Author Archives: Dale

About Dale

Journalist in the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery

Roundup: Leadership on healthcare

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Day two of the Council of the Federation meeting in Halifax yesterday, and the topic was healthcare – specifically the report prepared by premiers Brad Wall and Robert Ghiz on common best practices, bulk buying certain pharmaceuticals, and such. (Hilariously, Leona Aglukkaq later insisted the federal government has played a leadership role in healthcare, which is especially funny when pretty much every single answer she gives in QP is about how nothing is her responsibility). As part of the day’s news, the premiers also invited Harper to sit down with them for their next meeting in November – to which Harper replied that he’ll totally get right on that. Really!

And no, the topic of pipelines was not omitted. Premiers like Ghiz and David Alward want an east-west pipeline so that refineries in the east can process bitumen from the west. Which is all well and good, but just remember that there is a heck of a lot more east-west distance in this country for a pipeline to cross (and possibly leak) than there is to go north-south to the pre-existing refineries in Texas, for example.  And longer pipelines mean a lot more cost, since reversing the flow of the existing east-west pipeline won’t have that much capacity to grow as oil sands operations ramp up.

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Meeting George Takach

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On my travels last weekend, I wound up at an event that was attended by a number of Nova Scotia Liberals, and along the way, had my first encounter with bottom-tier would-be Liberal leadership candidate George Takach (who at last check has not officially declared). Takach, a Toronto-based lawyer who hasn’t run for public office before but has apparently worked on Parliament Hill, was out trying to meet some prospective supporters at the event (as the current rules now allow anyone who totally swears they’re not a member of any other party – really! – to vote for the next Liberal leader). I should note that Takach doesn’t appear to have a website in place for his putative leadership bid either – just a Twitter account and a Facebook page, neither of which actually has a biography. That, I had to find through a Google search and came up with the page from his law firm. So, yeah, points for having a place to drive prospective supporters with a coherent platform or policy ideas in place. Or not.

Just as an observation, let me say that Takach wasn’t exactly working the crowd. Even among a smaller group of fairly prominent local Liberal organisers – you know, the kinds of grassroots organisers who have networks and who can mobilise people to support a leadership campaign – he didn’t pro-actively engage them and waited for people to come to him. And when people asked for his leadership “elevator pitch,” he got bogged down along the way numerous times, not to mention made his foundational platforms – like school meal programmes to help kids get a good start in life – things aren’t actually areas of federal responsibility. Oops.

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Roundup: The “fair share” debate

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It was the first day of the Council of the Federation meeting yesterday, and it was largely devoted to First Nations issues, and how they want to be included in the “fair share” debate around natural resource development, since much of the development is on their territory, as will pipelines cross it, and they are soon to be an emerging labour force in this country. Meanwhile, with regards to the ongoing Northern Gateway debate, Adam Goldenberg lays out the ultimatum game for the two premiers, while Andrew Coyne calls it out as extortion.

Here’s a look at what some of Alison Redford’s ‘national energy strategy’ entails, and it looks to mostly be about oil pipelines, as opposed to a more diversified energy economy across the country.

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Roundup: Redford vs Clark

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The brewing battle between premiers Christy Clark and Alison Redford went up a notch yesterday as Clark fired back at Redford’s suggestion that her demands for a portion of the royalties meant rewriting Confederation. Clark, not unsurprisingly, called Reford’s comments “silly” and unreasonable to suggested that she was trying to destroy Confederation. Clark’s point is that BC is taking a disproportionate share of the risk with regards to the length of the pipeline and the marine consequences, but isn’t guaranteed an adequate proportion of the revenues. She also steadfastly says that she is neither supporting nor objecting to the pipeline at this point considering that the environmental review process remains incomplete. On a side note, here’s a look at how the upcoming elections in BC and Quebec may play out at the Council of the Federation Meeting that starts today.

The head of Peter Penashue’s campaign says he’s sorry for exceeding the limits and for his lax bookkeeping. Well, so long as he’s sorry, that makes everything better, right? (Todd Russell, the former MP, who lost by a mere 79 votes, doesn’t plan to challenge the results given the recommendations, for the record). Meanwhile, Elections Canada was not interested in offering Dean Del Mastro “immunity” in exchange for more information about the funding irregularities.

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Roundup: Prepping the First Ministers’ meeting

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In the lead up to Wednesday’s Council of the Federation meeting in Halifax, the premier of Nova Scotia discusses how he finds the federal government’s aloofness to be “troubling.” Meanwhile, environmentalists are hoping to engage the premiers at said meeting, given that the proposed national energy strategy will be one of the key topics discussed. A new Senate report will add fuel to the fire on the need for such a strategy.

In a not unrelated matter, it seems that BC Premier Christy Clark is starting to talk tougher on the Northern Gateway Pipeline, and sent out two of her ministers to outline her concerns. It seems like this is reverberating enough that Joe Oliver is starting to moderate his own tone a little. Alberta Premier Alison Redford, however, is none too happy with the objections.

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Roundup: Not exactly ‘off-the-shelf’

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So those army trucks that got cancelled at the last minute? It seems their costs escalated when DND kept adding in new capabilities to the “off-the-shelf” models, and the price tag went up. Just like with those Chinook helicopters, if you recall. But no, our procurement system isn’t broken.

Shawn Atleo has been re-elected as National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations. He won on the third ballot, but the fact that nearly a third of the chiefs voted against him, he has some work ahead.

Aww, Julian Fantino thinks it’s “unfair” that the Toronto Star dares to go to Afghanistan and dares to print that our aid efforts haven’t lived up to expectations, because apparently that doesn’t fit his party’s narrative.

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Roundup: The politics of gun violence

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I believe Colin Horgan said it best, so I’ll start off by quoting him: “Yes, never miss a chance for partisan shots. With senseless human tragedy comes political opportunity! Well done, everybody.” He is, of course, referring to the release put out by the government in the wake of the shootings in Scarborough, to which the government gave two lines of condolences and twelve lines of partisan salesmanship about how the opposition needs to support their tough-on-crime agenda. Because we all know that if the mandatory minimums that already exist on the books didn’t prevent this, well, then we need even tougher penalties for deterrence! It also didn’t help that Vic Toews took shots at those judges who struck down the mandatory minimums as arbitrary and inappropriate in some cases – and it was both in the cases in which they were struck down. And then Julian Fantino is the one to sound reasonable? How did that happen? (And just to note that Liberal MP John McKay, whose riding the shooting happened in, was also eminently reasonable, while NDP MP Rathika Sitsabaiesan, from the neighbouring riding, took to Power and Politics to suggest they talk to the critic another day. Oops).

The Federal Court shot down a challenge to the government’s decision to pull out of the Kyoto Protocol because, well, it’s actually the government’s right to do so. That’s the way executive powers work, even if you don’t agree with them – not that it seems to stop the civically illiterate from taking to the courts to try and change the foundations of parliamentary democracy on a whim because they lost a political battle.

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Roundup: Kenney’s populist distortion

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Aaron Wherry speaks to one of the organisers of those doctors who interrupt ministerial press conferences on behalf of refugee healthcare. Jason Kenney’s office responds with populist language that distorts the situation and frames it in such a way as to make refugee claimants look like freeloaders (ie – using “gold-plated benefits). That Kenney employs the “safe countries” talking point is actually a false argument because the designation is a political one, and not everyone who lives in a democratic country is “safe,” be it gays and lesbians in Jamaica, or the Roma in Hungary. But Kenney’s language is carefully scripted to stir up populist sentiment and appease an undercurrent of xenophobia in his base, and it should be called out as such.

With by-elections now in the works for both Durham and Calgary Centre, here are a couple of looks at them from Kady O’Malley, who runs down the lengthy list of would-be Conservative candidates in Calgary, along with a few Liberals who have thus-far declared interest, and Colin Horgan, who looks at some of the issues at play, and notes that all may not be lost for the Liberals given provincial results, shifting attitudes and Conservative infighting.

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Roundup: All those arcane rules

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A new parliamentary report says that arcane rules are keeping MPs from doing their jobs when it comes to scrutinising the estimates. It’s good that they acknowledge that, and I’m still working my way though reading the report, but some of those rules aren’t that arcane and were more recent additions in order to keep the opposition from bogging down the business of government (this being the “deemed” rule whereby estimates are “deemed adopted” if they pass a certain date on the calendar). And MPs have always had the ability to change those rules whenever they decided it was time to start taking the estimates process more seriously, so this tone of them being the poor victims of traditions dating back to the Magna Carta really reads hollow to me, sorry to say. There are also calls in the report to strengthen the role of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, which is all well and good, but a) good luck getting this government to agree to it, and b) we should be careful not to make it tempting for MPs to simply fob off their responsibilities of scrutinising the estimates to him more than they already are.

Uh oh – when Christian Paradis was minister of Public Works, he had the department roll out the welcome mat for firms from his riding. Apparently the Ethics Commissioner have him a talking to about the fact that while it’s all well and good to represent your constituents, as a minister there are limits. But like Paradis said, these are all just learning experiences, right?

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Roundup: CSIS volunteers to help Vic Toews

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The Director of CSIS has generously volunteered to assist Vic Toews in fixing his delayed Lawful Access bill. You can find the redacted letter here.

The federal government has announced that it will appeal the BC court ruling on assisted suicide.

What’s that? Federal bureaucrats weren’t impressed when John Duncan didn’t appear to understand the Attawapiskat file in public? You don’t say!

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