As yet another Rob Ford video hit the media and drew out all of the oxygen of the news cycle, Question Period got underway, the benches in the Commons a little emptier than usual for a Thursday. Thomas Mulcair started off back in prosecutorial mode, and asked who in the PMO was interviewed by the RCMP. Harper assured him that the PMO wasn’t under investigation — Mike Duffy was. Mulcair wondered what documents the RCMP were requesting, but Harper would only say that they were cooperating. Mulcair asked if Harper personally knew about requests for the party to pay for Duffy’s expenses. Harper insisted that he’s been clear, and that he told Duffy to repay his expenses. Mulcair brought up the contradictions in the story to date, but Harper insisted that the facts were clear, that Duffy made inappropriate claims and took a cheque he wasn’t supposed to. When Mulcair brought up Harper’s quote from the days of the sponsorship scandal, Harper said that the $40 million in taxpayer dollars from sponsorship was completely different from the Duffy situation. Dominic LeBlanc led off for the Liberals, and asked if any documents from Chris Woodcock were turned over to the RCMP. Paul Calandra took the hit for this one, and said that they were cooperating and then accused the Liberals in the Senate of fighting for the status quo. Ralph Goodale picked it up, and asked if Woodcock was ever asked about his participation in events. Calandra simply insisted that the Liberals were awful.
Tag Archives: Official Languages
Senate QP: The long farewell speech
Unlike in the Commons, the Senate does their statements first off, then proceeds to Routine Proceedings, before they move onto QP. The statements were paying tribute to Senator De Bané, Canada’s first Arab-Canadian MP and holder of five cabinet posts under the Trudeau government, who is due to retire from the Senate in August. After all of the tributes, and De Bané’s farewell speech that followed, it was a lengthy reflection of his career, the value of the Senate, and his proposal that the Senate create a non-partisan standing committee on culture.
QP: Selective rate regulation
Being both Budget Day Eve and caucus day, the excitement was palpable. Thomas Mulcair led off QP by reading off a question about how Peter Penashue broke the law, and wondered what it said about the rest of the caucus. Harper rejected the characterisation, and touted ALL THE THINGS that Penashue did for Labrador. Mulcair then turned to the issue of Flaherty’s haranguing banks to not engage in a mortgage war when he wouldn’t regulate credit card rates. Harper insisted that mortgage rates were at the lowest rate in history, and Flaherty was trying to ensure market stability. Françoise Boivin was up next asking about the PBO’s latest report on crime legislation spending, but Rob Nicholson mostly deflected by bringing up Mulcair’s meeting with Gary Freeman while in the States. Bob Rae returned to the question of Penashue, to which Harper considered Rae’s characterisations to be negative campaigning. For his final question, Rae brought up the Competition Act with respect to Flaherty’s calls to the banks about mortgage rates, not that Harper’s answer about market stability changed.
Roundup: Cyber-security and Cylon attacks
While considering the challenges posed by the new frontier of cyber-security and hacker attacks, Senator Pamela Wallin says that the government shouldn’t introduce more regulation, but should rely on businesses to report breaches and for people to educate themselves about staying safe from cyber-criminals. Um, yeah – good luck with that – which was pretty much the opinion of experts, who say that more regulation is pretty much necessary to force companies to do something about their cyber-security.
In a not un-related fun story that looks at the Order of Precedence, PostMedia wonders what would happen if we suffered a Cylon attack. As astute viewers of Battlestar Galactica will remember, Laura Roslin was 42nd in line when she became president after everyone else was wiped out in the attack. In Canada, there are 37 names on the list – err, except that this is simply the cabinet list. After that, there are provisions that would allow for the Queen or Governor General to ensure that there was a continuity of government.
Senate QP: Potato packaging and linguistic concerns
With the vote-a-thon proceeding apace in the Commons, I decided to head down the hall to the Other Place – otherwise known as the Senate – to observe the proceedings, and Question Period, there. Note that Nathan Cullen tried to get them the Commons to suspend the votes to still hold Question Period there, but he could not seek unanimous consent. But seriously – the point of marathon votes is to make it uncomfortable to be forced to stay in their seats through the votes, why give them a 45-minute reprieve so that the House can empty out to a skeleton crew?
After some senators’ statements, and reports having been tabled from committees, Senate Question Period got underway. Senator Hubley rose for the Liberals, and asked about changes in CFIA regulations when it comes to food labelling and packaging, especially for the effect that it was going to have on the potato industry on PEI, and could the government indicate who they consulted with before making these changes? Senator LeBreton, the Leader of the Government in the Senate, gets to answer all of the questions put to the government. She mentioned that Senator Nolin had previously raised the question with her, and that the changes had to deal with harmonising cross-border standards. That said, she has already submitted a request for a written response from the minister, and would pass along the Senator’s concerns. Hubley rose again and delivered a few facts about the industry, and asked again for information on who the government consulted with. LeBreton responded that she would ask.
QP: Look everyone, Rush!
With both Mulcair and Rae out of the House, the question hovered as to whether Stephen Harper would even bother answering a question today, as he often won’t bother unless asked by another party leader. But when Megan Leslie, in her capacity as part of the deputy leader trilogy, stood up to ask about that troubling instance of DND retroactively changing a parliamentary report once it had been tabled, Harper did stand up to answer. Well, to say “answer” is a bit charitable, considering he avoided the question all together and shrugged about contracts not having been signed and no money spent on any acquisitions, but didn’t really talk about the issue at hand. And Leslie, incidentally, performed much better than Mulcair on any given day, with minimal checking of notes and clear delivery rather than reading from a lectern. Snaps for that. Jack Harris was up next, asking about cuts to mental health services for the Canadian Forces, but Peter MacKay told him that he was mistaken and that they were moving a clinic to Petawawa for that very issue. Marc Garneau was up for the Liberals, retuning to the question of the contradiction of the Deputy Minister of Defence not accepting the Auditor General’s report when the government does, to which Harper assured him that it wasn’t what the Deputy Minister said, but that he was disputing a specific item. John McKay finished off the round by wondering why the government authorised the release of low-balled F-35 costs in 2010, but Harper answered (actually quite surprisingly) and assured him that they were taking a careful look at those costs going forward.