Olivia Chow has garnered enough support to recall the Commons transport committee on Tuesday to hold emergency meetings on rail safety, although I’m still not sure what they’ll accomplish other than the feeling that they’re seen to be doing something, even though there are still very few facts on the table as to what actually happened in Lac-Mégantic. Meanwhile, the Transportation Safety Board tabled their annual report to Parliament, and lamented the lack of expediency by which Transport Canada implements their regulations, something Lisa Raitt is now calling on the department to do.
Tag Archives: Supreme Court
Roundup: Farewell to Bob Rae
In what was a surprise to pretty much everyone, Liberal MP Bob Rae announced his resignation yesterday morning, intending to spend more time as a negotiator for the First Nations in Northern Ontario as part of the development of the Ring of Fire region there. Personally, I find this incredibly distressing as it means we have now lost the best orator in the Commons, and one of the few remaining grown-ups when it comes to debate. This loss lowers the bar, as much as it pains me to say it. John Geddes tends to share this assessment, and especially takes not of Rae’s disappointment with how rote things have become in Parliament over the past number of decades. Aaron Wherry collects a number of videos of Rae’s speeches in the House for the past several years.
Roundup: Denying consent for transparency
After QP yesterday, Justin Trudeau rose to seek unanimous consent for his four motions on greater transparency for parliament – MPs posting expenses, opening up Internal Economy, and calling in the Auditor General. None of them passed, and apparently it was the NDP who denied consent (though some reporters heard Conservatives dissent despite the party line being that they were in favour). What did pass was a motion from Nathan Cullen that would ban MPs from using their travel points to go to speaking gigs, as apparently the latest bout of Trudeau bashing is to assert that he apparently used his MP expenses to do speaking gigs, despite there not being any evidence to support this, and the fact that most speaking gigs include airfare as a standard part of the deal.
QP: Prosecutorial versus crowd-sourcing
Wednesday, caucus day, and MPs filled the benches on both sides. Thomas Mulcair started things off short and sharp once again, asking what clarification Mike Duffy sought after caucus back in February. Stephen Harper said that he simply stated that any improper expenses needed to be repaid. Mulcair asked if Nigel Wright was present for that meeting, but Harper’s answer didn’t change — even after Mulcair asked it again. Mulcair then tried to press about the amount of Nigel Wright’s severance package, but Harper refused, stating that he was only being paid the minimum amount required by law. He then asked if Harper authorised the statement on May 17th that said that Nigel Wright would be staying on. Harper spoke about how Wright made an error in judgement, and he accepted his resignation, before finally breaking out the “You sat on a bribery allegation for 17 years.” Justin Trudeau called into question the logic of Wright paying Duffy’s expenses to spare the taxpayers and asked for the real reason for Wright’s resignation. Harper gave the same talking points. Trudeau asked the same in French before pointing out that Nigel Wright was the director of the Conservative Fund for seven years, and asked one more time which Harper appointed Duffy. Harper didn’t really respond, and took a swipe a Trudeau instead.
Roundup: No answers but a few red herrings
They might as well not have bothered. Harper invited the media in to watch his caucus speech, and gave a bland non-statement about how he was very upset (said in a monotone), “Yay Accountability Act!” and hey, the Senate needs to be reformed – err, except that absolutely nothing about his “reform” plans would do anything about this situation. And so, Harper said nothing about Duffy, Wallin, Brazeau, Wright, or the $90,000 cheque, and because he took no questions, some reporters started shouting them out before they were herded out. And then he got on a plane for Peru, which was planned at least a month in advance, but don’t let that stop Mulcair or the conspiracy theorists from trying to claim that he engineered the Clusterduff explosions to go off just as the trip was planned – as though there were enough competence in the PMO to pull that one off. John Ivison ripped Harper over the failure of the speech, and points to the unhappiness on the backbench that these events transpired and Harper appears to be taking it out on them, rather than looking at the events that transpired in the Centre. Michael Den Tandt writes about how this was a train wreck, and that it broke faith with Harper’s base.
Roundup: Political solutions to economic problems
Business groups are referring to the somewhat ham-handed way that Jason Kenney is responding to the outcry over temporary foreign workers as a political solution that will hurt the economy. And it is a political problem that is divorced from the actual problems that exist within the labour market. Tim Harper lays out the way in which the government is once again engaging in poor policy around this issue because of the way in which it has played out to its anxious base.
Roundup: $3.1 billion in sloppy record keeping
The Auditor General released a report yesterday, and it was a bit of a doozy, at least with regards to the revelation that some $3.1 billion in anti-terror funding is not properly accounted for. Not that it’s actually been misspent, but the recordkeeping is a bit sloppy, and some of it was victim to a “whole of government approach,” according to Tony Clement. Among other issues the AG cited – that our search and rescue infrastructure is headed for total systems failure, that they need to crack down on EI overpayments, problems with expense claims by the Old Port of Montreal, and that there are problems with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as it is beset by conflict with other federal departments over documents. John Ivison says the report is like ‘manna’ for the NDP, and I can hardly wait for the number of times that Thomas Mulcair gets to say “failure of good public administration” over the next several days.
Roundup: From omnibus to minibus
At long last, the budget implementation bill was tabled yesterday, and at around 125 pages, it’s far less of the omnibus bills that the government was so fond of last year. Not that it’s too unexpected, given that the budget itself was a pretty thin document, and so Flaherty’s joke is that this one is a “minibus.” It does have a number of measures including the tariff changes, the attempt to revive the National Securities Regulator, integrating CIDA into Foreign Affairs, and taking things like Winterlude and Canada Day back from the National Capital Commission.
QP: Pure demagoguery
Monday in the House, and most of the leaders were absent. Thomas Mulcair was present, and read off a pair of questions about the temporary foreign workers programme changes. Jason Kenney, the designated back-up PM du jour, stood up to insist him that Mulcair was wrong, and that these workers would be paid at the prevailing rate range, and only if Canadians were being paid at that same rate, and added that they need to ensure that the unemployed accept jobs in their regions. Mulcair transitioned the the lockout at US Steel, to which Kenney insisted that the question was pure demagoguery, and this was about a labour dispute. Chris Charlton stood up to ask the very same temporary foreign workers programme questions, to which Kenney gave her the same response, and brought up the many times that the NDP were begging him to allow more of said workers in their ridings. Marc Garneau led off for the Liberals, asking about the “payroll tax” of EI premiums. Kenney stood up to insist that the Liberals wanted more benefits without the increase in premiums, and that they wanted to repeal the GST cuts. For his last question, Garneau revisited last week’s theme of youth unemployment, to which Kenney insisted that no government has done more than theirs to help youth employment.
Roundup: Everything’s coming up Vic Toews
Vic Toews is all over the news right now, and quite possibly all over Question Period later today. Yesterday morning Toews was on The West Block and basically said that the RCMP “communications protocol” was put into place so that he doesn’t get ambushed by opposition questions in the House after the parliamentarians who had those meetings bring up things they discussed. Aww, muffin! Access to information documents also show that Toews tried to limit the RCMP’s apology to the families of victims of serial killer Robert Pickton. The RCMP ended up rejecting said revisions, saying they came in too late, but it appears to be a case of overreach, and likely an attempt to forestall any attempts of legal action that an admission that the RCMP could have done more to stop Pickton is likely to generate.