It being the last sitting day of the spring for the Commons, all three parties summoned the media to outline their particular versions of what happened the past few months.
For the government, Peter Van Loan summoned us to the Foyer, where, along with Stephen Blaney to provide the French narrative, he outlined a simple message. “We got the job done.”
Both major opposition parties summoned the media to the Foyer before the Commons got down to business this morning – the NDP had already booked their usual slot for another edition Monday Morning Sanctimony, leaving the Liberals to book even earlier. The topic of day was supposed to be the Liberal game plan for the Refugee reform bill back before the House this week, and the NDP to report back on what their “consultations” found over the last week.
But that really wasn’t what took up the airspace. No, that was really taken up by the discussions about the imminent back-to-work legislation around the CP Rail strike.
Speaking for the Liberals, Marc Garneau did talk about how they were the “real” opposition, and were working with Elizabeth May to move their 28 amendments that failed at committee at report stage – which May is able to do as an independent – in order to make the point that these changes are important. Both he and May later tweeted that they have approached the NDP to cooperate, but have yet to hear a response. On the omnibus budget bill, Garneau said that they were still planning on moving hundreds of amendments at Report Stage in order to delete many of the controversial clauses, saying that procedurally, this was the better tactic that “hyperventilating and making lots of noise.”
As part of my story on the new Canadian Honours exhibition at 90 Wellington, I spoke to another of the attendees, Petty Officer 2nd Class James Anthony Leith, MMM, SC, MSM, CD, one of the most decorated members of the Canadian Forces – who, I will add, is one of the most humble and charming people I have ever interviewed. As I couldn’t get much of the interview in the story, I’m posting the whole thing here.
Q: Briefly, tell me what your decorations and medals are.
A: You never get these things by yourself – somebody always nominates you. They tell the stories that they shouldn’t have told to somebody else, and it gets passed up. I was gracious enough to know some big mouths. The one on the far left is the Canadian Forces Decoration, and you get that after twelve years of undetected crime – basically you’re a good boy. Next to that is my General Service Star for Afghanistan. I was fortunate enough to be invited to participate with the Army…in 06/07. Next one is the SWASM – South-West Asia [Service Medal] – it’s a theatre medal. Everyone who goes over there gets one, and it’s like being in the Boy Scouts – you get one if you go. The next one is a sacrifice medal – in 2006, I was in an armed personnel carrier that got obliterated by an IED, so there’s a bunch of us that got kind of injured from it, and we don’t have the wound stripe like the Americans do, so they commemorate it with a sacrifice medal. Everyone who theoretically bled on the battlefield gets one of those. Next to that is the Meritorious Service Medal – again, wrong place right time or right place wrong time. I was working in Halifax as a commercial diver as part of the fleet diving in the Atlantic, and Swiss Air 111 pitched and went into the sea. They immediately called us because of the depth, and we participated in the recovery because of the depth operation, and for that they gave us that little one. The next one is the Star of Courage – I was in Afghanistan in 06, and after we got blown up, we found some other nasties that the other team had put in the ground. All of my tools that had been in the first vehicles were destroyed, and that’s the story that everybody loves hearing. I basically MacGyvered the second IED with what I had left, which was my bayonet. Because I’d just been blown up […] and not have any of the proper equipment that I’m supposed to have, and the fact that I took apart that second one, somebody said that was either very brave or very dumb. Everybody loves a good story, and somebody told somebody else, and I was invited up here again to get this one. And next to that is the MMM – the Order of Military Merit. Because I have 20-odd years of service, and pretty well been a good boy for all that time, at a certain point in your career, after a long career spanning a lot of service, they nominate you, it goes before a committee and they sit down and figure out who gets what, and are they truly deserving, but again I don’t know who nominated me, but somebody put my name up there and wrote a very nice, lengthy, long-winded paragraph, and I’m sure they hummed and hawed, and it must have been the end of the day, and they said give it to the guy anyway.
As part of my story on the new Canadian Honours exhibition at 90 Wellington, I spoke to one of the attendees, Dr. Elaine Jolly, the Founder of the Shirley E. Greenberg Women’s Health Centre, and recipient of the Order of Canada and the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal. I couldn’t get much of my interview in the story, but I figured I’d put the whole thing here.
Q: Tell me about your story.
A: Well, I’m an obstetrician and gynaecologist, and presently I’m the medical director of the women’s health centre at the Ottawa Hospital. I was very honoured and privileged to receive the Order of Canada in 1999, and was notified in 1998. It was for the activities that I had undertaken for women’s health, and as an academic – because I’m a professor at the University of Ottawa – I have had extensive experience with education and public education, and education of students and residents, and our own continuing medical education for physicians. With regards to accomplishments, I must say that when I got the Order of Canada, I was very overwhelmed because I didn’t think that I was doing anything terribly special that many other academics had done, but having a focus on women’s health – and at that time, I was obviously nominated and supported for this – they deemed that that was a good thing. What it did do, however, was spur me on to really fulfil things that I would have liked to have done, and I think it probably helped, and that’s the development of the Shirley E. Greenberg Women’s Health Centre. In Ottawa, I formed a women’s health council, because having a women’s health centre fell on deaf ears in the Ottawa hospital system. Not because it’s not a good thing, but because there were many other priorities, and women’s health is not one of them. It’s really not a priority still for the provincial government. If you have cancer, and that’s important, and if you have orthopaedic things like hip replacements and cataract surgery that’s good, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but we still have to really work hard to get the issues related to women’s health and obstetrics and looking after women who are pregnant seems to be a little more appreciated, but looking after women and their health, promotion of health, prevention of disease, looking at the number one issue that women have mortality with is cardio-vascular disease, and how does it differ from men’s health, because it is different – women don’t have that sudden, horrible chest pain – they have atypical symptoms. So looking at that, and osteoporosis, and cancers that women have, the number one cancer killer believe it or not is not breast cancer but lung cancer, so smoking cessation is pretty important. Looking at diagnosis and early management of breast cancer is important, and looking at the global picture for women’s health, and as a gynaecologist, I look at problems with women’s reproduction. At the Women’s Health Centre, we have a multidisciplinary group, but mainly gynaecologists looking at those areas that fit in. We have 30 gynaecologists, we see 30,000 women a year, we opened in 2005 – Shirley Greenberg was instrumental in giving us a lot of money, which we also raised to not totally match, but we came close to it. And then the government was sort of pushed into supporting us, and the hospital was pushed into supporting us because the women’s voices were heard, and I have to tell you that the women here in Ottawa and in Eastern Ontario are responsible, along with Shirley for improving women’s health. Being a catalyst for that sort of thing, along with my daily duties, it was a good thing. My story is pretty simple, but I’m very proud of what we’ve accomplished.
With the omnibus budget bill now passed Second Reading, the NDP summoned the media to the National Press Theatre to discuss their plans going forward. Those plans include getting public input by holding town hall-style hearings outside of Ottawa, and through an “unprecedented” social media campaign which includes a websiteand the hashtag #HarperBudget.
The website is a single page, whose most predominant feature is the comment box at the centre for Canadians to give their input on the omnibus budget bill. The box to the side calls it a “Trojan Horse” bill – which it’s not – and there are five pop-up boxes at the bottom, under headings like “the environment” or “healthcare” that each have four or five bullet points about provisions in the bill. It’s not comprehensive, it doesn’t cover a number of things in the bill that are equally troubling (like dismantling the Inspector General’s office at CSIS). When Peggy Nash said they would be “shining a light” and “deconstructing” the bill, this is a fairly superficial attempt at doing so.
Earlier this morning, Public Safety minister Vic Toews announced that they were going to start making even more restrictions on inmates in federal penitentiaries, including things like charging more for room and board, limiting the kinds of work that inmates can get, and charging more for things like phone calls.
Memorial University criminologist Justin Piché, who has been studying the politics of this government’s crime agenda, took to the Twitter Machine shortly thereafter to ask a series of questions about what these changes will mean (edited for formatting): Continue reading
On the advent of the Harper-versary – one year of a strong, stable, national majority Conservative government – the three main parties all held events for the media. After all, who doesn’t love a good anniversary speech? (Note: “good” being a particularly subjective measure).
Stephen Harper was up first, as is his wont, and after the media filed into the caucus room, we were treated to some happy clapping before the speech itself. Apparently, Harper’s mandate is for one thing above all – to secure the prosperity of Canadians. And here I thought it was about killing the long-gun registry, the Canadian Wheat Board, passing the omnibus crime bill and any number of other measures that they have invoked the words “strong mandate” to justify.
The Public Accounts committee’s first meeting on the study of the Auditor General’s report on the F-35s was a battle of duelling procedural motions as the government tried to set the timeline further into the week, versus Liberal Gerry Byrne’s motion to accelerate the pace, much to the exasperation of NDP members.
Conservative MP Andrew Saxton’s motion, which was up for debate first, would see the planning meeting for the hearings to be held on Tuesday the 24th, with the suggestion that they begin hearing witnesses on the following Thursday. But when pressed as to why they didn’t use today’s meeting to do the planning session, the government offered no excuse, only that they wanted to “set forward a clear process” to move forward.
Liberal MP Gerry Byrne held a press conference this morning to preview this afternoon’s meeting of the Public Accounts committee, where they’re going to lay out the process by which they’ll examine the Auditor General’s report on the procurement process for the F-35s. Byrne has a relatively open-ended motion before the committee that includes a suggested witness list, a list of documents he wants tabled, and the provision that they begin immediately.
But the Conservatives aren’t quite so keen. They’ve tabled a competing motion which says that sure, they’ll begin a study on that chapter of the report, but they don’t want to meet to start scheduling witnesses until Tuesday, and they don’t have any suggested witnesses or requests for documents.
So why is this difference important? Byrne says that by beginning immediately, they can hold a full day of hearings starting tomorrow, rather than the four hours a week that the committee is allowed to sit while the House is in session. (He wanted to start this past Monday, but NDP committee chair David Christopherson called the meeting for today, and he respects that decision). He is also concerned that because the Conservative motion is less open-ended, that the Conservatives will use it to limit the number of meetings held and witnesses heard from in order to keep the process and investigation under wraps. The Conservatives have publicly said that they won’t support his motion – only their own, and they do hold a majority on the committee as well.
“There is no games being played unless my motion is defeated with no explanation, and with no alternative witness list actually being presented at that point in time,” Byrne said, and reiterated that he’s quite open to friendly amendments with regards to witnesses.
Byrne suspects that the Conservatives are trying to take control of the issue after the hammering they’ve taken in the media over the past two weeks. And if they try to take the meeting this afternoon in camera, he will let the media know what went down behind closed doors, even if it opens him up to a charge of being in contempt of parliament.
“Holding a public accounts committee in private is a bit of an oxymoron into what public accounts are what all about,” Byrne said. “It’s contemptible – the real contempt of parliament here is holding such important meetings in private and trying to basically squander the opportunity that’s available to us.”
I’ll admit up front that my familiarity with Alberta politics is about eight years out of date, since I moved to Ottawa and jumped to the federal scene. But I decided to tune in to the Alberta leader’s debate tonight, as a somewhat disinterested expatriate observer, for old time’s sake.
Throughout the debate, two things rang through – fear of the Wildrose Party and their social conservatism, and loathing of politicians and the money they make, as typified by the controversy over the “no-meet committee,” whereby MLAs were paid a thousand dollars a year to sit on a disciplinary committee that hasn’t hand cause to meet for years.