Tag Archives: Charles and Camilla

Roundup: Victoria Day Diamond Jubilee Royal Tour Edition

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Happy Victoria Day, everyone! Be sure to raise a glass in honour of Victoria, the first Queen of Canada, as well as in honour of the official birthday of Her Majesty Elizabeth II, the present Queen of Canada. In case you didn’t realise, Victoria Day is actually a distinctly Canadian holiday not celebrated by anyone else.

Speaking of the Canadian royal family, Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, have arrived and begin their brief royal tour in New Brunswick today, before heading to Toronto later on for the Victoria Day fireworks there.

Thomas Mulcair, digging his heels in on the “Dutch disease” issue, declares that this will be the defining issue for the next election. You know, not a scandal-plagued and incompetent government with heavy-headed and dictatorial tendencies, but something that the Conservatives can rouse their Western base about, along with any other region that is involved in resource extraction. That’s tactical genius at work.

Voter-identification robo-calls have already started in Etobicoke Centre, and the by-election hasn’t even been called yet. Because apparently it’s never too early to get started on this kind of work. Meanwhile, Pundit’s Guide breaks down the riding’s recent electoral history and the dynamics at play.

Peter MacKay indicates that we won’t be extending our current training mission in Afghanistan.

Instead of providing a reasonable explanation why Environment Canada was dumping a bunch of office furniture rather than recycling it, Peter Kent’s office decided to go the route of blaming the media and calling the story “false.” Transparency and accountability, everyone!

Here’s a strange little tale about mysterious Canadian bank accounts in Liechtenstein.

And Lisa Raitt is cautioning CP Rail to think twice about striking. Because she’s apparently not afraid to drop the hammer – again.

Roundup: Null and void

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The results of the last federal election in Etobicoke Centre were declared null and void by an Ontario court yesterday after the judge found there to be enough improper votes cast to overturn the results. The Conservatives have eight days to file an appeal – which would go directly to the Supreme Court in an expedited process – before a by-election needs to be called. While Borys Wrzesnewskyj insists that there was voter suppression in his riding, this was not the basis of the results being overturned, but rather, because Elections Canada officials and the volunteers at the polling stations didn’t follow rules. This does raise the issue of the kind of training that volunteer and scrutineers receive, and what happens when people get lazy, take shortcuts, and don’t follow rules properly. (And yes, the Conservatives have put out talking points that they followed the rules but this is an Elections Canada issue).

While it’s not related to the Etobicoke Centre decision, Elections Canada will soon be receiving a report on the Guelph robo-calls.

What’s that? The Conservatives refuse to release the draft report they prepared in 2007 on pension sustainability? You don’t say! But Finance officials have finally confirmed that the OAS changes are expected to save the treasury about $10.8 billion – even though both ministers refuse to.

Uh oh – it looks like Alberta is going to miss its emissions reduction targets, and that its already dubious carbon-capture-and-storage scheme is falling off the rails. But at least it’s prompting a review of said programmes, right?

Economist Stephen Gordon further problematises the “Dutch disease” rhetoric, and throws in what some of the environmental arguments would mean if they were equally applied to the manufacturing sector. Meanwhile, it turns out that Industry Canada funded their own study into the phenomenon a couple of years ago and found some correlation, but the government of course is distancing itself from it.

There will be another vacancy on the Supreme Court by August. I’m guessing that means September special Parliamentary hearings, unless we’re really lucky and get “emergency” ones in the summer.

The costs of the restoration of buildings in the Parliamentary Precinct continues to rise, but we all know that over time and over budget is part of our proud Canadian heritage.

Here’s a look at the impacts on Canadian archaeology that the cuts to Parks Canada are going to have.

Prince Charles writes about service in a nod to the Diamond Jubilee and his upcoming visit to Canada.

And Scott Brison has a little bit of fun at the expense of the “nude Stephen Harper” painting.

Roundup: Illegitimate workloads

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MPs are starting to grumble that cuts to the public service are dumping more workload on their offices, while their own budgets are being frozen and scaled back. This is worrying for one very basic reason – that this kind of work isn’t actually an MP’s job. Yes, constituency work has evolved as a means of serving the community and basically showing that they deserve to be re-elected. But it’s not their job. Their job is to hold the government to account, and to do that by controlling the public purse. That means scrutinising the estimates and the public accounts. But along the way, this kind of public service ombudsman role became attached to them, until it’s become the norm for certain departments not to touch a file until the MPs office pushes it forward, and that, my friends is a big problem and it’s something that needs for the person up top to put their foot down, starting with the Clerk of the Privy Council. If, as Bennett alleges in this article, people are just being told to go to their MPs office, then it’s a gross breach of the duties of the public service, and it should be called out.

The government has decided to remove the internal auditors of at least four regional development agencies in favour of letting the Office of the Comptroller General do said audit work. The complication? That the Comptroller General’s budget has also been slashed. Oversight! Accountability! Transparency! Meanwhile, here is a look at the other departments being faced with cuts as of yesterday’s announcements.

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