Cheap partisan point scoring ruled the day on the issue of Ukraine here in the Nation’s Capital as the government decided not to include any opposition MPs in their delegation to meet the country’s interim government. Most galling was the response sent out to media by the PMO – that the NDP “could pick a side” during the protests, and that Justin Trudeau’s comments about Russia “were not helpful” and thus his party had no role on the delegation. Not only that, but James Bezan, one of the two MPs accompanying Baird and Senator Andreychuk as part of the delegation, went on TV to proclaim that it was a “government delegation” – err, except that he and Ted Opitz are backbenchers, and thus not actually part of the government, so that excuse doesn’t fly either. All of which leads to conclude that this is little more than an excuse to play domestic politics with a serious international issue. Well done, guys. Well done.
Tag Archives: Ukraine
QP: Trying to resurrect questions of the Senate
With much of the media’s attention turned to Rob Ford’s visit to Ottawa, all party leaders were in the House, ready to scrap. Thomas Mulcair led off by pointing out that a certain Senator headlined a fundraiser for Pierre Poilievre — actually not government business — not that Harper took the bait and praised the elections bill instead. Mulcair brought up the Deloitte audit and tried to insinuate that Senator Tkachuk was passing information to the PMO. Harper reminded him that it wasn’t a question for him to answer. Mulcair then asked why it was that the previous draft of the election bill was rejected by the Conservative caucus, but Harper insisted that Muclair’s information was wrong. Justin Trudeau was up next, and brought up slowing growth figures and wondered why the Building Canada Fund was losing money, but Harper hit back by saying that Trudeau didn’t understand the economy. And on it went for two more supplementals.
Roundup: Trudeau’s penitent face
Justin Trudeau put on his penitent face yesterday and made his apology for making a quip about Russia intervening in Ukraine because of a hockey loss. He apologised to the ambassador, and signed the book of condolences there for the dead protesters – and everyone pointed out that none of the other leaders had done so, nor had they spoken to the ambassador. Because we need to play cheap politics over the situation there, and try and drag their ambassador into our domestic political mud fights. Way to show that any party leader in Canada is statesmanlike! Meanwhile, Stephen Harper is sending John Baird to Ukraine with a Canadian delegation in order to meet with the interim government to see if Canada can help out in any way (and it’ll likely involve being part of a bailout package, since much of what started this whole revolt was the $15 billion that the former president accepted from the Russian government).
Roundup: Ridiculous paranoia and shameless misspeaking
The Fair Elections Act was back front and centre in the House yesterday, with the NDP’s opposition day motion to hold cross-country hearings on the bill. Aaron Wherry heard back from Pierre Poilievre on the problems with vouching, and from the former BC Chief Electoral Officer who wrote a report on said issue, who doesn’t think it should be eliminated by simply streamlined. There are concerns that the changes in the Act could prevent the Chief Electoral Officer from reporting to Parliament on the investigation into the fraudulent robocalls (Poilievre insists it won’t be the case). The provision that both chambers of Parliament would need to sign off on future online voting experiments is bringing out the paranoia that the Conservative-dominated Senate will kill all future attempts, out of spite or something (because the Senate has never been dominated by an opposition party before apparently – and seriously, grow up). And then, to top it all off, Conservative MP Brad Butt decided that no, he didn’t actually witness voter fraud by people taking discarded voter identification cards and then using them illicitly – he just “misspoke.” Multiple times. In the House and in committee. Oh, but now he considers the matter to be “closed,” so stop asking. Yes, apparently he is that shameless.
QP: The post-Olympic high
With the Olympics now over, and MPs giving glowing statements about our medal winners, and the Liberals revved up after their weekend convention, one could almost hope for a punchy QP. Sadly, with a large number of empty seats in the chamber and only one major leader present, it wasn’t going to really be an exiting day. Thomas Mulcair led off by asking for an update on the Ukrainian situation, to which Chris Alexander read a pro-forma statement. Mulcair segued to the elections bill, and demanded to know why Senate committees could hold consultative hearings across the country, but not the committee charged with the bill. Pierre Poilievre insisted that they were listening to Canadians and that the NDP didn’t bother to read the bill. Mulcair and Poilievre had a couple of back-and-forths , after which Speaker Scheer cautioned Mulcair to stop using the word “cheating.” Mulcair stood up and declared that the Conservatives were trying to pre-cheat the next election, and sat down, no question. Scheer said nothing, and moved on. Ralph Goodale was up for the Liberals and asked about that report on the foundering middle class and noted the ways in which the government raised taxes. Kevin Sorensen insisted rather vigorously that his government had cut taxes, and wouldn’t be dissuaded otherwise. Marc Garneau asked the same in French, not that Sorensen’s answer changed.
Roundup: Aftermath of a weekend convention
Justin Trudeau delivered his big speech on Saturday, and it was fairly well received, if still light on policy specifics. (Video here, with keynotes from Harper and Mulcair for comparison). He promised no new taxes, which immediately raises doubts about the affordability of his plans, and he landed a few blows against Harper in there, about the person who appointed Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin campaigning on the strength of his judgement, and how his wasn’t the party of Sir John A Macdonald, which was a calculated means of trying to undermine Harper’s base. Part of the speech included a fictional “Nathalie” as Trudeau’s example of an everywoman to showcase his commitment to the middle class, which is a technique apparently used successfully by the Obama camp. The Maclean’s team dissected the speech and what the key points meant, while Paul Wells offers a stand-alone analysis on how Trudeau is the first leader since Chrétien to be automatically accepted by the party without labouring to, and how he’s now knocking at Harper’s door, changing the political dynamics in this country.
Roundup: Commence the convention
The Liberals’ policy convention is now underway in Montreal, and while things started off with a bit of an oops – the feed from the main stage was live to the reporters’ room while Trudeau was practicing his speech, giving it away before he could make it, and it included his camera directions. He delivered his rah-rah partisan speech to kick things off, which included a couple of digs at Pauline Marois, and to Harper and Mulcair in which he said he wasn’t going to play their game of trying to make Canadians angry, and ended it with a Skype call to his family (as they stayed in Ottawa, his wife due to give birth any day now). A few Senate Liberals, but not many, are in attendance, for which the NDP are trying to get a social media shaming going. Mike Moffatt offers three questions for the Liberals to look at as they try to formulate economic policy during this weekend’s convention. Kate Heartfield notes the implicit populist tones in Trudeau’s economics video, and how it still creates an Us and Them in order to play that populist card, while still trying to look like he’s above tribalism. Michael Den Tandt writes that the broad strokes economic policy will be looking at ways to bring the Red Tories and Blue Liberals back into the fold and away from the Conservative coalition. Paul Wells writes about the Conservatives hoping that the convention will prove to be a gaffe-fest for Trudeau (and along the way, coins the best descriptor for the Fair Elections Act as being “Conservative-fair”).
QP: Questioning the elections bill
Despite it being caucus day, the Conservative benches were surprisingly sparse as QP got underway, but given that all leaders were present, we would at least have some excitement. Thomas Mulcair started off by asking if impersonating an elections official to suppress votes was not already a crime. Harper instead talked up his new elections bill, and all the great things that were in it. Mulcair hit back by accusing the bill of being a cover for an attack on Elections Canada given the various investigations, but Harper insisted that the courts cleared them of any wrongdoing, which wasn’t entirely the case if memory serves. Mulcair turned to the provisions around voter IDs and the vouching system, but Harper rejected the claim that this was discouraging people from voting. Justin Trudeau was up next, and brought up the tariff hikes from the last election, and noted that the lower dollar would make things even more expensive. Harper rejected the claim, and said that it was about levelling the playing field. Trudeau brought up the IMF’s projections regarding anaemic growth, to which Harper insisted that Canada came out of the recession with some of the strongest growth in the world.
QP: Sedate questions sans Fantino
Monday in the House, and the benches slowly filled up before QP was about to get started, but Elizabeth May was the only leader present. As well, it was Deputy Speaker Joe Comartin in the Chair, and the Wooden Mace on the table. That left it up to Megan Leslie to lead off for the NDP, wondering about Julian Fantino’s union-bashing rather than supporting veterans. Parm Gill, Fantino’s parliamentary secretary, insisted that veterans would be better off with the new system as there would be more home delivery of service. Leslie moved onto the topic of CSE using airport Wifi to track travellers, to which Rob Nicholson repeated the talking point that the CSE Commissioner found their activities to be within the law. Jack Harris repeated the same again in English, not that he got a different answer. For the Liberals, Wayne Easter carried on with the questions of CSE’s activities, but Nicholson’s answers didn’t change. When Easter brought up the Commissioner’s report in which he stated that some of the activities may have been directed at Canadians in contravention of the law, Nicholson’s answers didn’t budge from their script. Marc Garneau have one last attempt at the question in French, but Nicholson insisted that CSE was in the business of protecting Canadians, and that should have the support of the Liberals.
Roundup: Fantino’s bungled meeting
Oh Julian Fantino – you’ve really done it this time. When a group of veterans came to meet him about the closure of eight service facilities, Fantino was an hour late, sending his parliamentary secretary and two MPs who are also veterans to assure them that the changes won’t really impact them, which just incensed the veterans. And when Fantino did show up, things got heated, and he stormed out saying that he wasn’t going to be finger-pointed to as one of the veterans was emphatically saying “You’re going to promise me that I won’t see any changes in service,” at which point said veterans filed down to the press theatre and denounced Fantino and the government. And it was quite the press conference to watch. To cap it off, Fantino put out a press release to highlight the “roundtable” held and to express his disappointment with PSAC, who brought the veterans to the Hill. Yeah, good job there. On a similar note, Fantino’s department is demanding repayment for $581 from the family of a soldier who committed suicide. No, seriously.