"Black shroud of secrecy" Walk of Shame

Yesterday, led by Harper's Parliamentary Secretary Paul Calandra, all seven Con MPs on the Ethics Committee voted to go in camera so the Canadian public wouldn't see them vote against conducting an investigation into what happened to those disappearing/reappearing emails of former PMO legal advisor Ben Perrin in the Senate scandal. 

This is the Ethics Committee, the Ethics Committee, and the Con members didn't want to be seen publicly covering up for the PMO.
With a majority on committee, their motion to hide out in what committee chair Pat Martin called "the black shroud of secrecy" passed 7-4. 



Chair Pat Martin : 

"I am struggling to see what possible justification, Mr. Calandra, you could have for asking this particular item of business to be moved in camera. The in-camera rule, as I understand it, is that it's to be used in cases of national security, invasion of privacy, commercial interests. It's not supposed to be the default position to save embarrassment to the government. 

[The public] have a right to know what their legislators are doing, and they have a right to know how their legislators are voting."

 Shame on all of those Cons above. 


A second black shroud of secrecy was revealed today by anonymous Hill whistleblower, Nanker Phelge - a lifetime Conflict of Interest, Loyalty, and Confidentiality Agreement gagging government staffers from ever disclosing what goes on in their ministry, even though their MPs are not similarly gagged.

Staffers must sign it in order to receive pay increases. At least one has refused so far : 

Self-muzzled Con MPs on the Ethics Committee at top, take note : This is what integrity looks like.

Perhaps we should drop them all a line reminding them about that :

paul.calandra@parl.gc.ca    jacques.gourde@parl.gc.ca   colin.mayes@parl.gc.ca    
earl.dreeshen@parl.gc.ca   John.Carmichael@parl.gc.ca   pat.davidson@parl.gc.ca
tilly.oneillgordon@parl.gc.ca

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Thursday Update : And on twitter :
https://twitter.com/PaulCalandra     https://twitter.com/JacquesGourde 
https://twitter.com/earl_dreeshen    https://twitter.com/JohnBCarmichael         
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Liberals cave "like spineless jellyfish"

"The Liberals are going to pretend that they're not caving like spineless jellyfish"

was Kady's description of the two Libs on the Ethics Committee, Wayne Easter and Carolyn Bennett, who declined yesterday to vote for an NDP/Bloc motion upholding the supremacy of parliament over the whims and contempt for parliament favoured by the Cons. Instead the Libs opted for a "study" by the Procedures Committee to be tabled some time before March 31, 2011.

Particularly galling is the fact that Easter has led the charge in this committee since May for the right of committees, as the extension of Parliament, to call what witnesses they require for their investigations. But when it came to the actual vote on it, Easter totally caved :

"Do we push this motion through to Parliament and have the Speaker rule, as has happened on the Afghanistan affair?"

No, he explained, because he didn't want to "provoke further animosity" or "inflame this issue."

"I think we here on our side, the Liberals, are willing to try one more time to see if there is good will on the part of the government to make the system work and allow committees to function as they are supposed to be able to."

and then he opted to give them till March of next year to come up with that goodwill.

"What," asked NDP Bill Siksay who tabled the motion, "will happen to all the other committees now?"
Indeed.

The Ethics Committee membership is a Con chair plus 5 Cons, 3 Libs, 2 Bloc, and 1 NDP.
The Proc. Committee has exactly the same balance of membership so it's quite possible come March that we will see a further demonstration of Con/Lib coalition solidarity for contempt of Parliament.
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The G&M waxes ludicrous on the notion that a motion in the House in support of the supremacy of parliament would immediately lead to an election.

Far better : Eugene Forsey Liberal, Dr. Dawg, Pogge, Jurist, Boris.
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Dimitri Soudas - Still on the milk carton

The search is on for Youtube impressario and PMO Director of Disinformation Dimitri Soudas.

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A House of Commons bailiff seeking to serve Soudas and another staffer with a summons to appear before the Ethics Committee was twice refused entry to the government offices where Soudas works by the security desk.

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Soudas has been summoned to answer the Ethics Committee's questions on

"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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The Search for Soudas continues via Google, where the number one search result reads :

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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This week in neocon nonsense

Just this week :

In a pre-emptive election strike, Bill C-484, Con MP Ken Epps' trial balloon bill for recriminalizing abortion, is shot down by Justice Minister Bob Nicholson, who voted for it. Twice.
Nicholson says the Cons will instead table a bill to "punish criminals who commit violence against pregnant women, but do so in a way that leaves no room for the introduction of fetal rights." Which is exactly the same thing they said about C-484.


The whistle blower who was fired for revealing that the Cons' deregulation of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency allows "industry to implement food safety control programs" is threatened with legal action by Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz.
Meanwhile the president of the CFIA inspectors union states : "the agency is so short-staffed that food inspections and follow-up audits simply aren't taking place".
With 12 dead of listeriosis so far, Maple Leaf Foods waits four days to inform the public their sliced meat is contaminated. So much for self-regulation.



Canada First? Not so much.
The Cons have "quietly scuttled the navy's $2.9-billion project to replace its aging supply ships" and "cancelled a tender call for the purchase of 12 mid-shore patrol ships for the Coast Guard".
So why is Harper going up to the Arctic again this week to talk about Arctic sovereignty and Operation Nanook, a military-led Arctic sovereignty exercise?
"As part of the Harper government's plans to expand Canada's presence in the North, MacKay is expected to announce on Thursday several million in funding over five years for the Junior Canadian Rangers, the youth wing of the part-time reserve force that patrols the Arctic."


Sports! -it's the new arts and culture , featuring branding without the swears!
Besides, with sports you can "invest $20-million toward the opening ceremony of the Olympic Winter Games in order to ensure that the event adequately reflects the priorities of the Government and helps to achieve its domestic and international branding goals."


Pierre Poilievre, parliamentary secretary, on the refusal of 26 Cons to obey summons to appear before the Ethics committee to answer questions about the in and out scheme in which the Cons exceeded their 2006 election spending limit by $1.1 mil­lion by transferring money into the campaign bank ac­counts of 67 selected local candidates and then immediately transferring the money back out again : "No one takes Ethics Committee summons seriously"
Without ever once actually using the phrase "executive privilege", Harper keeps threatening an election, presumably at least in part to bring about an end to the questions. Oh, the "dysfunction"!


Harper's statement on civilian deaths in Afghanistan : see below.


Just. this. week.