With things having calmed down on the Hill somewhat after yesterday’s excitement, and only one major leader in the House, it was certainly a much more sedate day in the Chamber. Mulcair opened with a series of questions about the closures of veteran service centres, and wanted to know if the Conservatives would be allowed a free vote on their opposition day motion. Julian Fantino, in his robotic monotone, insisted that there were over 600 points of service that were nearby these veterans, even when it was pointed out that one the nearest Service Canada centre to one the closed veterans centre in Newfoundland is eight hours away. Stéphane Dion led off for the Liberals, and asked about the recent job numbers. Andrew Saxton touted the government’s job creation record. Scott Brison got up to demand a real plan for jobs, but Saxton disputed his figures, and on the supplemental, Saxton read off a list of programmes the government brought in.
Tag Archives: Foreign Policy
Roundup: The House returns, 2014 edition
The House is back today! Yay! Oh, how I’ve missed you, MPs. Well, most of you, anyway. You can pretty much expect to hear talk on rail safety, Canada Post, more about the unanswered questions of the Senate scandals, and the budget within a couple of weeks (which sounds like will be a lot about damage control from last year’s budget). In fact, we could see a renewed push on the Senate issue if the Auditor General does release an interim report on his audit of the Senate’s financial controls this week as expected. Peter MacKay is also going to have a busy year with having to craft new laws around prostitution, and deal with the Supreme Court case on assisted suicide. Michael Den Tandt says to expect more of the same.
Roundup: Rail safety recommendations released
The Transportation Safety Board released their recommendations following the Lac-Mégantic disaster, which not only includes phasing out the DOT-111 tanker cars (though there is no mandated timeline), but also choosing the safest routes, better emergency measures along those routes, and limiting train speeds along the routes that carry dangerous goods. Routes should also be inspected twice a year. The government accepts the recommendations, but because things are complicated and the systems integrated across North America, talks continue between governments.
Roundup: The million-dollar shot
The crass politicking of Harper’s trip to Israel was laid bare yesterday with an incident at the Western Wall when Conservative MP Mark Adler was caught on tape haranguing a PMO staffer about getting past the security line to get a photo with Harper at the wall. “It’s the million dollar shot,” he complained, and reminded him of the re-election coming up. Adler, as it happens, has a large Jewish vote in his riding, and he narrowly took the long-held Liberal seat, so he has reason to be worried. But that said, it demonstrates just how much this trip is more about domestic politics than it is about an actual commitment to international engagement in the region. Speaking of those domestic politics, an anti-gay pastor is a member of the Harper delegation. Naturally. And then there’s the question of Canada’s position on the settlements, to which Harper said our position is well known – that we’re opposed to them – but refused to articulate it, saying instead that he wasn’t going to “single out” Israel for criticism.
Roundup: Applause, heckles, and a questionable accusation
Stephen Harper made his speech before the Knesset yesterday, and largely accused the “Stop Israel Apartheid” movement as being a new breed of more sophisticated anti-Semites. So there’s that. Ahmed Tibi, an Arab-Israeli MK and leader of the Arab Movement for Change party, heckled Harper’s speech and walked out, because he took exception to Harper’s characterisation of Israel as a democracy – considering that most of the Palestinians are disenfranchised – and that he feels that it is an apartheid state, contrary to Harper’s assertion. Michael Petrou live-blogged the speech – complete with drinking game – and made some quite apt observations about the reality of the situation in the region along the way. Petrou also dissected Tibi’s heckling criticism of Harper’s speech, and notes where Tibi gets things right and wrong. Meanwhile, Harper did announce an additional $66 million in aid for the Palestinian authority. And CBC has a full list of the delegation that Harper brought with him, while Liz Thompson finds that a large number of them are also Conservative donors.
Roundup: Enter the telecom spin
Wind Mobile dropping out of the wireless spectrum auction – because the murky rules around foreign investment restricts them from getting the capital they need – pretty much scuppers the government’s chances of getting a fourth national carrier in the system. But then came the spin – Mike Lake, the parliamentary secretary, went on Power & Politics to talk about the ten bidders in the auction – neglecting that seven of them are regional players – while touting the drop in prices in the industry. You know, the kinds of things that his government has been complaining about in ads they’re putting out. Meanwhile, NDP MP Jinny Simms declared that a fourth national carrier was needed for competition – except her party was vehemently opposed to Verizon coming into the marketplace. Well done, everyone.
Roundup: Useless polls make populist noise
A CTV-commissioned poll shows that 69 percent of Canadians don’t think the Senate is useful. (Broken down, the numbers are 34 percent “strongly disagree” and 35 percent “somewhat disagree” with the statement of whether “The Senate of Canada performs a necessary and useful political function.”) The problem with that is that it goes back to the very same issue of asking people a question that they’re not taught anything about. Sure, people have heard about the Senate, but most of what they hear is either a) scandal; or b) distortion, largely arising from scandal as it affects a very small percentage of its membership. Most Canadians, if we’re honest, don’t really know the first thing about the Senate and what it does, and the media hasn’t done a stellar job in covering their good work either, which makes this kind of poll particularly fraught from the get-go. But hey, now we can use a big number to say that populist sentiment doesn’t agree with the constitutionally bound makeup of parliament! One has to wonder if the same kinds of numbers would arise if we asked whether people agreed that their pancreas serves a useful and necessary function in their bodies, or if we’d get the same kind of facile comment of “I don’t know what it does, therefore let’s just get rid of it” that this kind of ridiculous Senate polling results in.
Roundup: Drama in Colombo
There was some New Year’s Eve drama as media reports out of Colombo, Sri Lanka, said that NDP MP Rathika Sistsabaiesan was under house arrest there during her trip to visit family. The reports turned out to be false, but consular affairs and John Baird were engaged on the file, though Sitsabaiesan put out a statement alleging political intimidation by local officials. The Foreign Affairs statement states that there was no arrest warrant, and that her visit was a private one and not on behalf of the government, though they continue to monitor her situation.
Roundup: In the wake of the Bedford decision
In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court has struck down the laws around prostitution that related to keeping a bawdy house, living off the avails, and communication for the purposes of prostitution (ruling here). They have given Parliament a year to come up with a new legislative regime before the laws are struck down entirely. Justice Minister Peter MacKay said that he’s disappointed by the finding that the existing laws were unconstitutional, while other Conservatives like Shelly Glover continue to say that these women are now without the “protection” that those laws offered – though the whole point of the ruling was that the laws were not protecting them, but were rather putting them in harm’s way. Part of the debate now moves to the question of how this will affect First Nations women in the sex trade in particular, but it would seem that harm reduction is a good step, particularly if the criminalization made them afraid to go to the police. Emmett Macfarlane writes about the significance of the finding and the way in which the Justices framed their concerns. David Akin looks at how the ruling will affect the various factions of the Conservative base, though it is likely to be more wailing and gnashing of teeth around supposed “judicial activism.” Brenda Cossman worries that the discussion will move toward how to criminalise prostitution rather than how to best regulate a decriminalised environment. Carissima Mathen points out that this court decision is in part because Parliament was negligent over the past three decades when they left these laws in place when they knew that a more comprehensive framework was needed. Andrew Coyne writes about just how very reasonable the decisions is, and how regulation and licensing may be the best choice going forward.
Roundup: No CPP deal (for now)
The provincial and territorial finance minsters met with Jim Flaherty at Meech Lake yesterday, only for Flaherty to turn down the proposal that they were had a fair degree of consensus on. Flaherty insisted that that the global economy was still too fragile to implement this plan (though he did sound like maybe one day in the future he’d be more amenable), which left Ontario talking about going it alone. Ontario was also upset that in the transfer payment listings released that they were the one province destined to take a hit, which seems unprecedented as usually provinces are protected. Oh, but don’t worry, Flaherty says – their economy is growing. Um, okay. Manitoba also says that they may be out some $500 million because the last census took lace during major floods and up to 18,000 residents may have been missed, though StatsCan says that they double-checked their numbers. Going into the discussions were three different models on CPP expansion that were being discussed in the media, for the record.