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 - 12 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…

Stop heckling, start answering

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, June 8, 2011 at 10:40 AM - 33 Comments

From Question Period yesterday, Stephane Dion attempts to expand everyone’s mind on this matter of civility.

Mr. Speaker, I did not hear an answer to the question of the $127 million being cut in this budget compared to the previous budget. Can the minister answer the question? Common courtesy in this House also means getting answers. It is only natural for the opposition to protest if it does not get an answer. Can he give us an answer regarding the $127 million in cuts to aboriginal housing?

Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan did not provide such an answer. And so it fell to government House leader Peter Van Loan to explain the Conservative side’s policy on ministerial explanation. 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…

Choose your own adventure

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, October 15, 2010 at 12:47 PM - 0 Comments

The Harper government is talking, isn’t talking and is prepared to talk with the United Arab Emirates, not there’s anything to talk about.

… on Thursday, International Trade Minister Peter Van Loan told Reuters News Agency that Canada hasn’t made a final decision to reject the UAE’s request that more landing slots at airports such as Pearson be given to its two air carriers. The Conservative minister said talks are continuing…

Within hours of Mr. Van Loan’s comments hitting the newswires, another government official denied, on background, that air-negotiation talks were still taking place. And a spokesman for Transport Minister Chuck Strahl said that his department believes the existing air flight agreement with UAE adequately serves market needs…

Asked to clarify his remarks, Mr. Van Loan would only say that Ottawa remains ready to talk.

All of the above

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 13, 2010 at 9:26 AM - 0 Comments

To explain the security council vote, the Globe cites a shrinking international profile (exacerbated by minority government), a late campaign, Africa, Israel and the environment.

So what did the government do or not do to lose this crucial vote? According to close observers, many things. The Conservative government’s increasingly unflinching support for Israel – even as members prepared to vote, International Trade Minister Peter Van Loan announced new trade talks from Tel Aviv – cost it support in the Middle East and throughout the Muslim world.

The government’s perceived indifference to Southeast Asia cost votes in that region, while cutting back on the number of African nations receiving aid undermined support on that continent. Canada’s foot-dragging in creating a carbon market played heavily against it among numerous small island nations that perceive melting icecaps and rising sea levels as a mortal threat.

Foreign Affairs Clue

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 at 9:45 PM - 0 Comments

While the Harper government blames Michael Ignatieff, ambassadors interviewed by Canadian Press don’t mention the opposition leader. Instead, African ambassadors tell Canadian Press it was the Harper government’s positions on debt relief and the UN Relief and Works Agency.

But “senior African officials” tell Postmedia Africa does not feel negatively. Instead, “officials based at the UN” say it was the Harper government’s position on Israel that upset members of the Organization of Islamic Conference, while one “senior Islamic official” says the OIC felt snubbed when Canada didn’t address the conference like Portugal did. Don Martin says “some” say the United Arab Emirates lobbied other Arab counties to vote against Canada after the Harper government refused to open runways in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary, but a “senior government official” says Canada got a “good chunk” of the Arab vote.

Meanwhile, “government insiders” were preemptively guessing it might be Peter Van Loan, in Israel, with the new trade deal.

Yes, no, maybe

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 5:36 PM - 0 Comments

March 31, 2009. Geoffrey O’Brian, a CSIS lawyer and advisor on operations and legislation, under questioning by the public safety committee, admitted there is no absolute ban on using intelligence that may have been obtained from countries with questionable human rights records on torture. He said it would be extremely rare but in a circumstance as grave as the 9/11 attacks or the Air India bombing, the executive branch has a “duty” to protect the security of its citizens, even if such information can “never” be used in a court proceeding.

April 1, 2009. Peter Van Loan said the Canadian Security Intelligence Service has been clear about rejecting information extracted through coercion. ”As a practical matter, they get intelligence from all kinds of sources, a myriad of sources. An important part of their process is to try and identify how credible that is,” Van Loan said Wednesday. ”If there’s any indication, any evidence that torture may have been used, that information is discounted.”

April 2, 2009. “I wish to clarify for the committee that CSIS certainly does not condone torture and that it is the policy of CSIS to not knowingly rely upon information that may have been obtained through torture,” Geoffrey O’Brian wrote in a letter to the House of Commons public safety committee Thursday. CSIS Director Jim Judd, who appeared before the committee on Thursday, also said O’Brian “may have been confused” in his earlier remarks. ”My supposition is that he was venturing into a hypothetical.”

Today. 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.”

Information as the enemy

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, August 25, 2010 at 11:27 AM - 0 Comments

While an evaluation report of the gun registry languishes in some sort of bureaucratic purgatory, the office of Public Safety Minister Vic Toews explains why you don’t need to see it anyway.

“Canadians don’t need another report to know that the long-gun registry is very efficient at harassing law-abiding farmers and outdoors enthusiasts, while wasting billions of taxpayer dollars,” a spokesperson for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews told the Star Tuesday.

This all may sound familiar. Last November, around the time of the last vote on the long-gun registry, another report was delayed and the office of the Public Safety Minister used nearly the exact same words to explain why. The dispute inspired one of the greatest displays of ministerial obfuscation in modern history from Mr. Toews’ predecessor.

A day later it was reported that the report had been submitted four weeks previous. Last May, evidence turned up that the report had been submitted seven weeks previous.

The new line-up

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, August 6, 2010 at 10:37 AM - 0 Comments

We interrupt this vacation to note that the Prime Minister is on television explaining that Parliament depends on the “maturity and wisdom” of its members.

So John Baird fills Jay Hill’s spot as government house leader, Chuck Strahl fills Baird’s spot at Transport and John Duncan fills Strahl’s spot at Indian Affairs.

As Transport Minister John Baird not only handled questions on the federal stimulus program, he took the Prime Minister’s questions when Mr. Harper was absent from QP and defended other ministers (Helena Guergis, par exemple) when the questions became too incessantly uncomfortable. Continue…

Wanted: free trade activists

By Thomas Watson - Thursday, July 1, 2010 at 11:40 AM - 11 Comments

Virginia Mayo/AP

Canadian Trade Minister Peter Van Loan wishes the mainstream media would pay more attention to the anti-globalization crowd. After all, if trade naysayers made the front page of national papers more often, then more people might realize Canadian trade negotiators are well on their way to making history with an ambitious plan to better integrate our national economy with the European Union. As Van Loan points out, the Council of Canadians, which claims a deal with the EU could threaten Canadian access to safe drinking water, recently held “a wonderful news conference” to voice its concerns—but it got virtually no media pickup. “I was actually disappointed,” Canada’s trade minister says, “because there should be more of a spotlight on these negotiations.”

True enough. If all goes as planned, Canada will become the first developed nation to land a free trade agreement with the economic grouping of 27 European nations sometime next year. The EU—the world’s largest market, not to mention home to the wealthiest pool of investment capital and some of the largest and most important companies on the planet—is already Canada’s second-largest source of trade and foreign direct investment. In 2008, Canadian exports to the EU totalled $52 billion. Imports amounted to $62 billion. But there appears to be plenty of room for growth. After all, the Canadian economy is 150 per cent larger than the Indian economy, which has similar trade levels with the EU. Furthermore, Europe trades about 25 per cent more with South Korea, which has a smaller GDP than Canada.

Continue…

From the backbench

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, June 26, 2010 at 6:29 PM - 7 Comments

Liberal MP Michelle Simson, who represents Scarborough Southwest, takes to Twitter.

Hope city raise hell w/Harper abt $ 4 all damage. If we can spend millions in Huntsville 4 window dressing, we best make good to T.O. 4 this

Time 2review how G20 meet. By time it’s r turn again, cost will fund a small nation 4 a year. We need 1 location & share expense.

VanLoan described what’s happening on streets as “mayhem”. Mr. VanLoan, r we in Toronto “collateral damage” 2 govt agenda?