Category: Politics

Welcome to the archive: On The Hill

The content you will find here is an archive of the 4,000+ posts to the blog known for most its life as “David Akin’s On the Hill.” This blog is no longer active.

The blog contains content that supplements the journalism David Akin did that appeared in newspapers and on television from 2003 until 2015. From 2003 until 2006, Akin was a technology and business reporter and so content archived here from that period is largely about tech or business issues.

In 2006, Akin became a political reporter based on Parliament Hill in Canada’s capital and the content archived here from that period until this blog ceased publication in 2015 is mostly about federal and provincial politics.

You are going to find a lot of broken links and missing media (photos, sound, video, etc) here. Some attempt is being made to clean that up.

You can get David Akin’s contact information, mailing address, social media accounts, and disclosure statement here.

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Harper gets questions. Two of them. Here's how they were picked.

Last night at about 7:30 pm on Parliament Hill, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a statement to reporters and then allowed us to ask a couple of questions.

The PMO restricted the Canadian reporters present — about 15 of us — to a total of two questions, one of which would be put to him in French and one in English. No follow-ups. For years now, this has been the standard operating procedure for “media avails” when this PM hosts a foreign leader. Two questions. No followups. Continue reading Harper gets questions. Two of them. Here's how they were picked.

Grits on the rise in Western Manitoba?

By all accounts, the November, 2013 byelection in the southwestern Manitoba riding of Brandon-Souris should never have been as close as it was. And yet, there was a punk rocker who’d spent a good chunk of his life in Toronto leading late in some polls in a riding where the Conservatives had been absolutely dominant for decades. In the end, Conservative Larry Maguire won with 44.16% of the vote compared to Liberal Rolf Dinsdale’s 42.75%.

Was that an aberration?

Maybe not.  Continue reading Grits on the rise in Western Manitoba?

Chrétien endorses former NDP MP now running for Wynne's Liberals in Sudbury

Jean Chretien
Canada’s former Prime Minister Jean Chretien laughs during an interview with Reuters in Ottawa November 15, 2011. Chretien today endorsed the New Democrat who beat one of his former ministers in Sudbury as the Ontario Liberal candidate in a provincial beyelection. (REUTERS/Blair Gable)

Former prime minister Jean Chrétien and his wife Aline today endorsed Glenn Thibeault, running for the Ontario Liberals in the provincial byelection in Sudbury. Thibeault deserted Thomas Mulcair’s NDP caucus to run for Wynne’s Liberals. Chrétien provided the endorsement even though it was Thibeault who knocked off former Chrétien cabinet minister Diane Marleau in the 2008 general election, becoming the first New Democrat to win in Sudbury since 1968.

Meanwhile, the United Steelworkers are running a radio ad in Sudbury, endorsing the NDP and taking direct aim at the “dirty politics” of Thibeault.

 

Here’s the release from the Ontario Liberals about the Chrétien endorsement: Continue reading Chrétien endorses former NDP MP now running for Wynne's Liberals in Sudbury

Harper versus Nicholson: Advise, assist — and accompany — in Iraq

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A member of the Force Protection team participates in a weapons handling drill in Kuwait, during Operation IMPACT on January 18, 2015. (Photo: OP Impact, DND)

During Question Period in the House of Commons on Sept. 30, Opposition Leader Thomas Mulcair wanted some precision from Prime Minister Stephen Harper about the extent of the mission of Canadian Forces Special Operations Forces (CF SOF) who would be on the ground in northern Iraq.

Speaking in French, Mulcair asked: ” Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister said that the rules of engagement are to advise and assist the Iraqis, but the question is, assist them how? For instance, are Canadian soldiers currently going on patrols with Iraqis or Kurds?” (This English translation I’m using here is the one that is published in Hansard, FYI)

The Prime Minister began his reply in French — “Mr. Speaker, I said ‘advise and assist the Iraqis’ ” — but then he switched to his first language, English, to finish the answer.  The emphasis here is mine: “If I could just use the terminology in English, it is quite precise. It is to advise and to assist. It is not to accompany. I think that was laid out before the parliamentary committee.” Continue reading Harper versus Nicholson: Advise, assist — and accompany — in Iraq

For the record: Text of PM rally speech in Orleans

Here’s the text of the speech Prime Minister Stephen Harper delivered in Orleans, Ont. this afternoon, in front of about 500 people.

This is the text as supplied by the PMO communications team. Was largely delivered as written:

——–

 

Chers amis. 

The long, long, long, long rap sheet of the man who shot two Edmonton RCMP

rehn
RCMP have identified Shawn Maxwell Rehn, 34, as the deceased suspect who shot two RCMP officers in St. Albert Saturday morning. Rehn, a resident of the greater Edmonton area, was known to police before Saturday’s shooting. (Edmonton Sun)

Shawn Maxwell Rehn (above) is believe to have gunned down two RCMP officers in Edmonton over the weekend. Both were wounded. One is not expected to survive his injuries, the RCMP said Sunday. Rehn is believed to have killed himself after the shootings.

There are now lots of questions — including some from the RCMP — why Rehn was not behind bars given his very, very, very long record of convictions and the very serious nature of the charges he was facing even before the weekend shootings.

My Edmonton-based colleague Joshua Skurnik has just obtained Rehn’s criminal record and a list of the charges that were already outstanding against him.

First, the convictions: Continue reading The long, long, long, long rap sheet of the man who shot two Edmonton RCMP

Battleground Southwestern Ontario: Electoral Maps Compared

2011SOW

The federal Liberal caucus arrives today in London, Ont. for its two-day winter caucus retreat. As Jane Sims notes in today’s London Free Press, this part of Ontario was been a “Grit barren land” in the last general election. The electoral map, above, from J.P. Kirby’s excellent Election Atlas, illustrates that point pretty clearly. This is what happend in the 2011 general election. In fact, so far as southern Ontario goes, the Liberals now have precisely five seats west of Yonge Street, and four of those are in Toronto. The lone Liberal island otherwise in Guelph where incumbent Frank Valeriote will pass the torch this fall to a yet-to-be-nominated Liberal candidate.

But look at the same electoral map after the 2004 election, (below) Continue reading Battleground Southwestern Ontario: Electoral Maps Compared

Harper's new national security advisor on the threat of terrorism

Richard Fadden

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper named Richard Fadden as his new National Security Advisor, a job which, you might have guessed, is both important and influential in that you end up talking to the prime minister of a G8 country likely every day, if not more often, about, well, national security.

On Wednesday, of course, terrorists killed 12 journalists and policemen in Paris.

Later this year, we will have an election where national security and our collective response to the world’s terrorists may be an issue. I try to connect all three of those dots in a column offered up for publication in our newspapers tomorrow. [You can read it now here].
That column draws heavily on a speech Fadden — whose bio is worth reviewing — gave in 2009 just after he was appointed head of CSIS. Newspaper will only give me 625 words worth of space so I was only able to impart a small bit of what Fadden said back then. I encourage you to read all of what he said in 2009 and can report that, in my discussions with current and former Harper insiders, Fadden’s 2009 thinking would be very much in keeping with the prime minister’s thinking right now in 2015.

I’m told, though I am unlikely to be able to confirm this with Fadden himself, that he pretty much wrote this himself and rather than offer it to PCO higher-ups where the “good bits” would likely be gutted, he just went and gave the speech. The source for these remarks is here [PDF]: Continue reading Harper's new national security advisor on the threat of terrorism