Tag Archives: Cyber-security

Roundup: Combing through the Public Accounts

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The public accounts were released yesterday, which give a detailed accounting of where money was actually spent. Whether or not MPs will take the time to compare the public accounts with the last year’s estimates – you know, like they’re supposed to in order to hold the government to account – remains to be seen, but in the meantime, We The Media have combed through them for salacious details. Things like a strip club being among the recipients for G20 compensation, or the loss of $1.9 million in stolen government property – including weapons from the military.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer – who is no doubt also combing these documents – is waiting on that legal opinion about his mandate, incidentally.

Food bank use in the country is still on the rise, despite the “fragile economic recovery” and all of those net new jobs that the government keeps touting.

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Roundup: Long-term damage and hidden changes

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The former Chief Electoral Officer has big concerns about what Thursday’s Supreme Court decision on Etobicoke Centre means for future elections – especially when it come to people trying to vote at polls they’re not assigned to, and the future court challenges around those rules. Meanwhile, here are five of the outstanding issues that remain from the last election.

CBC delves in the Omnibus Budget Bill 2: The Revenge and finds 22 changes in the fine print to things like public sector and military pensions, changes to environmental legislation, eliminating boards, changes to the Indian Act, and so on. It’s definitely worthwhile reading. Oh, and those changes to the Navigable Waters Protection Act? Are about navigation because of changes made to the bill through the back door four months ago when the government gutted the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act in the first omnibus budget bill.

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QP: We learned from the AG’s report…

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The drinking game of the day could have been “We learned today in the Auditor General’s report…” Because for about the first half of QP, nearly every question was prefaced by that statement. Thomas Mulcair started off by reading off a question about cyber-security from the report, who which Harper insisted the report said that they were making progress, and then a pair of questions on the hidden costs of cuts to OAS, which Harper insisted was a misnomer because there were not cuts – just changes coming down the road. Peggy Nash asked a pair of questions about changes to the labour code, to which Tony Clement first gave a bland non-answer about respecting taxpayers and fair changes, before Lisa Raitt answered the supplemental about how these changes gave clear deadlines for payments for employees where they didn’t exist previously. Bob Rae was then up, asking a pair of questions relating to the AG’s report, wondering why our Cyber-security response centre couldn’t be staffed 24/7, to which Harper insisted that they were making investments in cyber-security and had accepted the Auditor General’s recommendations. For his final question, Rae asked about the Correctional Investigator’s report on the skyrocketing number of aboriginal women in prisons, but Harper’s response wasn’t terribly edifying.

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Roundup: Omnibus Budget Bill 2: The Revenge

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Yesterday, the government tabled Omnibus Budget Bill 2: The Revenge, and it’s largely tax code changes, along with changes to the Navigable Waters Act (which some call the erosion of those protections), and the bit about MP pensions. Predictably, the opposition is complaining about the size of it – which is their right. But I would also suggest that rather than complain about it day in and day out, they beat the government at its own game and come up with technical critiques, breaking it up by topic among the caucus. It won’t happen, but it would be an interesting tactic that they never employed the last time around.

The tale of Peter Penashue and the federal election in Labrador gets more and more interesting. First the government said it was a “rookie mistake” – err, except the appointed the official agent based on his great business experience, and Penashue stood for office in several Innu elections previous, so he wasn’t a rookie. The Liberal whom he defeated is out-and-out calling Penashue a cheater. And then, we find out that two of the polling stations were closed on election day because an Elections Canada employee drove off with the ballot boxes – mere “hiccups” the agency says. But with the vote so close – 79 votes separating them – perhaps we may see this result overturned as well.

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Roundup: Another embattled minister

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It looks like Intergovernmental Affairs minister Peter Penashue overspent his campaign limit by some $20,000. Seeing that he won by a mere 79 votes, this could be a Very Big Deal. The problem? The penalty for overspending is a fine of $1000, and maybe three months in jail, which would more likely be served by the official agent, it appears. Add to that the number of people chalking this up with the other incidents in the last election with illegitimate robo-calls or the various irregularities in Etobicoke Centre that led to the Supreme Court challenge. We’ll have to see if Penashue faces any real consequences for the overspending, and if he doesn’t, what kind of precedence that creates.

Omnibus Budget Bill the Second is being tabled and is likely to begin debate on Friday. Jim Flaherty says there will be no surprises (likely a lot of tax code changes) and yes, it will have MP pensions. And please, for the love of all the gods on Olympus, don’t resurrect the inaccurate talking point about the previous bill being a “Trojan Horse” because it was not. If it was a Trojan Horse, you wouldn’t have been able to read the provisions within the bill, but since they were all in the text, well, it’s time to find a different metaphor.

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