador to OECD in Paris – two portfolios that very much affect our military procurement, and in particular what is going on with the fighter jet replacement programme. The fact that key players in that process are moving on could easily be interpreted as a curious move if one were the suspicious type. More shuffles occurred at Health, International Trade, Environment, Agriculture, and Shared Services. I would also note with some particular curiosity that these moves happened on a Tuesday afternoon, which is almost unheard of lately. Pretty much every time any of these kinds of announcements are made, it’s on a Friday afternoon, usually around 3:30, so We The Media are left scrambling to report something about it. I’m not sure if this is actually indicative of anything, given Harper’s playing nice on Monday, but it is curious nevertheless.

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Roundup: Attendance under the microscope

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As one of those fun little articles to fill the pages over the holidays, the Ottawa Citizen looked at party leaders’ abysmal QP attendance records. What it showed was, predictably, pretty abysmal, with the Prime Minister coming in with the worst attendance record, and Justin Trudeau not far behind. As someone who attends QP regularly, I could have told you as much, but it’s nice to see some recorded figures and percentages, though when you think about it, Mulcair’s increase is really means he’s there one more hour per week. The piece also treats Friday QP as a regular day, which it hasn’t been as long as I’ve been covering it, but perhaps we should pay more attention to it and treat it as more than just a rump where those MPs who aren’t jetting off back to their ridings stay behind to hold the fort. There is one thing in the piece that did bother me, which was the load of nonsense that Peter Julian said about Michael Ignatieff, because it’s completely false. Ignatieff was there for QP on most days – far more than Harper was. The “not showing up for work” figure that the NDP used in the last election was based on voting records, and it was misleading because Ignatieff made a policy not to vote on private members’ business whenever possible in order to free his caucus to vote as they chose rather than to take direction from him. That meant he attended fewer of these votes, but the NDP falsely treated that as an attendance record. For them to continue to spread disinformation about Ignatieff’s attendance is shameful (but not surprising, alas).

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Roundup: Onward, One Party State

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The One Party State known as Alberta has struck again, and consumed its own opposition. Floor-crossings to the government, the same government that has been in power for four decades, is a long-held tradition in that process, but never before has it been to this extent, in the history of confederation. Wildrose leader Danielle Smith resigned her position and took eight of her MLAs over the floor to join Premier Jim Prentice, and his revitalised Progressive Conservatives. The five remaining Wildrose MLAs will likely remain the official opposition (though there are rumours of another resignation on the way for health reasons), leaving five Liberal and four NDP MLAs to have some semblance of opposition, as shambolic as it is likely to be. Oh, and of those five Liberal MLAs, two of them will soon be jumping ship to run federally. So yeah – opposition? Who needs it? It’s amazing to witness this all-encompasing amorphous political culture in Alberta consume itself and its own best interests, and it’s galling to see Smith justify her decision as essentially declaring victory, that with Prentice in place there is a principled conservative at the helm that she can support, papering over some of the other inherent problems that were in her party, being the split between those who were able to be socially progressive as opposed to the regressive “Lake of Fire” crowd. Jen Gerson writes about Prentice setting himself up to be a generational premier, while Colby Cosh explores what it all means in the broader political culture of the province, and how the threat of falling oil prices may have pushed things forward.

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Roundup: Challenging the empty seats

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A Vancouver lawyer has decided to launch a constitutional challenge about the fact that the Prime Minister has refused to fill the 16 vacant seats that are currently in the Senate, and it’s about time. In some provinces, half of their allotted seats are vacant, which has a real impact on their representation, all because Harper is both smarting from his string of poor appointments in 2008 when he elevated Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau to the chamber, but also because he’s petulant and is pouting after the Supreme Court gave him and his reform proposals a black eye (and with very good reason). And because of the pace at which justice unfortunately moves in this country, this challenge may not even be heard until after the next election happens, and a new government may be in place that will actually make appointments – imagine that! But either way, it would ne nice to get some kind of jurisprudence on the record, so that if other future prime ministers decide to be cute and not make appointments, there will be some common law in existence to show how it’s a constitutional obligation and not an option.

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Roundup: Backtracking and disowning

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Having pretty much run out the parliamentary calendar for the year, Stephen Harper started dropping bombshells yesterday – some obvious, some subtle – as he answered questions in the Commons. The first was the more obvious one, that those long-promised oil and gas emissions regulations weren’t going to come anytime soon because the Americans weren’t onboard with them, and apparently it would be crazy – crazy! – to get a head start on them. It wasn’t a complete surprise, given that the Conservatives have mentioned needing a continental approach before, but the blanket refusal, wrapped up in this kind of “aww, shucks, I’m as disappointed as you guys – really!” approach, was what was new (and Paul Wells digs into that here). The other, more subtle bombshell, was Harper disowning the New Veterans Charter as he defended Julian Fantino’s disastrous handling of the Veterans Affairs file yesterday. As he was questioned about the government lawyers going to court to say that the “sacred obligation” to veterans was just political rhetoric, Harper shrugged it off saying that the New Veterans Charter at the centre of the legal dispute, which was implemented by his own government, was a “Liberal programme.” Nobody picked up on the significance of this disavowal during the remainder of QP enough to come back about it, and Harper won’t be in QP tomorrow either (nor will Trudeau or Mulcair for that fact), so there won’t be the ability to press him about just what he meant by it. And that’s probably how he wants it too as Parliament prepares to rise for the Christmas break.

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Roundup: Theatrical tough talk

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It’s a bit of a strange thing, but we’re told that Stephen Harper decided to play tough at the G-20 summit in Australia, where he apparently told Russian president Vladimir Putin to “get out of Ukraine” while shaking his hand. And while the PMO tried to spin it as Putin “reacting negatively,” what the Russians say the response was, was “That’s impossible because we’re not in Ukraine.” This should have been predictable given the series of denials to date, while the only other response would logically have been “Make me,” thus calling Harper out on his bluff since we don’t exactly have the military capabilities to take on Russia. We just don’t. Harper’s chest-puffery follows on that of Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who had previously apparently told Putin off for the downing of that Malaysian Air flight over western Ukraine, as it contained 38 Australian nationals. Given that we know that Harper and Abbott are members of the mutual admiration society, that they would engage in copycat techniques is not unsurprising, but still – it all comes across as stagey the whole way through – especially the way the PMO started boasting to the media there. Shortly before that, while in New Zealand, Harper said that he wants to ensure that any fight in the region of Iraq is against ISIS, and not against any government, meaning the Assad regime in Syria. He doesn’t want to go there, feeling the solution to that civil war remains a political one.

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Roundup: Oversight versus good enough

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Divisions are forming in the Commons about what happened with last week’s attack, with the Liberals now accepting that the shooter was a terrorist as that is what the RCMP have concluded, while the NDP are steadfastly refusing that label, saying that there’s not enough evidence to use it (contrary to what the RCMP Commissioner has said). But before anyone thinks that this is a signal that the Liberals are going to simply follow any anti-terror legislation that the government brings down, it’s important to note that they have also been the sharpest critics on the lack of civilian oversight mechanisms and the need for parliamentary oversight for national security agencies, as have long been recommended by a number of sources. Harper dismissed those calls and said the current oversight is enough (never mind that his government reduced oversight already by eliminating the post of Inspector General at CSIS a couple of years ago), while privacy commissioners around the country sounded the alarm. Of course, in the debate over whether the shooter was a terrorist or mentally ill, there are probably elements of both present, as the Ottawa Citizen editorial points out.

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Roundup: Powers to spite the Supreme Court

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The government’s new CSIS bill got tabled yesterday, but because it was due to be tabled before the attacks happened last week, there is really nothing in there that responds to those attacks, and doesn’t include any of the previously reported measures like criminalizing the promotion of terrorism online. Instead, what it does is extend source protection and warrant provisions to help them conduct investigations when suspects go overseas. These provisions are largely in response to Supreme Court rulings that said that CSIS sources don’t have the same kind of blanket protections that police sources do. I’m also not sure about the provision for a warrant to investigate outside of the country, given that, well, it’s not the jurisdiction of our courts, so we would need some kind of agreements to operate in those countries I would think. The bill is also designed to help facilitate information sharing between our Five Eyes partners, but there are no corresponding accountability mechanisms, because the government insists that the current oversight from SIRC is “robust” and good enough. Never mind that SIRC faced significant delays in getting needed information from CSIS during their investigations, and that they misled SIRC in the course of another investigation. But hey, the oversight is “robust” and all.

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Roundup: Little hysteria in the face of a gunman

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The brief recap of yesterday’s madness here in Ottawa – a gunman identified as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau shot and killed Corporal Nathan Cirillo at the National War Memorial before he headed up to Parliament Hill, made it into the building and injured one guard before he was eventually taken down. (Timeline)

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Roundup: The problem with political copyright changes

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The government doubled down on their leaked plans to change copyright laws to give political parties unfettered access to using news clips in political ads, and accused media outlets of essentially “censoring content” by not broadcasting ads that have material that was taken without permission or compensation. Shelly Glover then went on to misquote copyright law expert Michael Geist to justify the position, leaving everyone to wonder just what exactly they hope to accomplish by picking this fight with the press and with broadcasters, especially after leaking a cabinet document to do so. Paul Wells parses the government’s reasons for this move, and what the unintended consequences will be.

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