It’s Stampede time in Calgary, and all of the party leaders are headed out there to play the part. Curiously, all of them will be there at the same time rather than spacing their presence out a bit as they have in previous years, and both Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau are putting in appearances in the Stampede Parade. Speaking as a former Calgarian, Stampede is a peculiar kind of phenomenon – long-time Calgarians will try to flee the city for it because it’s so much insanity (much of it alcohol-induced. It’s no secret that post-Stampede you see a spike in sexually transmitted infections, and a baby boom nine months later). But because Calgary is one of those cities with a large in-migration population, it becomes this exercise in conformity, where people will shell out hundreds of dollars in order to get the right wardrobe to participate, and subject themselves to awful country music in order to fit in and show that they’re really Calgarians. It makes for a very interesting political contrast as well – last weekend you most of the party leaders in the Toronto Pride Parade, which is all about diversity and difference (and congratulations to the Conservatives for finally opting to participate this year); this weekend they’re at Stampede, which is about looking the part in order to fit in. Both are seen as necessary stops in order to show themselves off to those different political bases. That each leader gets judged on how well they can dress for Stampede is also an interesting exercise (and a far less forgiving one than the suits that they normally wear). It shows how strange the Canadian political landscape can be, and the summer barbecue circuit – particularly during an election campaign.
Tag Archives: CBSA
Roundup: Farewells and self-awareness
With 54 MPs not running again in the next election, we’re hearing a lot of teary farewells, and a number of them talking about their regrets for all kinds of things, particularly about some of the nastiness and the more toxic aspects of their career in politics. It’s more of what we saw in the Samara Canada series of exit interviews with MPs from previous parliaments, which culminated in the book Tragedy in the Commons, where MPs all bemoaned how terrible it was, and how the parties controlled everything, and how everyone else was nasty and partisan (but not them – even when you pointed to examples where they were engaging in that behaviour). What strikes me is that pretty much no MP you’ll speak to will take any responsibility for their own actions, whether it’s boorish partisan behaviour, letting the leader’s office dictate to them, or as is now commonplace, dutifully reading the scripts that are placed in front of them with no critical capacity to say no, I won’t demean myself in this way. (The obvious exception to all of this is Irwin Cotler, who has been a pretty exemplary class act throughout his time as a parliamentarian, but for pretty much everyone else this applies). When we listen to MPs get all teary and expressing their regrets, we should start asking them why they didn’t do something differently. And that’s really it – we elect MPs directly under our electoral system, and that empowers them to be the masters of their own destiny within the Commons (with the obvious exception of whips on things like confidence votes). They don’t need the Reform Act for things to change – they just need to take responsibility for their own behaviour and act like grown-ups. Sadly, the vast majority don’t and then blame everyone else, which is a sad state of affairs.
QP: A laundry lists of non sequiturs
Caucus Day, and the only other day of the week when we can expect all party leaders to show up — because they’re showing how much Parliament matters. Thomas Mulcair led off, asking where the budget was, to which Stephen Harper read off a laundry list of measures they have already brought forward. Mulcair noted job losses, to which Harper decried NDP tax hikes. Mulcair brought up the Governor of the Bank of Canada’s statement about the state of the economy being “atrocious,” but Harper kept up his same line of answers. Mulcair noted that the costs of our military missions being classified in budget documents, but Harper ignored it and touted their family tax cuts. Mulcair then brought up Jason Kenney’s misleading statements about smart bombs, and Harper again claimed the NDP would take away the family tax cuts, before decrying how awful ISIS is. Justin Trudeau was up next, and noted unemployment figures and demanded a real plan. Harper responded by claiming that the Liberals would also take away the family tax credits. Trudeau gave a jab about spending taxpayer dollars for benefit gain, to which Harper gave a bog standard “$40 million dollars” response before he again claimed the Liberals would take away programmes from Canadians. For his final question, Trudeau asked about partisan advertising, before making a dig another the absent Liberal party platform.
Roundup: A few notes on the Gallery feud
I didn’t really want to wade into this, but I think it bears saying that much of this dispute between Press Gallery members over proposed changes to the constitution is nonsense. There was apparently an incident of harassment against another gallery member, and since it’s not being handled by an employer, it means it was likely allegedly done by a freelancer. Certain paranoid individuals with a grudge against the gallery executive spent the weekend stoking fears that these changes would allow government staffers and MPs to lodge baseless “harassment” complaints against journalists in order to silence or intimidate them – despite the fact that such a supposition would mean that the Gallery’s Board of Directors would be complicit in such actions of silence or intimidation, which defies credulity. Add to all of that, concern trolls over the Twitter Machine fuelled the flames into a full-blown fight, and some of those responsible for fanning the flames are marginal members of the Gallery at best, while members of the general public who’ve decided to weigh in with conspiracy theories that the PMO is trying to manipulate us are just turning this into a gong show. Everyone needs to calm down and trust that the Gallery Directors aren’t out to screw with them, and the concern trolls and Harper haters should probably mind their own business and let the members of the Gallery have their own discussions in a calm and rational manner. I’m sure the AGM on Friday will be interesting, but not if everyone comes into it with it all blown out of proportion in their own minds.
Roundup: No thanks, FactsCan
A new site launched this week called FactsCan, which aims to fact-check claims put out by political leaders and parties as we head toward an election. The organisers like to think that because they’re not filing stories to the 24-hour news cycle that they can spend the time doing this when journalists apparently can’t. It sounds like a laudable goal on the surface, but if you think about it for longer than a few seconds, I’m not exactly convinced of the merits of this programme. For one, journalists are already fact-checking and pointing out blatant falsehoods. All the time. It’s our job. The site talks about offering information “with no BS or alternate agenda.” So, the mainstream media is delivering both? Is that their implication? At least one of the names attached to the project raises a red flag with me, which is someone from Democracy Watch, seeing as that is an organisation that often deliberately distorts the way our democratic system functions and has often given massively inaccurate information about some basic civic literacy concepts in this country – and yet one of their members will be “fact checking.” Okay. What bothers me the most, however, is the funding aspect. This site appears to be trying to do the crowd funding thing, but hey, why not simply pay for your news so that journalists can continue to do this kind of work like we’re supposed to, and so that we won’t have to keep facing newsroom cuts which further impact on our time? They’re also relying on volunteers to help them out, which again impacts on journalists’ livelihoods. If they want the media to do a better job, well, then they can subscribe to a newspaper or two so that we have the resources to do our jobs – not getting others to do it for free.
Roundup: A new posting for Kevin Vickers
House of Commons Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers has been appointed Canada’s new ambassador to Ireland, which seems like a fitting reward for the his heroic actions on October 22nd. Well, once you get past the questions about his diplomatic credentials (not that Ireland is likely to be a posting with actual diplomatic challenges). It also does leave one wondering about what will happen with the ongoing review of security on Parliament Hill in the wake of the shooting, since Vickers will no longer be around to answer questions. His deputy, Pat McDonell, will be assuming his duties for the time being, but if he doesn’t get the job full-time once Vickers is officially gone, it could mean that we might get a female Sergeant-at-Arms, as one of the other deputies who often sits in the chair is a woman. Kady O’Malley rounds up some of the reaction to the news.
Roundup: Reassigning Fantino
In some ways, it was a big surprise because it’s almost – almost – like Stephen Harper was admitting he made a mistake with regards to his choice for veterans affairs minister. But it wasn’t entirely that – just a bit of a shuffling of the deck. Without really summoning press to Rideau Hall yesterday, the PM shuffled Julian Fantino out of Veterans Affairs, and put newcomer Erin O’Toole in his place. But lest you think that Fantino has had his day in cabinet and he can quietly disappear into the backbenches, no – Harper found him a new home. Technically it’s his old home as Associate Minister of Defence, but instead of being on the procurement file, as he was previously, now he’s been charged with Arctic sovereignty, cyber-defence and foreign intelligence. Let’s remember that when Fantino was previously on that job, he had the F-35 fiasco blowing up around him. Then Veterans Affairs fell apart around him when he was in that portfolio. And if his lack of interpersonal skills was a big part of the failure at Veterans Affairs, he’s going to be in charge of a fairly diplomacy-heavy role with Arctic Sovereignty? Really? Same thing with foreign intelligence and CSE. You want a notoriously poor communicator to deal with those questions? Really? (My other thought is about what this says about confidence in the abilities of Rob Nicholson if the PM need to split off some of his duties to hand them over to an Associate Minister). As for the veterans file, it’s going to be an uphill battle for O’Toole, who is an immeasurably better communicator than Fantino or his parliamentary secretary, Parm Gill, ever were, but he’s still constrained by the policy of the day, and the spending restraints that the government has imposed across the board. Sure, he may be able to communicate better and maybe not alienate his stakeholders to the same extent that Fantino did, but if he can’t really change what’s really ailing the department, it is likely to just be a fresh coat of paint and little else. Paul Wells shares a few thoughts about what the PM might have been thinking.
So some poor sap at Langevin gets to dig up the microtapes to revert the M-4 Unit to his previous Associate Defence Minister programming?
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) January 5, 2015
One does suppose that a duotronic computer system like the M-4 Unit might be well placed to deal with information security. #Fantino
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) January 5, 2015
Just think of all the new talking points that the M-4 Unit will have to upload to his duotronic databanks. #Fantino
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) January 5, 2015
Roundup: Raising the spectre of domestic terror
It was an odd event yesterday – a Conservative MP asking the PM during Question Period to respond to “unconfirmed reports” to a domestic terrorism link to a hit-and-run case in Quebec involving two members of the Canadian Forces, where the suspect was shot and later died. It was only hours later that the RCMP released a brief statement that the suspect was known to them, and that he may have been radicalised. It’s still early days in the investigation, but one wonders if it’s perhaps too soon to suddenly believe we have ISIS cells operating in Canada, and that this wasn’t an isolated incident where one individual who, by all accounts, was a recent convert for whatever reason, and decided to act on the vague ISIS threats that were made public in media reports. I guess time will tell, but expect the government to start using this incident as justification for greater counter-terror legislation. At the same time as this story was breaking, the Director of Operations of CSIS was at a Senate committee, saying that they do the best they can with prioritizing their investigations, but can’t cover every base because of budget limitations. Duly noted.
Roundup: Assisted suicide heads to the SCC
With the Supreme Court challenge to assisted suicide laws heading to the Supreme Court tomorrow, here’s a look at some of the other countries’ laws in that regard. Carissima Mathen gives us a primer on the assisted suicide case going before the Supreme Court this week.
QP: Major network censorship!
Despite it being a Thursday, none of the major leaders were present in the Chamber for QP. Yay accountability! Megan Leslie kicked off by asking about radicalized Canadians who were not stopped before they left the country. Stephen Blaney said that there were 63 investigations underway covering over 100 individuals, and why didn’t the NDP support their anti-terrorism legislation. Leslie asked why they were relying on US intelligence for these radicals, but Blaney gave a non sequitur about supporting the mission in Iraq. Leslie turned to the Ebola crisis, to which Rona Ambrose assured her of all the ways in which Canada was contributing. Libby Davies carried on asking about the Ebola vaccine and reiterated the tale of the intellectual property concerns, but Ambrose assured her that the supply that was given to the WHO did not have those concerns and it was up to them to decide what to do with it. Davies quoted a WHO release stating that the commercializations of the vaccine was held by that U.S. company. Ambrose, somewhat exasperated, insisted that they were two completely different issues, and the intellectual property on the donated doses belonged to Canada. Ralph Goodale asked about the plans to stuff things like copyright changes into the budget bill. Kevin Sorenson insisted that Goodale wait until the bill was tabled. Goodale blasted the plans to change those copyright plans so that news clips can freely been used in political ads, calling it “expropriation without compensation.” Shelly Glover said she wouldn’t comment on rumours or speculation, but gave an excuse about networks censoring content. No, seriously. The round closed with Dominic LeBlanc giving the same question in French, and Glover repeating as well.