The Commons: The only thing we have to fear is total doom

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, September 21, 2010 at 6:27 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. The Conservative government has, to whatever credit should be assigned for such things, recently decided upon a straightforward appeal to you, the well-meaning voter. Vote for us, they now say, or risk the complete and total annihilation of your country. Do as we say, or face the end of everything you hold dear. Don’t even think of quibbling, unless you are willing to be remembered by your children as the monsters who bequeathed them a broken wasteland of despair. Give us a majority, or Michael Ignatieff will shoot this dog.

“Under an Ignatieff-NDP-Bloc Québécois government, nothing would be safe,” the Finance Minister told an audience at a posh Ottawa hotel this afternoon.

“They want to throw it all away. They want to cancel the contract or review the contract,” Industry Minister Tony Clement cried out to the House a short while after, putting scary finger quotes around the word ‘review’ as he responded to a Liberal suggestion that the government had moved too hastily to commit $16 billion to new fighter jets. “The minute they do that, all of those contracts—and there are 60 contracts already extant for this plane for Canadian companies—all of those contracts go on hold, too. That is irresponsible. They are threatening Canadian jobs.”

“Mr. Speaker, it probably should not surprise me, but it still does, to hear how quickly and easily members of the opposition, including the NDP, are approving of jail time or large fines for their fellow Canadians who refuse, out of good conscience, to fill out a 40-page questionnaire with very personal information,” Mr. Clement said later when presented with the possibility that his government had erred in its decision to replace the long-form census. “It is incredible how they will sacrifice Canadians’ rights on this matter.”

“The choice is clear,” Mr. Flaherty finally declared for the benefit of the House. “A Conservative government that creates jobs or a coalition government that will kill jobs.”

In fact, that would seem to put it mildly—Mr. Flaherty declining here to mention previous warnings about the criminal gangs that would rule our streets and the Russian hordes that would be clamouring over our borders were it not for this government’s courageous administration. Continue…

Stockwell Day on home invasions: more from his news conference [UPDATED]

By John Geddes - Wednesday, August 4, 2010 at 5:23 PM - 0 Comments

Stockwell Day has come under what has to be unwelcome scrutiny over his remarks yesterday about how unreported crime justifies spending billions on new prisons. I guess that’s to provide cells in which to lock up the unreported criminals. The upside is that crowding shouldn’t be an issue.

Day is Treasury Board President now, but used to be Public Safety minister, which might explain his willingness to hold forth on law-and-order issues. In the same eventful news conference, he offered a rather dramatic justification for the government’s push to make sure more convicted criminals serve long terms behind bars. This quote is a bit shambling, but here’s a chunk of what he said:

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If you have neither the facts nor the law, pound the table

By Philippe Gohier - Tuesday, August 3, 2010 at 7:17 PM - 0 Comments

Stockwell Day held a press conference Tuesday to talk about the economy and the belt-tightening efforts that are apparently underway in Ottawa. Somehow, this got derailed into a discussion about crime rates—both real and imagined. Witness the rhetorical carnage that results when facts clash with ideology:

The crime rate per thousand, though it has gone down, thankfully, and I think some of that is because of the large amount of resources we’ve put into some areas of preventative criminal justice issues — for instance, targeting individuals at risk, families at risk, communities at risk — there’s been a lot of resources put into preventative programs there.  When you still go back and do crime rate comparisons going back even as much as 40 years, you still see that our crimes per thousand of population are very high, still much higher than they were back as reported in the ‘60s.

Here, in a nutshell, is the bind in which the government finds itself when proposing stiffer sentences at the same time as crime rates are dropping. The harsher sentences have to be justified: “We’re very concerned about the increase in the amount of unreported crimes that surveys clearly show are happening.” But there’s credit to be taken for the very decline that threatens to make those stiffer sentences anachonistic: “I think some of that is because of the large amount of resources we’ve put into some areas of preventative criminal justice issues.”

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Stockwell Day, amateur statistician

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, July 24, 2010 at 10:10 AM - 0 Comments

The President of the Treasury Board seems to indicate the census could just as easily be outsourced to 12-year-olds with Internet connections.

“We live in an information age where any 12-year-old kid can push any button on the Internet and find out any information he or she wants without threatening a citizen that they’re going to go to jail.”

What we're talking about when we talk about affirmative action

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, July 23, 2010 at 3:15 PM - 0 Comments

The government seems to have ordered a review of affirmative action—”employment equity” in Canadian terms—policies in the public service. But the government reportedly supports affirmative action. So, more specifically, it would seem that the government is concerned with jobs that are specifically and explicitly restricted to minority applicants. Of 5,000 jobs posted in 2008, this criteria reportedly applied to 91.

A Harvard man

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, July 12, 2010 at 4:05 PM - 0 Comments

We know, because we’ve been told, that the next governor general is a non-partisan. But other facets of his history and personality are so far less understood.

For instance, though it was not noted in the official release announcing his appointment, in the third paragraph of the attached four-paragraph backgrounder we learn that Mr. Johnston, who was introduced to the country as a respected academic, began his post-secondary studies at Harvard. Granted, while at Harvard, he played “ice hockey,” as they call it there. But still, Harvard.

This is obviously confusing, for if we have learned anything at all over the last four and a half years it’s that the name of that American educational institution is only to be invoked or referenced in the derisive sense, for the purposes of mocking another’s character or intellect.

To wit. Continue…

Hebrew University on the Hill

By Mitchel Raphael - Monday, May 31, 2010 at 8:44 PM - 13 Comments

The Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem held a special reception on the Hill to celebrate Canadian-Israeli partnerships. Below, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development Diane Finley with her husband, Senator Doug Finley.

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(Left to right) Sammy Katz, Transport Minister John Baird and Tyler Golden.

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Carmi Gillon, vice-president of external relations for The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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UFC champs brings out the MPs

By Mitchel Raphael - Friday, May 21, 2010 at 11:59 AM - 4 Comments

MPs from all parties joined the long lineup on the Hill to pay homage to Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) champ and Quebec native Georges St-Pierre. He was invited to the Hill by Heritage Minister James Moore. Below, left to right, Moore, St-Pierre and NDP MP Glenn Thibeault.

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Treasury Board President Stockwell Day with St-Pierre.

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Liberal MPs Navdeep Bains (left) and Justin Trudeau duke it out.

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The Commons: A great show of strength

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 6:21 PM - 72 Comments

The Scene. The Prime Minister was, just yesterday, lamenting the tawdriness of this place. ”I’ve been very clear with the Canadian people our number one focus week in and week out remains the economy. When we sit down as a caucus or when we sit down in cabinet, that’s 80 percent of our discussion,” he recounted to a group of young people. “Everything else that often gets so much attention from your former media colleagues, Mike, these are sideshows. The economy is what matters and it’s got to be what matters everywhere and it’s got to be what matters at these meetings in June.”

That the Prime Minister was, at that very moment, participating in an actual sideshow is an irony that seems to have gone uncommented upon by Senator Mike Duffy, the former journalist assigned to host this little infomercial on Parliament Hill. “Prime Minister,” Mr. Duffy is recorded to have assured, “we’ll be watching with great interest.”

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Paul Gross, Laureen Harper and a pack of Twizzlers

By Mitchel Raphael - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 10 Comments

Heritage Minister James Moore hosted Ottawa’s premiere of Gunless, starring Paul Gross, at the Museum of Civilization. Below (left to right): Laureen Harper, Heritage Minister James Moore and Paul Gross.

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Laureen Harper offers Justin Trudeau some Twizzlers.

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Pardon?

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 8, 2010 at 3:32 PM - 21 Comments

Interesting reporting today from the CBC’s Neil Morrison and the Citizen’s Dan Gardner. Seems that whatever this past week’s outrage over the decision to pardon Graham James, the government conducted a review of the system three years ago. From Gardner’s version.

The review was conducted. An array of options was put before the minister. As usual, they covered the gamut. At one extreme was “change nothing.” At the other, “forbid sex offenders from ever receiving pardons under any circumstances.”

Day studied the process, the policy, and the facts, and he concluded some changes were warranted. For example, two parole board members, not one, would be involved in applications by sex offenders. And rather than relying on local police to bring forward information related to the applicant’s conduct, the parole board would be required to go and get any information local police may have. But on the fundamental question — should sex offenders continue to be eligible for pardons? — Day decided in the affirmative.

Graham James received his pardon in 2007. It’s not clear if his application was dealt with before or after Day’s revisions to the process but it does seem certain that no change made by Day would have changed the outcome.

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.

Sarah Palin is unstoppable

By Michael Petrou - Tuesday, March 16, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 196 Comments

Photograph by Sally Ryan/The New York Times/ Redux

John McCain thought he needed to spring one more surprise on America.

In August 2008, his presidential campaign against Barack Obama was listing badly. Some of this was his fault. But after eight years of George W. Bush, anyone representing the Republican party came with a lot of baggage. McCain needed to choose a candidate for vice-president who underlined his reputation as a maverick within the party and who was untainted by close ties to the previous administration. The stakes were high. As John Heilemann and Mark Halperin write in Game Change, their book about the campaign, “If McCain’s running mate selection didn’t fundamentally alter the dynamics of the race, it was lights out.”

McCain’s original plan was to partner with Joe Lieberman, the 2000 Democratic nominee for vice-president. McCain hoped such a choice would prove his bipartisan credentials, steal thunder from his opponents, and back-foot the press­—allowing his campaign to regain some momentum. But when word of the Lieberman plan leaked, much of the Republican party rebelled, and McCain was forced to scramble. “We need to have a transformative, electrifying moment in this campaign,” McCain strategist Steve Schmidt said. No one on the short list of alternative candidates could deliver this. Schmidt suggested a new option: Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

There wasn’t time to vet Palin properly, or to probe her thoughts on foreign and domestic policy. Picking Palin was a Hail Mary pass in the dying seconds of a championship game. But McCain met and liked her. She was confident and calm. She wasn’t afraid to burn bridges and upset people, even in the Republican party. She was an outsider, like him. Steve Schmidt told McCain choosing Palin could hurt him. But a safer candidate, he said, wouldn’t help. It would be better to go for the win and lose big than to tiptoe to a narrow defeat. “High risk, high reward,” another one of McCain’s advisers cautioned. “You shouldn’t have told me that,” McCain replied. “I’ve been a risk taker all my life.”

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Hypothetical austerity

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at 10:28 AM - 45 Comments

The Globe’s Steve Chase reviews yesterday’s elimination of 245 appointments.

At least 46 of the posts the Canadian government is eliminating have never been filled. These are jobs at boards and agencies that were created by past governments but never set up, including the Space Advisory Board, established in 1989 and eligible for 19 appointments by Ottawa…

If all the jobs had been filled, Ottawa would be saving a paltry $1.2-million a year in pay and salaries as a result of these appointment cuts. By comparison, the budget deficit for the year ending March 31 will be $53.8-billion. But only 27 of the 245 jobs being cut are currently filled. A spokeswoman for Mr. Day said the estimated total savings from eliminating these 27 jobs is $53,000 to $62,000 in pay and $37,800 in travel bills.

Palin, the final word

By Colby Cosh - Sunday, March 7, 2010 at 12:38 AM - 145 Comments

Sarah Palin failed to tackle an esoteric problem tonight: how does a natural motormouth keep herself in check in front of a friendly audience? It’s an accepted part of a politician’s work to say what she has already said in other venues a million times. About the only way in which tonight’s Calgary speech varied from Palin’s standard post-gubernatorial drama of media persecution and conservative values was that every time she said the equivalent of “We built a pipeline”, it became “We built a pipeline with our super terrific Canadian partner TCPL, which just goes ta show ya.”

The problem was that Palin clued into the audience’s unconditional agreement with her worldview pretty quickly, and grew impatient; as fast as she was speeding through the statistics and the chuck-on-the-shoulder good-for-yous for Canada, many of us probably would have preferred it ten times faster. To me, the audience in the foyer after the speech seemed to be talking themselves into having had a good time.

It occurs to me that the Calgary mayoralty is up for grabs; maybe someone should see if Palin’s interested? In no other Canadian city of equal size would her denunciation of “snake-oil” climate science have been greeted with such unrestrained, joyous roars by a very elite, very wealthy audience. (The Palomino Room was saturated with old Reformers, including Stockwell Day. At the end of the festivities, Ralph Klein, perhaps eager for refreshment, came blasting down the aisle in my direction at the approximate speed of a maglev train.) I’m not sure there is even an American city where Palin’s climate skepticism and drill-or-be-damned pro-fossil stance would have been so well-received. Certainly there can’t be one where an appearance by Palin would be beset by a grand total of one (1) poor sad-sack anarchist protester. I know in Edmonton there’d be 20. (It’s the same 20 every time no matter what’s being protested.)

At the end of the night, as the attendees were filing out, some elderly contessa saw me typing furiously, leaned over, and said “Be kind to her.” It seems Palin, who will doubtless retain a strong streak of the exuberant bubbleheaded teenager to the end of her days, is as good as appealing to motherly and grandmotherly instincts as she is to male ones. I considered for a moment that it might not be for me to say that Palin was not a success, since I didn’t pay $150 for my seat. On the other hand, for those who did shell out, it was a sunk cost; the poor bastards on professional duty, like me, were the ones who weren’t allowed to leave. Sorry, but it’s hard to like someone who makes you suffer like that.

The war on the civil service

By Nancy Macdonald - Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 10:50 AM - 88 Comments

Ever since Stephen Harper anointed Stockwell Day as his cost-cutter-in-chief last week, the Prime Minister’s Office has been going out of its way to highlight the significance of shifting Day to head the Treasury Board in an otherwise ho-hum cabinet shuffle. Said to be among Harper’s favourite ministers, Day is now cast as the PM’s Dr. No—the man to stare down resistance to new austerity measures. As part of Ralph Klein’s cabinet in Alberta back in the nineties, Day pinned a loonie to his lapel (evoking Ayn Rand, who once pinned a gold dollar sign to hers) and oversaw thousands of public-sector layoffs. In Ottawa, a beleaguered public service is paying attention.

Within a week of Day’s swearing-in, 18 federal government unions gathered in Ottawa for a two-day meeting to map out a strategy against the anticipated assault. They expect the Tories’ first target will be the bureaucracy’s famously generous pensions—what Finance Minister Jim Flaherty calls their “handsome arrangements.” Flaherty has ruled out many other options for deflating a bloated deficit. He’s said the Conservatives will never raise taxes or cut transfers to the provinces to balance the books. Instead, they’ll rely on economic growth and if it’s not enough, they’ll cut “other programs.” Up against one of the largest deficits in the country’s history, civil-sector union leaders are girding for a fight.

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The government's attention is required at the luge track

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, February 1, 2010 at 9:08 AM - 91 Comments

Stockwell Day explains why it was necessary to prorogue Parliament.

“Prorogation is a relatively customary process, now with the Olympics and re-organizing our fiscal plan we felt we needed the time,” says Day.

A grand total (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 25, 2010 at 1:39 PM - 48 Comments

Vancouver Sun, Dec. 7, 2008. A self-described non-political person, Kathleen Chafe didn’t vote for Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives in the last federal election — but that didn’t stop her from saying she was Tory yesterday. The 23-year-old Vancouver corporate headhunter was one of about 250 people who braved yesterday’s rain to show support for the Conservatives at the Rally for Canada at Library Square — one of several similar rallies held nationwide … Minister of Public Safety Stockwell Day said the message is clear. ”Canadians want to send a strong message that they don’t want to see a coalition,” said the Okanagan-Coquihalla MP, clad in a Team Canada hockey jersey and Vancouver 2010 scarf. “We’re saying that is enough. Canadians are responding by saying we love Canada — they are rising up.”

Barrie Examiner, Jan. 25, 2010. Getting an idle House of Commons back to work was on the minds of protesters who gathered around Memorial Square downtown, Saturday. About 150 or 300 people — depending upon who you ask — braved cold winter breezes to share their contempt for Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s proroguing of Parliament last month until after the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver … Conservative MP Patrick Brown did not attend the rally due to other commitments on Saturday, but did send a representative. He suggested there were “151 people” from across the region at the event. ”Out of a catchment area of half a million people, I don’t think 150 people speaks to a great rally,” he said, Sunday. “I think most residents believe this is just a partisan ploy.”

(The Sun story is not available online and was pulled from the archives via Infomart.)

Connecting the dots

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 19, 2010 at 3:23 PM - 45 Comments

To recap, Stockwell Day is a winner, moving from International Trade to President of the Treasury Board to handle the difficult task of enforcing fiscal discipline on government operations. Peter Van Loan is a loser, demoted from Public Safety to International Trade because the Prime Minister was dissatisfied with his performance, even though Day’s move from Public Safety to International Trade a little over a year ago was seen as an important promotion to a pivotal file. Meanwhile, Vic Toews, who seemingly couldn’t be trusted to oversee the difficult task of enforcing fiscal discipline on government operations, moves from Treasury Board to Public Safety, where he will be charged with a massive review of national security.

Who seems to be up, who seems to be down

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 19, 2010 at 11:11 AM - 22 Comments

Conventional perception seems to have Stockwell Day, Christian Paradis and Rona Ambrose rising, Lisa Raitt and Peter Van Loan falling. Keith Ashfield gets a promotion to cabinet, Rob Moore gets to call himself a minister of state.

Early reviews from the Canadian Press, Globe, Star, Canwest, Reuters, Bloomberg, CBC and CTV.

Your musical chairs sneak preview

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 18, 2010 at 11:46 PM - 14 Comments

If CP has it right, Lisa Raitt is now tracing Rona Ambrose’s career arc all the way to cabinet obscurity.

The biggest surprise may be that controversy-prone Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt, once a rising star in the party who rocketed to cabinet within weeks of her first election win in October 2008, is getting demoted.

The high-profile Raitt ran into trouble last year when she was caught on tape criticizing some of her fellow ministers. Raitt will stay in the cabinet, but in the relatively obscure Labour post.

Canadian Press has Christian Paradis going to Natural Resources in Raitt’s place, Rona Ambrose going to Public Works to replace Paradis, Peter Van Loan replacing Stockwell Day at International Trade, Day replacing Vic Toews at Treasury, Toews replacing Van Loan at Public Safety and Jean-Pierre Blackburn going to Veterans Affairs to replace the retiring Greg Thompson.

What the ministers were told

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, December 21, 2009 at 1:03 AM - 71 Comments

The head of the International Red Cross is reported to have met with Peter MacKay, Gordon O’Connor and Stockwell Day in the fall of 2006.

Officially, the Red Cross would only say the talks focused on topics including Afghanistan, humanitarian law in modern conflicts and co-operation with Canada. Unofficially, sources in Geneva said the international agency, whose functions include monitoring the treatment of prisoners, was growing frustrated over Canada’s tardy notification of its handover of captured suspected Taliban to Afghan authorities. The delay could often be as much as 34 days, making it difficult to track the detainees.

What we can know

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 12:30 PM - 61 Comments

Stockwell Day says the government will not comply with Parliament’s demand for access to uncensored information on Afghan detainees. Wesley Wark, appointed to the government’s advisory council on national security in 2005 and reappointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2007 (his term has since expired), suggests the government take a different approach.

Intelligence specialist Wesley Wark said the heavy censorship of the documents supplied to the parliamentary committee probing the handling of prisoners has turned the hearings into a “farce.”

“I think a much more liberal approach to provision of documents would be the way to go so that the public at large doesn’t feel that the government is simply trying to stiff the parliamentary committee, which is very much the impression one gets at the moment,” said Wark, a visiting professor at the University of Ottawa.

What they said (III)

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, November 22, 2009 at 11:40 PM - 3 Comments

On April 23, 2007, the Globe reported what it had learned from interviews with 30 detainees. Two days later, the paper revealed what the Foreign Affairs department’s own reporting disclosed about torture in Afghanistan. After the premature announcement of a new transfer agreement that week, a new deal was signed on May 3.

Understandably, the issue dominated Question Period during this time—dozens of questions asked between April 23 and May 7 as new stories and allegations came to light. Herein, a selection of questions and answers during that period. Continue…