With less than two hours to go before the budget is released, and a number of the seats in the Commons remained empty, but all three main leaders were present. Thomas Mulcair led off by asking if the Prime Minister would remove the “gag order” from the the elections bill, to which Harper assured him that there was no such provision in the bill, but several sections that require him to act. Mulcair insisted that no, his reading was correct, and Harper assured him that there was no orchestrated fraud in the last election, but for the next election there would be an independent investigator. Mulcair asked about a section of the bill that doesn’t count communication with past donors, and Harper insisted that party fundraising shouldn’t be included as political communications. Mulcair hammered away at that, but Harper insisted that the only cheating was the NDP using union money. Mulcair closed off with a question of robocalls in the last election — ostensibly party business — but Harper didn’t bite. Justin Trudeau was up next, and asked about the lapsing Labour Market Agreements, but Harper insisted that his government invested in job training programmes. Trudeau wanted an assurance that this year, the government wouldn’t start advertising any proposed budget measures that hadn’t yet passed, especially during the Olympics. Harper responded with a jab that the Liberals didn’t have any policies worth advertising.
Tag Archives: Coast Guard
Roundup: The House returns, 2014 edition
The House is back today! Yay! Oh, how I’ve missed you, MPs. Well, most of you, anyway. You can pretty much expect to hear talk on rail safety, Canada Post, more about the unanswered questions of the Senate scandals, and the budget within a couple of weeks (which sounds like will be a lot about damage control from last year’s budget). In fact, we could see a renewed push on the Senate issue if the Auditor General does release an interim report on his audit of the Senate’s financial controls this week as expected. Peter MacKay is also going to have a busy year with having to craft new laws around prostitution, and deal with the Supreme Court case on assisted suicide. Michael Den Tandt says to expect more of the same.
Roundup: The million-dollar shot
The crass politicking of Harper’s trip to Israel was laid bare yesterday with an incident at the Western Wall when Conservative MP Mark Adler was caught on tape haranguing a PMO staffer about getting past the security line to get a photo with Harper at the wall. “It’s the million dollar shot,” he complained, and reminded him of the re-election coming up. Adler, as it happens, has a large Jewish vote in his riding, and he narrowly took the long-held Liberal seat, so he has reason to be worried. But that said, it demonstrates just how much this trip is more about domestic politics than it is about an actual commitment to international engagement in the region. Speaking of those domestic politics, an anti-gay pastor is a member of the Harper delegation. Naturally. And then there’s the question of Canada’s position on the settlements, to which Harper said our position is well known – that we’re opposed to them – but refused to articulate it, saying instead that he wasn’t going to “single out” Israel for criticism.
Roundup: No plan B
The country needs a new computer programme to deal with Employment Insurance claims, and Shared Services Canada and Employment and Social Developmemnt have until 2016 to do it – leaving almost no time to address any inevitable problems once they procure and install said new system, and more ominously, their presentation says, “there is no Plan B.” Missing that deadline means an escalation of costs, and I’m sure a whole host of other problems with the EI programme as a whole. But hey, it’s not like this government has ever had problems with procurements, and there has never been a boondoggle around new software before, right? Oh, wait…
Roundup: Mulcair the optimist
Despite his less than stellar polling figures – which he assured us that he does read – Thomas Mulcair says that he’s confident and that he’s got the experience to be the next PM, unlike a certain Liberal leader, whom he characterised as “he’s highly scripted and then he goes off-script.” Erm, he’s not really that highly scripted. Far less scripted than Mulcair himself tends to be, unless he’s banished the years of mini-lectern-on-the-desk QPs down the memory hole already. Also, it’s funny that Mulcair talks of Trudeau’s gaffes when he’s had a few of is own as well *cough*Osama bin Laden*cough*.
Peter Julian wants Commons security to check their cyber-security after media reports that the private company that provides its encryption software took money from the NSA in order to build a backdoor for access.
Roundup: The judge and his hockey pedigree
Justice Marc Nadon appeared before MPs yesterday afternoon as part of the meet-and-greet exercise that serves as a not-really-confirmation-hearing as part of the consultation process for judicial nominees that the government put into place. In a series of softball questions – which are all that are allowed – we learned a bit about Nadon, which seemed to be a lot about hockey. Apparently we now need to establish someone’s hockey pedigree before we can appoint them to a major office, if His Excellency David Johnston, Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz and Justice Nadon are anything to go by. Also, Nadon claims to have been “drafted” by the Detroit Red Wings when he was 14, though there is no record of this, and makes one wonder if he chose the wrong word, or if he remembers things a little more glorified than they really were. Regardless, any attempt to get an insight into his judicial thinking was rebuffed, so we were left with another round of questions that would have only been improved if one MP had bothered to ask Nadon which Spice Girl he would be if he could be a Spice Girl. (Incidentally, those demanding that MPs have a more active role in the final decision should also remember that in our system of Responsible Government, the accountability for appointments rests with the PM so that he can be held to account – either at the ballot box or by maintaining the confidence of the House – as giving MPs that power would muddy the accountability). Over at CTV, there is a clip of law professor Carissima Mathen explaining her reservations about the way the government has been making their Supreme Court appointments. Irwin Cotler, who began the process of opening up the Supreme Court nomination process to outside scrutiny, writes about the problems with this particular appointment process – especially the timelines laid out by the government.
Roundup: Project Amble under way
The RCMP’s investigation into Senators Mike Duffy and Mac Harb has been dubbed Project Amble, apparently, and they’ve seized documents related to twelve election campaigns that Duffy was involved in, and according to court documents, they appear to be pursuing charges related to breach of trust – which is an indictable offence. And if you’re wondering about “Project Amble,” here’s a look into how the Toronto Police Service comes up with their operation names (not that it’s too illuminating).
On top of that, Liberal Senator Céline Hervieux-Payette has asked that the Senate Ethics Officer look into the conduct of Conservative Senator Pierre-Hughes Boisvenu, after he’s been trying to arrange for additional benefits for his former girlfriend/assistant after she got a new job in a Senate administration office. Hervieux-Payette asserts that the former assistant shouldn’t even be working in the Senate because of the relationship, and that he’s trying to get her additional benefits is a breach of ethics, and because nobody would speak up, she wants the investigation launched to protect the integrity of the institution.
QP: Reese Witherspoon and PM Trudeau
After Thomas Mulcair’s Reese Witherspoon moment this morning, a few Conservative MPs had “Stop Mulcair” signs at their desks, no doubt intending to make a big joke of it despite the prohibition against props in the Chamber. And joke they did, all through Members’ Statements and QP. Mulcair did not turn up for QP, and left it up to David Christopherson to shout his script about the $90,000 cheque Nigel Wright wrote. James Moore ignored the question, and went on a diatribe about the NDP believing that they’re above the law, with running stop signs and his MPs not paying their taxes. As Christopherson carried on shouting through his script, Moore carried on going about how Mulcair didn’t have the temperament to lead the country. Megan Leslie was up next and asked the same questions in French, James Moore kept up with his same swipes against Mulcair. Justin Trudeau was up next, and kept up with the questions on the cheque from Wright. Moore started by saying that it was a personal cheque so they didn’t have access go it, before going on to give a swipe about Senator Mac Harb. When Trudeau asked which sections of the Criminal Code the RCMP were investigating Wright. Moore said that the RCMP conduct their own affairs, and returned to swipes against Harb.
QP: Scurrilous accusations of the Other Place
With the March For Life having left the lawn outside the Hill, and Mark Warawa having won his little victory by making a statement on female “gendercide” in the House, Question Period got started with Thomas Mulcair reading a question on whether the government would back the NDP’s opposition day motion on the improperly reported $3.1 billion in anti-terrorism funds. Harper got up and calmly reminded him that the Auditor General himself said the money was not misspent, and they will follow through on improving their reporting on the future. Mulcair then turned to the issue of the Senate audits and made a number of scurrilous accusations about the character of the Other Place. Harper said that the external auditors found ambiguities in the rules but that the Senate expected better of its members and they would be repaying the money owed. For his final question, Mulcair asked about a woman who was denied benefits while she received treatment for breast cancer while on maternity leave. Harper said that they recently changed the rules in order to ensure that these instances wouldn’t happen again. For the Liberals, Dominic LeBlanc asked about the government’s wasteful spending on ads and media monitoring instead of youth summer jobs. Diane Finley rose to take that question, and rejected the premise, and touted the launch of the Canada Summer Jobs programme. Ralph Goodale was up next, asking the same in English — and got the very same response. For his final question, Goodale asked about the demise of the long-form census, noting that some small towns were wiped out because of insufficient data. Christian Paradis responded with the red herring about a larger sample size ignoring the actual statistical invalidity of much of the data.
QP: Billions in non sequiturs
Despite it being only a Thursday, Elizabeth May was the only leader in the House. Harper wasn’t even present for the many self-congratulatory Members’ Statements about the second anniversary of the “strong, stable, national majority Conservative government.” In the absence of Thomas Mulcair, it was up to Libby Davies to read off a pair of questions about the improperly tracked $3.1 billion in anti-terrorism funds, to which James Moore, the designated back-up PM du jour, read off the Auditor General’s assurances that the money was not actually misspent. Davies moved onto the topic of search and rescue and threw in a mention for the need to reopen the Kitsilano Coast Guard station. Moore insisted that they were making investments and changes to the system as evidenced by this morning’s announcement. Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe repeated the same in French — without a script — the twist being about the Quebec City substation (MacKay: We are making these necessary investments; Clement: The AG stated that there was no evidence of misspending). For the Liberals, Bob Rae led off — and got a round of applause from the Conservative benches for it — and asked about the “stealth campaign” of raising taxes, be they payroll or tariffs. Moore insisted that it was a ridiculous question, and lauded the many ways in which the government has lowered taxes. For his final question, Rae asked about withdrawals from the Interparliamentary Union, to which Moore replied that there was no withdrawal on the world stage.