Top five federal politics stories of the decade

By John Geddes - Sunday, December 27, 2009 at 11:51 AM - 38 Comments

Before Christmas the Bill Good Show at CKNW in Vancouver asked me to pick the top five political stories of the decade now drawing to a close. Like all best-of-the-aughts lists, mine is highly debatable. But what the heck—this sort of pastime goes down well with shortbread.

So here’s my list. I offer it in chronological order, rather than order of importance, since one story sometimes seems to lead to the next, almost as if an intelligible narrative to the arbitrary ten-year span is struggling to take shape:

1. August 21, 2002 Jean Chretien announces he will not seek a fourth mandate as Prime Minister, setting in motion the transition to Paul Martin’s leadership of the Liberal party. The overused phrase “end of an era” actually fits.

2. October 16, 2003: Stephen Harper and Peter MacKay announce their agreement in principle to unite the Progressive Conservative and Canadian Alliance parties, setting the stage for the new Conservative Party of Canada.

3. Feb. 10 2004: Auditor General Sheila Fraser’s report on Liberal mismanagement (to say the least) in spending of hundreds of millions in Quebec between 1997 and 2001 begins the sponsorship scandal. Martin would never recover. Stories 1 and 2 take on new meaning.

4. June/July 2006: Between 500 and 1,000 Canadian combat troops join U.S.-led coalition forces in Operation Mountain Thrust,  the start of large-scale fighting against Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan. It’s war, although Canada’s political and military leaders take their time conceding that sobering fact.

5. January 23, 2006: Canadian voters hand Stephen Harper a minority victory in the federal election. The Conservatives win 124 out of 308 seat, up from 99 MPs in 2004. So much for one-party democracy and “Gritlock.” Harper goes on to surprise many with his ability to run a prolonged minority government..

Each of these stories resonated for years. The Liberals have not found stable, convincing leadership since Chrétien departed. The united right continues to dominate national politics. The impact of the sponsorship scandal—especially on Quebec’s electoral map and inside the Liberal party in the province—hasn’t yet washed out of the political system. And the harsh realities of Afghanistan still overshadow all other aspects of foreign and defence policy.

I had trouble leaving two stories off my list. Firstly, Chrétien’s March 17, 2003, announcement that Canada would not join George W. Bush’s “coalition of the willing” in an Iraq invasion, unless there was UN backing. Secondly, the Nov. 27, 2008, start of secret negotiations toward the ill-fated “coalition” they would form, with Bloc support, in an attempt to vote down the Conservatives in the House and form a government.

It would be interesting to draft a list of the top negative stories of the past ten years. For instance, successive federal governments did not come to grips with climate change. Successive governments did not reform Ottawa’s woefully outmoded access to information rules. And the continued disgrace of our unelected, unaccountable, insupportable Senate was not ended.

The Commons: Swallow this impressive-sounding number and call your doctor in the morning

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 3, 2009 at 6:46 PM - 90 Comments

The Scene. The Prime Minister’s chair, as an inanimate object, was unlikely to answer. But Michael Ignatieff insisted on asking anyway.

“Mr. Speaker, today we learn from the Auditor General that, for its entire time in office, the government has failed to develop any national emergency preparedness plan. That includes planning for epidemics and pandemics like H1N1. Does that not begin to explain why the government’s response to this crisis has been so slow and confused?” he wondered aloud. ”We have heard from the Minister of Health. When will we begin to hear from the Prime Minister? When will he stand up, take responsibility for the government’s mistakes and correct the situation?”

The Prime Minister was otherwise engaged with escorting the Prince and Camilla around rural Newfoundland. John Baird, Mr. Harper’s de facto deputy, was away as well, while the Health Minister was in Vancouver. No worries though, because this seemed to be a question about emergency preparedness and that is distinctly the purview of the Public Safety Minister and that minister, the typically unshy Peter Van Loan, was most certainly in his seat.

And yet, here came Tony Clement, the Minister of Industry and master flailler of arms.

“Mr. Speaker, let me dwell in the realm of facts,” Mr. Clement boldly offered. “The fact of the matter is that there have been six million doses of H1N1 vaccine that have already been delivered to the provinces and territories.

“That’s what you said yesterday!” lamented a Liberal.

“We currently have more H1N1 vaccine per capita than any other country in the world,” Mr. Clement reviewed. “The vaccine is being distributed as quickly as it is being produced and there will be sufficient H1N1 vaccine available in Canada for everyone who in fact needs or wants to be immunized.”

“Merry Christmas!” chirped a Liberal, yesterday’s points and counterpoints now sufficiently covered. Continue…

A failure to plan, etc.

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 3, 2009 at 3:48 PM - 5 Comments

Peter Van Loan, March 2. “Preparing for an emergency is a responsibility we all share … Having a plan and an emergency kit to cope with the first 72 hours of an emergency can make a world of difference in keeping a family safe and comfortable, and helps first responders to focus their resources on those in urgent need.”

Canwest, today. The federal department charged with disaster planning is itself a disaster when it comes to preparing for emergencies as varied as the swine flu pandemic, floods and terrorist attacks, says Auditor General Sheila Fraser. ”We found that Public Safety Canada has not exercised the leadership necessary to co-ordinate emergency management activities,” Fraser concluded in her latest report, tabled in the House of Commons on Tuesday.

The big red chair

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 5:31 PM - 0 Comments

Frank McKenna and Sheila Fraser on the Hour.

I’m reasonably assured that Heritage Minister James Moore will be on the show tonight.

This will not end well

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, May 20, 2009 at 2:34 AM - 7 Comments

The Auditor General wants to see MP expense reports.

Sheila Fraser began preliminary talks with the House of Commons and Senate earlier this year, well before the expense-claim scandal erupted in Britain. Fraser’s office said Tuesday she wants to conduct a “performance audit” to ensure taxpayers are receiving value for their money.

If the talks give Fraser full access to expense claims and other financial data, it would be the first foray by the auditor general into Parliament’s books since 1991, when there was an audit of only a sample of expenditures.

So, does this mean we can finally be interested in something other than the economic crisis? Liveblogging the AG and Enviro Commissioners' embargoed press conference

By kadyomalley - Thursday, February 5, 2009 at 2:14 PM - 58 Comments

12:03:53 PM

So you guys? Turns out it’s really too bad that we’re not caring about the environment at the moment, because for the first time i can recall, the Auditor General is about to be almost entirely overshadowed by newbie environment commissioner Scott Vaughan, whose debut report begins with the words “the government cannot demonstrate that some of its key environmental programs are making a difference” and goes downhill – or uphill, depending on your perspective and whether or not you happen to be Jim Prentice – from there. Unsupported claims of reduced air pollution, severe weather alerts that can’t be trusted, $370 million ostensibly spent on green farming programs with nothing to show for it, sustainable development strategies that “aren’t working”  – it just goes on and on. Meanwhile, over in the main report. Sheila Fraser finds the awarding of contracts for professional services ‘well done”. “Well done.” Seriously. Sure, she has a few nuggets of criticism scattered through the eight chapters – apparently, the report on health indicators is “of limited value to Canadians”, the Correctional Service “could be missing out on savings” and there are ‘significant issues” in the central oversight of small government organizations, but anyone hoping for shocking revelations of government waste and incompetence will be sorely disappointed. Which is good for the country, I’m sure, but not so much for us journalists. Thank goodness for the environment commissioner, y’all.
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UPDATED: The War of Independents (Officers of Parliament, that is)

By kadyomalley - Monday, November 3, 2008 at 10:47 PM - 91 Comments

His day job may make him a wee bit biased, but in this case, Colleague Potter has it exactly right: The Ottawa Citizen‘s expose of backroom brawling between the House and Senate Speakers and the Parliamentary Budget Officer is probably the biggest story of the day (and a big ole ITQ shoutout to the writer, the Indefatigable Ms. May – NNA winner and Hot Room colleague):

They argue the budget office – which last month reported the Afghan war will cost Canadians $18.1 billion by 2011 – is an extension of the library and reports to Young rather than an independent officer of Parliament who publicly posts his reports and research.

“In our analysis of the legislation, Parliament’s intention in establishing the budget officer position within the library was to augment and enhance the resources available to parliamentarians in the conduct of their business,” says the letter. “It was certainly not intended to put the officer at the centre of parliamentary or public debates or to impinge on parliamentarians’ constitutional function of overseeing the executive.”

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Some of our unclassified documents are missing: Liveblogging Public Accounts

By kadyomalley - Tuesday, June 3, 2008 at 11:44 AM - 0 Comments

10:52:37 AM
Wow, what a turnout. I’m standing outside the Public Accounts committee room—which is currently still occupied by the Health committee, I believe—and I am far from the only one here.

There are at least a dozen or so people from National Defence—some uniformed, some just in suits—the Auditor General and her crew, various unidentified bureaucrat types, clerks, staffers, reporters and camera crews. No, that wasn’t a typo, there is more than one media outlet here. Who would have thought military blueprints turning up in an Ottawa trashcan would be so exciting?

Oh, right.

Anyway, that’s why we’re all here, and it could be quite a show for the aficionados of advanced degree dodging.

According to the buzz in the corridor, apparently, the guys who actually found the discarded documents will be on hand as well, which isn’t really a surprise, since one of them—Anthony Salloum, a former NDP communications director—now works for the Rideau Institute. Which is invariably described as a “left-leaning” think tank, so far be it from me to break new ground. I doubt they mind, really.

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ITQ Committee Lookahead Thingy

By kadyomalley - Thursday, May 15, 2008 at 8:13 AM - 0 Comments

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Just one day left until break week! What on earth am I going to do with myself for a whole week without committees to liveblog? At least it’s a short one; thank you, Queen Victoria, for having the good sense to be born during patio season.
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May 9 shall henceforth be known as National Embarrassment Day

By selley - Friday, May 9, 2008 at 1:01 PM - 0 Comments

Must-reads: Daphne Bramham on polygamy; Jeffrey Simpson on the refugee system; Susan Riley and Chantal Hébert on l’affaire Bernier-Couillard; Rosie DiManno on the Afghan food shortage; Colby Cosh on uniting the Alberta left.

Bad, Canada. Bad!
From the Creston Valley to the Alberta oil sands to Ottawa—especially Ottawa—we should all be thoroughly ashamed of ourselves.

“Two generations have grown up during the period the B.C. government has hidden behind undisclosed legal opinions that polygamy is the cost of religious freedom and because someone somewhere says the government might lose in court,” the inimitable Daphne Bramham writes in the Vancouver Sun. Texas prosecutors have “plenty of evidence that abuse is endemic” among the dozens of children seized from their parents, she notes, but the province still hasn’t sent “any lawyers or social workers down to check on [Canadians among the victims], find out whether they went there willingly or even to take a look at what evidence Texas has collected.” It is time, she argues—still, again, and always—to put an end to this national embarrassment. (We particularly like her idea that the children of Bountiful might eventually launch a class action suit against the B.C. government for allowing them to be treated like low-grade veal. It would be the perfect comeuppance, we think.)

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You can't beat the smooth, mellow flavour of a legally-produced cigarette

By selley - Thursday, May 8, 2008 at 1:46 PM - 0 Comments

Must-reads: Barbara Yaffe on Insite; John Ivison on contraband smokes; Don MacPherson on corporate welfare bums; Graham Thomson on social funding in Alberta.

Ol’ Man Harper, he’s set in his ways
No drugs, no new ideas, no sassback—and put out that dodgy cigarette, you punk!

“Sadly,” writes the Vancouver Sun‘s Barbara Yaffe, “the decision about Insite’s future will not be made based on what is good or bad for the addicts or for the city of Vancouver,” but instead “on political considerations.” Luckily, however, the preponderance of evidence is so supportive of the safe-injection site’s continued operation (even if only to study its efficacy further), and the advocacy from the medical, political and academic communities is so convincing, that “boarding up Insite would cost [the Tories] support.” Right-wing ideologues or not, says Yaffe, now “is not the time for Harper’s party, pretty well tied with Liberals in polls, to be making moves that could cost support.” This is all perfectly logical and faultlessly argued. The fly in the ointment is the Harperites’ well-established penchant for needlessly inflicting pain upon themselves.

The Harper gang “is all about old-time religion,” says The Globe and Mail‘s Lawrence Martin—”all boilerplate and old stuff, … as dated as an Ed Broadbent suit.” Don’t believe him? He’s got corroborating evidence. Continue…

Panic on the streets of Ottawa (despite Sheila Fraser's best efforts)

By selley - Wednesday, May 7, 2008 at 1:48 PM - 0 Comments

Must-reads: Rosie DiManno on the Afghan dilemma; Chantal Hébert on Dion and the carbon tax; Dan Gardner on inequality.

Please be on the lookout for 41,000 hoodlums
At least two pundits believe it’s time to crack each other’s heads open and feast on the goo inside.

Our “insanely generous immigration and refugee system” is to blame for the 41,000 unaccounted-for people the government wants out of the country, John Ivison wails in the National Post, and what’s more, we’re “becoming a haven for the world’s hoodlums, in the same way that Ellis Island represented salvation for Europe’s tired, poor and huddled masses.” The Auditor-General attempts to soothe his nerves by suggesting some of the convicted criminals given temporary residence permits were probably just harmless “rock bands with a drug history,” but Ivison says that’s “ridiculous.” He claims “you’d struggle to come up with 10 years of convictions”—the threshold for requiring the permits—if you added up the rap sheets of the Stones, Guns N’ Roses and The Who. (That sounds suspect even before you realize the threshold is that the crimes carry a maximum sentence of 10 years under Canadian law, regardless of where they were committed. Does Keith Richards getting busted for heroin—in Toronto, no less—ring any bells?)

You call that alarmism, Ivison? Go home and drink your Bovril, old man. “Welcome to Canada,” Sun Media’s Greg Weston trumpets, “the only country on Earth with an immigration system apparently run by galactic aliens for the benefit of illegal ones.” Continue…

Fraser to PCO: Put the comm plans down and nobody gets hurt

By kadyomalley - Wednesday, April 30, 2008 at 2:32 PM - 0 Comments

The relevant bit, from yesterday’s liveblog:

12:38:55 PM
David Christopherson just asked a very good question that produced an
even better answer from Fraser – the money quote, I would suggest.
There are certain statutory conditions that apply to all officers of
Parliament that give an “inappropriate role” to a minister or the
government itself. “My communications strategies aren’t going to PCO,”
she quips.

Wait, why does PCO get anyone’s communications strategy? That seems odd.

Anyway, Christopherson is widely supportive of her position and
offers the services of this humble committee, if necessary, to force
the issue in Parliament. Yes, bow, that sudden breeze was a shot.

12:47:45 PM
Borys wants to know about that PCO policy too, the one that requires
officers of Parliament to turn over their respective communications
strategy. Specifically, when did that come into effect? She doesn’t
really answer the question. It’s a draft policy and she’s not sure if
was part of the old policy.

And… that’s it. Huh. Definitely worth following up on that, I’d say.

We're from PCO and we're here to help you

By kadyomalley - Wednesday, April 30, 2008 at 2:17 PM - 0 Comments

Hey, remember yesterday, when I liveblogged Auditor General Sheila Fraser’s appearance before Public Accounts , and it was almost a total write-off as far as actual news? Until she told the committee that the Privy Council Office has issued a draft policy that would force her office, and every other ostensibly independent officer of Parliament, to hand over copies of their respective communications strategies?

Apparently it might come up in the House during Question Period today. Wouldn’t that be fun? Especially after that whole sullenly-refusing-to-declare-that-they-have-confidence-in-Elections-Canada tantrum that the government threw last night, it seems like the perfect opportunity for the Prime Minister to reiterate his unwavering support for, and belief in, the independence of Canada’s parliamentary officers by declaring any such directive null and void.

Auditing the Auditor – Liveblogging Sheila Fraser at Public Accounts

By kadyomalley - Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 11:45 AM - 0 Comments

10:49:33 AM
Wow, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? I can’t actually remember the last time I covered Public Accounts – I must have been back since the RCMP pension scandal, but I’m at a loss to remember when, or why.

As for why I’m here today, it’s mostly because of the special guest star, Sheila Fraser, the one remaining Officer of Parliament who has yet to antagonize the Conservatives by issuing a less than glowing independent report. The thing is, that’s mostly because she’s still working through a backlog of audits from the bad old days of the Liberal government. But as she ticks off the items on her audit to-do list, she comes ever closer to examining the mad managerial skills of this government, and you know how well that tends to go over. If not, Linda Keen will be happy to remind you.

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