MPs and senators are now on a one-week break before returning at the end of May for their last few weeks of pre-summer wrangling over the government’s legislative agenda. Here’s a bit of what the Gargoyle heard before they fled town:
All in the family
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s decision this week to withdraw from election leaders’ debates organized by the broadcast consortium has shone the spotlight on negotiations between parties that are usually conducted in private.
Historically, haggling over the debates is tense and sometimes acrimonious. Representatives of each party square off over details big and small. The choice of moderator; the venue, format and duration; the assignment of podium position; and even the background colours of the set are all heavily litigated in closed-door sessions.
Facebook photo of Kate Purchase. Liberal Party of Canada Director of Communications.
This year, there’s an unusual family connection in the bargaining sessions. Two of the combatants are kin.
The Liberals are represented in the negotiations by Jack Fleischmann, a former TV executive with long party connections, and Kate Purchase, director of communications to leader Justin Trudeau.
Rick Anderson
Across the table, the Conservative side is argued by Kory Teneycke, former PMO D-comm and broadcaster, and Rick Anderson, a political strategist and former Reform Party ranch hand. Purchase can rightly address Anderson as “Uncle Rick.”
Whether the family connection has made for more or less civil discussions is unclear. Purchase, no surprise, declined to comment on what role her relationship with Anderson might have played in the negotiations.
Doubtless, the debate bargaining was not the first dispute of its kind among the Andersons. Politics is, after all, a family business. Purchase’s father, Bruce Anderson, is a pollster and political commentator for CBC and the Globe and Mail, and once worked for Progressive Conservative leader Jean Charest. Rick served as principal adviser to Preston Manning. He and brother Jim, a Liberal, are investors in political news aggregator Nationalnewswatch.com.
The NDP was represented in the negotiations by party national director Anne McGrath and Brad Lavigne, a former Jack Layton adviser now working as a lobbyist.
– Glen McGregor
Peter Goldring, taxpayer
Among a recent rash of press releases, the outgoing MP from Edmonton issued one raging about how his city will pay for a new arena for the Edmonton Oilers hockey team. “Taxpayer Peter Goldring,” the press release said, “is worried for our children” because money that should be going to Alberta schools is apparently being diverted to a “new NHL arena for hockey players, whose salaries are in the millions of dollars.”
Goldring talked about a school user fee that parents must pay (his daughter, apparently, doles out $390 a year, on top of taxes, for three children in school). Then, in an odd leap, Goldring suggested the locals “lower education taxes if schooling is truly overfunded.”
Conservative MP Peter Goldring stands during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill.
In the Gargoyle’s experience, additional school fees aren’t restricted to cities that happen to have NHL sports teams in need of arenas. Parents around the country get dinged for all sorts of extra education needs. But as they say in Alberta, “math is hard.”
– Jordan Press
Teething problems?
Reporters spent much of Wednesday chasing a CBC report that the chief of the defence staff, Gen. Tom Lawson, hadn’t fully accepted recommendations in a scathing report about sexual misconduct in the military. Within hours, Lawson put out a statement saying how he was, in fact, fully behind actions to crack down on bad behaviour, protect the troops from harassment, fix the problem, yadda yadda.
But what of the defence minister? Not long after Lawson’s statement, Jason Kenney issued a tough press release of his own. It started: “I congratulate the Royal Canadian Dental Corps (RCDC) on its 100th anniversary.
“Since its inception, the RCDC has enjoyed an excellent reputation, providing high quality, operationally based dental care and other professional capabilities at home and abroad,” the statement cheerfully continued.
The Gargoyle has no doubt of the importance of the dental corps, and lauds the government for not, ah, flossing over the RCDC’s essential work. Lawson, of course, might have preferred an equally effusive statement supporting him, one with more teeth in it.
It fell to the opposition in Question Period to finally get Kenney to put some bite into his game that day.
– Christina Spencer
Adieu to you and you
As the end of the parliamentary session draws nigh, MPs who won’t run again are using their brief members’ statements before Question Period to bid farewell. This week, for example, we heard from Conservative Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton-Melville) marvelling: “Who would have thought that a simple farm boy, educated in a one-room country school would end up on Parliament Hill?”
Breitkreuz lauded his staff and House of Commons employees for steering him straight during more than 20 years on the Hill. That included employees in the Library of Parliament, the clerk’s office and even printing and mailing services. And, of course, he thanked the parliamentary restaurant, favoured haunt of hungry politicos.
Meanwhile, fellow Conservative Rick Norlock (Northumberland-Quinte West) also noted that his time “in this place” is coming to a close, and took the opportunity “to thank God for all the gifts he has bestowed upon me.”
– Christina Spencer
Bitten by a sound byte
Scant days after Green party leader Elizabeth May’s emotional gusher of unfortunate verbosity at the parliamentary press gallery dinner, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau stumbled into some gaffery of his own when he stood in the House Tuesday to assail Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
You’ll recall Trudeau was ragging the PM over what Liberals perceive as too many tax breaks for rich families. But then Trudeau maladroitly uttered what will soon lead campaign ad clips countrywide: “Mr. Speaker, benefiting every single family is not what is fair.” He quickly went on to clarify: “What is fair is giving help to those who need it the most.” But the damage was done.
To laughter from Tory benches (and perhaps a cringe or two from Ms. May), Harper rose to riposte: “Mr. Speaker, you see what happens when someone goes off script.”
As far as the Tories are concerned, of course, Trudeau has handed them a great script. Here’s a small sampler of Tory tirades in Question Period in the three days following the Trudeau tripline:
– Conservative Jeff Watson (Essex): “The Leader of the Liberal Party wants to take away the universal child care benefit, he wants to take away income splitting, and he wants to take away the tax-free savings account. He even said: ‘Benefiting every single family isn’t what is fair.’ ”
– Tory Bev Shipley, (Lambton-Kent-Middlesex): “The Liberal leader is a takeaway leader. Yesterday, regarding taxes, he said, that ‘Benefiting every single family isn’t what is fair.’ “
– Blake Richards (Wild Rose): “(Trudeau) said yesterday that benefiting every single family is not what is fair.”
– Harper himself: “Mr. Speaker, the leader of the Liberal Party says that benefiting every single Canadian is not what is fair.”
– Pierre Poilievre (Nepean-Carleton, minister of employment): “Yesterday, the Liberal leader said: ‘Benefiting every single family is not what is fair.’ We believe it is fair to benefit every single family and we will make sure that families receive those benefits.”
– Wladyslaw Lizon (Mississauga East-Cooksville): “The Liberal leader even said, ‘Benefiting every single family isn’t what is fair.’ We make no apologies for helping all Canadian families and we understand that benefiting every single family is, indeed, fair.”
– Larry Miller (Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound): “The Liberal leader … does not care about helping families. He even said that benefiting every single family is not what is fair. Can members believe that?”
– Poilievre, under fire Friday morning over recent video antics, even invoked the Liberal leader’s phrase to try to deflect attention from his own Hollywood moment.
Given the barrage, let’s at least allow Trudeau the last word (except that we know it won’t be): “Mr. Speaker, fairness means giving more to those who need it and less to those who do not.” Good luck getting that one into the election sound clips.
– Christina Spencer
The Curse of National Public Service Week
National Public Service Week is around the corner – OK, it’s actually June 14 to June 20 – but some public servants are wondering what the government will do this year to recognize their hard work.
Two years ago, Treasury Board President Tony Clement kicked off the celebrations by announcing his plans to reform sick leave because public servants were off work sick more than their private sector counterparts. The federal unions still see red at Clement trotting out much-disputed figures on the topic.
The government has also passed Bill C-4, which changed the rules of the game for collective bargaining and greatly diminished unions’ clout. Then came the budget bill, which booked $900 million in saving for abolishing sick leave – even though contact talks are underway.
The final blow, from the unions’ point of view, came last week with Bill C-59, the latest budget bill, which will give the government the power to bypass labour laws and impose whatever sick leave deal it wants. Unions predict that the bill will pass during the week of June 15. Yup: smack-dab in the middle of Public Service Week.
– Kathryn May
I spy
Ottawa’s dazzling new CSE electronic spying palace on Ogilvie Road is being christened with a new name: the Edward Drake Building.
Well, not so new. The Communication Security Establishment’s old HQ at 1500 Bronson Ave., the Y-shaped former CBC building, also carried Drake’s name.
Ottawa’s dazzling new CSE electronic spying palace on Ogilvie Road is being christened with a new name – the Edward Drake Building.
Government naming criteria require any moniker to be “significant to the development of Canada,” have a link with the function of the building, and be a posthumous honour.
So how does former snoop Lt.-Col. Edward Drake fit the bill?
The Saskatchewan native is credited with singlehandedly building the Canadian Army’s signals intelligence organization during the Second World War. He had a major influence on the government’s decision to establish its first code-breaking unit in 1941. Five years later, he was named to head what is the now the CSE (then the Communications Branch of the National Research Council). He died in 1971.
The Communications Security Establishment complex.
Thirty years later, the CSE was brought in from the cold, with the federal government finally publicly acknowledging the ultra-clandestine outfit’s existence following the 2001 terror attacks against the United States.
Today, from its mammoth glass structure at 1929 Ogilvie Rd., the CSE vacuums the sky for the phone calls, faxes, emails, tweets, satellite and other electronic signals from adversarial foreign nations and overseas enemies.
The signature element of the building, its enormous, sail-shaped roof, is the size of 11 NHL rinks and easily overshadows the housing of its next-door neighbour, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS, the country’s human spy service. The cost to design, construct, maintain and finance the edifice over the next 34 years is pegged at $4.1 billion, part of a public-private partnership.
The use of Drake’s name, presumably, is free.
– Ian MacLeod
Cause of the week
Here are a few other things we learned in the House this week, courtesy of various MPs:
– May 11 to May 17 is National Nursing Week. Florence Nightingale was born 195 yeas ago. (Tory Cathy McLeod, Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo)
– PEI Burger Love, a month-long affair, celebrates Prince Edward Island’s beef. More than 60 restaurants competed for the title of Most Loved Burger. (Liberal Sean Casey, Charlottetown)
– May 11 to May 17 is Naturopathic Medicine Week. (New Democrat Murray Rankin, Victoria)
– May 19 to May 24 is Canadian Camping Week (Tory Blake Richard, Wild Rose)
– Sunday is the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (Liberal leader Justin Trudeau):
– Christina Spencer