With an expected eight-hour vote-athon looming, and with Harper off meeting the Prime Minister of South Korea, QP got underway with Thomas Mulcair reading off a question about implausible economic forecasting. John Baird, again the designated back-up PM du jour, recited his Economic Action Plan™ talking points. For his final question, Mulcair asked about the government fighting the release of Residential School documents, bringing up how Jack Layton worked with Harper on the apology. Baird assured him that all relevant documents would be released to the question – but one wonders if “relevant” was the key word. Jean Crowder followed up asking the very same thing, to which John Duncan reminded her that he answered those very same questions in committee yesterday. Bob Rae was then up for the Liberals, making the case for refundable tax credits so that they actually benefit low-income Canadians, but Baird wouldn’t actually acknowledge the issue. For his final question, Rae asked the issue the issue of OxyContin in northern Reserves and mechanisms available to the federal government, but Leona Aglukkaq decided to hit back and blame the Liberals for approving OxyContin in the first place. This caused some outburst from Carolyn Bennett, but I missed what she said.
Author Archives: Dale
Roundup: Making way for double bunking
Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! iPolitics has obtained documents that show that Corrections Canada is changing their policy to allow for double bunking to be normal policy, and to eliminate rules around maximum capacity. Not only does this violate our international agreements on corrections policy and it’s been proven to be bad for correctional behaviour period, but it’s like an invitation to a return to the era of prison riots. Well done, Vic Toews!
Here is your rough guide to the remaining stages of Omnibus Budget Bill 2: The Revenge in the Commons.
Ruh-roh! New documents show that the government was being briefed about the cost overruns of the F-35 fighters in advance of the Auditor General’s report. How much of this is just bureaucratic ass-covering is a question, but nevertheless, it looks like they knew more than they were letting on.
QP: Dancing around disability questions
It was nearly a full House, which is rare for a Monday, but as is also the norm for a Monday, Harper was absent. Nevertheless, Thomas Mulcair got the ball rolling by reading a about the government missing its economic targets, to which John Baird, the designated back-up PM du jour, first congratulated the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on their happy news before he moved onto approved Economic Action Plan™ talking points. When Mulcair pressed on about job numbers and temporary foreign workers, Baird kept on with the Action Plan™. Peter Julian was up next to denounce the supposed fire sale of Canadian resources to China, to which Christian Paradis assured him that they will ensure investments provide a net benefit to Canada. Bob Rae was up then for the Liberals and asked about the government’s disability tax credit and whether or not it would be made refundable. (It was Persons With Disabilities Day, for the record). Baird danced around the question with feel-good talking points about all kinds of tax credits.
Roundup: The case of the missing naval documents
Questions are being raised after Access to Information requests showed that naval intelligence documents were destroyed and then suddenly reappeared after being found in the emails of those serving overseas. Not only would their destruction have been against National Archives laws, but it raises further questions about how intelligence matters are being handled in the post-Delisle era.
Jason Kenney says he doesn’t want to turn any more immigration powers over to the provinces like already exist for Quebec, because he wants immigration to be about nation-building, not just making more Albertans or Nova Scotians rather than new Canadians.
Newly released emails show that during the last election, government officials avoided a meeting with the Parliamentary Budget Officer about the cost of the F-35s, and when his report was released that showed they cost double what the government claimed, they scrambled to undermine his credibility.
Roundup: Flaherty wants to stay put
Newsflash: Jim Flaherty says he wants to keep his job as Finance Minister until the budget is balanced, which likely means spring of 2015, in advance of a new election. While it’s unlikely that Harper will shuffle him out before he does his promised major re-shuffle a little closer to the next election, there have been some questions as to how long Flaherty will be sticking around as he’s been looking pretty tired and acting downright cranky the past couple of months.
Peter Kent is patting himself on the back for cancelling a proposed shallow gas infill project in Alberta, despite the fact that this was a decision that took seven years. Even more laughably, Kent is claiming the Orwellian-named “Responsible Resource Development” legislation from earlier this year as the reason for the cancellation – despite, as we mentioned, the fact that this has been a seven-year process.
As the government and the military continue to back away from the F-35s, General Tom Lawson now says the term “Fifth-generation” is unhelpful. Or should I say Fifth Generation™, since it’s a trademarked marketing term and not an actual description of capabilities.
Roundup: Back to the Ethics Commissioner
It’s Friday, and Stephen Harper is jetting off to Labrador to announce a loan guarantee for the Muskrat Falls hydro project – a project that embattled minister Peter Penashue has family ties with, which means he’s back to the Ethics and Conflict of Interest Commissioner’s office.
When Omnibus Budget Bill 2: The Revenge returns to the Commons, it’ll face between 26 and 47 votes on amendments put forward by the Greens. Kady O’Malley explains why the Speaker’s hands were tied when Scott Brison tried to point out the improper procedure employed in order to get some of his amendments back.
Over at the Natural Resources Committee, the Conservatives managed to work through the Liberal filibustering and have summoned David McGuinty and Justin Trudeau to appear before the committee to explain their “anti-Alberta” comments – not that McGuinty’s comments were anti-Alberta, and despite the fact that it offers both a platform to publicly denounce the job the government is doing in a public forum. But hey, it’s not like the committee has anything better to do than engage in a partisan witch-hunt.
QP: The return of tainted meat questions
It ended up being a week without the two main leaders facing off in QP, where Mulcair was again absent while Harper was back in the Chamber today. And despite there being three NDP deputy leaders in the House, they nevertheless decided to have Nycole Turmel read off the scripted question about a memo at CFIA about ignoring contaminated meat for non-Japan markets. Harper responded by saying that they ensure that meat is just as safe for Canadians as for the export market. Turmel then asked about cuts to inspections, to which Gerry Ritz responded this time, saying that they were enhancing the regulatory powers, and that the NDP voted against it. Malcolm Allen followed up with more of the same, this time in English, and got much the same from Ritz in response. When Bob Rae got up for the Liberals, he hammered away on the CFIA memo, not that Harper and Ritz responded any differently.
Roundup: Re-focusing CIDA
International cooperation minister Julian Fantino has announced a new business-focused international development policy, and said that it’s not CIDA’s business to keep funding NGOs forever. There’s no word on what kinds of programmes will be cut in order to make this shift in focus, but Fantino says that no, they’re not getting into the mining industry.
Campaign Research polling company has been censured by the industry body for their reprehensible calls into Irwin Cotler’s riding alleging that he’s about to retire.
Bill C-398, the latest iteration of the attempt to reform Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime – which aims to get cheap generic medicines to developing countries – was defeated in the Commons last night by seven votes.
QP: Schrödinger’s contingency plan
While Thomas Mulcair was back in the Commons today, Harper was off meeting the President-elect of Mexico, who is currently visiting Ottawa. So while Mulcair opened QP by reading off a trio of questions on whether or not the government had any contingency plans for another fiscal downturn, it was Jason Kenney’s turn to be back-up PM du jour, and he responded that there was a line in each budget for unexpected expenses. Oh, and the NDP would raise taxes. Peggy Nash then asked what the government was going to cut in order to meet its election promises, to which Ted Menzies batted back about the fictional “carbon tax” and reiterated their intention to get the budget in balance within the current parliament. Bob Rae demanded an apology from the Conservatives for their engaging Campaign Research for their reprehensible calls into Irwin Cotler’s riding, to which Peter Van Loan (correctly) pointed out that this wasn’t about government business, before he went on to say that the Speaker had already settled this issue.
Roundup: Dissecting the by-election results
In the wake of the three by-elections, Pundit’s Guide crunches the numbers. While I disagree with the aggregation of the three events into a single grand number (for the same reason that I will remind you that the national “popular vote” numbers are a fallacy), the voter share breakdowns seem to indicate that the Greens were eating into the Conservative vote in Calgary Centre and Victoria, which further problematises the already dubious “unite the left” propositions. Because seriously – bundling both the Liberals and the Greens with the NDP as the “left” is too facile of an understanding of some of the issues the parties stand on, and one of the reasons why these “vote splitting” arguments annoy me. Colby Cosh gives his post-mortem of the Calgary Centre vote.
The government unveiled new emissions regulations yesterday for passenger vehicles a few years into the future – never mind that regulations are a far more costly way of controlling greenhouse gas emissions than simple carbon pricing. Meanwhile, Aaron Wherry gets a response from Preston Manning about his thoughts on carbon pricing – apparently he wants complete cost accounting, but that includes things like paying for the volume of land flooded by hydro projects as well as oil sands development.