Tag Archives: F-35 Fighters

Roundup: Following a failed policy really badly

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While Canada continues to follow Australia’s failed policies around detaining asylum seekers, there are some important differences – in Australia, the dedicated refugee detention centres are focused on their wellbeing, and are designed not to be prisons. In Canada, detained refugee claimants are sent to overcrowded provincial jails, with the convicted criminal populations. Yeah, this is really going to end well.

On the Robocon file, online postings from before the 2011 election match the complaints that Elections Canada was getting about calls telling people that their polling locations had changed. Meanwhile, over in the Federal Court case where those six ridings are being challenged, the Conservative party lawyer has filed a factum that says that there’s no evidence that these calls actually dissuaded anyone from voting.

Kady O’Malley outlines the next steps in the battle over Omnibus Budget Bill 2: The Revenge.

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QP: By-election questions in the House

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With Stephen Harper off answering audience questions at the Canadian American Business Council’s fall policy conference, and John Baird over in the United Arab Emirates discussing the Gaza situation with his counterparts, it was up for grabs as to whose turn it was to be back-up PM du jour. So when Thomas Mulcair got up to read a pair of questions on Harper and Jim Flaherty contradicting each other’s deficit rounding error numbers, we found out that Tony Clement was the day’s designated hitter, who informed the House that it was their objective to balance the budget by 2015, and the NDP wants to raise taxes. Mulcair moved onto a question about why Harper wasn’t meeting with premiers in Halifax, what with the “fiscal cliff” looming and all, by Clement reminded everyone that the NDP wants to raise taxes. Peggy Nash tried to press after why Harper wasn’t meeting with the premiers, but this time Ted Menzies got to respond, reminding her that Harper meets with the premiers regularly. Bob Rae was up next, asking about a Calgary infrastructure project that was to have benefitted from an arrangement with P3 Canada, only to have the rules changed once the project was completed (and incidentally, this happened a year ago, and in the scrums afterward, Rae openly admitted that yeah, he’s asking these questions because there’s a by-election in Calgary Centre and god forbid there be politics in the House of Commons). Menzies accused Rae of having incorrect information, but did congratulate him on his concern for Calgary, and only wished that the Leader of the Official Opposition felt the same. For his final question, Rae asked about the situation in Gaza and working toward a cease-fire, to which Peter MacKay responded with a reaffirmation of the right of Israel to defend itself.

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QP: Our certain economic doom!

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Thomas Mulcair started off today’s QP by reading a question about how Harper, while over in India, spoke about how the fragility of the economic recovery, to which Mulcair wondered why Harper could only tell the truth about our economy while abroad. John Baird, yet again the back-up PM du jour rather than passing the baton to someone else along the front bench, first gave a shout out to Barack Obama’s win, and then extolled Harper’s economic leadership. Mulcair, however, decided that our economy was in crisis, and we were all headed for doom. Doom! Baird sighed and chastised Mulcair for “talking down the economy.” Rosane Doré Lefebvre was up next, demanding an apology from Vic Toews for his Ashley Smith comments yesterday, but Toews was very obviously sticking to his script, and spoke about how they were cooperating with the coroner’s inquest. Bob Rae, however, was unimpressed, and pressed on, wondering about other videos that hadn’t yet been released publicly, and whether those materials would be turned over, which eventually led to a call for a public inquiry. Baird and Toews both answered, each going back to the “cooperating” talking point, though Toews did consider the coroner’s inquiry to already be a public inquiry. Problem solved, apparently.

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Roundup: Re-election and nuclear reactors

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Barak Obama has been re-elected as President of the United States. Hopefully we can now stop obsessing about this and get on with our lives. Incidentally, Thomas Mulcair was first out to offer a congratulatory press release, Harper’s was a little later, while MPs from all parties are shocked and dismayed at the ridiculous $6 billion spent over the campaign.

During Harper’s trip to India, a deal has been signed to sell Canadian uranium for their nuclear reactors and they promise not to make bombs out of it this time. The government there also gave Harper a pointed warning about Sikh extremists back in Canada.

Peter Penashue, during his brief and flustered moments in QP yesterday, said he’d been travelling around the country. Kady O’Malley looked into that, and found that almost all of his travel has been to his riding to make government announcements, and that as Intergovernmental Affairs minister, he hasn’t even visited a number of provinces. Meanwhile, he did also briefly speak to the media, and promised that he won’t quit, but he will address campaign financing questions on Tuesday next week.

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QP: The projections are on track

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The House was a bit sleepy today, where Thomas Mulcair started off by reading out a pair of questions on the rules around foreign takeovers, the English one of which using the phrase “like a thief in the night.” John Baird, acting as the back-up PM du jour, thanked him for raising the tone of debate before proceeding to remind him how much the government supported foreign investment and that the minister was reviewing it. For his last question, Mulcair asked about the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s lowered growth projections, but Baird offered up some bland talking points about growth! And jobs! And warnings against the fictional NDP carbon tax! Megan Leslie followed up with a pair of English questions on the very same topic, for which Ted Menzies assured her that we are in a period of slow global recovery, and that the projections were on track. Bob Rae was then up and asked a pair of questions about the cancelled EI programme that offered five additional weeks of benefits in hard-hit areas, to which Baird responded that the measures were always meant to be temporary. For his final question, Rae wondered why Peter Penashue was still sitting in cabinet after his campaign overspent in the last election – along with additional allegations of improper donations. Baird assured him that the new Official Agent was working with Elections Canada, before launching into an angry rant about how the Liberals needed to get their own house in order before casting aspersions elsewhere.

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QP: Ridicule and non-sequiturs

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Things were a bit more subdued in the House today as QP got underway, as Thomas Mulcair asked about a Conservative MP’s accusation that the Canadian Association of Retired Persons was a partisan organisation. Harper responded that his government was preserving pensions while still eliminating the deficit. Mulcair wondered if the Calgary Chamber of Commerce was next on the enemies list after their criticism of the foreign takeover review process, but Harper joked about how their ideological differences with the NDP were vast. For his final question, Mulcair asked when they would get clarification on the takeover rules, to which Harper said the decision was still with the minister. Jack Harris was up next, curious about that letter Harper sent Peter MacKay about the cuts to his department, but MacKay would only respond that under their watch, spending for defence had gone up every year. Ralph Goodale was up for the Liberals, asking about reciprocity agreements with foreign takeovers, but Harper responded with ridicule and the canard that there was no growth in trade with China under the Liberals, unlike his government. (Goodale later tweeted that under the Liberals two-way trade increased 669 percent, whereas it was only 77 percent under Harper). For his final question, Goodale asked about how they could enforce conditions with those takeovers, but Harper didn’t even bother trying to answer the question, and instead read a selective quote from this morning’s Supreme Court decision on Etobicoke Centre – a complete non-sequitur if there ever was one.

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Roundup: A day of many reports

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The big news yesterday was the Auditor General’s report, and most people were talking cyber-security and problems at Veterans Affairs, but the report also highlighted the problems the government has with its long-term fiscal sustainability. More specifically, approving big spending items without doing any kind of analysis on the long-term impact on the state of the nation’s finances – you know, stuff the Parliamentary Budget Officer has been trying to get information about. Gosh, it’s a good thing that we have MPs to scrutinise the estimates and public accounts to catch this sort of thing – oh, wait…

The Security and Intelligence Review Committee’s report also came out yesterday, which pretty much trashed the no-fly list.

Yet another report that came out yesterday was that of the Correctional Investigator, and it highlighted the problem of self-harm that is growing in the prison system. Yeah, we really do need to do something about the problem of mental health in the prison population, and somehow I doubt that cutting chaplains contributes to that solution.

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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: Petronas fallout

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In the fallout over the rejection of the Petrnoas deal, Stephen Harper stands behind Paradis, yet still insists we’re open for foreign investment. Economist Stephen Gordon calls bullshit on some of the excuses for turning down deals like Petronas. Andrew Coyne calls for the “net benefit” test to be abolished.

The Prime Minister of Jamaica visited Ottawa yesterday, to celebrate 50 years of friendship and our opening a Canadian Forces supply base in the country to serve the region. When asked about Jamaica’s plans to abolish their monarchy, Simpson said that while she loves and respects the Queen, and Jamaica will always be a member of the Commonwealth, she feels its part of her country’s evolution.

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QP: Scripting the tainted meat debate

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It being a Monday, Harper and half of the government front bench were absent from the House, leaving Thomas Mulcair to read his questions on tainted meat to the back-up PM du jour Peter MacKay, who in turn read back some fairly bland statements about how the minister was holding CFIA officials accountable. When Malcolm Allen asked about the self-regulation of food inspection, Pierre Lemieux pointed out that Allen made a bunch of since disproven claims last week. Bob Rae then got up and wanted to know when the Minister was informed and why it took two weeks to inform Canadians, but MacKay just repeated his assigned talking points.

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