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

'It is not a good day for Canadian politics'

by Aaron Wherry on Tuesday, June 9, 2009 1:00pm - 35 Comments

Michael Ignatieff comments on the Raitt tape.

“The deal is if you play these remarks to a woman awaiting a cancer test and her doctor is telling her she can’t have a cancer test because Chalk River is shut down and the government had 18 months to do something about it, and didn’t do something about it, what does she think about a minister saying, ‘Oh, this is a sexy file. I’m going to secure promotion handling this issue,’” Mr. Ignatieff said as he left the Chateau Laurier hotel after delivering a speech to the Teamsters convention.

“[Ms. Raitt] hasn’t handled it at all. We have no alternative supply for isotopes. We don’t make cheap politics out of this. This is a health-care crisis. And the bottom line is: Is that woman waiting for treatment being treated decently by this government? And what they are getting is this kind of cynical, arrogant, ‘this is a good career move.’ It is not a good day for Canadian politics.”

Tags: chalk river, Lisa Raitt, Michael Ignatieff

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http://intensedebate.com/people/Sir_Francis Sir_Francis

"It is not a good day for Canadian politics.”

True. Then again, Canadian politics hasn't had a good day since the early '70's.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

Did you have a particular moment in mind from the early 1970's?

http://intensedebate.com/people/Sir_Francis Sir_Francis

Not really. Just the all-too-brief Stanfield/Trudeau/Douglas era generally.

Will our politics ever be dominated by their like again?

Capt. Discourageous

And it went into a real nosedive as of January '06!
http://michaeltripper.com Michael T

Chretien's joint quip was a good day.
Wayne

If it is such a bad play Iggy – why are you spending so much time on this and not asking the real questions about the problem. See hypocrisy to the n th degree.

Oh Boy

Not asking the real questions about the problem, Wayne?

It seems like Iggy zeroed in on the main point pretty clearly in his remarks"

"the government had 18 months to do something about it, and didn’t do something about it … [Ms. Raitt] hasn’t handled it at all. We have no alternative supply for isotopes. We don’t make cheap politics out of this. This is a health-care crisis."

What would provide you with greater clarity?
A strong dose of reality?

ktee

Canadian health care has far bigger problems than Chalk River.
I like you Iggy but wake the eff up.
john g

So Aaron, why do you seem to consider it acceptable for the Liberals to score political points on a Minister's private conversations, but unacceptable for the Conservatives to score political points on Ruby Dhalla?

Isn't it perhaps a touch unseemly for Ignatieff to be commenting on this, given that Jasmine Macdonnell's father is one of his key fundraisers?

And given that is true, why does Jason Kenney get accused of a conspiracy, but Michael Ignatieff does not?

Nick

Evidence? Proof? Context? Trying to meddle into a she-said-she-said in an inapprioriate venue is different than commenting on a publicly aired tape. Especially one when situation is directly related to a minister of the Crown's portfolio and lives actually hang in the balance.

The Dhalla situation will be fair game once there is some evidence against her. Until then, you can only comment on an accusation.

A tape is a tape. And how do you know it is a tape? When something is taped. And when something is taped, it is then a tape and taped.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Douglass Douglass

Oh… did we miss Ignatieff walking around the inquiry handing out leaflets of material making Raitt look bad?

Questioning her conduct seems to me something the leader of the opposition should do. After all this is the second minister to make odd comments during a health crises (see Ritz) and the second minister to misplace secret documents, but hey, I guess we should just assume that they know what their doing. What with their squeaky clean record of competence.
Michael

Lisa Raitt:

Proven, by way of tape and missing documents, to be both screwing up and making light of the file for which she is responsible as a minister of the crown.

Ruby Dhalla: Unproven allegations about her personal life, that have absolutely nothing to do with her job as an MP.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

The only thing that has been "proven" about Raitt is that she hired a staffer who proved to be extremely careless and therefore incompetent.

I am open to the possibility that Raitt personally screwed up the Chalk River file, but I have yet to see the media present this case in a compelling way.

Ted

Read what Ignatieff spoke, John G: as is his style, he brought the discussion right back to the real and substantial issue: the isotope shortage and the minister's failings on this file.

Not about missing documents, not about Conservatives dissing other Conservatives, not about the Conservatives habits of passing the buck and blaming underlings, not about attempts to censor the news, not about the staffer, etc. but about the Harper government's handling of the Chalk River isotope fiasco.

And that is very much the Leader of the Opposition's job.

http://michaeltripper.com Michael T

any else catch that hilarious remark from Raitt in QP about the only people looking for promotion/advancement/something were the opposition.

Straight outta harpo's playbook.

Do these maroons think anyone other than rabid CPC partisans buy this nonsense?

http://liberalvideodepot.blogspot.com Ted

Standard Operating Procedure:

1. Say it is not a big deal, and blame the media
2. If it is a big deal, blame the Liberals
3. If it is not a big deal, blame the media and the Liberals
4. If relates to legislation, blame the Liberals and the senate
5. If any part of it or all of it is our fault, blame the media, the Liberals and a staffer
6. If all of the above is not working, start talking about the sponsorship scandal, the coalition and Chretien's promise to eliminate the GST, and say something about Ignatieff raising taxes

E.B.

The CPC wants to know how you got a hold of this document, Ted! You can expect a call from the RCMP.

This is spot on…
noobie

The only thing I'd add is an extension of #5: if possible, create a paranoid conspiracy theory linking all three.

http://liberalvideodepot.blogspot.com Ted

That is the tiny little bit of room Harper permits for individual thought and creativity.

http://michaeltripper.com Michael T

hilarious but tragically real!
http://liberalvideodepot.blogspot.com Ted

Someone passed me a tape.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Nich Nich

The most unfortunate part of all of this is that Lisa Raitt is one of the most qualified cabinet ministers, through education and work experience, that our government has. She is more qualified for this portfolio than Harper would be for any portfolio.

I'm not sure when we will have our next election, but this embattled minister will continue on in this portfolio and on the Chalk River situation, with any ability she might have had to affect change now gone. She didn't seem that interested in curing the situation anyways, but now she has no choice…

This guarantees the status quo, which means a shortage of isotopes. Which means a shortage of diagnosis. It will contribute to the death of people.

And it is still the tape that is the issue… like with Ritz, when the issue was a distasteful joke, not his handling of a portfolio that contributed to a food contamination outbreak that lead to the deaths of Canadians.

Again, a minister not acting on the warning signs apparent in their department will potentially lead to deaths.

ATAT

Nich, these comments were made 5 months ago, prior to the current shut-down which is related to radioactive water leakage at Chalk River.

Are we damning ministers now for lack of prescience!

ATAT

“[Ms. Raitt] hasn’t handled it at all.We have no alternative supply for isotopes. We don’t make cheap politics out of this." – Ignatieff

Nope, no cheap politics here. If only the government had built a new reactor as a backup, as they've had a whole 18 months to deal with. (While we're being cheap, is it bad form to note that this length of time corresponds to Ignatief's political life and and his recent stay in Canada).

If the Canadian government is considered incompetent for not having the foresight to build an additional reactor to supply 50% of the worlds medical isotopes, what to make of all the other governments around the world that have never bothered filling this obvious need? Should we be just a wee bit pissed of at them too?

http://intensedebate.com/people/TJCook TJCook

Holding the government to account is the opposition's JOB.

You could almost say they're "opposing" the government. Here we have an issue that's suddenly become prominent in the mind of the public. It's not "cheap politics" to demand action on the issue, it's *what the opposition is supposed to do*.

Honestly, it's like Conservative supporters skipped every Civics class. Maybe you should try repeating Grade 10.

http://liberalvideodepot.blogspot.com Ted

They have never lost their "opposition party" mentality and are still very confused in government about the roles and responsibilities everyone is supposed to have.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

Still, it would be nice if the "Opposition" could come up with alternative plans and solutions. They seem completely incapable of doing so.

TJ Cook

You know what would be nicer? If the government, which controls priorities, agenda, staffing and funding for the agencies that *actually do this work* had done something.

So you're seriously looking at this file – with no action taken in 18 months – and talking about the *opposition* in the lack of progress?

Austin So

Well, I guess since it is hard to blame the Liberals for the mess, the only recourse is to blame the rest of the freakin' world for our problems…

ATAT

How clever….I suppose the Citizen of the World stuff ends here!

Me Thrie

Whenever governments control a monopoly on food production and distribution, like in North Korea, malnutrition and starvation are the result. When a government owns manufacturing plants you get crappy, unreliable cars like the Trabant and the Yugo, and as bad as they are, they have to be rationed to the people who "own" the factories.

Those are well established facts and not subject to any debate outside of maybe hard-core campus Trotskyite clubs. But when the government monopolies on nuclear energy and medicine break down, Canadians' brains turn to mush and they babble about politics and political solutions. Like, a degree in political science or law is some kind of certificate of technical and/or moral qualification for producing nuclear isotopes and running hospitals?

"what to make of all the other governments around the world that have never bothered filling this obvious need? Should we be just a wee bit pissed of at them too?"

You mean, pissed at them for preventing free market solutions to nuclear energy and health care and instead running corrupt and incompetent government monopolies where insiders and cronies pocket the cash and the public is left sucking wind as they die on waiting lists? Absolutely.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Nich Nich

It's been about 16 months since the first shut down and the countries dependence on the plant was painfully highlighted. Judging by all the noise made at the evil Liberal appointee, I thought some 'Plan B' would be in the works as lives hung in the balance. She wasn't the minister until November 2008, about eight months after the first shutdown, but this government had no plan B started (with plan A being blame a Liberal appointee) and she doesn't seem to have investigated one…

Let's not get on the topic of ministers and science… it depresses me.
ATAT

That's absurd! Criticizing the government for the very failures the Liberals had ample opportunity to fix. Construction of a new reactor ought to have begun some 15 years ago, or 10, or 5 … before it became a crisis.

For that matter, what is it that the Liberals might have done in the meantime? What alternative course are they proposing!
ATAT

So your plan B would be what…having begun construction of a new reactor 16 months ago?
What sort of signs would you be expecting in that regard that they had initiated some, any, action on this file?

Sorry, but I find it hard to see how this mess at Chalk River could have been avoided under any circumstance. This is the result of decades of mismanagment at AECL. This has been well-chronicled by Greg Weston of Sun media.
ARX

The Maples were built in the late 90s early 00s, so the Liberals did what they had to, unfortunately the design flaws meant it couldn't work safely. That's on AECL. Cancelling the Maples in 2008 and not coming up with a new plan is on the Tories.