Beyond The Commons

 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

‘I think it’s better that we stick to the facts’

by Aaron Wherry on Tuesday, August 16, 2011 4:42pm - 19 Comments

Conservative MPs on the finance committee move to ensure you are not frightened by this week’s hearings.

At a planning meeting Monday evening, NDP finance critic Peggy Nash put forward a motion requesting that a panel of economists be included as witnesses Friday, but the Conservatives used their majority to limit the invite list to Mr. Flaherty and Bank of Canada officials.

“It’s imperative, in my opinion, that we not do anything that might worry Canadians. And I think that hearing from the Minister of Finance and the Bank of Canada will help to reassure them, as they should be, that there is concern, but that we are proceeding, as parliamentarians, in their interests,” explained Conservative MP Shelly Glover, who is Mr. Flaherty’s parliamentary secretary.

If you dare look, here are some of those economists now.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Bookmark and Share
  • Anonymous

    ‘There, there….[pat pat]…don’t worry your pretty little head about it’

    What happened to treating Canadians like adults, and telling them the truth?

  • Anonymous

    Stop phaphing around, Mr Wherry, and attack! Such would provide a counterpoint to OE1′s snide assessment.

    • Anonymous

      Well boy….talk about a nanny state!

      Harper doesn’t trust you guys to be adult enough to hear the truth!

  • Anonymous

    It’s imperative, in my opinion, that we not do anything that might worry Canadians.”

    At least not until it becomes politically useful, at which point all bets are off.

    • Anonymous

      That’s such linear thinking.  The government is fully capable of soothing us and panicking us simultaneously.

      The point is not that they don’t want us to worry, it’s that they want us to worry about the proper things.  Any moment wasted worrying about something as mundane as the economy is a moment we could have been worrying about rampant crime, communists and their sympathizers, and the ever present threat of the Russians nuking Alert, Nunavut.

      • Anonymous

        Isn’t is time for Harper’s annual trek to the front line – the Arctic – to scare off those commies with our superior military power?

  • Anonymous

    This reminds me of that report on the state of bridges in Quebec that people in government didn’t want to release, lest it cause panic.  Of course, the notion that the report was SO HORRIBLE that it might cause panic if it were released, caused panic.

    It does feel a bit like she’s saying “We don’t want Canadians to worry about the economy, and trust me, if we let economists testify about the economy, what they’d say would be worrying to Canadians”.

  • Anonymous

    Why not have a pro wrestler and an opera singer testify then? Or the Prime Minister could invite his buddy Chad Kroeger and the rest of that band that sings the same song over and over with different words each time.

    If it’s all about distracting us from despair we can afford better entertainment than Jim Flaherty and Bank of Canada officials.

    • Anonymous

      I think that’s why we might have to despair.. Flaherty and BoC officials really may be the best we can afford.

  • Anonymous

    The streets are full of crazed teenagers with guns, rapists, robbers, foreigners, terrorists, and mafia drug lords. Who has time for another world wide economic meltdown? Especially when we are the strongest performer in the G8, G20, G-everything. Keeping our priorities straight in Harperland.

  • Anonymous

    The TV cameras caught a shot through the open door when Mr. Flaherty was
    meeting with “business leaders” and “prominent Canadians” a couple of days ago.
    Sitting side by side, shoulder to elbow with the federal financial wizard was the
    ubiquitous and delightful Brian Lee Crowley … as I recall, Mr. Flaherty even did some
    fund-raising flack for BLC’s latest venture. What more does a guy need ?

    • http://twitter.com/frogrove frobisher grove

      Hey, it’s a non-partisan society, “Where Ideas Meet®”. Just like all the others.

  • Anonymous

    I’ve got to re-read me a copy of 1984.  Are they going one chapter after another, or are they creative, and presenting the chapters out of order?

    • Anonymous

      Actually this is more like Animal Farm…especially where the rules keep changing.

  • Anonymous

    Don`t worry about the government debts and such. The world has already gone to hell in a handbasket because there was no compulsory long-form census this year. Remember that burner from last summer?

    • Anonymous

      Not only is your premise false to begin with (nobody said the world would go to hell in a handbasket, at best that’s a horrible exaggeration, more likely it’s simply that you’re a liar), but it’s a reductio ad absurdum to boot.

      Or shorter: Get back under your bridge.

      • Anonymous

        Oh, my, somebody took their grumpy pills today!

      • Anonymous

        The compulsory long-form census was probably the biggest issue of last summer. It unleashed a firestorm of hostility among the chattering classes. While I tried to urge a measure of perspective – Tony Clement personally and the entire stimulus package collectively demonstrate that nobody pays attention to the census when implementing government policy, anyway – I was shouted down as some kind of troglodyte, probably of the genus pan. You don’t need a compulsory long-form census to know that government spending has gone out of control worldwide for the past several decades.

        • http://twitter.com/frogrove frobisher grove

          “government spending has gone out of control ”

          Not in Parry-Sound/Muskoka. Just ask Hizzonner, the Great Reeve of Huntsville.

Previous

Next

From Macleans