Sports analogies

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 5:45 PM - 10 Comments

From QP this afternoon.

Hon. Ken Dryden (York Centre, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, as sports fans, the Prime Minister and the finance minister know the axiom that records are made to be broken, but some records have seemed unbreakable, such as the Rocket’s 50 goals in 50 games and Babe Ruth’s 714 home run. Outside sports it was Brian Mulroney’s $39 billion deficit, then this Prime Minister and finance minister blew it out of the water. They did it with their ill-advised moves these past few years, so when the recession triggered this deficit on steroids, for those who really need help, they have nothing left but placebo announcements. Why?

Hon. Jim Flaherty (Minister of Finance, CPC): Mr. Speaker, since when does the member opposite take this hypocritical position? Why does he stand and criticize the government for running a deficit, as we are obliged to do in order to help unemployed people in Canada, and at the same time say that the government should spend even more money? One does not make the playoffs that way.

A moment to say nice things (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, May 14, 2009 at 3:31 PM - 3 Comments

Question Period does not always lend itself to the most flattering impressions of our elected representatives—and the action itself is limiting, the majority of MPs not participating in any central way. It is not though without its redeeming moments or individuals. And so, as an entirely subjective addendum to our official awards, a pause in our usual programming to recognize a few of the least offensive. Continue…

CJPAC packs them in – Ruby Dhalla during happier times

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, May 7, 2009 at 11:55 AM - 0 Comments

The Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee held its third annual Action party in Toronto at Andrew Richard Designs.

Below (left to right) are Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, Toronto NDP MP Olivia Chow and Canadian Jewish Congress CEO Bernie Farber.

Kenney and Chow share a moment.

Continue…

The Commons: The good ole hockey game

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 at 7:30 PM - 17 Comments

The Scene. Bob Rae was lingering near the microphones after Question Period, taking questions on Ruby Dhalla’s nanny troubles, when he decided to venture an analogy

“I’ve said many times that politics is more like hockey than it’s like ballet,” he mused. “If you perceive a weakness, then it’s no surprise to anyone that people would try to take partisan advantage of that.”

The government side has taken a few opportunities these past two days to raise the matter of Ruby Dhalla in the House. On each occasion, a backbencher was sent up solemn-faced and seemingly on the verge of tears to read into the record details of the various allegations and ask that a minister rise to explain in further detail how precisely abhorrent the whole thing is. Today, both Helena Guergis, minister of state for the status of women, and Jason Kenney, the immigration minister, were given the chance and carried out their duties with obvious concern.

“Having been at this business for nearly 30 years, I’m not surprised by anything that I’ve seen or heard in the House of Commons the last couple of days,” Rae continued. “I think the point has to be made though that we don’t do public show trials in Canada and we don’t try and hang people on the floor of the House of Commons.”

Indeed, Canada did away with public hanging shortly after it became a country. Thus, we were left with hockey and politics to satisfy our need of bloody spectacle. And so Question Period still serves some purpose. Continue…

MPs, nachos and a loon: The All-Party Party

By Mitchel Raphael - Monday, March 16, 2009 at 1:20 PM - 7 Comments

Every year Nova Scotia NDP MP Peter Stoffer (below) organizes the All-Party Party for everyone who works on the Hill, from MPs to the cleaning staff. This year’s event was packed as usual.

Stoffer with Justin Trudeau.

Trudeau with his aide, Louis-Alexandre Lanthier.

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…

Of manhood and memories

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, February 14, 2009 at 4:43 PM - 23 Comments

A year ago now, at the peak of the sound and fury surrounding allegations of bribery and Chuck Cadman, the matter came round, as it so often has, to a question of manhood.

Question Period on March 3 began with Stephane Dion. “Mr. Speaker,” he said, “the Prime Minister has tried everything to avoid answering questions about his party’s million dollar bribe. He has even resorted to threats of a lawsuit. It is going to take much more than the threat of a lawsuit to stop us from getting to the truth. Is the Prime Minister willing to change his story? Is he ready to tell the truth?”

The Prime Minister responded with his grand prediction—”The truth is that this will prove to be in court the biggest mistake the leader of the Liberal Party has ever made.”

Only the Liberals didn’t let up. And so the Conservatives did as they do.

“You big wimp!” John Baird yelped at Dion. “You sneaky wimp! You’re gutless!”

The minister of the crown then barked in Ken Dryden’s direction. “You’re gutless!” he cried. “You’re gutless!”

The Prime Minister kept at Dion. “We will be watching very interestingly,” Stephen Harper smirked, “to see after Question Period whether the leader of the Liberal Party publishes those questions on his website.”

“He’s a weasel!” Baird concurred. “You watch, he won’t do it!”

Eventually the Liberals sent Dryden up, the former goalie ever ready with another gusty condemnation of the ruling party’s behaviour. Continue…

Mixed metaphor of the day

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, February 6, 2009 at 10:40 AM - 5 Comments

We are riding a horse. Obscured by a tree. That has just been cut down.

Ken Dryden on the government’s environment policy.

What then of Canada? In his three years as Prime Minister, Stephen Harper has chosen to ride the slowest horse in the race. Except at international conferences, it has been a comfortable ride. But he cannot hide in the shade of the United States much longer. 

The Commons: Michael Ignatieff and the herd

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, February 4, 2009 at 7:36 PM - 41 Comments

The Scene. The early reviews are in and Michael Ignatieff is a disaster. A blight upon our democracy. A threat, no less, to the very notion of this nation we hold dear. Ottawa, it is safe to say, is unimpressed.

“Just who is running the Liberal caucus?” begged the Globe and Mail’s editorial board this morning, thoroughly perplexed at Mr. Ignatieff’s decision to let half a dozen Liberal MPs from Newfoundland vote of their own volition. “Whether or not this proves to be a ‘one-time pass,’ as Mr. Ignatieff has claimed, it could have far-reaching consequences for him, for his party, and potentially for the country.”

“I think it’s a total lack of leadership,” concurred Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe, he of nearly two decades in Ottawa.

“It can be described lots of ways but it can’t really be described as leadership,” scolded the NDP’s Jack Layton, speaking from his 26 years of political experience.

“Certainly,” chirped baby-faced Conservative Pierre Poilievre, a keen student of this stuff, “Prime Minister Harper is a strong leader and you’ll notice that his caucus is unanimous in voting with him. I think that is the mark of a strong leader.”

Anonymous Liberals were said to be perplexed. The men on the CTV nightly news were positively aghast, shocked at the Liberal leader’s unprecedented decision to emasculate himself so publicly.

Trying to grasp the sheer enormity of Mr. Ignatieff’s misstep, the Globe consulted professor Tom Flanagan, a former associate of Mr. Harper’s and, consequently, a man intimately familiar with the mystical qualities that make one a proper leader of men. ”It is a sign of weakness in the brutal world of politics,” the professor concluded. ”Harper, would never do something similar.”

No doubt Mr. Ignatieff thought that last bit a compliment. But then he and the herd don’t know quite what to do with each other. Continue…

The Commons: 'The problem is not with me'

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, February 2, 2009 at 9:29 PM - 60 Comments

The leader of the opposition was on one of the TV chat shows this evening and, in between mixing his metaphors (bridges to cross, balls in various courts and so forth), he offered a not-inconsiderable assessment of our present situation.

“I think Canadians are saying this right across the board… let’s raise our game,” he said. “Let’s ask real questions in the House of Commons and seek real answers. Let us see whether there’s times when we can cooperate. Let’s do our job as opposition, which is hold these guys’ feet to the fire.”

A week old, it must be said, this new era of real questions is already proving dreadfully boring. Take, for instance, Mr. Ignatieff’s efforts this afternoon.

“The U.S. legislation was not written overnight,” he observed first of some unfriendliness to the south. “How did the government get caught off guard? What is it doing right now to ensure that Canadians do not lose further jobs to the rising tide of American protectionism?”

When this, understandably, failed to elicit much of a response, Mr. Ignatieff restated his query more clearly.

“What action,” he wondered, “is the government taking now, both with the administration and with congress, to secure Canadian exemption from these protectionist measures?”

Straightforward, fair, not a hint of invective nor defamation. Whatever his fancy foreign schooling, Mr. Ignatieff could learn much from the government’s subsequent response.

“Mr. Speaker,” Stockwell Day sighed, “for somebody who has lived his last 30 years in the United States, we would think he would be familiar with the fact that we actually do not get involved in drafting legislation in the United States.”

Patronizing, irrelevant and unnecessarily personal. Whatever his actual grasp of foreign policy, Mr. Day has well earned his spot on the frontbench of life.  Continue…

A very Ignatieff holiday party

By Mitchel Raphael - Tuesday, December 23, 2008 at 11:00 PM - 65 Comments

Interim Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff held his holiday party at Toronto’s hip C Lounge.

Toronto MP Ken Dryden and his wife Lynda.

Continue…

Stephane Dion as Eric Lindros

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, December 19, 2008 at 9:25 PM - 74 Comments

Ken Dryden has posted a Facebook note on the last month of happenings in Ottawa. He is typically succinct, coming in at just under 7,000 words.

The most interesting part might be this hockey analogy for the political career of Stephane Dion.

“I would also like to say a few words about Stéphane Dion. This has not been an easy last two years for him or for the Party. No one in Canadian political history has had to deal with the kind of abuse that Mr. Harper rained on Stéphane. But he hung in there and kept to those things he believed. In hockey, they say the “tough guys” are those who deliver thunderous bodychecks to their opponents. But to me, it’s easy to deliver the checks. The real “tough guys” are those who are willing to take a check to “make a play” – to make a pass to set up a goal. Those who are willing to accept whatever the punishment in order to achieve the bigger goal. 

“And that is Stéphane. He is as tough as they come. He went into politics not to get his name in the papers but because he thought those things he believed in most could be best pursued through politics. Now he is leaving as party leader, the public having delivered the message that he didn’t represent what they wanted as a Prime Minister but also, after all the blows, with his reputation for honesty, decency and intelligence absolutely intact, if not enhanced. A very significant achievement.”

Stephane Dion. Honest, decent, intelligent and completely unelectable. Do you suppose that assessment makes it any easier for him to sleep at night? 

Anyway. So you’ve got something to read over the holidays, the full note after the jump. It’s actually only 1,600 words. And offers ample opportunity to reassess his hockey career according to your current partisan interest. Continue…

The Commons: 'How do we repair the irreparable?'

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, December 3, 2008 at 6:03 PM - 31 Comments

The Scene. Stéphane Dion wanted to talk about the economy. Stephen Harper wanted to yell.

“Why,” Mr. Dion asked, “has the Prime Minister refused to act to stimulate our economy?”

Mr. Harper came up talking fast and mad and glib. “Un pacte avec les souverainistes!” he cried.

His minions jumped to their feet and cheered, not at all looking like a bunch whose livelihoods depended on him.

“This is nonsense,” Mr. Dion sighed, “and I will not respond to it.”

So he didn’t. Not that the Prime Minister seemed to notice either way. Continue…

Fantasy government

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, December 1, 2008 at 2:25 AM - 37 Comments

Latest reports put a coalition cabinet at 24 members—18 Liberal, 6 NDP.

Consider this a rough draft (uninformed by any inside information and based only on personal speculation). Continue…

The Final Day: Ontario

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 14, 2008 at 10:20 PM - 0 Comments

Ken Dryden and Gerard Kennedy have slim leads. Garth Turner trails Lisa Raitt.

BTC: Ken Dryden is not amused

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, September 21, 2008 at 5:34 PM - 92 Comments

Been awhile since we’ve checked in with Ken Dryden. And, admit it, you’ve missed his irony-free, dauntingly earnest, but probably necessary, ranting against the current state of Canadian politics. 

Completely unsolicited, a copy of a speech he delivered today has been passed along. Here it is for your review. The shouty bits appear to be in caps. Imagine Ken trembling as you read.

We’re now about a third of the way through this election campaign.  What’s been happening up until now?  Where does it all seem to be going?

But really, up to this point, Mr. Harper has controlled the message of this election.  Yet, this message has often been odd and surprising. Continue…

BTC: Amnesia

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 10:58 AM - 0 Comments

A moment please for Peter MacKay.

It’s been almost two years now since he allegedly made canine reference to Belinda Stronach, but still, whenever discussion turns to sexism in Canadian politics, his is the standard that is cited as precedent. And this time he has only to look across the cabinet table and ask why Rona Ambrose was apparently unable to resist calling into question Stéphane Dion and the entire Liberal party in demanding Robert Thibault apologize, thereby making such comparisons inevitable.

But MacKay, in his eternal defence, is hardly alone in this glass house Ms. Ambrose (who, herself, once demeaned Ken Dryden’s age, race and gender) has neatly constructed. Maurice Vellacott resolutely remains a member of Conservative caucus despite his questionable comments on the matter of Ms. Stronach. As does Monte Solberg. 

Mind you, the latter’s comments are not so easily referenced, published as they were on a blog that is long ago defunct. In fairness then to Mr. MacKay and so that Mr. Solberg might get his due credit, we reprint them here.

Continue…

The Commons: In Review

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, June 23, 2008 at 4:44 PM - 0 Comments

The best, worst and merely laughable of the recently completed Parliamentary session

The Scene. Late last week, at the press conference he’d called to formally reject the Liberal green plan he hadn’t bothered to read, Jason Kenney was asked to account for his government’s tone—the language with which it had chosen to engage the current debate.

“I don’t think that Canadians are so humourless and earnest,” he posited, “that they reject humour in political discourse.”

There are at least two problems with this assessment.

At the outset, it assumes that what Mr. Kenney’s had to say has been particularly funny. This is, by most objective standards, a stretch. His particular line on the Liberal carbon tax relies on the fact that the word “shift” sounds something like a swear. While perhaps uproarious when compared with other discussions around here—so many of them having to do with war and poverty and other sufferings—most of us ceased finding this pun particularly hilarious around the first time we kissed a girl (or boy, as it were).

But, in fairness to Mr. Kenney, let’s pretend his comedic stylings on this front have been the stuff of a night at the Apollo. Even if that were the case, so, er, what? Continue…

Weekend Notes (Vol. 1, No. 15)

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, April 26, 2008 at 3:09 PM - 0 Comments

When Parliament was last in session (after a week off, it returns on Monday), Ken Dryden made a valiant, if clumsy, attempt at invoking Richard Nixon and Watergate to Stephen Harper and the Chuck Cadman affair. Dryden tends to overplay his hand. To use another sports analogy, he’s comparable to a strike-out prone slugger in baseball (Rob Deer, perhaps). When he connects, it’s mesmerizing to behold. But a lot of times he’s going to swing hard and miss wildly, embarrassing himself in the process.

Not that there isn’t a Nixon comparison to be made. Here, for instance, a pair of Canadians make the connection much more convincingly. In the pages of a British paper at that. The kicker: “Canadians should rightly wonder why their head of government has such a problem with so many Canadian institutions.”

Jeet Heer, in a previous life, was an arts writer at that well-known socialist rag, the National Post.

-To the massive conspiracy against Stephen Harper—which, at last count, included the RCMP, Elections Canada, the CBC, the Liberal Party of Canada and the Supreme Court of Canada—you can now add the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. Obviously.

-Oh, also the Conservative party’s own candidates.

-Simon Hoggart on the British Tory leader: “Being assailed by David Cameron must be like losing a pillow fight.”

-The National Post declares: “The war for control of the Liberal Party of Canada is back on.” Apparently that war they, and others, have been obsessively detailing for the last year and a half ended at some point recently.

-Some speculation on the next Supreme Court justice can be found here. Best line: “It’s time for Peter MacKay to stop prancing around in Afghanistan and get down to business on behalf of his alma mater.”

-And, finally, Esquire pays tribute to the rhetoric of city politics. (This clip, from the chambers of Toronto city council, made the rounds not so long ago.) If nothing else, this should serve to remind how much worse discourse in the House could yet get.

The Commons: A Prime Minister named Sue

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, March 13, 2008 at 11:56 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. The government benches stood and cheered, unanimously and enthusiastically, swollen with pride. What were they all so happily applauding? Good question.

Surely it was not the news that an inquiry into their handling of Afghan detainees will soon be launched. Nor could it have been word that one former prime minister (Clark, Joe) sees Canada’s international stature wasting away under this administration. Nor reports the last prime minister (Martin, Paul) was recently in Mexico showing more concern for a mistreated Canadian citizen than the current head of government has yet demonstrated.

What about the arrival on Parliament Hill of Justice Gomery, the esteemed detailer of government malfeasance, to identify the current Prime Minister’s Office as a “danger to Canadian democracy?” Or the latest calls for various resignations in the wake of that NAFTA messiness?

No, neither of those developments seem worth cheering either.

So what was it? What had so reassured this bunch of its purpose and righteousness? Well, it was this. Continue…

The Commons: So it goes

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 12:12 AM - 0 Comments