Erin O'Toole and "an insurance company like Veterans Affairs"

Evan Solomon spent much of Power and Politics two days ago trying to get Con MP and ParlSec Erin O-Toole to respond to recently revealed records showing nearly 900 job positions eliminated across Veterans Affairs with the biggest cuts going to the Disability Awards branch. 

60 senior VA managers were paid $360K in bonuses for making the cuts, spun by Harper in the House last Wednesday as "taking resources out of backroom administration and putting them into services".

"How are these backroom cuts", asked Solomon, "when some people might call them front line services?"

O'Toole didn't answer the question directly, you'll be shocked to hear, instead opting for various bizarre defences like this one at the 5:17 mark:

"The Veterans Independence Program was notoriously cumbersome. I think all MPs heard about the bills for snow removal, lawn maintenance, house cleaning. We're pre-approving now and so some of these changes have led to less paperwork."

What's he on about? More troops have taken their own lives since than were killed in action in Afghanistan and he's going on about lawn maintenance and paperwork.

But ok, let's go with that.

The Veterans Independence Program awards eligible veterans with health needs money to pay for housekeeping, grounds maintenance, personal care and other services. 

In April 2012, over two and a half years ago, Veterans Affairs Minister Steven Blaney announced veterans would no longer have to pay for the services upfront and then submit individual receipts for services to the federal government for reimbursement. Instead they would receive the payments upfront.

"It's all about cutting red tape," said Blaney.

Sounds good. But here's what Major Mark Campbell, who lost both his legs in Afghanistan in 2008 and is one of six vets taking the government to court in BC, had to say about the changes to that very VIP program four days prior to O'Toole's remarks [10:00 mark]:

"What the government says on the one hand with the spin and denials, and what I see on the other hand as a recipient, a client of Veterans Affairs, are two very different things. And this is the problem - there is a fundamental disconnect between what the government is saying and what we veterans, especially the new veterans under the new Veterans Charter, are actually experiencing on the ground. 

I mean we're seeing reductions in the Veterans Independence Program for lawn care and house care under the new grant program. They didn't bother to tell us that under the new needs matrix by and large results in about a 50% reduction in the previous benefit. There's things like that go on left, right, and centre and it boggles the mind what you experience dealing with an insurance company called Veterans Affairs."

Jesus, O'Toole, even the responses you give to avoid answering questions are crap.  Veterans Affairs underspent its budget by $133 million in 2013-14 and your bunch are dicking veterans around about things like house and lawn care and then bs-ing about it?

Un-friggin-believable.

Major Mark Campbell, as Boris has already pointed out, is a powerful advocate for the Equitas-backed court case. If you're curious about what it's like for new veterans to deal with "an insurance company like Veterans Affairs" when their injuries exceed the allowed financial payout limits, here ya go ... Also an excellent summation of the whole debacle.

Update : Erin O'Toole responds in comments
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The BC Northern Gateway Pipeline 21

21 Con MPs from BC who apparently side with Enbridge rather than BC.

Kerry-Lynne Findlay : "NEB JRP conducted a rigorous/independent science-based review, heard from 1450+ parties & reviewed over 175K pages of evidence"

Mark Warawa : "Panel heard +1450 participants, reviewed +175,000 pages of evidence & 9,000 letters Concluded pipeline n public interest, can build safely"

Bob Zimmer : "The National Energy Board (NEB) Joint Review Panel conducted a rigorous, independent, science-based review, hearing from over 1450 participants in 21 communities and reviewing over 175 000 pages of evidence and 9000 letters."

Ok, enough of the wurlitzer ... but just for fun -- James Lunney : "Science settled? Think again! The Global Warming Hiatus..NP http://bit.ly/1i8A55F" 

So how's everyone doing with having elected MPs to represent Enbridge to them? From Nanos :

and yesterday's CBC Power and Politics Poll :

BTW, Evan Solomon, when frequent CBC  "power panellist" Alise MIlls tells you that the government's pipeline approval is "fair and balanced" and 

"internal polling that I've seen from the company that I work with" shows "a much more moveable vote", 

that's your cue to mention that the company she works with is the oil industry front group British Columbians for Prosperity.  
The group's founder, ex-oilman Bruce Lounds, has said their funding comes from "a combination of private citizens and corporate donations", but according to Mills, "he is no longer one of the key decision makers in the group"  :

Mills downplayed the executive director's statements regarding funding, saying he is no longer one of the key decision makers in the group.  She added that she is, along with a Board of Directors.  She said she would eventually disclose the board's names and full budget.

The best Northern Gateway Pipeline approval quote comes not from any of the above MPS but from the father of one of them, Enbridge lobbyist Chuck Strahl :

 “The federal government is loathe to go against expert opinion on science-based reports.”

*cough*  5 times Canadians were utterly misled about the Northern Gateway pipeline  *cough*

Write to the Enbridge 21 here :

Subject : You let BC down by siding with Enbridge

Your government just approved the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline and supertankers project. But the people of BC have already said no, and this pipeline will never be built. 

Over 130 First Nations have created a united wall of opposition and have launched numerous legal challenges. Eight out of eleven communities in the path of the pipeline and tankers have rejected it, including Kitimat, Prince Rupert, Ft St James, Terrace, and Charlotte City. Even the entire Union of BC Municipalities voted to oppose the project, twice.  

Only two responses out of 1,161 to the Joint Review Panel were in support of the project, and public opinion polls have consistently shown 2/3 of the province is opposed.
The Enbridge Northern Gateway project threatens our coastal economy, our land, water, First Nations, and our independence as a province to make our own decisions about our future. 

As an MP from BC, you let us down. You could have helped defend beautiful British Columbia from the Enbridge project, but instead you chose to gamble BC’s future.
You and your party will pay a steep political price in BC.
Northern gateway will be an election issue in 2015, and I pledge to vote for a candidate who will stand up for BC and stop this pipeline from being built. 

[Your name here]

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Geoff Norquay - temporary foreign workers lobbyist

Dear CBC Power and Politics : The next time you invite Harper's former director of communications Geoff Norquay onto your Power Panel to reflect on the issues of the day, I think it's time you mentioned that from November 2012 until Sept 2013 he was a lobbyist for Tim Hortons to : 

"increase the number of foreign temporary workers allowed into Canada under the Foreign Temporary Worker's Program".  

Norquay lobbied both Citizenship and Immigration and Human Resources and Skills Development Canada. 

Tim Hortons isn't Norquay's only TFW lobbying gig [bold italics - mine]: 

Client name: Microsoft Canada 

Lobbyist name: Geoff Norquay, Consultant 

Initial registration start date: 2006-04-06 to present

Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada

• Discussions with federal officials in the Departments of Employment and Social Development, Citizenship and Immigration, Industry Canada and Privy Council Office regarding the establishment of the British Columbia Excellence Centre to facilitate entry into Canada of foreign nationals to work in software development on a rotational basis under the Temporary Foreign Workers Program.

And lo - last month Microsoft announced it would be launching a Canada Excellence Centre in Vancouver. The news about it up here was pretty much all jobs jobs jobs :

CBC : Microsoft Canada Excellence Centre to bring 400 jobs to Vancouver

Vancouver Sun : Microsoft to open new centre in Vancouver, 400 new jobs

HuffPo : Microsoft Canada Announces Vancouver Centre, 400 Jobs


South of the border however the same story was about how Microsoft was moving here to access Canada's more open policy to bringing in temporary foreign workers, after the US limit was reached for the year :

Canada welcomes any highly skilled worker who has a job offer, and salaries for tech workers are about 10 percent to 15 percent lower than in the U.S.
Karen Jones, Microsoft’s deputy general counsel, says her company applied for about twice the roughly 750 H-1B visas it received for 2015. “The U.S. laws clearly did not meet our needs,” she says. “We have to look to other places.” Microsoft will hire and train 400 software developers from around the world to work on mobile and cloud projects. Jones says Microsoft didn’t choose to expand in Vancouver “purely for immigration purposes, but immigration is a factor.”

OK, so a boost to the economy but not 400 Canadians jobs.
Yeah, I think we heard about this plan in 2007 :  Microsoft sings 'O Canada' amid immigration challenges

"Amid challenges getting enough foreign programmers admitted into the U.S., Microsoft plans this fall to open a development center in Canada.The new software development center will open somewhere in the Vancouver, British Columbia, area and will be "home to software developers from around the world," Microsoft said in a statement on Thursday.
"The Vancouver area is ... close to Microsoft's corporate offices in Redmond, Washington."

H/t Bill Curry at G&M for mention of Norquay/Microsoft connection : 
Businesses lobby to salvage foreign worker program

although the quote from the lobbyist registry appears to be cut off at the bottom of the story just before the words "under the Temporary Foreign Workers Program" 

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Stephen Maher interviews Del Mastro on his elections violations

Fifteen months ago, Stephen Harper's Parliamentary Secretary and robocalls pointman Dean Del Mastro made an unscheduled surprise visit to CBC's Power and Politics panel to defend himself against a breaking McMaher story that he was being investigated by Elections Canada for allegedly incurring costs that breached the spending limit for his 2008 election campaign. EC laid charges against him yesterday.

Stephen Maher was on that June 2012 panel and this is a rare opportunity to hear DM using his indoor voice.
Excerpted from above : 

Maher: If you look at the campaign statements, the expence statements, there's a record of $1500 going to this company Holinshed but not a record of $21,000 and I don't know if you've had a chance yet to look back and see what that $21,000 was for.

Del Mastro : They undertook a small amount of work during the campaign, during the actual campaign writ, that's reflected in that campaign expenditure. They did also undertake some work at various times both for, well, for my [riding]association, so they would be on separate statements. As you know, expenditures incurred during a writ period are reflected in the election return, and campaign, er, expenses that are incurred outside of a writ period for an association are reflected on the association's files.

Campaign expenses outside of the writ? 

Jennifer Ditchburn : "Was there a total amount of $21,000 that was paid to this particular company over a period of time?

DDM : There was a relationship for services that had been completed by this company for various services that they had done, both for my MP office - at one point I had a very small contract with them for that for the association which is not me, this is the Conservative association - and a small contract that was undertaken for my 2008 campaign.  Those were paid. There is no question as to whether or not they were paid - in fact Mr Hall [Holinshed] indicated that in his filing on a separate matter.

JD : So you're saying that the financial records will ultimately reveal that although you paid out of your pocket, all of that $21,000 was paid back to you at certain points. [clever girl.]

DM : I've always been reimbursed, whether it's by the campaign or by the association for any expenditures I've incurred.

What DM is pushing here is that the $21,000 cheque covers both work done during and outside the writ period for both himself and the riding association, so he's not actually gone over the election spending limit.

However from the McMaher story the same day :

After the election, Hall [of Holinshed] claimed, Del Mastro asked him to do $1,500 of additional work using some of the election data and to backdate the invoice to the election period.
Hall later checked Elections Canada filings and found that the Del Mastro campaign had declared only the $1,500 payment for the extra Holinshed work — a payment Hall said he never received — and not the $21,000 of work he performed during the election.

And as Stephen Maher pointed out on CTV's PowerPlay yesterday : 

 "One of the key documents is a piece of paper which purports to be paperwork from Holinshed to Del Mastro saying 'oh we've received this payment and returned it to you' - which appears to bear the signature not of someone from Holinshed but of someone from Mr. Del Mastro's campaign.  This is what the investigator called a false document and this is what makes it serious." 

A look at the GeoVote and GOTV work Frank Hall at Holinshed possibly did for Del Mastro in 2008 here. 
GeoVote was an interactive voter-tracking system like the Cons CIMS, pinpointing how voters voted in each house in a riding on a map. Despite receiving a six-figure Economic Action Plan grant to develop the project in 2009/10, Holinshed disappeared in 2011.

Three months before his 2012 Power and Politics appearance, Del Mastro stood 16 times over two days in the House of Commons to read the same identical talking points off a script about election fraud allegations against the Cons being "baseless smears". 
The sad thing is he had to read them off the script every single time, only allowing himself very minor variations :



P.S. What a complete prat Norquay is in the P&P segment at top - he's absolutely outraged that an investigative journalist would actually do his job.

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