Stephen Harper went to Vancouver yesterday in order to meet the Board of Trade there and have a cozy little sit-down that wouldn’t be full of tough questions, and where he could repeat some talking points about how awesome the European Free Trade Agreement is going to be, and how he won’t approve pipelines unless they meet rigorous environmental standards. Of course, this message was interrupted by a couple of climate activists who got past security by coming dressed as wait staff, a stunt organised by a certain vapid narcissist whom I won’t be naming because I won’t give her the attention. Also noted in this conversation by Harper was his smacking of Barack Obama by saying that he “punted” the Keystone XL decision, which doesn’t seem to be the language of building bridges.
Author Archives: Dale
Roundup: No plan B
The country needs a new computer programme to deal with Employment Insurance claims, and Shared Services Canada and Employment and Social Developmemnt have until 2016 to do it – leaving almost no time to address any inevitable problems once they procure and install said new system, and more ominously, their presentation says, “there is no Plan B.” Missing that deadline means an escalation of costs, and I’m sure a whole host of other problems with the EI programme as a whole. But hey, it’s not like this government has ever had problems with procurements, and there has never been a boondoggle around new software before, right? Oh, wait…
Roundup: Trying to bury a helicopter announcement
Four-thirty on a Friday afternoon – the perfect time for a government press release that they want to bury. And lo and behold, on schedule comes the news that the government will be carrying on with the Sikorsky helicopter contract and begin decommissioning the Sea Kings next year. Err, except that those Sikorsky Cyclones won’t be fully operational until, oh, 2018 or so, and the current models that they expect our Forces to train on don’t have shielded electronics, meaning that a ship’s radar can knock them out. Oops. There was no explanation in the release as to how Sikorsky plans to get over this hurdle (as the shielding will add a lot more weight to the choppers), only that it would come at no extra cost – in fact, they already owe millions in late penalties for the ridiculous botched job that this whole procurement has already turned out to be. The best part of this drama, however? Diane Finley’s press secretary left the office immediately after sending the release, and nobody would give out his cell phone number, meaning that reporters couldn’t get a statement from the minister about this pretty big deal of a release. Because that’s the kind of professionalism we’ve come to expect from this government.
Roundup: Useless polls make populist noise
A CTV-commissioned poll shows that 69 percent of Canadians don’t think the Senate is useful. (Broken down, the numbers are 34 percent “strongly disagree” and 35 percent “somewhat disagree” with the statement of whether “The Senate of Canada performs a necessary and useful political function.”) The problem with that is that it goes back to the very same issue of asking people a question that they’re not taught anything about. Sure, people have heard about the Senate, but most of what they hear is either a) scandal; or b) distortion, largely arising from scandal as it affects a very small percentage of its membership. Most Canadians, if we’re honest, don’t really know the first thing about the Senate and what it does, and the media hasn’t done a stellar job in covering their good work either, which makes this kind of poll particularly fraught from the get-go. But hey, now we can use a big number to say that populist sentiment doesn’t agree with the constitutionally bound makeup of parliament! One has to wonder if the same kinds of numbers would arise if we asked whether people agreed that their pancreas serves a useful and necessary function in their bodies, or if we’d get the same kind of facile comment of “I don’t know what it does, therefore let’s just get rid of it” that this kind of ridiculous Senate polling results in.
Roundup: Drama in Colombo
There was some New Year’s Eve drama as media reports out of Colombo, Sri Lanka, said that NDP MP Rathika Sistsabaiesan was under house arrest there during her trip to visit family. The reports turned out to be false, but consular affairs and John Baird were engaged on the file, though Sitsabaiesan put out a statement alleging political intimidation by local officials. The Foreign Affairs statement states that there was no arrest warrant, and that her visit was a private one and not on behalf of the government, though they continue to monitor her situation.
Roundup: Skills mismatch or lack of data?
Despite the government’s talk about the “skills mismatch” that is affecting our jobs sector, there is no actual evidence to support this, says TD Economics. And a big part of the problem is that we don’t actually have good data to track these kinds of things, apparently, nor are we tracking underemployment figures either. It also doesn’t appear that there is a real demand for jobs in the resource extraction sector despite the government’s promises of yet more jobs there – but hey, without the data, they can claim whatever they like. Meanwhile, medical specialists not being able to find jobs upon graduation is another problem being recognised and hopes to be corrected with more data on the part of the Canadian Medical Association as they try to steer students to sectors facing more of a crunch in the near future.
Roundup: Trudeau’s power of positivity
Justin Trudeau says that positivity is driving his party’s increased donations, which could very well exceed the Conservatives yet again in terms of number of donors, though it remains to be seen if they will top them in dollars. Among Trudeau’s examples of “positivity” are things like not piling on James Moore’s “hungry kids” gaffe, in part because it was Christmas. For what it’s worth, anyway.
Government spending on professional services – outside consultants for the most part – was down last year, yet employment in the sector remains high.
Roundup: Preston Manning’s misdirected concerns
In a frankly bizarre op-ed, Preston Manning tries to accuse the Press Gallery for lacking proper ethics because the Parliamentary Press Gallery guidelines don’t have a section on ethical guidelines in their handbook – err, except that each member is subject to their own employer’s code of ethics. Also, the Press Gallery is not a monolith, but simply a means of organising ourselves in order to have proper access to do our jobs on the Hill. That Manning tries to somehow equate this to the Senate scandals and Mike Duffy’s role therein lacks any cohesive logic and makes one wonder how this passed the comment editor’s gaze at the Globe and Mail. Does he think that the Gallery could have somehow stopped him before he was appointed? That his constant lobbying for a Senate seat should have been dealt with – as though anyone took it seriously and not as a kind of sad and frankly pathetic long-running joke? Susan Delacourt gives Manning a respectful reply and cautions him that what he’s demanding of the media will mean more access by the government – something the current government is not a big fan of.
Roundup: Unimpressed with transformation plans
Kevin Page is none too pleased with what he hears about the “Blueprint 2020” plan to reform the public service, saying it’s a lot of nothing, and that change needs to come from the bottom up rather than being imposed top-down. He’s also critical of the public service for remaining silent in the face of these changes being imposed on them, and that their expert financial and policy advice will suffer as a result.
When she was Minsiter of Public Works, Rona Ambrose approved a list of 29 historical Canadian women to be used when naming future federal buildings. Of course that list has been redacted, so we don’t know exactly which names have been approved.
Roundup: Mulcair the optimist
Despite his less than stellar polling figures – which he assured us that he does read – Thomas Mulcair says that he’s confident and that he’s got the experience to be the next PM, unlike a certain Liberal leader, whom he characterised as “he’s highly scripted and then he goes off-script.” Erm, he’s not really that highly scripted. Far less scripted than Mulcair himself tends to be, unless he’s banished the years of mini-lectern-on-the-desk QPs down the memory hole already. Also, it’s funny that Mulcair talks of Trudeau’s gaffes when he’s had a few of is own as well *cough*Osama bin Laden*cough*.
Peter Julian wants Commons security to check their cyber-security after media reports that the private company that provides its encryption software took money from the NSA in order to build a backdoor for access.