The Commons: Darkness in the mid-afternoon

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 17, 2011 at 7:42 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. The obscenity on the Hill carries on undaunted.

Maybe it is just the season—as soon as the clocks are turned back each fall, Ottawa is suddenly made even darker and colder than usual—but the daily insulting of the public’s intelligence seems particularly dreary of late. For sure, it has been worse. And it may yet get worse. But has it ever seemed so witless? Has it ever felt so leaden? Is it just us or is it getting dim in here?

There is much to be said—with expletives and otherwise—about the government’s recent penchant for shutting down debate. But it is surely more than that.

It is, no doubt, certain practicalities: the temporary status of the two opposition leaders, the prolonged nature of certain disagreements or the lack of some tangible new gazebo-based outrage to focus on, for instance. But it is also the collective and universal decision that sound economics, study and evidence are not particularly necessary when formulating public policy. It is the rote demagoguery. It is general neglect. It is smug disregard. It is the willingness of grown men and women in business attire to stand and allow themselves to be used to read scripted banalities and invective into the official record.

It is not all bad, of course. Continue…

Libertarian if necessary, but not necessarily libertarian

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, July 9, 2010 at 12:42 PM - 0 Comments

The research and social planner for Calgary—that bastion of nanny statists—voices his objection to the census changes. Stephen Gordon wonders if the government will do away with the coercive and intrusive Labour Force Survey (source of those job growth numbers that Conservatives are only too happy to celebrate). And now Dan Gardner gets his kicks in.

Yes, the staunch libertarian principles of the government. The Harper government. The government that thinks marijuana decriminalization is a Marxist plot, an adult who agrees to consensual sex in exchange for money should be imprisoned, the police did a fine job at the G20, and Omar Khadr can rot in a tropical gulag.

But requiring citizens to fill out a form which is absolutely essential to sound public policy and social science? An outrageous violation of individual liberty.

What scary Conservatives really look like

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 2:03 PM - 33 Comments

The Conservatives held their packed and fun Halloween party on the Hill. One of the best costumes was MP Rob Clarke (centre) seen here with his staff.

MP Candice Hoeppner (right) with her staffer dressed as Liberal MP Hedy Fry.

Tory staffer as NDP MP Linda Duncan’s “campaign manager.”

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MPs and Mental Health Awards

By Mitchel Raphael - Saturday, October 24, 2009 at 11:29 AM - 7 Comments

The seventh annual Champions of Mental Health Awards were held at the Fairmont Château Laurier ballroom. Margaret Trudeau, seen below with son Justin, got an award for being open about suffering from bipolar disorder.

Also on the awards list were Defense Minister Peter MacKay (left) and General Walter Natynczyk, Canada’s Chief of Defense Staff, for their work launching the “Be the Difference” mental health campaign in the Canadian Forces.

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Mitchel Raphael on MPs in court

By Mitchel Raphael - Friday, June 12, 2009 at 2:20 PM - 1 Comment

The MP and the traffic ticket

Canada’s first policewoman MP, Winnipeg Tory Shelly Glover, was elected chairwoman of the newly formed Conservative Law Enforcement Officers Caucus. The group includes Saskatchewan MP Rob Clarke, who worked for the RCMP, Rick Norlock, who had a career with the Ontario Provincial Police, and Dave MacKenzie, a former police chief. Among the challenges for MPs who are former police officers are ongoing court cases, says Glover, who has to periodically go back to Manitoba to testify. While Glover’s beat included the drug trade, she also recently showed up to testify about a traffic ticket she had issued that someone was trying to fight.

Palestinian leader’s son is a popular guy

When Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was in Ottawa he met with party leaders. Present at his visit with Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff was Montreal Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, who is one of Israel’s biggest supporters. Cotler first met Abbas in Damascus in 1977 and many times afterwards during countless Middle East trips. Cotler says Abbas “sees both sides of the issue and is clearly committed to peace.” The Palestinian leader’s son, Yasser Abbas, is Palestinian-Canadian and lives in the West Bank. (He got his Canadian citizenship while he was living in Montreal during the late ’80s and early ’90s.) He was the first person to call Cotler and congratulate him after he won the last election. The last leader Abbas met with was Stephen Harper. Alberta Tory MP Ted Menzies was asked to sit in on the meeting because he is also a friend of Yasser Abbas. The two met in Washington years ago and remain email chums. This was the first time Menzies had met Yasser’s father, though. After Mahmoud Abbas left the PM’s office, he went through the Hall of Honour. Right before exiting through the Centre Block’s front doors, a few members of his entourage used the new hand sanitizer dispensers recently set up.

Continue…

Weekend Notes (Vol. 1, No. 19)

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, June 14, 2008 at 2:57 AM - 0 Comments

In the print edition this week there are two pages under this byline on the enigmatic Peter Van Loan, thus marking the 376th time I’ve referred to the government House leader in print in my short time with this magazine. This time though there’s further commentary from Ralph Goodale, Michael Ignatieff, historian Ned Franks (who confesses he can’t watch QP anymore) and Senator David Smith.

It is perhaps an under-reported fact that Mr. Van Loan and the Senator, the party stalwart presently charged with running the next Liberal campaign, go back a ways and remain good friends—Senator Smith is quite sure he was the only Liberal at the House leader’s wedding not so long ago.

That there isn’t yet a wild-eyed conspiracy theory about the close association between the Prime Minister’s right-hand man and one of Mr. Dion’s primary election advisors is, suffice it to say, somewhat disappointing. Surely some enterprising blogger should have connected the dots by now. For shame. Continue…

The Commons: Way to go, Skippy

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, June 12, 2008 at 6:22 PM - 0 Comments

And so the day of apology begets its own apology

The Scene. It couldn’t last. Or at least we knew it wouldn’t last. And, in some ways maybe, it shouldn’t last.

But who knew yesterday’s spirit of common good and cooperative effort was so null and void before most of us had even gotten around to feeling good about ourselves?

Indeed, before the Prime Minister had so much as spoken the first words of this Parliament’s most remarkable hour, exuberant Conservative Pierre Poilievre had put forward a revolutionary, if rather insensitive, reading on the politics of healing. Speaking with the “Lunch Bunch” on an Ottawa radio station, he suggested that compensation for the victims of physical and sexual abuse should be treated as investment. A full accounting required. A proper return demanded.

Worse still, he made gratuitous and silly use of the term “partook”—speaking, as it were, several classes above his weight.

The only surprise in what came next was that it took the Liberals a full 24 hours to formally demand Poilievre’s resignation. Continue…