Category: Politics/Conservatives

Since Richard Colvin's explosive testimony last Wednesday Nov. 18 that all Afghan detaineeds captured by a Canadian Forces in Kandahar were likely tortured after we turned them over to local officials, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has not been in the House of Commons. On Thursday, Nov. 19, he landed in Ottawa at 0700 after a 20 hour flight from India. On Friday, leaders and senior cabinet ministers rarely attend the last session of the week under any circumstances. But Harper used to attend QP fairly regularly from Monday to Thursday.

But he'll miss QP again today — despite the rising political temperature in Ottawa and fresh allegations that Harper himself and his inner circle of advisors insisted back in 2007 on controlling all communications on this sensitive issue.

So what's keeping him from facing questions from opposition politicans when Question Period begins today at 2:15 pm in the House of Commons?

Media Advisory:

2:15 p.m. – Prime Minister Stephen Harper will participate in a photo opportunity with the 2010 Canadian Men's Field Lacrosse team. He will be joined by James Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages. Langevin Block

Langevin Block, incidentally is right across the street from the Parliament Buildings.

In the House of Commons earlier today, MP Bob Dechert (Mississauga-Erindale) had this to say about Prime Minister Stephen Harper's trip to India:

Mr. Speaker, before the Liberal leader decided to return to Canada to be crowned, the Liberal government pursued an ideological policy of isolation toward India, slapping it with sanctions and marginalizing Canada's influence with India well into this decade.

Our government has been working to repair this long-term damage to our relationship. That is why the Prime Minister is in India this week, rebuilding relationships and deepening our economic ties with an emerging economic power.

I am happy to point out that under our government, Canada-India relations are at an all-time high. Canada's exports to India have more than doubled since our government was elected and exports are still on the rise. We recently expanded our trade network in India to eight offices, making it one of Canada's largest networks worldwide.

When it comes to free and open trade with important allies like India, it is this government that is getting the job done.

James Bezan, the Conservative MP for the Manitoba riding of Selkirk Interlake, put up an online poll at his Web site.

He wanted his Web site visitors to sound off on the record of his government, asking them: “Do you think Stephen Harper and the Conservative Government should be commended for doing a great job at managing our economy through the current fiscal crisis?”

Something tells me he was probably looking for a different answer:

Municipalities are being told if they want federal infrastructure cash, they have to pay for and install additional signs at each project promoting the federal government's economic action plan.

The signs can cost between $1,000 and $7,000 apiece. That, when multiplied by the thousands of projects approved, means municipalities could spend as much as $45 million on the four-coloured signs — which have the same visual style as the government's $100 million advertising campaign promoting its economic action plan [Read the rest]

Opposition politicians accused officials in the Prime Minister's Office of threatening the integrity of the independent Commissioner of Lobbying, in the wake of revelations that the watchdog was investigating a lobbyist firm with close connections to senior Ottawa Conservatives.

The Globe and Mai, citing an unnamed government official, reported that the lobbying commissioner was investigating Navigator Ltd. — whose chairman is a former colleague of Guy Giorno, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's chief of staff — but did not say why. The chairman, Jamie Watt, did not return calls requesting comment.

By law, investigations by the lobbying commissioner are to remain secret.

Liberal MP Paul Szabo said leaking the fact that the firm is under investigation could taint that investigation.

“The prime minister has undermined the confidentiality required by the Lobbying Act, and compromised a potential investigation,” Szabo said in the House of Commons on Tuesday .. [Read the rest of the story]

Yer editorial cartoon in this morning's Regina Leader-Post

My contribution to the nation's political discourse this morning:

The Harper government's political opponents are accusing Conservative MPs of using government advertising and communications — paid for by all taxpayers — to advance their own partisan interest.

The NDP is so incensed, it has asked parliamentary ethics commissioner Mary Dawson to launch an investigation.

Both the NDP and the Liberals are upset about some recent advertising and public relations initiatives they say veer over the line separating appropriate communications about government projects and partisan appeals for political favour.

Conservative MPs have been orchestrating cheque-presentation ceremonies, in which the oversized ceremonial cheque contains the picture of the MP, the signature of the MP, Conservative Party logos or a combination of all three.

The NDP and Liberals say they have dozens of examples where a Conservative MP hands over what Liberal MP Wayne Easter called “government of Canada cheques disguised as Conservative cheques.”

In one case, B.C. Conservative MP Colin Mayes handed over a cheque with the Conservative party logo and his own picture on it.

In Ontario, Conservative MPs Scott Reid and Larry Miller dispensed with party logos altogether, but put their own names in large print in the top left corner of ceremonial cheques they posed with, making it seem as if the cheques were drawn on their personal accounts.

[Read the rest]

And my friend and colleague John Ivison opines on this issue in today's National Post:

… the Conservatives were elected to put an end to all that. Remember when Stephen Harper promised to replace a culture of entitlement with a culture of accountability? No? Apparently, neither does he.

This has the potential to do tremendous damage to the Conservatives. All the polling shows that their Achilles' Heel is the perception that they have a tendency to put their party's interests ahead of the country's.

[Read the rest]

Just up on our site now:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is calling for a majority Conservative government to “teach” his political opponents and “their little coalition” a lesson, according to a video leaked to the Opposition Liberals.

Harper and other Conservatives have, by and large, been reluctant for the last four years to speak publicly about the possibility of a majority Conservative government for fear it might alienate “soft” supporters who would drift back to another party.

Indeed, when Canwest News Service asked Harper in mid-August how he intended to win a majority government, he would not answer the question, saying only that he did not want an election.

But in last week's 10-minute speech to a partisan Northern Ontario crowd, Harper spent several minutes arguing that the country needs a Conservative majority government and urged supporters to work toward that end.

Here's my 'rush' transcript of the back half of Harper's comments:

The thing I’m most proud of as a government – instead of constantly asking our Canadian Forces to do more with less, we have given them the equipment they need and the respect they deserve. I just ask you for a moment to imagine how different things would be if the Liberals were still in power. Imagine the bloated bureaucracy they would have created and not have delivered a single-child care space. Imagine how many left-wing ideologues they would be putting in the courts, federal institutions, agencies, the Senate – I should say, how many more they would be putting in. Imagine the damage Mr. Ignatieff’s carbon tax would be doing to our economy in the middle of a global recession. We have come forward with our Economic Action Plan. It’s one of the largest-scale stimulus measures in the world. We’re delivering it in a rapid way but our spending friends is temporary. The opposition has been clear: We should be spending a lot more and we should make that spending permanent. And they have said — and I know Mr. Ignatieff’s trying to change his tune … they have said repeatedly they would raise taxes to pay for their permanent spending and that is one biggest reasons this government needs to be re-elected so that when the recession is over we can keep taxes going down in this country.

That will be the choice. I hear rumours, these days, we may be going to an election. The next election will be a choice between higher spending and higher taxes or it will be a choice between a balanced budget and keeping taxes doing down. It will be a choice between cracking down on crime or returning to soft-on-crime policies. But most of all – it will be a choice between having a conservative government and not having a conservative government. And let me be clear about this: We need to win a majority in the next election campaign. I’m not just saying because we need a few more seats. We saw what happened last year. Do not be fooled for a moment. If we do not get a majority, the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois will combine and they will form a government. They will deny this till they’re blue in the face in an election campaign but I guarantee you if we do not win a majority, this country will have a Liberal government propped up by the socialists and the separatists. That government may not last very long but every day it’s in office it will do long-term real-damage to this country. This country cannot afford a government like that. If they force us to the polls, we have to teach them a lesson and get back there with a majority and make sure their little coalition never happens.

The federal Conservatives have been rolling out spending announcements at a furious clip, a new analysis by Canwest News Service shows, putting their names on more than 1,590 news releases since their re-election last October detailing spending commitments worth nearly $70 billion.

Just since Parliament's summer recess began on June 22 — a span of 70 days — there have been, by midday Monday, 550 spending announcements for projects totalling more than $10 billion.

The pace of federal spending has been a hot topic in political circles. The Conservatives' political opponents argue that the government has been too slow to get stimulus money into the economy — spending announcement or not.

Last week, for example, Liberal MP John McCallum posed for a photo in an empty field in Burlington, Ont., on the site where McCallum said a federal grant of $2.3 million was supposed to have built a park.

“Millions of Canadians are scratching their heads wondering why they can't see any of it actually happening,” McCallum said.

“Mr. McCallum and others can sit on the sidelines and throw potshots,” Infrastructure Minister John Baird said Monday. “What we're focusing on is working constructively with municipalities and provinces, putting aside politics to make things happen.”

Baird argued that the billions his government pumped into the economy played a role in helping to end a string of 10 consecutive months in which gross domestic product declined. Statistics Canada said Monday that GDP for June grew, albeit fractionally, by 0.1 per cent.

Treasury Board President Vic Toews said in mid-August that his government has been so successful in getting construction projects started that he's now hearing complaints from constituents in Winnipeg that there is too much roadwork gumming up Manitoba's highways.

Among the 1,593 news releases issued by the federal government since Oct. 14 that involved spending commitments, Toews' name is on the one with the smallest cheque. On Nov. 14, Toews gave a cheque for $1,000 from the Department of Veterans Affairs to the Winnipeg branch of the Polish Combatants Association in Canada for an event in which that group honoured Afghanistan veterans.

Of the spending announcements tracked by Canwest News Service, about 225 were for projects worth less than $25,000.

Some of those small projects included:

– $1,560 for a hotel in Keremeos, B.C., to hire a disabled person to work in the kitchen.

– $5,500 for a boys' choir festival in Grand Prairie, Alta.

– $9,988 for a museum in Alma, N.B., to put on an exhibit about the history of the mail-order catalogue.

– $10,094 for a curling rink condenser in Dugald, Man.

– $15,000 to produce walking tour podcasts in Charlottetown.

– $18,500 for seniors in Richmond, B.C., to put on an “intergenerational” movie night.

[Read the rest ]