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The Independent carries this today:

A competition has been launched to find the “Name of Russia” – one Russian from history who should go down as a national symbol and the nation's biggest hero. Joseph Stalin, despite being one of the most vicious tyrants of the 20th century (and an ethnic Georgian), makes it on to the initial long list of 500 names, and is expected to garner a fair few votes.

Since Winston Churchill won the BBC's Great Britons series, other countries have thought that the concept is a rather good idea. But while the German broadcaster ZDF has said that Adolf Hitler and all other Nazi leaders will be barred from running in the “Our Best” series due to start soon, the Russian version includes Stalin and several other Bolsheviks involved in the Great Terror in its long list . . . [Read the rest of the story]

Technorati Tags: puppy, russia

I was with the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts for three hours today — a meeting length that was too long for Conservative MP John Williams who complained at the outset of about this rare extra-long version over “a simple contract”.

That simple contract that was causing all the fuss was worth $122,000 and it went to to Hugh MacPhie's 4-person company MacPhie and Associates. MacPhie and friends spent 820 hours in not very many days putting together a lot of the Budget 2007 “communications products” – speeches, press releases, brochures, etc. It was definitely a lot of work and, by all accounts, MacPhie seems to have delivered value for money.

But here's the thing: Contracts of this size really ought to be put out to a competitive tendering process and it seems that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty failed to do so. Actually, it wasn't so much that Flaherty failed to do so as it may have been his then-Chief of Staff David McLaughlin who, against the advice of departmental officials, awarded the contract to MacPhie. Or at least that's what Flaherty and departmental deputy minister Rob Wright told the committee today. McLaughlin – oddly, in hindsight — was not a witness at the committee, nor was I able to reach him today.

To make the story even juicier if you're a Liberal, MacPhie was a enthusiastic helping hand for two of Flaherty's failed bids for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party and helped write speeches for that Liberal bogeyman, former Ontario Premier Mike Harris.

So the Liberal narrative here is that you have a finance minister playing pork barrel politics.

Flaherty's office has already had to concede that “administrative errors” were made in the awarding of the MacPhie contract and that systems have been corrected. Fair enough. But, today, at this Public Accounts Committee, the Liberal research team had found lots of others with close connections to Flaherty at Queen's Park and beyond who have, much like some Liberals were alleged to have done at famed consultancy Earnscliffe in another era, benefitted financially, some say, from the new government.

The Liberal Research Bureau proferred the following (and remember – the cutoff for having to tender a contract is $25,000)

• Bronwen Evans received a $24,877.50 contract to write speeches for Flaherty from June 2006 until last February. Ms. Evans was Flaherty's executive assistant and chief of staff at Queen's Park.
• David Curtin, who worked on Flaherty's Ontario leadership campaign, received $24,877.50 to write your first budget speech in 2006. Curtin was also paid $3,350 to write a keynote address earlier this year for Flaherty.
• Carol Hansell, was appointed to the board of directors of the Bank of Canada in October 2006. For serving on the Bank of Canada board, she gets up to $8,600 a year plus a $665 per diem. Hansell and her husband, Ron McLaughlin, donated $22,550 to Flaherty's 2002 leadership campaign.
• Toronto lawyer James Love, who donated $63,000 to Flaherty's two leadership campaigns, was appointed to the Royal Canadian Mint. He has also served on two advisory panels (Advisory Panel on Canada's System of International Taxation and the Panel to Help Children with Severe Disabilities) on a voluntary basis and was provided expenses of $75,000 and $10,000, respectively. As a mint director, he receives up to $6,200 a year plus a per diem of up to $485.

Liberal MP and Flaherty arch-nemesis John McCallum ran through some of these at the Committee and when he got to Love, that was it for Flaherty, who already loaded for bear so far as McCallum goes because Flaherty believes McCallum is smearing his wife and children with suggestions Flaherty is in a conflict-of-interest because his wife – an Ontario MPP — sits on the board of a school fighting for special federal funds.

So this thing between Flaherty and McCallum has been simmering for weeks… Flaherty stops McCallum at Love and says, “You should think twice before you go after much-respected Canadians in the petty, gutterlike way that you do.”

That prompts Kevin Bausch, the director of the Liberal Research Bureau, to heckle Flaherty from the sidelines. At these committee meetings (this one was in West Block 269), staffers for the Opposition sit on chairs lined up one side of the room and the Conservative staffers sit on the other side. Bausch had chimed in a few times during this rather raucous meeting and was doing it again while Flaherty was giving McCallum the gears. This apparently infuriated the young and impetuous Rossano Bernardi, the recently installed director of Parliamentary Affairs for Flaherty. Bernardi leapt up from his spot, marched briskly and with a slightly threatening purpose towards the seated Bausch and, upon arriving a few inches from Bausch's nose, told him to “Shut up and stay out of it!”

Bernardi then marched back to his seat and sat down with a thud.

Now I have seen Conservative MP Royal Galipeau march across the floor of the House of Commons and get up in Liberal MP David McGuinty's face before, but I ain't ever seen anything like this at a committe before.

From the what-I-learned-at-work-yesterday department:

EI break-even plan could cause wild swings in premiums: expert

OTTAWA – Proposed changes to Canada's employment insurance system could leave it short billions of dollars if the economy takes a turn for the worse, a deficit that workers and employers would have to make up for with sharply increased premiums, says a former chief actuary for the fund.

Michel Bedard, who was chief actuary for the federal employment insurance fund through much of the 1990s, says new rules proposed by the Conservative government ostensibly designed to eliminate the accumulation of billions of dollars of surpluses could, in fact, leave the EI fund billions short….[Read the full story]

Bedard was speaking yesterday for the Canadian Institute of Actuaries to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance. This is a big deal for the actuaries and they've done a lot of work — on behalf of the Canadian public — on this issue.

It's a bit chilly and windy on Parliament Hill this lunch hour but that seems not have chilled the enthusiasm of a few thousand who who have gathered on the Centre Block's front lawn to demonstrate against Canadian abortion laws.
This is an annual event here on the Hill held with the support of MPs who part of what they call the Right-to-Life Caucus.
Liberal MP Paul Steckle and Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott are co-chairs of this caucus. We've asked often if they would care to name other members of their caucus and they've declined, saying it is up to each member MP to make that decision to identify themselves with their group.
Campaigning against Canada's abortion access laws is seen by most MPs as a career-limiting move.
So, you won't be surprised to hear that no cabinet minister is at today's event nor is any party leader, House leader or whip.
And, so far as we know, there are no NDP or Bloc Quebecois MPs in the Right-to-Life caucus.
The MPs that are here at the rally include Steckle, Paul Szabo and Tom Wappell from the Liberals and Vellacott, Norman Doyle, Harold Albrecht, Pierre Lemieux, and Rod Bruinooge.

NDP researchers yesterday released a hundred pages of receipts or so detailing some of the travel expenses of Conservative cabinet minister Bev Oda. The receipts obtained by the NDP under federal Access to Information laws cover a period of time when Oda was Heritage Minister. She is now the Minister responsible for the Canada International Development Agency.

The NDP discovered a couple of things.

First, in some cases, travel and hospitality expenses and were not disclosed at the Heritage Canada Web site. That's against Treasury Board policy.

Second, the NDP digging turned up details on some disclosed expenses that might give some Canadians pause to question Oda's travel habits. For example, on March 16, 2007, Oda made an announcement at Toronto's Harbourfront. She had some expenses associated with that announcement. The disclosure at Heritage Canada's Web site lists one item: Other Transportation: $1,291.88.

What the NDP found is that “Other Transportation” was a limousine bill. The limo picked Oda up at her home at 8 a.m. about 80 kilometres west of Toronto, drove her downtown, hung around with her all day, drove her to a Conservative Party “boot camp” event in the evening, then drove her home after that and — $1,300 later — dropped her off at 11 p.m. back at her home.

The NDP found thousands of dollars in limousine invoices as it dug through her files.

Here's the piece I filed on this issue:

OTTAWA – Roasted by the opposition months ago for racking up thousands of tax dollars in limousine costs while she attended the Junos in Halifax, Conservative minister Bev Oda is under fire for the same thing once again.

The federal New Democrats, relying on invoices and receipts obtained under Access to Information requests, accused Oda on Wednesday of spending thousands more on limos, flights, hotels and food for her and her friends, some of which she failed to disclose under new federal accountability laws.

Oda did not respond to the allegations but, in the House of Commons, government House leader Peter Van Loan said she has filed and disclosed expenses according to government rules … [Read the rest]

Someone needs to step up and fix 24 Sussex Drive, says the Auditor General:

Auditor says 24 Sussex falling apart; Harper will stay put

OTTAWA – Prime Minister Stephen Harper will not move his family out of 24 Sussex Drive, the prime minister's official residence, even though Canada's auditor general says the house is falling apart and in urgent need of millions of dollars of repairs.

Auditor General Sheila Fraser said Tuesday that 24 Sussex Drive has not undergone a major renovation in 50 years, and needs extensive work to fix the plumbing, air conditioning, windows and electrical system. The work would require the prime minister to move out of 24 Sussex for up to 15 months.

Although her report could be seen as giving a sitting prime minister the political cover needed to spend public money to fix the home he lives in, a spokesperson for Harper said he's not leaving.

“The PM and his family find 24 Sussex adequate to their needs and see no reason for a substantial renovation at this time. The Harpers have no plans to vacate 24 Sussex between now and the next election,” Carolyn Stewart-Olsen, the prime minister's press secretary, said in an e-mail message . . . [Read the full story]

Remember that Liberal “Sky's-the-limit” fundraiser back in February?

That was the one, held on Feb. 13, where Liberals were encouraged to bid on various auction items and they could bid as much as they want – the sky was the limit! After this poster raised some eyebrows, it became clear the sky wasn't the limit; Elections Canada does have, in fact, some limits: Namely $1,000 per calendar year.

The Liberals adjusted the rules for the event but, in calls I placed after the event, would not divulge how much was raised for the party.

Now I just crunched the most recent Elections Canada political contributions data and here's what we know:

• On Feb. 13 (the date of the fundraiser), the Liberals declared that eight people donated a combined total of $2,675.
• On Feb. 14, there are 9 contributors (not counting those who contributed to a leadership campaign) for a total of $4,300.
• On Feb. 15, there are 8 contributors for a total of $3,433.32.

Update: See an excellent comment below from The Explainer. Puts this in some good context.

And, for fun, here are some notable contributors as I very quickly glanced through the contributors list for the first quarter of this year:

• Author Margaret Atwood donated $1,100.
• Liberal MPs Stéphane Dion and Marcel Proulx each donated $1,000; Ken Dryden and Massimo Pacetti each donated $1,100; Francis Scarpaleggia donated $500; Ken Boshcoff, Anthony Rota, Mike Savage, Judy Sgro, Mario Silva, Belinda Stronach, and Tina Keeper each kicked in $250.02; Andy Scott wrote cheques for $300; Nancy Karetak-Lindell donated $250; Bob Rae donated $900 (his brother John was good for $1,100.); Geoff Regan donated $280.02.
• Bay Street bigwig Purdy Crawford donated $1,100.
• Rocket scientist Jaymie Matthews contributed $1,100.
• Liberal whip Karen Redman, who remained officially neutral during the leadership campaign, donated $1,100 to Dion's campaign.
• Beer baron John Sleeman donated $1,000.

More fun with contributors later (have to head up to the House to cover QP) but I did note that the Prime Minister was not among the contributors to the Conservatives in the first quarter although a certain Laureen A. Teskey Harper did kick in $1,000 to the party in the last quarter.

In the weekly newsletter to his Regina constituents, Liberal House Leader Ralph Goodale (left) talks about election timing and what he expects his leader Stéphane Dion is considering:

Three factors are coming together to create a compelling rationale for change.

First, there’s that disturbing pattern of unethical Conservative behaviour which reinforces a strong feeling that this government cannot be trusted.

Secondly, Mr. Harper’s short-sighted and ideological mismanagement of the economy has destroyed Canada’s fiscal security and is bringing the nation to the brink of an unacceptable deficit.

Third, Liberals are laying out a generous, ambitious vision for Canada’s future – all within the bounds of fiscal responsibility – providing powerful reasons to vote for a new government, and not just against the old one.

Remember Stéphane Dion's early speeches on the environment shortly after he became Liberal leader? I'm paraphrasing but it went something like, if Canada can lead the way in figuring out how to cut megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, Canada can make megatonnes of money.

So here's a report from CIBC Capital Markets economist Benny Tal [PDF] that talks about cutting greenhouse gas emissions and getting rich at the same time. Tal published this in December (I've recently had a chance to wade through the pile in my “must-read” box) and while some of the numbers have a change a little since then, the overall premise still works.

With no restrictions on emissions, companies have no economic motivation to apply such an option. Things, however, are changing. Soon, the right to emit will come with a price tag. And the surprise will be how little it will take to convince large emitters that injecting CO2 into the ground will make more economic sense than spreading it into the atmosphere…

In this context, due to its proximity to some of the world’s finest geological storage sites, Alberta’s oil patch is ideally located to
benefit from this emissions reduction option.
Instead of being the victim of environmental
regulations, the oil patch might emerge
victorious in the carbon war . . .

. . .Current estimates put the full-life cycle cost of pre-
combustion CCS at roughly $40 per tonne of CO2 —
notably cheaper than using the post-combustion
technology. But these cost estimates are being
revised downward almost daily, and the consensus is that
pre-combustion capture will be 25-30% cheaper within a
decade. In an environment of rising carbon prices, it may
not be long before the cost curve of capture and the cost
curve of emitting intersect. Accordingly, a price signal
of $20-25 per tonne of CO
can trigger a significant acceleration in the utilization of pre-combustion CCS [carbon capture and storage] as an economically feasible method of emissions reduction in
the oil sands. Incidentally, under the federal government’s
Green Plan, the price tag on carbon is scheduled to rise
to $20 per tonne of CO
by 2013.

Until the Canadian Forces acquired its own fleet of Boeing C-17 Globemasters that were capable of flying our biggest loads — tanks, the DART, etc. — around the world, we used to have to a rent a ride to get our people and gear to where they needed to go. We paid the Americans, for example, $1-million one-way per tank to move a squadron of Canadian Leopards to Afghanistan. Most often, though, we'd rent from Russian private sector firms. We still do, in fact, even though we now have our own long-haul strategic airlift capability.

The Conservative government — mostly former defence minister Gordon O'Connor along with Edmonton-area MP and former fighter pilot Laurie Hawn — justified this multi-billion dollar acquisition our own strategic airlift because they said when our troops or gear need to get somewhere, we simply can't wait around to see if we can rent a ride. In their view, waiting around for a ride means we're simply not effective as a fighting force. I agree with that point except that no one in the CF — be it Chief of the Defence Staff General Hillier nor Chief of the Air Staff Angus Watt — has ever been able to provide me an example of our assets being left high-and-dry because we couldn't find a ride for them. In other words, the empirical evidence would seem to indicate that the CF was doing just fine, in terms of operational temp, with the concept of renting a ride and that perhaps the billions spent on strategic airlift might have been better spent on, say, new search-and-rescue aircraft, new helicopters, or any number of other things the CF needs.

But now comes the Belleville Intelligencer with perhaps the best reason for buying our own strategic airlift capability rather than renting from the Russians: Apparently, the Russians aren't exactly the safest aviators in the world. The Intelligencer's Luke Hendry, working off a great Access to Information request, describes the time, for example, Canadian personnel got a little nervous on one of these Russian flights when the Russian crew fired up the Hibachi in the cargo compartment — while in flight! And then there's this:

Messages written over the years by Canadian Forces staff tell of flights in which the foreign crews tied together containers of ammunition with those containing fuel oil; did not provide seatbelts for passengers; consumed alcohol in flight; and refused to de-ice their planes.

Tip 'o the toque for the Intelligencer's intelligence to Mr. C. Taylor …