Tag Archives: Space

Roundup: In no hurry to fill vacant seats

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Stephen Harper says that he’s currently in no hurry to fill the five vacancies currently in the Senate. Which is all well and good, but he can’t let this reluctance to fill seats go on too long before he finds himself in breach of Section 24 of the Constitution. The appointment of Senators is an obligation – not an option.

In advance of the Liberal caucus retreat in PEI, which starts tomorrow, here’s a look at how the whole Trudeau pot admission is a calculated strategy to present him as a different kind of political leader compared to the others, and that this will hopefully outweigh the attacks about his perceived lack of judgement.

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Roundup: A question of speaking fees

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The desire to try and tarnish Justin Trudeau’s reputation took a somewhat bizarre twist yesterday as a New Brunswick charity decided to demand that Trudeau repay them for a speech they paid him for a year ago after the event they held flopped and they lost money. Odd that they asked nine months later, and that they are the party that wants to renege on a contract that they signed with the speaker’s bureau that Trudeau operates from, and that they seem to fail to understand that their failure to sell enough tickets to their event isn’t their own fault, but there you have it. (Also, as Scott Brison pointed out, they seemed thrilled by the event at the time). And never mind that this is all above board, that several other MPs and Senators also give speeches through the speaker’s bureau and that this has all been vetted by the Ethics Commissioner, and never mind the fact that Trudeau himself has been entirely above board and given an extremely high level of disclosure and transparency. These facts apparently don’t matter as the Conservatives have decided to characterise this as “millionaire” Trudeau “ripping-off charities.” And to make things all the more bizarre, Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall decided to join the pile-on and both demanded that Trudeau return the same fee he was paid to speak at a literacy conference in Saskatchewan, and then insinuated that he used the funds to bankroll his leadership campaign (to which his office demanded an apology, citing that all of his campaign expenses were above board and cleared by Elections Canada – and Wall offered a non-apology in return). Funnily enough, that same literacy conference didn’t demand the money back and thought that Trudeau was worth every penny.

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Roundup: “Inexperience” and other likely excuses

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Peter Penashue’s “inexperienced” former official agents says that the corporate donation was “unintentionally” accepted, that Penashue himself didn’t know about the donation, and that the last four or five days of the campaign, “all hell was breaking loose” trying to get money in before the deadline, so the rush totally explains all of the ineligible donations. So really, it’s nobody’s fault because nobody takes responsibility for the documents they signed off on, right? Well, maybe not. The former Chief Electoral Officer, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, notes that as the Elections Canada investigative process continues, charges may yet be laid, though not in time for the by-election. The CBC’s David Cochrane looks at the whole affair from the local angle and wonders if Labradoreans want a cabinet minister or to re-elect someone who ran an incompetent campaign and blames others for mistakes that he was responsible for.

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Roundup: The unravelling cases of Senators Wallin and Duffy

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In the past couple of days of Senate revelations, we find that Senator Pamela Wallin has an Ontario health card and not a Saskatchewan one, which raises the question about her residency – no matter that she spent 168 days in Saskatchewan last year. Wallin also apparently repaid a substantial amount in expense claims before this whole audit business started, which is also interesting news. Senator Mike Duffy, meanwhile, could actually end up owing $90,000 plus interest on his living expense claims rather than the $42,000 that was cited over the weekend. Oops. Tim Harper looks at the sideshow that is Senator Duffy’s non-apology and smells a deal made to save his job. Senator Cowan says that repayment doesn’t answer the questions – especially not the ones about residency, which means he may not be up to protect Duffy – or Wallin and Patterson’s – seats. And those Senators who’ve been silent on their residency claims are now being called before the Senate Internal Economy committee to explain themselves. Terry Milewski goes through the entire housing claims allegations and fixes an appropriate amount of scorn on the idea that two ticky-boxes are “complex” on the forms.

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Roundup: Returning to untenable demands

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The AFN is apparently back to their demands that Harper and the GG be at the table together at their next meeting – which is untenable. That a number of chiefs think that the GG can force Harper to deal with their issues is a gross misconception that they need to abandon. It’s even worse when one of them comes on Power & Politics and declares that the Queen got it wrong. Because you know, it’s not like she’s been on the job for the past 60 years or anything. Meanwhile, Tim Harper has a very disturbing tale of threats and intimidation going on in the internal politics of the AFN, which includes threats being made against National Chief Shawn Atleo and other regional chiefs. Paul Wells writes about Stephen Harper’s choice between cooperation and confrontation with First Nations.

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Roundup: Spence versus Responsible Government

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It was another fraught day with regards to the whole Prime Minister-First Nations meeting, Chief Theresa Spence, and civic literacy in general. Chief Spence first said that she wasn’t going to go to the meeting because the Governor General wouldn’t be there. And then, briefly, she was going to be there, and then no, no she wasn’t and to add to that, she was going to keep up her liquid diet, and had signed her will because she was ready to die. So really, no dramatics there. But not only that, the continued insistence that the Governor General be there to represent “the Crown” is both wrong and misguided, and yet nobody seems willing to tell Spence that she’s barking up the wrong tree. In fact, she’s decided to write the Queen to have her insist that the GG show up – because the Queen is magic, and Canada is apparently still a colony under direct Crown control. “Oh, but it’s an important symbol that he be there,” Spence’s supporters insist. Except that the only symbolic message that would be sent is that the Queen and by extension the GG are the ones who make public policy in Canada and that the whole 167 years of Responsible Government were all just a dream – like that season of Dallas. Because without trying to be too glib, this is exactly what Spence is demanding. And not to put too fine of a point on it, I’ll add this quote: “Spence is demanding a meeting with a ghost, with a Crown that by 1763 had already ceded much of its discretionary powers to Parliament.” This from a post that explains the metaphors that Spence is trying to interact with on a literal basis. And the fact that people don’t understand that it’s inappropriate to involve the Sovereign or her representative in what is supposed to be a working policy discussion is troubling, because it means that they have no working understanding of what Responsible Government is, let alone that it’s a real thing, a system of governing principles that is the foundation for our democracy. That anyone would honestly suggest otherwise, that the Queen could swan in and make proclamations or declarations at whim, is an indictment of the crisis state of our civic illiteracy, and it really needs to be rectified.

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Roundup: The GG and the Chief

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Despite Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence’s demand that the Governor General be part of a meeting with the Prime Minister as a condition of ending her hunger strike, His Excellency has said that it’s not his place to meet with her over political issues, and will defer until given political instruction to do so – which is how things work under Responsible Government, in case anyone has any doubts.

Jason Kenney plans to re-launch the federal skilled workers immigration programme by May, which he hopes to keep more foreign-trained doctors and engineers from driving cabs (never mind that the biggest holdup to credential recognition is provincial regulatory bodies).

As was promised, the government has moved to eliminate gun show regulations – not that they were ever actually implemented in the first place.

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Roundup: The “fair share” debate

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It was the first day of the Council of the Federation meeting yesterday, and it was largely devoted to First Nations issues, and how they want to be included in the “fair share” debate around natural resource development, since much of the development is on their territory, as will pipelines cross it, and they are soon to be an emerging labour force in this country. Meanwhile, with regards to the ongoing Northern Gateway debate, Adam Goldenberg lays out the ultimatum game for the two premiers, while Andrew Coyne calls it out as extortion.

Here’s a look at what some of Alison Redford’s ‘national energy strategy’ entails, and it looks to mostly be about oil pipelines, as opposed to a more diversified energy economy across the country.

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QP: Exit Lee Richardson

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With Thomas Mulcair off to Alberta, it was up to Nathan Cullen to lead the charge in Question Period today, which he began by asking about the Environment Commissioner’s comments about changes to environmental assessments, to which Prime Minister Harper replied that they were simply doing away with duplicative processes. Cullen brought up how the EI changes would just force people onto provincial welfare rolls, but Harper again deflected and assured him that people who needed EI would still get it. Nycole Turmel then got up to decry the impact of EI changes on seasonal industries, but Diane Finley basically repeated Harper’s response. Bob Rae got up and asked what the expected cost savings of the EI changes were going to add up to. Harper insisted that this wasn’t about savings, but about getting Canadians back to work. When Rae tried to press about the issue, and the government’s belief that there are people receiving EI that shouldn’t be, Harper turned it around and attacked Rae’s record as Ontario premier instead.

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QP: Tinfoil hats and telecom trouble

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While some MPs may have been a bit bleary-eyed from the previous late night, it certainly didn’t make for a dull Question Period. Or perhaps, that’s why it took such a turn for the worse the longer it continued. Thomas Mulcair was up first, reciting his carefully prepared questions on why the government still hadn’t provided any figures for the planned changes to OAS, to which Harper assured him that there weren’t going to be any actual cuts to benefits. Mulcair then turned to the issue of Chinese telecom company Huawei being granted Canadian contracts after the US and Austraila barred them as security risks. Harper insisted that the US doesn’t dictate our policies. When Randall Garrison rose to keep asking about the same questions, Vic Toews said that the CBC story only told half the tale, and that his officials weren’t in opposition, while Conservative backbenchers chirped about people wearing tinfoil hats. Bob Rae got up to ask about the changes to EI and how worker protections were eroding as their rights would no longer be enshrined in legislation, but rather in regulation. But when he demanded that Harper produce said regulation now, Harper dodged and insisted that the appeals process would remain in place. When Rae turned to the issue that the government wouldn’t produce the data on how much would be saved in the OAS changes, Harper reminded him that the measures wouldn’t be coming into effect until 2023.

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