Justin Trudeau announced a new advisory council yesterday, co-chaired by MP Marc Garneau and retired General Andrew Leslie, former commander of the Canadian Land Forces Command, and later the author of a report on how to best transform the Canadian Forces in an era of fiscal restraint (most of which has yet to be implemented). Leslie noted that his decision to become a Liberal was cemented last week when Trudeau was the only leader to come out unequivocally against the Quebec Charter of Values, and he certainly puts a big dent in the Conservative claim that the Liberals are bad for the armed forces. Leslie is also considering a run for a seat in the next election, but his high-profile role at this point is a signal that Trudeau is gathering some heavy-weights to his team, which will bolster his credentials in advance of the next election.
Tag Archives: Canadian Forces
Roundup: Flaherty’s EI premium freeze
Jim Flaherty announced a “good news” economic measure of freezing EI premiums for the next three years – you know, like the Liberals have been hounding him to do for the past couple of years. Only, to be clever, the Liberals were calling them “job-killing payroll taxes” either, and despite the freeze, there will still be some rate increases. It also makes one wonder about the utility of the arm’s length board set up to advise on things like rates if the government continues to undermine them and set the rates anyway. Aaron Wherry notes that this was the subject of one of Justin Trudeau’s “crowd-sourced” questions during QP in the spring. When you crunch the numbers, however, the freeze isn’t worth all that much – about $24 per year for the average person, and $340 for the average business.
Roundup: A petulant response to a critical report
In the wake of the that leaked report on the viability of the Sikorsky helicopter project, the government is now making big threatening noises about cancelling the whole thing – because that’s helpful, given that the report’s recommendations are largely about redrafting the structure of the contract in order to make the phase-in of new technology more gradual as part of a development project rather than continuing to treat the choppers as “off-the-shelf,” which they weren’t after this government’s civilian oversight allowed the military to go on a shopping spree of add-ons. Because otherwise, what – they’ll magically be able to find suitable choppers with those very same specifications from another vendor that can be delivered in a short enough time frame to replace the Sea Kings, even though the Sikorsky ones are already now being delivered for training purposes (albeit will with some software and other issues being worked out), and which won’t cost us a tonne more money? This threat makes sense in what reality?
Roundup: A contract flawed from the outset
A leaked government report gives a rather stinging indictment of the Sea King helicopter replacement procurement, calling it flawed from the outset. At the time, the government treated it like they were buying “off-the-shelf” helicopters, but with so many procurements, the military loaded it up with new specifications until it was no longer “off-the-shelf,” but was rather something that should have been treated like an in-development contract. And so we get delays, and penalties, and intransigence. The report recommends re-scoping the contract in order to treat it as an in-development project so that they can start accepting delivery of helicopters and phasing in new features, but there’s no word on if the government will accept this proposal or not, or if they’ll just continue to blame the Liberals for it rather than taking responsibility or action.
Roundup: Senators in defence of their institution
Liberal Senate leader James Cowan penned an op-ed in yesterday’s Chronicle Herald about the work that the Senate does, and the value that it provides to the legislative process in Canada. And it was an excellent read, which I’d highly recommend – it was about time that a senator was so eloquent in the defence of the institution. I do find it curious that so far it seems to be Liberal senators who are doing a disproportionate share of that defence – even though I know plenty of Conservative senators who feel the institution should be left alone (financial controls tightened, of course). Unfortunately, most of the Conservative Senate caucus, if they do speak up, are only sticking to the absurd and disingenuous party line of “the Senate must change or be abolished,” as though any of the proposed reforms would either do anything about the alleged graft of a small number (it wouldn’t), were constitutional (they aren’t), or that they could measurably be said to actually improve the institution (highly debateable, but when you look at the totality of the Senate and its work, the proposed reforms would only serve to create partisan gridlock with 105 new backbenchers for party leaders to control). I have no doubt that they want to keep their heads down because they don’t want to be accused of trying to protect their entitlements, but they’re liable to find that if they don’t speak up for the institution, that they will be the unwitting agents of their own demise, which would be an absolute shame.
Roundup: Votes on Syria and the question of Responsible Government
In the fallout of last Friday’s vote in the British Commons regarding military action in Syria, there are some very serious questions being asked about what it all means. In part, the concerns come from the nature of Responsible Government – if the House has not expressed support for the government’s foreign policy goals, which as a Crown Prerogative – then how can they continue to claim to have confidence in that government? How is foreign policy any different on a substantive level when it comes to the conduct of a government than a budget? Philippe Lagassé and Mark Jarvis debate the issue here, and I’m going to say that I’m on Lagassé’s side with this one – MPs can’t just deny the government the ability to exercise their prerogatives without also taking responsibility for it, meaning declaring non-confidence in the government. It’s not how Responsible Government works, and if they’re going to start changing the conventions of such a system of governance that works really quite well, then they need to think long and hard about the consequences of their actions. But that’s part of the problem – nobody wants to look at how actions affect the system as a whole, rather than simply patting themselves on the back for a nebulous and not wholly correct interpretation of what democracy means. And once people start tinkering with the parts without looking at the whole, then big problems start to happen, which we really should beware of.
Roundup: The annual summer Arctic tour
Stephen Harper is now on his annual summer tour of the Arctic, which he kicked off by slamming the opposition, in an almost verbatim replay of the speech he made at the Calgary Stampede – which could mean we’ll get the same speech for the next two years and throughout the next election, if his propensity for repeated messaging is anything to go by. James Cudmore points out how much politicking goes on during these trips – and one wonders just how much the annual photo that has every element of the Canadian Forces in the same frame will cost us this time – while Michael Den Tandt looks at how much is at stake for Harper, considering that none of his grand plans for the Arctic will come to fruition before the next election. And as part of the Prime Minister’s new social media strategy, in order to try and match Justin Trudeau’s presence, Laureen Harper posts on the PM’s new blog about her Arctic memories. Aww, bless.
Roundup: Digging into Wallin’s expenses
Now that journalists have had a couple of days to really dig into the Wallin audit, they’re starting to turn up all kinds of things. Like how she billed the Senate for some of her activities as Chancellor of Guelph University, while not charging the University as she ordinarily would have. Or how she charged the Senate to attend a couple of functions in her capacity as a director for Porter Airlines – even though it’s part of the director’s remuneration for the airline to pay those costs. Or that she was supposed to attend a function at a Toronto arts club that allegedly had to do with the Afghan mission and was cancelled at the last minute – and yet the arts club has not record of any of this. Glen McGregor even finds that some of her meetings may have constituted lobbying not registered with the Commissioner of Lobbying, because of loopholes in the rules. And then comes the news that Wallin, Mike Duffy and Patrick Brazeau would all have been told that it was okay to bill some partisan activity to the Senate – so long as it was related to Senate business and not a fundraiser – as part of their two-day “boot camp” upon being appointed. Well then, one supposes that it’ll be a good thing that the Auditor General plans to audit all senators’ expenses, though it will need to be done in phases and an interim report may not even be ready for 18 months. Note that the Commons continues to resist bringing in the AG to look at their own books.
Roundup: The premiers take exception
What’s that? Several premiers are taking exception to the federal factum on Senate reform that says that the government can make changes without provincial consent? You don’t say! It’s almost like we’re a federation and that the provinces have as much say in things relating to the constitution as the federal government does. What a novel concept that is!
Access to Information documents show that the government listened primarily to industry stakeholders when it made changes to the Fisheries Act around the protection of fish habitats – not that this should come as any great surprise.
Roundup: Heir to the Canadian throne
So there we have it – a future King of Canada has been born, and everyone’s delighted. No, seriously – everyone, though the NDP’s official statement of “warmest congratulations” was pretty lukewarm. And it was even more disappointing that the official Canadian Crown Twitter account was using the #BritishMonarchy hashtag rather than, you know, the Canadian Monarchy, which this baby is also heir to. Also, it seems that royal babies are good for business. Who knew?
Quebec’s attorney general has decided to weigh in on the challenge of the royal succession bill at the Quebec Superior Court, and he too believes that the provinces have a role in making such a change, as the constitution would otherwise indicate. The federal government says it will fight the challenge, since they would rather let political expedience trump the constitution.