The Commons: A salute to cognitive dissonance

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 3, 2011 at 5:52 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. Shortly before the start of Question Period this afternoon, Conservative backbencher Patrick Brown rose to repeat his side’s line that the NDP is too “disunited” to govern. A moment later, Conservative backbencher Greg Rickford rose to lament that the NDP, in punishing two MPs who defied the party’s decision to whip a vote on the gun registry, was also too committed to enforcing unity.

Presumably this was Mr. Rickford’s way of protesting his own government’s decision to whip this week’s vote on asbestos exports. Hopefully his caucus leadership won’t too severely punish him for so bravely asserting the independence of individual MPs.

Immediately thereafter, the Speaker then called for oral questions and the official opposition sent up Joe Comartin, Mr. Comartin having apparently discovered an example of irony that he was eager to share with everyone. Continue…

Who’s entitled to Old Age Security?

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, September 1, 2011 at 2:21 PM - 2 Comments

In light of a short-lived NDP motion on Old Age Security eligibility, Kevin Milligan reviews the practical principles at play.

So, we had twenty years of contributory Old Age Security taxes — but that ended 40 years ago. Assuming work started at age 18, this means no one under age 58 today has ever paid any explicit Old Age Security taxes — and those over age 58 paid explicit taxes only for a fraction of their working lives. Moreover, the proportion of people who never paid the explicit tax will only grow in the future as younger generations reach age 65 with increasingly less work exposure to the 1952-1971 window. This renders the argument about a tax-benefit linkage much weaker for Old Age Security than for the Canada Pension Plan.

A refinement of the argument posits implicit linkages between a lifetime of paying taxes into general revenues and the pension benefits that flow at older ages. This argument seems sound in general, but I find it hard to distinguish why we should impose residency requirements on Old Age Security but not other public benefits or public spending. Why restrict Old Age Security to long-term residents but not public health insurance? What makes Old Age Security so different?

Kady O’Malley notes the relatively symbolic nature of private members’ motions and the fact that—among other plausibly controversial motions—a motion to change Old Age Security requirements was put forward by a Conservative MP in 2004. Nonetheless, Conservative MPs Dean Del Mastro, Kyle Seeback, Greg Rickford and Cathy McLeod have moved quickly to reassure their constituents that they are entirely opposed to this recklessness.

The Commons: The NDP disappoints John Baird

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, June 15, 2011 at 6:18 PM - 16 Comments

The Scene. In an attempt perhaps to preempt the Prime Minister’s dismissal, Bob Rae attempted a preface. ”The Prime Minister is constantly saying that those of us who quote the Auditor General are not telling the truth,” Mr. Rae posited. “So let me simply quote the Auditor General very directly with respect to the activities of the President of the Treasury Board and ask him one simple question.”

With the parameters thus set, the interim Liberal leader proceeded. ”The Auditor General said that he found what the government did ‘unusual and troubling,’ ” he reported. “I would like to ask the Prime Minister, is the Auditor General telling the truth when he says those words?”

Would it surprise you to learn that the Prime Minister sidestepped the specifics of this question? If so, you should be commended on the open-hearted naïveté with which you approach the world. Continue…

On memories of Iggy and a Tory fashion showdown

By Mitchel Raphael - Monday, June 13, 2011 at 10:20 AM - 0 Comments

They’re back: Jack Layton with bartender Julie McCarthy

Rae encourages May

On the first day back, Green Leader Elizabeth May found herself in the last seat of the House. Seat 308 is where NDP MP Peter Stoffer used to sit. Liberal Leader Bob Rae turned around to May and told her that when he was first an MP decades ago it was his seat and that “in 32 years you can be where I am.” Last week also saw MPs busy moving offices. NDP deputy leader Libby Davies is getting a bigger office and is taking her desk with her. It once belonged to former prime minister Joe Clark and has a secret drawer. “I’ll drag it down the corridor myself if I have to,” said the Vancouver MP. Some parliamentarians were still being sworn in the day before the House resumed. One of them was Bloc MP Maria Mourani, who saw her party reduced to four seats. She jokes that at least she can say that 25 per cent of her party is female and a visible minority. (Mourani is Lebanese.) She feels the Bloc is now like cartoon characters Astérix and Obélix, two Gauls in a small village battling the Roman Empire. The day of his swearing in, the daughter of NDP MP Malcolm Allen went into labour. That meant his wife and family stayed with daughter Gillian Sheldrick and all Allen had for a supportive audience was a lone staffer. Keegan Sheldrick is Allen’s first grandchild.

NDP needs a bigger bar

Continue…

Your region in power

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, April 25, 2011 at 3:33 PM - 93 Comments

Mr. Harper’s closing pitch to a crowd in Sault Ste Marie this morning.

We’re coming to many areas of the country that have been unrepresented in government for some time. And one of the things we say is look at what we just went through in the recession and isn’t it a shame that it took Tony Clement down in Muskoka, Greg Rickford up in Kenora, to identify the kind of priorities we need here in Sault Ste Marie. You know, when there are serious economic issues facing communities and facing people in northern Ontario, they do not need MPs whose simple view is they’re going to vote against everything. We don’t need MPs whose whole goal is to just work with the Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois on arrangements against the government. We need people who are going to work with the government and with the people in this area to make things actually happen for this area.

The Commons: Law and points of order

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, March 2, 2011 at 7:07 PM - 99 Comments

The Scene. Bev Oda stood this to day to audibly commit various words to the official record. Really, it was the least she could do.

In keeping with the government side’s “operational decision,” John Baird stood to take the first two questions asked of the International Cooperation Minister this afternoon, but then the Liberals asked generally about the functioning of Canada’s development agency. Here Ms. Oda motioned to Mr. Baird that she could take this one and so she stood and mouthed various platitudes.

Then though, Liberal Anita Neville stood with her supplementary, wondering if, while she had the minister’s attention, she might ask some questions specific to the handling of KAIROS. And so she did. And so Ms. Oda apparently felt compelled to stand again. What followed from her had absolutely and precisely nothing to do with the particular issue at hand. But she spoke words. And she did so while standing. And that was apparently more than enough for members of the government side to leap up and applaud her when she’d finished.

Less enthusiastic was the response to another day of questions about how the Conservatives funded their campaign for high office in 2006. Continue…

A Harvard man

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, July 12, 2010 at 4:05 PM - 0 Comments

We know, because we’ve been told, that the next governor general is a non-partisan. But other facets of his history and personality are so far less understood.

For instance, though it was not noted in the official release announcing his appointment, in the third paragraph of the attached four-paragraph backgrounder we learn that Mr. Johnston, who was introduced to the country as a respected academic, began his post-secondary studies at Harvard. Granted, while at Harvard, he played “ice hockey,” as they call it there. But still, Harvard.

This is obviously confusing, for if we have learned anything at all over the last four and a half years it’s that the name of that American educational institution is only to be invoked or referenced in the derisive sense, for the purposes of mocking another’s character or intellect.

To wit. Continue…

Taking aim at Ignatieff

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 10:00 AM - 6 Comments

In the coded language of official Ottawa, they are known as SO31s. It’s a reference to Standing Order 31 of Parliament, which allows that 15 minutes be set aside before question period each day for MPs to stand in the House and make brief remarks about a subject of their choosing. For the most part, members use the time to salute constituents, celebrate charitable causes, mourn sad occasions or pontificate on matters of national or international importance.

When they still had Stéphane Dion to kick around, the Conservative government took great pleasure in mocking the former Liberal leader before he rose to ask another awkwardly worded question of the Prime Minister. And though they waited a few days before doing likewise with Dion’s successor, a steady succession of Conservative backbenchers has been sent up to denigrate Michael Ignatieff or his party since he took the leader’s chair. Indeed, despite an attempt recently by the Speaker to limit personal attacks during this time, government MPs have used more than 100 of these statements to needle the Liberal side in the 12 weeks since Parliament returned in January—a concerted campaign that reached a particular low when Ron Cannan rose on the afternoon of April 20 and attempted to segue from a preceding statement of condolence by Liberal Maurizio Bevilacqua about the deadly Italian earthquake.

Continue…

Apropos of nothing

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, May 15, 2009 at 2:57 PM - 62 Comments

Excluding those born outside Canada, the following Conservative MPs have lived, studied or worked outside the country.

Jim Flaherty, Lisa Raitt, Brian Jean, Russ Hiebert, Jason Kenney, Maurice Vellacott, Mike Allen, Ray Boughen, Barry Devolin, Garry Breitkreuz, Ed Holder, Randy Kamp, Pierre Lemieux, Ben Lobb, Phil McColeman, Cathy McLeod, Scott Reid, Greg Rickford, Andrew Saxton and John Weston.

The Commons: The eternal shame of the Ivy Leaguer

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, March 30, 2009 at 6:42 PM - 45 Comments

The Scene. In preemptive move, the government side sent up another of its backbenchers before Question Period—this one named Greg Rickford—to report on the latest outrageousness of the Liberal leader.

“Mr. Speaker, Canada’s auto industry directly employs over 150,000 Canadians and another 340,000 indirectly … half a million Canadians and their families depend on the health and viability of this industry and are looking to their leaders to ensure that Canada remains a strong part of the North American automotive industry through these economic times,” Rickford began. “That is why it is absolutely shameful that the leader of the opposition has turned up his nose to auto sector workers by saying: ‘No voter in B.C. wants to throw money into the auto sector and neither do I.’”

To Rickford’s credit, this was not entirely incorrect. Mr. Ignatieff did speak those 16 words. And one assumes it was by innocent omission that the Conservative failed to note the two preceding sentences. ”I don’t believe in bailouts,” Mr. Ignatieff reportedly said. “What I believe in is fully-refundable loan packages for industries that give you a business plan that will restore them to profitability.”

Undaunted by such details, Rickford went on. “I wonder if he would repeat the same sentiment at a town hall meeting in Ontario,” he whined. “I am sure he has more savvy than that. He has shown time and time again that he is more than willing to flip-flop on the content of his message to suit whatever audience he is speaking to, whether it be in Saanich, St. Catharines or at his home in Harvard.”

This last bit was, apparently, meant as a put-down. Continue…

The Commons: Yell louder

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, March 5, 2009 at 7:34 PM - 24 Comments

The Scene. “Mr. Speaker,” Chuck Strahl said the other day, scolding Todd Russell, the typically loud Liberal from Labrador, “there is that old saying on the preacher’s note, ‘unsure of point, must yell louder.’”

It was a witty retort. And a remarkably candid explanation of how this government has apparently decided to approach this moment of economic crisis, unwinnable war and newly emboldened opposition. Continue…