The Commons: The government’s tortured answers on torture

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 6:30 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. In an obvious attempt to find common ground with his Conservative counterparts, Jack Harris appealed to the ideals of the free market.

“As long as there is a market for information derived from torture,” he posited, “torture will exist.”

Mr. Harris’ concern this day was the government’s quiet decision to allow for the use of information potentially obtained through torture. This after publicly renouncing the suggestion that it was operating under any such policy.

“Why,” the NDP critic wondered, “is the government getting Canada into the torture business?” Continue…

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.

The Commons: The Russians are coming for our pensions

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 5:52 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. “Oui ou non?” Nycole Turmel demanded. “Oui ou non?”

Will the Prime Minister be cutting Old Age Security benefits, she asked, yes or no? Will the age of eligibility be raised to 67, she wondered, yes or no?

“We want an answer,” she concluded.

In response, the Prime Minister had two answers. “Mr. Speaker, I was very clear. This government will not cut benefits for our seniors. I am very clear,” he declared. “At the same time, we will protect the system for generations to come.”

After jetting off to Switzerland and standing proudly before the global elite and bragging of his stewardship and boasting of “major transformations” to come, the Prime Minister seems suddenly shy. It is as if,  having scaled the rhetorical heights, he was suddenly reminded why he generally avoids high places. And so now he is attempting to stall, perhaps even soothe, with a sleight of hand. Continue…

The Commons: The case of actions v. words

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 6:33 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. “Mr. Speaker, once again, I think the government has been repeatedly clear when it comes to retirement income, such as old age security,” the Prime Minister clarified.

And on that note, his second sentence. ”We have no intention,” he said, “of changing any benefits.”

Clearly. At least so far as those with no short term memory could be concerned. For the rest of those listening, there was what the government had sent up Wai Young to say no more than 90 seconds earlier. ”We will implement any changes fairly,” the dutiful backbencher reassured the House with the last intervention before Question Period, “allowing lots of time for notice and time to adjust.”

So the government has no intention of making changes. But if—for whatever reason—it should be struck with such intent sometime between now and the tabling of this spring’s budget, you are to be assured that those changes will be implemented fairly. Indeed, even with these changes existing only in the theoretical, the government presently lacking even the intent to make them, Ms. Young managed today to congratulate her side for having had the courage to change. “In fact,” she reported, “the National Post gets it with its front page headline today, ‘Tories on the right side of pension reform.’ ”

Continue…

‘You cannot trust these wolves’

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 2:05 PM - 0 Comments

After deigning to tolerate a day of discussion yesterday on its pooled pension legislation, the government side voted this morning to put a limit on debate. They did not though move quite fast enough to deny Bob Rae the opportunity to do as he does.

The Commons: Having it both ways

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 30, 2012 at 6:28 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. For the benefit of the House, Nycole Turmel relayed what she’d taken from what the Prime Minister said last week when he was some 6,264 kilometres from here.

“Mr. Speaker, Canadians are bracing themselves for the deepest round of cuts since Paul Martin, cuts to services Canadians need, like the OAS and EI,” she offered.

Members of the government side audibly whined at this reference to the previous prime minister.

“These cuts will hurt people, hurt seniors, hurt jobs and hurt our communities,” Ms. Turmel continued. “When will the Prime Minister tell Canadians the bad news, on his next trip to Switzerland or somewhere else in the world?”

Last week, so far away from this place, the Prime Minister had been full of dramatic phrasing. “Major transformations,” he said. Demographics posed a “threat” to that which we “cherished.” The deep holes of Europe and the United States threatened to grow deeper. The very future of our society hung in the proverbial balance. Continue…

Strombo v. Rae

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, January 20, 2012 at 3:47 PM - 0 Comments

The interim Liberal leader sits down with George S.

Poll: Liberal support rising under Rae

By macleans.ca - Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 11:16 AM - 0 Comments

Support for the federal Liberal party has climbed to 25 per cent during Bob Rae’s tenure as interim Liberal leader, according to a recent Forum Research poll. The same survey shows support for the ruling Conservatives has slipped to 35 per cent. NDP support sits at 28 per cent; the Bloc hold six per cent and the Greens four per cent. Forum president Lorne Bozinoff told The Star, “Bob Rae’s doing a good job of raising the Liberals’ profile,” whose net approval rating, according to the survey, is 24 points higher than Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s. The poll of 1,211 Canadians had a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The Star

After the convention: the Liberals’ sweet thereafter

By Adam Goldenberg - Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 4:07 PM - 0 Comments

“The country does not need another opposition party; the country needs another government.” For a political party pinning its hopes on redemption, it is a worthy sentiment, one that might have fit nicely into any of Bob Rae’s many speeches at last weekend’s Liberal convention. Too bad Joe Clark got there first.

The words were Clark’s, just before he won the leadership of the once-mighty Progressive Conservatives in 1998. In the end, Clark was right. His party returned to government, albeit as the junior partner in the right-wing coalition that now governs Canada.

Theirs is a cautionary tale, one that should check the surge of self-confidence that follows any successful partisan powwow. Last weekend’s Liberal convention certainly met that standard. This was not the usual nexus of nostalgia that many of us have come to expect from our party’s get-togethers. We did not sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings. But it’s what happens from now on that counts the most.

For delegates, that means a drowsy trip home and a morning-after spent scouring the papers, delighting in good news stories and cursing any trace of cynical punditry. For journalists, it means hours of agony, trying to figure out some creative new way to rain on the party’s parade.

For Bob Rae, this week brings a “cross-Canada skills and trades tour.” Continue…

A Canadian-measuring contest

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 17, 2012 at 6:51 PM - 0 Comments

Thomas Mulcair doesn’t appreciate the Prime Minister’s insinuation.

“We celebrate our diversity, we have a minister responsible for multiculturalism. But when push comes to shove, if you give him half a chance, the real Stephen Harper comes out (suggesting) ‘I’m more Canadian than you are because my family doesn’t have a background in different countries,’” Mulcair said.

“It’s a reflection of profoundly parochial and insular thinking.”

Unfortunately for Mr. Mulcair there is also—as Bob Rae delights in pointing out—what New Democrats said when Stephane Dion’s citizenship was questioned.

Update 8:25pm. In the updated CP story (now linked to above), Mr. Mulcair says Mr. Layton expressed regret for his comments about Mr. Dion.

Indeed, Mulcair said he raised the issue with Layton before agreeing to come on board as his Quebec lieutenant in 2007. ”Jack and I talked about it straight up and he told me that literally in so many words … He said, ‘That’s not the answer I should have given.’”

Rae’s legalization digression: a clip some might find worth saving

By John Geddes - Sunday, January 15, 2012 at 7:03 PM - 0 Comments

I’m going to venture a wild guess that certain Conservative party operatives might be taking a close look at the video of Bob Rae’s final speech at the Liberal party convention today, particularly the part where he cracks a joke by way of introducing the touchy subject of legalizing marijuana.

“If you want to be part of a group of free-thinking, innovative, thoughtful, pragmatic, hopeful, positive, happy people, come and join the Liberal party,” Rae said, then couldn’t help adding, with a grin, “And after the resolution on marijuana today, it’s going to be a group of even happier people in the Liberal party.”

Continue…

Avoiding pitfalls, the Liberals give themselves a chance

By John Geddes - Sunday, January 15, 2012 at 3:51 PM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Blair Gable

There was nothing the Liberals could have done at their convention, which just wrapped up in Ottawa, that would have justified anyone declaring with a straight face that this party, so badly mangled in last spring’s election, is back in fine form.

A mere policy convention—considering that the Liberals won’t pick their new leader until next year, and that the next federal election is three or four years off—just couldn’t accomplish anything so decisive.

On the other hand, the 3,000-plus Liberals who showed up here for the three-day confab might easily have taken missteps with the potential to seriously compound their deep-seated problems. And the fact that they didn’t sabotage their own chances of renewal counts as a success of sorts.

Continue…

Rae, party of one?

By Adam Goldenberg - Sunday, January 15, 2012 at 12:27 PM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Blair Gable

Each morning, the Liberal party’s press office issues a notice to journalists, describing the day’s events. Today’s closing act, it says, is a “Speech by Liberal Leader Bob Rae.”

Among his audience, there are those who think that his job title is missing a word. You won’t find it on the Liberal website, either. “Interim” has been trimmed. But despite his best efforts, when Rae speaks today, those three little syllables will be on every delegate’s mind.

By refusing to confirm or deny his own ambitions, the interim leader has put himself—and his party—in an unenviable position. If he pulls his punches this morning, he’ll disappoint delegates who flew across the country for a partisan pep rally. But if he hits it out of the park, he’ll face renewed calls for clarity about his own intentions: why would he be doing such a good job as interim leader if he didn’t want to keep the job? It’s a ludicrous question, of course, but it’s Rae’s dilemma, distilled: as far as many Liberals are concerned, he’s stuck between a big black block and a leadership race. Continue…

Liberal Biennial Convention 2012 Ottawa

By Mitchel Raphael - Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 8:12 PM - 0 Comments

Martha Hall Findlay (left), Michael Igntieff.

Continue…

The Liberals: Controlled flight into terrain

By Paul Wells - Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 8:03 PM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Blair Gable

“A party needs seven years to come back from an election defeat,” Martin Cauchon told me, index finger jutting forward to push his point at me. “I lived through 1984-91. I saw it. Things are really starting to happen now. This party is coming back.”

Cauchon, you will recall, was the federal minister of justice under Jean Chrétien. His seven-year thing will sound like a misprint, because in 1991 the Liberals were still two years away from winning power back, but it made some sense. It took most of 1991 for Jean Chrétien to stop being a really bad opposition leader and get his sea legs back. After that, his party was on a pretty steady road to victory. And since Cauchon was transparently trying to come up with some reason why today’s Liberal party should be any different from the ones that lost 37, 32, 18 and 43 seats in the elections of 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2011, this was relatively harmless as number games go. Seven years from 2006 is…oooh. 2013! Just in time for victory!

Of course the whole thing is horse poo. I lived through 1979-1980. I saw the Liberals come back from defeat in nine months. I lived through 1980-1984. I saw the Progressive Conservatives come back in four years. I did not live through 1935-1957, but there are books and they tell me the Conservatives took three times seven years to come back from defeat. It takes an arbitrary number of years for a party to come back from defeat, unless it can’t. The best thing that can be said for Cauchon’s thesis is that it helps illustrate how anyone can believe in astrology.

But then, a party that refuses to believe Canadians aren’t buying what it’s selling will cast about for mystical explanations for events. Bob Rae consoled Michael Ignatieff on Friday night by telling him that elections are “a crap shoot.” This sounded to some in the press stands like contempt for democracy, but I think it’s closer to incomprehension of it. Damnedest thing. People vote and then, I don’t know. Something. Here’s a list of the people in Canada who, by virtue of their biographies, would be likeliest to view elections as a crap shoot:

1. Joe Clark.

2. Bob Rae. Continue…

Bob Rae is back

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 6:28 PM - 0 Comments

And now a word from the National Citizens Coalition.

What David McGuinty is thinking

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 12:41 PM - 0 Comments

The Liberal MP for Ottawa South wandered into the media room a moment ago and was shortly thereafter surrounded by reporters. He confirmed that he is considering a run for the party leadership.

I’m not ruling out the leadership. I’m giving this serious consideration. I have an obligation to do this. If I’m going to stay in public life, I’ve got to figure out what’s the best way to serve. And that’s what I’m considering.

He was also asked about Bob Rae’s interim status and whatever leadership ambitions Mr. Rae might have.

I have every faith in the good faith of Bob Rae. Bob’s a great guy. He’s very talented, he’s very experienced. He’s a huge net asset for the Liberal Party of Canada. And for that matter, he’s a huge net asset for Canada. A person of that quality and calibre to be in public life today? It’s hard to get good people into public life and keep them there. So Bob will govern himself accordingly. I’m sure he will always do what’s right by him and what’s right by the party and what’s right by Canadians.

Mr. McGuinty joins Mark Holland and Marc Garneau as those who have publicly confirmed that they are considering a leadership run.

The ghosts of Liberal backrooms past

By Adam Goldenberg - Friday, January 13, 2012 at 12:42 PM - 0 Comments

To Canadian political journalists, Liberal fratricide is mother’s milk. Trudeau-Turner begat Turner-Chrétien begat Chrétien-Martin, and Dion-Ignatieff begat Ignatieff-Rae. Liberals only stand behind their leaders, it is said, to stab them in the back.

What rubbish. Sure, there are divisions in the Liberal party. There are divisions in every party. Take an old-time Newfoundland Tory for a pint, and ask him what he thinks of the Reform Party. In the months before the last election, I met at least one New Democrat MP who couldn’t stand Jack Layton—and don’t even get him started on Tom Mulcair.

Political people are, well, political, and that’s both a vice and a virtue. What makes the Liberals different is that internecine warfare is part of the party’s modern mythology, perpetuated by a persistent minority of aging backroom boys who’ve never met a dead horse they don’t want to beat. Continue…

Raefest 2012

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, January 13, 2012 at 12:06 PM - 0 Comments

Bob Rae addressed the Liberal caucus on Wednesday and scrummed with reporters afterwards. On Thursday, he spoke to the party’s council of presidents.

According to the itinerary released by his office, he’ll shortly deliver the official opening speech to the conference, then he’ll speak with reporters at 1pm, then he’ll be back on stage tonight around 8pm to deliver remarks in tribute to Michael Ignatieff.

On Saturday, he will apparently rest.

Sunday, he’ll be back on stage to deliver closing remarks to the convention and then there will be a news conference.

That’s five speeches and three meetings with reporters in five days.

Standing against ageism

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, January 13, 2012 at 10:10 AM - 0 Comments

Let’s begin our Liberal convention coverage with this bit from the Globe’s preview.

How does choosing a 63-year-old former NDP premier of Ontario signal renewal for the Liberal Party? The very question “suggests there’s a terrible ageism at play,” believes Aidan Johnson, the 32-year-old policy chair for Ms. Copps’s campaign. “To suggest someone isn’t capable of renewing the party because of their age is profoundly bigoted.”

Bob Rae will be a few months past his 67th birthday in October 2015. Were the Liberals to win an election around that time with him as leader, he would become the fourth oldest prime minister to take office, bested only by three 70-somethings: John Abbott, Mackenzie Bowell and Charles Tupper.

In addition to our rented Liberal friends, the whole Maclean’s team will be on the convention floor this weekend: myself, John Geddes, Paul Wells and Peter C. Newman (who offers this assessment of Mr. Rae’s situation). Frequent blogging and tweeting (#MacLib) will ensue.

An important party for the weekend

By Adam Goldenberg - Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 11:24 PM - 0 Comments

Let’s make one thing clear: the Liberal party is not meeting in Ottawa this weekend.

Yes, there is Liberal convention taking place in our nation’s capital, and yes, many Liberals will be there. But the vast majority of party members—to say nothing of the nearly three million people who voted Liberal in May’s federal election—will be staying home.

Many don’t know it’s happening. Some weren’t interested. Most weren’t invited. But for the next few days, a few thousand delegates will cast votes on their behalf that could change the face of Canadian politics forever. Or so we’re told.

I’m not sold. Continue…

Pretender to the Liberal throne

By Peter C. Newman - Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 5:40 PM - 0 Comments

If Bob Rae uses this week’s Liberal party convention in Ottawa to drop the “interim” label affixed to his job description, he will shatter the party’s iron rule of succession. Long before they became Canada’s Natural Governing Party, the Grits recognized the country’s twin cultural roots by strictly alternating between English and French leaders. The honour roll went from Mackenzie to Laurier, to King, to St. Laurent, to Pearson, to Trudeau, to Turner, to Chretien, to Martin, to Dion, to Ignatieff. That bycultural line was not, ever, negotiable.

Rae’s future has become a litmus test of the party’s future, if it has any. Even during the half decade the Michael Ignatieff Caper lasted, Rae’s presence was a daily concern: to himself (feeling under-used and over-anxious); to his fellow MPs (who cornered him to test his Liberal credentials); and for Iggy (whose friendship with the renegade NDPer turned into a duel that became a feud). Continue…

Meet the new Liberal party

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 1:22 PM - 0 Comments

The anonymous agonizing over the party’s leadership starts here.

“I’m still uncomfortable with what he schemed,” one Liberal, speaking on condition of anonymity, said … If Rae stayed on it would be divisive for the party, one senior Liberal told HuffPost. “It creates division, it creates a lack of trust, a credibility problem with this renewal, it creates cynicism, ‘there we go ahead, the same old, same old, backroom, stuff’… It’s not helpful,” he said … 

The Liberal Party has gotten itself into jams by spending too much time trying to screw each other over during leadership bids, another caucus member said. “(Rae’s) already lost the leadership twice … We shouldn’t try to use technical rules to block him,” the Liberal said … “If Bob decides the conditions are there and he’s has a clear shot at winning, he’ll still have to explain to party members his change of heart.” “Rae might dissuade marginal candidates, but he might also coalesce people who want someone else,” another Liberal said, adding, “Bob is a pretty controversial figure.”

RCMP spied on Bob Rae at university

By macleans.ca - Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 12:17 PM - 0 Comments

The young Bob Rae was tracked by RCMP spies in the late 1960s, according to recently declassified documents. Canadian Press, which obtained the documents from Library and Archives Canada, reports the RCMP watched the University of Toronto’s student council closely, likely amassing a dossier on Rae as one of its leaders. At the time, the force was monitoring various organizations, including unions and peace groups, looking for left-wing radicals and subversives. Many such documents were later destroyed; Rae’s records were likely kept as he proceeded into public political life. The arm of the RCMP involved in such observation was dissolved in 1984, after which time the Canadian Security Intelligence Service took over domestic spying. In an interview, Rae expressed surprise about having been spied upon, given the nature of his activities at the time: “The only thing sinister, frankly, in all of this is how much of it was being recorded and reported and presumably being put in a file somewhere.”

Canadian Press