The Conservatives are vehemently denying that there is a “secret” party fund in the PMO as CBC has reported – that there is only one party fund, and that the party uses it to reimburse the Prime Minister’s expenses when he engages in party business. Thomas Mulcair himself decided to show up for the first question in Friday QP – something he has never done – as a kind of stunt to impress upon the public as to just how big of an issue this “secret fund” is, even though party funds are not government operations and therefore not the domain of QP. (CBC is standing by their story, for the record). In fact, all parties pay for their leaders’ partisan activities, yet questions remain as to whether or not Nigel Wright had access to it as Chief of Staff. Senator Hugh Segal, who was Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s Chief of Staff between 1992 and 1993, said that in his day, they would simply bill the Fund or the Party for the expenses, not draw the funds directly.
Tag Archives: Canadian Forces
Roundup: Treating LeBreton with justifiable suspicion
As expected, Marjorie LeBreton tabled her motion to call in the Auditor General to conduct a “comprehensive audit” of the Senate and senators’ expenses. So far so good. The Liberal senators said that sure they’d support it – when it comes up for debate. You see, the Senate rules say that motions need 24 hours before they can be debated unless they get unanimous consent to bypass said rule – and the Liberals weren’t going to give it, because they wanted time to study said motion. It’s pretty vague, and nobody knows what a “comprehensive” audit entails, or even if the AG’s office is able to handle it. But oh, the Conservatives cried – the Liberals are trying to block it! Um, no – they’re just following the rules, and they’re justifiably suspicious of anytime LeBreton tries to push things through with unanimous consent – like the Duffy audit report. Turns out it was hiding all kinds of goodies that the media ferreted out, and that report got sent back to the committee in that rather exciting evening when Duffy got tossed under a bus. Had LeBreton gotten her way and passed the reports unanimously in one fell swoop, well, that may not have happened. Senator Cowan, the Liberal Senate leader, is also concerned that LeBreton is trying to use the AG as another distraction from the ClusterDuff questions, since none of their new rules or the AG would have stopped the whole issue of Wright writing the cheque to Duffy in the first place. Cowan explains more about the dynamics here.
QP: Another worthy Tuesday
It was a Tuesday with all of the leaders back in the House and ready to face off once again. Before the show could get started, things took a brief pause so that the newest Liberal MP, Yvonne Jones, could be brought before the bar and be given the chance to take her seat for the first time (which she got a bit sidetracked with, trying to go to shake hands with the Speaker and much laughter ensued). Thomas Mulcair started QP off with the prosecutorial style questions again, asking about Senator LeBreton saying that Harper had dealt with the Wright matter on the 14th and not the 15th as Harper had previously stated. Harper responded by saying he had been clear that he found out on the 15th, and that Mulcair said in 2010 that he didn’t know anything about Quebec corruption. Mulcair then asked when Harper had first spoken to Duffy about his expenses, to which Harper said that they had spoken after caucus that one Wednesday in February, and that he told him to repay any improper expenses. Mulcair asked when he ordered the rest of the caucus to repay their expenses, and who in his staff was present, but Harper kept going back to the fact that he was clear about insisting that improper expenses be repaid — and you sat on corruption allegations. Justin Trudeau was up next, and asked for the reason that Nigel Wright gave him for writing that cheque. Harper repeated the tale that Wright wanted to ensure that taxpayers were reimbursed, and tried to insist that Liberal senators were resisting calling in the Auditor General — a falsehood, as Senate rules dictate that all motions need 24 hours’ notice, and it was only tabled today. Thus, they’ll discuss the motion tomorrow, per the rules. Trudeau tried to ask why Duffy was so special — was it because of his status as a high-profile party fundraiser? Harper’s response didn’t change.
Roundup: Call in the Auditor General!
Today in ClusterDuff reverberations, we hear that the Government Leader in the Senate, Marjorie LeBreton, wants to call in the Auditor General to do a full comprehensive audit of Senators’ expenses, not just the systems and administration audit that he did in 2012. There have been concerns in the past that the AG, being an officer of parliament, would be in a kind of conflict auditing his own bosses, but we’ll see if those remain. LeBreton didn’t consult with the opposition about the motion, but the Liberals have since said sure – but audit the Commons’ expenses in as comprehensive manner as well. And the Government Whip, Gordon O’Connor, doesn’t sound like he’s too keen about that idea, pretending that the last AG audit into systems and administration on the House side was “comprehensive” (which it wasn’t). There are also questions as to whether the AG’s office is set to handle this kind of forensic audit, or if it wouldn’t be better to send it to an outside firm with that kind of expertise. Elsewhere, Senator Tkachuk says that they will be setting up a permanent audit subcommittee for the Senate, but they are still discussing whether or not it will have outside members (such as what Senator McCoy suggested, as they do in the House of Lords).
QP: Half points for effort
Monday in the Commons, and there were few leaders in the House — just Elizabeth May and Thomas Mulcair. Mulcair kept up with this short questions, asking first the date in which the Prime Minister spoke with Mike Duffy about his expenses. Baird gave a packaged talking point about how Harper insisted that Duffy repay any improper expenses. Mulcair then asked whether Senator LeBreton recused herself from cabinet discussions involving Senate expenses (though I’m not sure why she would, but whatever). Baird returned to the talking points about how Harper learned about the deal on the morning of the 15th. When Mulcair asked about Senators being paid for campaigning, Baird said that all campaign expenses were paid from by party funds. Megan Leslie was up next, more questions on the expenses, to which Baird gave the same talking point about repaying expenses and hey, Mulcair sat on that bribe allegation for 17 years. Bob Rae was up for the Liberals and asked why not simply call one public inquiry than to have the several separate private enquiries currently going on with regards to the Wright-Duffy affair. Baird touted the Accountability Act, and hey, your caucus has a Senator with an offshore tax haven (which is of course false).
Roundup: The moral panic of campaigning Senators
The Toronto Star has a look at Senators who were reimbursed by various campaigns for work they did during the last election, which seems a bit curious because it’s not unusual that Senators campaign – they just can’t bill the Senate for those expenses, as Mike Duffy did. Not that it’s stopped the NDP from making a giant fuss about it, as though it’s a bad thing that party members help out in a campaign. “Oh, but they shouldn’t campaign at all!” they cry. “They’re on the taxpayer’s payroll!” Um, so are MPs, who also fundraise and do campaign activities outside of writ periods of all sorts. And some of them go to fundraisers while they should be in Ottawa as the House is sitting. And leaders? Well, they’re the worst when it comes to missing House duty for fundraisers and campaigning. They’re also on the public dime. It’s a kind of hypocritical and nonsensical argument that seems to ignore the fact that *gasp!* senators are also party members and partisans! You know, the way our system of government works, where you have governing and opposition parties in both chambers! In other words, the NDP is trying to create a moral panic, which should be paid little heed unless it can be proved that any of the Senators who campaigned billed the Senate for their expenses. And I have little doubt that none of them other than Duffy – and possibly Pamela Wallin – did.
Roundup: Fun with the non-census numbers
It’s time for census National Household Survey data! So many things to talk about – starting with the reminder that the quality of this data is not as good as that of other years thanks to the fact that it isn’t as methodologically sound and full of sample bias, they’re now going to charge for the data that used to be free, and a few other facts about how it was collected. Here’s a look at the top line numbers. A lot of the data in this release was about religious demographics – more people without religion (now the second-highest group in the country), more Muslims as they are the fastest-growing religious group, and fewer people who listed “Jedi.” There was also a lot of data on Aboriginals, who were one of the fastest growing segments of the population, but they are also losing touch with their native languages, and more of them are growing up in foster care. Our immigrant population has surged, and we now have the highest percentage in the G8. Some small towns in the Conservative heartland were pretty much wiped out of the reporting because people simply did not reply. Economist Stephen Gordon is less than impressed by the quality of the data, and questions who will find it usable.
Roundup: Good little grumbling soldiers
Some Conservative MPs are grumbling because they’ve been good little soldiers and submitted their names to the speaking list, and when those “rogue” MPs stand up and get recognised instead, they feel put out. Aww, the poor dears. Never mind that we should abolish the lists entirely and make MPs stand up and actively participate rather than follow up and read prepared speeches into the record in faux debate like good little drones, as what our parliament has degraded to. If the poor dears have something that needs to be said, they can stand up too and hope to be recognised.
Roundup: Charitable travel expenses
As it happens, charities like World Vision and Engineers Without Borders have been using their funds to send MPs on trips to regions that they’re assisting. Rather than, you know, spending those thousands of dollars on their projects to help the poor and needy in developing countries. This isn’t to say that the MPs are being improper, or that they’re using the trips as some kind of vacation because let’s face it – nobody could argue that case at all. But it does remind us that there are reasons why we should give MPs travel budgets so that they can do trips like this in the service of their duties, rather than forcing charities to pay for it, or for them to take trips from foreign or corporate interests. Of course, any travel that does happen gets people like the Canadian Taxpayers Federation in a big twist because OMG taxpayers’ hard earned dollars are supporting MPs on foreign travel isn’t that just horrible and awful! Erm, except that if we expect them to learn about their files and the policies they’re legislating on – and that can mean more than just the MPs on the foreign affairs committee – then we should also realise that we should be able to pay for it too.
Roundup: Meet the new Bank of Canada Governor
In a somewhat surprising move, the Bank of Canada has named Stephen Poloz as its new governor, and not Tiff Macklem, as had long been speculated. Poloz, who was most recently the head of Export Development Canada, has worked at the Bank of Canada in the past, but at the press conference yesterday, Mark Carney stressed that it’s a team effort at the Bank, so Macklem will still play a role, and so on. Maclean’s gives you the ten things you need to know about Poloz, John Geddes writes about what we’ll miss about Carney, and John Ivison writes about Poloz’s challenge of working with the government’s agenda.