With Harper jetting off to the Francophonie Summit, and Justin Trudeau elsewhere, Thomas Mulcair was the only major leader in the House, where he led off by asking about junk food advertising targeting children — his latest policy proposal. Rona Ambrose responded that the government is concerned about child obesity, and they are investing in research and programmes on the ground. Mulcair insisted that his idea has proven effective in Quebec, to which Ambrose insisted that the real issue is getting children off the couch, no matter how healthy they eat. Mulcair moved onto thalidomide victims and his party’s motion on support for them. Ambrose noted that the government would support the motion. Mulcair then moved on to the issue of domestic violence and the need to find concrete solutions. Kellie Leitch started off going on about workplace safety and somehow weaving in violence against women, but confusingly. Mulcair asked if she would sit down with unions and employers about the issue of domestic violence, to which Leitch responded about meetings on mental health in the workplace. Marc Garneau led off for the Liberals, returning to the theme of the week about veterans, to which Parm Gill noted there were some concerns, but the government did offer support. Frank Valeriote picked it up, and Gill assured him that the minister works hard to consult veterans across the country. Joyce Murray recalled her question on a tragic veterans case that she raised yesterday, asking for an answer. Rob Nicholson noted how much they’ve increased the budget for veterans and to help those in need.
Tag Archives: Foreign Policy
Roundup: Cheap diplomacy, symbolic loss
The Harper government’s shoestring approach to diplomacy, typified by an attitude of serving ginger ale and Ritz crackers as being “good enough” for hosting diplomatic functions, has not been without controversy, especially when it comes to the illogical sale of a number of diplomatic properties and residences around the globe in the name of fiscal austerity. Many of these sales have been controversial, and the looming sale of our diplomatic residence in Rome is even more so, because of the symbolic links to our troops liberating Italy during the Second World War, and the property was basically given to Canada as thanks. The government, however, denies that there are such links, and has spun a tale of how lavish the place is and how costly it is to maintain – never mind that the former Canadian ambassador to Italy is on the record disputing everything the current government says. But hey, it’s totally cool that we project an image to the world that we’re Mickey Mouse cheapskates who have the taste and class of backwater rubes right? Prestige isn’t our brand, according to this government, nor do we have any appetite for symbolic links to the past. Let’s just do it all on the cheap. Because that always works out well.
QP: A growing economy will solve it
It was a black morning on the Hill with two MPs suspended for allegations of harassment, and Stephen Harper was absent, headed off to China, making the mood on odd one. While Thomas Mulcair was present, QP was actually led off by Megan Leslie, who raised the Governor of the Bank of Canada’s comments about the job market. Joe Oliver praised the 1.1 million net new jobs since the recession. Leslie asked if the government agreed with Poloz’s (torqued, selective) statement that young people should be willing to live at home and work for free if they can’t get a job. Oliver praised their measures for young people, and that a growing economy would help youth. After another round in the other official language, Libby Davies asked about more childcare spaces, to which Jason Kenney insisted that their tax credit measures and the universal child benefit were better than spaces. When asked again, Candice Bergen praised increased transfers to the provinces, whose jurisdiction childcare belongs to. Justin Trudeau was up for the Liberals, and he asked about the income splitting tax credit, to which Jason Kenney called the premise “rubbish” and said that it would benefit half of families and that their other measures would help more low income families. Trudeau called them out for avoiding income splitting in their responses, and raised something from Scott Brison’s 2003 Progressive Conservative leadership platform. Trudeau retorted with Brison’s line about his misguided time as a Conservative before asking the question again in French. Jason Kenney responded by accusing the Liberals of wanting to take away money from families.
Roundup: An emergency debate, such as it was
The Commons had their “emergency debate” on the situation in Iraq last night, using debate loosely, of course. After all, “debate” these days tends to largely mean reading monotonous speeches into the record that were all pre-written and don’t actually debate what has already been said. The NDP hammered away at demanding a vote on deployment, never mind that military deployment is a Crown prerogative and thus not subject to a vote, and in fact, shouldn’t be because it launders the prerogative and the accountability. But if Mulcair wants to give Harper political cover so that he can, in the future, say that the Commons decided on the matter and that they are culpable when things go wrong because there was a vote, well, it makes it kind of awkward for the opposition, no? It’s part of Responsible Government – the Commons has given the government the authority to govern, and if they don’t like it, then they can withdraw confidence. Voting to “make decisions” is not actually their role – accountability is. The NDP were also childishly mocking the Liberals for largely not being there for the debate – except that they only got two speaking slots the whole night, which they used near the beginning, and as we’ve established that it’s not a real debate, it does seem fairly pointless to have a bunch of people there to simply endure repetitive prepared speeches – and make no mistake, they are repetitive – with no real ability to respond or add to what’s been said. But this is the state of our parliament these days.
Roundup: Proposing a premium holiday
Given that the government’s EI tax credit actually has the perverse incentive to fire employees or reduce wages instead of hiring new staff as was intended, Justin Trudeau offered up a different solution yesterday, which is to offer employers a two-year holiday on paying the EI premiums of new staff. One wonders why he just doesn’t suggest setting the rate at the break-even rate in the actuarial report, which is a mere 0.02 percent above what the government’s “tax credit” effectively reduces it to, but would be across the board, but hey, he’s putting ideas on the table, right?
Roundup: A guilty verdict for Sona
The verdict is in, and former Conservative staffer Michael Sona has been found guilty of aiding and abetting the fraudulent robocall scheme in Guelph in the last election – though the judge made it clear that Sona was not the only one involved, and cast a lot of doubt on the testimony of Andrew Prescott, who was given immunity in exchange for said testimony. All throughout the process, Sona had tweeted about the poor quality of the Elections Canada investigation, and the judge seemed to echo some of those sentiments, but nevertheless found Sona to bear some culpability. The Conservatives, meanwhile, insist that they ran a clean and ethical campaign, and that this is just a couple of bad apples – but as Michael Den Tandt notes, the number of bad apples are piling up on the watch of this prime minister, and that question of judgement which Harper claims to be an issue when it comes to Justin Trudeau can be laid as much at his feet as well. Sona won’t be sentenced until mid-October, and he sounds like he’s preparing for the worst – prison time. There remains the possibility for him to appeal, but the grounds for appeal are fairly narrow and they would have to prove that the judge erred, and they couldn’t introduce new evidence in the case, such as having Sona testify in his own defence, which he didn’t during the trial.
Roundup: Simultaneous praise and condemnation
In an interview with the Vancouver Sun, Justin Trudeau gave a somewhat confusing response to what he would do around the First Nations accountability legislation that has made the salaries of chiefs and band councils public. While on the one hand he said it was a good thing that the questionably high payments to certain chiefs were aired, he nevertheless said the law should be scrapped, but that same information be made available to band members so that they could make their own decisions. I’m not sure that it’s just enough to say that the government is trying to force their opponents to be more open and transparent – being First Nations and unions – while their own top political staff salaries remain secret (which isn’t really true because salary ranges are public). If he really were concerned with open and transparent government, he could have others – like top political staff – disclose their salaries to the same levels as the “opponents” of the government. It just seems like trying to hard to paint the current government as bad guys (I know, I know – politics) when in the same breath he praised the results of the same legislation.
Roundup: A good kid
Correctional Services’ own reports show that Omar Khadr is a “good kid,” non-radicalised and highly compliant, but that hasn’t stopped the government from trying to paint him as a heinous war criminal as they continue to deny journalists’ requests to interview him in prison. It looks more and more like they are trying to protect the narrative about him that they have built up for political cover.
Roundup: Hacking very valuable data
Hackers, allegedly from China, have hit the National Research Council’s systems and have compromised them, leading to them being shut down. While we don’t know what kind of damage there is or what has been accessed, this is the country’s premier research institution, which has more recently been billing itself as a partner for businesses around the country to help them develop and get to market new technologies. It’s suspected that employee personal information and client data may have been compromised. It’s no wonder that it would be a prime target for industrial espionage. China denies that they were involved, but CSE seems to believe that the hackers originated from there. It may be a year before NRC has a more secure platform for their data, though curiously, they have been working on quantum communications, which promise to be unhackable and secure. Not soon enough, however, it would seem.
Roundup: CRA takes exception
Things with the CRA seem to be taking a turn for the bizarre as they are getting into a fight with well-known charity Oxfam over the charity’s stated goal of trying to prevent poverty around the world. According to the CRA, that’s not an acceptable goal – they should only try to alleviate poverty, as preventing it might benefit people who are not already poor. Yeah, I’m still trying to figure that one out too. According to CRA, the courts haven’t found that that the risk of poverty is the same as actually being in need, so this splitting of hairs means that they can’t put “prevention” in their purpose statement. And it’s not like this is part of the supposed “crackdown” on charities either – this had to do with a regular process of renewing Oxfam’s non-profit status, but it has been noted that Jason Kenney singled them out earlier in the year over their opposition to Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Why the CRA would play petty politics for any minister – especially one that they don’t report to – sounds a little too odd, but this whole situation is just so strange that it will invite conspiracy theory.