Category: Main Page

Nice, I'm told, is a wonderful place to visit. Sadly, I won't get to see
much of it. It's 5 a.m. here and raining. We are in a holding room at the
airport while the Prime Minister's plane gets gassed up for the final 7-hour
ride to Uganda and the Commonwealth Summit.
The flight from Ottawa to Nice was an uneventful ride. No scrum on the plane
with Harper nor is there likely to be one when we get back in the air to
Uganda.
Harper is travelling without his family on this trip but is accompanied by
several aides and diplomats.
Senator Mobina Jaffer (check spelling) (B.C.- Liberal) is also on board.
She, like Conservative Edmonton MP Rahim Jaffer, was born in Uganda. Rahim
Jaffer is also on board.
On this leg of the flight, from Ottawa to Nice, the inflight movies included
Transformers, Oceans 13, and Live Free or Die.
Dinner was a choice of beef medallions with garlic or chicken.
(Media, by the way, pay their own way on these trips.)
In a few hours, the Commonwealth foreign ministers will convene in Uganda to
decide if Pakistan ought to be suspended from the organization.
Canada is represented at these meetings by Secretary of State Helena
Guergis. Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier is busy at La Francophonie. Canada
assumes the chairmanship of that organization next year.
Harper will get a briefing on those meetings from Guergis when we land at
about 3 pm local time.
DAVID AKIN
————-
CTV NEWS
————-
Cell: +1 613 220 7935
http://www.davidakin.com

I've just about finished packing for my first trip to Africa. I and other reporters will be boarding the Canadian Forces CC-150 Polaris tomorrow afternoon for a very long ride with Prime Minister Harper on our way to his (and my) first Commonwealth Summit to be held in Kampala, Uganda. The summit will run Thursday through Sunday. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will be there — and that's always kind of cool. For those counting, it will be the third time the Prime Minister has met the Queen. The Queen hosted Prime Minister and Mrs. Harper at Buckingham Palace in July, 2006 and then, earlier this year, the Queen travelled to Vimy Ridge to join the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister of France to mark the 90th anniversary of the famous First World War battle. Not sure how long the Queen is staying with us in Uganda. My guess is overnight.

On Monday, we depart Kampala for a quick day trip to Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania. We fly home Monday night and land in Ottawa very early on Tuesday morning.

We are staying in a hotel that, the PMO advance staff tell us, was still under construction just a few weeks ago. In fact, local critics of this Summit say they “pray” that all the hotels have running water by the time we arrive. For the record, I'm praying for the same thing.

I'm informed that my BlackBerry should be working in Uganda (CTV's BlackBerry service provider is Rogers as the network Rogers uses seems to work in Europe, Asia, Africa and more places around the world than the service from Bell or Telus) so I should be able to send along some posts as we're travelling.

PMO officials say we'll get a more detailed itinerary as we board the plane — I'll post it as I'm able — but here's the schedule as we know it so far:

(All times local)

WED NOV 21

OTTAWA (GMT -5)

1330 – Reporters to arrive at Canada Reception Centre at Ottawa International Airport

1530 – Wheels Up

THU NOV 22

NICE, France (GMT +2 )

0430 – Wheels down.

– Refuel

0630 – Wheels up

ENTEBBE, Uganda (GMT +3)

1500 – Wheels down

1930 – Reception for Commonwealth Summit Heads of State

FRI NOV 23

KAMPALA, Uganda

SAT NOV 24

KAMPALA, Uganda

1000 – 1300 – Leaders Retreat

1500 – 1730 – Leaders Retreat

SUN NOV 25

KAMPALA, Uganda

1000 – 1200 – Leaders Retreat

MON NOV 26

ENTEBBE, Uganda

0815 – Wheels up

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania

1000 – Wheels down

1800 – Wheels up

TUE NOV 27

OTTAWA (GMT -5)

0515 – Wheels down

I'm embarrassed to say I didn't even know we were in the market for these things but, there you go — The Canadian Army just became the first international customer for Raytheon's 'Bunker Buster' missiles. Canada will be spending $17-million US ($16.75 million CDN at today's rates) to buy 462 TOW (Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided) Bunker Buster missiles. The TOW weapon system — you probably knew — is “the world's premier long-range precision anti-armor, anti-fortification, anti-amphibious landing weapon.”

Assuming a kill rate of 100 per cent, it will cost about one Lexus IS 250 or $37,000 US every time a TOW blows something up on behalf of Canada.

I’ve always told anyone who asked that Martin Newland is one of the best newspaper editors I’ve ever worked for. Newland was the number two to Ken Whyte at National Post where I was a day oner (actually, it was more a day one minus 120, as I started in mid-summer and the paper launched on October 28, 1998).

As a reporter on his staff, I can say that Newland makes writers feel good about their work. He wants and encourages to write with authority and to write with a robust energy. So, it’s no surprise to hear that Martin is attracting top talent for his new project: Starting up a government-funded (?!) national newspaper in the United Arab Emirates:

The UAE-based media website Communicate.ae reports that he will have a total editorial staff of between 180 and 200 people. Newland told Communicate: “We need reporters. It will be a big content operation. Anyone who wants to come and work for us, please give us a call. We will consider every CV gratefully.”

He has received many CVs from British journalists made redundant in recent staff-cutting exercises at News International and at the Telegraph titles. Those already on board include Colin Randall, a former Daily Telegraph news editor and Paris correspondent, who is writing the style book and is the project's executive news editor . . . [Read the rest of the story]

Good luck, Martin!

Lance Morrow reviews Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance — and Why They Fall by Yale Law School professor Amy Chua (left). It sounds like a fascinating read with a thesis that ought to agree with the West:

Chua argues that all of the world-dominant powers in history — among them, Achaemenid Persia, imperial Rome, Tang Dynasty China, the Mongol empire, the Dutch commercial empire of the 17th century, the British Empire and hegemonic America — prospered by a strategy of tolerance and inclusion, the embrace (and exploitation) of diversity and difference.

On September 17, 2006, Don Drummond, the chief economist at TD Bank, stood in front of the annual general meeting of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Saskatoon and gave them his analysis of Canada’s chief economic ailment: Lousy productivity. Drummond, a former Finance Canada mandarin, is an excellent analyst of federal economic and fiscal policies. In his speech, he outlined eight elements of a productivity agenda and, shortly after he finished the speech, he wrote up his notes and published them at TD’s Web site.

Drummond’s speech and subsequent article attracted significant attention within Industry Canada, according to documents I received this week through an Access to Information Request.

“Both the diagnosis and the recommendations put forward by Mr. Drummond are consistent with [Industry Canada]’s policy research and analysis,” wrote Jean McCardle, an Industry Canada economist, in a briefing note from October, 2006 reviewed and approved by Renée St-Jacques, Industry Canada’s Chief Economist, and other senior department officials. McCardle’s note was also reviewed by then-Industry Minister Maxime Bernier though it’s not clear what, if any, action Bernier took or how it may have influenced his thinking as he approached certain policy matters. Bernier has since been moved to Foreign Affairs and Jim Prentice is now the Industry Minister.

Drummond’s report, titled “The Economists’ Manifesto for Curing Ailing Canadian Productivity”,  (PDF) was given high marks by Industry Canada’s economists. “[It is] a good summary of what is already known to be a range of interventions the federal and provincial governments could adopt to boost productivity in Canada. Both the diagnosis and the recommendations are generally consistent with [Industry Canada]’s policy research and analysis,” McCardle wrote.

For example, Drummond suggested that an overhaul of Canada’s immigration policy could be a signficant driver of productivity growth. McCardle comments: “Research at Industry Canada revealed that in 2001, 53 percent of recent immigrants aged 25 to 44 had a university education compared to 23 percent of Canadian-born. The recommendation of Mr. Drummond to tailor immigration policy to match job shortages in Canada may not be as much of an issue as updating accreditation standards to allow new immigrants to work in Canada.”

One of the biggest issues to bedevil policy makers is how to get private sector firms in Canada to spend more on research and development, another key driver of productivity growth. Drummond has no concrete suggestions in his report and McCardle, in reviewing Drummond’s work, notes how problematic this area is:

Research at Industry Canada came to the same conclusion. Despite a generous fiscal incentive, the Scientific Research & Experimental Development (SR&ED) Tax Credit Program, Canada ranks 12th in the OECD in terms of gross expenditures on R&D as a percent of GDP. The incentives to industry to invest more capital in training and R&D are readily available if and when the private sector recognizes financial benefit to increase investment.

Though the current session of Parliament has been up and running for a few weeks — and has even had a break week — it wasn’t until this week that the Committees of the House of Commons really got to work.

House of Commons Committees do important work.  They examine and make recommendations to government legislation; they study important issues; and are often the forum for some of the best political debates on the Hill.

For each committee, the Chair plays a key and often influential role. Indeed, in the last session of Parliament, we learned that the Conservatives had issued a “playbook” to help their Chairs guide the work of the Committee towards the government’s preferred outcome. Chairs receive an extra $10,700 a year on top of their MPs salary of $150,800 a year.

So, without further ado then, here is the list of all the committees and their chairs:

Committees where the Government (the Conservatives) has the chair:

• Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Devlopment – Barry Devolin (Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock)
• Agriculture and Agri-Food – James Bezan (Selkirk-Interlake)
• Canadian Heritage – Gary Schellenberger (Perth-Wellington)
• Citizenship and Immigration – Norman Doyle (St. John’s East)
• Environment and Sustainable Development – Bob Mills (Red Deer)
• Finance – Rob Merrifield (Yellowhead)
• Fisheries and Oceans – Fabian Manning (Avalon)
• Foreign Affairs – Kevin Sorenson (Crowfoot)
• Health – Joy Smith (Kildonan-St. Paul)
• Human Resources, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities – Dean Allison (Niagara West-Glanbrook)
• Industry – James Rajotte (Edmonton-Leduc)
• International Trade – Lee Richardson (Calgary Centre)
• Justice and Human Rights – Art Hangar (Calgary Northeast)
• National Defence – Rick Casson (Lethbridge)
• Natural Resources – Leon Benoit (Vegreville-Wainwright)
• Official Languages – Steven Blaney (Levis-Bellechasse)
• Procedure and House Affairs – Gary Goodyear (Cambridge)
• Public Safety and National Security – Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton-Melville)
• Transport – Merv Tweed (Brandon-Souris)
• Veterans Affairs – Rob Anders (Calgary West)

Committees where the Official Opposition (the Liberals) have the chair:

• Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics – Paul Szabo (Mississauga South)
• Government Operations and Estimates – Diane Marleau (Sudbury)
• Public Accounts – Shawn Murphy (Charlottetown)
• Status of Women – Yasmin Ratansi (Don Valley East)

 

Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand told a House of Commons committee yesterday that the 2006 general election cost about $277–million — including the costs of reimbursements paid to candidates and to parties.

Mayrand was at the committee to comment on proposals to add two more advance polling days into general  elections. The bill for two more days, he figures, will come to $34–million, which means general elections in Canada will cost more than $300–million.

In a scrum outside the House of Commons today, NDP MP Pat Martin said that the terms of the reference for the Mulroney inquiry ought to be broad enough that the inquiry can take a look at donations Karl Heinz Schreiber made to Liberals as well as Conservatives — at the kind of lobbying “that makes Canadians puke,” to use his phrase . Here’s an excerpt from that scrum, in which Martin responds to questions from several different reporters:

Pat Martin:   … if the allegations are that they're greasing the wheels of commerce by lining the Conservative pockets, we started to think isn't it just as likely that an operator like Mr. Schreiber would be greasing the wheels of commerce with Liberals as well? And we did find evidence that Bearhead Industries, Mr. Schreiber's company, donated $10,000 in 1993 to the Liberal Party of Canada. 

But we also raised the question in Question Period today: what motivates Marc Lalonde to contribute to the million-dollar bail for Karlheinz Schreiber? It's just a question that comes to mind.  We make no allegations.  We're just saying that this is something that a public inquiry should be broad enough to, as Mr. Gomery says, follow the money.  Mr. Gomery said today that one of the limitations that he regretted about his own inquiry is that the terms of reference didn't allow him to follow the money to the extent that he thought would have been useful.

Reporter:   I'm not sure I understand what you're referring.  Is it illegal to make a donation to the Liberal Party?

Martin:   No, absolutely not.  All we're talking about now is the terms of reference of the public inquiry and it's reasonable to assume the possibility that maybe Mr. Schreiber was greasing other wheels than just Conservative. 

Reporter:   You're saying that Schreiber wanted to set up a light armoured vehicle plant in Bearhead, Cape Breton and so you're thinking that maybe a $10,000 contribution to the incoming Liberal government might grease the wheels.  Is that what you're suggesting?

Martin:   Well, 1993 was an election year and, you know, Mr. Schreiber was trying to influence public policy decision-making.  Who's to say that he wasn't trying to influence the Liberal government as well whether they're incoming or outgoing? All we're saying is the terms of reference of the public inquiry has to be broad enough to allow them to follow the money even if that leads to places other than the Conservative Party.

Reporter:   Isn't this inquiry supposed to be about Mr. Mulroney and his dealings with Mr. Schreiber and the $300,000 and Harrington Lake and not all Mr. Schreiber's business dealings over 20 years in Canada?

Martin:   Well, the Airbus defamation libel suit is pluralistic by its very nature. I can't say how far they have to go but Canadians want to know and so if we are at the stage where we're trying to define the terms of reference of the public inquiry, what the NDP is saying is that we want it to be broad and expansive enough to include these other logical questions that follow.

Reporter:   So the link between Mr. Schreiber and the Tories and the link between Mr. Schreiber and the Liberals.

Martin:   And the Liberals.  Exactly.  I mean this whole sordid mess.  I don't think it's limited to the Conservative Party in my own opinion.

Reporter:   But how wide does the inquiry have to be to look into every political donation which was completely legal at the time?

Martin:   Well, common sense and reason will have to prevail but the public has a right to know.  The public needs to know and I argue the public needs to know before they can go to the ballot box again, to tell you the truth.

Reporter:   Mr. Schreiber says in his affidavit that he was assured by Brian Mulroney would win the '93 election. Did he give money to the Conservatives?

Martin:   We don't know.  We haven't found any evidence of donations to the Conservative Party of Canada.  What we do know is he gave envelopes full of money to the former Prime Minister of Canada. 

Reporter:   And now your thesis is that Mr. Schreiber might have tried to bribe any government that was in Ottawa.

Martin:   Well, I think if, as the allegations suggest, Mr. Schreiber was trying to grease the wheels of commerce, as we say, that it may well be he was greasing the wheels of any leader, government ruling party or the opposition party or the party that may become the next government. 

Reporter:   What does it say about Bearhead and the way they're conducting operations?

Martin:   Well, this is the kind of lobbying that makes Canadians puke.  You know this is exactly the reason why we're trying to tie a bell around lobbyists' necks so they aren't out there peddling influence and buying government favour.  I mean that old-school politics that this indicates is exactly why we want to change things.

Reporter:   You weren't around at the time and it's a different way of doing business now, right?

Martin:   I'm not sure it's changed that much.  I mean look around you now.  You can't swing a cat on Parliament Hill without hitting a lobbyist.  You know I don't know what they're up to but I do know there's very little rules that stop them from influence peddling.  They say the only difference between influence peddling and lobbying is about five years in prison but it's a fine line.

It’s probably important to underline that Dr. David Johnston will not play the role of John Gomery. That is to say, it is only his job to advise the government on the terms of reference for a public inquiry not to actually conduct the inquiry. The lucky (?) jurist who will play the role of Gomery will be named later.

In the meantime, here are Johnston’s Terms of Reference, including his compensation of up to $1,400 per day and his deadline — January 11, 2008:

TERMS OF REFERENCE

Whereas Mr. Karlheinz Schreiber has made various allegations with respect to his financial dealings with the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney, P.C., that go beyond the private interests of the parties, including in an affidavit sworn on November 7, 2007; and

Whereas the allegations with respect to the Right Honourable Mulroney’s time as Prime Minister, although unproven and in part conflicting with other available information, raise questions respecting the integrity of an important office of the Government of Canada;

Therefore, Her Excellency the Governor General in Council, on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, pursuant to paragraph 127.1(1)© of the Public Service Employment Act, hereby appoints to the position of special adviser to the Prime Minister, David Johnston of St. Clements, Ontario, as Independent Advisor, to hold office during pleasure, for a term ending on January 11, 2008; and

(a)  specifies the duties of the Independent Advisor as to conduct an independent review of those allegations respecting financial dealings between Mr. Schreiber and the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney, P.C., and to submit to the Prime Minister by January 11, 2008 a report in both official languages, which shall

(i) make recommendations as to the appropriate mandate for a  public inquiry into those allegations, including the specific issues that warrant examination, under the Inquiries Act,

(ii) state whether the Independent Advisor, in the course of his review, has determined that there is any prima facie evidence of criminal action; in that case, the report shall make recommendations as to how this determination should be dealt with, and what should be the appropriate mandate and timing for a formal public inquiry in those circumstances, and

(iii) make recommendations as to whether any additional course of action may be appropriate;

(b)  authorizes the Independent Advisor to adopt procedures for the expedient and proper conduct of the independent review, including reviewing relevant records and documents and consulting as appropriate;

© fixes his remuneration as set out in the attached schedule, which per diem is within the range ($1,200 – $1,400); and

(d) authorizes the payment, in accordance with Treasury Board policies, of the following expenses incurred in the course of his duties:

(i) travel and living expenses while in travel status in Canada while away from his normal place of residence in accordance with the Treasury Board Travel Directive and Special Travel Authorities,

(ii) expert staff, as required, and

(iii) any other reasonable expenses as necessary to conduct the independent review.