Month: May 2007

The House of Commons is in recess until May 28 and MPs are back in their ridings. That’s probably a good thing. Last week in Parliament, Conservative MPs filibustered three Committee meetings; Conservative Royal Galipeau jumped Liberal David McGuinty in the House of Commons and, yesterday, Conservative whip Jay Hill (left) blew up at Liberal Denis Coderre:

Hon. Denis Coderre (Bourassa, Lib.):  Mr. Speaker, June 2 will be my 10th anniversary as a member of this House. I have always worked hard, passionately and with great determination. 

During question period, we ask honest questions. We are now spending $6.1 billion on a mission, and we support our troops, yet we have a minister who says that it costs a certain amount of money, then comes back the next day and says that it costs twice as much, so I think it makes sense to ask about that during question period. 

I invoke Standing Order 18. The government whip cast aspersions on my passion and my patriotism by calling me an idiot. He said: “Tell that to the troops we are supporting, you idiot”.

I would ask the government whip, who often gets carried away, to withdraw his comment.

Hon. Jay Hill (Secretary of State and Chief Government Whip, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I too have been here quite some time now, about 14 years or close to it.

I have, as my colleagues have, for the past number of weeks listened to the member for Bourassa denigrate and personally attack our Minister of National Defence. The member says he has been asking these questions properly. The Minister of National Defence is a man with an outstanding 35 year career serving our country in the Canadian armed forces. The member has called him an “arms dealer”. Today he called him a “spendthrift” for the minister's efforts to rebuild the Canadian Forces and to give it the equipment it needs, to give it the tanks it needs.

If he wants me to apologize, I will apologize. I should not have called the member an idiot because even an idiot would support the Minister of National Defence.

If you ever get the chance to visit the House of Commons during Question Period, you will almost certainly hear the heckling of Marlene Jennings, the Liberal MP for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine (left). She is easily the loudest and most persistent heckler in the House, so much so, that if you watch the Liberal side closely you might see her whip Karen Redman trying to shush her several times in a session.

Now whether you approve of this kind of heckling or not, Jennings is very good at it in the sense that she really — I mean, really — gets under the skin of those on the Conservative benches. Yesterday, Treasury Board President Vic Toews had had enough:

Hon. Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, Lib.):  Mr. Speaker, while I was asking questions of the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development, the President of the Treasury Board made the comment,“Take your medication”. He was clearly referring to me. The member for Hull—Aylmer also heard the President of the Treasury Board.

That would obviously be an inference that any member of Parliament who takes their responsibilities seriously and who communicates the anguish, the anger, the frustration of their constituents, and in this case it is a whole list of organizations in my riding that are still awaiting responses from the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development on the summer jobs program as to whether or not their applications have been refused. The fact that I show emotion and outrage at the fact that these organizations are still awaiting a response and would require medication, I believe is unworthy of this House. It is disrespectful to every single member sitting in this House who is elected to represent the wishes, the desires, the wants and the needs of their constituents. I intend to do that to the best of my ability.

I do not appreciate having a minister of the Crown make an inference that because I attempt to properly represent my constituents that I would need some kind of medication, implying either mental illness or some other condition.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask through you that the President of the Treasury Board have the courage, the intellectual honesty, to admit to what he said and to apologize to me and to every other member in this House.

Hon. Vic Toews (President of the Treasury Board, CPC):  Mr. Speaker, I was sitting here listening to the minister give an answer and all I heard was absolute screaming and yelling from the member. The member has a practice and a habit of absolutely screaming and yelling. This is what she consistently does throughout question period. I am sure members sitting around her can attest to the fact that that member specifically screams and yells on all occasions. What I indicated to her is perhaps she might want to take some medication.

I do not know what the issue is over there, but I have never in my time in this House heard a member act in such an irrational way. Perhaps that member might seriously consider something.

If she feels that type of conduct is appropriate, I can only say that I think most other members would disagree. This is not an isolated issue. This is a consistent pattern of conduct by that member.

The political staffer who recently impersonated his boss, Ontario Conservative MP Gord Brown, in an e-mail exchange with a constituent says sorry:

May 4,2007

Please accept my apology for any misunderstanding caused by my response to your concern this week. I erred when I responded on behalf Member of Parliament Gord Brown (sic) without his prior authority , knowledge or approval.

The email that is in question was sent on Wednesday, May 2.

It followed a series of emails and telephone calls from you. I am responsible for emails, telephone calls and letters from all constituents in the riding and in this instance I showed a lack of judgment.

Feeling under pressure to respond to certain accusations and allegations, I did not handle this
situation properly.

I know this was wrong and regret taking this action.

My behaviour and the content of the email was not professional and I wish to point out that it in no way reflects Member of Parliament Gord Brown's position on the matters discussed.

Again, I extend my sincerest apologies to you and journalist Jennifer Ditchburn for this incident

Yours sincerely,

Mark King
Legislative Assistant
Gord Brown, MP
Leeds-Grenville

Here’s Liberal Environment Critic David McGuinty (left) responding to today’s developments in the “Green Leak” affair. He is being questioned by several different reporters from different news organizations in a scrum in the House of Commons lobby after Question Period today:

Reporter:   So, Mr. McGuinty, what about the arrest of this Environment Canada employee?  Is this justified?

McGuinty:  Look, it's a very strange set of circumstances. Just 10 days ago at most the Minister of the Environment sent me an eight-page speech to the opposition lobby fax machine.  The elements of that speech were very much the same elements in this so-called secret plan.  Is the Minister of the Environment being investigated by the RCMP?  Are his staff being investigated by the RCMP? It's a bit rich.

Secondly, it's important for us to remember if this person's a whistleblower — for example, let's say this person is saying that I felt an obligation to reveal this document because the government's plan is a breach of international law under the Kyoto Treaty – which the government's plan is.  If the person was acting in good faith that way, had there been an actual commissioner of the kind that the government created — the post that we created collectively as Parliament, the one that Gwyn Morgan was supposed to fill, if that position had been filled, maybe the individual would have gone to that person instead to find out what his options could have been. 

But the heavy hammer here is very suspicious.  As a former criminal lawyer, it's very, very strange to see that someone's hauled away in handcuffs at seven o'clock in the morning in front of their workmates to be then released only an hour or so later, to be told they're not even being charged.  Then of course the charges that are levelled are the wrong ones because the RCMP says that he's being apparently charged under the Criminal Code for breach of trust for revealing detailed regulations.  That wasn't the case at all. 

Question:   Is the RCMP becoming a de facto arm of the PMO?

McGuinty:   You know that's a very tough question.  I know that the RCMP are now increasingly trying to keep, for example, the media away from ministers, media away from press conferences, the media corralled until official meetings are over.  That's not the common practice of the RCMP. I'm sure the RCMP themselves are uncomfortable fulfilling that function.  So, you know, is the RCMP basically here just an organ of the state so to speak at the beck and call?  That's a question for the prime minister.

Reporter:   Do you think there should be radical activists in the civil service who openly criticize the prime minister and his policies?

McGuinty:   I think that there should be a balance here and I think that the public servants that are there, that are doing their job, hundreds of thousands of them are doing their job well.  If they have a beef or a gripe there should be some kind of place to go.  The government still hasn't filled — the government still hasn't filled the whistleblowing commissioner's job. They tried to shove Gwyn Morgan down Parliament's throat.  We all said no because he's a Tory bagman and he's too close to the prime minister. I gave the prime minister an option.  I said give us five days, we'll give you five more names with all-party agreement.  He still hasn't filled the position. If the position were filled, maybe a public servant would feel comfortable going to that position and saying I have a problem.

 

I’m in Chicago covering Conrad Black’s trials but some political staffers have sent me messages to say that the Conservatives today are filibustering and putting up procedural roadblocks at various House of Commons committees meeting today. Then, on Facebook, Liberal MP Mark Holland publishes the following account of today’s meeting of the International Trade Committee. Holland is not normally a member of this committee but is subbing in for his colleague Navdeep Bains.

Holland’s account of the committee follows but at the end of the meeting, the lone NDP member of this committee, Peter Julian, begins a process to have the Conservative chairman of the committee, Leon Benoit (right), removed as chair. This is at least the second time Julian has tried to do this. The last time, Benoit and Julian worked out their differences. Not sure how it will work out this time around.

Here then is Holland(left)’s report from Committee, as he posted it on his Facebook page (I’d provide a link but as you have to signed up to use Facebook and you may also have to be Holland’s “Facebook Friend”, links would not be widely available. As a result I publish it here unedited as I copied and pasted it from his page at about 4 pm Ottawa time)

Via Blackberry –

Being the good friend that I am, I agreed to stand in today for Navdeep Bains at the International Trade Committee. Moments ago, the Conservative Chair Leon Benoit cut off the witness in the middle of his presentation. The witness was Gordon Laxer, a Director with the Parkland Institute. The puzzled Mr. Laxer was stopped by the Chair because Leon said he was off topic. He demanded the witness speak only about items linked to the days agenda. Fair enough – except that the witness was doing exactly that. In point of fact, the previous witness was also discussing the same thing – energy security as it pertains to Canada-US trade. After being rebuked by the Chair, the witness was allowed to continue. After about another minute of speaking, the Chair unceremoniously cut off the witness a second time leaving him with still half of his presentation to make. Flustered, Leon called upon the next witness to start speaking who just looked back at him totally baffled. There are about 30 or so people watching all of this – all of whom were laughing in bewilderment or shaking their heads. This all would have been odd enough but it gets worse.
The ruling that the witness could not continue was challenged. The Chair gave a long speech about why his ruling should stand. When people attempted to question this, he said a motion to challenge the chair is not debatable. It was pointed out that he had just been debating – he ignored that. Leon, then asked “Shall the ruling of the chair be sustained?”. Only 3 Conservative hands went up. “If you want to support the decision of the Chair, put up your hand,” Leon clarified looking around hopefully. The same 3 Conservative hands rose. He asked who was opposed and all the opposition members raised their hands. Leon looked down, grabbed his gavel and snapped, “this meeting is adjourned!” He then stormed out, leaving all in the room in a surprised paralysis. After a time, it was pointed out that the chair can't just declare the meeting over and walk out. So, Lui Temelkovski as our Liberal Vice-Chair took position and the meeting resumed.
Honestly, it was an embarrassing episode and, if it didn't reflect so poorly on the committee, it would have been extremely funny. Parliament can be a strange and weird place. Leon didn't do the Conservatives or parliament proud today.
… Now back to committee, Mr. Julian of the NDP just introduced a motion to oust Leon as the Chair. Man this is a zoo. Nav – I'm glad this is your committee.