Harper's Perps with Perks #14

Welcome, senior cabinet minister Diane Finley, to Stephen Harper's Perps with Perks for violating conflict of interest laws when you awarded $1-million in funding to provide wheelchair access to a building on the ground floor that has no stairs and boasts barn-sized doors. 

The application for funding submitted by a personal friend of John Baird's scored 3rd from last out of the 167 applicants reviewed by her department.

Ms Finley appears to have signed off on the project proposed by Rabbi Chaim Mendelsohn, Director of Chabad Lubavitch of Centrepointe in Ottawa following interventions from Baird ( who toured Israel with him the following year) as well as Peter Kent, Nigel Wright, and PMO staffers Ray Novak, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, and Rachel Curran, Policy Advisor for Social Affairs.

CBC and the G&M have provided good accounts on this but federal ethics watchdog Mary Dawson's scathing report tells a tale of patronage beyond Finley. 


1) While I appreciate Rabbi Mendelsohn's stated concerns to Dawson that he was in danger of losing support in the Jewish community if he couldn't rock up grants from the Cons (page 14), his building not having "any existing barriers requiring reduction" for wheelchair access should have been the determining factor.

2) "Rabbi Mendelsohn claimed in emails to ministerial staff following the 2011 election that Chabad Lubavitch branches across Canada had mobilized tens of thousands of volunteers and voters."   Again, not really a wheelchair access problem.

3) "Three departmental officials told me that, in early summer of 2011, the Department received a letter from Minister Kent [the project is in Mr. Kent's riding} to Ms. Finley ... Minister Kent addressed the importance of the Federation and the Markham proposal and urged Ms. Finley to consider funding it. Two of these officials vaguely recalled that Minister Kent referred to a relationship between the Jewish community of the Greater Toronto Area and the Conservative Party of Canada."
 Again ...

4) "Mr. Wright wrote that she [Ms Finley] had pulled him aside outside the Cabinet room and asked him whether he considered the Markham proposal “important.” Mr. Wright wrote that he told her he had been asked by the Prime Minister to “sort it out.”

Mr. Wright wrote he did not intend to suggest to Ms. Finley that funding should be approved for the Markham project, only that it was important that the matter be considered carefully and fairly. Mr. Wright believed he had “sorted out” the matter by communicating that request to Ms. Finley."

5) Following Nigel Wright's conversation with Finlay's Chief of Staff Phil Harwood : 
"Rabbi Mendelsohn said that Mr. Harwood provided him with a list of additional information that was needed and asked him to compile the information based on concerns expressed by officials in the Department about the completeness of the Federation’s Markham application. ... Mr. Harwood said he was unable to recall clearly why Rabbi Mendelsohn had submitted additional information on the Markham project. ...Rabbi Mendelsohn submitted additional information... after being told by Mr. Harwood to do so "

6) Following the Markham project's crappy internal review and Harwood's discussion with Nigel Wright :
"Mr. Harwood said that he recommended that Ms. Finley consider sending the Markham project for external review.... no other applicants were permitted to submit additional information for assessment, either by the internal or the external evaluators. Following the external evaluation, the Markham proposal was not subjected to additional evaluations by the internal review committee as were the top 25 projects"

7) Following the crappy external review, Department officials drafted a letter :
"A letter of decision will be sent to the organization to inform them they were unsuccessful in their application.”

However the letter was not sent, Finley was not informed of it, and "Departmental officials told me they were instructed by the Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Mr. Paquette, to provide only the findings of the external evaluation".

Both internal and external reviews noted "the proposal did not directly address the requirements for making buildings and other facilities accessible to persons with disabilities."

8) "Ms. Finley signed the memorandum, dated August 26, 2011, approving the funding of the Markham project by checking the “yes” box."

9) As funding for approved projects were used up, "an additional $1,044,000 to cover the funding for this project was taken from the small-sized projects component of the program."

10) "The Government of Canada announced the funding of the Federation’s Markham project on October 11, 2011." 

11) "The Department ultimately withdrew its funding for this project. Information provided to my Office indicated that the Chabad Lubavitch of Markham was unable to obtain the necessary construction permits required for the work to be completed within the timeline negotiated with the Department, and there were significant increases in costs to deal with building deficiencies."

12) "It was clearly inappropriate that the funding went to the Markham project."

Throughout, there's also pages and pages of this :
"Mr. Baird told me that he didn’t recall speaking to Ms. Finley ... Mr. Baird doesn't recall speaking to Rabbi Mendelsohn about the proposals... Mr. Kent could not recall speaking with Ms. Finley about the Markham project ... Mr. Kent’s office could not locate a signed copy of the letter to Ms. Finley... Ms. Finley told me that she was not aware of a letter from Minister Kent ... Ms. Finley told me she could not recall a discussion with Mr. Wright... Ms. Finley told me that she did not specifically recall discussing the Markham proposal with Mr. Harwood... Ms Finlay did not recall any discussion with former Minister Baird ..."

Thursday update : Kady O'Malley : "At no point in the Finley report does the ethics commissioner "make it clear" the prime minister was not involved in the selection process."

Wecome aboard, Minister Finley.

Perps with Perks - Collect 'em all!
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Gaza War Map and Con warmongering

British photojournalist Lewis Whyld has completed his Gaza War Map of 15 panoramic "virtual tours” of the destruction in the Gaza Strip. The stills and vid of the last 50 days hardly prepare you for the impact of turning in a full circle through 360º of destruction from a single point chosen from the map.    
Whyld : these are "not precision strikes". 

In the early stages of this latest version of bombing Gaza to rubble, or as a US military officer put it -  "It's not 'mowing the grass,' it's removing the topsoil" -  the Cons released their "Fire and Water" video. 

Yeah, I know you've already seen it - watch it again. 
It's a battle cry - a pre-justification for the coming assault.  Compiled of clips from Harper's pledge to the Knesset in January : "Through fire and water, Canada will stand with you", and John Baird's bellicose 2012 speech to the American Jewish Committee, echoed again this February in his speech to AIPAC, it also featured seemingly out-of-place non sequitur footage of Canadian soldiers in past wars accompanied by Harper's voice-over about doing what's right even when it isn't popular.  

Not so puzzling now, is it?  Because they obviously knew precisely what was coming.


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REAL Women supports Russian "family values"

Harper campaigns to his cheering anti-gay base in Ottawa, April 2005 :

"Your beliefs, your values, our values, are the real Canadian values. And you know my position. You know the position of the Conservative Party of Canada. When elected Prime Minister at the next election, whenever that may be, we'll bring in legislation that will define marriage as the union of one man and one woman."

Well that was then, huh, Gwen?
Problem for you is Steve really really likes being PM. So he's cool with you helping him get elected and in return you got to help give out some medals and make the occasional ham and bigot sandwiches for the base : 

From the REAL Women newsletter, October/November 2011

Homosexuals Demand Changes to Criminal Code 

Members of the homosexual community have also long been agitating for unrestricted sexual access to minors. This requires an amendment to the Criminal Code, which now prohibits pedophilia.

REAL Women press release , Aug 7 2013 :

Minister of Foreign Affairs, John Baird, has abused his position as a cabinet minister to impose his own special interests in the foreign countries of Uganda, Kenya and Russia.
He awarded $200,000 of Canadian taxpayers’ money by way of the Department of Foreign Affairs to special interest groups in Uganda and Kenya to further his own perspective on homosexuality.

[snip] 

Last week, Baird admitted working extensively behind the scenes to prevent Russia from passing legislation designated to protect Russian minors from homosexual propaganda.

          [snip]

Gwendolyn Landolt, National Vice-President, stated, “Just who does John Baird think he is, using taxpayers’ money to promote his own personal agenda and endeavouring to set standards of the laws of foreign countries?  He argues that homosexual rights are a ‘Canadian value’, but this applies only to himself and his fellow activists and the left-wing elitists.  These are not conservative values and that of grass roots Canadians, who after all, pay the bulk of the taxes”.
Mr. Baird’s actions are highly offensive to conservative taxpayers.  He cannot and must not undermine other countries’ sovereignty and dignity, rooted in stable family structures and religious faith, in order to impose his own value system on them.

About that "sovereignty and dignity, rooted in stable family structures and religious faith", Gwen. 

Is that stable family structures and religious faith enough for you? 

Update : Apparently, Baird's office "has offered to meet with REAL Women representatives to clarify the government’s “principled position … against the suppression of fundamental freedoms around the world".
Oh please, please, let it be Baird who meets with them.
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Baird enters the Iran got nukes! office pool

Baird says Iran could build nuclear bomb within months screams the CBC headline over Evan Solomon interviewing John Baird under a giant picture of visiting Israel PM Shimon Peres.

Fans of the Iran got nukes! cry wolf sweepstakes will recall both Peres and Netanyahu predicted in 1992 that Iran would have nuclear warheads by 1999, 1992 also being the year a former Mossad official advised "Iran has to be identified as Enemy No.1"

"Remember," said former IDF Chief of Strategic Planning Shlomo Brom in 2004 (page 167):

"the Iranians are always five to seven years from the bomb. Time passes but they’re always five to seven years from the bomb."

Juan Cole lists his top four Iran got nukes! predictions in the 90's from a longer list at Christian Science Monitor, which notes that the alarums predate the 1979 Islamic revolution to a time when the US, Germany and France were selling 20 nuclear reactors to Iran.
Wide Asleep in America has a more extensive list beginning in 1984.
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Boris : "Baird also won't talk about why Iran might want to develop a threshold capacity for nuclear weapons for regional strategic reasons."
Let's go to the map, shall we?

Tony Gazebo's new bizcard

Apparently Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird did not much care for the wordmark "Canada" being larger than his name on his business card so he had it deleted altogether and some goldleaf embossing added instead.



We can hardly wait to see Tony Gazebo's response on his new Treasury Board bizcard.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Most Canadians totally cool with Canada-US security perimeter deal

according to this G&M headline yesterday : Nearly half of Canadians oppose greater integration with U.S. law enforcement.

The headline refers to the Harper government release yesterday of its summary of the government website public consultation process about Steve and Barry's deep integration deal known as Beyond the Border: a shared vision for perimeter security and economic competitiveness.

"Nearly half of Canadians oppose " ?
So turning that headline around : more than half of Canadians approve of security integration with the US?
How many actual Canadians are we talking about here, G&M?

500 according to the gov report. More than 1,000 Canadians submitted their thoughts to the government website set up to "consult with Canadians" on how much sovereignty and privacy they are willing to trade off for greater access to US markets.
Also included were representatives from the provinces; business groups like the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, think tanks, unions, academics, First Nations, and corporations like Imperial Tobacco and Bombardier.

Other media coverage :
Canadian Chamber of Commerce president Perrin Beatty told the Toronto Star today in : Upcoming Harper-Obama talks last, best hope to slow post-9/11 border chokehold :

"We have to ask ourselves: What is the reason for the government presence along the 49th parallel at this stage in the 21st century?"

Corporate Television Vehicle confined their coverage on "consultations with Canadians" to an interview with Foreign Affairs Min John Baird in Cross-border policing concerns some Canadians: report. 
Baird explained why we need this deal : "Jobs, jobs, jobs."
When the news anchor asked what other issues besides jobs came up, Baird replied : "Jobs, jobs, jobs."
Also : "Jobs."

Toronto Sun : Calls for a freer border

Ok, so you get the idea on media coverage.
So what's it say about deeper security integration in the actual report?

What Canadians told us: A Summary on Consultations on Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness

The bulk of submissions on information sharing came from the National Airlines Council of Canada, the tourism associations of the United States and Canada, the Greater Toronto Airports Authority and the Air Transport Association of Canada. They recommended that Canada and the United States align their advanced passenger-screening programs and also recommended that this process include the sharing of passenger data. The Customs and Immigration Union, whose members work at Canada's borders, as well as inland, recommended that joint Canada-United States information databases be made available to border personnel and be used to support enhanced screening at Canada's points of entry.

In support of expediting border crossing times, it was suggested that advanced passenger-screening programs be expanded to common carriers on land such as buses and trains. The Air Transport Association of Canada proposed merging Canada's Passenger Protect Program with the United States' Secure Flight program into a single North American “no-fly” list as a way to standardize the application of such lists within the North American perimeter.

In which case Maher Arar will certainly never fly from Vancouver to Kamloops again.

Submissions from individuals who supported information sharing ... A small number of those making submissions indicated a belief that Canada's immigration and refugee practices were lax and therefore a threat to national security, and proposed the integration of these policies with those of the United States.

Biometrics are methods of identifying people based on physical traits, such as fingerprint analysis; facial recognition; DNA, palm print or hand geometry analysis; and retina or iris recognition. While there was not a significant amount of input relating to biometrics, those organizations that did comment on this topic supported using biometrics.

The Customs and Immigration Union called for the deployment of an enhanced lookout system with face recognition biometric technology. The Canadian Council of Chief Executives, a national association of business leaders, called for Canada and the United States to work to accelerate international efforts toward the adoption of common global standards for biometric data. In their joint submission, the Tourism Industry Association of Canada and the U.S. Travel Association called for the collection of biometric data for travellers from key emerging markets such as Brazil, India, China, Russia and Mexico.

The Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the Customs and Immigration Union ... called for the expansion of existing intelligence sharing and law enforcement partnerships. The Canadian Council of Chief Executives also suggested that joint law enforcement programs be introduced on land with a similar mandate.

Deepening Canada-United States Collaboration on Cyber-Security Matters
The Canadian Council of Chief Executives recognized the current success of collaboration efforts with the United States on these issues and called for a binational cyberspace defence strategy developed in collaboration with the private sector and end-users in both countries. They noted that such initiatives should include information technology suppliers and end users, all of whom share responsibility for preventing, responding to and recovering from physical and cyber disruptions of critical infrastructure.

That's a whole lot of Canadian Council of Chief Executives, isn't it? 
As CCCE President John Manley put it in December :

"The real question will be what do we get at the border in exchange for greater co-ordination on security."

Fuck all so far, John, no matter how much sovereignty and privacy we give up.


Final note to Globe &Mail headline writers. From the report :

"Moving forward, it is important to keep in mind that the results of the consultation described in this report are a reflection solely of the views of those who provided input. This report is not a reflection of the views of all Canadians and is not intended to be representative of all views on these issues."

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The Treasury Board President of Gazebos and Funny Funneling

Steve was evidently so pleased with ShamWow Tony Clement's ability to put one over on Auditor General Sheila Fraser by leaving no paper trail of the funneling of $50M of our tax dollars through his own riding office - money purportedly intended for G8 border security - that right after the election Steve made him the boss of all our money - President of the Treasury Board - responsible for ethics, transparency, accountability, and the financial and administrative management of government.

Collateral damage : the compromising of public servants from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Industry Canada, and Infrastructure Canada who may or may not have helped him do it. Now we'll never know. Certainly they denied their involvement to Sheila Fraser but they were there at the meetings with ShamWow Tony, the mayor, and the manager of the Deerhurst Resort when - as Minister of Pork, Gazebos, and Funny Funneling - Clement recommended 33 local projects to then Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Accountability John Baird, who approved 32 of them.

According to the new AG John Wiersema, apparently having a majority means never having to say you're sorry.

Hill Times . Toronto Star . Pogge. 
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Wednesday Update : Hill Times again.
Seems the municipal leaders in Tony's select gazebo-vetting committee awarded their own projects $41.4-million of the $50-million total. Municipalities not on the committee got to share the $2.5-million remainder.
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John Baird struts and frets his hour upon the world stage

G&M today : Boycotting N. Korean term, John Baird vows to seek reform of UN arms panel

"The Harper government has decided to boycott the United Nations Conference on Disarmament for a month because it’s North Korea’s turn to take the helm."

WSJ, June 30, 2011 : NK Leads UN Conference

"For his part, the North Korean delegate assigned to lead the conference, So Se Pyong, said he would do his best to revitalize the conference. Then he announced a one-month vacation and said work would resume in early August."

Pogge : The adventures of Angry McPointy on the world stage
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The new face of Canadian diplomacy

'OK, Pogge, I'll see you a "Now representing Canada on the world stage" and raise you a "New face of Canadian diplomacy".

The man who named his cat "Thatcher" is rumoured to be named today as our new Minister of Sucking Up to the US.

Update : Confirmed.
Peter van Loan will replace him as the new Government Angry McPointy.  ™

Also ...

Christian Paradis, formerly Minister of Natural Resources and Asbestos, is now Minister of Industry and Asbestos

Tony Clement, formerly Minister of Gazebos, becomes President of the Treasury Board, where he will be in charge of cutting billions from federal spending.

Maxime Bernier, sometime Minister of Cleavage and Leaving State Secrets Lying Around, is the new Minister of State for Small Business and Tourism and Climate Change Skepticism.

Bev Oda, Minister of "Not", stays on as Minister of "Not".

Etc. etc. ...

And then after his morning presser on the new cabinet appointments, Steve announced three failed Con candidates, including two who quit the Senate to run in the last election, to his Senate of Unelectable Cons.
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Election 2011 : Steve : Majority rule or bring on the coloured scarves

At the 3:20 minute mark in Don Newman's interview with John Baird in December 2008, Baird explains how the Cons plan to do an end run around being defeated in Parlament by shuttering it.

Baird : "I think what we want to do is basically take a time out and go over the heads of the members of Parliament, go over the heads frankly of the Governor General, go right to the Canadian people.

Newman : "You live in a British parliamentary system and in a British parliamentary system it is only legitimate for the government to be the government if it can sustain support in the House of Commons, and to say now that you're going to go over their heads, brush them aside, they're not even important anymore ..."

After a bit of bluster, Baird repeats his intention about going over the heads of Parliament and the GG "directly to the people".
Newman asks if this is going to be "like Kiev with people wearing different coloured scarves" in the streets.

After listening to Steve's creepy interview with Mansbridge, I think the Cons have decided - as a defeated government this time round - that it's time for the coloured scarves.

Harper questions right of opposition parties to form government

Stephen Harper is challenging a key element of Canada’s parliamentary democracy, saying the ability of the opposition parties to defeat his minority government and be asked to govern themselves is open to “debate.”

In an interview with CBC News on Thursday, Harper refused to concede that the opposition parties have the constitutional right to form government after the May 2 vote if they can win backing of most MPs in the House of Commons.

At first, he dismissed the question as a “constitutional theoretical discussion.”

But asked whether the opposition parties would have the “right” to form government, Harper said “that’s a question, a debate of constitutional law.

If the other guys win, they get a shot at government and I don’t think you challenge that unless you are prepared to go back to the people,” he said.

“We’ll be into another election before too long. That’s why I think need a majority mandate. I think this has gone on long enough.”

Wow. Just wow.

Parliamentary expert Ned Franks dismissed Harper’s comments as “constitutional nonsense.”

“What he’s trying to do is elevate expediency into a constitutional principle.”

What he's threatening to do is provoke a constitutional crisis over his inability to share power, to play according to the rules in the sandbox, to not be king.

He was not always so pathological about it.

In Our Benign Dictatorship, a paper he wrote with Tom Flanagan 15 years ago and to which I've referred before, Steve makes the case for functioning coalition governments supported by proportional representation in Canada :

"Among major democracies, only Great Britain so ruthlessly concentrates power.
In the United States, President Clinton cannot govern without making concessions to the Republicans in Congress. In Germany, Chancellor Kohl needs to keep the support not only of the CSU but of the Free Democrats. In France, the presidency and the national assembly are often controlled by different party coalitions. In most of the rest of Europe, proportional representation ensures that coalition governments routinely form cabinets. In Australia, the Liberal prime minister needs the National Party for a majority in the House of Representatives and, often, the support of additional parties to get legislation through the Senate.

In New Zealand, which used to have a Canadian-style system of concentrated power, the voters rebelled against alternating Labour party and National party dictatorships: electoral reform now ensures coalition cabinets."

Ten days ago in the leaders debate, Jack Layton turned to Harper and said : "You’ve become what you used to oppose. You’ve changed in some way. What's happened to you?"
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Surprise! We Are Voting! No You Aren't!

(updated below)
You really have to wonder what was going through the head of Michael Sona, communications director for Guelph Conservative candidate Marty Burke, when he barged into the special advance ballot arranged by Elections Canada for students at Guelph University, "making a huge scene stating that this polling station was illegal and tried to grab for the ballot box."

Maybe he thought the two previously successful federal election polls held at U of G were quite enough. Maybe he saw another party's ads too close to the polling station. Maybe, like John Baird, he found all this 'get out the youth vote' flash mob stuff to be "disconcerting".

Or just maybe he realized there was no friggin way there was anything like a majority of Con votes among those 700 sealed votes in those ballot boxes. In which case - interesting he would cop to that.

Guelph was also where the original non-partisan vote mob was held on April 4th in response to Rick Mercer's challenge to young people to "do the unexpected" and get out and vote.

The Cons didn't much care for that one either :

Several students who were participants in the non-partisan "Surprise! Youth are voting!" flash mob outside the Con rally in Guelph were refused entry into the Con rally afterwards by the RCMP despite having registered for it :

"A Conservative Party of Canada official approached them and indicated they were not welcome because of their involvement in an action that was perceived as a protest by party insiders".

Now the Conservative Party of Canada has written to Elections Canada yesterday to disqualify the Guelph students' votes :

"request that none of the votes collected during the U of G session be included in the final tally of votes in the Guelph riding. The letter was sent by lawyer Arthur Hamilton, of Toronto-based law firm, Cassels Brock."

[Say, aren't you the same Con lawyer who dished the dirt on Helena Guergis? ]

"Elections Canada media advisor James Hale said this was the third election during which the university of Guelph held a special ballot on campus. And this is the first time it’s ever been challenged, Hale said."

Well you know the Cons aren't overly fond of Elections Canada either at the moment.

Meanwhile the Vote Mobs : Youth are voting this election! rolls on across the country. Watch their vids. Pretty inspiring stuff.

More : Dr. Dawg.

Friday Night Update : Elections Canada rejects Tory effort to annul votes at University of Guelph 

The Guelph ballot collection was not technically an advance poll but rather a way to collect a batch of 'special' ballots which are put in sealed envelopes and then the students' names will then be checked against the voters list on May 2. So to answer Con lawyer's complaint - proximity of election ads to collection box presumably even not an issue.  Former DRO James Bow explains it at Dr. Dawg's.

Elections Canada News Release via Dammit Janet :

"A special ballot coordinator, appointed by the local returning officer, oversaw the activities at the University of Guelph. All information at our disposal indicates that the votes were cast in a manner that respects the Canada Elections Act and are valid."

So the Guelph campus vote has been validated by Elections Canada, however EC has ruled against future ballot collection sessions on campus instead of at the local EC office.

Score one for the Cons here. Remember this was the third election that such a ballot collection session was held on Guelph campus to enable students in the middle of exams to vote. Con operative makes a grab for the ballot box, Con Party sends off lawyery letter, and now EC has clarified against any other campus doing this for students in future in this election.

They really are the Contempt party, aren't they?
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Saturday Night Update : Elections Canada Senior General Counsel issues what appears to be a mild rebuke of the Con spin :

"In his letter, Mr. Hamilton refers to calls that were placed yesterday to the Public Inquiries unit regarding the situation at Guelph University and the statements made by Mr. Boutet who tried to assist him. I have spoken to Mr. Boutet and he indicated that he had not understood the situation as described in Mr. Hamilton's letter."

Lead Now : Tell Elections Canada: Let Students Vote on Campus 
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Adventures in Con Leakage to lobbyists - Part 3.

On Tuesday the Procedures and House Affairs Committee heard from Russell Ullyatt, the former Con MP Kelly Block staffer who leaked a draft copy of the Finance Committee report to Con-connected lobbyists before MPs had seen it.

Today we got Con MP Kelly Block herself before the PROC committee, already ably live-blogged by Kady so I'm not going to blow-by-blow it, except to note that the meeting immediately descends into the committee Cons - Scott Reid, Tom Lukiwski, Ted Menzies, and the Chair Joe Preston - circling the wagons around Block to prevent her from answering any of the questions raised by Ullyatt's previous testimony. How they think this helps her personal credibility as an MP at all I have no idea.

This committee, like most of them, is composed of 50% Con MPs including a Con chair.
If the chair doesn't like a particular line of questioning, he disallows the witness from answering and that's the end of it.

Today Chair Joe Preston refused to hear any questions following on from Ullyatt's testimony on Tuesday, while the Con MPs used up their allotted time praising the apparently sainted Block for appearing before committee at all and hey isn't her son coming back from Australia today? and what are her plans for Christmas? OK, I made that last one up - only the last one.

Blocked line of questioning from opp members :
What about the printer with its pallets of boxes of mailouts stacked outside Block's office that were presumably part of Ullyatt's private direct mail business? Was it run out of her office? What was in them? More leaks? Didn't she ask him about them some time over the past two years he was in her employ?

NDP Mulcair elicits from Block that Ullyatt was recommended to her employ by Con MP Rob Clark. Ah. As already noted, when Ullyatt was Clark's campaign manager before coming to Block, RCMP in uniform were discovered using RCMP vehicles to deliver Clark campaign signs, causing a wee stir in the media about blurring use of gov resources for Party partisan reasons. You can guess where Mulcair is going with this and so does the chair who immediately shuts him down.

Much of the two hour meeting with Block posted on the committee agenda was taken up with opp members registering their outrage that Block mentioned she was only staying for one hour. Whose idea was that? Because it's going to take more than a couple of five minute attempts each by opp members to get any relevant questions past the chair.

My guess : As no one knew the two hour session was being cut to one hour before Block mentioned it after being escorted into the meeting by House Leader and veteran defender-of-witnesses-from-committees John Baird, I'm guessing we can draw our own conclusions where that particular one hour directive shutting down hour two with the committee came from.

Anyway Block declines to stay, down comes the gavel and she's whisked away by a posse - the meeting and the committee adjourned till next year - leaving us none the wiser about anything from her testimony.
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While Steve clears some more brush at his ranch ...

... over at Maclean's it is being remarked that Stephen Harper is actually one of those "Toronto elites" John Baird has been slagging lately :

Richview Collegiate Institute : "Richview is well-known across Etobicoke for having a primarily upper class population..."

So naturally someone mentioned in the comments that Steve is writing a book and next up is ...

Holly Stick : Working title "Mein Puck".

LOLZ. Thank you, Holly.

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Steve : Fresh muzzles all round for everyone!

According to Jane, Steve has a new initiative to protect the Cons from their own appallingly bad ideas.

Twenty-six committees, comprised of three senators and six MPs each, will vet "proposed legislation, regulations and even ideas" before they hit daylight or an uninitiated Con MP's lips. Under the watchful eye of John Baird and his former chief of staff, Rick Dykstra - both Mike Harris alumni - and with the parliamentary secretary from each ministry serving as the committee chair, the idea is to identify C.R.A.P. ideas - like gutting the census and building sports arenas in Con-convenient places - before they can set the curtains on fire.

"These permanent committees have a mandate to provide a new layer of troubleshooting ... to flag potential policy land mines to cabinet, catch issues that may fly in Ontario but won’t play well in Western Canada, help with communications strategy and reduce the dependence on ministers receiving advice from bureaucrats sitting in Ottawa."

Screw the policy making; let's ignore the already muzzled people who have spent their professional lives making policy and just troll for better PR in the Bushlands .

Mr. Harper asked several of his senior caucus members – Mr. Dykstra, ... Marjory LeBreton, the leader of the Government in the Senate; and former House leader Jay Hill – to work on the initiative."

That would be the same Jay Hill, now replaced as House bully by John Baird, who previously oversaw the implementation of the Cons dirty tricks manual, aka the Cons Guide to Chaos, for destroying the parliamentary committees.
You know, the same all-party parliamentary committees these new Steve-appointed Con committees are so obviously intended to eventually replace.
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On coalitions, mergers and aquisitions

Liberal MP Martha Hall Findlay stood three separate times in the House on Friday to beg the Cons for recognition of the "important work" the Liberal Party had done to ensure the expected passage of the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement at third reading today.

MHF to TradeMin Peter Van Loan :

Mr. Speaker, could the minister speak to the participation of Liberal Party, in particular of my colleague from Kings—Hants, [Scott Brison] that resulted in an addition to this free trade agreement with respect to human rights, of which Liberals are very proud? I believe it was singularly important in being able to get our support for it.
Could the minister speak to Liberals' very constructive participation in the process?

Well we didn't really need your unnecessary figleaf of a human rights amendment that allows Colombia to do its own year-end reports on its human rights atrocities, Peter Van Loan did not quite answer, but then Van Loan's Parliamentary Secretary Con MP Gerald Keddy graciously acceded to her request that the Libs be given credit for it :

I would say that I appreciated the intervention by [LibCon Scott Brison] ... We were, quite frankly, stymied at committee. We were not moving forward. It enabled us to move forward.

Martha Hall Findlay pressed ahead for more pats:

I will point out that earlier, the minister had said that the addition in terms of human rights was not necessary. I am glad to hear my colleague now acknowledging that in order to move this through and to get approval, in fact, the work by my colleague from Kings—Hants [Brison] and the Liberal Party was instrumental in getting this to the point of getting it through the House, so I thank my colleague for that.

Bloc MP Jean-Yves Laforest :

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. Liberal member a question. How can she explain such a drastic change in the Liberal Party's position since last fall, both in committee and in the House, regarding possible support for a free trade agreement with Colombia?
This support was very clearly expressed at the Standing Committee on International Trade. Unanimous consent was reached regarding the need for an independent study—before Canada ratifies the agreement—on the Colombian government's respect for human rights and what it is doing to prevent human rights abuses. Why such a difference between the Liberals' position last fall and their current position?

Martha Hall Findlay now moves into full on Brison fluffer position :

In the end, we determined that it was better to adopt this position for Canada and for people elsewhere.
I would also like to say that the speeches given by my hon. colleague from Kings—Hants [Brison] on human rights greatly helped convince other Liberals that, as a party, we can now support that position.

Brison's speeches! LOFL.
NDP MP Peter Julian points out the very long list of Canadian and Colombian unions and aboriginal and African-Colombians that

"the Liberal Party systematically obstructed and refused to hear from. It shut off all debate before the committee. Two years ago, when we went down to Colombia, the trade committee came back with a unanimous recommendation to not proceed with this agreement."

Martha Hall Findlay says some more things about "the hard work and the excellent work" of Scott Brison and at least the Libs are trying to get along with the Cons, you know? Windows not doors, going forward and all that.

After QP, Transport Minister John Baird had one thing to say in response as debate on Canada-Colombia FTA resumed :

"Unanimous consent to resolve that Jack Layton is the leader of the official opposition, agreed."

Ouch.
I know - not quite the coalition/merger post you were expecting.
But it's the only one that's going on, as the Cons continue to ride the Libs for it.
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Tuesday Update : Libs and Cons - 188 votes ... NDP and Bloc - 79

Scant news coverage today of what amounts to Canadian complicity in a death sentence for trade unionists, small farmers, aboriginals, Afro-Colombians, and the 4 million displaced inside Colombia. In 2009, half the assassinations of trade unionists world wide - 48 out of 100 - took place in Colombia.

Oh wait. Canadian Business Online has something :
House of Commons passes controversial Colombia FTA :

A Human Rights Watch report last year on a massacre in Colombia, and an Amnesty International report, concluded that things have gotten worse in Colombia.

In December 2008, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights criticized the Colombian government for its public stance against human rights advocates on its own soil. The stigmatization of such groups puts their ``life, security and valuable work at risk,'' it said.

Thank you for that, Canadian Business.
I am past disgusted with the fools and knaves and opportunists who represent Canada today.
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Parliamentarian of the Year

Liberal Chair Yasmin Ratansi struggled to maintain order at the Government Operations Committee yesterday after Transport Minister John Baird, flanked by the Ministers of Asbestos and Creationism, showed up uninvited as witnesses in place of their staff.

Here Baird accuses the Chair of not knowing her job and lectures her on committee procedure in his trademark bullying pugnacious tone.

But it is Baird who is wrong here. He is correct that the rules allow him to sit in on committees as an MP if he likes. What he cannot do as a witness is raise motions and points of order, yet he does so repeatedly while bashing the Chair for not knowing the rules.

Later on at a Macleans gala, Baird received the Parliamentarian of the Year Award in a vote responded to by 202 out of 308 of MPs.

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Poilievre : "No one takes Ethics Committee summons seriously"

"At the end of the day, [Ethics Committee Chair]Paul Szabo and this kangaroo court have no credibility and no one takes their summons seriously."

So said Con MP Pierre Poilievre in August two years ago when he was only an associate member of the Ethics Committee.
Since becoming fully-fledged, and also Parliamentary Secretary to Steve, his job there is apparently to pipe up "Point of order" every few minutes like some demented Energizer bunny until the Chair finally cuts his mike.

Lib Wayne Easter's spirited response to John Baird's surprise appearance before the Ethics Committee on Tuesday in place of Dimitri Soudas as scheduled has already been well covered.

Chair Paul Szabo first let Baird speak, setting off an hour of angry motions to dismiss the usurper - interspersed with Poilievre's points! of! order! - versus the Con committee members dutifully bent over their brand new talking points on "ministerial responsibility for their staffers", carefully read aloud heads bowed down, when it was their turn to speak.
Eventually Szabo broke a tie vote over whether or not to let Baird stay and booted him out.

Well sure. After all, as Minister of Transport, Baird is not Soudas' boss and would not be able to answer any of the questions the committee was intending to ask Soudas, despite Baird's sinister hand waving about something he called "collective responsibility".
And as Bloc Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac pointed out, the last time a minister appeared before the committee on behalf of one of their staffers - that would be Christian Paradis, Minister of Asbestos - his idea of "ministerial responsibility" was to just blame the staffer.

Bloc Carole Freeman brought up committees' right to subpoena witnesses, reminding that Soudas

"is an ordinary citizen and should be treated as such. A house leader does not have the power to change existing rules simply by standing up in the House and making a statement."

But then there was another tie vote following that I haven't seen discussed.

What to do about the many named bureaucrats already scheduled to appear in the few weeks remaining before the committee last meets on June 22? And what to do if their ministers wanted to show up in their staffers' place?

Chair Szabo asked for a motion to give him authority to summon the witnesses already scheduled to appear ... if necessary ... even if it meant allowing those witnesses' ministers to come as substitutes in their stead.

A pretty weak motion but as he explained, they were waiting on an expected future ruling by the Speaker on such witness substitutions. And he was only asking for either the scheduled witness or his/her minister to appear if that's what was offered.

OK so it was an astoundingly weak motion to exercise parliamentary committees' right to summon witnesses, but you know what? That vote was tied up 5 to 5 - the Cons vs everyone else - and only passed because the Chair broke it by voting in favour.

Pierre Poilievre suggested what he called "a friendly amendment" to solve the impasse over the next scheduled witness :

"just replace the name of the political staffer in question with the name of the Minister."

Your moment of hideous irony : The work currently before the committee is looking into "allegations of systematic political interference by ministers' offices to block, delay, or obstruct the release of information to the public regarding the operation of government departments".
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Orange Alert! Orange Alert! now with shiny things!

"Vigilance is at a medium level. This is not 9/11, but the information we have
received is of concern and we need to have heightened vigilance," said Mr. Baird.

But the attempted airliner bombing on Christmas Day could be a "pilot project" for attacks on North America and represents the first time al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula has attempted to strike this part of the world, Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan said.

CTV, the G&M, the Star, and NaPo are all reporting on the Transport Canada "heightened alert" for Canadian airports this last weekend, a full two weeks after the Detroit underwear bomber told of 20 more guys in Yemen planning attacks on North America.
And apparently there's also the other terrorists ...

"But sources say Canadian intelligence also had credible information of other terrorists planning to come to Canada.
Federal authorities say the terrorists did not pose a direct threat to Canada. They were not planning to blow up a Canadian airliner, nor were they planning terrorist attacks at the Olympic Games in Vancouver and Whistler, or some other target in Canada."
The terrorists want to use Canada as a jumping-off point to get into the U.S."

So we should be scared, but not too scared?


Robert Fife wastes no time getting to the point : The Canada-US border would be shut down immediately, he said - a disaster because 75% of our trade is with the US.

Then CTV, the Star, and the G&M all end their reports with :

In addition to the heightened security already in place, Transport Canada said it will install full-body scanners at major Canadian airports by the spring.

even though full-body scanners would not have stopped the underwear guy anyway.

Say, will we be buying the scanners promoted by former Homeland Security czar Michael Chertoff, who now represents Rapiscan, "one of the leading manufacturers of whole-body-imaging machines"?

Security theatre plus expensive new shiny things.
Scanners might not be any good at detecting whatever device the next Detroit bomber is carrying; what they will do is keep our trucks rolling across the Detroit River.
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Ok, John, seeing as you put it that way...

Rising to a question in the House yesterday as to why the Cons refused to act on first-hand accounts of detainee abuse in Afghan jails from troops, John Baird responded by asking why the leader of the opposition does not trust the word of "General Walter Natynczyk, a decorated war hero, someone who has served our country in uniform for decades"?

OK, John, seeing as you put it that way, we'll go with the general's account then.

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The Cons : Six days in a leaky boat

Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt's communications director leaves a binder of documents marked "Secret" about the nuclear industry behind at CTV News following interview with Raitt. She resigns.

Same communications director leaves tape recorder behind in House of Commons washroom. Enclosed tape had been left on accidentally and is said to have recorded Raitt making disparaging comments about Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq.
Ex-communications director is in court right now to prevent the Halifax Chronicle Herald from publishing contents of tape. Official government position : "Nothing to do with us."

Four board members at the Toronto Port Authority reported that when Lisa Raitt was its CEO, lunch could cost nearly $1000 and management approved their own expenses.
ETA : Transport Minister John Baird responded by changing the TPA constitution to add two new board members the day after parliament was shut down so Steve wouldn't lose his job prorogued in December, putting the four complaining board members in a minority position. Olivia Chow alleges move was a cover-up to protect Lisa Raitt.

Steve gets busted by whistleblower who forwards docs to Le Devoir confirming the HarperCon strategy at the 2007 Climate Change Conference in Bali to surreptitiously undermine the Bali agreement on greenhouse gas reductions while publicly appearing to support it. Strategy consisted of sowing division among European nations - Boris nails it.

I have to go out for a little bit. If there are any further leaks while I'm gone, please leave me a message in comments.
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4:30 Update : The Chronicle Herald -1, Lisa Raitt's ex-aide -0 :
On the now partially published tape which you can listen to at the above link, Raitt and MacDonnell discuss Raitt's political opportunities dealing with the isotope "crisis" :

"We had to control the agenda."

"It's sexy. Radioactive leaks. Cancer. Nuclear contamination"

Raitt :

"Because when we win on this, we get all the credit. I’m ready to roll the dice on this. This is an easy one. You know what solves this problem? Money. And if it’s just about money, we’ll figure it out. It’s not a moral issue."

Oh dear. Cancer and nuclear contamination as sexy career opportunities.
Plus there's a bonus Oh dear for Iggy :

"Ms. Raitt tells the man driving them around Victoria that Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff had backed down from defeating the Conservative government on a budget a few days earlier because he got a message from Canadian bankers.

"They did it at the Canadian Council of (Chief) Executives, there was three presidents of major banks who stood up in the room — and this is not from cabinet so I can talk about it — stood up and said, 'Ignatieff, don’t you even think about bringing us to an election,' " said Ms. Raitt.
"'We don’t need this. We have no interest in this. And we will never fund your party again.' That was very powerful. So he heard it from very powerful people in the industry. He was definitely muzzled."

Ooops. And here I thought the CCCE controlling the ConservaLiberals was supposed to be just a tinfoil hatful of bloggy conspiracy theories.
January. That would put it right about when Iggy snuffed the coalition of opposition parties.
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