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

Dear citizen

by Aaron Wherry on Wednesday, January 13, 2010 11:22am - 128 Comments

Cheryl Gallant writes to her constituents.

While the past year has been productive for our Conservative government, the challenge of governing in a minority Parliament, where a significant block of seats are held by separatists dedicated to the destruction of Canada, and the worst global economic recession since the Second World War, Prime Minister Stephen Harper requested, and received permission, to adjourn, or “prorogue” Parliament a few additional weeks.

This was done to allow us to make plans to respond to the great challenges all Canadians face, including a rising national debt and how Canadians should be asked to reduce it.

Tags: Bloc Québécois, Cheryl Gallant, house of commons, Ottawa, Parliament, prorogation, Prorogue, proroguing, Stephen Harper

More by Aaron Wherry

http://intensedebate.com/people/Ricard_S_Argent Richard_S_Argent

danke :)
http://intensedebate.com/people/jolyon jolyon

"What part of "both" was hard for you?"

The part where he writes 'mostly the one …' while ignoring the government who negotiated and signed an agreement with known torturers, I guess.

kcm

"Which government? The one that agreed to hand over prisoners to known torturers (PM Martin) or the one that stopped the transfers (PM Harper'

Things are just so simple when you avoid context…the ibs may have just decided to choose the lesser of two evils, remember Abu Ghraib and Guantanimo were factors here, politically it was not possible to keep on turning over detainees to the Americans – perhaps lobbying by hillier had something to do with the decision? It's why we need to hear all the facts. As for the govt that stopped the tranfers, they're also the ones who did nothing for more than a year after publically defending the 05 agreement.

http://intensedebate.com/people/lgarvin lgarvin

Well, you certainly nailed that first word, Jenn.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Jenn_ Jenn_

yes, too bad joylon missed it altogether.

Jon Pertwee

he's too busy grasping at straws to comprehend.

frequent traveler

"While the past year has been productive for our Conservative government, the challenge of governing in a minority Parliament, where a significant block of seats are held by separatists dedicated to the destruction of Canada, and the worst global economic recession since the Second World War, Prime Minister Stephen Harper requested, and received permission, to adjourn, or “prorogue” Parliament a few additional weeks."

Content aside, does anyone else find this to be a poorly written paragraph/sentence?

http://intensedebate.com/people/lgarvin lgarvin

Yeah, it's a complete mess. It's not even a logical thought; it starts out in one direction, wanders around aimlessly for a while and then just trails off into gibberish.
http://intensedebate.com/people/austinso austinso

It's part of the "we're a party of 'non-elites' " strategy…

kcm

They'll be eschewing…er leaving out periods next.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Ricard_S_Argent Richard_S_Argent

So is it transfer payments in general you have a problem with or just those that go to Quebec?
http://intensedebate.com/people/charlesh Charles H.

Getting this in early before somebody actually brings that one up in earnest, rather than facetiously:

Kady's got a post over at the CBC commenting on the difficulties that the prorogation may pose towards getting aid to Haiti. At the moment she's waiting to hear back from the relevant departments with regards to her questions.

http://www.cbc.ca/politics/insidepolitics/2010/01…
http://intensedebate.com/people/danby danby

and the worst global economic recession since the Second World War

First they denied it's existence, then they downplayed it's scale and now they're using it as a signpost of their leadership

Unfricking believable

Lord Kitchener's Own

It's amazing how quickly something that was never going to affect Canada turned in to a reason to shut down Parliament eh?

Before the recession, the message was that it wasn't going to happen. During the recession, the message was that even if it happened (they were still denying we were going to go in to recession for a good while after we went in to recession) the message was that we'd never need to go in to deficit as a result. Now that the recession's pretty much over and we have a large deficit, the message is that we have to pull out all the stops to deal with the terrible historic recession.

At this rate, by 2011 I'm willing to bet the Tories will be trying to convince us that the recession killed Jesus.

kcm

…more likely the opposition's insistence on airing the detainee issue caused the deficit to grow exponentially…therefore we had to cut social programmes…and by the way we're prorguing again.

Lord Kitchener's Own

"While the past year has been productive for our Conservative government"

I don't think "productive" means what she thinks it means…
http://intensedebate.com/people/TJCook TJCook

I exclude Alberta's recent oil revenue extravaganza because a balanced budget under those circumstances is no indication of good management.

The Harris/Eves/Flaherty budgets were notoriously unreliable, using every trick in the book to minimize the deficit. They were never balanced in any sort of reality. Kinda like Flaherty's federal budgets, no?

Any other examples? Mulroney? Harper? Reagean? Bush? Bush?

AT1

"Harris/Eves/Flaherty" ….are these now lumped as one person?

1. What do you mean by unreliable? The same auditor who said that the Eves government left a deficit for McGuinty (mind you that this was during the year that included SARS and the power outage, both which affected Ontario revenues significantly and unexpectedly) also gave thumbs up in the previous year. If you wish, you can also compare the rate of revenue growth during the Harris era in Ontario with that of Quebec's or other provinces, or jobs growth…

2. The Alberta deficit was dealt with prior to the massive run-up in oil prices. The Klein government began much earlier than any other province to balance it's budget. However, oil revenues certainly helped alleviate their debt.

http://intensedebate.com/people/LynnTO LynnTO

My favourite paragraph:

"While the official opposition is calling for higher taxes, such as increasing the GST and the collecting of a new tax based on "carbon," our government is opposed to new sales and carbon taxes. We believe that by restraining the growth in spending, and as revenue increases as the recession ends and more people are working and paying taxes, the deficit can be eliminated."

"Carbon", in quotes, as if it doesn't really exist and is only a figment of the opposition's imagination.

"Restraining the growth in spending", as if she hasn't looked at a government spending chart since…well, ever.

Lord Kitchener's Own

Yeah, the carbon in quotes bit was weird eh?

I'm reasonably convinced that the Tories, generally, don't believe in the supremacy of Parliament, but how can they question the existence of carbon?
Dave

I don't believe in carbon, either,

Oxygen, for that matter.

Phlogisten theory was good enough for my pappy, and gol-durn it, it's good enough for me.

http://intensedebate.com/people/zamprelli4731 Zamprelli

First and foremost, obvious disdain for our central democratic institution, Parliament. Prorogation (the 2nd one) is just the latest example in a string of dangerous precedents being set: sabotaging committee work (remember the manual they whipped up on how to do that?), flat out lying about a proposed coalition while ignoring his own dalliance with the NDP and Bloc a mere 2 years earlier, the first prorogation, and finally just phoning the GG up because he figures it's all in his hands. Past PMs have used these powers responsibly; Harper has sparked a real discussion about having to change the rules because he abuses power so much. None of these things on their own are all that sinful, but the pattern is there and over time the result is a much, much weaker parliament. Ergo, Harper = damage to Canada.

Speaking of the coalition, Harper's ridiculous frothing-at-the-mouth diatribes about separatists did more to revive the separatist movement than anything Duceppe could ever do. Ergo, Harper = damage to Canada.

Also, Harper has brought attack-style politics to an all-time low. Attack ads between elections, from the governing party no less? That's never happened, because it's disgusting and that's why people are turning off politics completely. Ergo, Harper = damage to Canada

Oh, and the darkness….redacted document after redacted document, all in the name of "national security". Please…more like all in the name if saving his own hide. This is the most secretive government in our history, after running on an accountability and transparency! Ergo, Harper = damage to Canada.

And our reputation abroad…don't even get me started.

All of these things can be fixed over time, but the longer he's in power, the harder it will be.

You'll say I'm "just another Liberal." Well I have joined the liberal party, but only after objectively observing all the damage Harper is doing and deciding to help stop him.

sorry for the length of this thing, but you asked…

AT1

Ah yes, all this clearly shows that Canada is destroyed. Seriously though, if you take off your partisan hat, you might find that these kind of things have been going on for years. I don't think the Cons invented negative advertising, document redaction, or shutting down things they don't like (look up how the Chretien government shut down a public inquiry into the behavior of our troops in Somalia).

As for joining a political party to express your express, good on you. Not enough people get engaged in the political process.