And so, with some drumming and the signing of the thirteen-point declaration, Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence ended her hunger action. At a press conference that started off with the First Nations members present blaming the media for their woes, Spence was not present – she was at a local hospital getting checked out before she began eating solid food again – but Bob Rae chimed up to buy into the constitutional relativism about the kind of role that the GG should be playing with future First Nations meetings, and Romeo Saganash said that First Nations shouldn’t have to beg. To that end, he’s going to present a Private Member’s Bill to ensure that government legislation lines up with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Err, except that he’s number 167 on the Order of Precedence, whereas the Commons isn’t quite up to number 90 in terms of what’s been brought forward for debate, and even if he were much closer, a bill like that far exceeds the mandate of a PMB. (And once again, we have an example of MPs trying to govern from the opposition benches rather than doing their jobs of holding the government to account). Kady O’Malley rounds up the responses from the opposition parties, the minister and the PMO. Michael Den Tandt looks at the achievable goals within the 13-point declaration. Martin Patriquin looks at the forces of change versus status quo that played out around Spence and the Idle No More protests. And through it all, the person running Spence’s Twitter account called Senator Brazeau an asshole. Because you know, peaceful and helpful dialogue, and so on.
Tag Archives: F-35 Fighters
Roundup: Money out the door
As part of their warm-up before the House returns next week, the Conservatives have been blanketing the country with ministerial good news announcements/re-announcements, and getting the local MPs in on it (which is actually a clear violation of their roles – backbench MPs are not supposed to hand out the cash, they’re supposed to hold the government to account when they hand it out). Yesterday’s score was about $205 million.
Aboriginal Affairs minister John Duncan issues a reminder that it’s inappropriate for the GG to attend future meetings on First Nations issues. Meanwhile, reports are that the Manitoba chiefs – who have been among the most vocal and radicalised in terms of the untenable demands with regards to the unilateral demands around the GG’s participation – are considering breaking with the AFN. Here’s a look at how urban Aboriginal issues are being marginalised as the current Idle No More debate continues.
Roundup: No end in sight to protests
While Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence continues to insist that the GG and PM meet with all of the chiefs, here is a reminder of the role that the GG played at the last Crown-First Nations gathering – basically the introductory speech, and then left. In other words, not at the table for the working portion, nor should he ever be. Meanwhile, the PMO says that they’ll be following up with National Chief Shawn Atleo on a follow-up meeting in the coming weeks, and have no intention of calling another big meeting with the GG. Apparently this means that the protests will continue. And the fact that NDP MP Charlie Angus is buying into Spence’s constitutional relativism and encouraging the GG’s participation in order to “draw down the rhetoric” is not only disheartening, it’s constitutionally irresponsible. I guess the “democratic” in New Democratic Party means that Responsible Government can be tossed away on a whim, and that we are subject to the whims of an activist monarch. Because that’s what he’s encouraging.
Roundup: Debates, and a trip to James Bay
So, the federal Liberals had their first leadership debate yesterday, and it was…without a whole lot of sparks or drama. I mean, it wasn’t NDP dull and full of violent agreement, but there weren’t too many fireworks or memorable exchanges. Aaron Wherry liveblogged it here, here is the CBC recap, and Michael Den Tandt gives his thoughts on its tepid nature here. (I wrote up my own thoughts on the debate here).
Jonathan Kay visits several James Bay Cree reservations, including Attawapiskat, and finds that things are not necessarily as bleak as we might otherwise think – though Attawapiskat is noticeably poorer-run than the others. The other conclusion is that those communities that are doing best are doing it outside of the Indian Act system, which is something I’ve heard said about the successful First Nations communities on the West Coast. Nevertheless, Kay’s story is a must read.
Roundup: Sovereignty via subcontract
Buried in last week’s KPMG audit of the F-35 programme was the revelation that the government planned to contract out air-to-air refuelling of the jets, seeing as the systems we have in place are currently incompatible. When this was pointed out two years ago, the government said, “Oh don’t worry, we’ll adapt our systems.” By adapt, apparently they meant subcontract. And nothing says asserting sovereignty over our airspace than getting the Americans or some other private companies to do our air-to-air refuelling for us. Great job, guys!
The Supreme Court handed down a split 4-2-1 decision on witnesses wearing niquabs – basically saying sure, but only some of the time, and here’s some guidelines to think about. Emmett Macfarlane examines the split and comes down on Team Abella – the single dissent that said while we’d like to see more of a person’s face than less, on the whole it’s not as big of a deal as it would be to have people to choose to not testify at all.
Roundup: Undermining accountability with dollar figures
The government has started attaching dollar figures to who much it costs to answer Order Paper questions – in this case, $1.2 million in a three-month period. Oh noes! Parliament costs money! And really, using this tactic of putting dollar figures on basic accountability is underhanded and violates the very premise of Parliament, which is to hold the government to account by means of controlling supply. To do that, Parliament needs facts and figures, quite simply. And making it seem like a costly imposition for Parliamentarians to exercise their most basic function is, in a word, despicable.
The federal and provincial finance minsters met at Meech Lake yesterday, and while they didn’t come to any consensus over boosting the CPP, they did agree to study it and come up with a report for their meeting in June.
Not that it’s any big surprise, but former assistant deputy minister of procurement at DND, Alan Williams, said the F-35 process as “corrupted” from the beginning, but the main question remains why the cabinet went along unquestioningly when the bureaucrats barrelled ahead with the sole-source contract. Meanwhile, the Americans are already looking at developing a “sixth generation” fighter jet by 2030.
Roundup: The Carney conundrum
The Globe and Mail wrote a story that tried to paint a picture of how Liberals were wooing Mark Carney, and that while he spoke at an exclusive event in Nova Scotia, he spent a few days at Scott Brison’s house with his family. And *gasp!* they both talked about income inequality at one time! Nobody else ever talks about income inequality – never! They must have been in cahoots about getting Carney to run for the party leadership! Never mind that they have a lot of similarities in experience and circles that they both travel in. The problem is that the story is largely sourced by unnamed “officials” and is dependent upon one particular organizer who was trying to get Carney to run and who may have simply been spinning a fabulation that Carney was actually entertaining a bid while he tried to get an organization behind him that was based on a false understanding of how the leadership ballot process was being run. It’s a bunch of random information being strung together with a bunch of supposition that something might have been discussed, because nobody wants to talk about it. And from a journalistic perspective, it reads a lot like rumour being reported as fact – especially with almost nobody going on the record to confirm or deny anything.
Whether the events in the story are true or not is no longer the issue, however. Economist Stephen Gordon worries about the irreparable harm that the Carney story does for the office of the Governor of the Bank of Canada, simply so that some “senior Liberal sources” could try and find some imagined gain.
Senate QP: One last kick at the F-35s
Admittedly I got to the Senate chamber late (and it was a bit of a miracle that I made it at all this morning), and when I made it, Question Period was already underway. After missing a question on a local Nova Scotia concerns from Senator Mercer, which Senator LeBreton took under advisement, I came in while Senator Dallaire was on his feet, asking about the government’s messaging on the issue of Syria, and Canada’s capacitor for peacekeeping operations considering the ongoing commitments in Afghanistan and the Canadian Forces currently “licking their wounds.” Senator LeBreton, answering for the government as is what happens in the Senate, responded with her usual derision and withering sarcasm, decrying that Dallaire — a decorated retired Lieutenant General — could “insult” the Forces by using the term “licking their wounds,” and then praised the work of John Baird as minister of foreign affairs.
Senate QP: What about that billion dollar penalty?
With the Commons now risen for the season, the Senate is still hard at work, and they had plenty of questions for the government – especially in the wake of yesterday’s F-35 report being tabled. Liberal senators took it upon themselves to put questions on that report to the government, by way of Senator Marjorie LeBreton, the Leader of the Government in the Senate.
Senator Cowan led off, quoting Andrew Coyne’s withering analysis on the F-35s, and he asked what it will take for the government to admit they misled Parliament. Senator LeBreton replied that the “ramblings” of Andrew Coyne mean little to her, and that the government’s assurances on the file have born out — which the Liberal benches found hilarious. She then quoted the false 42-year figure, saying they were the same as the twenty-year figure, and was completely attributable to the time frame. When Cowan pressed about Ambrose’s statements versus those of MacKay, LeBreton got a chance to recite the “no money has been spent” and “Seven-Point Plan™” talking points. Cowan wasn’t about to let go, and pressed on about a statement that MacKay made about how cancelling the F-35s would cost us a billion dollars, and what that actually entailed. LeBreton kept talking around it, despite several back-and-forths. Senator Wallin then stood up to ask a friendly supplemental question to take the heat off, and got LeBreton to quote some KPMG figures.
Roundup: MPs head home while the F-35 storm rages on
The House has risen, and the MPs are all headed back to their ridings. Not the Senate though – they’re still sitting, and I’ll be heading up their for Senate QP later today.
Okay, so now the big news from yesterday – the KPMG report on the F-35 procurement process. With a cost now pegged at $46 billion over 42 years, the government says that it’s officially pushing the reset button on the process – or is it? The former ADM of procurement at National Defence, Alan Williams, says that it’s meaningless unless the department redraws the Statement of Requirements to make stealth a “rated feature” with a point value rather than a pass/fail and it then goes for open tender. There’s also the problem of attrition and the additional costs of buying replacement aircraft, which is outside of the $9 billion procurement envelope being set. John Geddes rips apart Peter MacKay’s remorseless performance yesterday, and notes that the officials noted that it will be difficult to keep the aerospace contracts for supplying F-35 parts if we don’t end up going with that plane. John Ivison goes through the process and finds that if the Conservatives still end up going with the F-35s, it will look like incompetence. Andrew Coyne takes offence that the government continues to spin the numbers and calls bullshit – it’s not 42 years, but $46 million over 30 years, and that the government tacked on those extra 12 years to cover “development and acquisition,” which costs a few hundred million, but by making it look like a little over a billion dollars a year, the government is trying to make it look more palatable. Paul Wells notes the Conservatives’ tendency toward hubris when they should be listening to their critics, who do have a point. Of course, the US “fiscal cliff” may end up killing the F-35s as it would slash their defence spending.