Another day, another minister who appears tone-deaf to the issues of their files – in this case it was Peter MacKay on questions of gun control as we reach the anniversary of the École Polytechnique shootings. It shouldn’t have been a surprise – these kind of questions get raised every year, and the Conservatives have fairly consistently made some kind of gaffe, but normally it’s the Status of Women minister who gets into hot water. This time, MacKay made a couple of nonsense answers during Question Period about the gun control aspect of the anniversary, when he fell back on his bog standard “respect for victims, punish offenders” talking points rather than addressing the issue at hand. The government could sell a case for their bill, C-42, if they would actually bother to do so rather than just accuse the Liberals of trying to resurrect the long-gun registry (which, for the record, Trudeau has said that they would not do), or bringing up the supposed plight of the law-abiding duck hunter. Instead, MacKay put his foot in things again, tried to claim the reason for the shooting was mysterious, tried to backtrack when he got called out on it, and again the government looks worse for wear.
Tag Archives: Supreme Court
Roundup: The next SCC justice
Stephen Harper surprised pretty much everyone when he suddenly announced that the next Supreme Court justice will be Suzanne Côté, a Quebec litigator and the first woman to be appointed to the top court directly from private practice. Côté is known for her expertise commercial contracts, banks, bankruptcy, shareholder disputes, real estate law and the Competition Act, and yes, the Quebec Civil Code. What is different this time is that there was no parliamentary process when it comes to vetting the appointment in any way, or in drawing up a short list, after the disaster that was the Nadon appointment. While the government insists that they were concerned about leaks, the opposition parties have consistently insisted that any leaks came from the government side. Carissima Mathen gives some of her thoughts on the appointment.
MacKay won't say what kind of process will be used in future. Unhappy w confidentiality breaches last time. pic.twitter.com/1HLwEn9Uep
— Stephen Maher (@stphnmaher) November 27, 2014
QP: On the defensive after the AG report
Mere hours after the government took a beating from the Auditor General on the issue of veterans mental health, it was going to a tough day. That said, Thomas Mulcair was absent, and Megan Leslie led off, asking about the wait times posted in the report and tying it veterans suicides and the lapsed funding. Stephen Harper responded by selectively quoting the report about timely access, which conflated the programmes being reported on. Leslie responded with a different quote, and why the PM has not made it a personal priority. Harper reiterated the good portion of the report. Leslie moved onto the topic of the Nutrition North chapter and the lack of tracking of food prices in the North. Harper insisted that the food basket figure for Northerners had dropped by six percent. Peter Julian asked about the chapter on Library and Archives and the boondoggle of a $15 million system, to which Shelly Glover largely blamed issue on the previous head of the agency. Julian changed topics to the CBC story on the privacy breach at CRA, to which Kerry-Lynne Findlay assured him that measures were being taken, including notifying the Privacy Commissioner. Justin Trudeau was up for the Liberals, and returned to the veterans chapter of the report, and that a number of those veterans have waited seven years to see if they can even qualify for benefits. Harper reiterated the selective good portion of the conclusion, and said that the department would implement the recommendations to improve. Trudeau brought up veterans suicides and lapsed funding. Harper insisted that the lapse was because there was not enough uptake from veterans. Trudeau brought up that veteran’s wife who was trying to get more assistance for mental health, to which Harper again reiterated the selective quotes in French.
Roundup: Backfiring Conservative traps
Once again, Conservative operatives – and their friends at Sun News Network – have been too clever for their own good. While trying to get the Liberal candidate from Banff–Airdrie on tape saying something incriminating, a Conservative staffer recorded someone else talking smack about their childcare tax credits, and then tried to claim it was the candidate. This made the Twitter and Facebook rounds, Members’ Statements in the Commons, and even backbench suck-up questions about this “beer-and-popcorn” statement made by said candidate. Only, as it turned out, it was someone else who said it, and admitted to saying it, even after said candidate was mocked for denying that he said it, and how we have cabinet ministers with egg on their faces – though I have yet to see an apology for any of the insinuations or mocking made over social media. Given that Conservative – and Sun News Network – operatives have been trying this record-and-embarrass tactic a few times before (such as the nuanced explanation that retired General Leslie made on the situation in Gaza which they tried to spin completely to distortion), one has to wonder about the detrimental impact this will have on open political discourse in this country. Nobody wants candidates to turn into scripted robots, but these kinds of “gotcha” tactics are encouraging just that.
QP: Questions on last-minute funding
It’s a gorgeous Monday in the Nation’s Capital, but none of the major leaders were present in the House. David Christopherson led off for the NDP, shouting a question about the new funding for mental health funding for members of the Canadian Forces. Parm Gill responded, insisting that the government has continually increased support for veterans and soldiers. Christopherson, ever more indignant, focused on the lapsed funding to Veterans Affairs, to which Gill insisted that statutory funding was untouched. Nycole Turmel took over to ask in French, to which Gill praised the new funding commitment. Turmel switched topics to Thalidomide survivors who are struggling. Colin Carrie read that it was a lesson as to how Canada needs to take drug safety seriously, and that they would seriously consider any proposal coming forward from Health Canada. Turmel asked again in French, and Carrie repeated his answer in English. Marc Garneau led off for the Liberals, citing government “propaganda” spending over veterans and the last-minute announcement of new mental health funds. Gill returned to his insistence that support funds had increased. Frank Valeriote noted the contradictions in Julian Fantino’s assurances, to which Gill insisted that funding lapses under the Liberal government were even larger. One one last exchange, Gill dredged up the “Decade of Darkness” talking point while Carolyn Bennett shouted “sit down!”
Roundup: Private fighters heading to Iraq
The government’s declaration that they wouldn’t stand in the way of Canadians who want to head to Iraq to fight against ISIS with the Kurdish forces there is raising a lot of questions, and deservedly so. One Ontario MPP’s Afghanistan-veteran son is joining the fight, and while said MPP is making all kinds of noise about being proud about his son defending freedom and democracy, it does raise further complications to the notion that people are privately going off to fight a war. One supposes that there is a history of this, with people heading over to fight the Spanish Civil War, but we also have international treaties and rules of engagement that Canada has signed onto. One has to wonder what liability the country now will be in if one of these private fighters goes over and violates these conventions or codes because they’re not part of a command-and-control structure, and because our government has basically given them the okay to do so. I don’t know that there’s an easy answer to this, but we should be at least having the discussion – particularly as it is on the flipside of the coin about our attempts to keep those who would head over to fight on behalf of extremist groups from leaving the country.
Roundup: Frosty relations
Jennifer Ditchburn remarks on the frosty state of relations between the Liberals and the NDP on the Hill these days, with each side accusing the other of playing dirty politics around the harassment allegations, and from what I’ve heard behind the scenes, even dirtier politics were being attempted but got blunted along the way. The NDP have tended to always have a particular loathing for Liberals, and recent events seem to have made everything worse. That said, I’ve also noticed a certain intensification of enmity toward the Liberals from both the Conservatives and the NDP in venues like Question Period of late. While Harper will respond to NDP questions by chiding them about something or being simply dismissive, with the Liberals he throws out accusations and dredges up irrelevant history. The NDP have increasingly tried to tie the Liberals into questions that are supposed to be directed toward the government, or to invent credit for the good things the Liberals are doing. It’s almost as if both see where the real threat to their fortunes lies.
Roundup: Leave it to (yet another) Officer
Thomas Mulcair has written to the two other main party leaders about establishing a process to deal with MP-to-MP harassment, and proposes a clear definition in the Standing Orders, an independent Officer of Parliament to deal with complaints, training for MPs and staff, and to ensure that the process protects the rights of victims including to privacy. While some of this sounds reasonable on the surface, there are a few flags to my eye, some of it centred around the creation of yet another Officer, which gives the impression that this kind of thing is commonplace enough that you would need someone to deal with it full-time, rather than amending the mandate of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, for example, to deal with these kinds of issues as well. The proliferation of these Officers is actually a problem, and much like the NDP’s desire to blow up the Board of Internal Economy to create a new bureaucracy to deal with the administration of the Commons, it’s a problem that seeks to remove the self-governing powers from MPs. This is an issue that needs actual debate – if the message is that we can’t trust MPs to manage their own affairs, then what does that say about their ability to manage the country’s affairs? In a way it’s almost infantilizing them, and that should be concerning. Liberal colleagues say that they want the investigations taken care of quickly, and it was noted that there had been discussion of a harassment policy arising from a 2012 document by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and that members of all parties were to take it back to their caucuses to discuss the matter, but it hadn’t moved forward since. Paul Wells looks at these harassment allegations in the broader picture of the sad place that the capital finds itself in at the moment.
Roundup: An upcoming rounding error surplus
Joe Oliver delivered his fall economic update in Toronto, and as expected, the government is still technically in deficit until next year, at which point they are expected to turn out a modest $1.9 billion surplus, most of which is pretty much spent on their suite of “family” tax measures including the income splitting tax credit – all of it a challenge to the opposition parties and specifically Justin Trudeau, daring them to cancel the “tax cuts” (most of which aren’t really cuts). And it’s not a surplus plan without risks. Thomas Mulcair immediately called the figures a “mirage” because they depend on spending cuts, while Justin Trudeau referred to the tax measures as “unfair” because the income splitting measure in particular disproportionately benefits the wealthy. Andrew Coyne notes that Harper has put the opposition in a box with his tax cuts and expenditures unless those parties are willing to raise the GST. Paul Wells notes that this falls squarely within Harper’s re-election plans – that he doesn’t need to promise anything other than the fear that his opponents’ plans are ruinous. Stephen Gordon provides some context to Oliver’s pronouncements.
If not before Diefenbaker RT @InklessPW: Joe Oliver: Not since Diefenbaker has federal tax burden been this low. pic.twitter.com/Ov1ptUdYko
— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) November 12, 2014
If you're buying into the CPC surpluses, you're buying into their austerity as well. Federal direct program spending: pic.twitter.com/RaFFuUUwBu
— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) November 12, 2014
Roundup: Hollande pays a visit
French President François Hollande landed in Calgary and met with Harper and the Governor General in Banff as the start of his state visit yesterday. He’ll arrive in Ottawa today to address a joint session of Parliament.
Candice Bergen admits that the “family tax credit” aka sorta-income-splitting, won’t benefit single parents because they’re generally too low-income, which again raises the utility of giving tax credits to those who are less likely to need them – as in wealthier two-parent families, never mind that it’s the kind of pandering to the social conservative base that it represents.