Tag Archives: CSIS

Roundup: The political theatre of ankle monitors

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Despite a pilot project showing that they didn’t really work as well as they’d hoped, Corrections Canada is nevertheless going forward with rolling out more anklet monitors for parolees. But it’s the sense of security that someone is keeping an eye on these offenders that’s important – right? So long as they look like they’re doing something, no matter that what they’re actually doing isn’t working is what’s really important, no? That bit of political theatre is pretty much the hallmark of their justice agenda.

Michael Petrou at Maclean’s tries to sort out the business of whether or not we’re giving aid dollars to Syrian rebels. Meanwhile, Canadian Relief For Syrian are still trying to figure out what happened on the government’s end.

Andrew Mitrovica takes on Chuck Strahl’s responses about his new role as the chair of the Security and Intelligence Review Committee, and pretty much calls him out for being a government lapdog and not someone who will be an effective watchdog of CSIS.

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Roundup: Memorising all of your lines

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Peter Penashue demonstrates that he’s memorised all of his lines when it comes to any question asked of him, no matter it actually is. Seriously, he’ll give you the same answer every single time. Shades of the repetitive Ed Miliband interview, and further proof that certain members of the Harper cabinet could be replaced by robots and nobody would be any the wiser. Meanwhile, Kady O’Malley looks into the donations to Penashue’s rather stagnant riding association.

Public Works is looking for an outside auditor to review the ongoing construction projects within the Parliamentary precinct, but nobody quite knows why.

There is another public spat brewing in the RCMP over the changes being made to the Force.

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Roundup: Farewell to a needed watchdog

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The former Inspector General of CSIS is decrying the dismantling of her former office, saying that the job of keeping an eye on CSIS from the inside, full-time, simply cannot be done by the Security and Intelligence Review Committee, and denied that there was any duplication of efforts (thus blowing away another of the talking point justifications for axing the office). But hey, why do we need someone to watch the watchmen? It’s not like we have anything to worry about – right?

Elections Canada’s investigators have traced alleged robo-call organiser “Pierre Poutine” as far an on open WiFi connection, where the trail grows cold.

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Roundup: Harper’s lowered expectations

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Apparently Stephen Harper avoids First Ministers meetings in order to keep expectations low and appear to be over-performing. Good to know. And suddenly I’m reminded of these old MadTV sketches. Seems rather apropos.

The Canadian Forces wants to spend a billion dollars on armed drones. Considering their recent track record when it comes to procurement, and the fact that we still don’t actually have any kind of white paper or policy direction when it comes to what our Forces are supposed to be doing and what roles they’re supposed to be filling, um, perhaps we should get on that first, before we spend a billion-plus dollars on drones that we might not actually need, no? Just saying.

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Roundup: Leadership on healthcare

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Day two of the Council of the Federation meeting in Halifax yesterday, and the topic was healthcare – specifically the report prepared by premiers Brad Wall and Robert Ghiz on common best practices, bulk buying certain pharmaceuticals, and such. (Hilariously, Leona Aglukkaq later insisted the federal government has played a leadership role in healthcare, which is especially funny when pretty much every single answer she gives in QP is about how nothing is her responsibility). As part of the day’s news, the premiers also invited Harper to sit down with them for their next meeting in November – to which Harper replied that he’ll totally get right on that. Really!

And no, the topic of pipelines was not omitted. Premiers like Ghiz and David Alward want an east-west pipeline so that refineries in the east can process bitumen from the west. Which is all well and good, but just remember that there is a heck of a lot more east-west distance in this country for a pipeline to cross (and possibly leak) than there is to go north-south to the pre-existing refineries in Texas, for example.  And longer pipelines mean a lot more cost, since reversing the flow of the existing east-west pipeline won’t have that much capacity to grow as oil sands operations ramp up.

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Roundup: CSIS volunteers to help Vic Toews

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The Director of CSIS has generously volunteered to assist Vic Toews in fixing his delayed Lawful Access bill. You can find the redacted letter here.

The federal government has announced that it will appeal the BC court ruling on assisted suicide.

What’s that? Federal bureaucrats weren’t impressed when John Duncan didn’t appear to understand the Attawapiskat file in public? You don’t say!

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Roundup: Buh-bye Bev Oda

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Bev Oda, embattled cabinet minister and fan of limousines and nice hotels, has announced her resignation from both cabinet and the Commons, dated July 31st. The PMO release said that she’s leaving Parliament, which seems to preclude a Senate appointment, but never say never. Not surprisingly, NDP MP Charlie Angus was quick to crow about it. While the resignation was handled quietly, in the Harper Government™ style, we should also remember that Oda did do a few good things, like keep Canada’s commitments to the Global Fund when other countries weren’t, and not only that but ensured our contributions were sent in early.

Jason Kenney insists that there was no backtracking, just “clarification” on those refugee health benefits.

The government wants you to know there’s still no “iPod tax,” and no copyright levy on SD memory cards either.

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Roundup: Taking cabinet off the trade file

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Stephen Harper’s chief of staff, Nigel Wright, is taking a lead role in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, as opposed to our actual international trade minister. Not unsurprisingly, it’s ruffled a few feathers. While everyone has plenty of praise for the minister, Ed Fast, it does seem that most of the federal cabinet is there purely for symbolic reasons and to reward well-behaved MPs these days. That said, it underlines the importance that this government is placing on trade deals as a large part of their economic agenda.

Harper is currently off at the G20 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico. John Geddes explains the Euro bailout/IMF issue facing Harper here.

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QP: Power or lack thereof corrupting

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With Stephen Harper back in the House after nearly two weeks away, it remained to be seen how the drama would play out. And, well, there really wasn’t a lot of drama. Thomas Mulcair asked a couple of rote questions on getting Harper to justify the environmental changes in the omnibus budget bill, and Harper responded calmly that there was still going to be a rigorous process for environmental assessment that included timelines for investors. For his final question, Mulcair asked why Harper had such a change of heart when it came to his opposition to omnibus bills. Harper gave a recitation about how it was a bill full of comprehensive measures for jobs and growth, and the economy, and sunshine and rainbows (well, okay, maybe not those last two). Libby Davies was up next to decry the cuts to health transfers to the provinces, and Ted Menzies bet Leona Aglukkaq to the punch and talked about how the transfers were still increasing and included a floor should the economy not grow, though Aglukkaq did respond to the supplemental question, during which she called Davies’ questions misleading. Bob Rae was up next, and wondered if Harper’s change of heart when it comes to omnibus bills meant that he had been corrupted by power. While Harper gave pretty rote responses about the comprehensive measures for his first two responses, on his final response he noted that Rae had promised not to run for permanent leader and now seemed to be changing his mind, which must mean that it’s a lack of power that corrupts. Oh, snap!

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Roundup: Scheer gives himself passing grades

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Speaker Scheer feels that decorum has been improving in the Commons, and while it’s not perfect, he thinks that we mostly don’t notice the improvement because only the bad behaviour gets noticed. He also says that some of his discipline is quiet, so that it doesn’t draw more attention to the behaviour in question. As a regular attendee of QP, I’m not sure how much of this I would attribute to Scheer himself. Some of the “improvement” can be attributed to the NDP’s unctuous sanctimony with their so-called “heckle ban” – which they do break all the time, but they are on the whole quieter than the Liberals (well, those who don’t feel the need to yell constantly anyway). Scheer however seems just as reluctant to bring the hammer down in public as Milliken was, and at times he seems to ignore some pretty unparliamentary language. Suffice to say, I’m not terribly convinced.

It seems that not all Conservatives are happy with Bev Oda’s spending habits, or the fact that she has been changing her expense reports without explanation.

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