Category: Politics/Conservatives

Loyola says that's it

The news that Loyola Hearn would not seek re-election in his St. John's South-Mount Pearl riding broke late last week and was not entirely unexpected. Hearn, who finished his career in Ottawa as Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, is, so far as I can tell, widely admired among his colleagues, the press, and others. He's a good egg and Parliament would be better off with more like him in it.

Hearn has been the point man in his province in fending off the attacks from the nominally Conservative premier there. I reproduce, below, Hearn's farewell statement and you very much get the sense that he'd dearly love to have a crack at Danny Billions:

After two decades of elected service to Newfoundland and Labrador and my country, I will not run in the next federal election.

I want to thank everyone who has supported me over the years, and who gave me the honour of serving as their elected member at both the provincial and federal levels. But most of all, I want to thank Maureen and my children for their tireless support. People often only see the public figure, but family members give up so much to support those in public office. Their love and patience is a real blessing, and I look forward to spending more time with them and my grandchildren.

While it is admittedly tempting to throw my hat in the ring one more time to fight the misinformation campaign underway in our province, I told my family after the 2006 election that it would be my last as a candidate.

I support Prime Minister Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada, and I look forward to helping them win the upcoming election, and then to continuing to serve my province and my country however I can in the future

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Harper dares Dion: Let's go to the polls, pal!

The Prime Minister, in a speech tonight at a BBQ in Québec lays down his most explicit challenge yet to the Leader of the Official Opposition:

FRIENDS, I SEE MR. DION IS CHALLENGING ME TO DEBATE HIS CARBON TAX.

SI M. DION VEUT UN VRAI DÉBAT,

– PAS SEULEMENT PARMI LES POLITICIENS, MAIS UN DÉBAT OUVERT À TOUS,

– TOUT CE QU’IL A À FAIRE EST DE RÉALISER SA TOUTE DERNIÈRE MENACE DE DÉCLENCHER DES ÉLECTIONS.

UNE FOIS DE PLUS, M. DION MENACE DE FAIRE TOMBER LE GOUVERNEMENT.

MAIS NOUS ENTENDONS CETTE CHANSON DEPUIS BIENTÔT DEUX ANS.

FOR TWO YEARS, MR. DION HAS BEEN THREATENING TO BRING DOWN THE GOVERNMENT.

AND HE DOES EVERYTHING IN HIS POWER TO SLOW THE BUSINESS OF PARLIAMENT – OBSTRUCTION AFTER OBSTRUCTION, DELAY AFTER DELAY.

BUT – WHEN THE TIME COMES TO STAND AND BE COUNTED – HE ALWAYS BACKS DOWN.

CANADIANS DESERVE TO HAVE A PARLIAMENT THAT WORKS.

THEY WANT THE GOVERNMENT TO KEEP GOVERNING,

TO ADDRESS ISSUES THAT MATTER TO THEM,

TO KEEP THE COUNTRY MOVING FORWARD.

SO MR. DION MUST DECIDE TO FISH OR CUT BAIT.

EITHER LET THE CURRENT PARLIAMENT WORK AND LET US GET ON WITH OUR MANDATE

– OR THE VOTERS THEMSELVES WILL DECIDE.

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Brison kicks off Liberal campaign in Guelph

Liberal MP and former cabinet minister Scott Brison was in Guelph this afternoon where he kicked off the campaign for candidate Frank Valeriote.

Here's the blurb from the Liberal campaign:

Mr. Valeriote and Mr. Brison took specific aim at Conservative Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, who earlier this year told a business audience that Ontario is “the last place” to invest.

“The manufacturing sector has been especially hard hit by a high Canadian dollar, soaring energy prices, and a downturn in the US,” said Mr. Brison. “Even though the Canadian economy shrank in the first quarter of the year, the Conservatives ignore the problems and refuse to take action.”

“ We need immediate action on the manufacturing front and a help with a move towards diversifying the Guelph Economy” stated Mr. Valeriote. Mr. Valeriote also praised the Liberal Green Shift plan, which cuts income taxes and provides other tax credits while putting a price on carbon emissions that contribute to climate change.

“The new global economy will be driven by innovation in renewable energy and energy-efficient technologies – a green and diverse economy,” said Mr. Valeriote. “The University of Guelph and industries throughout WellingtonCounty have always been innovators in green technologies. The Green Shift will be good for the economy and for the environment.”

Voters in the Ontario riding of Guelph, along with those in the Quebec ridings of Westmount-Ville Marie and Saint-Lambert, will go to the polls in 40 days to replace the retiring Brenda Chamberlain (Lib.), Lucienne Robillard (Lib.) and Maka Kotto (BQ) respectively.

All three are shaping up as interesting races. Though a cautious gambler would bet on the incumbent parties to hold each seat, there's a reasonable chance of an upset in all three.

Valeriote, whose dad Mico was a long-time city council member and enjoys some cachet from his family's political longevity in Guelph — will face a tough fight.

He's up against NDP candidate Tom King — he of CBC's Dead Dog Café fame — as well as city councillor and Conservative candidate Gloria Kovach and the Green Party's environment critic Mike Nagy. Nagy is unlikely to win but he could draw off enough support from disaffected mainstream voters that his candidacy could significantly affect the final outcome and may even unseat the Liberals.

Kovach has been winning municipal elections for a long time in Guelph but the Conservatives put themselves behind the eight-ball when the national party stepped in earlier this year to fire the locally-chosen candidate Brett Barr. Barr carried the Conservative can in the 2006 general election but, for some reason, was not liked by the national folks. Many local Conservatives were and still are upset with the party for this and, as a result, Kovach has to do some healing within her own ranks while fending off other parties.

King has some name recognition and should easily connect with people he meets on the campaign trail. His problem in Guelph is that Guelph, a fairly affluent, urban riding with a lefty-university, has never come close to electing a New Democrat. It's been Liberal for 15 years; had a Progressive Conservative during Mulroney's premiership, was mostly Liberal during Trudeau's time and was represented by PC MP Alf Hales in the late 60s and early 70s. Hales, incidentally, is pitching in to help Kovach.

UPDATE: Guelph Mercury reporter Magda Konieczna blogs a good point: Until the 2006 election when Liberal Brenda Chamberlain was elected to sit on the opposition benches, the MP from Guelph has sat on the government side since 1972. Prior to Chamberlain, the last Guelph to sit in opposition? Why, that would be the aforementioned Mr. Hales.

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Conservative Party appoints communications officials

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Just as there is a new top dog in the communications shop at Conservative PMO, there is a new communications top dog at the Conservative Party. Ryan Sparrow, I learned this afternoon, officially assumed the role of Director of Communications for the party on July 1. If there was a director of communications for the party before Ryan, I didn't know about it. In fact, I'll bet in his new job Ryan will be doing pretty much what he's been doing for the last year, i.e. dealing with us media types (that's him on the left in the picture “dealing” with the CBC's Keith Boag), but now he has a a decent title and (I hope) a decent salary.

Ryan's new job was announced in a message sent around by Doug Finley, the party's director of political operations and national campaign director. In that note, Finley also named Geoff Donald to be deputy director of political operations, effective August 1.

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From Corncob Bob to the PMO: Day 2

Kory Teneycke — perhaps most famous in his young life for getting Corncob Bob on to the Jon Stewart show [I'd link to the item but here in Canada, CTV, which carries Stewart's shows, won't let Canadians link through. If you're from the States or somewhere else, though, watch of one of Rob Corddry's finest moments] while he was the exec director of the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association — opened up his second day in the Langevin Block as Prime Minister Stephen Harper's new Director of Communications by meeting with the chiefs of the big news bureaus here in Ottawa — Canwest, Canadian Press, the Globe, CBC, CTV and so on.

Teneycke is succeeding Sandra Buckler, a communications director who placed less value on winning the hearts and minds of the Parliamentary Press Gallery and more on serving the strategic goals of her boss. Tory blogger Stephen Taylor uses a nice metaphor: Where Buckler was Harper's shield, Teneycke may be his sword.

Some say Buckler's tenure was terrible; others say it was terrific.

Whatever your view, there's no getting around the fact that the Brodie-Buckler version of the PMO (former Chief of Staff Ian Brodie resigned about the same time) finished up with their boss at almost exactly the same point in the polls as he did when he arrived in January, 2006. In other words there hasn't been a lot of growth in political support for the Conservatives though they've had all the advantages of being in office for two years.

So now we have PMO: The Giorno-Teneycke version. (Guy Giorno replaced Brodie as Harper's chief of staff). So far as we've been able to determine, the mission for Giorno will be largely a political one: Get Harper ready for the next election, which will certainly come by the fall of 2009 and, in my view, has a slim chance of happening this fall.

Teneycke will play a key role in carrying out Giorno's mission and, so far, it seems as if he's going to do that by taking an approach that will be remarkably different than the one taken by Buckler. Buckler – who once famously responded to a reporter's query by saying “Off the record: No Comment” — preferred as little interaction with the press as possible, not only for the prime minister, but for all ministers and MPs. Teneycke appears to prefer more engagement and more candour though I suspect he will build on the remarkable communications discipline Buckler has drilled in to the Tory troops.

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Politicking in Guelph

The federal seat for Guelph is vacant right now. The incumbent, Liberal Brenda Chamberlain, retired in April. Sooner (probably) than later, Prime Minister Harper will have call a bye-election there. I wrote about the match-ups predicting that it could be the Liberals to lose although the Conservatives believe they have a shot at it.

The NDP, however, are very high on this riding and their candidate, Tom King.

In fact, the NDP is putting the full-court press on Guelph tomorrow:

OTTAWA – NDP Leader Jack Layton will join local candidate Tom King and several prominent members of the party’s Ontario caucus in Guelph on Friday to meet with local leaders and tour the city in advance of upcoming by-election.
The City of Guelph is another Ontario community that will be hard hit by the current crisis in the manufacturing industry, with 18 per cent of local jobs coming from that sector. The NDP has long been pushing for a green jobs plan that would not only help limit greenhouse gases but would also help to restore Ontario cities that are seeing layoff after layoff.
“Green-collar jobs are the future for cities like Guelph,” said Layton. “We need to support the growth of good quality, sustainable jobs that will help us clean up our environment and build for the future of Canada’s communities.”
MPs joining Layton in Guelph are Brian Masse (Windsor West), Chris Charlton (Hamilton Mountain), David Christopherson (Hamilton Centre), Irene Mathyssen (London Fanshawe) and Peggy Nash (Parkdale-High Park).

FRIDAY, JUNE 13 GUELPH

8:00 AM Breakfast with City Councillors, Chamber of Commerce and Labour Council Members
Delta Hotel 50 Stone Rd. West


10:00 AM Press Conference
Bookshelf Café Green Room
41 Quebec St.

11:00 AM
CAW Plant Tour Hitachi Construction Truck Manufacturing
200 Woodlawn West

12:00 PM Lunch with Environmental Groups
Diana Restaurant
141 Wyndham St. North

2:00 PM
MPs Meet with Local Civil Society Groups
Evergreen Senior Centre
683 Woolwich St.

4:00 PM
Meet and Greet with Volunteers
Tom King Campaign Headquarters
104-141 Woolwich St.

4:30 PM
Mainstreeting with Tom King
104-141 Woolwich St.

The Conservatives, too, will soon bring some relatively big guns to support their candidate, Gloria Kovach:
Meet Gloria Kovach, candidate for Guelph

Meet special guests, including Ministers, Senators, MPs, and a few surprises, including:
The Hon. John Baird, Minister of the Environment
The Hon. Diane Finley, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration
The Hon. Consiglio Di Nino, Senator for Ontario
The Hon Michael Chong, P.C., M.P. for Wellington-Halton Hills
Gary Goodyear, P.C., M.P. for Cambridge
Bev Shipley, P.C., M.P. for Lambton-Kent-Middlesex
Dave Van Kesteren , P.C., M.P. for Chatham-Kent-Essex
Jeff Watson, P.C., M.P. for Essex

Meet the campaign team, mix and mingle with friends, and Enjoy!
Saturday, June 21, 2008
2:00 to 6:00 p.m.
Exhibition Park, Guelph

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Tory army on the move

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In Ottawa today, many young people are out and about doing a little political work on behalf of the Conservative Party. They are wearing bright, yellow t-shirts and are handing out cards that suggest Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion will tax anything. A reader of this blog sent along some pics, one of which is reproduced here, that s/he snapped with the comment: “I wonder if they're junior tories or if this was the best they could do in the summer job department!”

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Flanagan to Conservatives: Suck it up!

While some of my colleagues like Glen McGregor — who, along with Parliament Hill freelancer Tim Naumetz, first reported on what we now know as the in-and-out scheme — dug into the details of the nearly 700 pages of documentation that the Elections Commissioner put in front of a judge last week in order to obtain a search warrant, Elizabeth Thompson, a few desks over from mine, remembered what Tom Flanagan had said about the concept of moving money in from the national campaign to the local campaign and then back out again from the local campaign to the national campaign.

The same quote jumped out at me when I read Flanagan's book last fall.

I blogged a fair bit about Flanagan's book, Harper's Team: Behind the Scenes in the Conservative Rise to Power. If you're covering federal politics I would suggest it's a much more important read than, say, Mulroney's Memoirs or Eddie Goldenberg's How It Works (enjoyable and illuminating as those books were). Flanagan lays out a lot of the core strategy behind some recent and likely future Conservative moves. (And many Conservatives are not exactly grateful to Flanagan for that, I might add.)

And, keeping in mind that one of the defences mounted by Conservative MPs in the House of Commons in the wake of the RCMP raids was that it just wasn't fair, that every party engages in the advertising financing schemes that they did. “The unequal treatment is not justified,” said Government House Leader Peter Van Loan. Really? Well, Mr. Van Loan, meet Mr. Flanagan:

“People expect conservatives to be tough. They believe in the values of self-help, individual responsibility, criminal justice, economic realism, and national interest. They look ridiculous, if they go around snivelling and complaining about fairness every time an opponent takes a shot at them. Political campaigning is a civilized form of civil war. The point is to win the war, not to complain that people are fighting. Leave the whining to the utopians who fantasize about conflict-free societies.”

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A Wheat Board Election? Why not?

Ok, so you’re a federal Conservative strategist, frustrated that Stephane Dion and the Liberals refuse to take the bait you’ve been offering and send the country to the polls. You’ve dared him to do it on your justice package, on Afghanistan, and on the budget but, in each case, he’s refused to call your bluff (despite some not-so-muted baying from within his own caucus).

So what’s next? Why, the Wheat Board, of course.

You’ve been trying ever since taking office to bust the Canadian Wheat Board’s monopoly but, what with one pesky court ruling after another, you just can’t seem crack that nut. But now Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz has a legislative package ready to go (see below) to break the Wheat Board up. All you have to do is to get the Prime Minister to declare it a confidence matter and, presto, there’s no waaay the Liberals can let this one slide. After all, who’s their House leader? That’s right: Ralph “Mr. Saskatchewan” Goodale. The NDP couldn’t abide by the Wheat Board’s breakup and, even though Quebec farmers aren’t affected by the Wheat Board, they are beholden to so-called “supply management”, a Wheat Board-esque way of marketing dairy products and so on. So count on the Bloc’s opposition to breaking up the Wheat Board. And just like that, you’ve now found an issue too noxious for the other three opposition parties and yet it’s an issue voters in key urban battlegrounds probably don’t care too much about.

Now, if only the Opposition would stop asking those pesky Cadman questions …

Government of Canada Set to Introduce Amendments to CWB Act 


OTTAWA, ONTARIO–(Marketwire – Feb. 29, 2008) – The Government of Canada is committed to giving Western Canadian barley producers marketing freedom and today announced an Act to amend the Canadian Wheat Board Act and chapter 17 of the Statutes of Canada, 1998, will be introduced in the House of Commons early next week. The announcement was made by the Honourable Gerry Ritz, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and Minister for the Canadian Wheat Board.

“This Government listens to farmers. That is why we are taking action to give Western Canadian barley producers the same marketing freedom producers in the rest of the country already enjoy,” said Minister Ritz. “This bill will deliver on our Throne Speech commitment and will bring barley marketing freedom to the strong and growing majority of producers who are demanding it.”

“Western Canadian barley producers are best qualified to make their own marketing decisions,” added Minister Ritz. “This Government's new legislation will give Western Canadian producers the freedom to make those barley marketing choices.” 

 

Nuclear regulator fires back at Lunn

After the Chalk River Nuclear Laboratory was shut down back in December — causing a medical crisis worldwide becuase no one could get the crucial medical isotopes produced at Chalk River — the federal government hauled the head of Canada’s nuclear safety regulator Linda Keen before Parliament to explain herself.

Then, as we’re learning today, Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn sent Keen a letter on Dec. 27, 2007 basically saying, give us a good reason why we shouldn’t fire you.

Well, today, after that letter came to light, Keen and the regulator are firing back with all guns blazing:

First, Keen called in the RCMP to investigate the leak of that Dec. 27 letter, which was supposed to be private and confidential.

Second, Keen called in the Privacy Commissioner to investigate the leak of that letter.

Finally, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) — that’s the group that Keen is the President of — released 38 pages of documents this afternoon which include Lunn’s Dec. 27 letter as well as her blistering response/attack in this letter to Lunn:

“As the head of an independent quasi-judicial administrative tribunal, I was and remain deeply troubled by both the tone and content of your letter. The nature of the allegations which have been made, coupled with your threat to have me removed as President, seriously undermine the independence of the CNSC…

The Supreme Court of Canada has consistently held that the principles of fundamental justice require quasi-judicial administrative tribunals to be free from political influence or interference….

[Your actions] are examples of improper interference with both the institutional independence of the CNSC and with the administration of justice …

I would therefore ask you to carefully consider the significant chilling effect your recent actions could have on the practices and decisions of other tribunals who are responsible for important work on behalf of Canadians.”

So far today — 1:50 pm Ottawa time — Lunn’s office has not responded to our requests to interview him. A spokesman for the CNSC said neither Keen nor any other from the CNSC will be making any further comments about this matter today.

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