Tag Archives: Stephen Harper

Aug 16 2013
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Humour, Politics

The lazy, crazy days of summer on the Hill

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Stephen Harper doesn’t strike me as a beach-combing, swimsuit-wearing type of guy. Nor do I imagine him to be much of a cracker-barreller, hanging around the local five-and-dime, good-naturedly swapping stories with the geriatric set. Someone told me he once wore a suit to a barbecue.

In fact, I have no idea how the esteemed prime minister prefers to spend his down time (does he have down time?), but the days of his annual furlough from Crazytown are rapidly running out. He’d better smoke ‘em while he’s got ‘em, for the fall legislative session promises to be. . .well, let’s just say, trying.

Goodbye Andrew MacDougall. We hardly knew ye. Then again, we hardly knew any of your predecessors, either. Seven directors of communications for the Prime Minister’s Office in seven years, in one door and out the other. That’s got to be some kind of record. For his part, Mr. MacDougall thanked his boss, thanked the media “for and interesting experience,” and praised his colleagues and staff for making him “look good”, especially when they weren’t screwing up.

Funny stuff. His acknowledged sense of whimsy will be sorely missed in Ottawa as he assumes his new responsibilities at a “strategic communications” firm in London, U.K., rescuing some other guy’s butt from the pyre of public opinion.

Really, though, does Fat City proffer a more thankless job than the one Mr. MacDougall leaves behind?

Just a moment; I believe it does.

The whereabouts of one Pamela Wallin are much on people’s minds these days. And by “whereabouts,” I mean her mode of conveyance across this vast land of ours. Is it a commercial flight from the nation’s Capitol to Toronto to Saskatchewan? Or is it the bus under which her Senate colleagues have thrown her?

Having already repaid $38,000 in improperly claimed travel expenses, Ms. Wallin must now pony up an additional $83,000. She says she’ll do it. But she’s not happy about it. Speaking to reporters in Ottawa this week, the embattled Senator had this to say about the independent audit of her spending by Deloitte:

“It is my view that this report is the result of a fundamentally flawed and unfair process. When appointed to the Senate in 2009, I was determined to be an activist Senator, one who saw it as her job to advance causes that are important to Canadians. When invited to appear publicly and speak on subjects including the role of women in public life, Canada’s mission in Afghanistan, and support for our troops, I saw it as my duty to accept whenever able to do so. Travel to these public speeches and appearances was, and is, in my continuing view, a legitimate Senate expense.

“However, in the Deloitte report, a number of expenses going back to 2009 that were submitted – and approved – by Senate Finance over a four year period have now been disallowed. Deloitte has wrongly, in my view and in the opinion of my lawyers, applied the 2012 changes made to the Senators’ Travel Policy retroactively. The result is that travel expenses, which were approved and paid by Senate Finance in 2009, 2010 and 2011 have, in a number of cases, been disallowed.”

Still, she added, “While I have serious concerns about the fairness of this process, I do not want to further burden the people of Saskatchewan, the Canadian public, or my Senate colleagues any more with this matter. . .I will pay back the full amount ordered by the Committee, including interest, once the final figure is given to me, and I will do so from my own resources.”

None of which prevents her confreres in the Red Chamber from clucking their pious disapprovals, even as some might frantically check their own records for evidence of unintended malfeasance. All of which raises a fresh batch of questions about an institution that can’t, for the ossified life of it, figure out how to regulate itself.

Over at the PMO, which Mr. Harper must re-embrace all too soon, the message remains crystal clear. As Mr. MacDougall told The Globe and Mail this week, “Our government will not tolerate the waste and abuse of taxpayer money. We expect that any inappropriate expenses will be repaid.”

It was, perhaps, his swan song, the title of which reads: “I’m outta’ here, and not a moment too soon.”

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Aug 13 2013
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Culture, Politics

Use Sochi to support human rights

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It should be clear by now that the Olympic Games is about as useful for promoting the vaunted notion of justice through sport as a hammer is for spreading paint on a wall. That, of course, doesn’t prevent millions of viewers from gluing themselves to their TV sets every four years to glimpse fleeting instances of true athletic grace.

It is, in fact, the rarity of such demonstrations of simple, unalloyed prowess, amid the cloying displays of national pride and corporate flackery, that keep us parked in our seats hoping for the best in human nature, though expecting the worst.

Six months out from Sochi, the underbelly of this quadrennial extravaganza is already showing itself. The host country, Russia, dislikes gay people so much that it has passed laws banning “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations”. That means, if you are an athlete who is out of the closet, you’d be advised to go back in and shut the door lest you find yourself fined, in jail, or both.

Aggravating this insult were comments last week that suggested that at least one member of the International Olympic Committee remains sanguine about Russia’s hard line on homosexuality.

According to a CNN report, “Lamine Diack, president of the International Association of Athletics Federations, has called for Russian law to be respected ahead of his sport’s world championships, which begin in Moscow on Saturday. ‘I don’t feel there is a problem whatsoever,’ Diack, a member of the International Olympic Committee, told reporters. ‘Russia has their laws. Each athlete can have their own private life, so we won’t call upon people about this and that. . .We are here for the World Championships and have no problem whatsoever and I’m not worried at all.’”

Roughly 300,000 other individuals, who have signed a petition calling for Russia to repeal the legislation, are far less cheerful, given that the “the goal of Olympism”, according to the IOC’s charter, “is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.”

All of which has raised the unavoidable specter of a boycott. The well-known British actor, comedian and activist Stephen Fry has gone as far as to demand that the Games be relocated. In an open letter to his Prime Minister David Cameron and the IOC, he wrote on his website, “An absolute ban on the Russian Winter Olympics of 2014 on Sochi is simply essential. Stage them elsewhere in Utah, Lillyhammer, anywhere you like. At all costs Putin cannot be seen to have the approval of the civilised world. . .He is making scapegoats of gay people, just as Hitler did Jews. He cannot be allowed to get away with it.”

He later changed his mind, and for good reason. Practically and politically, such a move would be impossible. But, in fact, any form of boycott would be both unfair to the athletes and counterproductive to the cause of human rights. Snubbing the Games tacitly acknowledges the legitimacy of the legislation. It says: the law may be vile, but it is still the law. Russia has thrown down the gantlet; the world must now pick it up.

I am inclined to agree with those, including Canada’s Foreign Minister John Baird, who have remarked that Sochi presents an important opportunity for the athletic communities of all nations to forge a united front of principled protest against Russia’s backward social policies. Specifically, the opportunity to flout the law and send a message that acceptance, not discrimination, animates an increasingly enlightened world is too good to pass up.

At the very least, it would go some distance towards restoring a modicum of respectability to the apparatus of the Games, itself, the reports of whose ambivalence, corruption and scandals over the years could paper the walls of several Olympic-sized swimming pools.

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Jul 16 2013
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Politics

The shuffling of deck chairs

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Prime Minister Stephen Harper has installed eight new smiles, and plenty of old ones, to greet him at this year’s Conservative Party’s national policy convention, which falls, thanks to the gods of irony, on Halloween.

But Canadians need not wait for the pagan holiday to appreciate the dimension of change the new federal cabinet heralds. The tricks and the treats have been in the works for months; certainly, ever since public opinion polls started granting the youthful, would-be usurper, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, a commanding lead over dear, old Father Harper.

Following the swearing in on Monday, the PM described his shuffle thusly: “I think this is a good mixture of some young and promising talent we have in our caucus and some experienced hands. . .This fall, the government will move ahead with a renewed policy agenda set forward in a speech from the throne. . .And our new agenda will have new faces to bring it forward. The team Canadians elected. . .is deep and it is talented.”

Indeed, it is. It’s also huge – 39 cabinet ministers, in all, will sally forth across the land, preaching the virtues of small government to increasingly skeptical audiences who have, by now, grown accustomed to political spin masquerading as plain speech.

Still, the appointees, themselves, are auspicious picks. Comprising the cohort of newbies are: Chris Alexander, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration; Michelle Rempel,  Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification; Shelly Glover, Heritage Minister; Candice Bergen, Minister of State for Social Development; Kellie Leitch, Minister of Labour, Greg Rickford, Minister of State for Science and Technology; Kevin Sorenson, Minister of State for Finance; and Pierre Poilievre, Minister of Democratic Reform

Standing sturdily, right where they were, are Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, International Trade Minister Ed Fast and Treasury Board President Tony Clement. Meanwhile, some old standbys are moving on, including Peter MacKay, former Defence Minister, who assumes the Justice portfolio.

The question, of course, is what, if anything, do these personnel changes say about the promised “renewed policy agenda.” Many of the federal government’s signature plans and priorities have been stuck in neutral for more than a year.

Trade talks with the Europeans are going nowhere. Relations with Washington remain cordial, but cool. Keystone is but a wish to be contemplated. The new fighter jet project is all but grounded. And, despite Mr. Flaherty’s and his central bank’s best efforts, the Canadian economy, has not rebounded in convincing fashion from the downturns of the past decade.

These items crowd the list of the old agenda, and they are not going away. They are, in fact, the baggage Mr. Harper and his new cabinet must haul during the scant years before the next general election. Worse, the signs that Canadians are increasingly weary of having to watch their elected members carry this burden from one committee room to another, from one public announcement to another, are plentiful.

“A new poll shows the federal Liberals continue to pound the Conservatives, with Canadians saying for the first time leader Justin Trudeau would make a better prime minister then Stephen Harper,” The Montreal Gazette reported in June. “According to a new Léger Marketing poll, 27 per cent of Canadians now think Trudeau would be a better prime minister than Harper, who has a score of 23 per cent. New Democratic Party Leader Thomas Mulcair is seen as the best prime minister by 14 per cent. It’s the first time Léger has reached such a polling conclusion since Trudeau took over the party April 14, said Léger vice-president Christian Bourque. ‘It’s the Trudeau phenomenon,’ said Bourque. ‘In our polling it’s the first time that he’s. . .ahead of Stephen Harper.’”

If the prime minister hopes to improve his party’s standing among Canadians, he would be wise to grant both old and new faces around the cabinet table greater authority to offer fresh, even independent, perspectives on the issues that, for the moment, fall within their purview only titularly.

That would be the neatest trick, and a welcome treat, at this year’s Halloween policy gala.

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Jun 07 2013
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Economy, Politics

Stop depending on the kindness of strangers

Pennies from Ottawa? It just cancelled the currency, Atlantic Canada

Pennies from Ottawa? It just cancelled the currency, Atlantic Canada

Once, when he was not yet a serious contender for federal office, Prime Minister Stephen Harper opined that Atlantic Canada’s “culture of defeat will be hard to overcome” as long as the region “physically” trails behind the rest of the country.

That stinging characterization, in 2002, of the birthplace of Confederation played well out west among his base of prairie farmers and Calgary oil men. So well, in fact, that he took another crack at ringing the defeatist bell a few days later for The Ottawa Citizen, which quoted him in more generally ruminative terms: “I think there is a dangerous rise in defeatist sentiment in this country. I have said that repeatedly, and I mean it and I believe it.”

Back here, among the lobster pots and pogey checks, his remarks lit a fire of indignation. We fumed and fussed. We wrote letters to the editor and posted angry comments to websites. We demanded that our premiers speed to our defence, as if we were so many jilted brides.

We missed the point, of course. But that’s only because Mr. Harper deployed the the wrong word. It wasn’t “defeat” that gripped us; it was “dependence”. And that culture of dependence – on Ottawa, on the richer provinces of Canada – shrouds us today, like a swaddling blanket.

In his illuminating series of commentaries about New Brunswick and its  challenges (now running in this and the province’s other major newspapers), public policy expert Donald Savoie observes, “There is a growing reluctance on the part of the have-provinces to continue to finance transfer payments to have-less provinces at current levels.”

That’s a polite way of describing the situation. Another was Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall’s vituperative critique last year. The current system of equalization, he declared in an opinion piece, generates “distortions, often of a significant scale, that impair the national economy and discourage people from moving to places of economic opportunity.” The system, he insisted, discourages “labour mobility in a way that hurts the national economy and ultimately individual Canadians.”

There was a certain amount of bald-faced nonsense in this claim. Federal transfers haven’t stopped thousands of Maritimers and Newfoundlanders from leaving their ancestral homes for more lucrative economic opportunities out west. But the larger point has to do with the way we, on the East Coast, routinely meet such criticisms: defensively, even peevishly.

Defending equalization against attacks by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Premier David Alward told the Telegraph-Journal’s Chris Morris on Wednesday, “It is part of our Constitution and part of who we are as Canadians. It allows provinces that do not have the fiscal capacity to provide comparable levels of service at comparable levels of taxation. It’s not a fat cat program.”

In other words, we “depend” on it. And in depending on it, we have, at some basic level, come to think of it as a program to which we are entitled – a part of the province’s 40 per cent, annual revenue take from “Fat City”, the capital.

Perhaps, this is only natural. Everyone perceives reality through the filter of his or her experiences. And if those experiences involve relying on a massive infusion of money from jurisdictional underwriters in other parts of the country to pay for schools and hospitals, then we perceive our reality – though fundamentally tethered to the generosity of stranger, it may be – as fixed in time. The status quo of equalization is, or should be, immutable. Shouldn’t it?

Equalization may be a right. But if we are serious about forging a more economically sustainable future, we should stop looking upon it as a permanent virtue and begin regarding it for what it is: a temporary evil, one from which we should work hard to wean ourselves. At the very least, the language our elected representatives choose to use in their public pronouncements should reflect this long-term purpose.

The horizon for this decidedly bowed, yet not defeated, part of the country instantly clears the moment we embrace the notion that the only ones on whom we should depend are ourselves.

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