Tag Archives: Fiscal Austerity

Roundup: Retroactively changing the facts

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The Department of National Defence quietly amended a tabled parliamentary report on the F-35s under the guise of a correcting a “typographical error” when in fact they were changing a significant line about the status of the procurement. With nothing more than a quiet amendment notice on the Treasury Board website, they changed the status from “definitions” phase to “options analysis,” which is really significant. And they did it quietly, hoping nobody would notice – because nobody has anything to hide on how badly this whole file has been handled. Meanwhile, the name of the new procurement secretariat has officially been changed so that it isn’t specifically to procure F-35s, but rather is now the “national fighter procurement secretariat.” And University of Ottawa defence analyst Philippe Lagassé wants the opposition to ask better questions about the fighter since they keep getting distracted by shiny things and missing the real point – which of course is why a rigged process was allowed to happen and why due diligence was not followed.

Today in voter suppression news, an American Republican operative who was convicted and spent time in jail over improper calls says that the various misleading calls here were likely imported American tactics, and that it looks like a systemic and sophisticated operation. Over in the bid to overturn the results of the Etobicoke Centre election, it appears there are missing voter registration certificates, which could point to some improper votes being cast – enough to have changed the outcome. Meanwhile, over in Eglinton-Lawrence, it looks like a flyer was going around trying to get some improper votes cast on behalf of Jewish voters (not that the margin is enough to challenge in court).

DND looks to be set to chop mental health monitors and PTSD monitors. Because that sounds like a genius idea, not to mention totally “supporting our troops.”

What’s that? Major pipeline projects could face lengthy court challenges in the absence of robust environmental assessments? You don’t say!

Liberal Party president Mike Crawley indicates there are likely to be six or seven interested candidates in the upcoming leadership race – whenever it actually kicks off.

Here’s a look at Elizabeth May’s first year in Parliament.

Alison Crawford looks at the use of private members’ business to push through government business – not that it’s what they’re doing with the Woodworth motion.

The Conservatives’ latest proposed elder abuse television spots were panned by focus groups as being “too creepy” and the “worse commercials ever.” Yikes!

And the Procedure and House Affairs committee has tabled its report on the whole Anonymous vs. Vic Toews issue, and basically finds that they can’t do anything about it. Case closed.

QP: The most pressing business of the nation

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After a morning of speeches and a whole lot of self-congratulation all around, the NDP decided that the most pressing business of the nation, the one topic to lead off Question Period, for which they are holding the government to account, was that of Conrad Black’s return to Canada. Or rather, as the framing device that they employ says, “notorious British criminal” Conrad Black, or “British citizen Lord Black of Crossharbour” in their subsequent press releases. While this is factually true, it’s still a framing device that they’re employing. And while Mulcair didn’t play the race card today, Harper still called him on yesterday’s usage, and chastised Mulcair for denigrating the work of public servants. Mulcair then moved onto the report about the big bill for the overtime paid to cabinet ministers’ limo drivers, but Harper dodged and touted the country’s economic performance instead. Charlie Angus picked up from here, and yes, Team Decorum still employs the epithets of “Muskoka Minister” when he goes after Tony Clement. Clement, by the way, cited that they were living within the rules and paying out the overtime owed to their drivers per their collective agreement, and hey, these cabinet ministers work long hours. So there. Bob Rae closed off the leaders’ round with a trio of questions about the contradiction in how the Deputy Minister of Defence can dispute the Auditor General’s findings but the government agreeing with the report, but Harper parsed and equivocated, and insisted that Rae was mistaken as to who said what.

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QP: Decisive Action on apples and oranges

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Question Period began innocently enough. Thomas Mulcair read out his trio of questions around an admission that Peter MacKay had made that cabinet knew of the alleged two sets of books on the F-35s, and Harper chided him about comparing apples and oranges, and Jack Harris and Peter MacKay had two more rounds of the very same, MacKay asserting that he was talking about the process of decisions flowing through cabinet, but since they AG’s report, they’ve taken “decisive action.” Bob Rae, a bit hoarse, got up to ask about the Deputy Minister of Defence telling the Public Accounts committee that the AG “got it wrong,” and the lingering question about how deputy ministers can disagree with a report that the government says it agrees with, but Harper insisted that Rae was the one getting it wrong, and talked up about how they were proceeding with an oversight committee on the acquisition. Stéphane Dion closed the round by asking the government to withdraw its unconstitutional Senate “reform” bill, but Harper got up and instead of answering the substance of the question, touted the latest Senate “consultation election” in Alberta. Because who needs to worry about the constitution?

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Roundup: Illegitimate workloads

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MPs are starting to grumble that cuts to the public service are dumping more workload on their offices, while their own budgets are being frozen and scaled back. This is worrying for one very basic reason – that this kind of work isn’t actually an MP’s job. Yes, constituency work has evolved as a means of serving the community and basically showing that they deserve to be re-elected. But it’s not their job. Their job is to hold the government to account, and to do that by controlling the public purse. That means scrutinising the estimates and the public accounts. But along the way, this kind of public service ombudsman role became attached to them, until it’s become the norm for certain departments not to touch a file until the MPs office pushes it forward, and that, my friends is a big problem and it’s something that needs for the person up top to put their foot down, starting with the Clerk of the Privy Council. If, as Bennett alleges in this article, people are just being told to go to their MPs office, then it’s a gross breach of the duties of the public service, and it should be called out.

The government has decided to remove the internal auditors of at least four regional development agencies in favour of letting the Office of the Comptroller General do said audit work. The complication? That the Comptroller General’s budget has also been slashed. Oversight! Accountability! Transparency! Meanwhile, here is a look at the other departments being faced with cuts as of yesterday’s announcements.

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QP: Seven minutes of decorum

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Seven minutes. Not even. Despite his Monday morning sanctimony press conference in which Nathan Cullen announced that his party was going to be the stewards of decorum in the Chamber, they were heckling the Conservative MP who dutifully read out the Member’s Statement of the day denouncing a member of the Shadow Cabinet – in this case, Peggy Nash, because she voted against the budget. OH NOES! Immediately thereafter, Cullen stood up to announce their glorious plans for restoring decorum. And a few minutes later, QP began. While Thomas Mulcair kicked things off asking about the two sets of books on the F-35 that the Parliamentary Budget Officer and Auditor General have alluded to – for which Baird, in his capacity as back-up PM du jour stood up and read off talking points about having a credible process and avoiding another “Decade of Darkness” for the military – it was Charlie Angus that immediately broke his party’s pledge. As he is wont to do, Angus stood up to gleefully denounce the government for having received the Canadian Association of Journalists’ secrecy award, and he began throwing around some of his favourite pejoratives, like the “Muskoka Minister,” and so on. Peter Van Loan immediately stood up to announce that the NDP’s commitment to decorum in the House had lasted a full seven minutes, and they can’t even refer to ministers by their proper titles. Bravo. Slow clapping all around. Angus shrugged it off, indicated he’d done nothing wrong, and carried on. To his supplemental, Tony Clement rose to tout the government passing the Accountability Act as their first piece of legislation, which apparently absolves everything. Ralph Goodale was up first for the Liberals, also asking about the two sets of books, and which minister knew this fact when. Baird ranted about the “Decade of Darkness” in reply. Marc Garneau demanded an open and transparent bidding process to replace the CF-18s, but Baird accused the Liberals of starting the F-35 process (which they didn’t, as it was a separate process entirely). Goodale was back up for the final question of the round, and brought up the Liberals’ opposition day motion – that in light of the Walkerton crisis brought about by government cuts, why was this government – with some of the very same ministers – going down the same path. Baird didn’t provide a coherent answer, but rather a thirty-five second rant about how Bob Rae once led the provincial NDP and how two of his former cabinet ministers, currently in the NDP benches, disavowed his leadership. No, seriously, it didn’t make any sense.

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Roundup: Begin the retrospectives

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As we come up on the one year anniversary of the “strong, stable, national Conservative majority government,” the pundits are starting to weigh in – Den Tandt looks at the missing “hidden agenda” one year later, Tim Harper looks at the transformation that has happened, noting that none of it is hard-right stuff and hey, look at all the scandals, and John Ibbitson takes a rather in-depth look at the past year (and the five that preceded it), but I’m not quite sure that one can really consider the Conservative  a “values-based” party any longer, considering their abandonment of so much of what they once held dear.

Parents who were promised enhanced EI benefits to deal with gravely ill children are feeling betrayed that the campaign pledge was not in the budget.

Here’s a great look at “Responsible Resource Development” – the somewhat Orwellian name being given to the Conservative rewriting of the country’s environmental laws.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer says the government kept two sets of books on the F-35 procurement process – the real set, and one full of low-balls to sell to the public.

The third wave of public sector layoff notices go out this week.

Seven officials from CRA’s Montreal office have been dismissed in connection with a corruption and fraud investigation, however charges have still not been laid.

Thomas Mulcair vowed to the annual convention of the Canadian Association of Journalists that he’d lift the veil of secrecy if he forms government. I seem to recall a certain other current Prime Minister who once vowed the very same thing.

All of those young NDP MPs who were students prior to the last election are being forced to stay out of the student protests in Quebec, as it could quickly become a provincial election issue and their support could benefit the Parti Québécois.

Oh, look – Peter Penashue is in the news. Who? Exactly.

Here’s a look at how Quebec used to be loyal to the Crown, but one incident of police overreaction turned them against it.

And Scott Feschuk writes possibly the most note-perfect recap of the Bev Oda affair, striking the balance between humour and insight.

QP: Accepting conclusions but not responsibility

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On a day when the government released its first budget implementation bill – an omnibus monster of some 431 pages that amends some 50 Acts, and takes a huge axe to environmental legislation – there was not a question on this bill, or the environment to be found. Instead, Thomas Mulcair led off Question Period with a trio of questions about a possible future Afghan deployment, to which Harper assured him that any deployment would come before the House (see my discussion yesterday about Crown Prerogative and why it’s really a bad thing for Harper to do this), before Mulcair turned to the question of the Woodworth motion – otherwise known as the backdoor abortion debate. Harper assured him that he would be voting against it, but seeing as it’s private members’ business, he can’t do anything else about it, unfortunately. And that’s true. (I wrote a bit more about the issue and the mechanics here). Bob Rae then stood up to ask about the Auditor General’s report on the F-35s – if Harper accepts the report, how can the deputy ministers be writing to the AG to disagree with it, given our system of government? Harper assured him that they accepted the conclusion of the report and were acting on it. Rae then asked if Harper accepts the conclusions, does he not then take responsibility for what happened. Harper, however, wasn’t going to fall for this and instead insisted that wasn’t the conclusion of the AG, but they did accept the conclusion he did draw.

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QP: Appropriate limousines

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Thomas Mulcair opened up QP today taking all five slots in the leader’s round, asking whether Harper planned to keep troops in Afghanistan past 2014, despite the House having voted to end the mission. Well no, Harper said – we haven’t had any request to extend the mission (amidst speculation that the Americans would be asking us to extend our Special Operations forces there), and of course he’d ask the House for permission to extend. Err, except this is a big problem. You see constitutionally, deploying the armed forces is a Crown Prerogative, and that’s a means of accountability. Yes, it sounds nice on paper when you have the House agree to put our troops into harm’s way, but when things go wrong, you need that clear line of accountability. Because deployments are a Crown Prerogative, it means that the executive remains responsible when things to wrong. If it’s the House in charge, not only do we find that we have watered down missions full of caveats (like all of those European countries in Afghanistan), but then Harper can turn around and say “Well, the House agreed to the mission, not me, so not my problem.” You see why this is a problem, right? And now that Harper has a majority in the House, he can hold a vote and then say “The House has spoken, we’ll extend,” thus being able to both absolve himself of responsibility while appearing to have it be a “democratic” choice. Not that Mulcair seems to have considered this constitutional reality.

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Roundup: Redford wins a majority – surprise!

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Alison Redford’s Progressive Conservatives rallied and came back to another majority mandate in the Alberta election last night, and the upstart Wildrose party, kind of fizzled out with less than twenty seats. Not that I want to be too shameless about it, but I feel like I was the only person who wasn’t willing to write them off. As a former Albertan, I wasn’t willing to discount the power of institutional inertia or the kind of one-party-state-ism that affects the voters of the province, and lo and behold, “brand loyalty” won out. Not that the Wildrose did themselves any favours by not denouncing more forcefully their more unpalatable candidates under the banner of “free speech,” or trying to play to social issues even though the province is more progressive than most people let on. I also think it can’t be overlooked the way in which that the PC party in that province tends to change in order to fit the shape of its current leader. While Redford certainly has her conservative bona fides (especially in areas like law-and-order), she is nevertheless far more socially progressive and I think that the electorate did respond to the changing shape of the party. And so the one party state rolls along, while all of those inaccurate polls are left in the dust.

Yesterday’s outrage was the revelation that CIDA minister Bev Oda refused to stay at a five-star hotel in London where a conference she was attending was being held, but rather insisted on staying at one twice as expensive, and expensing $16 orange juice while she stayed there. Speculation is that it was because the new hotel had smoking rooms, but still – taxpayers were still on the hook for the non-refundable deposit for the first hotel. Add to this is the fact that her penchant for limousines hasn’t abated in the years since she’s been in cabinet, and spent a thousand a day on those as well. All this at a time of fiscal austerity, when her department is cutting aid to several countries, one might add. Oda did paid the difference in price between the two including the cancellation fee for the first hotel, and the orange juice (but not the limo, which was the much larger figure), but she only did it yesterday morning – as the news was the talk of the capital. Paul Wells surmises that Oda has deduced that she is bulletproof, and can get away with anything at this point.

Statistics Canada is facing a major financial crunch, and is likely to do far fewer surveys this year. Because this government really doesn’t govern on the basis of statistics (unless they’re made up and sound like they support their position on something).

The attempt to overturn the election results in Etobicoke Centre is before the courts this week.

RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson was before the Commons status of women committee yesterday to talk about the ongoing harassment investigation within the Force. The Liberals want the committee to expand the scope of that investigation in order to hear more from the victims, but this government is allergic to any opposition motions, so one has doubt that it’ll go much further. Meanwhile, the head of CSIS was before a Senate committee to say that he’s just fine with new anti-terrorism legislation being proposed. Not that this is a surprise.

And over on BBC Scotland, Michael Ignatieff mused that if you increasingly devolve powers to subnational governments, independence is the likely result. While people immediately jumped on this as his foregone conclusion that he was saying Quebec separation was inevitable, others have suggested that this is a warning about further Quebec devolution plans – such as the Sherbrooke Declaration, that would further decentralise our already greatly decentralised powers.

QP: Unity, focus, and expensive hotels

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At the start of the day, new NDP house leader Nathan Cullen gathered the media together to tell us about how the dynamic in Ottawa has changed, that the NDP are a unified and focused team, and that they were going to keep Harper on his toes. Fast forward until Question Period when word hit the wires that NDP MP Bruce Hyer decided to leave caucus, largely because of Mulcair’s heavy hand on the whip when it comes to the party’s position on the long-gun registry. Yes, that’s apparently what united looks like. As for focused, well, I predicted on Friday that everyone’s attempt to get a spot to shine was going to result in a shambolic, scattershot QP. I was not wrong.

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