Wednesday, caucus day, and the benches were mostly full, except for Thomas Mulcair’s seat. Well, that’s not entirely true — one of the backbenchers from the nosebleeds was filling the seat while Mulcair was on a plane to Labrador, headed there directly after the morning’s caucus meeting. That left it up to deputy leader David Christopherson to get things off to a shouty start, yelling about cuts to Elections Canada amidst the report that showed the magnitude of problems during the past election. Harper assured him that Elections Canada recommended their own cuts and their legislation to strengthen their powers was forthcoming, based on their own recent report. Nycole Turmel was up next, asking about the improperly tracked $3.1 billion identified in the Auditor General’s report. Harper reminded her that the Auditor General himself pointed out that nothing pointed to any misspending, and that Treasury Board had already accepted his recommendations. For the Liberals, Justin Trudeau was up to decry Harper’s lack of understanding of the plight of the middle class. Harper assured him of all the great programmes they had for everyday Canadians, and look at how great the country is doing compared to other OECD countries.
Tag Archives: Auditor General
Roundup: $3.1 billion in sloppy record keeping
The Auditor General released a report yesterday, and it was a bit of a doozy, at least with regards to the revelation that some $3.1 billion in anti-terror funding is not properly accounted for. Not that it’s actually been misspent, but the recordkeeping is a bit sloppy, and some of it was victim to a “whole of government approach,” according to Tony Clement. Among other issues the AG cited – that our search and rescue infrastructure is headed for total systems failure, that they need to crack down on EI overpayments, problems with expense claims by the Old Port of Montreal, and that there are problems with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as it is beset by conflict with other federal departments over documents. John Ivison says the report is like ‘manna’ for the NDP, and I can hardly wait for the number of times that Thomas Mulcair gets to say “failure of good public administration” over the next several days.
QP: No rest for the birthday boy
Even thought it was his birthday, Stephen Harper was present and accounted for in the House, as with all other leaders — even Daniel Paillé, who was watching from the diplomatic gallery. Thomas Mulcair led off by reading a pair of questions on the changes to the temporary foreign workers programme, castigating Jason Kenney for his contradictory statements on the existence of the fifteen percent wage gap provisions. Harper insisted that Mulcair had it all wrong, and reminded him of the letters that NDP MPs had written the minister to demand more permits for their ridings. He then turned to the $3.1 billion in untracked spending on counterterrorism funding, and whether the minister of public safety would be held accountable. Harper reminded him that the AG himself said that this was not indicative of improper spending, but improper financial reporting. For his last question, Mulcair asked about the state of nation-to-nation dialogue with First Nations, and Harper insisted that the dialogue was ongoing. Justin Trudeau was up next for the Liberals, and after first mentioning the AG’s comments on search and rescue and how the Atlantic premiers were concerned, but then moved onto the issue of tariff hikes. Harper assured him that they decreased a wide range of tariffs, and that it was not appropriate to only give reductions to countries like China.
Roundup: The Carney conundrum
The Globe and Mail wrote a story that tried to paint a picture of how Liberals were wooing Mark Carney, and that while he spoke at an exclusive event in Nova Scotia, he spent a few days at Scott Brison’s house with his family. And *gasp!* they both talked about income inequality at one time! Nobody else ever talks about income inequality – never! They must have been in cahoots about getting Carney to run for the party leadership! Never mind that they have a lot of similarities in experience and circles that they both travel in. The problem is that the story is largely sourced by unnamed “officials” and is dependent upon one particular organizer who was trying to get Carney to run and who may have simply been spinning a fabulation that Carney was actually entertaining a bid while he tried to get an organization behind him that was based on a false understanding of how the leadership ballot process was being run. It’s a bunch of random information being strung together with a bunch of supposition that something might have been discussed, because nobody wants to talk about it. And from a journalistic perspective, it reads a lot like rumour being reported as fact – especially with almost nobody going on the record to confirm or deny anything.
Whether the events in the story are true or not is no longer the issue, however. Economist Stephen Gordon worries about the irreparable harm that the Carney story does for the office of the Governor of the Bank of Canada, simply so that some “senior Liberal sources” could try and find some imagined gain.
QP: The pressing matter of random Breathalyzer tests
For the first time in a couple of weeks, both Stephen Harper and Thomas Mulcair were in the House at the same time for QP, and had the chance to face-off. Mulcair led-off by reading a question about random Breathalyzer testing legislation, to which Harper assured him that the government had brought in measures and would be doing more as they went along. Rob Nicholson asked two follow-ups by hectoring the NDP for not being tough on all kinds of crime. Mulcair carried on with the leader’s round, taking all five questions, with a pro forma question on the economy, which Harper shrugged off with a pro forma answer, and the final question was on the First Nations Residential Schools apology, to which Harper assured him that they were cooperating, but that some of the documents now under contention were personal records that were outside of the scope of the commission. Bob Rae was then up, asking about the need for consultation with the Northern Gateway project, with respect to First Nations. Harper assured him that they were consulting, but Rae challenged him on this, saying that the government downloaded that consultation to the National Energy Board.
Roundup: 50 officials, few answers
For his one-hour appearance at Finance Committee last night, Jim Flaherty brought along fifty – yes, fifty – department officials to help him answer questions on Omnibus Budget Bill 2: The Revenge. Because they were so concerned about the cost of answering Order Paper questions that this exercise was perfectly justified. What made it worse is that the sole hour seemed to be eaten up with either fulsome praise for Flaherty from the government side, and attempts to get him to talk about a future stimulus programme if the US goes off the “fiscal cliff” from the NDP. Nice to see that everyone is taking this seriously.
Here is everything you need to know about Harper’s trip to India, and why our trade deals are stalling.
Despite the strange firing of that local reporter in his riding, Conservative MP James Bezan stands behind his criticism of the CNOOC-Nexen deal. Good to know.
QP: They’re not cuts, they’re changes
With Members’ Statements getting rowdy before Question Period even started, Speaker Scheer warned, “let’s not have this again.” And really, we didn’t. QP was fairly listless overall. Thomas Mulcair started out reading a question on the $10 billion in cuts to Old Age Security, to which Harper said that no, there were no cuts but changes coming in 2023. Mulcair moved onto the topic of the Parliamentary Budget Officer not getting the information he requested, to which Harper responded that they wrote the Act that created the position, and they report that information to Parliament. Megan Leslie was up next wondering why it was that the FAQ page on about the Navigational Waters Act was pulled down from the government’s website, to which Lebel said that they were fixing “erroneous information” about that Act on the site. Down the memory hole it goes (excepting of course for Google cache and the Library and Archives Canada backup copy). Bob Rae was up next, asking if the changes to OAS were really worth it considering the negligible percentage of money that it affected, but Harper insisted it was all about future sustainability. For his final question, Rae asked why the government wasn’t prosecuting some HSBC tax evasion cases, to which Harper insisted that they don’t tolerate that behaviour, and that CRA was investigating.
Roundup: A day of many reports
The big news yesterday was the Auditor General’s report, and most people were talking cyber-security and problems at Veterans Affairs, but the report also highlighted the problems the government has with its long-term fiscal sustainability. More specifically, approving big spending items without doing any kind of analysis on the long-term impact on the state of the nation’s finances – you know, stuff the Parliamentary Budget Officer has been trying to get information about. Gosh, it’s a good thing that we have MPs to scrutinise the estimates and public accounts to catch this sort of thing – oh, wait…
The Security and Intelligence Review Committee’s report also came out yesterday, which pretty much trashed the no-fly list.
Yet another report that came out yesterday was that of the Correctional Investigator, and it highlighted the problem of self-harm that is growing in the prison system. Yeah, we really do need to do something about the problem of mental health in the prison population, and somehow I doubt that cutting chaplains contributes to that solution.
QP: We learned from the AG’s report…
The drinking game of the day could have been “We learned today in the Auditor General’s report…” Because for about the first half of QP, nearly every question was prefaced by that statement. Thomas Mulcair started off by reading off a question about cyber-security from the report, who which Harper insisted the report said that they were making progress, and then a pair of questions on the hidden costs of cuts to OAS, which Harper insisted was a misnomer because there were not cuts – just changes coming down the road. Peggy Nash asked a pair of questions about changes to the labour code, to which Tony Clement first gave a bland non-answer about respecting taxpayers and fair changes, before Lisa Raitt answered the supplemental about how these changes gave clear deadlines for payments for employees where they didn’t exist previously. Bob Rae was then up, asking a pair of questions relating to the AG’s report, wondering why our Cyber-security response centre couldn’t be staffed 24/7, to which Harper insisted that they were making investments in cyber-security and had accepted the Auditor General’s recommendations. For his final question, Rae asked about the Correctional Investigator’s report on the skyrocketing number of aboriginal women in prisons, but Harper’s response wasn’t terribly edifying.
Roundup: No information on the cuts
Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page can’t get any information on government cuts, and feels the government is deliberately keeping people in the dark. Pat Martin says that the government should provide the PBO with the information so that MPs know what they’re voting on. Or, you know, MPs could compel the production of papers using the powers they already have and demand to know for themselves rather than involving a middleman like the PBO.
The NDP have agreed to wrap up the committee hearings into the Auditor General’s report on the F-35 procurement process because they heard from the witnesses they wanted to during their Potemkin committee hearing in the summer. You know, the one that’s not official, and not on the record? Good job.