The Commons: 'It depends'

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 8:40 PM - 88 Comments

The Scene. Michael Ignatieff stood looking serious, perhaps a bit unimpressed.

The Prime Minister, he reported en français, had admitted it was wrong for the government to put Conservative party logos on giant novelty cheques announcing the arrival of taxpayer dollars. But what of the public funding itself? What, for instance, of the fact that 75% of a fund for unemployed youth had been allocated in Conservative ridings?

On the government side, there was much yapping and whining.

“Having admitted it was wrong to put logos on cheques,” the Liberal leader wondered aloud, “will the Prime Minister admit now that partisanship in spending must stop immediately?”

The Prime Minister would not, if only because he was elsewhere. Absent too was John Baird, the government’s usual choice to enunciate a response on this file. So here, instead, came Industry Minister Tony Clement, waving his arms and pleading for your respect.

“We are on the side of Canadians,” he declared. “We are producing these projects because they mean jobs and opportunity. They mean getting behind and beyond the recession to a better and more prosperous economy through economic recovery. That is our message to Canadians and that is what Canadians want of us.”

Oddly enough, Mr. Ignatieff did not find satisfaction in this explanation.

Continue…

The vast left-wing conspiracy

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 11:39 AM - 79 Comments

Conservative MP Larry Miller tells us what’s really going on here with all these stories about giant novelty cheques.

“This is about the national media trying to help the Liberals deflect the attention off their problems right now,” said Miller. “Anybody that has seen Mr. Ignatieff and his crew in the House of Commons in the previous two or three weeks, it has looked as bad as when (Stephane) Dion was there and the media knows it, the Liberals know it and they are just trying to make an issue out of something.”

If only we had a commissioner who was responsible for ethics

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 7:05 PM - 33 Comments

CBC explores the irony of news that the ethics commissioner will be investigating the ethics of giant novelty cheques.

Canada’s ethics commissioner will investigate dozens of allegations that Conservative MPs are using taxpayers’ money for partisan purposes. But Mary Dawson says she’s not sure how far her mandate allows her to go into ethical issues, despite her job title.

… in her annual report, Dawson highlighted that while the word “ethics” appears in her job title, it does not appear in the Conflict of Interest Act or the Code of Conduct for MPs. ”It’s quite unclear as to the extent to which my mandate extends into ethical issues that are not expressly referred to in either the code or the act and, in fact, one would wonder whether it extends there at all,” Dawson said at parliamentary ethics committee meeting.

The Commons: And so we come full circle

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, October 19, 2009 at 6:36 PM - 112 Comments

The Scene. The Prime Minister was not in his seat this afternoon when Question Period began. Which seems a shame. Not least because of the profound moment in the history of his government that he was not there to witness firsthand. The rest of us will at least be able to say we were there, that we saw it with our own eyes and heard it with our own ears. The Prime Minister will have to suffice with seeing it on TV. Or perhaps hearing about it from a member of his staff.

Although, maybe it was best he wasn’t there after all. Indeed, in a way, it’s better he was spared the awful sight.

The session began simply enough with the obvious, the Liberal leader wondering aloud about a potential conflict of interest involving a Conservative senator and a sizable government contract. “Mr. Speaker, a pattern is becoming all too clear,” Michael Ignatieff posited. “The Conservative government is using stimulus spending to buy votes and reward its friends. This morning, we learned that one of the Prime Minister’s newest senators works for a company that has just won $1.4 million in infrastructure spending. At a time when the middle class is struggling, would the Prime Minister explain why infrastructure spending that is needed by all Canadians ends up in the hands of a member of his own—”

His time expired, the Transport Minister stood smirking to dismiss Mr. Ignatieff’s concerns. The Liberal tried again, this time en francais. John Baird once more swatted the question away. “Mr. Speaker, there is no reason to jump to the conclusions that the Leader of the Opposition does,” Mr. Baird declared. “If he has any evidence of any wrongdoing, rather than pontificating in this place, he should put his facts on the table and be accountable for those. We have been completely open, completely transparent with the infrastructure spending that we have made.”

The Liberals howled with mocking laughter.

“The grant in question was made by a crown corporation,” the Minister finished, “with no lobbying and no involvement whatsoever of my office or the office of the Minister of Public Works.”

Here, then, is where it happened. Where everything that once was up turned down. Where left became right, day became night and blue became red.  Continue…

Rhetorical question of the day

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, October 19, 2009 at 3:33 PM - 23 Comments

Liberal Todd Russell, yelling in the direction of Rob Nicholson this afternoon as the Justice Minister took a friendly question about crime legislation.

“What’s the mandatory minimum for cheque fraud?”

Tonight, dinner's on your local Conservative MP

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 7:59 PM - 43 Comments

Susan Delacourt first wrote about the problematic nature of giant novelty cheques in July. At the time, Gerard Kennedy made a shrewd observation that should perhaps be repeated here for the benefit of those who now find themselves in possession of a giant novelty cheque signed by a government MP.

“The one thing I did learn when I worked for the food bank is you can actually cash those things. It’s a legal document. I think we’re going to try to get hold of those people and tell them they actually got double grants there. They got one from the government and one from Peter Van Loan, who’s apparently so riven with guilt over the time it took to get to them that he wants to make it up to them.”