It was a frosty Monday in Ottawa, with a bitter wind blowing from the west. None of the three main party leaders were in the House, but the ranks weren’t quite sparse enough to consider it a Friday QP on a Monday. Things started off with David Christopherson angrily reading off a question about protecting pensions, to which Gary Goodyear touted the ways in which the government has improved pensions. He then moved onto the topic of the supposed “quotas” for EI and Diane Finley apparently calling EI recipients “bad guys” (even though she did not such thing, but called people who abuse EI bad guys, and hey, remember when the NDP were all in a knot about the “bald-faced lies” about the carbon tax farce? Funny how that works, no?) John Baird — apparently the back-up PM du jour — insisted that Finley never said that, and yay for stamping out fraud. Nicole Turmel was up next, asking the same questions in French, and got the same responses from Goodyear and Finley. Ralph Goodale led off for the Liberals, asking about youth unemployment and demanding a freeze on “payroll taxes.” Baird was back up, touting their Economic Action Plan™, for what it’s worth. Stéphane Dion closed the round, decrying the “job-killing EI reform” and how it would destroy seasonal industries. Small surprise, Diane Finley got up to deny that was the case.
Tag Archives: Pensions
Roundup: Undermining accountability with dollar figures
The government has started attaching dollar figures to who much it costs to answer Order Paper questions – in this case, $1.2 million in a three-month period. Oh noes! Parliament costs money! And really, using this tactic of putting dollar figures on basic accountability is underhanded and violates the very premise of Parliament, which is to hold the government to account by means of controlling supply. To do that, Parliament needs facts and figures, quite simply. And making it seem like a costly imposition for Parliamentarians to exercise their most basic function is, in a word, despicable.
The federal and provincial finance minsters met at Meech Lake yesterday, and while they didn’t come to any consensus over boosting the CPP, they did agree to study it and come up with a report for their meeting in June.
Not that it’s any big surprise, but former assistant deputy minister of procurement at DND, Alan Williams, said the F-35 process as “corrupted” from the beginning, but the main question remains why the cabinet went along unquestioningly when the bureaucrats barrelled ahead with the sole-source contract. Meanwhile, the Americans are already looking at developing a “sixth generation” fighter jet by 2030.
QP: Angry questions in advance of the KPMG report
What was likely the final QP of the year was very nearly a full house in the Commons, and saw the arrival of the two new Conservative MPs who recently won the by-elections in Durham and Calgary Centre. Once Erin O’Toole and Joan Crockatt took their seats, Thomas Mulcair started off by reading off demands for amendments to the Investment Canada Act, and intimated that the Prime Minister is scaring off investment. Harper pointed out that the markets responded positively to the decision, and hit back about how the NDP would shut down the oil sands. Mulcair then switched tracks and went after the F-35s, to which Harper shrugged and said that the Auditor General’s report found some problems with cost assumptions, but they had this new process going forward. Bob Rae then got up, and took umbrage with Harper’s characterisation of the the Auditor General’s report, and got into a back-and-forth with Harper about what was in the report.
Roundup: Combing through the Public Accounts
The public accounts were released yesterday, which give a detailed accounting of where money was actually spent. Whether or not MPs will take the time to compare the public accounts with the last year’s estimates – you know, like they’re supposed to in order to hold the government to account – remains to be seen, but in the meantime, We The Media have combed through them for salacious details. Things like a strip club being among the recipients for G20 compensation, or the loss of $1.9 million in stolen government property – including weapons from the military.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer – who is no doubt also combing these documents – is waiting on that legal opinion about his mandate, incidentally.
Food bank use in the country is still on the rise, despite the “fragile economic recovery” and all of those net new jobs that the government keeps touting.
QP: They’re not cuts, they’re changes
With Members’ Statements getting rowdy before Question Period even started, Speaker Scheer warned, “let’s not have this again.” And really, we didn’t. QP was fairly listless overall. Thomas Mulcair started out reading a question on the $10 billion in cuts to Old Age Security, to which Harper said that no, there were no cuts but changes coming in 2023. Mulcair moved onto the topic of the Parliamentary Budget Officer not getting the information he requested, to which Harper responded that they wrote the Act that created the position, and they report that information to Parliament. Megan Leslie was up next wondering why it was that the FAQ page on about the Navigational Waters Act was pulled down from the government’s website, to which Lebel said that they were fixing “erroneous information” about that Act on the site. Down the memory hole it goes (excepting of course for Google cache and the Library and Archives Canada backup copy). Bob Rae was up next, asking if the changes to OAS were really worth it considering the negligible percentage of money that it affected, but Harper insisted it was all about future sustainability. For his final question, Rae asked why the government wasn’t prosecuting some HSBC tax evasion cases, to which Harper insisted that they don’t tolerate that behaviour, and that CRA was investigating.
Roundup: The MP pension agreement
With a bit of negotiation, the portion of Omnibus Budget Bill 2: The Revenge that deals with MP pensions was hived off and passed unanimously yesterday morning, and it’s now on its way to the Senate for consideration. This after a brief hiccup where it seems that the original Liberal motion would have included RCMP and public sector pensions in there as well, despite meaning to only pass MP pensions. Oops. One can imagine that this will likely be law before the end of next week, even if the Senate does want to actually study it, but seeing as it’s two clauses, I can’t imagine it’ll be that much. Now the opposition parties want other sections hived off, but fat chance of that happening – the government talking points seem to be that by agreeing to this deal, the opposition agreed that the rest of the bill should be able to stand intact. Sigh.
But wait! Former Conservative and now “Independent Conservative” MP Peter Goldring calls this pension move “cowardly” because it appeals to base populism and further distances MPs from fair compensation. Not that I don’t necessarily disagree, however we’ve so poisoned the discourse around political compensation that we may soon expect sackcloth and ashes for the privilege of service.
Roundup: Khadr repatriated
Omar Khadr was repatriated to Canada from Guantanamo Bay on Saturday morning. Vic Toews sent out a churlish press release to highlight the crimes that Khadr confessed to as part of his plea bargain (though there is doubt about the veracity of the claims), and to basically instruct parole officials about him. Khadr will serve the remainder of his sentence in the Millhaven penitentiary, and will now be subject to Canadian parole laws, rather than have no restrictions (as would have been the case had he served the remainder of his sentence in Guantanamo Bay). That parole hearing could come by next summer. Aaron Wherry reminds us what the Liberal government said of his predicament ten years ago.
Susan Delacourt looks into the grey area of privacy laws where political parties are concerned.
Roundup: A day of resounding nonsense
Yesterday was a day where Canadian politics pretty much lost its mind. First was a rumour that Justin Trudeau might be entering the Liberal leadership race next week (more than a month early), We The Media completely lost it, and wrote actual stories about how he had nothing to announce today, on top of assertions about who his campaign team will be. At least Paul Wells, Susan Delacourt and Steve Murray have a sense of humour about the whole thing.
And then there was the vote on M-312, which was a vote to create a committee to debate the definition of when someone becomes a legal human being (which of course was doomed from the start because Stephen Harper himself would not abide it). The motion was defeated rather soundly, but that didn’t stop the entire political sphere from losing its grip on reality for a while. (Incidentally, CBC has a handy timeline of the abortion debate in Canada).
QP: Variations on EI questions and non-answers
It being a Wednesday, the Commons was a pretty packed chamber, and MPs were riled up from their morning caucus meetings. Thomas Mulcair took advantage of this frisson in the air to read a series of questions listing off Canada’s mediocre economic performance – trade deficit, billions of dollars in “dead money,” tax cuts for businesses not reinvesting it, and so on – and wondering why Harper wasn’t listening to Canadians about the economy. Harper acknowledged that there were great challenges facing the economy, but jobs, exports and growth were up. Peggy Nash brought up the Nexen deal and wondered why they weren’t paying attention to the hollowing out of the resources sector or the concerns of Canadian entrepreneurs. Christian Paradis reassured her about the Investment Canada Act’s criteria, and that those entrepreneurs don’t want a carbon tax either. Joyce Murray was up for the Liberals, and she brought up the Conservatives’ unwillingness to hand over to the Parliamentary Budget Officer data on cuts, to which Tony Clement assured her that they are accountable to Parliament by the regular channels. For her last question, Murray asked about what percentage of foreign ownership of the oil sands the government would allow, not that she got an actual answer from Paradis.
Lord and Smith Commission, Episode 10
My friend Destine Lord and I have a new video up, in which we talk about the framing device around faux “carbon taxes,” and the political games with MP pensions.