Despite it being only Thursday, only one major leader was present in the Chamber — Thomas Mulcair — which continues the worrying trend that QP somehow doesn’t matter. Mulcair led off today by asking why government agencies needed to collect telecom information on over a million Canadians. James Moore assured him that they were being used by law enforcement agencies for necessary actions. Mulcair mockingly wondered if there were a million criminals being tracked, but Moore insisted that Section 7 of the privacy legislation spells out why this information is necessary. Mulcair brought up the reports that there may be as many a thousand missing and murdered Aboriginal women, to which Stephen Blaney assured him of the measures they had taken. Jean Crowder and Niki Ashton followed up with increasingly outraged calls for a national public inquiry, but Blaney repeated that they were taking measures to keep the street safe. Chrystia Freeland led off for the Liberals, noting the record levels of unemployment in Southwestern Ontario while large numbers of Temporary Foreign Workers continued to be brought in. Jason Kenney insisted that anyone who cut corners and tried to bring in workers illegitimately would face consequences. John McCallum noted that the Canada Experience Class was created as a tool of diplomacy, and was since co-opted by the department of immigration for their own ends. Chris Alexander insisted that the programme benefited Canadians, and when McCallum noted that the previous minister went to Ireland to seek potential immigrants when youth unemployment levels were high, Alexander extolled the relatively buoyant job market in Canada.
Tag Archives: Lawful Access
Roundup: A sizeable delegation
Former Prime Ministers Brian Mulroney, Kim Campbell and Jean Chrétien are joining Stephen Harper at Nelson Mandela’s funeral in Johannesburg. Also joining them will be former Governor Generals Adrienne Clarkson and Michaëlle Jean, premiers Stephen McNeil, Alison Redford, Bob McLeod and Darrell Pasloski. Thomas Mulcair will be joining, as will MPs Deepak Obhrai, Irwin Cotler, Peter Braid, Joe Daniel, Roxanne James, and retired Senator Don Oliver, plus AFN National Chief Shawn Atleo. Joe Clark will be leading a delegation from the National Democratic Institute.
Roundup: Possible charges against Wright
And with the likelihood that charges will be laid against Nigel Wright, the ClusterDuff exploded all over again yesterday, as an 81-page court affidavit from the RCMP investigator was made public. There are some fairly shocking revelations in there – things like how Wright was in communication with Senator Irving Gerstein as Gerstein made back channel contacts with a partner at Deloitte to inquire about the progress of the Duffy audit and how the repayment would affect it – and that such partner is a top Conservative donor, and that the firm also audit’s the party’s finances. Or that the Prime Minister was told “in broad terms” that Wright was helping Duffy out with the repayment – though it also says clearly that Harper was not told the particulars. That Gerstein considered using party funds to repay Duffy when they thought it was a $32,000 price tag. That there are a number of problems with Duffy’s various speeches in the Senate where he painted himself as some kind of unwitting victim. And that there was a heavy PMO hand in the attempt to change the audits, though there was pushback (including from one of LeBreton’s staffers, Chris Montgomery), and frustration on Wright’s part because the Senate was not responding as they would like when it came to the management of the crisis. Why, it’s terrible that Wright and the PMO were confronted by the notion that the Senate is an independent chamber of parliament that is institutionally independent from their control. The horror! There was even apparently an incident where the Senate clerk had to have words with Senator Carolyn Stewart-Olsen about her partisan behaviour on the steering subcommittee of the Internal Economy Committee. (Mark Kennedy has some highlights here.)
QP: Bombast and rejected characterisations
With all party leaders back in the House today, things got started with Thomas Mulcair reading a screed about the “corruption” in the Senate, to which Harper rejected the categorisation and noted how quickly they responded to the allegations. Mulcair moved onto the “fraud” of the Saskatchewan push-polls, earning him a warning from the Speaker about QP being for government business, not party business, but Harper responded anyway, talking about how everyone had a right to give input to the electoral boundaries process. For his final question, Mulcair asked about job creation, giving Harper a chance to tout his record. Peggy Nash was up next, asking about long-term unemployment and changes to EI, for which Jim Flaherty gave a rundown of their job creation numbers with a tone of exasperation. Bob Rae was up next for the Liberals, and taking up the theme of Bell’s Let’s Talk day about mental health, and wondered why recommendations by the Mental Health Commission. Harper reminded him that they set up the commission, and that they were looking to their recommendations going forward. For his final question, Rae asked about a parliamentary inquiry into murdered and missing Aboriginal women, but Harper
Roundup: Smothering lawful access
In a shocking revelation yesterday, the government, by way of Rob Nicholson, announced that it got something wrong, and it was smothering one of its own bills in the crib. That bill, of course, was C-30, the lawful access or Internet surveillance bill – which I guess means that this government is also on the side of the child pornographers. But more seriously, enough pressure was brought to bear, and they realised that they had a problem, and that it was untenable to continue. Of course, we can also be certain that the NDP will claim responsibility for this victor in QP tomorrow, but that’s another story. Moving forward, the government has tabled a bill to allow warrantless phone tapping for emergency situations like kidnapping or bomb threats, which sounds a lot less contentious, but we’ll see if it too passes constitutional muster.
Roundup: Fictional carbon taxes
The first day back in the Commons, and all anyone can talk about is whether or not the NDP was proposing a carbon tax. Which they weren’t. But hey, why not use this hysteria as a distraction from actual debate? Van Loan laid out what the plans were for the fall – new budget implementation bill, which will likely include changes to MP pensions, RCMP bill, more tough on crime measures – but the Lawful Access bill was notably absent. Amidst the whole Conservative/NDP carbon tax vs. cap-and-trade punch and counter-punch, economist Stephen Gordon lays out the economic differences between the two.
Oh noes! Government backbenchers are showing a bit of backbone and having independent thought. We The Media must immediately crush this by writing “IS STEPHEN HAPRER LOSING CONTROL OF HIS CAUCUS?” stories.
Roundup: CSIS volunteers to help Vic Toews
The Director of CSIS has generously volunteered to assist Vic Toews in fixing his delayed Lawful Access bill. You can find the redacted letter here.
The federal government has announced that it will appeal the BC court ruling on assisted suicide.
What’s that? Federal bureaucrats weren’t impressed when John Duncan didn’t appear to understand the Attawapiskat file in public? You don’t say!
Roundup: Unveiling the proposed regulations
Diane Finley has unveiled her proposed EI reform regulations, and it seems to be a lot about twice-daily emails about “appropriate” jobs in the local area to EI recipients. Which is great – provided you have a computer and Internet access, and aren’t one of those poor schmucks who has to rely on their local library for the Internet, especially seeing as the federal funding for those library computers is now at an end. The changes will also track how often one claims EI, and start taking away benefits the more you claim it. Rona Ambrose likens it to E-Harmony for jobseekers. No, seriously. Meanwhile, here is some more reaction, plus Scott Brison relays concerns from the agricultural sector in his riding with regards to these reforms’ limits on temporary foreign workers, who they say the use of actually creates more jobs for local residents. Steve Murray casts his satirical eye on the situation here.
To say nothing about him personally, John Baird has been pretty vocal about promoting GBLT rights around the world in his capacity as foreign affairs minister. With that in mind, it’s awfully curious that he was speaking at an event sponsored by an anti-gay church on the topic of religious freedom. His speech, however, was pretty bland, and offered no real clues about the still undefined Office of Religious Freedoms.
Roundup: A pre-emptive strike on Lawful Access
The Supreme Court has struck down the ability for police to do wiretaps without a warrant, even in the case of an emergency, because of failures of accountability. Why this is important now is the fact that the Lawful Access bill is under consideration, which also deals with warrantless access to information and communications. This could be a pre-emptive signal by the Court to tell MPs to drop the warrantless provisions, lest they be struck down the way in which these wiretapping laws were.
A number of Air Canada pilots staged a “sick out” yesterday – calling in sick as a job action to protest the way they’ve been treated by management and the government. I spoke to a former conservative Labour Minister about this issue a couple of weeks ago, and small surprise, she’s no fan of this government’s tactics.
CBC’s Terry Milewski goes through the way in which the government took the $10 billion out of its own figures when it publicly said the F-35s were only going to cost $15 billion, even though their own internal numbers, procurement guidelines, and agreements to include operating costs after previous Auditor General spankings – gave the $25 billion figure.
Here’s a look at the current size of the PMO, and the number of staffers in there making over $100,000 per year. Fiscal austerity everyone!
The government’s “back office” cuts at the military includes gutting Defence Research and Development, whose work saves lives in the battlefield. But they’re supporting our troops, everyone!
Here’s a great speech from Senator Cowan about Senator Eaton’s “foreign money” inquiry, in which he notices a few similarities to laws that Vladimir Putin passed in Russia to keep foreign influence out. This targeting of charities is part of the budget, so we can expect more of this kind of targeting to come.
Susan Delacourt looks at the double standard by which political parties are exempt from the same advertising and marketing rules that the private sector is bound by, which includes Do Not Call lists.
If you’re in the mood for a wonkish look at the Elections Act, Kady O’Malley looks at the clause about foreigners campaigning in Canada, and the debate in 1999 where MPs revising the law didn’t do their due diligence.
Also wonkish but very important is this essay from Liberal MP John McCallum on improving the estimates process. It’s refreshing to see an MP who actually understands that his job is to scrutinise spending and exercise control over the public purse.
Here’s an excellent takedown of “conscience rights” as being debated in the Alberta election.
And here’s a look at how it’s Tom Mulcair in English, and Thomas Mulcair in French.