Author Archives: Dale

About Dale

Journalist in the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery

Roundup: Back-to-work legislation ahoy!

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With the negotiations at CP Rail having broken down, it looks like we’ll be seeing some fresh back-to-work legislation this week.

Joe Oliver says he’s supportive of Alison Redford’s national energy strategy idea – but he just doesn’t want to call it that. Meanwhile, this unsigned Maclean’s editorial makes a few good points about the “Dutch disease” debate, the changing manufacturing sector, and the nonsense of trying to attach environmental concerns to the economics. Stephen Gordon has even more economic data that seems to divorce the decline in our manufacturing sector from the rise in our resource economy, when compared to other major economies.

Western premiers will be meeting on Tuesday to talk about energy and environmental regulation, and it seems like Mulcair will be on that agenda as well. Meanwhile, Newfoundland and Labrador premier Kathy Dunderdale has a bone to pick with Peter MacKay over the search-and-rescue closures in her province, and that’s only getting worse with the EI changes.

Jim Flaherty is striking a slightly more conciliatory tone around EI changes than Diane Finely has been.

There is talk that the government is exploring the idea of a standalone military procurement office, after all of the many and sundry blunders that have taken place in the past few years. One should say that if they do go ahead with this, they’re probably better off not just putting the same people in charge as the ones who’ve made the mistakes in the past – you know, like they did with the new fighter jet secretariat.

What’s that? An internal investigation of the privacy breaches at Veterans Affairs clears the department of wrongdoing? You don’t say!

What’s that? A quarter of defeated Conservative candidates have since been given public service jobs? You don’t say! Actually, this is neither that concerning nor alarming considering that most are qualified for the new jobs, and we shouldn’t get too worked up if defeated candidates get staffer positions. It’s not like opposition parties don’t give staffer jobs to their own defeated candidates at times either.

Thomas Mulcair has remortgaged his house eleven times since the early eighties, continually increasing his mortgage debt despite his MP salary, but no one will say why – even though this is a very unusual thing.

Sadly, the birth of Canada hardly rated mention in Queen Victoria’s journals. Alas!

And Tabatha Southey casts a satirical eye on the “bravery” of David Wilks and his strong stand against…his previous strong stand.

Roundup: Less accessible EI appeals

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Amidst all of the changes to the EI system, another of the items tucked away in the omnibus budget bill is the scrapping of the two current EI review boards. While the current system is free and as different levels of appeal, the plan calls for a much smaller board to hear EI appeals, along with CPP and OAS claimants. Oh, and it’s a more technical process that’s likely going to need people to hire lawyers, thus making far more inaccessible than the current system. Diane Finley and her people claim “efficiency” and “less duplication,” while the people who work with the system currently say that it’s not actually inefficient. Oh, and about those changes to the EI system, Newfoundland and Labrador premier Kathy Dunderdale is not happy – especially about the lack of consultation with the decision, not that this should come as a great shock.

Lockheed Martin says that Canadian companies will lose out on future contracts if we don’t go ahead with the F-35 purchase – and that all indications on their end are that the government is still committed to them, despite this new secretariat and a Seven-Step Action Plan™.

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Disabusing the notions of foreign monarchs

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Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, have completed their Royal Tour (Diamond Jubilee Edition), and all is well in the land. Support for the monarchy is on the rise in English Canada, the Prince’s Charities are getting off the ground nicely, and Diamond Jubilee medals are being affixed to lapels everywhere.

But as with any royal tour, one starts to get a bit wary of the kinds of depictions used about the Canadian monarchy, and that there remains this ingrained media perception that it is somehow foreign. One CBC anchor event went so far as to call Charles “The future king of England” – never mind that the position of “King of England” hasn’t existed since 1707 with the Act of Union, and the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain, which later became the United Kingdom. What these anchors, and many of the talking heads in the media, seem to forget is that Canada has a separate and distinct monarchy, which just happens to have the same head of state as the United Kingdom and several other countries.

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Roundup: Unveiling the proposed regulations

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Diane Finley has unveiled her proposed EI reform regulations, and it seems to be a lot about twice-daily emails about “appropriate” jobs in the local area to EI recipients. Which is great – provided you have a computer and Internet access, and aren’t one of those poor schmucks who has to rely on their local library for the Internet, especially seeing as the federal funding for those library computers is now at an end. The changes will also track how often one claims EI, and start taking away benefits the more you claim it. Rona Ambrose likens it to E-Harmony for jobseekers. No, seriously. Meanwhile, here is some more reaction, plus Scott Brison relays concerns from the agricultural sector in his riding with regards to these reforms’ limits on temporary foreign workers, who they say the use of actually creates more jobs for local residents. Steve Murray casts his satirical eye on the situation here.

To say nothing about him personally, John Baird has been pretty vocal about promoting GBLT rights around the world in his capacity as foreign affairs minister. With that in mind, it’s awfully curious that he was speaking at an event sponsored by an anti-gay church on the topic of religious freedom. His speech, however, was pretty bland, and offered no real clues about the still undefined Office of Religious Freedoms.

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Roundup: A Monday deadline

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CP Rail is now on strike amidst thousands of layoffs, though they are mostly keeping commuter service unaffected. Lisa Raitt, however, is citing the harm to the economy, and is giving them until Monday to come to a deal, lest she bring down the hammer of back-to-work legislation. (This feels like a good time to remind you of my conversation with Senator Elaine McCoy, a former provincial conservative labour minister, about how this government handles its labour disputes).

Leona Aglukkaq admits that yes, there are food issues in the North – but that doesn’t mean she’ll back down from her comments about the UN Special Rapporteur for Food. Nor will she stop using it as an excuse to bash other countries about their criticism of the seal hunt – even if the Rapporteur never made any mention of the seal hunt in his report.

Elections Canada tried to get Michael Sona to talk about who might be behind the misleading robo-calls. Sona wouldn’t bite.

Defenders of the Canadian Wheat Board are back in court trying to overturn the law that dismantled it.

$100,000 spent in flights and hotels while looking for cost savings. Fiscal austerity, everyone!

Here is a reminder about fifteen things stuffed into the omnibus budget bill that have nothing really to do with the budget.

And Prince Charles and Camilla finished the Diamond Jubilee Royal Tour in Regina last night. Part of his visit there included a tour of First Nations University, and a block of oak from Charles’ estate in Cornwall was given to the province for the creation of their own Black Rod.

Up today: Diane Finley is set to unveil the regulations around the proposed EI changes today. I suppose it’s a good thing that we’re actually getting them now and not after the omnibus budget bill passes. Incidentally, HRSDC is no longer sending Statistics Canada certain EI statistical data, apparently over unresolved “inconsistencies,” which seems terribly convenient.

As Wilks demonstrates, ignorance is democracy’s biggest danger

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Its plaintive wail echoing through the halls of the Langevin Block, the independent thought alarm sounded earlier this morning, and something needed to be done. Young staffers in the PMO rushed into action, and by shortly after noon, the bilingual press release was out, and independent thought was quashed. In all, a good morning’s work.

What we are referring to was the musings that BC Conservative MP David Wilks would contemplate voting against the omnibus budget bill – provided that Canadians could convince twelve other Conservative MPs to also vote against the bill. That, of course, simply wouldn’t do. I mean, it was a bone-headed thing for Wilks to say considering it’s a confidence measure and finding twelve other Conservatives to revolt would actually cause the government to collapse – but there did seem to be a moment or two of worry that he might actually take a stand against his party – providing of course that he had enough cover with which to do so. But it was not to be.

Throughout all of this, however, runs a few more disturbing underlying currents, which really only come out in the videos of the constituents’ meeting that Wilks was just the sense of pervasive helplessness that individual MPs are imbued with. Wilks continued to insist throughout that as a single MP he couldn’t do anything, which is a) not true, and b) indicative of just how far we’ve fallen as a democracy. The degree of central control over individual MPs is reaching crisis proportions, and Wilks’ explanations for the way things work are a testament to that fact. Oh, and smug partisans and Kool-Aid drinkers of all stripes: this applies across the board. All parties are guilty of centralised messaging and levels of control, whether that’s the formal exercise of the whip or by quiet bullying and shaming if someone should dare deviate from the “united front” that they feel they must present.

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Roundup: Hints about the EI changes

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Fisheries minister Keith Ashfield has lifted the lid off the proposed EI reform regulations, and they almost seem *gasp!* reasonable. People won’t be forced to take jobs more than an hour’s drive from their homes, which shouldn’t result in the massive depopulation of the Atlantic provinces. Of course, this may all be wrong, and there remains no official word, but it’s a start, right?

The seven Conservative MPs whose seats are facing court challenges have all now formally requested the cases be dismissed as “frivolous and vexatious.” Meanwhile, Stephen Maher worries about what the revelations that overturned the results in Etobicoke Centre say about the job that Elections Canada is doing in ensuring the integrity of our elections.

Attorney General Rob Nicholson is stepping in to try to halt a Human Rights Tribunal hearing about an aboriginal RCMP officer alleging systemic racism in the Force. Meanwhile, here are the unpleasant allegations of sexual misconduct around one senior officer in Alberta’s RCMP headquarters.

Ministerial clampdowns appear to be the theme of the day as Peter MacKay has also ordered one on the inquiry of a soldier’s suicide.

The government is launching consultations on how to improve official languages in this country, while sparing said programmes from budget cuts.

What’s that? Vic Toews is misquoting an NDP MP? You don’t say!

CP Rail assures us that a strike won’t affect commuter service. But the economy is still fragile! No word yet if Lisa Raitt is going to drop the hammer yet again and table some back-to-work legislation.

The Prime Minister’s official bio in Diamond Jubilee Royal Tour media materials contains the election phrase “strong, stable, national majority” (though we have been assured that this was a copy-paste and not written by public servants). Because there is no distinction between the partisan and the office it seems.

And a number of First Nations chiefs met with Prince Charles yesterday, and requested a meeting with the Queen to discuss treaty issues. Remember that the treaties are with Crown directly, and that relationship is personal. Meanwhile, Charles and Camilla are off to Regina, the last stop on their Diamond Jubilee Royal Tour. As for their time in Toronto, here’s a bit of video, including of Camilla visiting with the Queen’s Own Rifles, the regiment for whom she is the Colonel-in-Chief.

Roundup: Star candidate entreaties

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Thomas Mulcair says that the NDP’s poll numbers are so great that he’s getting approached by all kinds of “star candidates,” seeing as they’ll obviously have some pretty safe seats up for grabs. Um, okay. Isn’t there some saying about counting chickens three years before an election, or something like that?

The copyright bill is due to pass the Commons next week, but there remains a chance the digital locks provisions might be amended in the Senate, or face court challenges.

The Commons Ethics committee recommends that the Lobbying Commissioner be given the ability to fine lobbyists who don’t follow the rules. You know, like she’s been asking for forever.

Aww, Alberta’s sole NDP MP is trying to defend Thomas Mulcair’s “Dutch disease” comments, and says the focus on them is a distraction from the budget debate. Just like Mulcair digging in his heels on the issue is all about focusing the budget debate and the menace to democracy that it poses.

The CBC’s Peter Mansbridge interviews Conrad Black now that he’s free and back in Canada, including Black hitting back at Thomas Mulcair for his “demagogic rabblerousing.”

Here’s an accounting of the bitter silence the government was forced to endure around the intelligence leaks from that naval officer in Halifax.

Here’s a look at some potential futures for the Kingston Penitentiary, which is a national historic site – but chances of it becoming an Alcatraz-style museum seem slim in this age of austerity.

And here’s your recap of Charles and Camilla’s Diamond Jubilee Royal Tour thus far in New Brunswick and Toronto.

Roundup: Victoria Day Diamond Jubilee Royal Tour Edition

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Happy Victoria Day, everyone! Be sure to raise a glass in honour of Victoria, the first Queen of Canada, as well as in honour of the official birthday of Her Majesty Elizabeth II, the present Queen of Canada. In case you didn’t realise, Victoria Day is actually a distinctly Canadian holiday not celebrated by anyone else.

Speaking of the Canadian royal family, Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, have arrived and begin their brief royal tour in New Brunswick today, before heading to Toronto later on for the Victoria Day fireworks there.

Thomas Mulcair, digging his heels in on the “Dutch disease” issue, declares that this will be the defining issue for the next election. You know, not a scandal-plagued and incompetent government with heavy-headed and dictatorial tendencies, but something that the Conservatives can rouse their Western base about, along with any other region that is involved in resource extraction. That’s tactical genius at work.

Voter-identification robo-calls have already started in Etobicoke Centre, and the by-election hasn’t even been called yet. Because apparently it’s never too early to get started on this kind of work. Meanwhile, Pundit’s Guide breaks down the riding’s recent electoral history and the dynamics at play.

Peter MacKay indicates that we won’t be extending our current training mission in Afghanistan.

Instead of providing a reasonable explanation why Environment Canada was dumping a bunch of office furniture rather than recycling it, Peter Kent’s office decided to go the route of blaming the media and calling the story “false.” Transparency and accountability, everyone!

Here’s a strange little tale about mysterious Canadian bank accounts in Liechtenstein.

And Lisa Raitt is cautioning CP Rail to think twice about striking. Because she’s apparently not afraid to drop the hammer – again.

Roundup: Null and void

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The results of the last federal election in Etobicoke Centre were declared null and void by an Ontario court yesterday after the judge found there to be enough improper votes cast to overturn the results. The Conservatives have eight days to file an appeal – which would go directly to the Supreme Court in an expedited process – before a by-election needs to be called. While Borys Wrzesnewskyj insists that there was voter suppression in his riding, this was not the basis of the results being overturned, but rather, because Elections Canada officials and the volunteers at the polling stations didn’t follow rules. This does raise the issue of the kind of training that volunteer and scrutineers receive, and what happens when people get lazy, take shortcuts, and don’t follow rules properly. (And yes, the Conservatives have put out talking points that they followed the rules but this is an Elections Canada issue).

While it’s not related to the Etobicoke Centre decision, Elections Canada will soon be receiving a report on the Guelph robo-calls.

What’s that? The Conservatives refuse to release the draft report they prepared in 2007 on pension sustainability? You don’t say! But Finance officials have finally confirmed that the OAS changes are expected to save the treasury about $10.8 billion – even though both ministers refuse to.

Uh oh – it looks like Alberta is going to miss its emissions reduction targets, and that its already dubious carbon-capture-and-storage scheme is falling off the rails. But at least it’s prompting a review of said programmes, right?

Economist Stephen Gordon further problematises the “Dutch disease” rhetoric, and throws in what some of the environmental arguments would mean if they were equally applied to the manufacturing sector. Meanwhile, it turns out that Industry Canada funded their own study into the phenomenon a couple of years ago and found some correlation, but the government of course is distancing itself from it.

There will be another vacancy on the Supreme Court by August. I’m guessing that means September special Parliamentary hearings, unless we’re really lucky and get “emergency” ones in the summer.

The costs of the restoration of buildings in the Parliamentary Precinct continues to rise, but we all know that over time and over budget is part of our proud Canadian heritage.

Here’s a look at the impacts on Canadian archaeology that the cuts to Parks Canada are going to have.

Prince Charles writes about service in a nod to the Diamond Jubilee and his upcoming visit to Canada.

And Scott Brison has a little bit of fun at the expense of the “nude Stephen Harper” painting.