It’s difficult not to question the logic behind the Conservatives using that supposed threat from al-Shebab against West Edmonton Mall as a party fundraiser/data mining tool, particularly as the blowback starts to affect everyone around it. It defies logic that they tell people to still go shopping there while simultaneously whipping up a panic that they’ll be next on a terrorist hit list – never mind that al-Shebab is pretty marginal as an organisation and has neither the resources nor the reach outside of East Africa, and that by the government whipping up the hysteria around a video by a marginal group like this one, they’re playing right into the terrorists’ game – fomenting terror, no matter what the Conservatives’ objectives are. Meanwhile, merchants suffer – oh, but the fragile economy! – and cheerleader teams are pulling out of the competition being held at said mall, ostensibly because their insurance companies are freaking out (never mind that the very act of cheerleading is more likely to result in death or dismemberment than a terrorist event). If you ask Tim Uppal about it – under whose name this went out – he gives you talking points about the threat of these groups, and as Paula Simons discovered, it’s just talking points rearranged in a different order than his fundraising appeal talking points. Well done there. It’s still too early to tell whether this will in fact blow back on them, but with other conservatives lining up to denounce the move, it’s hard to see how they can continue to justify it without causing even more damage.
Tag Archives: Canadian Forces
Roundup: Deciding on a witness list
We have our preliminary witness list for the C-51 hearings, and lo and behold, none of those four former prime ministers who signed that open letter are on it – and it’s just as well, because if there’s one thing the country doesn’t need, it’s former prime ministers to be arm-chair governing and telling people what to do. Yes, they raised concerns, which is fine, but bringing them to a Commons committee would be little more than an exercise in opposition MPs trying to get them to say how awful the current government is, while the governing party MPs would be doing their best to discount those former prime ministers because of previous scandals, etcetera, etcetera. The only real purpose in having them testify would be for the media circus value, which I’m not sure helps anyone in this situation, and would probably detract from the seriousness of the issues at hand. The same goes for former Supreme Court justices, despite the fact that Justices Arbour and Major are possibilities on the list, though you could maybe convince me about Justice O’Connor – a former Associate Chief Justice of Ontario – to talk about his conclusions from the Arar inquiry, which haven’t yet been addressed. Arar himself is also on the list, as are some former members of SIRC and a few different activists who have concerns of their own, which does the balance the list out so that it’s not just security experts but also those who have civil society concerns. It should be interesting nevertheless, but hopefully they won’t all be crammed onto overstuffed panels where nobody really gets a chance to speak – though that does seem to be the way things go these days.
Roundup: Foolishly demanding Supreme Court intervention
In an attempt to continue to stall having to repay their satellite office expenses, the NDP have taken the incredulous move of demanding that the government refer the matter to the Supreme Court, so that they can decide whether the matter is even justiciable before the NDP’s challenge at the Federal Court goes ahead. Oh, and they’re not going to pay a cent back until they have final say from the courts, and given the pace at which these things happen, it sounds an awful lot like they’re trying to keep putting this off until we’re into the writ period, if not later. More to the point, this is completely crazy and irresponsible because it’s a self-inflected blow to parliamentary sovereignty. Parliament decides its own rules because it’s the body that decides upon the creation of laws in this country, and it has privileges to ensure that it can do so without interference from either the Crown or its agents. What’s worse is how the NDP worded their press release – that they want the Supreme Court “to intervene,” amidst their whinging that this is because the Conservatives and Liberals re being mean to them for partisan reasons – never mind that it was the Clerk who discovered that they broke the rules. The fact that they are wording this in such a way makes it sound like they want the Supreme Court to be the babysitters of Parliament – which is not their job – and furthermore sounds about one step away from them calling on the Queen to intervene for them because they’re not getting their way. It’s political desperation, and it’s a terrible road to start travelling down, to voluntarily start stripping parliament of its privileges because they refuse to own up to their own poor judgement.
@journo_dale @J_Scott_ either the Fed Court has jurisdiction, or not. If they have a strong case at Fed Court, who needs the SCC? And…
— Rob Silver (@RobSilver) February 27, 2015
@journo_dale @J_Scott_ …if they think the Federal Court is going to laugh them out of the room, why won't the SCC do same?
— Rob Silver (@RobSilver) February 27, 2015
https://twitter.com/j_scott_/status/571449661007003649
QP: A Multi-Pronged Action Plan™!
Despite it being a Thursday, the leaders of the two main opposition parties were absent for no apparently reason. Way to show up and do your job guys — especially because the Prime Minister was in attendance. Megan Leslie led off asking about the powers listed in C-51, to which Harper boasted about our existing strong oversight, and accused the NDP of attacking our intelligence agencies. Leslie noted that it has been four years since better oversight was promised and not delivered, but Harper largely repeated his answer. Leslie turned to the topic of missing and murdered Aboriginal women and calling a national inquiry, to which Harper touted their “multi-pronged Action Plan™.” Romeo Saganash asked the same again, to which Kellie Leitch responded about the actions they’re taken, and then Saganash noted that C-51 was unconstitutional because it affects the rights of First Nations to protest. Stephen Blaney stated that peaceful dissent was allowed, and they needed to tackle terrorism. Marc Garneau led off for the Liberals, and noted the poor job market. Harper stood up to insist that their Action Plan™ gets results. Ralph Goodale gave it another go in English, insisting that the government has been a failure when it comes to jobs, to which Harper touted their job creation record. Goodale listed off more damning statements about the job market, but Harper insisted that the vast majority of jobs created were full-time, good paying and in the private sector, while Goodale’s budgets were followed by police investigations.
And for the record, the politically-prompted investigation back in 2005 lasted 15 months + resulted in complete vindication (3/3)
— Ralph Goodale (@RalphGoodale) February 26, 2015
QP: National security and painting a bridge
Despite it being Wednesday, the Prime Minister was absent from QP, meeting with Bill Gates instead. So when Thomas Mulcair led off asking about how much time the public safety committee would get to study C-51, Stephen Blaney responded by hoping they wouldn’t engage in any dilatory actions at said committee. Mulcair wondered if the PM was trying to hide the bill from scrutiny, to which Blaney accused Mulcair of attacking the credibility of CSIS. Mulcair then listed instances of where the RCMP were in the wrong when he meant to give examples of where CSIS broke the law, before asking about the right of dissent in the bill. Mulcair then moved onto the issue of a Quebec City rail bridge, at which point Lisa Raitt reminded him of CN Rail’s responsibilities. Mulcair then moved onto the topic of a funding cut at Marine Atlantic, to which Raitt pointed out that they were returning to their base level of funding after years of increases for revitalisation. Justin Trudeau was up next, asking what the government intended to do on the doctor-assisted dying issue, to which Robert Goguen moaned about how emotional of an issue it was. Trudeau then moved onto the issue of Keystone XL, and if the PM would put a price on carbon to convince the Americans that we are serious about the climate issue. Greg Rickford gave a couple of non sequiturs to slam Trudeau, and insisted it was not an international issue but a domestic American one. Trudeau called it a diplomatic failure, to which Rickford listed off the size of our energy trade.
Roundup: Hurry or not
It’s a curious thing, this notion of political expediency. When it comes to the issue of national security changes, for which you would think the government would want to take the time to get it right considering not only the Charter implications, but also the potential for major embarrassment to a government should things go wrong *cough*Maher Arar*cough* there should be an impetus for some due diligence. Instead, we’re getting word that they want to limit committee study to three days, because gods forbid that they might have to schedule a few extra committee meetings or sit into July to ensure that things happen. Meanwhile, on an issue such as doctor-assisted dying, where there is a ticking clock looming over them, the government instead prefers to push it off to the next parliament, insisting there’s “plenty of time” and don’t worry, they’re “consulting with Canadians” on the subject, which gives one the sense that they’re going to put pretty much as much effort as they did into the recent prostitution law, which is to say that it was a fairly sham process designed to give them a result that they could use to justify a solution that is unlikely to pass a second Charter challenge. Oh, and because they’ll be in a time crunch when they do get around to presenting a bill, it would allow them to insist that they need to use time allocation to ram though a bill without a lot of actual consultation with experts (assuming that the Conservatives form government again). This method of issues management makes no sense, but they apparently are under the impression that it works for them.
QP: Questions on counter-radicalization
Despite it being only a Thursday, attendance in the Commons was already on its way down — Stephen Harper was off in BC, and Justin Trudeau in Toronto. Thomas Mulcair was still present, and led off by asking about the US summit on countering extremism, and wondered where this government’s support for counter-radicalism was, and gave a swipe that the government was anti-Muslim while he was at it. Peter MacKay gave some outrage and said that C-51 was giving tools to prevent terrorism. Mulcair wanted examples on disruption in the bill, to which MacKay insisted that Mulcair was incorrect in his characterisation. Mulcair wondered if the bill would give CSIS the power to investigate environmental groups or First Nations, to which MacKay insisted that Mulcair was simply fear-mongering as the bill specifically prohibits lawful dissent or advocacy. Mulcair changed topics and demanded expadited hearings for EI claimants at the Social Security Tribunal. Pierre Poilievre agreed that the backlog was unacceptable, and noted that his predecessor put in a plan to eliminate the backlog by summer. Mulcair said that was nonsense and decried the number of “Conservative buddies” being appointed to the tribunal, which Poilievre refuted. Dominic LeBlanc led off for the Liberals, denouncing the economic uncertainty of a delayed budget. Andrew Saxton stood up to read some standard talking points about how great the government was doing. Ralph Goodale asked the same again in English, got the same answer.
QP: Telling the truth about the costs in Iraq
Tuesday in a frigid Ottawa, and all of the leaders were present, ready to take on the day. Thomas Mulcair led off, asking about the role of our forces in Iraq, and the their refusal to turn over figures to the PBO about the costs of the mission. Stephen Harper said that they gave the costs — $122 million — and that the NDP hated any money going to the mission. Mulcair asked again in French, got much the same answer, and for the second supplemental, Mulcair changed topics to the definitions of activities that CSIS could disrupt in the new anti-terror legislation. Harper said that Canadians felt these measures were necessary. Mulcair tried again in English, and Harper accused Mulcair of conspiracy theory and black helicopters. Mulcair changed topics yet again, asking about Harper’s comments about Radio-Canada employees hating conservative values. Harper said that he believed the majority of Quebeckers agreed with him, and that the Orange Wave was over. Justin Trudeau was up, and ramped up the language on the questions, accusing the PM of attacking the ethics of CBC/Radio-Canada, to which Harper gave a non sequitur about high taxes and lax terrorism laws. Trudeau turned to the measles epidemic, and wondered why the government was not running any ads on the benefits of vaccination. Harper insisted that the minister of health was clear on the benefits of vaccines, and that vaccines were great.
Roundup: Narrowly avoiding back-to-work bill
It was only the flow of routine proceedings that kept the back-to-work legislation for CP Rail from being tabled yesterday, as the Teamsters ended their strike and announced that they would enter into arbitration with CP. In fact, the government has already put the procedural wheels in motion to limit debate on said legislation to a mere three-and-a-half hours for all stages, but the strike ended a mere half-hour before the actual bill was due to be tabled. So there’s that. I was curious to see how the government was going to get around the whole Supreme Court ruling on the right to strike, but alas, it didn’t see the light of day. This all being said, there were questions being put to the NDP about whether the rail should be considered an essential service because of the way that they have monopolies – particularly in the prairie provinces – but they refused to answer, instead giving yet another paean to workers’ rights. It would be nice if the debate could acknowledge that this is complicated rather than just yelling “fragile economy!” and “workers rights!” at one another the whole time.
QP: New BSE concerns
The benches were pretty empty in the Commons on Monday, and apparently more than a few MPs were snowed in at their local airports, and none of the leaders were present. That meant that David Christopherson led off for the NDP, gruffly worrying about the BSE case in Alberta. Gerry Ritz confirmed that it was found and that they were still investigating. Christopherson wondered about consumer confidence, to which Ritz repeated that they were working with the farm in question and they put money in the budget to advance beef trading, which the NDP opposed. Christopherson then moved onto the back-to-work legislation for CP Rail, and the safety issues around it. Jeff Watson responded with some bog standard talking points about rail safety. Nycole Turmel repeated the questions in French, and Watson repeated his answers in English. Stéphane Dion was up for the Liberals, asking about the infrastructure deficit and the comments made by Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi, and would the government do something about it. Peter Braid gave his standard Building Canada Fund talking points in response. Dion pressed, and Braid repeated his talking points more forcefully. Dion was back up, noting the bulk of the investments were backloaded, but Braid insisted that they were better off than under the Liberals.