Category: Politics

The Ottawa Citizen's Maria Cook today lays it on the line so far as the health of our Parliament Buildings are concerned.

Every morning, as I walk up from the spot where I park my car (in what is known as The Pit, behind the Supreme Court) I've been noticing the sturdy and immense scaffolding that has now enveloped the rear of the West Block (pictured above, as seen from in front of the Bank of Montreal building Maria refers to in her piece, with the Centre Block's Peace Tower at the rear right). Maria informs me that that scaffolding is there, essentially, to support towers etc. as just about every mason in Ottawa takes the West Block apart brick by brick before re-assembling it. That will take 10 years.

And once they've got the West Block fixed up, then they'll be starting in on the Centre Block. And while the Centre Block is being fixed up, the House of Commons will move for the first time ever  since 1920– to the West Block. Remarkable.

Oh and all of this ain't cheap. It will cost more than $1 billion to fix these two treasures …

The federal government will convert the former Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography into committee rooms for MPs as part of its plan to vacate the crumbling West Block next year, the Citizen has learned.

The Department of Public Works plans to empty the West Block by the fall of 2010 in order to proceed with a long-delayed major rehabilitation. The project will take 10 years and cost more than $1.3 billion, including renovation of interim space for West Block occupants and functions.

The West Block is a three-storey building that houses 50 members of Parliament, seven committee rooms, the food production facility for Parliament Hill and the Confederation Room 200, a ceremonial space.

“The West Block has deteriorated significantly,” said Public Works project director Rob Wright, adding that it was in the worst shape of all the Parliament Buildings.

“The building is at the end of its lifecycle and it requires a stem-to-stern rehabilitation inside and out.”

When the West Block is completed in 2020, the House of Commons will relocate there for five to seven years while the Centre Block undergoes an overhaul. That means question period, parliamentary debates and other House of Commons proceedings will take place in a new chamber to be built in the courtyard of the West Block….

[Read the rest of the story]

Technorati Tags: house of commons, parliament

As new data was released showing Canada's economy is deteriorating at a more rapid rate than earlier thought, the federal government was coming under new pressure to re-write the federal budget it tabled just 46 days ago.

Statistics Canada said in February more than 82,000 Canadians lost their jobs, bringing the total job losses in the four months since November to 295,000 — “a stunning pace in such a short period of time,” said TD Bank economist James Marple.

In the Jan. 27 budget, the federal government committed to “protecting or creating” 190,000 jobs. Canada's unemployment rate, at a generational low of 5.8 per cent just a year ago, is now 7.7 per cent, and forecasters believe it will easily hit 10 per cent before the end of the year.

The results “loudly confirm that Canada is in the heart of a recession, which is quickly rivalling that of the early 1990s and early 1980s,” said BMO Nesbitt Burns deputy chief economist Douglas Porter.

Also on Friday, Statistics Canada said the country's trade deficit in January widened to $993 million — a new record — as other countries bought fewer exports of Canadian energy or automotive products. December's trade deficit was the first since 1976. As Canadians spend more by buying imports than they earn by selling exports, federal tax revenues could be impaired.

“This government is going to have to largely rethink its position,” Liberal MP Ralph Goodale said outside the House of Commons after question period. “To give that kind of bafflegab as they did (in question period) with absolutely no sense of concern, no sense of urgency, no sense that they're being overtaken with events — that will just not wash with Canadians.”

[Read the rest of the story]

Technorati Tags: economy

The report card is the brainchild of the Opposition Liberals who insisted, as a condition of their support for the federal budget, that the government introduce one every three months. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has suggested that if he and his party are unhappy with the progress the government is making to stimulate Canada's economy, it might use a vote on a future report card to bring down the government and force an election.

For their part, the Conservatives said they were happy to comply with the Liberal request. As one aide said Tuesday, “This gives us one more chance to tell our story, and we think it's a good story.”

The 135-page report card was tabled Tuesday afternoon.

Liberals said they wanted to review it overnight before responding.

“But let me be positive,” said Ignatieff. “I'm delighted that the Government of Canada, the Conservative government, is taking accountability seriously.”

While the report card contains a great deal of information on how the government is arranging plans to begin the massive spending program, it contains no information on a key budget commitment: the protection or creation of 190,000 jobs.

Between November and January, 234,000 Canadians have lost their jobs and many experts have said the pace of layoffs accelerated through February . . . [Read the rest of the story]

Technorati Tags: budget 2009, conservatives, economic stimulus, economy, michael ignatieff

Ford Canada's top executive said Ottawa's top two priorities to help the ailing auto industry ought to be fixing broken credit markets and improving a scrappage program that provides incentives for consumers to junk old cars and buy new ones.

Ford Canada CEO David Mondragon told MPs Monday night that manufacturers like Ford are having trouble raising enough cash to sustain their lending and leasing businesses, key components of the automotive retail chain.

Without the ability to help finance the purchases of its customers, many consumers simply can't afford to buy or lease a new car and that, in turn, hurts manufacturers.

In normal years, consumers look to car and leasing companies for about $60 billion a year worth of financing to acquire new cars. That market has virtually ceased to exist, Mondragon said.

When asked by one MP how the federal government can help make the auto industry sustainable, Mondragon replied, “First and foremost, it's strengthening and stabilizing financial markets. Without a financial market that's viable, without the ability for auto manufacturers to finance vehicles for their dealers, finance vehicles for consumers and keep a robust trade cycle in place, the industry will not strengthen and will not grow.”

Unlike its Detroit-based cousins, General Motors and Chrysler, Ford has not asked either the U.S. or Canadian governments for financial help . . . [Read the rest of the story]

For the last week or so, the House of Commons has featured politicians blustering at each other over a $3 billion fund the Conservatives say is crucial to their job-creating infrastructure spending but which some opposition critics say is a slush fund to boost Tory political fortunes.

The political posturing briefly revived the spectre of another general election caused by a paralyzed Parliament.

Yet once the cameras and microphones are turned off, politicians on all sides privately say they there will be no election this spring and they expect the partisan wrangling to sort itself out by the end of the month when the first possible confidence votes might be held over the Conservative government’s $3 billion fund.

Still, the political theatre is a good example of how each party is trying to walk a fine line of demonstrating that they are not playing partisan politics — several polls have suggested that Canadians want politicians to end political gamesmanship in favour of real work on the recession — while at the same time laying down markers to be used for political advantage later … [Read the rest of the story]  

I'm firing up a new hashtag for you Twitter folks.

It's called #ottawaspends. I'm thinking this can be Twitter location for discussion of the federal government's economic stimulus plan. You're free to tweet whatever you want on this tag, of course, but my tweets here will be more keyed to information and data point delivery.

For example, I'm going to try tweet quick bullet points whenever I get a press release in which a federal politician anywhere in the country issues a press release outlining any kind of federal spending. Now, I've only got 140 characters so here's the syntax I plan to use:

#ottawaspends [DEPT] [MINISTER RESPONSIBLE] [POLITICIAN ANNOUNCING] [AMOUNT] [PROVINCE] [MUNICIPALITY] [DESCRIPTION]

So how will that work?

Well, this morning, for example, ACOA (the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency) issued a press release in which Senator Donald Oliver announced, on behalf of Infrastructure Minister John Baird, a federal investment in some Nova Scotia municipalities for wastewater and drinking water systems. The combined federal, provincial and municipal investment is about $6 million but the federal portion is about $2 million. So my tweet will be:

#ottawaspends ACOA BAIRD OLIVER $2m NS Kentville Wastewater and drinking water projects

More details on these spending announcements should be posted at the Government of Canada news release centre but some, like ACOA's, are only posted at their departmental Web site.

Now this may be new money, old money, yet-to-be approved money — I don't care. The point of this is that on this date and time a federal politician stood up somewhere and took credit for putting some cash in the system. You're going to see Prime Minister Harper do that later today in Berwick, NS.

If you're new to Twitter, you can play along by simply following me — I'm davidakin on Twitter . If you do that you'll get all my tweets. Or you can head here to just follow this hashtag.

You can also track #ottawaspends through your favourite RSS reader. Here's the link to the #ottawaspends feed.

Every comic knows that timing is everything.

And usually, the timing of the comedians on the CBC hit This Hour Has 22 Minutes is pretty good.

But this morning, 22 Minutes performer Geri Hall misjudged things badly.

Hall wanted to crash a scrum of Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty ostensibly to poke some fun at a new rule McGuinty's press handlers laid down that the premier wants five feet of space around him in a scrum.

Not a bad idea but Hall tried to burst into the scrum to have a bit of fun while real reporters were quizzing the premier on a very serious issue: The shutdowns of steel mills in Hamilton and on Lake Erie. McGuinty giggled awkwardly when Hall burst in because he realized this was not the kind of day for him to be seen goofing around. The idling of these steel mills is awful news for a province that just this week announced deficits would total $18-billion over the next two years.

NDP MP Peter Kormos actually shooed Hall away, “Shame on you! 2,000 workers just lost their jobs. We're trying to hold the premier accountable. Why don't you get the hell out of here?”, according to Global Television Queen's Park correspondent Sean Mallen, who was in on the scrum.

You'll remember that Hall, with wig on, was once arrested by Stephen Harper's security guards when she crashed a press conference the PM was giving during the election. All turned out well (in fact, better than well) when Harper's handlers quickly realized the error and got her a one-on-one in Harper's hotel suite. Hall turned that moment into some pretty good comedy.

This time around, though, no one was in the mood for any foolin' around and Hall packed up and left.

“I'm going to go,” she said. “Good luck. Bye.”

Apparently you would not. And, because of that, The Conference Board of Canada — an independent economic think tank based in Ottawa – concludes that food manufacturing may in fact be a recession-proof industry. It believes that profits for food manufacturers in 2009 will come close to the record-high levels of profits made in 2008:

“Demand for everyday products such as food is not particularly sensitive to economic conditions, so the food manufacturing industry in Canada is expected to come through the economic turmoil without suffering too much,” said Valerie Poulin, Economist.

Food is one of the most overlooked components of the Canadian economy. Food and beverages are the single largest component of retail sales, and food processing is the largest component of Canada’s manufacturing sector in terms of jobs.

Food processors may be affected by changing tastes and diets, and consumers may choose cheaper products over premium ones, but total food consumption is not expected to drop significantly due to the recession. Production of food products is expected to decrease by less than 1 per cent in 2009. Profits are expected to fall from their peak of $4.6 billion in 2008 to $4.3 billion this year and remain close to that level throughout the next four years.