Tomorrow marks the 200th birthday of Sir John A Macdonald, our first prime minister and the man who made us. Unfortunately, because we don’t do a good job of recognising him, we’re not seeing too many celebrations around the country, which is a shame. And more recently, we’re seeing a rash of spiteful editorials, like this one, that declare that we should not celebrate him at all because he was a horrible racist drunk, or what have you. Never mind that everyone in the 19th century was pretty terrible, never mind that he was far more enlightened and moderate than most of his peers, never mind context or nuance as we read history – let’s grind some modern day axes on the backs of historical figures who can’t defend themselves! (Macdonald’s biographer, Richard Gwyn, offers a pretty good response to these kinds of articles here). In the meantime, Stephen Harper pens an op-ed in Macdonald’s praise, while Mark Kennedy wonders if any politician today could survive the scandals that Macdonald did (spoiler: probably not), and Aaron Wherry gets a roundtable of experts together to discuss Macdonald’s legacy. In the meantime, celebrate his birthday by watching the CBC film about the first steps toward confederation (online here), listen to some of his speeches as read by other former prime ministers, and certainly have a drink in his honour. Note that his favourite tipple was actually champagne, and not scotch, as so many people like to claim.
Tag Archives: Tough on Crime
Senate QP: Solitary confinement under scrutiny
The Senate was sitting early on a Friday morning as part of the final push to get the last of the bills that need to be passed done so before they rise for the Christmas break. Routine proceedings in the Chamber proceeded swiftly, and Question Period began early.
Senator Cordy led off, asking about an issue of a specific home care case in Alberta that she had raised with the leader of the government in the Senate weeks ago and had not yet heard a response to. Senator Carignan, who answers on behalf of the government, noted that he had raised the issue with Ministers Kenney or Alexander. Cordy updated the file with issue of work permits for a caregiver who was already in the country as a temporary foreign worker, but whose paperwork was being delayed for several more weeks. Carignan asked Cordy to have the woman in question send a letter directly, so that he could follow up with the ministers directly. Cordy noted that the woman in question has tried already and had no response, nor from her MP who insisted that nothing could be expedited, but would forward all of her correspondence to him in the next few minutes.
QP: And to all a good night…
The last QP in the Commons of 2014, and only one of the leaders was present, as Stephen Harper was preparing for a photo op in Mississauga, and Justin Trudeau was, well, elsewhere. Thomas Mulcair led off by demanding Julian Fantino’s resignation twice Julian Fantino, slightly more spirited than his usual robotic reply, decried how often the opposition voted against veterans. Mulcair then asked about impaired driving laws, to which Peter MacKay insisted that they were tough on criminals and respecting victims. Mulcair pivoted again, asking about compensation to Newfoundland and Labrador for CETA implementation, to which Rob Moore noted that the fund was created to compensate for losses, not as a blank cheque, so they were waiting for demonstrable losses. Another pivot, and Mulcair demanded specific emissions regulations for the oil and gas sector. Colin Carrie read that a job-killing carbon tax was “crazy.” Marc Garneau led off for the Liberals, and return to cuts to front-line programmes at Veterans Affairs, demanding that the minister be fired. Fantino insisted that the government supported veterans while the opposition voted against them. Joyce Murray noted the government distancing itself from the New Veterans Charter, to which Fantino simply recited his talking points. Frank Valeriote asked about the connection of General Dynamics to the new mental health research for the military, to which James Bezan praised the initiative.
Roundup: Buttressing the Fantino problem
You may think that Julian Fantino’s days in cabinet are numbered. Tone deaf to his file and to the particular needs of veterans, for a government that has tried to make the military a point of pride, Fantino has pretty much been a robotic disaster on par with the reprogrammed Robot from the Lost in Space reboot film. But don’t think that will be enough to convince Stephen Harper to decide it’s time to shuffle the cabinet and oust Fantino. No – that would be a sign that he made a mistake, and of weakness, and well, that simply couldn’t be done. Instead, there has been a great deal of shuffling of the deck chairs – moving retired General Walt Natynczyk to head the department as Deputy Minister, and now the PMO’s director of media relations, Stephen Lecce, has been reassigned as Fantino’s chief of staff – at least on an interim basis. In other words, everything is being done to buttress Fantino from the outside, but short of completely reinstalling his duotronic databanks with a new personality matrix, I’m not sure that it will help. I will add that Leona Aglukkaq’s decision to spend Question Period yesterday reading a newspaper while serious questions were being asked about the food crisis in her own riding were being asked was also not good optics, but as of yet, there are no calls for her resignation, not that it would have any success either, as she is too much of a needed symbol in the cabinet for Harper to let her go for any reason short of leaving briefing binders within reach of the associates of biker gangs.
QP: Lapsed spending and a lack of analysis
Despite it being Thursday, the Commons had a lot of empty desks and none of the major leaders present. Megan Leslie led off, asking about Joe Oliver’s admission that his office did not do their own analysis of the EI tax credit. Oliver insisted that their reduction would create jobs, but the NDP would raise taxes. Okay then. When Leslie pressed, Oliver touted the government’s job creation figures. Leslie moved onto the $1.1 billion in lapsed spending on veterans, to which Parm Gill insisted that it was false. Nycole Turmel asked the same is in French, to which Gill repeated his answer. Ralph Goodale was up for the Liberals, asking about spending on housing and infrastructure, to which Denis Lebel said that if Goodale was so concerned, he should have done more when he was finance minister. Goodale laughed, and raised the lapsed veterans spending, to which Parm Gill howled that the Liberals put the Forces through a decade of darkness. Marc Garneau asked the same question again in French, and Gill gave a slightly less hysterical answer about how much they’ve spend on veterans.
QP: Even Ontario wants NDP childcare
Caucus day in the Commons, and all of the major leaders were again in the chamber, with the Conservatives proud of the new MPs elected in Monday’s by-elections who were visiting in advance of being sworn in, while the NDP were crowing over social media about Maria Mourani joining their party (but not caucus until after the next election). Thomas Mulcair led off by noting that the Ontario legislature voted in favour of supporting the NDP’s childcare plan, and asked about the government’s previous pledges. Harper reminded him that the other night, some Ontarians voted overwhelmingly against the NDP, and that his government has made life more affordable for all families. Mulcair wondered when Harper would meet with the Ontario premier about issues like childcare, and Harper claimed that he meets with premiers regularly — except he’s been avoiding Kathleen Wynne. Mulcair claimed that 65 percent of Canadians live in jurisdictions that want more affordable childcare, and repeated his demand for childcare spaces. Harper insisted that his government has put money in the pockets of Canadians that the NDP were planning on taking back. Mulcair pressed on Harper’s previous specific commitments about the healthcare escalator, to which Harper insisted that they have increased transfers to promises to record levels. Mulcair insisted that the transfer rate change was a cut (which it really wasn’t), but Harper repeated his answers. Justin Trudeau noted that the government would vote against his bill on Access to Information citing bureaucratic increases, and wondered why they opposed the modernization of Access to Information. Harper said that they did modernize the system by bringing 70 new agencies under its aegis and that the Liberals opposed other transparency measures. Trudeau moved to the cuts to infrastructure funds, to which Harper said that the Liberals voted against funding and that they only wanted to “raise taxes to fund bureaucracy.” Trudeau moved onto a conference in Montreal that Harper skipped, and Harper insisted that the government was represented.
QP: Major network censorship!
Despite it being a Thursday, none of the major leaders were present in the Chamber for QP. Yay accountability! Megan Leslie kicked off by asking about radicalized Canadians who were not stopped before they left the country. Stephen Blaney said that there were 63 investigations underway covering over 100 individuals, and why didn’t the NDP support their anti-terrorism legislation. Leslie asked why they were relying on US intelligence for these radicals, but Blaney gave a non sequitur about supporting the mission in Iraq. Leslie turned to the Ebola crisis, to which Rona Ambrose assured her of all the ways in which Canada was contributing. Libby Davies carried on asking about the Ebola vaccine and reiterated the tale of the intellectual property concerns, but Ambrose assured her that the supply that was given to the WHO did not have those concerns and it was up to them to decide what to do with it. Davies quoted a WHO release stating that the commercializations of the vaccine was held by that U.S. company. Ambrose, somewhat exasperated, insisted that they were two completely different issues, and the intellectual property on the donated doses belonged to Canada. Ralph Goodale asked about the plans to stuff things like copyright changes into the budget bill. Kevin Sorenson insisted that Goodale wait until the bill was tabled. Goodale blasted the plans to change those copyright plans so that news clips can freely been used in political ads, calling it “expropriation without compensation.” Shelly Glover said she wouldn’t comment on rumours or speculation, but gave an excuse about networks censoring content. No, seriously. The round closed with Dominic LeBlanc giving the same question in French, and Glover repeating as well.
Roundup: Not an imminent threat
The heads of CSIS and the RCMP went to committee to say that while ISIS is not an imminent threat to Canada, we have to be vigilant about domestic terrorism threats. Well, sure. And then Stephen Blaney talked about arresting these people and throwing them behind bars, because you know, due process and stuff. Blaney also said that they won’t be implementing exit controls, because those belong to totalitarian countries – but they do share entry data with the Americans, which is a de facto exit control system because if one enters one country, they had to exit the other. But that’s not totalitarian. Incidentally, the government has also announced funding for a bunch of new studies on finding the root causes of domestic terrorism and radicalization. And here Pierre Poilievre assured us that the root cause of terrorism is terrorists.
Roundup: Dubious slogan at the ready!
Unveiled during their caucus retreat – err, “strategy session” – in Edmonton, the NDP’s election-ready slogan is “Change that’s ready.” While grammatically it sounds like the change itself is ready, the message is that they’re ready to form government – never mind that they have never formed government federally, and that few members of their caucus has any government experience provincially. They are largely trying to position themselves as the party with substance as opposed to style (à la Justin Trudeau) – but they nevertheless continue to speak in generalities about things like how they want to build more refineries. The captain of the Edmonton Oilers also spoke to caucus, so cue everyone swooning about hockey and politics.
Roundup: Passing knowingly flawed bills
The Senate, it turns out, passed a tough-on-crime private members’ bill that contained a gaping error in it, and they knew it had an error in it and passed it anyway – with observations attached about the errors. Why? Because said private member had become a parliamentary secretary, and sending it back to the House to fix the error would have basically killed it because its sponsor could no longer sponsor it. It seems to me that there should have been a fix for that – generally a unanimous vote in the Commons that someone else take it on, as has happened when an MP retires while their bill is in process – but more to the point, if the government was so enamoured with it, then they should have drawn up a government bill that fixed the errors and put it through the process, which likely would have been expedited since it had already had committee hearings in its previous form. But hey, let’s keep up this nonsense of backbenchers sucking up to the government with these nonsense bills, and let’s keep up this bawling that the Senate shouldn’t overturn flawed bills that passed the Commons because they’re not elected. It’s really helping our legislative process, clearly.