The Commons: Whatever Peter MacKay did, he supports the troops

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, September 29, 2011 at 7:07 PM - 14 Comments

The Scene. As Jack Harris proceeded with his first question, there were catcalls from the government side. There was also some discussion along the government’s frontbench—between Messrs. Harper, Van Loan and MacKay—as to who would stand to respond.

“Mr. Speaker, as Canadians brace for another recession, we learn that our defence minister continues his ethically challenged ways. He has racked up nearly $3 million jetting around the country,” the NDP defence critic reviewed. “The government will not invest in infrastructure, in health care or jobs, but it will invest millions in making this minister the frequent flyer champion of government jets. When will the government ground that high-flying minister?”

Typically—this being the ninth question of the day and Mr. Harris not being a party leader—this would’ve been for the Defence Minister to answer. But here Mr. Harper motioned that he would take it.

“Mr. Speaker, I am surprised to get that question from the honourable member,” he claimed, as if he were somehow new to this place. “As I pointed out, the minister uses the Challenger 70 per cent less than his predecessors and, half the time he does that, it is for repatriation ceremonies. What I would expect from the honourable member is for him to be asking how he could join the Minister of National Defence and also participate in those ceremonies for Canadian families.”

Apparently finding this bit of logic quite persuasive, the government members leapt to their feet to applaud and yell out. No doubt they would’ve been even more enthused had this version of events been indisputably true. Continue…

The case for changing the mission in Libya

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, September 26, 2011 at 3:33 PM - 3 Comments

The following is NDP defence critic Jack Harris’ speech to the House on the motion to extend the military mission in Libya.

Mr. Speaker, this is an important debate today for many reasons. It is the third debate on this issue of Canada’s mission in Libya. We had resolutions in this House on March 17 and June 14, each extending that mission for three months. We are now faced with the government seeking to continue the military mission for a further three months.

The reason this debate is so important is that it is really about the future of Canada’s role internationally, to what extent it will see itself as a military power, primarily, or whether it will continue the well-respected role that it had and was known for in providing a very different type of image and action on the world stage.

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The Commons: A fishing story

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 3:19 PM - 8 Comments

The Scene. Peter MacKay, as is his habit, was up before the questioner was even through. This is, presumably, what the Defence Minister does to demonstrate confidence. Or impatience. Or a general disregard for proper manners.

The poser of the question in this case was Scott Simms, the diminutive Liberal from Bonavist-Gander-Grand Falls-Windsor. “Mr. Speaker, we now know, with great regret, that the Minister of National Defence ordered his search and rescue helicopter to pick him up from his vacation on the Gander River,” he lamented. “The response is ‘It was a demonstration of their capabilities.’”

There was much groaning and grumbling from the government side.

“He feels that he is entitled to use vital life-saving equipment for his own personal limousine, and we would like for him to answer to it,” Mr. Simms continued. “The Prime Minister has suggested that the chief of defence staff pay back the money for his personal flights. Will the Minister of Defence do that same, pay back the $16,000 and apologize?”

As noted, Mr. MacKay was already up, apparently eager to state his case. Continue…

Party at Stornoway

By Mitchel Raphael - Friday, July 8, 2011 at 8:32 PM - 0 Comments

The media mingled with NDP MPs at the garden party at Stornoway NDP MP Olivia Chow shows off a white chocolate Jack Layton moustache.

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(L to R) NDP leader Jack Layton, MP Jack Harris and Doris Layton (Jack’s mom).

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MPs Party Under the Stars

By Mitchel Raphael - Wednesday, June 29, 2011 at 10:05 PM - 0 Comments

MPs and Senators hit Party Under the Stars, a fundraiser to help purchase electronic or recreational equipment for troops in Afghanistan. Below, Senator Mike Duffy and Defence Minister Peter MacKay.

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Associate Minister of National Defence Julian Fantino (right).

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The Commons: Getting the words right

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 7:37 PM - 27 Comments

So the House is almost entirely agreed. Colonel Gadhafi of Libya is an undesirable despot, guilty, it would seem, of various abuses and disgraces, likely up to and including crimes against humanity and thus, through some combination of diplomacy, humanitarian aid and bombs, he must be prevented from doing any further harm to the people of Libya, they who should be allowed to proceed soon enough to freedom and democracy.

Now, if only the House could agree on how best to describe the process by which this general notion might be made real.

“Our strategy is clear,” John Baird proclaimed this morning. “By applying steady and unrelenting military and diplomatic pressure while also delivering humanitarian assistance we can protect the civilian population, degrade the capabilities of the regime and create the conditions for a genuine political opening. At the same time we can bolster the capacity of the Libyan opposition to meet the challenges of post-Gadhafi Libya and to lay the foundations of a state based on the sovereignty of the people.”

On this, the Foreign Affairs Minister asked the House of Commons to endorse a three-and-a-half-month extension of Canada’s involvement in the NATO mission over and around Libya. And it was on the occasion of this request that Jack Harris, the NDP’s shadow defence minister, stood a short while later to wonder if we might call this “regime change.” Continue…

The Commons: The faint sound of disagreement

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 6:20 PM - 66 Comments

The Scene. The Prime Minister stood and congratulated the leader of the opposition on his election. The leader of the opposition congratulated the Prime Minister on his election. In his front row seat, Tony Clement wrapped his arms around himself and mimed a hug to celebrate this new spirit of mutual appreciation.

The civility that we were promised—and which everyone is now monitoring with the sort of close attention and nervous anticipation usually reserved for the rescue of Chilean miners or small children from holes in the ground—is now almost entirely insipid. Newly elected members and newly appointed ministers are applauded for simply existing. Everyone claps for everything and everyone. David Anderson was widely saluted today for apologizing after suggesting that a member opposite had made a “fool of himself.” It is like being in a kindergarten classroom where encouragement and self-esteem and positive affirmation are paramount.

This Decorous Era achieved total farce this afternoon when Conservative parliamentary secretary Shelly Glover thanked one of her opposition critics for their re-election. “Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague once again for returning to this House,” Ms. Glover said of New Democrat Irene Mathyssen. Presumably she meant to congratulate. Hopefully we will soon enough be sufficiently reacquainted with each other that even that seems unnecessary.

In the meantime, this place remains mostly concerned with serious matters of public policy. And whatever this may lack in salaciousness, it does at least allow members of different parties to acknowledge their critical views of each other’s intentions. Continue…

The Commons: Opening salvos, politely spoken

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, June 6, 2011 at 6:20 PM - 50 Comments

The Scene. Buttoning his jacket preemptively, Jack Layton did not bother to contain his grin as he looked up at the Speaker in anticipation of an invitation to stand.

Indeed, here the Speaker announced that the House had arrived at the time set aside for oral questions and called on the leader of the opposition to begin. And here Mr. Layton, having earned this hallowed and cursed title, thus stood to bask in the applause of his bountiful caucus.

When the ovation had subsided, he congratulated the Prime Minister and the members opposite on their recent election results. And yet, he noted, something like 60% of Canadians had not voted for a Conservative government.

“Ahh,” groaned various government members at Mr. Layton’s insistence on math.

The Prime Minister, Mr. Layton continued, had promised to work with all members of the House. But, in Mr. Layton’s estimation, the Speech from the Throne had failed to reflect this turn toward sweetness and light. “Where,” Mr. Layton wondered aloud, “is the government’s willingness to work with others?”

As if to demonstrate his own commitment to a new, more civil, House of Commons, the Prime Minister had excused himself from this day of normal business so that he might view the flooding in Quebec. In his place stood Peter Van Loan, that universally revered champion of noble discourse. Continue…

Too little, too late

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 18, 2011 at 9:56 AM - 6 Comments

Rather quietly, the government seems to have released some kind of paperwork related to the purchase of new fighter jets.

Some 55 F-35-related documents were apparently tabled before the Parliamentary Procedure and House Affairs Committee Thursday, however, those inside the committee room were not immediately aware of it … NDP defence critic Jack Harris slammed the latest figures that include select U.S. government tables that have been deemed unclassified, suggesting the breakdown still doesn’t constitute an “independent cost analysis.” “What they’ve provided now under duress is something that’s totally inadequate,” he said.

The Parliamentary Budget Office is apparently experiencing similar communication issues with the Defence Department. And so it apparently falls upon our John Geddes to sort through it all.

The year in parliamentary democracy

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, December 31, 2010 at 9:24 AM - 80 Comments

You have to remember how this started, how 2009 ended and how 2010 began. How the Prime Minister rang up the Governor General and asked her to prorogue Parliament until March. How this was hailed as “devilishly clever.” How someone started a Facebook group to protest the gratuitous use of an arcane Parliamentary procedure. How 200,000 people made the tremendously small effort of registering the requisite click to join that group. And how 20,000 people stood in the cold on a Sunday afternoon in their various towns in January to demand that the House of Commons return to work—work that we otherwise mostly ignore, but work we apparently want to know is going on all the same.

Before the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill, 3,500 people stood on the front lawn, singing and chanting and shouting. It was insistent and demanding and disgruntled. It was quaintly committed to the institutions and principles of parliamentary democracy. It was an incredible noise. However fleeting that moment now seems. Continue…

An NDP Christmas

By Mitchel Raphael - Tuesday, December 28, 2010 at 3:37 PM - 6 Comments

NDP MPs gathered for their annual Christmas dinner. Below, Glenn Thibeault.

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Glenn Thibeault back in the day.

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Nathan Cullen.

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The Backbench Top Ten

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, December 12, 2010 at 2:57 PM - 1 Comment

After a week away, our weekly, and wholly arbitrary, ranking of the ten most worthy, or at least entertaining, MPs returns. A celebration of all that is great and ridiculous about the House of Commons. Last week’s rankings appear in parentheses. Continue…

How our MPs live

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, December 10, 2010 at 4:12 PM - 19 Comments

More pressing than the crumbling nature of our democracy may be the crumbling nature of the buildings that house our democracy.

The enduring impatience of New Democrats

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 11:42 AM - 31 Comments

Jack Layton calls out Michael Ignatieff and Gilles Duceppe.

One year after Parliament voted to demand documents relating to the torture of Afghan detainees, Jack Layton is calling on his opposition counterparts to cancel their failed disclosure deal with the Harper government and insist on a public inquiry instead.

“Stephen Harper has done everything in his power to hide what his government knew about the treatment of Afghan detainees. Now he’s doing it again, but with help from the Liberals and the Bloc,” said Layton at a press conference today. “Mr. Ignatieff, Mr. Duceppe, end this charade today and join us in holding Mr. Harper accountable.”

The Commons: Lawrence Cannon's lips are sealed

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 29, 2010 at 6:39 PM - 16 Comments

The Scene. It is entirely possible that when all has been, said, done, investigated and disclosed that Canadian officials will be found to have done a largely admirable job of handling, seizing, transferring and monitoring those individuals detained during this country’s mission in Afghanistan—and that that conclusion will do very little to redeem this government’s various cabinet ministers for the various things they have said about the matter these last four and a half years. To understand why is to get at perhaps the central paradox of so much about this place and these times: the serious, complex nature of modern problems set against the increasingly simplistic, largely evasive way we seem compelled to talk about those problems.

The latest cause for incoherence is a report from the CBC, based on a secret government briefing note, that Canada has been transferring children to Afghan authorities. For sure, this sort of news raises all sorts of complicated questions about law, human rights, war and foreign affairs. For sure, none of these complicated questions will ever properly be addressed here.

Here though stood Thomas Mulcair, the first to state for the benefit of the House a series of varyingly inflammatory questions—”Why is Canada transferring children to the Afghan torturers, NDS? How many children have been arrested? How many children have been transferred? How many children have been tortured?”—to which he couldn’t possibly have expected to receive answers. Continue…

The Backbench Top Ten

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 29, 2010 at 12:07 AM - 2 Comments

Our weekly, and wholly arbitrary, ranking of the ten most worthy, or at least entertaining, MPs, excluding the Prime Minister, cabinet members and party leaders. A celebration of all that is great and ridiculous about the House of Commons. Last week’s rankings appear in parentheses. Continue…

A day of debate

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 1:09 PM - 6 Comments

Debate concerning the Bloc’s motion on the Afghan mission begins here and, after a break for Question Period, resumes here. Notable speeches include those of the Foreign Affairs Minister, the Defence Minister, Bob Rae, Jack Harris, Claude Bachand and the incomparable Ken Dryden.

Where the responsibility belongs

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 1:18 PM - 52 Comments

The House is debating today the Bloc motion on Afghanistan. In his remarks this morning, the NDP’s Jack Harris recalled a private member’s bill that would have subjected all peacekeeping missions to debate and a vote in the House. The mover of that bill was Chuck Strahl, the current Minister of Transport.

Bill C-295 is a good idea, worthy of all party support because it would not cut off or even reduce Canada’s peacekeeping role in the world. Rather, it would affirm and institutionalize the role of peacekeeping in Canada’s foreign policy and strengthen Canada’s place as a leader among the United Nations.

Neither would it reduce the power of the government to make decisions about the deployment of Canadian troops. The bill deals strictly with peacekeeping and allows cabinet full authority to act on a temporary basis. However, it also places the responsibility for our long term commitments squarely where it belongs, in the capable hands of the Canadian people through their members in the House of Commons.

The Backbench Top Ten

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, November 21, 2010 at 3:08 PM - 10 Comments

The Backbench Top Ten

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, November 14, 2010 at 4:29 PM - 4 Comments

Our weekly, and wholly arbitrary, ranking of the ten most worthy, or at least entertaining, MPs, excluding the Prime Minister, cabinet members and party leaders. A celebration of all that is great and ridiculous about the House of Commons. Last week’s rankings appear in parentheses. Continue…

The Backbench Top Ten

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, November 7, 2010 at 8:05 PM - 2 Comments

Our weekly, and wholly arbitrary, ranking of the ten most worthy, or at least entertaining, MPs, excluding the Prime Minister, cabinet members and party leaders. A celebration of all that is great and ridiculous about the House of Commons. Last week’s rankings appear in parentheses. Continue…

The Backbench Top Ten

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, October 31, 2010 at 5:43 PM - 0 Comments

Our weekly, and wholly arbitrary, ranking of the ten most worthy, or at least entertaining, MPs, excluding the Prime Minister, cabinet members and party leaders. A celebration of all that is great and ridiculous about the House of Commons. Last week’s rankings appear in parentheses. Continue…

The Commons: Leave it to MacKay

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 26, 2010 at 6:45 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. Demonstrating fine posture, Siobhan Coady stood straight, if not tall, along the back row of the opposition side and, in a tone of disbelief, reported the day’s findings of the auditor general.

“Mr. Speaker, today the Auditor General has revealed that the Conservatives caused an avalanche of problems, delays and cost overruns in acquiring 15 Chinook helicopters,” she lamented. “They essentially sole-sourced the deal without telling Public Works why. They identified the operational requirements only after announcing the procurement. They provided a cost estimate to the Treasury Board that they know was too low. As a result the Auditor General is warning of a billion dollar operating budget crunch at DND. The Conservatives broke every rule in the book.”

Ms. Coady then concluded with the most damning of open-ended questions—”Why?” Continue…

The Backbench Top Ten

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, October 24, 2010 at 1:31 PM - 0 Comments

Our weekly, and wholly arbitrary, ranking of the ten most worthy, or at least entertaining, MPs, excluding the Prime Minister, cabinet members and party leaders. A celebration of all that is great and ridiculous about the House of Commons. Last week’s rankings appear in parentheses. Continue…