While it was Thursday, Elizabeth May was the only leader present, guaranteeing another mediocre day. Megan Leslie wondered rhetorically whether the PM was going to defend the status quo in the Senate. Paul Calandra reminded her the Senate called in the Auditor General themselves. Leslie responded that the PM “rushed off” to another continent when scandal broke — you know, because the G7 meeting was called at haste and wasn’t arranged months in advance, and Calandra called the NDP out of their depth. Leslie tried again, at which point Calandra reminded the NDP of their satellite office expenses. Romeo Saganash was up next to ask about the PM’s meeting at the Vatican and if residential schools came up. Mark Strahl said that the PM raised the letter that the minister had sent. Saganash noted the invitation to the Pope to be in Canada for the 150th anniversary and if an apology could happen then. Strahl repeated his answer. Judy Foote led for the Liberals, pointing out trade deficits and wanted a resolution to the issue of the Newfoundland processing compensation, but Parm Gill read a talking point about how treat trade was. Ralph Goodale asked about pension shortfalls, to which Kevin Sorenson decried the Ontario plan. Goodale pressed, and got the same answer.
Tag Archives: First Nations
QP: Misrepresenting the AG report
Though Harper was off in the Baltic Sea visiting our frigate there, the other leaders were in the Commons for another QP running on fumes. Mulcair led off, flirting with libel with his assertions about the AG report on the Senate — grossly mischaracterising what was found. Paul Calandra reminded him that the non-partisan House Administration found problems with their satellite offices, and that he should repay them. Mulcair wanted Harper to take accountability for the senators he appointed, but Calandra repeated the satellite offices line. Mulcair then gave complete falsehoods about why Marjory LeBreton resigned as leader in the Senate, and got the same response from Calandra. Mulcair brought up Senator Carolyn Stewart Olsen and wondered about other senators who repaid expenses before the audit — which has nothing to do with the government. Again, same answer from Calandra. for his final question, Mulcair wanted the PM to ask the Pope to apologise for residential schools. Bernard Valcourt took this one, and gave some bland assurances. Justin Trudeau was up, and wondered about the Prime Minister’s 57 patronage appointments to the Senate as a lack of a desire for real reform. Paul Calandra said that Trudeau’s position made no sense, that he would appoint Liberals to appoint non-partisan senators. Trudeau gave a pitch for his plan in French, got derision from Calandra about relieving Liberal senators from the burden of having to attend his caucus meetings. Trudeau wanted the Prime Minister to end partisan appointments, but Calandra gave some broad-based derision of the Liberals in response.
QP: Senate versus satellite offices
With Harper off in Europe, and both Mulcair and Trudeau at Parizeau’s funeral in Montreal, it was going to be a mediocre day. Megan Leslie led off listing some expenses flagged in the Senate AG report, and asked if the PMO had contact with any of those senators before it was tabled. Paul Calandra responded that the senators were responsible for their own spending. Leslie tried to draw links to PMO involvement — the evidence around it sketchy at best — but Calandra wouldn’t budge. Leslie pressed again, and Calandra noted that the NDP were looking to re-open the constitution before reminding them of their satellite offices. Alexandre Boulerice gave another try in French, got the same answer, and for his final question, demanded an oversight body for the Senate, to which Calandra said he expected the Senate to follow the AG’s recommendations. Dominic LeBlanc led for the Liberals, asking about inadequate pensions. Pierre Poilievre insisted that the Liberals would just raise payroll taxes. Ralph Goodale asked the same again in English, to which he got the same reply from Poilievre. Goodale quoted the finance minister in refuting that pension payments are income taxes, but Joe Oliver didn’t take the bait, and Poilieve repeated his same talking points.
QP: Gross mischaracterizations and repetition
The second-last Monday QP of the 41st parliament, and it looked like it was going to be a bit of a sleeper. Thomas Mulcair showed up on a Monday, which was unusual, and possibly because he’ll be at Jacques Parizeau’s funeral tomorrow. None of the other leaders were here either, however, so it was going to be pretty weak sauce. Mulcair led off by grossly mischaracterizing the AG revelation on Senate Speaker’s spending, saying that Speaker Housakos has a “spending problem.” Paul Calandra said that the Speaker had answer the question for itself. Mulcair demanded to know if the PMO was orchestrating the response to the recent Senate scandal, to which Calandra responded that the Senate invited the AG in and would answer for themselves. Mulcair asked again in French, got the same answer also in French, and then he moved onto the G7 communique on climate change. Colin Carrie got to respond to this one, reading that the G7 came up with a strong and unanimous statement on climate change. Mulcair demanded action on climate change,and got another talking point about our “clear” record. David McGuinty led off for the Liberals, asking in French about contradictory statements the government has made about infrastructure spending at the G7. Denis Lebel insisted that the facts were wrong, and that they were making record investments. Adam Vaughan blasted the government for their false assurances at the Federation of Canadian Munipalities meeting, to which Lebel insisted that the former Liberal government didn’t live up to promises. Vaughan hammered on the government and their messaging, to which Joe Oliver got up to insist that money would be available when projects needed them.
It's a good thing that Mulcair is protected by privilege, because that characterization of Speaker Housakos was likely libelous. #QP
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) June 8, 2015
Roundup: Getting ahead of the story
As we inch toward the full release of the Auditor General’s report, more material is leaking out, while some senators are trying to get ahead of the story and highlighting what they see as problems with the audits. Conservative Senator Janis Johnson, for example, was flagged for a couple of flights, and she even provided ample documentation to show that it was parliamentary business, however the auditor made a value judgement – he “felt” the trips were personal, never mind that the personal aspects to said trips (also perfectly allowed and not billed to the Senate) were booked after the work trips had been arranged, and yes, documentation supports it. That the auditor insisted that the problem was that she didn’t use the Outlook calendar is an exceedingly bizarre criteria for finding the expenses questionable, despite other supporting documentation. Given the legitimate dispute over the audit report that he has expressed publicly, and that of Speaker Housakos, it’s no doubt that we’ll start to get a better taste of what could be a very problematic audit from the auditor’s side. Meanwhile, we’re starting to get more boneheaded commentary from the pundit class again, wondering why the government just can’t stop funding the Senate – as though it wasn’t a completely separate house of Parliament with institutional independence and not answer able to the government. Why not cut off funding to the Supreme Court as well? Oh, right – we have a thing called the Constitution. Other hosts are stoking this hysteria over what they are trying to claim is a conflict of interest between the Senate leadership and the establishment of the arbitration process with Justice Ian Binnie, but when you look at the facts, it’s just not supportable, as Senator Cowan amply pointed out on The House over the weekend. When it’s pointed out that Duffy and company didn’t get this kind of a process, Cowan said point blank that he didn’t agree with that process at the time and that two wrongs don’t make a right. Elsewhere, Thomas Mulcair vowed he would consult with the premiers to try to abolish the Senate if he should be elected, to which I say good luck with that. You think the Atlantic provinces will give up that representation, or that Quebec wouldn’t have a laundry list of other demands? Keep dreaming.
https://twitter.com/inklesspw/status/607713842966073344
Roundup: Disputing the AG’s claims
The Senate feeding frenzy continues, complete with torqued headlines and inordinate amounts of time being given to the concern trolls in the NDP (who refuse to answer questions on whether they plan to campaign on opening the constitution if they truly believe in abolition). And why not? The Senate is an easy punching bag. More details continue to leak out, despite the fact that the full audit won’t be made public until Tuesday afternoon, which really makes one question who is doing the leaking and what their endgame is. The AG has hinted that it’s not his office doing the leaking, but if I were him, I’d be steaming mad about these leaks which are casting a pall over the report itself, and fuelling this breathless and hysterical coverage that remains to date largely devoid of a great many facts. The concern trolling over the two leaders and the Speaker has been particularly odious, and it’s hard to take these cries of apparent conflict of interest seriously when you look at the facts regarding their actual involvement and what they knew about their spending claims – just because they got requests for additional information, it didn’t mean that they knew they would be in the final report, and none of the three are being accused of any particular criminality. It was also made known that the Prime Minister wouldn’t have known that there were a couple of questioned expenses for Senator Housakos when he was appointed Speaker, but hey, PMO-conspiracy theorists won’t believe it regardless. While Senator Boisvenu stepped down from the Conservative caucus for the investigation, Liberal Senator Colin Kenny put out a release saying his response in the audit will speak for itself. Former Senator Gerry St. Germain disputes that he’s done anything wrong, as did Former Senator Don Oliver, and well, pretty much every one of the nine that were flagged for being egregious. It also bears mentioning that the audit itself cost over $21 million, and found less than a million in questionable spending, and that number is likely to drop dramatically once the arbitration process gets underway and a number of these cases are found to have been value judgements on the part of auditors (and yes, this is an actual problem with the way this was conducted). Some MPs and Senators think that MPs should have their own books looked over, and wouldn’t you know it, there are a whole lot of MPs who resist that notion – particularly the ones who have been so vocal about the Senate allegations. Meanwhile, the lawyers for suspended senators Wallin, Brazeau and Duffy are whinging that it’s not fair that their clients didn’t have access to this arbitration process, but there was a process at the time that they could have availed themselves to. There have been a lot of problems with procedural fairness with the way their cases were handled, and political expediency was the order of the day coming from the government’s side, but that doesn’t actually excuse any of the potential wrongdoing that they are alleged to have done, most of which far exceeds what most of the senators apparently named in the report did.
QP: Senate reform questions from the past
Even thought it was Thursday, half of the desks in the House of Commons were empty, and not one leader was present. Even the Speaker was absent, if that tells you anything. Peter Julian led off pointing to Brian Mulroney’s comments on Senate reform, apparently forgetting the years of drama that led up to the Supreme Court reference on the matter. Paul Calandra reminded him of said reference, and there was another round of the same in English, where Calandra more forcefully reminded him of a thing called the Consititution. Julian tried to wedge in a Duffy reference, at which point Paul Calandra brought up the NDP satellite offices. Niki Aston then got up to demand a national inquiry on missing and murdered Aboriginal women, and Kellie Leitch gave her standard reply of the action they are taking. Ashton demanded action by the government on First Nations files, to which Mark Strahl read a statement about action the government took with residential school survivors. Carolyn Bennett was up for the Liberals, and wanted a commitment to acting on all of the recommendations in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report, to which Strahl gave the talking points about thanking the TRC for their work. Emmanuel Dubourg asked the same in French, got the same answer in English. To close the round, Dubourg asked about the slow GDP growth, at which points Pierre Poilievre got up to decry supposed Liberal tax increases.
"Last I checked, I am female myself," Kellie Leitch says. Um, okay. Thanks for clearing that up. #QP
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) June 4, 2015
Roundup: More responsibility from failure
The OPP report on the October 22nd shooting is out, and highlights a number of lapses that happened on that day, but among them all, it should probably be highlighted that a lot of the problem seems to be with the RCMP who are patrolling the exterior of the buildings on the Hill, and that they had a minute-and-a-half to do something about the shooter and didn’t. (Some of what people saw during the shooting is described here). Not that there weren’t problems inside, as some of the bullets that flew were from security personnel and not the shooter, including the one that lodged itself in to the door of the Railway Room, where the NDP were having their caucus meeting. It was also raised in the report that the RCMP were dealing with budget cuts, so it does raise the question as to whether their limited resources played a factor in what happened, be it in resourcing or equipment. It also raises a lot of questions moving forward because the government made a particularly top-down move to have the RCMP take over the oversight of all Hill security from its previous silos (remember that Commons and Senate security forces are separate because of privilege issues). If the RCMP couldn’t manage the situation outside of the buildings, how will they be any better overseeing and coordinating things inside? As well, it needs to be stressed that this new system, under RCMP management, has been imposed hastily and without enough discussion and consultation – the government put the motion under closure, and its implementation is in the omnibudget bill with not enough time for proper scrutiny, particularly as many of the questions about what it all means still haven’t been answered yet, like what the role for the Sergeant-at-Arms will be under this new regime. Speaker Scheer did acknowledge that parliamentarians are complaining, but he seems to think that everything will work out fine. How can we be sure of that if we’re rushing this through and not thinking clearly enough about it, or consulting enough with all of the stakeholders and taking this report into consideration, which hadn’t been completed when the motion was passed and the implementation put into the budget bill. Meanwhile, the fact that RCMP are now carrying submachine guns on the Hill has a lot of its denizens unsettled.
QP: More reconciliation scripts
Even though it was a Wednesday, all of the party leaders were off in Rideau Hall for the closing ceremony of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. That left Megan Leslie to lead off, asking about the refusal of the government to implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Mark Strahl responded by reading a talking point about those rights already being entrenched in the constitution. Leslie listed off the various ways in which the government was failing Aboriginals, to which Strahl listed their successes, like the apology and striking the TRC in the first place. Leslie demanded the education funding gap for First Nations be closed, and Strahl read a condemnation of the attitudes that gave rise to the residential schools. Peter Julian then picked up, repeating Leslie’s first question in English. Strahl gave a list of accomplishments, and when Julian closed with a blanket condemnation, Strahl repeated his admonishment that the NDP voted against the good things they did. Dominic LeBlanc led off for the Liberals in French, saying that his party immediately accepted all 94 recommendations in the report and wondered if the government would do the same. Strahl said that they would consider the recommendations in light of the full report, to be delivered at the end of the year. Ralph Goodale then picked up in English on the same topic, and got much the same answer from Strahl. For the final question, Marc Garneau called out Conservative contradictions on supply management as part of Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, and Maxime Bernier gave a single-word response that they would protect it.
QP: Scripts on reconciliation
It was all leaders present for one of the few remaining Question Periods of the 41st parliament where we’ll see them all together. Thomas Mulcair led off, acknowledging that they were on unceded Algonquin territory, and noted the Conservatives voting against an NDP bill to implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Mulcair wondered if the government would adopt it, to which Stephen Harper reminded him that Aboriginals are already included in the constitution and that the UN Declaration is an “aspirational document.” Mulcair repeated “aspirational” with a vitriolic tone, then demanded a nation-to-nation relationship between First Nations and Canada. Harper reminded him that they established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and they were working to improve the living conditions of all Aboriginals. Mulcair noted that at least 6000 children died in residential schools, and wanted Harper to acknowledge that they were “cultural genocide.” Harper insisted that he addressed the damage of forced assimilation seven years ago, and that the NDP consisted voted against the concrete steps the government was taking. Mulcair then noted poor education outcomes for First Nations currently, to which Harper reminded him of measures in the budget. Mulcair demanded that the funding gap for First Nations students be closed, to which Harper said that they were trying to reform the system and that the NDP vigorously opposed them. Justin Trudeau was up next, asking about unfinished Reconciliation action for Métis and Inuit, and wanted nation-to-nation engagement. Harper reiterated the various achievements they’ve made, and encouraged the Liberals to stand with when. Trudeau said that his party accepted and pledged to adopt the TRC Reports recommendations and wanted the same pledge from the government. Harper said that they would study the report, before returning to his slap that the Liberals voted against concrete measures. Trudeau gave it one last attempt, to which Harper said that there was no ideal relationship in our history and they were working to improve the living conditions of First Nations.