Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

Is this perhaps a bit much?

by Aaron Wherry on Thursday, May 7, 2009 12:02am - 34 Comments

A question posed this afternoon by Conservative Lois Brown to the Immigration Minister.

Mr. Speaker, nannygate is not just about the member for Brampton—Springdale, It is about the Liberal Party. It is about a culture of arrogance and entitlement that treats women, immigrant women in particular, like chattel. Not one Liberal has come out and stood up for these abused nannies. The Liberal Party is failing immigrant women, not just by taking them for granted but by being silent when they are being abused. Where are the Liberal voices standing up for these abused caregivers? Will the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism tell the House what the government is doing to protect immigrant women?

Tags: house of commons, Jason Kenney, Lois Brown, Parliament, Question Period, Ruby Dhalla

More by Aaron Wherry

john g

What is a bit much Aaron is that as usual you are more concerned and offended by the Conservative response to Liberal wrongdoing than you are by…Liberal wrongdoing.

This is what, your fourth? fifth? post today on Conservative reaction to the nanny story. Do you actually have anything interesting to say about the story itself, rather than cling to any desperate reason you can think of to make this about the Conservatives? Have you even read the details, or did you just immediately start monitoring Jason Kenney when the story broke to check for foaming at the mouth?

Open your eyes man. Not everything in this world is Stephen Harper or Jason Kenney’s fault. Not everything the Liberals do is awesomely perfect. Sometimes, Liberals screw up on their own, with no help from the Conservatives or anybody else. And when they do, they deserve to be called on it and to take their political lumps for it. The same lumps you would dish out if the Conservatives were on the wrong side of this story. Whoops, I forgot…in your mind, they are on the wrong end of every story.

http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

It’s not Liberal wrongdoing per se (if true etc.), it’s one MP. The attempt by Lois Brown to tie this appalling behaviour (if true etc.) to the MP’s party flag is an extension of the abuse of immigrant women (if true etc.).

john g

Jack, this is exactly the same kind of crap the Liberals throw at the Conservatives whenever one of their members are on the wrong end of a story like this. Only then, instead of condemning the partisanship of the Liberals, the media gladly join in (remember Bob Fife, calling the entire Conservative caucus”a bunch of knuckle draggers” on account of one Tom Lukiwski)?

This is why Wherry’s posts bug me. The Liberals do exactly the same thing when the opportunity presents itself to them…but no one complains. No one notices. They’re all too busy joining in.

http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

FWIW, it’s at times like these that I especially wish the normal tone of Parliament were sober and thoughtful, so that when a real scandal (like this) comes along — from whichever side of the House — the real outrage would not get lost in the usual slurpee of outrage. I wonder if there is some way I could get myself accused of contempt of Parliament: I would like to make it official somehow.

kc

Oh Jack these clowns are way out in front of you in terms of contempt of parliament. If this is what minority parliaments bequeath us, i think i’m ready for a bit of old fashioned majority tyranny. But maybe the public does know best after all ; these guys drone on and on and become more irrelevant every passing day – i guess they gotta do something to impress us. It’s certainly working on me!
http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

You’ve hit the nail on the head, kc. It’s a vicious circle. The logical conclusion is streaking, first by individual MP’s and eventually by whole caucuses. If only there were some alternative to this system. It makes me feel like I’m trapped in a John Carpenter film.
john g

I wonder if there is some way I could get myself accused of contempt of Parliament: I would like to make it official somehow.

Moon them from the public gallery?

Agreed completely on this. They play exceprts from QP on the radio in Ottawa and it’s just getting more and more embarrassing to listen to. The substance of the questions and answers is bad enough (except for Ignatieff, I’m actually quite impressed with his questions), but the cheerleading and chanting on all sides is truly childish. And it’s been this way for years. How did we as a people ever let it get so bad?
http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

Moon them from the public gallery?

That’s an idea! Though I wonder if I wouldn’t just be charged with public mischief or something banal like that. It would be cool to get called to testify before committee and pull a Jon Stewart-on-Crossfire vel sim.

I remember QP on the radio from growing up in Ottawa, but it’s been ages since I heard it. I don’t envy you the privilege. Interesting that Ignatieff comes across so well, to the point of impressing you with his questions; all I know of them is what I read here. Don’t you think other people must have the same reaction as we do? Perhaps QP is not publicised as much in other regions? Do you hear clips of it on the radio in BC / NWT, kc?
kc

“And it’s been this way for years. How did we as a people ever let it get so bad?”

The only possible thiing i can think of is that this is their [ mps] moment in the sun, their only moment almost, and the best opportunity to impress their respective bosses ; certainly they demonstrate nothing but contempt for joe public.
What on earth induces otherwise sane individuals to behave like this? And…would we be any better if we were there? I’d like to think so…in fact i nominate everyone on this post for the house – that should fix it.
kc

Jm
Most of what i hear is here at Macleans. To be honest i don’t seek it out…i find it too dispiriting. There is agood programme on cbc on saturday mornings called it’s the house [something like that]. I catch that from time to time, but again it’s mostly analysis.
Personally i’d like to see it broadcasted more widely – i suspect Canadians would soon make their views known. Whether it would change anything – who knows?

http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

“The Liberals do exactly the same thing when the opportunity presents itself to them…but no one complains. No one notices. They’re all too busy joining in.”

I promise I’ll notice, complain, and not join in when the Liberals do this kind of thing next time.

john g

You’ll have to find a post at Macleans.ca to comment on for it. That’ll be a challenge…

Lord Kitchener’s Own

Well, the one difference between this and the incident with Tom Lukiwski is that this is something Dhalla is accused of doing, while Lukiwski’s regrettable comments that were being attacked were right there for all to see on VIDEOTAPE. If we had videotape of Dhalla treating these women unfairly, then the comparison would be pretty apt.

There are surely other examples that are totally on point though. Isn’t the broader point though that if it’s wrong for the Liberals to tar all Conservatives with the private (and I don’t mean private in a “none of our business” sense, just in a “not directly connected to the work of the party”) failings of one of their members, then it’s wrong for the Tories to do the same in kind?

If you’re disgusted by what happened vis a vis Lukiwski…

john g

I’m not happy with either. But what I’m mostly disgusted with is that only the CPC ever gets slammed for it by Wherry and company. The Liberals get a free pass on this kind of stuff, on a daily basis. And in my opinion that’s one of the major reasons why Parliament is in such disrepair. Because one side has license to do this kind of stuff with total impunity.
Lord Kitchener’s Own

Maybe you shouldn’t just read Wherry “and company” then.

I understand what you’re saying, but I have a hard time seeing this monolithic anti-conservative bias you see. Does Wherry have a point of view? Sure. So does Kelly McParland, but I’m not all shocked when I read him slamming Ignatieff or defending Harper.

Because I have a strong stomach, I read the National Post quite frequently. I think I feel pretty much the same about Barbara Kay and Steve Janke as you do about Wherry and some of his colleagues at Macleans. (On the whole, “why does everyone focus only on the Tory government angle”, I note that of Janke’s six latest columns on attacking issues in Canadian politics, one is on Dhalla, four are on Ignatieff, and one is on Layton… you wouldn’t know that Ignatieff and Layton aren’t PM and Deputy PM, reading him, I sometimes think Ignatieff and Layton DID form a government!).

I guess I’d just make three points. One, the government should ALWAYS get picked on more than the opposition. Two, in the last election, basically every newspaper in the entire country save one endorsed the Tories. Oh, that Liberal bias! And, three, if you read more than Macleans, you’ll see Ignatieff, the Liberals, Layton, the NDP, “socialists”, multiculturalism, terrorist lovers, sodomites, and all sizes and shapes of non-Conservatives getting slammed all over the place. The Tories have just as much license to get away with stuff with impunity as anyone else, they just get their license somewhere else.

dan in van

Give me an example about ‘same crap’. The Lutkiwiski thing wasn’t framed as ‘evidence that homophobes line the CON closet…’ but as someone’s old comments coming back to bite him. Fife? Is this your attempt to avert our attention from your secret agent? The guy who helped Harper and Day fry Maher Arar then covered their tracks? That Fife? You must be carrying just one bullet, then.

Lord Kitchener’s Own

“The Lutkiwiski thing wasn’t framed as ‘evidence that homophobes line the CON closet…’”

Well, in fairness, I’m not sure that’s precisely true. I do think the “Dhalla’s actions prove that the Liberal party ‘treats women, immigrant women in particular, like chattel’” is WAY more over the top than any insinuations made that Lutkiwiski’s comments were perhaps reflective of a broader Tory view of homosexuality, but I wouldn’t say no one insinuated the latter.

Still, going from the allegations against Dhalla to “the Liberal Party treats women like chattel” does seem rather like going from Lutkiwiski’s videotaped comments to “the Conservative Party wants to criminalize homosexuality”, and I’m pretty certain no one ever went that far.
john g

Here you go Dan in Van and LKO. From when Peter Mackay allegedly called Stronach a dog in the House.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/10/20/mackay-stronach.html

Stronach said the comments, allegedly made during question period in the House on Thursday, represent the “attitude of this government toward women.”

Exactly the same kind of partisan mudslinging in response to one Conservative’s heat of the moment indiscreet joke. I don’t know if Aaron “Look! Jason Kenney!” Wherry was at Macleans at the time of this, but I doubt he would have mocked Stronach for her comment.

cam

once again john g loses an argument through a loss of facts. Fife said there “are some knuckle draggers” in the Conservative Caucus. He did not, as you assert, say that the entire caucus were knuckle draggers.

That seems to be the typical overblown Conservative response to any criticism.

Boy, you guys can dish it out but you take it like babies.

kc

Jeez JW, does she merit a hearing before we burn her in effigy? I’m sure you be saying the same thing if it were a conservative issue – right? Maybe that’s part of what Aaron is getting at here. Even if RD is guilty of all she has been accused of, how on earth do you go from that to – the liberal party endorses slave labour or whatever. If this is intended to be a serious political response to the failings [alleged] of one individual, than i believe rational politics is in serious, serious trouble in this country – pure high school, preppy crap.

john g

Actually kc I probably would. I’ve pretty much written off all elected politicians as a lost cause, including the Conservatives. My goal here is not so much to defend the Conservatives, but to try and expose the media double standard and the near free ride that the Liberals continue to get from most of our national media.

kc

JG
I don’t really know what to say to that. On the one hand most of the highly concentrated ownership of media in this country is most definitely not liberal. But on the other, i’m not particularly surprised to see folks who have a good liberal arts education leaning, shall we say left. I think it’s more that fact than actual bias. Certainly i don’t detect any sinister bias amongst quality journalists and there are plenty of wild eyed conservative journos/commenters out there too. Perhaps more journalists should seek out other life experiences/ careers – couldn’t hurt i suppose. It’s abit like having too many lawyers in politics, nothing wrong with it, but it’s not an accurate reflexion of our society.
I’m not saying you’re right, i’m not saying you’re wrong. There’s a good wishy washy lib response for you.

Neil from Calgary in Vancouver

Recall that it was the Liberals that, on two separate occasions, tried to limit abortions in the past two years. tsk tsk.
http://dredtory.blogspot.com/ Sir Francis

“Nannygate”. Christ almighty. It’s come to that.
Jean Proulx

Yes, it’s a bit much.

I guess it’s too much to hope for that the Judy Sgro precedent would have taught people to wait for the facts to come in before ramping up the rhetoric and rush to judgment.

If the world was fair all the MPs who criticized Sgro harshly should have been the one forced to resign.

Jarrid

Jean – you obviously haven’t been issued the latest Liberal talking points: the party’s cutting Ruby loose. Stay on message man.

dan in van

Don’t let us distract you from your own mumbo-jumbo, Jarhead.

Austin So

Is it a bit too much? I guess it depends on whose ruler one uses…

The CPC are digging themselves a hole…and to try to “go in for the kill” while blathering about “Parliamentary unity under times of economic duress” will not go unnoticed by Johnny or Milly Q. Public…

I mean, c’mon, targeting a visible minority woman MP for the alleged unproven abuse of visible minority women to try to improve their standing among women and minorities…?!

Great work einsteins…
Annonymous

hehehe….ask "Lois Brown" what she did to her female staffer and then sees what she says about women's rights in the workplace. haha!
BH

if the shoe was on the other foot, the Liberals would be saying the exact same thing.
Critical Reasoning

Quite true. If a Conservative minister had done what Dhalla is alleged to have done, many in the Liberal caucus would be using the “guilt by association” card to slam the Tories with overblown rhetoric.
kc

But CR, at least be clever, or witty in your political insinuations. This is HS farce, amateur hour, bring on the dancing bears. There must be bears, or seals, or camels. Yeah that;ll do dancing, skipping camels. What were we talking about?
Critical Reasoning

My favourite animal metaphor for the House of Commons: a bunch of shrieking monkeys flinging crap at each other.
kc

That’s about right. What we need is some smart amphibians in there.