Taxpayers send Bernier's Dad to Summit

Apparently it's Father-Son day at the Francophonie Summit? Or maybe Bring your Parent's to the Office day, it's not really clear.

What is clear is that the Montreal Gazette is reporting that Maxime Bernier's father, Mulroney-era cabinet Minister Gilles Bernier is attending the sommet courtesy of your taxes and mine.

Papa Bernier's qualifications? He's Chairman of the Board of the FORUM FRANCOPHONE DES AFFAIRES. It's a reputable organisation which does some excellent business development work. He certainly should be at the Francophone Summit as are several members of the board of the FFA

But why at taxpayer's expense?

According to the Gazette:

Ghislain Maltais, chairman of the Forum's board and himself a key organizer for Conservative Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon in the last election, said Bernier was invited to be part of the delegation by Prime Minister Stephen arper's office. Consequently, the government took Bernier along on the prime minister's plane and is paying Bernier's expenses _something the cash-strapped group could not have done, said Maltais....

....Among the other Forum board members attending is Denis Robichaud, vice-president of the group and an organizer for Maxime Bernier in the last election.

Hang on is this a riding association meeting, a family reunion or an international summit?

But don't worry, everyone else at the FFA are paying their own way, it is a 'cash-strapped' organisation.

I guess they didn't get an invite from Stephen Harper.

Good to see my tax dollars hard at work.

Dryden boring? Sure, but you can argue with this...

Sure, the race may be boring, but you can't aruge with this....

One more reason Dryden is the right choice...

Tories support Big Tobacco

Slipped into yesterday's federal budget slash was a cut of $10.8M First Nations and Inuit Tobacco Control Strategy.

The reason was as follows: Programs that weren’t providing good value for money for Canadians.

Cutting tobacco control funding is not smart. Particularly because aboriginal communities already score the lowest in Canada on most health indicators.

Particularly because they have the youngest demographic population in Canada and the highest birth rate.

Particularly because of the role tobacco plays in aborginal culture - you just can't deal with it the same way you do in other cultures.

And big tobacco must be laughing.

Leak II - Kenny 'misquotes' PCO official

The Privacy story continued yesterday. From Hansard, a very careful statement from Kenny:

" Mr. Speaker, let me tell you what the assistant secretary to the cabinet at the Privy Council Office said. He said that the reporting of this discussion was a practice introduced by the former government, that this sort of practice took place in the former PMO and its communication team. "

Kenny is referring to the practice of providing notes of briefings and discussions to key political staffers. Nothing odd here at all, though I am quite sure that keeping political staffers aware of evolving situations is not something the Liberals thought of first...

But Kenny continues:

"Mr. Speaker, how will we put a stop to the practices of the former Liberal government? Today we were astonished to discover that it was a regular practice of the previous government to take private information and ask public servants to send the private information of Canadians to political staff in the offices of the Prime Minister and other ministers. "

And that is where he went wrong.

Let me repeat this.

Never did I askcivil servants, or was I asked by PMO, for the private information of anyone filing an access request.

Not once.

And the PCO official Kenny cited would back me up on this, as reported in the Globe today

"In fact, Mr. Eisler's statement did not say that the Liberal government had regular access to the names of people requesting information under the access to information legislation.
Instead, he appeared to be speaking only about the practice of sending out summaries of telephone conversations "

So the questions remain.

Why was the information disclosed?

How long did this go on?

And why did no one stop it until they got caught?

Leaks, Laws and Jason Kenny

The Leak and the Law.

For the last two days, Liberals and Conservatives have traded attacks over a breach of Canada's Privacy Act.

In short strokes, a Canadian Press journalist filed an Access to Information Request (ATIP) which is way of requesting information or documents from the government. That's not an odd thing for a journalist to do.

There are clear rules on how to process these requests; one of those rules (under the Privac Act) is that no one is allowed to know the name of the person who is making the request. That is the law.

As it turns out, the name of a reporter making a request was provided in mid-March to six senior political staffers, including Harpers Director of Communications.

What should have happened next is this. They should have reported to their departments' ATIP coordinnators as soon as they saw the name.

That does not appear to have happened.

Yesterday, Stephen Owen and Marlene Jennings nailed the government on this.

The first line of defence was that the government knew nothing about this. Then, as the day wore on, it was revealed none of the assistants had read the e-mail.

(Funny, the e-mail was synopsis about CIA planes landing in Canada. I might have read that one...)

Today, the Information Commissioner started yet another investigation of the Harper government.

And an Info Czar investigation is no fun. There is no right to counsel, no right refuse the request, everything is under oath and therefore subject to perjury and contempt laws.

Kenny the Snowman.

Kenny struck back with the snow-job of the century. According to CP:

"These types of summary reports were regularly shared with members of the previous government's prime minister's communications office,'' Kenny said. "We are going to put a stop to the Liberal practice of bureaucrats sending such information to political staff, which never should have happened in the first place.''

Nonsense.

In my entire time in a minister's office, I was neither offered the names, nor did I ask for them.

Of course, Kenny know's the story is a mix-up as well. He was citing the Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet who it appears briefed him that sending synopses of meeting was de rigeur, which it was. What was not normal or standard practice was sending the names of ATIP applicants.

Scott Reid responded in the same story:

The names of access to information recipients were not shared with the PMO of which I was a part,'' said Scott Reid, who served as Martin's director of communications. "If Mr. Kenney has suggested that it was standard practice for those names to be shared with the former PMO, he is absolutely mistaken.''

Keep an eye on this.

Kenny will have to clarify exactly what the Assistant Secretary to Cabinet said.

The real issue here is when did anyone who's name is on the e-mail realize and mistake had been made, and fix it.

If the answer is no one, then everyone has a real problem.

Dryden takes the lead - CBC Poll

CBC Newsworld is reporting that Ken Dryden is most popular choice among Canadians for leader... the poll can be found here

In short, Dryden leads with 19% followed by Rae at 17% among all voters. Among Liberal voters, Dryden maintains his lead at 19%, and Rae pulls up beside him at 19% as well...

Iggy? Dion? Kennedy? Brison? All sitting between 12% and 4% in both samples...

Kennedy's reform - not so much

Gerrard Kennedy spoke to the Toronto Star editorial board yesterday and outlined some of his plans for parliamentary reform, which really come down to curbing the PM's power.

I am not sure why one needs to 'curb the PM's power' given that only the most brain-dead MP doesn't realize that they can topple a policy or a PM with one simple action: Vote against them in Parliament.

"We're in a danger zone right now, where we have a presidential system unchecked within our parliamentary system. That is a recipe for losing touch with what matters and to not have the accountability that would drive you forward," said Kennedy, the Straw-man slayer.

No, Gerrard, we don't have a presidential system, because MP's can vote against their own Prime Minister on any issue. Sure, there are consequences, like not getting into cabinet, or the Senate, or maybe the government could fall.

What's so different about that? We all face consequences when we deliver the hard news, its part of being a responsible adult.

Moreover, as Messrs Chretien and Martin will tell you, caucus solidarity is like a Stephen Harper election promise - never quite what you thought it was, and subject to change based on the polls.

But any attempt to 'curb the PM's power' is simply a way to let our elected representatives off the hook. And frankly, when enough MP's say no, it's amazing how many things just don't make it to a vote, get stuck in committee, and die on the order paper....

Kennedy continues: "I will subject myself to more review votes by both party members and I will give a veto to caucus over certain things. You'll be able to either veto the policy or change the leader under certain circumstances."

Great. Give caucus what they already have. And why just caucus?

MPs are MPs first, then they join a given caucus. Their first Parliamentary obligation is to their constituents, not the Party.

Frankly, every MP should have the right review policy, and veto it if they can form a majority to do so... but hey, hang on a minute...

They can already do all of those things... it's called... wait for it... PARLIAMENT.... where they have COMMITTEE HEARINGS and the HOUSE OF COMM ONS where they have VOTES...

It's not the rules that create democracy, Gerry, it's the people.

The National Post stole my tax cut

"According to Jim Flaherty, the federal Finance Minister, his debut budget -- expected sometime this spring -- will place much of its focus on tax cuts. This is good news. But it is to be hoped that Mr. Flaherty is not just referring to the Conservatives' planned reduction to the GST, which will take it from 7% to 6% initially, and later down to 5%. While sure to be welcomed by consumers and businesses alike, this move on its own does not constitute the broad tax relief that Canadians want and need."

-National Post Editorial, April 19th 2006

And:

"Canadians expecting to pay less to park, take a taxi or see a movie with the GST cut coming into effect today could be in for an unpleasant surprise.

They might not save a cent."

-National Post news article, The 1% Illusion, July 1, 2006

And so yesterday, I did something I have not done in quite some time. I bought a copy of the National Post.

It cost a dollar, including GST.

I guess the NP journalist forgot to include his own employer as a business which was not passing on the tax cut to consumers.

The National Post used to be 93 cents, and with Harpers GST tax cut, it should have cost 99 cents including tax.

But now it costs 94 cents, or a dollar including GST.

Which means the National Post raised their prices on July 1st, and stole my tax cut.

Thank you, Stephen Harper, for providing a new source of revenue for your friends at the Don Mills Cheerleading Squad, I am sure they used the money for bright new blue pom-poms for the editorial board.

Tax cut, my ass - a penny for your thoughts, Stephen.

Zucchinis, Afghanisation and starvation

This morning's CBC Ottawa news ran a story on a group urging Canadians to send zucchini's to Gordon O'Connor. You can read about the campaign at Verbena-19's blog

I was intrigued.

I remember when Gordo's gun-nutter colleagues sent bits of guns to MP's on the hill in protest of the gun registry (not so worried about security on that day...)

I've had a pretty slim crop this year in the backyard, but hey, postage to Hill is free...

Of course then the story continued that the reason for posting the cucurbita pepo was to protest the war in Agfghanistan, and to draw attention to the starvation that war was causing. The notion was Gordo could drop zucchinis instead of bombs.

And that's where they lost me.

Putting aside anyone's support or opposition to the war, sending perishable food through the post to protest stavation on the other side of the planet is just plain nuts.

Supposing Gordo follows through. Do we then drop rotting vegetables on a starving population?

A suggestion for the protestors:

Non-perishable food.

If you're going to make the point, go ahead and make it.

The last thing Afghans need is another mess to clean up.

Pope blasts Canada for gay marriage & abortion

There I was, thinking about having Mini-Publius baptized, and then...from the Right Hand of God, and direct descendant of Saint Peter:

Referring to Canada's same-sex marriage law, the pope said, "In the name of 'tolerance' your country has had to endure the folly of the redefinition of spouse."He also criticized the continued legality of abortion, saying, "In the name of 'freedom of choice' (the country) is confronted with the daily destruction of unborn children."

Hmmm.

Not that I put much creedence inthe moral and spiritual guidance from a former Nazi (we all did crazy stuff in our youth, eh?) but I wonder if the Holy Father has read de Tobiatha by Saint Ambrose.... in particular the bit that says abortion is ok?

May God have mercy on his soul.

Decima leadership poll puts Ignatieff lead in question

Running on the CP wire:

"OTTAWA (CP) _ A new poll is challenging the notion that international academic and author Michael Ignatieff is the front-runner in the Liberal leadership race, suggesting instead that the top five candidates are virtually running neck and neck.

...When voters who aren't sure are taken out of the mix, former Ontario premier Bob Rae inches ahead of the others: 26 per cent of respondents said they would vote Liberal or consider voting Liberal if Rae were at the party's helm, compared with 23 per cent for former cabinet minister Stephane Dion and 21 per cent for Ignatieff.

In Ontario, Rae has an even wider lead over the perceived front-runner, with 11 per cent more voters saying they would vote Liberal or consider voting Liberal if he were leader than if Ignatieff won."

Great news for the Rae folks, particularly given the concern that Rae would have trouble winning... should be an interesting weekend in Quebec...

Dryden - worth reading, and worth considering

Much of the leadership debate has focused around chasing Stephen Harper's Afghanistan-is-my-foreign-policy and Michael Ignatieff's gaffes.

Finally, a breath of fresh air.

And some vision.

Over the weekend, I was slipped a copy of Dryden's vision statement. Pretty impressive stuff. It doesn't chase Harper's tail on either the environment or Afghanistan. It lays out Out Dryden's views on just about everything from foreign policy to aboriginal issues.

Dryden manages to play out some of the policy in key areas, explain the why and the how.

Well worth the read, and frankly well worth this blogger's support.

For a breath of fresh air, a well-thought out vision, and an honest approach, check it out.