Jack Layton takes a leave

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, July 25, 2011 at 2:11 PM - 11 Comments

(This post last updated at 6:38pm.)

Looking gaunt and sounding hoarse, Jack Layton has told a Toronto news conference that while his fight with prostate cancer is going well, he is now dealing with a new cancer and will be taking a temporary leave from politics. He says he intends to return when Parliament resumes in the fall. In his place, he is recommending that Nycole Turmel serve as interim leader of the NDP caucus.

2:13pm… The official announcement is here.

If I have tried to bring anything to federal politics, it is the idea that hope and optimism should be at their heart. We CAN look after each other better than we do today. We CAN have a fiscally responsible government. We CAN have a strong economy; greater equality; a clean environment. We CAN be a force for peace in the world.

I am as hopeful and optimistic about all of this as I was the day I began my political work, many years ago. I am hopeful and optimistic about the personal battle that lies before me in the weeks to come. And I am very hopeful and optimistic that our party will continue to move forward.

We WILL replace the Conservative government, a few short years from now. And we WILL work with Canadians to build the country of our hopes Of our dreams. Of our optimism. Of our determination. Of our values… Of our love.

2:18pm… NDP president Brian Topp says the NDP caucus will meet Wednesday morning to consider Mr. Layton’s suggestion and who will lead the party until his return. Advice from the caucus will then be reported to the party’s federal council and then the council will choose the leader. Mr. Topp says Mr. Layton was in hospital for a period of time, but has no details on what his coming treatment will involve. “I wouldn’t bet against Jack Layton,” Mr. Topp says. Mr. Topp wrote about his own battle with prostate cancer last year.

2:25pm… Mr. Topp notes that Ms. Turmel is already caucus chair and thus already has a mandate from the caucus. More on Ms. Turmel here, here and here.

2:36pm… Video of Mr. Layton’s announcement is available here.

2:40pm… Early reports from the Canadian Press, Globe, Star and Postmedia.

2:46pm… The NDP has set up an online form for Canadians to send get well messages to Mr. Layton.

2:51pm… The Post’s Kathryn Blaze Carlson reports that doctors have not yet determined which type of cancer Mr. Layton is dealing with. 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

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The Commons: Stephen Harper, ever undaunted

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, March 8, 2011 at 6:34 PM - 222 Comments

The Scene. Mr. Harper’s government, as the government of Canada is now to be known, stands accused of various breaches. Of violating electoral law when it won office. Of withholding information demanded of it by Parliament. Of employing a minister who has misled Parliament. Of employing a minister who has misused government resources for his party’s gain. Of paying an exorbitant amount of money to disappear a woman who once held the title of “integrity commissioner.” And yes, of renaming the federal government in the Prime Minister’s own surname.

And so, of course, the government side this afternoon was as gleeful and aggressive as it has ever been. It roared and cheered and mocked and jeered. It laughed and lashed at its critics, it delighted in itself. It was loud and proud.

Mr. Harper sat and smiled and shared the odd chuckle. He reclined as best he could in his chair and fiddled with the cord of his desk’s earpiece. When he stood to answer the Liberal leader’s charges, he shrugged and sighed. If he was the least bit concerned, a tiny bit chastened, it was impossible to tell.

But, of course, he hardly ever appears daunted by such stuff. Indeed, if there is one thing that defines this Prime Minister it is his unrelenting undauntedness, his undaunting relentlessness. He is a man of the post-shame world. Continue…

Transgendered after party on the Hill

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 10:21 AM - 58 Comments

After Bill C-389, which adds gender identity and gender expression to the Canada Human Rights Act, passed last week NDP MP Bill Siksay (below, left) hosted an after party.

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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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Mitchel Raphael on the power couple who are heading for Calgary

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, August 12, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

The giant belt buckles just had to go
Ottawa is losing one of its top, not to mention better-looking, power couples. Conservative House leader Jay Hill has announced he will not run in the next election. His wife of 11 years, Leah Murray, one of the capital’s best-dressed women (her taste in footwear is superb), has already moved to Calgary to take up a position with the public relations firm National. The two are having a home built in Calgary, which will be ready in September. When Murray met Hill, he was a rural B.C. MP with the Reform party. He wore black jeans, giant belt buckles (“satellite dishes,” as she called them), bolo ties and he had a toothpick in his mouth. “He was one below [former Alberta MP] Myron Thompson when it came to worst-dressed on the Hill,” says Murray. A month after they met, Hill suggested the two of them go shopping. When the press gallery members saw Hill in his new Harry Rosen duds in the House, they couldn’t believe it. Hill noticed them staring at him and pointed up to Murray, who was sitting in a viewing gallery. The media looked over to her and burst into applause. Over the last several years the two have teamed up for a number of charity events, including selling Afghan silk scarves to help with literacy programs in Afghanistan and selling goats (buttons represented each goat bought) to help with orphanages. Murray was involved with the Writers’ Trust of Canada’s prestigious Politics and the Pen award gala for political writing, which Hill co-hosted last year. She also sat on the gala organizing committee for the Governor General’s performing arts awards and helped bring a large number of MPs to the ceremony. Murray says the two always planned to retire to Calgary, but thought it was best to move their lives and careers there now to build a base for the future. Two of Hill’s three children from a previous marriage live there.

An MP’s starring role in Vienna
NDP MP Libby Davies returned to Canada last week after attending the XVIII International AIDS conference in Vienna. Jet lag prevented her from attending a rally with iconic singer Annie Lennox, but she was the only North American MP to participate in the first-ever politicians panel at the conference. Davies was pleased with the conference’s Vienna Declaration, which endorses drug harm-reduction models like the safe-injection health facility Insite located in her East Vancouver riding. The federal government is still fighting the B.C. government over Insite. On Davies’ first official day as an MP in 1997, she was walking to the Senate to hear the Speech from the Throne beside the health minister at the time, Allan Rock. Seeing her chance to discuss the record number of drug overdose deaths in her riding, she introduced herself and began talking. Rock said he would meet with her, but Davies says follow-up calls and emails went unanswered. Finally, she went and sat in the minister’s office and said she was not leaving until she got an appointment. She got one, and after they met, the ball got rolling on what would become Insite.

Ignatieff’s wife doesn’t get a preview
The Liberal Express, Michael Ignatieff’s cross-country summer tour, rolled into Toronto this week. Stops included the riding of Thornhill just north of the city, which the Liberals lost to Conservative Peter Kent in the last election, and the riding of Trinity-Spadina, which they lost to the NDP’s Olivia Chow two elections ago. In Thornhill, Ignatieff’s wife, Zsuzsanna Zsohar, listened attentively to Iggy’s speech, which was much more passionate than the scripted questions the leader asks in the House. Does her husband do dry runs of his speeches for her? No, said Zsohar. In fact, much of what she was hearing was “for the first time.” One Liberal noted it’s all a dry run for when the next election is called, an opportunity to make sure the team works well together.

Photographs by Mitchel Rapheal

How to answer a question

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 at 5:17 PM - 50 Comments

From Question Period this afternoon, the definitive moment of this particular moment in our collective history.

Hon. Jack Layton (Toronto—Danforth, NDP): Mr. Speaker, the faulty deal that the Prime Minister signed with the coalition of the unwilling shows why only a judicial inquiry is ever going to get to the bottom of the Afghan torture scandal. The government tried to silence diplomat Richard Colvin, who was trying to blow the whistle on torture. DND officials were sending memos begging to silence him. Why did the government reassign people who were trying to raise the issue of torture? Why did it want to stop Richard Colvin from exposing the truth and reporting on what he saw?

Right Hon. Stephen Harper (Prime Minister, CPC): Mr. Speaker, three political parties worked to get a responsible resolution of this question. Unfortunately, the NDP did not, but why would we be surprised? The deputy leader of the NDP knew full well what she was saying. She made statements that could have been made by Hamas, Hezbollah or anybody else with no repercussions from that party whatsoever. I hope the leader of the NDP will come clean and actually face up to his responsibilities on that question. While I am on my feet, I also hope that he will help us pass a reform of the pardon system, which Canadians have been waiting weeks for.

The Commons: United in mutual disdain

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 at 6:14 PM - 116 Comments

The Scene. Bob Rae stood and posited one account of reality. The Prime Minister rose and put forward another understanding entirely.

“Mr. Speaker,” Mr. Harper said, “the statements made by the member are quite false.”

“Mr. Speaker,” Mr. Rae replied, “let me return the favour to the Prime Minister and say those comments are also totally false.”

“Mr. Speaker,” Mr. Harper concluded, “once again, the statements by the individual are completely false.”

Attempting to break the tie, Mark Holland rose from the near corner of the Liberal side to enunciate the indictment. “Mr. Speaker, the eyes of the world are on South Africa as it hosts the World Cup of Soccer. It is hosting nearly 400,000 people including world leaders for a full month at a security cost that is $700 million cheaper than 72 hours of private fake lake summit meetings,” he testified. “At 500% more than the last summit Canada hosted in 2002, everyone knows these costs are crazy. How can Conservatives say the do not have money for real priorities, priorities like prison farms or EI for cancer patients, when they have a billion dollars for this kind of waste?”

Looking somewhat aghast that he would even be called upon to respond to such stuff, Lawrence Cannon stood and attempted to plead reasonableness. Undeterred, Mr. Holland returned to pronounce scorn on the government’s gazebos. Across the way, Tony Clement, the minister with responsibility for outdoor landscaping, shook his head indignantly.

Luckily, a point of some agreement would soon emerge. Continue…

Three more days

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, May 11, 2010 at 10:05 AM - 0 Comments

All parties will be asking to extend the deadline on Afghan detainee documents to Friday at 1:30pm EST.

NDP House leader Libby Davies says there is the makings of consensus, but some remaining points of disagreement. Jack Harris says the key matter is who makes the decision on what is made public—the NDP is open to an independent entity advising Parliamentarians on this, but Parliamentarians must make the ultimate decision.

More from the Canadian Press, Star, Sun, Canwest, CTV, CBC and Reuters.

Well, that was fast.

By Colby Cosh - Friday, April 30, 2010 at 2:23 PM - 43 Comments

I think those who expected the government to answer the Speaker’s ruling on the detainee documents with a Nixonian jihad must now start recalibrating. Can I appeal to fellow chattering-class types to start getting used to the way apparent reversals for the Conservatives turn very, very quickly into opportunities to divide and confuse the Opposition?

The ministry—whether you happen to think the Speaker chastised it with whips this week or felt it to be more of a scorpion-y kinda thing—doesn’t have to come up with a disclosure solution that satisfies every single parliamentarian on the Hill. To obtain majority support, the government only has to come up with something that the Liberals, en bloc, can agree to. The Conservatives’ bargaining chip is this: they can approach Michael Ignatieff and say “OK, we can get together on this and help you look like a responsible statesman; or, you can insist on the right of Gilles Duceppe and Libby Davies to be personally involved in the most intricate details of our military affairs, and we can go to the country and have an election on that basis.” Anyone who denies that this is a very strong poker hand hasn’t read the cards correctly. (I guess I understand the potential confusion: it might be easy to confuse the rights of Parliament with the personal political entitlement of Ms. Davies if you happen to think that she would, in fact, make a first-rate defence minister.)

Ignatieff is inevitably going to be criticized for “weakness” when the eventual modus vivendi, one likely to be comfortable for the Conservatives and marginally tolerable for the Liberals, is arrived at. When it comes to disputes over parliamentary procedure, I’m afraid Mr. Ignatieff is no more or less weak than his party’s standing in the House of Commons.

Mitchel Raphael on the end of the blond troika and the new minister of everything

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, April 29, 2010 at 11:20 AM - 5 Comments

By Mitchel Raphael

SOME NEW FACES IN THE HOUSE WHEN HARPER IS SPEAKING

No longer in the Conservative caucus, Helena Guergis now sits as an independent in the back row of the House. Guergis was part of the blond troika behind Stephen Harper, picked up by the TV cameras whenever he rose in the Commons. The other two were Lisa Raitt and Diane Ablonczy. Now the three blonds in the shot have been replaced with dark-haired MPs: Minister for International Co-operation Bev Oda, Minister of State Denis Lebel, and Rona Ambrose, who took over Guergis’s status of women portfolio. Ambrose now has one of the longest titles in the government: minister of public works and government services Canada and the receiver general of Canada, minister for status of women, vice-president of the Treasury Board, and regional minister for northern Alberta. Or as one MP joked: “Minister of everything.” Ambrose got back recently from a trip to Afghanistan with Defence Minister Peter MacKay. In Kandahar, the two stopped by the Tim Hortons, where the cups are designed to look like camouflage and the prizes for Roll Up the Rim to Win included special edition Kandahar hats. Neither Ambrose nor MacKay won anything.

By Mitchel Raphael

IT’S THAT FRENCH TEACHER’S FAULT

NDP MP Glenn Thibeault was recently in the House foyer going over notes for a French TV interview. The Ontario MPfor Sudbury has been trying to work on his French in an effort to become bilingual. Thibeault comes from a francophone family. When he was younger, his parents sent him to a French immersion school. One of his teachers told him he must learn “French” French and not Quebec French and his parents were so insulted they pulled him out and put him into a regular English school where he lost all his French. He’s currently taking three hours a week of French lessons. He is the youngest in his family and now gets his siblings and parents to speak only French to him—“even if I don’t understand,” he jokes.

SHE’S THAT FABULOUS

Jer’s Vision fifth anniversary gala in Ottawa celebrated those who have helped battle bullying and homophobia. The event was hosted by Global National anchor Kevin Newman, who spoke publicly for the first time about his gay son, Alex Newman. Kevin Newman was the first person to interview NDP MP Libby Davies on TV when she came out. At last year’s event, Davies won a Youth Role Model of the Year award. This time one went to Liberal MP Hedy Fry. One of the youth who nominated Fry noted in a letter that he realized he was gay and went to a Pride parade where he met the MP. “When I asked her what it was like to be gay, she said she was not gay but she was proud to stand with another individual and celebrate working toward equality. I was inspired how someone could be so fabulous, and not even be gay.”

By Mitchel Raphael

THANKS FOR THE SHIRT, I THINK

During his visit to Ottawa, New Zealand PM John Key was presented with an Olympic Team Canada hockey jersey by Stephen Harper. In return, Key presented Harper with a very fitted New Zealand All Blacks rugby shirt. Harper quipped that the New Zealand PM would have an easier time getting into the baggy hockey jersey than he would getting into his gift.

THE VERY LAST ALL-PARY PARTY

NDP MP Peter Stoffer says April 28 will be the last All-Party Party. The bash has been held in 200 West Block for years, but now the building will be closed as of this summer for several years for renovations and asbestos removal. Stoffer says there is not a large enough space elsewhere on the Hill to accommodate MPs and Hill staff, and also that if it were held somewhere else, it would be too costly.

The negotiations

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 at 9:26 PM - 23 Comments

The Star reports that government house leader Jay Hill and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson will be negotiating with opposition parties tomorrow on the release of Afghan detainee documents.

The Liberals have mandated house leader Ralph Goodale to work on this file, while NDP house leader Libby Davies and defence critic Jack Harris will play key roles for their side. Separately, Jack Layton met today with Gilles Duceppe and Michael Ignatieff and hopes to meet with the Prime Minister later this week.

Battling bullying

By Mitchel Raphael - Tuesday, April 27, 2010 at 9:05 AM - 5 Comments

The Jer’s Vision/Day of Pink 5th Anniversary Gala in Ottawa celebrated those who have helped battle bullying and homophobia. Liberal MP Hedy Fry won one of the Youth Role Model of the Year awards.

Another award went to Grandfather William Commanda.

Global National anchor Kevin Newman and his son, Alex.

Continue…

The Commons: Finally, a straight answer

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 6:11 PM - 17 Comments

The Scene. Mark Holland walked out into the foyer and, surrounded by cameras, gamely tried to explain that he was not particularly interested in the cocaine and hookers, that this was about much more fundamental matters of governance and accountability. A short while later, Libby Davies, in sandals, strode out and, surrounded by microphones, attempted to parse the difference between the Conflict of Interest Code and the Conflict of Interest Act. The assembled reporters gamely pretended to be interested.

Alas, Day whatever-this-is of whatever we’re calling this crisis (“The Gaffer Affair” seems both a tidy and au courant moniker) passed without much more in the way of insight. Which is perhaps precisely the problem. Continue…

Mid-afternoon in Guergis

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, April 16, 2010 at 3:40 PM - 70 Comments

Dominic LeBlanc says the government didn’t act fast enough to guard the cabinet. The Globe tries to sort out exactly what the ethics commissioner was asked or told. Libby Davies formally asks the ethics commission to investigate. Mark Holland formally asks the lobbying commissioner to investigate. Mr. Gillani’s spokesman talks to the CBC. Doug Bell notes that spokesman is also a dog photographer. Alison Crawford notes the difference between “credible” and “serious and credible” allegations. The Prime Minister of New Zealand surmises that salaciousness is universal. Mr. Jaffer is scheduled to appear before a parliamentary committee next week. And the Ontario Provincial Police union wants to know why the charges against Mr. Jaffer were dropped.

'I can assure you nobody is getting their moat paid for'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, March 23, 2010 at 10:18 AM - 15 Comments

Stephen Maher asks and both Michael Ignatieff and Gilles Duceppe say they’re open to allowing Sheila Fraser to audit MP expenses. Peter Stoffer says he’ll release details of his expenses, but then says he can’t.

Last week, Stoffer, the NDP MP for Sackville-Eastern Shore, said he believes Fraser should be allowed to examine Parliament’s books and promised to check to see if he could reveal at least the details of his own expenses. On Monday, he said he checked with Davies and was forbidden from doing so, since the board of internal economy handles all such questions.

Whatever the authority of the Board, it hasn’t prevented Liberal backbencher Michelle Simson from publishing a breakdown of her expenses.

Free speech and propaganda

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, March 16, 2010 at 10:38 AM - 53 Comments

Buried in a Liberal motion yesterday was a proposal that the House direct “its Board of Internal Economy to take all necessary steps to end immediately the wasteful practice of Members sending mass mailings, known as ‘ten-percenters,’ into ridings other than their own, which could represent another saving to taxpayers of more than $10 million.”

The resulting debate starts here and, later, resumes here. The gist would seem to be that the government side opposes the motion on an assertion of free speech, while the NDP would like the program to continue with some kind of rule against negative content.

Loud noises

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, February 10, 2010 at 8:24 PM - 123 Comments

The NDP house leader and the Prime Minister’s press secretary yell at each other on national television over what may or may not have been going on in Vancouver and what the NDP house leader may or may have had to do with whatever was or was not happening.

Kady O’Malley has the supplementary e-mails and tweets. The Canadian Press, Globe and CBC report from the scene.

Relentlessly creative

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, January 7, 2010 at 4:12 PM - 42 Comments

Michael Ignatieff is due now to speak with reporters tomorrow morning on the Hill. The NDP’s Libby Davies, meanwhile, is vowing that her party will bravely go forward with its caucus retreat, scheduled for later this month in pictureseque Wakefield.

New Democrats will continue to work hard, and this is why our MPs will attend, as planned, the NDP Caucus retreat scheduled the week before the return of Parliament in Wakefield, Quebec.

The meeting will go ahead, because, more than ever, New Democrats are committed to keeping the Conservative government accountable. We may need to be creative. But we will be relentless.

Look who crashed the NDP Christmas party

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, December 24, 2009 at 12:11 PM - 5 Comments

MP Nathan Cullen (right) and MP Glenn Thibeault with half moustaches.

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MP Don Davies attempts to impersonate Chantal Hébert of the Toronto Star.

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Mitchel Raphael on the great sausage caper and a present for parliamentary geeks

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 9:40 AM - 7 Comments

After all that, he’s not sharing
Kenzie Potter, director of parliamentary affairs in government House leader Jay Hill’s office, desperately needed to get her hands on some Stawnichy sausages. They’re made in Mundare, Alta., 75 km east of Edmonton. She wanted to surprise her father, Dale Potter, a former Edmonton Eskimo who, in his 12-year career, helped the team win six Grey Cups. Her father, now living in Ottawa, hadn’t had a Stawnichy sausage in years and was craving them. She thought it would be the ideal birthday present and asked Labour Minister Rona Ambrose, who’s from Edmonton, for help. Ambrose wasn’t going to be in Edmonton but agreed to do what she could. She tried to have the sausages sent by mail but the shop said it couldn’t do that. Could they freeze the sausages, Ambrose asked, and she would have someone pick them up and fly them to Ottawa. For that, she was told, she would need special permission from the manager: Stawnichy rarely freezes its sausages for fear it will affect the taste. Continue…

Fighting for more women in politics and the "mystery MP"

By Mitchel Raphael - Wednesday, December 2, 2009 at 12:15 PM - 9 Comments

Equal Voice, an organization dedicated to getting more women elected, held a reception at The Métropolitain Brasserie & Restaurant. Below, Helena Guergis, Minister of State for the Status of Women.

Donna Dasko (left) of Equal Voice chats with Liberal MP Marlene Jennings.

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Mitchel Raphael on Rona’s cheese lesson

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, November 5, 2009 at 11:20 AM - 0 Comments

To Martha, from Stephen

After Toronto Liberal MP Martha Hall Findlay made a fuss about “partisan” images of the Prime Minister all over government websites, the pictures suddenly disappeared. Later, in the House, wanting to make a point of the Conservatives suddenly trying to mask the blatant advertising, she asked why “someone” had “removed dozens of photos of the Prime Minister from the website for the economic action plan.” The response came from Transport Minister John Baird: “While the Liberal party is trolling the Internet looking for pictures of the Prime Minister, it is this Conservative government that is working hard to create jobs to inspire more hope.” The next day Baird came over to Hall Findlay with a signed picture of Stephen Harper. The PM had inscribed it: “To Martha, I heard you’re looking for a photo!” Continue…

The vast socialist conspiracy (III)

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 5:39 PM - 26 Comments

Here is the airing of accusations and denials that followed Question Period today.

In other news, the protester known as Jeh was just on Power & Politics explaining that nothing was amiss with the blood on his face, that the poor quality of the image of him leaving Parliament is to account for the blood not being visible. He also produced what he said was an ER report of his injuries to the nose and face. Continue…