Harper in China: Beyond the sea of troubles

By Paul Wells - Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 7:03 AM - 0 Comments

The old-timers in the press gallery know how to defuse an announcement like this. We dust a toolkit from the early Chrétien days off. A Canadian prime minister shows up in a fancy Beijing ballroom with a bunch of business executives wielding Montblanc pens. A big number is being tossed around — say, “$3 billion.” But if we subtract the deals that would have happened anyway, and then subtract the deals that aren’t really deals — then we can wear that number down to some innocuous nub.

But while individual elements of Stephen Harper’s signing ceremony Thursday night in a fancy Beijing ballroom may not pan out, at some point the weight of evidence starts to suggest something real is going on. The evidence at hand comes, not just from Canadian sources, but from Chinese. Continue…

Time out: New art in Beijing

By Paul Wells - Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 1:24 AM - 0 Comments

Thursday in Beijing. The Prime Minister had pooled events for the first half of the day, so most reporters had a break from work. A few of us took a suggestion from Canadian embassy staff and made our way to 798 Art District,  a maze of contemporary art galleries, cafés and design stores in a mid-20th-century industrial neighbourhood on the way out to Beijing Airport. In the way it’s repurposed factory space to creative ends, it’s a little like the Distillery District in Toronto or the Exchange District in Winnipeg, except far larger and more elaborate.

We only had an hour and a half to poke around. I could have spent a week. I’ve posted a few photos below. Continue…

The Commons: Starring Vic Toews as Kurt Russell

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 6:54 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. After offering a general appeal for clarity from the government—”What is happening on your side?” she begged—Nycole Turmel narrowed her complaint to a specific article of speech. In this case, a conjunction.

“Yesterday, the Minister of Public Safety said ‘information obtained by torture is always discounted. However…’ What does he mean by ‘however?’ she asked. “There is no ‘however.’ There is no ‘but.’ Torture is either condoned or it is not. Which is it? No ‘however.’ No ‘if.’ No ‘but.’ ”

Rising as today’s stand-in prime minister, Peter MacKay offered a perfectly straightforward response that entirely avoided the question. “But! But!” the New Democrat side mocked. “But! But!”

Ms. Turmel tried again, this time en français. Mr. MacKay did likewise. “Mais!” the New Democrats chirped. “Mais!”

Switching to English and stepping forward, the Defence Minister attempted to put this all in perspective. Or possibly to read aloud from a script he’d recently submitted to television producers. Continue…

‘That didn’t happen in Canada, but it could have’

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 5:57 PM - 0 Comments

Whatever his apology yesterday, Larry Miller stands by his Hitler comparison.

“While I retracted my comments, the similarities between the two are very clear and you can’t convince me of otherwise. But it’s obvious the media didn’t have much to write about yesterday because that was the hot-button issue. So just in order to take the buzz off and what have you, I partially retracted the statement in the house,” he said … “While the similarities between the gun registry and what Adolph Hitler did to perpetrate his crimes are very clear and obvious, it was inappropriate for me to point those out in the House of Commons,” he said Wednesday. “And I went on to say that I apologized to anyone who was offended, but the truth is the truth and what he (Hitler) did at the time was his men went around and collected all the guns from the Jews. So I was just pointing out the similarities. That didn’t happen in Canada, but it could have and that’s one of the reasons there’s been such an uproar against the gun registry in this country. So that’s the end of it.”

Beatty’s list: business priorities and political realities

By John Geddes - Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 4:52 PM - 0 Comments

The anxious tone the Prime Minister recently injected into the debate on Canada’s economic competitiveness was picked up today and amplified by one of the country’s top business lobbyists—Perrin Beatty, president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

Beatty happens also to be a former Conservative cabinet minister from the long-ago days of Brian Mulroney’s government. So long ago, in fact, that he’s apparently forgotten how certain matters are not to be raised in polite political company. Like ending the way Employment Insurance rules favour perennially high-employment regions, notably parts of the Atlantic provinces and Quebec.

On a sensible list of 10 “barriers to competitiveness” laid out by Beatty in a news conference just off Parliament Hill, the Chamber’s plea for EI reforms to “improve fairness and increase incentives for the unemployed to return to work or relocate to find work” stood out. The very words send chills down spines around Ottawa.

Continue…

Can’t they all just get along?

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 3:47 PM - 0 Comments

Ian Bushfield takes a whack at Nathan Cullen’s plan for joint nominations.

In every riding will exist partisans who will not vote for one party or another. Many will switch to the Conservatives before they vote for a different party as well. Progressive votes are not transferable. By reducing the number of options on a ballot, we necessarily reduce our democracy, and force strategic voting against someone rather than for someone.

Leaving aside for a moment the fact that joint nominations won’t work if they happen, let’s also recognize that they probably won’t even be able to happen. The entire idea rests on getting each party to agree to allow these meetings. While a local riding association may choose to hold this meeting with their rivals, there is no guarantee that the parties will respect this decision. Each party has the ability to parachute candidates, so unless there is agreement from the leadership of each party, this idea is dead before it lifts off. To date, only one NDP leadership candidate has expressed any support for this idea and no one from the Liberals has agreed to it.

Counter argument here.

The spectre of Stephane Dion

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 1:54 PM - 0 Comments

A New Democrat MP worries that the party might end up with its third choice.

Mr. Brahmi said the current situation reminds him of the 2006 Liberal convention, where Stéphane Dion came from behind to beat Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae. He added that at the 1995 NDP leadership convention, Alexa McDonough finished in second place on the first ballot, but still won the crown when Svend Robinson conceded victory.

Mr. Brahmi called on fellow MPs to remind NDP members to “be very careful” about their second choice on their ballots in the one-member, one-vote leadership convention. “I’m behind Thomas Mulcair,” he said. “However, I’d prefer if the winner were Brian Topp instead of everyone’s second choice.”

In this analogy, Paul Dewar and Peggy Nash are potential versions of Stephane Dion, at least insofar as how they might come to win the NDP leadership and at least so long as you assume that Mr. Mulcair and Mr. Topp are running first and second (or second and first). Whether that would then doom Mr. Dewar or Ms. Nash to something like Mr. Dion’s fate is another question entirely.

Then, now and later on OAS

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 12:22 PM - 0 Comments

The Parliamentary Budget Officer suggests Old Age Security is sustainable in the long term (full report here). Meanwhile, the NDP busts the Conservatives for being against raising the retirement age before they were considering being for it.

In the thick of the 2004 election campaign, Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party sent out a “REALITY CHECK” titled: Paul Martin’s hidden seniors agenda. Conservatives claimed that Liberals were hiding a plan to raise the retirement age to 67 for Old Age Security (OAS). They ridiculed the idea of raising the eligibility age for OAS because “Canadians would have to work two years longer only to receive less from their public pension.” … 

In 2004, Conservative were ready to stand up for seniors. On Friday, Stephen Harper was asked about the possibility of raising the eligibility age by two years and replied “Absolutely, it’s being considered.” This government was elected on the promise that they would change Ottawa. They’ve become everything they used to oppose.

Mulcair on foreign policy

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 11:38 AM - 0 Comments

As part of his foreign policy platform, Thomas Mulcair focuses on combating the use of rape as a weapon in war.

“Many still see sexual violence as a by-product of war, something that occurs in the uncontrolled aftermath of combat. But increasingly rape and sexual violence are being used as organized weapons to either demoralize an enemy’s civilian population or ethnically cleanse entire countries or regions. In Africa, issues such as the spread of HIV/AIDS have only compounded the problem.” Mulcair said … We can’t let this issue fall by the wayside simply because it has fallen from headlines. Finding effective methods to combat this scourge will take years of focused efforts by partners around the world. That’s why it has to be a priority for our government.”

Dewar on winning

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 10:48 AM - 0 Comments

Paul Dewar sketches his plan for building the NDP.

Set up a commission to organize around ‘Ideas for Progress’ so that we can build upon Jack Layton’s final letter to Canadians and create what Stephen Lewis described as the “manifesto for social democracy”. This commission would include Canadians from different walks of life, including the arts, labour, academia, business, agriculture, environmental organizations, poverty groups, women’s rights organizations and others. It would allow greater access and involvement for Canadians in the development of our policies and planning.

Develop regional outreach plans, including a Western Strategy to reach out to new voters in Western Canada. Create Civil Society Outreach teams, led by MPs, to listen and share views, and coordinate with allies to advance progressive policies and build electoral support for winning the next election. Hire a youth organizer to work with campus clubs, youth groups and civil society organizations to organize young Canadians on college and university campuses, at high schools, workplaces and communities across the country. Implement an outreach strategy to New Canadian communities to increase diversity in our party membership and organization.

See previously: Topp on winning

How to spin

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

Last week, the NDP criticized Conservative Senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu after Mr. Boisvenu suggested convicted murders be given rope and allowed to decide for themselves whether they wanted to live. Pat Martin referred to the Senator using a bad word.

On Monday, Conservative MP Greg Rickford rose before Question Period and reported those events to the House as follows.

The NDP wants to silence victims, urging a well-known victims’ advocate to stop speaking out about Canada’s justice system.

Mr. Martin has now apologized for his curse.

Touché

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 9:06 AM - 0 Comments

Under questioning again yesterday about the purchase of F-35 fighter jets, Julian Fantino offered the following in response to the NDP’s Christine Moore.

The one thing that should be stated in the House is for NDP members to state categorically that they do not support our military, that they do not support our men and women, that they do not support our airmen and women. That is really the theme here.

After QP, Ms. Moore rose on a point of order.

Mr. Speaker, during question period, in response to my question, the Associate Minister of National Defence said that I do not care about the well-being of the Canadian armed forces. I would like to inform the minister that I served in the Canadian armed forces for three years and I can honestly say that I care a great deal. I would like to offer him the opportunity to withdraw his comments.

Ms. Moore apparently served as a physician assistant.

Harper in China: rules of the game

By Paul Wells - Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 8:54 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Paul Wells

It’s an odd visit. Today the middle of Stephen Harper’s day was taken up with what our itineraries described as a “round-table meeting.” The Prime Minister’s Office sent us a list of the Canadians who attended: Pierre Beaudoin from Bombardier, Roy Cook from the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, Duncan Dee from Air Canada, Lowell Jackson from CAPP, Amit Chakma from UWO, Lorraine Mitchelmore from Shell, Patrick Lamarre from Lavalin.

It actually took a while for me to ask the pool reporter (many of the events on these trips are covered only by a single reporter and camera, who share with everyone else) whether anybody Chinese was on hand. Nope. Just the Canadians. Chattin’ about the federal budget in Beijing. More of a semi-circle meeting, really.

The news came later: Continue…

‘On the same moral ground as regimes like Syria’

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 9:29 PM - 0 Comments

Paul Dewar blasts Vic Toews’ directive.

“I’m appalled at the moral bankruptcy of the Harper government. Torture has no place in a civilized world. We cannot condone torture and then talk to other nations about human rights,” said Dewar … “When Mr. Harper and his government condone torture, they are putting Canada on the same moral ground as regimes like Syria that practice torture. Our country should be a beacon for human rights not an enabler of human rights abuses” stated Dewar.

Dickens at 200: still the best we’ve got on being poor

By John Geddes - Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 3:46 PM - 0 Comments

Andy Martini/Flickr

How apt that today’s bicentenary of the birth of Charles Dickens arrives at a moment when the widening gap between rich and poor is so prevalent in public-policy debate, and the grim conditions in China’s factories are back in the news.

Dickens is of course our greatest writer on the imperative to acknowledge what poverty is and try to do something about it. His way of forcing the reader to see and smell the squalor of 19^th century England is still unmatched in its moral force.

Continue…

Like Hitler

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 2:30 PM - 0 Comments

Larry Miller makes sure the last hours of debate on the long-gun registry don’t pass without a Hitler reference.

It appears the quote he cites is also in some dispute.

Update 4:23pm. After QP, Mr. Miller rose with the following point of order.

Mr. Speaker, earlier today in this House I was speaking on Bill C-19 and I referred to and used the name Adolf Hitler. While the references to the gun registry and what this evil guy did to perpetrate his crimes are very clear, it was inappropriate to use his name in the House and I apologize to anybody it may have offended.

Ask a simple question

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 1:33 PM - 0 Comments

The NDP persisted yesterday in asking straightforward questions of the government.

Will the Conservatives change the eligibility age for old age security? Will the age increase from 65 to 67, yes or no?

Will the eligibility age for OAS benefits increase from 65 to 67? Yes or no? When will this measure go into effect?

Bob Rae then added one of his own.

I would like to ask the government today if it could at least make a commitment that none of these changes that it is talking about will take place until after 2015, so, at the very least, Canadians will have an opportunity to vote on the changes being imposed on them by the government.

In response, Diane Finley offered only that “anyone who is young enough, like myself, or people younger than I, will have time to adjust their plans for their own retirement.” Ms. Finley is presently 54 years old. She turns 55 in October.

Q&A: Nathan Cullen

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 12:40 PM - 0 Comments

As part of our coverage of the NDP leadership race, we’ll be running interviews with the contenders. First up, Nathan Cullen. We chatted last week.

Q. So I wanted to start with something you said after the debate on Sunday. You made some comment about “doubling down” on your joint nomination proposal … What did you mean by that?

A. Especially early on in this race, there were a number of New Democrats that said, ‘Boy, I like you a lot, but this joint nomination thing is hard for me to get around, you know, I might be interested, but it’s just hard to comprehend.’ Can you nuance it, essentially. Can you soften it? And so over Christmas, we had a couple days and I thought about it. And I can’t. I believe in the policy, I think it’s a good one, it’s certainly worth consideration. And, increasingly, those same folks that expressed hesitation are saying, ‘You know what, the more bad things Harper does, the more it confirms the need to put everything on the table.’ So this is one of those things on the table. So I’m noticing a shift just within the body politic and I also don’t want to be a weathervane politician, trying to bend and guess where the voters are going to be and guess what the people want to hear. Continue…

Exceptional circumstances

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 11:09 AM - 0 Comments

As I reported in September, the Harper government quietly directed CSIS in December 2010 that it could make use of information obtained through torture—this after publicly renouncing a CSIS lawyer’s public testimony that such information might be used. Jim Bronskill has now obtained the full text of the ministerial directive issued by Vic Toews.

The latest directive says in “exceptional circumstances” where there is a threat to human life or public safety, urgency may require CSIS to “share the most complete information available at the time with relevant authorities, including information based on intelligence provided by foreign agencies that may have been derived from the use of torture or mistreatment.” In such rare circumstances, it may not always be possible to determine how a foreign agency obtained the information, and that ignoring such information solely because of its source would represent “an unacceptable risk to public safety.” ”Therefore, in situations where a serious risk to public safety exists, and where lives may be at stake, I expect and thus direct CSIS to make the protection of life and property its overriding priority, and share the necessary information — properly described and qualified — with appropriate authorities.”

The directive says the final decision to investigate and analyze information that may have been obtained by methods condemned by the Canadian government falls to the CSIS director or his deputy director for operations — a decision to be made “in accordance with Canada’s legal obligations.” Finally, it says the minister is to be notified “as appropriate” of a decision to use such information.

Keystone rhetoric and reality

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 10:30 AM - 0 Comments

Charles Pierce traces those “environmental extremists” to Nebraska.

What gets lost in all of this is that the most stalwart opposition to the crazy notion of running a pipeline of the world’s dirtiest carbon-based fuel through what is literally the bloodstream of the nation’s farm economy is coming from landowners in Nebraska. Trans Canada, the company that wants to build the pipeline, already has folded and offered an alternate route that it says would keep the pipeline out of the Sandhills. (The danger to the aquifer remains.) But the ranchers whose property abuts this new route are not yet satisfied … ”We’ve been called radical environmentalists,” Frisch said, “but we’re just looking out for our livelihood.”

Separately, the New York Times’ Joe Nocera says “all of Harper’s ministers have been instructed to stop making comments that might be construed as interfering in the American presidential election.” It’s unclear (at least to me) if that much has been reported previously in Canadian media.

Canada’s Commonwealth edge

By John Geddes - Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 10:28 AM - 0 Comments

I’m not much of a monarchist, so I’m afraid you’ll have to look elsewhere for coverage of Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee. On the other hand, I am struck lately by new legal and economic research that strongly suggests paying close heed to old Commonwealth ties would be a shrewd foreign-affairs strategy, not a nostalgic distraction, for Canada.

Continue…

Dewar on taxes

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments

Paul Dewar talks to the Toronto Star editorial board.

On taxes:
What I call tax justice in this country. The corporate tax level is down to 15 per cent; obviously I think that should be increased to 19.5 per cent. That keeps us competitive with our competitors. Tax havens, between 2000 and 2008, $17 billion left our country for foreign shores — and that was just from our banks. I’d like to see that dealt with. I’d like to see us look at a financial transactions tariff, which is being contemplated in Europe.

What about hiking personal income tax?
I’d like to fix the leaks in our system before I look at that. I have no problem in looking at an increase in personal income tax if I knew that it was going to stay in revenues and I say that because there are ways, which many people are probably aware of, to avoid taxes. So the first thing you need to look at is tax loopholes.

How much would all that raise?
I couldn’t tell you to a dime. But I can tell you in the case of tax havens we’re talking more than $20 billion, I can tell you in the case of the corporate tax level that we’re talking tens of billions of dollars and I can tell you in the case of the financial transactions tariff a very conservative estimate is about $4 billion dollars.

The NDP proposed a crackdown on tax havens in last year’s election. At the time, they booked $1 billion in new revenue for the current fiscal year, rising to $3.2 billion in 2014-2015. Ira Basen deemed that “wishful accounting.” The Liberals posed various questions.

The Harper government proposed in its 2007 budget to deal with tax havens and a few months later, the Finance Minister explained the “Anti-Tax-Haven Initiative.” Two years later, following the recommendations of the Advisory Panel on Canada’s System of International Taxation, the Harper government repealed the “double dip” restrictions.

Iraq v. Iran

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 8:30 AM - 0 Comments

In his chat with Postmedia last week, the Prime Minister was directly asked about how the justifications for war in Iraq compare to the justifications for war with Iran.

Postmedia: In 2003, you supported the invasion of Iraq based on stopping them getting weapons of mass destruction. Does the same logic apply with Iran?

Harper: In fairness, the two cases are not exactly similar — I think there was more to the case in Iraq than simply the threat of weapons of mass destruction. But that said, obviously the intelligence was flawed in that case and there was considerable debate around that at the time. I don’t think there’s much debate today among informed people about Iran’s intentions and Iran’s systematic progress toward attaining nuclear weapons.

For the sake of comparison, here is how Mr. Harper justified the invasion of Iraq in his famously plagiarized speech to the House in 2003. Continue…

Harper in China: we come bearing goodwill

By Paul Wells - Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 7:13 AM - 0 Comments

The plane carrying Stephen Harper, a handful of cabinet ministers and backbenchers, and the bedraggled media had barely taken off from a refueling stop in Anchorage when we received the “tidbit” one of the PM’s men had promised: Mark Rowswell, the Canadian who is famous in Canada for being famous in China, has been named Canada’s Goodwill Ambassador to China. This is a big change of pace for Rowswell, who as you know was, until today, an emissary of fear and suspicion. Just kidding.

The PM’s flight landed an hour ago at Beijing airport. Reporters were hustled into little vans, which hurried downtown with speed I found surprising until I realized the police had blocked the road we were on to all traffic but our own. Spotted in the vicinity of our hotel: Versace, Subway, 7-11, and the Globe’s China correspondent, Mark MacKinnon.

It’s Tuesday night here, and the agenda includes sleep. Wednesday begins around the time you’ll be eating dinner, and the Prime Minister, whom none of us have yet seen, has a Canadian Tourism Commission event in the morning, followed by a one-hour meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.