Our Officers of Parliament are saying that Mark Adler’s “witch-hunt” bill to ensure that they don’t have partisan pasts rings hollow considering that they jointly sent suggestions to the Commons about making their offices more transparent in the wake of the Christiane Ouimet affair, and nobody followed up on that. Of course they didn’t, as there wasn’t any partisan advantage to it.
Tag Archives: Cyber-security
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: 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 AG wants MP oversight
The Auditor General says that there needs to be an independent, non-partisan body to deal with MPs expenses in order for Canadians to be confident that they are being managed. The NDP immediately point out that this is what they have been looking for since the issue of Senate expenses exploded into the public consciousness. I would say that it’s too bad that we are reaching a place where we can no longer treat MPs like grown-ups, and that we need yet more mechanisms to police them.
Roundup: Another Conservative Senator under suspicion
Conservative Senator Carolyn Stewart Olsen has apparently also been found to have improperly charged per diems for time spent in Ottawa when the Senate wasn’t sitting at one point and promised to repay the amounts – only to come out a few hours later and insist that the amounts were reviewed by Senate Finance and found to be in order. So why say that she was going to repay them and then not? And how can she believe that this isn’t hurting the Senate’s reputation any further if she’s not coming up with a proper justification as to why those per diems should have been charged – especially if she’s on the steering committee of the Internal Economy Committee, which adds another layer of distrust to the issue. I guess we’ll see if her tune changes in the next day or two.
Roundup: Premiers support a national inquiry
In a meeting with Aboriginal leaders in advance of the full Premiers’ Meeting, most of this country’s premiers backed the call for a national inquiry on missing and murdered aboriginal women. The two premiers who were unable to attend, Alison Redford and Kathy Dunderdale, later expressed their support for the call. Of course, all that they can do is try to pressure the federal government into calling such an inquiry, but their declaration means little, unless BC wants to start their own provincial inquiry that other provinces would support. John Geddes previews the full slate of items for discussion here.
Roundup: The Shufflenado arrives
So, it’s confirmed – the cabinet shuffle takes place today between 10 and 11 AM at Rideau Hall. Who will be shuffled? Who’s in, who’s out? Well, at last the wait – and the breathless speculation – will be over. It’s expected to be “substantial,” and Canadian Press sources say that Peter Kent and Stephen Fletcher are out, and the fact that Gerry Ritz cancelled a function scheduled for today could mean that he’s out as agriculture minister – though not necessarily out of cabinet. And Shelly Glover has come to town, so she’ll likely be getting a portfolio, though nobody knows just what that might be.
Roundup: Politics and blame for Lac-Mégantic
As the blame and politics around the Lac-Mégantic explosion swirl about, which you can parse in all sorts of different ways – including the company saying that the locomotive may have been tampered with – it does bear reminding that Transport Canada has been slapped by auditors in the past for not having clear training regimes and procedures for their inspectors – so that even if inspections were conducted, were they all conducted the same, and what kind of follow-up was done, given the rates at which the same problems were found in successive inspections. The CBC’s extensive coverage can be found here. Liza Ch. Savage looks at how it figures into the Keystone XL pipeline debate in the States. Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall also send their condolences, as well as those for the floods in Alberta.
Senate QP: The long farewell speech
Unlike in the Commons, the Senate does their statements first off, then proceeds to Routine Proceedings, before they move onto QP. The statements were paying tribute to Senator De Bané, Canada’s first Arab-Canadian MP and holder of five cabinet posts under the Trudeau government, who is due to retire from the Senate in August. After all of the tributes, and De Bané’s farewell speech that followed, it was a lengthy reflection of his career, the value of the Senate, and his proposal that the Senate create a non-partisan standing committee on culture.
Roundup: Policy convention discord
So, it’s the NDP’s policy convention. So far, there’s been discord with the party’s socialist caucus, who has been agitating against changing the party’s constitutional preamble, and others who want them to forgo hearing from US Democrat speakers in favour of keeping the focus on their policy discussions, of which they only managed to pass six of the 102 on the docket yesterday. John Ivison writes more about that crack in the party unity, and how Mulcair has taken to quoting Joseph Stiglitz (who addressed the convention yesterday, and spoke about inequality – in America). Chantal Hébert writes about the leap of faith it will take for some party members to follow Mulcair’s path to what they hope will be electoral victory.