After a bout of procedural shenanigans and two separate time allocation votes in the Commons, Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand spoke to the Commons Procedure and House Affairs committee, giving his assessment of the Fair Elections Act. He has a couple of major concerns – the lack of powers to compel testimony, the loss of the vouching system and the likelihood that it will disenfranchise voters, and inadequate paperwork filed by candidates who get their refunds nevertheless. He spoke about the privacy concerns over turning over the lists of who actually voted over to the parties, who have zero legislated privacy safeguards, and said that the fears of voter information cards to commit fraud is a lot of sound and fury over nothing as most of the errors recorded were procedural and not substantive. In case you couldn’t guess, Pierre Poilieve shrugged off most of the whole appearance, and tried to claim that Mayrand made a number of factual errors.
Tag Archives: Corrections
QP: The Great Prairie Grain Crisis
As the sitting week winds down in advance of the two-week March break, there was a definite feel of that very same happening in the House. Thomas Mulcair, the only leader present, led off by asking about the bottleneck of grain shipments on the prairies, for which Pierre Lemieux — a parliamentary secretary and not even a designated back-up PM du jour — assured him that they were working to address the logistics system. Mulcair gave an angry retort and demanded that Lisa Raitt answer the question, but Lemieux repeated his answer as the Conservative benches mocked Mulcair’s angry growl. Mulcair moved to the issue of voter information cards, and Pierre Poilievre listed possible kinds of ID that could be used. Mulcair brought up Marc Mayrand’s concerns about the ability to dress-up campaign advertising as fundraising under the elections bill, but Poilievre reminded him that the NDP leadership allowed the very same thing. Mulcair closed his round by saying that Mayrand demolished their arguments about voter fraud, but Poilievre disputed the factuality of that assertion. Ralph Goodale led off for the Liberals, pointing out a section of the Railway Act that the minister of transport could use to get the grain on the prairies moving, but Lemieux stood up to deliver his same talking points. Goodale turned to the coming drop in funding for the Building Canada Fund, but Denis Lebel insisted that they tripled funding for infrastructure over the ten years.
QP: In the shadow of a Quebec election call
With the election called in Quebec, which will no doubt consume the news cycle for the next six weeks, things carried on here in the Nation’s Capital unabated, despite the added media attention to Quebec MPs and any role that they’ll play. When QP got underway, Thomas Mulcair led off by asking whether Canada would be sending observers to Ukraine along with the Americans and others, to which Harper said that we were, as well as freezing some Russian assets and suspending more bilateral operations. Mulcair asked if Harper had reached out to the IMF, to which Harper said that they had. Mulcair changed topics, and asked about the consultations on the elections bill. Harper expressed his disappointment in the NDP’s opposition to the bill (err, kind of their job, you know). Mulcair said that the partisan tactics around the bill were unprecedented (um, not sure about that), to which Harper reminded him that they opposed the bill without reading it. For his last question, Mulcair asked about the lack of sanctions against Brad Butt for his “mis-speaking,” but Harper shrugged it off, saying that Butt had apologised of his own volition. Dominic LeBlanc led for the Liberals, and asked if elections observers would, be sent to Ukraine, and Baird indicated that we would be. LeBlanc turned to the decrease in funding from the Building Canada Fund, to which Denis Lebel insisted that the fund was $70 billion over ten years.
Roundup: Inconvenient evidence
When asked about why his concern over the “stagnating” middle class and how it doesn’t fit with the trend lines in the data, Justin Trudeau said that he’s looking at the data since the 1980s – just before two massive recessions – and cited that ESDC report that said that the middle class dream is “more myth than reality.” It certainly raises questions about the supposed commitment to evidence-based policy when it doesn’t fit with the narrative that they’ve decided to fight the next election on.
Roundup: Petty politics over Ukraine
Cheap partisan point scoring ruled the day on the issue of Ukraine here in the Nation’s Capital as the government decided not to include any opposition MPs in their delegation to meet the country’s interim government. Most galling was the response sent out to media by the PMO – that the NDP “could pick a side” during the protests, and that Justin Trudeau’s comments about Russia “were not helpful” and thus his party had no role on the delegation. Not only that, but James Bezan, one of the two MPs accompanying Baird and Senator Andreychuk as part of the delegation, went on TV to proclaim that it was a “government delegation” – err, except that he and Ted Opitz are backbenchers, and thus not actually part of the government, so that excuse doesn’t fly either. All of which leads to conclude that this is little more than an excuse to play domestic politics with a serious international issue. Well done, guys. Well done.
Roundup: Nicholson doubles down
The issue of retired General Andrew Leslie’s moving benefit payment continued on Monday, and perhaps even gained some steam as Rob Nicholson decided to double down on the partisanship, saying that it was indicative of a “Liberal sense of entitlement,” and claimed that Leslie was wrong when he said that he wasn’t aware of how much they totalled. Never mind that Leslie said that it was a private company that dealt with everything, and that the expenses were almost entirely due to real estate fees (which, on a million dollar house, would be close to that $72,000). Oh, and Nicholson also called it moving from “mansion to mansion,” which none of the photos really showed any house too mansion-like. The Auditor General assessed the programme from which he gained this benefit a few years ago, and that if Rob Nicholson wants to turn the blame to anyone, it may be the real estate companies that his department contracts out to. (Also, that if Nicholson thinks that every departing soldier who avails himself of the programme needs to do an independent assessment, he’s asking a lot of said veterans). Thirteen retired generals have made similar intra-city moves in the past few years, which may be prompting the review, but it would take away from the universality of the benefit. One former general used this benefit to move to the UAE – even though he was disgraced and tossed out for having sex with a subordinate. (This is the same former general currently in an Afghan jail over an issue with the private security company he works for). Andrew Cohen dissects the partisan tenor of the attack, and wonders why anyone would want to serve the public if this is the suspicion and abuse they are subjected to.
Roundup: Charges laid against Brazeau and Harb
It has finally happened – charges laid against errant senators. In this case, one count each of fraud and breach of trust against retired senator Mac Harb and suspended senator Patrick Brazeau. (The RCMP said that there wasn’t enough evidence to charge Harb with mortgage fraud, for what it’s worth). Both will appear in court at a later date, and each professes their innocence. And yes, the RCMP are continuing their investigations into the dealings of Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin, so we may yet hear about future charges being laid.
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: Eight years later
Today marks eight years since Stephen Harper and his Conservatives gained power. How the time flies. Chris Hall writes that those years have honed Harper’s survival instincts (which makes all of those articles about Harper stepping down this year, which are still being published, all the more absurd).
Preston Manning launched a new website to promulgate constitutionally unsound and fairytale notions of Senate reform, coupled with an online poll of which “reform” method Canadians would prefer, with the option of abolition also in there. He plans to give the results to Democratic Reform Minister Pierre Poilievre, who will use the unscientific data to make a number of ridiculous Question Period talking points, and our debate on the health of our institutions will be poorer for it.
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.