Author Archives: Dale

About Dale

Journalist in the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery

Roundup: A visit from Merkel

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel is in town to meet with Prime Minister Stephen Harper to talk trade, security, and the Eurozone crisis. Later today she’ll be off to Halifax to talk with scientists.

Now that the media has done his due diligence for him, John Baird has announced that the government won’t be funnelling aid money to Syrian rebels through that dubious organisation after all. This isn’t the first time either – during the Libya mission, I heard from Foreign Affairs staff that Baird was looking to turn over millions of dollars to rebel groups there without any due diligence then either until he was talked out of it by cooler heads.

The CBC also takes a look into the delays around finding a new Chief of Defence Staff, and throws a couple of other names on the table. Peter MacKay says the pick will be announced in the “very near future.”

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Justice Deschamps and the bilingual question

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This past week, we have seen a couple of different interviews with outgoing Supreme Court Justice Marie Deschamps, and there is something that both touched on, which was the selection of future justices. In particular, the question of bilingualism has been brought up, and Deschamps, a Quebec justice, is well placed to give her take on What It All Means in the context of her experience and role.

Think back for a moment to the last round of Supreme Court appointments, when the issue of bilingualism again reared its head, as it has periodically for the past few years. The NDP have had private members’ bills on the issue (one of which died in the Senate during the last election), and the Bloc made a big deal of it when they were still a relevant force in the Commons, but the momentum to formalise this requirement never picked up enough steam to get it into law.

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Roundup: Memorising all of your lines

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Peter Penashue demonstrates that he’s memorised all of his lines when it comes to any question asked of him, no matter it actually is. Seriously, he’ll give you the same answer every single time. Shades of the repetitive Ed Miliband interview, and further proof that certain members of the Harper cabinet could be replaced by robots and nobody would be any the wiser. Meanwhile, Kady O’Malley looks into the donations to Penashue’s rather stagnant riding association.

Public Works is looking for an outside auditor to review the ongoing construction projects within the Parliamentary precinct, but nobody quite knows why.

There is another public spat brewing in the RCMP over the changes being made to the Force.

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Roundup: Appointing hypothetical politicians to the bench

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At a meeting of the Canadian Bar Association, Rob Nicholson said that they shouldn’t rule out giving judicial appointments to “hypothetical” sitting politicians. No, seriously. This amid continual rumours that they’re eventually one day maybe going to appoint Vic Toews to the Court of Queen’s Bench in Manitoba. He then proceeded to dodge a question about a call to review federal legal aid funding – you know, to make justice accessible to the public in an age where their government continues to make the Criminal Code increasingly complex and at times even nonsensical (if you compare mandatory minimum sentences).

Leona Aglukkaq wants the debate around healthcare to be based around facts and not rhetoric. Hahahahaha! *wipes eyes* Oh, that’s a good one. I’m guessing she’s never actually absorbed the talking points that she has so dutifully memorised.

Charlie Angus is complaining that the Director of Public Prosecutions won’t look into Dean Del Mastro’s electoral financing even though it’s not the DPP’s job, no matter that Angus would like it to be. Seriously, you can’t just invent job descriptions because you want them to do something.

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Roundup: An absent report amid changing rhetoric

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It has been noted that the scathing US National Transport Safety Board report on the Enbridge Kalamazoo leak has yet to be tabled with the Northern Gateway review panel. The CBC has a long analysis piece about how the federal government’s rhetoric is changing as the file gets increasingly complex, with numerous federal and provincial political calculations hanging in the balance.

The Globe and Mail has a lengthy profile of John Baird as Foreign Minister, and how he’s scrappy and looking to change the way we do things, yet there was very little critical mention from foreign policy scholars who will tell you how empty most of Baird’s gestures on the foreign stage (like all of the walk-outs at the UN he’s ordered) really are. It’s also conspicuously silent on Baird’s personal life as well, for what it’s worth. Baird, meanwhile, is in the Middle East and has announced new aid money for Syrian refugees.

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Roundup: Farewell to a needed watchdog

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The former Inspector General of CSIS is decrying the dismantling of her former office, saying that the job of keeping an eye on CSIS from the inside, full-time, simply cannot be done by the Security and Intelligence Review Committee, and denied that there was any duplication of efforts (thus blowing away another of the talking point justifications for axing the office). But hey, why do we need someone to watch the watchmen? It’s not like we have anything to worry about – right?

Elections Canada’s investigators have traced alleged robo-call organiser “Pierre Poutine” as far an on open WiFi connection, where the trail grows cold.

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Roundup: Ironic elections observers?

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Jason Kenney announced that Canada will be sending 500 elections observes to Ukraine – including Ted Opitz. You know, the guy whose election the Supreme Court may very well be overturning within days. Does this count as irony?

Meanwhile, in the court case where the Council of Canadians is challenging seven other election results, the Conservative lawyers have asked for a $250,000 deposit on costs in case the challengers lose. The Council charges that the Conservatives are trying to drive up costs with obstruction and delay. As for that affidavit about voter suppression calls coming from that one call centre in Thunder Bay, the Conservatives produced an affidavit refuting it, saying that they only called supporters and in the ridings were there were actual polling station changes.

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Roundup: Selecting a window dressing panel

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The government has announced the selection panel for recommending the next Justice of the Supreme Court, comprised of three Conservatives, one NDP and one Liberal MP, and as it was pointed out, three lawyers, a PhD in sociology, and a farmer. The judge will have to be from Quebec, as that is the vacancy on the Court. Of course, this whole process is really just window dressing anyway as ultimately this is and always has been a crown prerogative of the Prime Minister anyway.

There are rumours that the government wants to create a permanent secretariat in Public Works to deal with military procurement issues, which everyone else seems to agree is just adding layers of needless bureaucracy without actually solving any of the problems. Meanwhile, the report on the F-35 procurement disaster is overdue according to the government’s timetable, and Public Works has had to put out yet another tender for an independent auditor. Because it never ends.

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Roundup: Announcing the intention to keep a promise

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Because it’s the height of summer with not a lot else to do, Stephen Harper paid a visit to a Ronald McDonald House out in Vancouver to announce that his government planned to follow through on a campaign promise to provide 35 weeks of EI benefits to parents dealing with seriously ill children. Well, so long as you intend to keep that promise… Perhaps the announcement should have come when the bill was tabled. Oh, wait – I’m sure we’ll get yet another photo op when that does happen sometime in the fall (unless it’s not until spring with next year’s budget…)

Harper also defended the environmental review process of the Northern Gateway pipeline and said that the decision will be made on scientific and economic as opposed to political criteria. Well, so long as we’re clear about that, we can stop worrying – right?

Trade Minister Ed Fast is in London during the Olympics to extol the virtues of trade with Canada.

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YCYC and our crisis in civic literacy

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Those of you who follow me over on the Twitter Machine know that I’ve been highly critical of the new “educational charity” Your Canada/Your Constitution pretty much since its inception. Last week they put out yet another press release that demonstrates their civic illiteracy, and more than that, the fact that they are deliberately misleading the public when they say that their goals are about education around our system of governance.

On the mandate page of their website, YCYC purports to do “research and education about the history, and ongoing development, of Canada’s Constitution and governments.” And in order to solicit donations from the public, they promise to use the money to develop education materials, host workshops and public forums for discussion, and hold contests to get people engaged. According to the site:

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