While the shock waves of the morning’s bombshell from Justin Trudeau reverberated around the Hill, it was in the Commons where there was the smell of blood in the water. Thomas Mulcair led off with a demand that Julian Fantino apologise for the way he treated those veterans yesterday. Stephen Harper stood up to declare how much his government had done for veterans. Mulcair switched to English, and demanded Fantino’s resignation, but Harper insisted that Fantino had apologised. Mulcair went on to drive home the point about their “support” for veterans by brining up the case of a family of a veteran who committed suicide where the department wanted repayment for benefits. Harper said that once the minister was made aware, he took action. Mulcair carried on about the closure of veterans offices while ministerial staff was being increased, but Harper insisted that the minister took action when the bureaucrats made a mistake, and that it was the unions that didn’t like the closures. For his final question, Mulcair brought up the loss of individual case workers for veterans, but Harper insisted that they were increasing points of service. Justin Trudeau was up next, and rather plainly asked for Harper to fire Fantino. Harper repeated their pledges of support for veterans and the men and women in uniform. Trudeau changed topics and made the suggestion that Harper set his own senators free as he did — to gales of laughter in the Conservative and NDP benches. Harper made a jab about unelected Liberal senators and Senator Cowan’s declaration that little would change.
Tag Archives: Fiscal Austerity
Roundup: Neil Young vs. the facts
Canadian rock legend Neil Young has resumed his attack against the oilsands and the government, but along the way has decided that he’d make up a bunch of facts about the place. Things like the air quality there, which is supposed to be this burning toxic smog. Except that it’s not. My father works in the area, and has yet to say anything about the air quality, and he lived in China for several years and knows what poor air quality is really like. Or Young’s assertion that all of the oil sands product is headed to China. Really? How exactly is it getting to the coast? You know that whole issue about the Northern Gateway pipeline, or the possibility of rail transporting oil to Kitimat, which isn’t actually accepting those shipments because tankers aren’t coming into that inlet just yet? Yeah, that. It’s too bad that Young couldn’t inject a little bit of fact into his argument because while there are plenty of reasons to argue against the development of the oilsands, one might think that reality might be a good place to start.
Roundup: Dismal job numbers
There was some abysmal job numbers released yesterday, which sent the dollar plummeting, and a fresh round of wailing and gnashing of teeth from opposition MPs who demand a jobs strategy, which one imagines pretty much means new infrastructure programmes. Maclean’s Econowatch says that the numbers are showing that Flaherty’s wait-and-see approach to the economic recovery seems to be failing.
It appears that the government has already spent some $1.7 billion on the Sikorsky Cyclone helicopters, despite only a couple of training versions having thus far been delivered (but not actually accepted by the government because they’re not up to snuff). The price tag and the fact that the government decided to proceed with the process as is leads critics to believe the procurement has become “too big to fail.”
Roundup: Strahl, Enbridge, and no broken rules
In regards to the hysteria around Chuck Strahl consulting on behalf of Enbridge in BC, it seems that Enbridge has been a client of his since 2011 – at least, with regards to any activities on the provincial level. He’s also registered in Alberta to lobby for a First Nations energy that is drilling for oil on its territory with a Chinese-financed company. Can’t you just see all of the conspiracy theories churning? But as Kady O’Malley points out, because the chairmanship of SIRC is considered a part-time gig (as they meet less than a dozen times per year), he’s exempt from many of the restrictions in the Conflict of Interest Act, and Strahl also has stated that he’s not hearing any CSIS cases that involve Enbridge or any of his other clients, there’s no real conflict there.
Roundup: Trudeau’s power of positivity
Justin Trudeau says that positivity is driving his party’s increased donations, which could very well exceed the Conservatives yet again in terms of number of donors, though it remains to be seen if they will top them in dollars. Among Trudeau’s examples of “positivity” are things like not piling on James Moore’s “hungry kids” gaffe, in part because it was Christmas. For what it’s worth, anyway.
Government spending on professional services – outside consultants for the most part – was down last year, yet employment in the sector remains high.
Roundup: Preston Manning’s misdirected concerns
In a frankly bizarre op-ed, Preston Manning tries to accuse the Press Gallery for lacking proper ethics because the Parliamentary Press Gallery guidelines don’t have a section on ethical guidelines in their handbook – err, except that each member is subject to their own employer’s code of ethics. Also, the Press Gallery is not a monolith, but simply a means of organising ourselves in order to have proper access to do our jobs on the Hill. That Manning tries to somehow equate this to the Senate scandals and Mike Duffy’s role therein lacks any cohesive logic and makes one wonder how this passed the comment editor’s gaze at the Globe and Mail. Does he think that the Gallery could have somehow stopped him before he was appointed? That his constant lobbying for a Senate seat should have been dealt with – as though anyone took it seriously and not as a kind of sad and frankly pathetic long-running joke? Susan Delacourt gives Manning a respectful reply and cautions him that what he’s demanding of the media will mean more access by the government – something the current government is not a big fan of.
Roundup: Unimpressed with transformation plans
Kevin Page is none too pleased with what he hears about the “Blueprint 2020” plan to reform the public service, saying it’s a lot of nothing, and that change needs to come from the bottom up rather than being imposed top-down. He’s also critical of the public service for remaining silent in the face of these changes being imposed on them, and that their expert financial and policy advice will suffer as a result.
When she was Minsiter of Public Works, Rona Ambrose approved a list of 29 historical Canadian women to be used when naming future federal buildings. Of course that list has been redacted, so we don’t know exactly which names have been approved.
Roundup: And Hyer makes two
As was widely guessed, NDP-turned-Independent MP Bruce Hyer joined the Green Party – not that this was any big surprise. I look a look at how the NDP botched their outraged reaction here. Interestingly, Hyer went on TV later in the day and let it be known that Thomas Mulcair is one of the reasons that he would never return to the NDP, and that the culture of whipping and control is getting worse under Mulcair than it would have been with almost any other leadership candidate. (Hyer backed Nathan Cullen, for the record). Mulcair went on to imply that Hyer didn’t have any values, which just makes the whole bitter act look all the more petty.
Senate QP: Reacting to Canada Post
With the House now risen for the holidays, the Senate was still sitting to wrap things up before they too could go home. And yes, that includes carrying on with Question Period, to see if there are any answers that they could get before things wrapped up entirely — and hey, this is the chamber where you can actually ask questions about Senate business! Things got underway after Routine Proceedings, and Senator Eggleton asked about a number of child poverty reports, and wondered if the government would increase the nation child benefit plan. Senator Carignan, answering for the government, assured him that they had already increased the child benefits available as well as created the universal child benefit, while those below the low-income cut-off didn’t have to pay taxes. Eggleton was not impressed by that answer, as what was done was certainly not enough to solve the problems. Carignan touted that the government was creating wealth and jobs, and they lowered taxes so families had more disposable income. Eggleton brought up the inequity of supports for Aboriginal children as compared to non-Aboriginal children. Carignan stuck to his “jobs and growth” talking points, and didn’t address the level of inequity.
QP: Whither Santa Claus?
With rumours that the House might rise today, there was the very real possibility that this very well could be the last QP of 2013. Without Harper or Mulcair in the House, it was likely to be another fairly perfunctory day full of Paul Calandra’s classic lines of obfuscation. When things did get started, Megan Leslie decried the failure of an NDP motion at Ethics Committee to look into the once-missing Benjamin Perrin emails, and wondered who in the PMO ordered that it be shut down. John Baird, the designated back-up PM du jour, assured her that PCO took responsibility for the mistake, and the committee was in camera so he didn’t know what happened. Leslie tried again twice to no effect, and Nycole Turmel took over in French to ask if those emails proved there was “no legal agreement” around the Duffy repayment. Baird assured her that the RCMP were looking into things. Justin Trudeau was up for the Liberals, and asked about the funding gap for First Nations education. Bernard Valcourt responded by saying that they ended a comprehensive education regime, which required legislation, and that he remained committed to fixing the system that has failed those children, with funds to flow once the framework was in place. Trudeau moved onto the topic of the replacement of the Champlain Bridge, to which Denis Lebel accused the Liberals of 13 years of inaction on the bridge, but they were committed to a replacement ahead of the original schedule. For his last question, with some rhetorical flourish, Trudeau asked if anyone in the government was embarrassed by the conduct on the ClusterDuff file. Baird responded with a bit of a quip before reverting to the talking point that one person had taken responsibility and only two people were under investigation.