Con aide to Minister of Asbestos resigns. A question.

An aide to Christian Paradis, Minister of Asbestos, resigned last night over his own meddling in at least four access-to-information requests, one of which involved :

"the backgrounds of members of a government panel examining asbestos."

Would that be the backgrounds of the members of this government panel, by any chance? March 2010 :

The one remaining asbestos mine in Canada, second largest exporter of asbestos in the world, is in the riding of Natural Resources Minister Christian Paradis.

At the last meeting of the Committee on Natural Resources, NDP Pat Martin moved to cut the $250,000 funding the department allocates to the [asbestos lobby group] Chrysotile Institute. No one supported the motion, and the other committee members - I'm looking at you, Libs - slunk away so there was no longer the quorum necessary for the vote.

At the time I wondered why, as per the Sierra Club's allegations, the Natural Resources Ministry was paying the Chrysotile asbestos lobby group to lobby its own minister.

On March 23, 2010, the motion to remove the government subsidy to Chrysotile Asbestos Institute was defeated in committee nine to one :
Geoff Regan, Liberal - NO ............ Nathan Cullen, NDP - YES
Navdeep Bains, Liberal - NO ........ Cheryl Gallant, Con - NO
Alan Tonks, Liberal - NO ............. Richard Harris, Con - NO
Paule Brunelle, Bloc - NO ............ David Anderson, Con - NO
Mauril Bélanger, Liberal - NO ...... Bernard Genereux, Con - NO

and that made me wonder why they all caved on what appears to be such an obvious conflict of interest at the very least.

In May, the minister's aide Sebastien Togneri was questioned by the Ethics Committee over his blocking of information. Shortly thereafter the Cons decided not to allow political staffers or their work/incriminating emails to appear before the committee any more and Paradis showed up in his aide's place.

As Pogge would say - things that make you go hmmm...
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h/t Antonia Z.
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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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Steve's Big April Fools Joke

Move over, Google! The Government of Canada is getting in on the April Fools Day action.

March 4 2010 Federal Budget Speech :
"Due to unprecedented demand under the ecoENERGY Retrofit – Homes program, the government is allocating a further $80-million to support additional retrofits by Canadian homeowners."

Natural Resources Canada, March 31 2010
Frequently-Asked Questions (FAQ) about ecoENERGY Retrofit – Homes

Can I still enter the program?
No. Effective March 31, 2010, the program is not accepting new bookings for pre-retrofit evaluations.

Surprise!
G&M :

"The program, which is conducted in co-operation with the provinces, stipulated that a post-retrofit audit had to be completed by March 31, 2011. But, until Wednesday, there was no deadline for the initial application."

Christian Paradis, Minister of Asbestos :

"We have a responsibility to taxpayers to ensure the program operates within its existing budget and no longer accepting new bookings for pre-retrofit evaluations is the kind of prudent fiscal management Canadians have come to expect from this government."

Well, it's still early in the day yet. So far we do not know whether the whole Budget Speech or the Natural Resources Ministry advisory is the April Fools joke. Or whether other programs announced in the Budget Speech are also part of the joke.

h/t Dave

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Asbestos vote today at Natural Resources Committee

{updated below}
Dear Prime Minister Harper,

While cutting funds from women's groups and aboriginal healing programs, you want to give $ 250,000.00 of taxpayers' money to the Chrysotile Institute (a registered lobby group for the asbestos industry).

I strongly object to my taxes being given to an asbestos lobby group. The Canadian Cancer Society, health experts and asbestos victims' groups overseas have all appealed to you to stop funding the Chrysotile Institute.

I call on you to stop this callous misuse of public funds immediately. I look forward to receiving your positive reply.

[Your name here.] and it cc's Iggy, Jack, etc at the link.

An estimated 90,000 individuals die annually due to asbestos-related diseases, according to data from the World Health Organization. Canada reportedly mined approximately 150,000 to 200,000 tons of the stuff in 2008 and exported most of it to countries like India and Indonesia where the responsibility for warning workers of its dangers is up to the local government.
The one remaining asbestos mine in Canada, second largest exporter of asbestos in the world, is in the riding of Natural Resources Minister Christian Paradis.

At the last meeting of the Committee on Natural Resources, NDP Pat Martin moved to cut the $250,000 funding the department allocates to the Chrysotile Institute. No one supported the motion, and the other committee members - I'm looking at you, Libs - slunk away so there was no longer the quorum necessary for the vote.

That vote will come up again when the committee reconvenes today. Send them a wee nudge via Kathleen Ruff's letter above.

And while you're at it, you might want to add a little note to Christian Paradis, Minister of Asbestos, asking him why the fuck his Natural Resouces Ministry is paying Chrysotile $250,000 in order to lobby him.
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Noon Update : Today's recorded vote on Natural Resources Committee motion to remove government subsidy to Chrysotile Asbestos Institute : Defeated 9-1
Geoff Regan, Liberal - NO ............ Nathan Cullen, NDP - YES
Navdeep Bains, Liberal - NO ........ Cheryl Gallant, Con - NO
Alan Tonks, Liberal - NO ............. Richard Harris, Con - NO
Paule Brunelle, Bloc - NO ............ David Anderson, Con - NO
Mauril Bélanger, Liberal - NO ...... Bernard Genereux, Con - NO
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