Who gets to pay tribute to Vaclav Havel

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, February 6, 2012 at 3:39 PM - 0 Comments

In November, Elizabeth May was twice denied the House’s consent to mark Remembrance Day. This afternoon she was apparently denied an opportunity to join the Conservatives, New Democrats and Liberals in honouring Vaclav Havel. Justin Trudeau is unimpressed.

Conservatives just refused to let party leader @ElizabethMay rise to pay tribute to Vaclav Havel. He was a champion of free speech. #irony

Update 5:23pm. Here is the video (such as it is) of the incident. Citing an anonymous MP, Ms. May says Government House leader Peter Van Loan was one of those who spoke up to deny her consent. I emailed Mr. Van Loan’s office to ask if he had indeed spoken up. In response, I received only a copy of text of the standing order that applies in such situations. I restated my original question and will update this post if or when I hear back.

Update 7:03pm. Still waiting to hear back from Mr. Van Loan’s office. In the meantime, here is the statement Ms. May says she would have delivered. Continue…

Not a matter of if, but when

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 30, 2012 at 12:50 PM - 0 Comments

Peter Van Loan says the government wants to make sure OAS is sustainable “10 years, 20 years and 30 years from now.” John Ivison’s sources tell him the government is looking at a 10-year timeframe. Don Drummond says the government would have to phase in changes over the next 20 to 25 years. Frances Woolley pinpoints 2023.

So the question is not if the pension age will be increased, but when. 1959 was the year with the highest number of births ever recorded in Canada 461,703 babies. After that, the number of births fell slightly, and then dropped precipitously with the advent of the birth control pill. (Immigration reduces the relative impact of, but does not eliminate, the baby boom bulge.)

For an increase in the entitlement age to achieve substantial cost savings, it will have to be in place when those 1959 babies hit 65 in 2024. So I’m predicting that the entitlement age will gradually be increased, in 6 month increments, with a new entitlement age of 67 in place by 2023.

Police: No ‘good examples’ of why we need Lawful Access

By Jesse Brown - Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 10:28 AM - 0 Comments

www.stopspying.ca

For the past 12 years, Canada’s cops have been pushing for new laws that would allow them to skip the pesky formality of having to get a warrant before spying on us on the Internet. (For some background on these Lawful Access laws, check out these posts.)

Critics of Lawful Access, such as our federal Privacy Commissioner and every provincial Privacy Commissioner, argue that police have yet to provide sufficient evidence that court oversight has actually slowed them down or stopped them from fighting crime.  And now, Canadian police themselves are saying the same thing.

The online rights group OpenMedia.ca has obtained and released a message it says was recently sent by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) to law enforcement colleagues urgently requesting that they provide “actual examples” of cases where the need to get warrants before accessing private information from Internet Service Providers “hindered an investigation or threatened public safety.” The message goes on to admit that though a similar request had been made two years ago, it failed to produce “a sufficient quantity of good examples.”

Continue…

That noise means it’s working

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments

Responding to the lament of Peter Van Loan, Dan Gardner praises political gridlock.

You can find divided governments in Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland. The Netherlands. New Zealand. In fact, you can find them in almost any peaceful, prosperous, well-governed country you care to name. Australia has had a directly elected Senate — with 12 Senators from each state — since 1900. And yet somehow, mysteriously, it continues to prosper…

The real difference is negotiation. In the “il Duce” model, it’s not necessary. If the Big Guy wants, he can push things through in whatever form he wishes. But in a divided government, the executive has no choice but to discuss, negotiate, and compromise. Some people don’t like that. They call it gridlock. I do like it. I call it democracy. It can be messy and maddening. But it can work, if we give it a try.

And what have we learned?

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, December 16, 2011 at 5:26 PM - 0 Comments

Bruce Anderson considers the Speaker’s ruling and the campaign against Irwin Cotler.

Does the leadership of the Conservative Party interpret the ruling as carte blanche to do more of this kind of “wet-work”? If this tactic were carried out on a broader scale, would anyone really think it is nothing more than sporting politics? (As an aside, do we really think the Speaker would have arrived at the same decision if the tactic was used against 50 or 100 opposition MPs?)

Do other leading Conservatives share the views of Government House Leader Peter Van Loan, who said that the calls made into Mr. Cotler’s riding were vital free speech and a sign of good health in our democracy? If Mr. Van Loan truly is speaking for cabinet… well, that would be kind of frightening. If not, he should seek an opportunity to step back from that argument and acknowledge that a line was crossed.

‘We’re good at it’

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, December 16, 2011 at 10:28 AM - 0 Comments

The polling company behind the phone calls in Irwin Cotler’s riding is now the subject of complaints.

Campaign Research Inc. had not been advised of any complaints as of Thursday afternoon, said principal partner Nick Kouvalis. “We’ve done tens of millions of dials through our call centre and there’s never been any complaint launched against us,” Kouvalis said. “We’re in the business of getting Conservatives elected and ending Liberal careers. We’re good at it.”

Kouvalis said his firm always follows Elections Canada and CRTC rules and denied doing anything wrong in Mount Royal. He said Cotler’s claim that the calls interfered with his work was “a bit rich” because the MP would have spent more time writing speeches about the issue than it would have taken to return calls from constituents about them.

The Hill Times reports that the founder of Campaign Research managed Peter Van Loan’s campaign in 2004.

The best kind of Parliament

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, December 16, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Irwin Cotler rose during Question Period yesterday with a humble proposal.

Mr. Speaker, the government has used or abused free speech with respect to justifying what has been characterized as reprehensible actions, but it has limited free speech with regard to the frequency of in camera committees. May I, in the spirit of the Christmas season, suggest to the government that it reverse priorities, namely that it ceases and desists from reprehensible actions and protects free speech and parliamentary democracy?

In response, government House leader Peter Van Loan made the case against legislatures. Continue…

The Commons: That’s enough

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, December 14, 2011 at 6:32 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. It has been a long year. (Granted, no longer than any other year, but still, 365 days—or however many we’re at now—is an awful lot.) So you’ll forgive the Prime Minister if he didn’t seem all that interested this afternoon.

As Nycole Turmel hectored him about the latest problems to afflict the fabled F-35s, Mr. Harper fiddled with his mail, a particularly well-sealed envelope seeming to resist his attempts to open it. Apparently figuring he couldn’t get it open in the time allotted to Ms. Turmel to state her question, he put it aside long enough to get the gist of her complaint. He then stood and repeated his platitudes from memory.

“Mr. Speaker, I know very well that every time the government provides our men and women in uniform with the equipment they need, the NDP loudly opposes that and votes against it,” he sighed. “We are working on the best advice of the Canadian industry, including the Quebec industry, including our men and women in uniform in the air force, and we will continue to move forward and make sure that they have the best aircraft that are available when we have to replace the current fleet.”

So Support the Troops, et cetera, et cetera, ad infinitum. Continue…

‘Just wrong on every level’

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, December 5, 2011 at 8:45 AM - 0 Comments

Bruce Anderson rips the Conservative campaign against Irwin Cotler and Peter Van Loan’s attempt to justify it.

This truly isn’t complicated. If our children tell lies about schoolmates, we punish them not shrug it off. When it happens on the Internet, we call it cyber bullying and bemoan how young people seem to have grown up without decent values. Conservative Christian groups presumably recognize this as something hard to square with the “Golden Rule” … It’s insulting, it’s beneath this government, and I’m sure it is an embarrassment to many good people in the Conservative Party.

‘That is appropriate’

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, December 2, 2011 at 4:44 PM - 0 Comments

The Prime Minister stands by Peter MacKay.

Mr. Harper, who was in Burlington, Ont., to open an arts centre, was asked by reporters to explain what message it sends to Canadians if a minister can mislead the House of Commons and there are no consequences for his actions. Mr. Harper replied that the government has been very clear. “The minister was called back from his vacation and used government aircraft only for government business. And that is appropriate.”

This is more or less in keeping with what Peter Van Loan told the House this morning.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of National Defence has already answered these questions. There are really no new facts here. The fundamental facts remain the same. The Minister of National Defence paid for air travel to and from his personal vacation. Government aircraft were used only when he was called away on government business.

Both of these explanations seem to completely sidestep the question of the search-and-rescue demonstration. When Mr. MacKay first addressed this issue in September, that demonstration was foremost in his explanation and it was for that demonstration that he cut short his fishing trip.

The freedom to spread rumours about your opponent

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 29, 2011 at 3:56 PM - 0 Comments

Irwin Cotler is pursuing a point of privilege on this matter of the Conservative party telling his constituents that he plans to quit.

This morning, Peter Van Loan responded with an appeal to the freedom of speech and the long practice of peddling rumours about one’s political opponents.

The Commons: James Moore’s audition

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 21, 2011 at 6:39 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. Today, it was James Moore’s turn to pretend to be prime minister.

Unlike most of his recent predecessors, Mr. Harper has never seen fit to name a deputy. He stands alone. And so when he cannot stand or when he chooses not to (at some point he stopped showing up on Mondays), it had typically been the duty of John Baird or Peter Van Loan to stand and mouth the official bromides. Of late though Mr. Harper has chosen to disperse the burden of parliamentary accountability upon no less than five pairs of shoulders: Messrs Baird and Van Loan, Peter MacKay, Jason Kenney and James Moore. Each day the Prime Minister is away, no matter what has been asked or what actually relevant minister might be around to handle the question, it is one of these sturdy men who rises to handle the first questions of the NDP and Liberals.

So today, for instance, it was Mr. Moore’s job to stand and explain the government’s policy on the treatment of water sewage. Continue…

This is the week that was

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, November 19, 2011 at 3:42 PM - 0 Comments

Pat Martin tweeted a bad word. But refused to apologize. And claimed a kind of victory.

The government’s investments weren’t as advertised, but the future looks expensive. Supply management was put on the table and duly debated. The Royal Society asked us to think about euthanasia, but no one wanted to talk about it. The Conservative party has some reimbursements it might return. The NDP got set to debate itself as the contenders peddled their thoughts. The Liberals offered to realign the House at no extra expense. And a multi-party committee came together to consider matters of life and death. Continue…

The House of Rubber Stamps

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 14, 2011 at 12:45 PM - 0 Comments

Peter Van Loan complains that the opposition parties continue to oppose the Harper government’s agenda and explains his general approach to House debate.

Besides, Mr. Van Loan argues that three or four hours of debate is sufficient for bills. “During an election leaders debate on all the issues … that might go two hours. I hear very few people say it wasn’t long enough – and that’s to decide the whole election.”

What is this House for?

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 4, 2011 at 1:03 PM - 0 Comments

With the last intervention of Question Period yesterday, Elizabeth May asked the government to clarify its general attitude toward parliamentary democracy.

Mr. Speaker, from 1913 to 1956, a period of over 40 years, time limits on debates were used 10 times. In the last 40 days, a time limit has been used seven times, making a new historical record. What used to be the exception to the rule appears to now be the rule. Mr. Speaker, my question is for the government House leader. Can we again restore a parliamentary tradition that limits on debates occur when matters are urgent or otherwise justified and do not become routine?

In a response to Ms. May, and later in a response to Joe Comartin on the same issue, Peter Van Loan lamented that the opposition was not duly deferential.

Just deliver, don’t debate

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, October 28, 2011 at 4:01 PM - 0 Comments

Peter Van Loan responds to complaints about the Harper government’s moves to limit debate in the House.

Mr. Van Loan said the issues on the legislative agenda this fall have been discussed in detail over the past five or six years since Mr. Harper’s Conservatives first took office, albeit as a minority government. “These are issues that have been debated at length in elections, and issues on which we made commitments to Canadians in the last election,” he said. “They responded to those commitments by giving us a majority and asking us to deliver on those commitments.”

Mr. Van Loan said his approach has been to move quickly with time allocation so that it is clear to everyone how much time will be available for debate, allowing parties and MPs to plan their discussion. “Most people in their workplace do not debate an issue for four days before they decide what to do,” he said. “They debate it and they make a decision. It is enough time in this case to make a very clear decision on an important question.”

The Commons: The F-35 has as many explanations as problems

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, October 24, 2011 at 6:41 PM - 11 Comments

The Scene. “The F-35 saga continues,” Nycole Turmel declared by way of opening.

The latest twist in this epic tale of stealth flight involves the small matter of whether or not the expensive aircraft will be more or less useless when patrolling our vast northern frontier. ”We learned today that the aircraft will be delivered to Canada without adaptive equipment to allow communication in the Arctic. It’s really something,” the interim NDP leader exclaimed for the benefit of those who like their parliamentary invective relayed in the most folksy manner possible.

Peter Van Loan, the government House leader, duly stood here to wrap himself in the flag and throw himself around the troops. ”We are proposing to deliver to Canadian Forces the resources and equipment it needs to be able to protect Canadian sovereignty and security and to ensure that our defences are strong,” he explained. “The F-35 will have all the capabilities that are necessary to do so, including that primary critically important mission of ensuring our northern sovereignty is protected.”

This did little to assuage Ms. Turmel, who returned to her feet with a list of concerns. Continue…

CSIS and torture

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 12:00 PM - 10 Comments

Two and a half years ago, Geoffrey O’Brian, a CSIS lawyer told the public safety committee that the agency would use information that may have been obtained through torture if faced with potentially grave circumstances.

Frankly, I’m tempted to say that there are four words that can provide a simple answer, and those four words are either “yes, but” or “no, but”, and the “yes, but” is, do we use information that comes from torture? And the answer is that we only do so if lives are at stake.

Peter Van Loan, public safety minister at the time, rebutted that a day later, saying such information is “discounted” and that Mr. O’Brian had engaged in “some kind of hypothetical discussion.” Jim Judd, CSIS director at the time, said Mr. O’Brian might have been “confused” and Mr. O’Brian subsequently retracted his remarks.

But a year ago, the Canadian Press obtained briefing notes for CSIS director Richard Fadden. And those notes outlined a position similar to that expressed by Mr. O’Brian.

CSIS will share information received from an international partner with the police and other authorities “even in the rare and extreme circumstance that we have some doubt as to the manner in which the foreign agency acquired it,” say the notes prepared for use by CSIS director Dick Fadden. The notes say that although such information would never be admissible in court to prosecute someone posing an imminent threat, “the government must nevertheless make use of the information to attempt to disrupt that threat before it materializes.”

This brings us now to the Security Intelligence Review Committee report released this month on CSIS and the handling of Afghan detainees. Contained within that report are references to a deputy director operations directive issued in 2008 and a ministerial direction issued in December 2010. At the bottom of page 14, SIRC states as follows. Continue…

Look at us, we’re talking about stuff

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 6:03 PM - 4 Comments

Lest you doubt that the Prime Minister, the Finance Minister and the Governor of the Bank of Canada sat in a room together this afternoon, the Prime Minister’s Office has released both photo and video (zip file) evidence. Apparently at such meetings, the Prime Minister first delivers opening remarks in both official languages.

For whatever reason, Peter Van Loan was not allowed this time to hover over the Prime Minister’s shoulder and listen in.

Ending debate

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 11:59 AM - 13 Comments

The government announced after QP yesterday that it was tired of talking about it’s crime legislation and has since invoked closure to limit debate.

NDP House Leader Thomas Mulcair said the Official Opposition would offer to split the bill, allowing quick passage of the measures that have broad support and permitting time for debate on those items that remain contentious.

“Here we’re dealing with an important bill in the area of crime,” Mr. Mulcair said at a morning new conference. “It’s a bill where we haven’t been given an real estimate of the costs to the provinces.” The Conservatives, he said, “are trying to shove this down the throats of Parliamentarians. There will be no full debate on this bill of on its costing.”

The projected cost of one crime bill continues to increase.

Stephen Harper’s majority rules

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 22 Comments

Fred Chartrand/CP

In the early morning hours of May 3, with the ballots almost all counted, he basked in a Conservative majority. The Liberal Party of Canada, his nemesis, was in shambles. The Bloc Québécois was decimated. If the world seemed then to have tilted in Stephen Harper’s direction, his political situation has become only more advantageous since.

The NDP, though now the official Opposition, has lost its uniquely popular leader, removing Harper’s primary challenger from the House of Commons. What’s more, with Progressive Conservatives mounting serious challenges in Ontario and Manitoba, Harper might awake one day next month to find that every single province west of Quebec is led by a right-of-centre government—a resounding endorsement of the Prime Minister’s twin assertions that “Conservative values are Canadian values” and that “the Conservative party is Canada’s party.”

But if it is to be Stephen Harper’s world, what will Stephen Harper do with it? Perhaps only as much as he said he would do. “The challenge will be getting the balance right and not overreaching,” says Jim Armour, who once served as Harper’s director of communications. “If the Prime Minister goes too big or tries to go too fast, then he risks unifying the opposition and attracting the media’s attention. If, on the other hand, he continues with the ‘stick-to-the script,’ ‘no-surprises’ approach to governing that he’s taken for the past five years, then he’ll be fine. As with all things—even once-in-a-lifetime political opportunities—the key is moderation.”

Continue…

Planes and accountability

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, September 23, 2011 at 3:42 PM - 19 Comments

The latest development in our national crisis of official air travel protocol involves the Defence Minister using a Challenger jet to fly to a lobster-related celebration (the Pictou Lobster Carnival perhaps?) in his riding. Peter MacKay continued to take questions from the opposition this morning in regards to the use of a search-and-rescue helicopter to pick him up from a fishing trip, but questions about the lobster festival were handled by House leader Peter Van Loan. Mr. Van Loan’s first response to the NDP’s Christine Moore was as follows.

Mr. Speaker, taxpayers expect government officials to conduct the nation’s business at a reasonable cost. It is something that our government takes very seriously. I want to be clear. Our use of government aircraft by our ministers is always in compliance with policy. We do follow the policies. And we have reduced the use of government aircraft significantly, as we have said. When we look at Challenger use by the Liberals who spoke earlier about this issue, we have reduced our use 80% since they abused them as personal limousines constantly. We only use them for government business.

Towards a resolution?

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, June 25, 2011 at 4:48 PM - 0 Comments

A new round of negotiations between Canada Post management and employees failed to result in a deal, but Bill C-6 is now about to pass second reading in the House.

The Liberals have come forward with proposed amendments and the NDP will follow suit when the House moves into committee of the whole to continue debate. Government House leader Peter Van Loan met with NDP House leader Thomas Mulcair a short time ago to, I am told, discuss amendments and process.

The Commons: The anachronistic idea of accountability

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, June 13, 2011 at 6:38 PM - 39 Comments

The Scene. “I think we always answer the questions to the best of everybody’s ability at the time,” Government House leader Peter Van Loan explained to reporters one day last week, “with the information they have on hand and I think that hopefully if the tone continues we’ll see more and more clarity.”

It is on this basis, one assumes, that it was decided it would be to the best of everybody’s abilities at this time for Tony Clement to remain seated and say nothing more to the House about this business of the G8 Legacy Fund. Presumably this decision was finalized soon after Mr. Clement peaked out from behind John Baird at a news conference last Thursday to suggest that the process by which the government of the day receives the consent of the people’s representatives to spend public funds is “anachronistic” and that this somehow explains why he and a half-dozen small town mayors were compelled to divvy up money authorized for the Border Infrastructure Fund to build gazebos and public toilets in Muskoka.

A year ago Mr. Clement was only too proud to tout his government’s capacity for publicly funded trinkets and landscaping, but so as to avoid any more incidents of polysyllabic rumination, the government has delegated all House comment to John Baird. Officially, because it was he who ultimately had to sign off on Mr. Clement’s gazebo selection. Unofficially, one presumes, because no one can dance a rhetorical jig quite like the current Foreign Affairs Minister. Continue…