Inside Politics - Louise Elliott

Mock invitation to fête Count Michael Ignatieff and Czar Nicholas

Thu, 13 May 2010 16:25:39 -0500

It has mysterious origins.

It was the mention of Borscht that tipped me off.

That and the disclaimer in fine print at the bottom: "This is intended as political satire."

The tasteful-looking invitation to a birthday party for Michael Ignatieff and Russian Czar Nicholas II, seemed honest enough.

Clement, Jaffer and trying to get a straight answer

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 12:45:43 -0500

It seems the office of Industry Minister Tony Clement did receive an email from Rahim Jaffer, and has informed Lobbying Commissioner Karen Shepherd about the email.

This, despite what his staffer told CBC News (me) yesterday.

Mixed messages from Tories on Jaffer and the lobbying commissioner

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 15:10:01 -0500

Three government ministers offered less than fulsome answers today about their contacts with Rahim Jaffer, former Conservative MP and now, party pariah.

It began with Human Resources Minister Diane Finley. She was asked whether Jaffer had any dealings with her office.

"I have, I have, I haven't seen Rahim in a couple of years," she replied.

Transport Minister John Baird was no more forthcoming about whether he and Jaffer talked business when they dined together in recent months.

"It was nothing to do with work," Baird told CBC's Rosemary Barton.

Barton asked: "So his work never came up?"

"I'm just telling you he never raised any commercial issue with me."

Canada in a nuclear world

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 14:23:58 -0500

Canada will return its stores of enriched uranium to the U.S., Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced today.

Harper is in Washington today to take part in U.S. President Barack Obama's nuclear security summit.

The problem has been Canada's somewhat hypocritical position: The Canadian delegation is calling on other countries to reduce reliance on enriched uranium, but at the same time, Canada has a growing stockpile in the hundreds of kilograms.

It's a safe bet: Canada's government is making non-announcements

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:45:34 -0500

It's the first day of March break, but the Conservative government isn't taking the week off. Prime Minister Stephen Harper cancelled March break for MPs after the prorogation fiasco angered Canadians. "We're working hard," he has proclaimed.

It seems the government is working hard all right -- at generating non-announcements.

Today's gem: the federal government has formalized its Emergency Response Plan. You know, the one that's already in place. The one that worked well at the recent Vancouver Olympics. But never mind.

Reporters are summoned to an event in the parking lot of the Canadian Emergency Management College in Ottawa. Paper about why we're here is scarce and suspense is running high.

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews arrives with a printed copy of the plan. It seems the government is here to tick off a box created by the Auditor General's report last November. She wanted to see a plan, and not just any plan. A formalized one.

Now, they've formalized it. In a tent behind Toews, two plastic mannequins are playing the fictional victims of a chemical attack. It has no bearing on the announcment. Still, real live emergency workers swab them down. The minister mingles with them. Another emergency worker stands nearby in a bomb-disposal suit -- you know, the one from the Oscar-winning film, The Hurt Locker. Great photo opportunity. Toews obliges.

Reporters are stumped. What is the news here? They even ask the minister that very question. He explains patiently that the government is formalizing a plan. It's up to the reporters to decide whether that's news. The cameras keep rolling.

Public Safety is serious business and the fact the government claims to have a solid plan that coordinates government departments among themselves and with their provincial counterparts should be on the record. But please, a press release, or even a letter to the Auditor General would suffice.

In the meantime, such stunts suggest the government is either too tired, or too short of ideas to come up with a real announcement.

A cabinet of one, expands...

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:37:37 -0500

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has unveiled his new lineup of cabinet ministers -- a process Harper described as "fine tuning."

Stockwell Day becomes president of the Treasury Board, where he'll team up with Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to try to slay the ballooning deficit.

Most interesting is not Day's ascendancy, which has been underway for some time. But the degree to which Harper boasted about his cabinet stars today, including Day, may signal a shift towards portraying his government as a team - not a single, at times heavy-handed commander-in-chief.

Senate speculation ramps up on the Hill

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:48:44 -0500

Senate rumours are swirling to fill the gap created by the hiatus on Parliament Hill. Ever since Stephen Harper prorogued Parliament on Dec. 30, the buzz has been all about who he will appoint to fill five Senate vacancies.

There are currently two empty seats in Ontario, one in Quebec, one in New Brunswick and one in Newfoundland. Senate appointments require balance among the provinces of the Confederation, but also balance within each province.

What if we build it, and they don't come?

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:58:42 -0500

Now that the G20 will be meeting in Toronto this June, a planned three-day G8 summit in cottage country north of Toronto has been scaled back to a one-day gathering.

But what's not being scaled back is the $50 million in federal infrastructure money the government says is still needed to get the region G8-ready.

Read my full story for cbc.ca.

To prorogue or not to prorogue: the government's question

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:01:34 -0500

It has been a few weeks fraught with headaches for the government. The testimony of Richard Colvin on Afghan detainees was followed by a black eye at the Copenhagen climate change summit, where environmental groups have honoured Canada with the "fossil of the year" award for climate change inaction.

Pollsters say the government is getting poor to failing grades on both issues. So, nobody was too surprised this week when the rumours began swirling that the government might not actually come back from winter break, or not right away.

Instead, the Conservatives were musing about proroguing Parliament -- or ending the parliamentary session -- come January.

Widows on the warpath for compensation

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 11:21:18 -0500

A number of military widows told the Veterans Affairs Committee this morning that the
government's compensation package for Agent Orange exposure is a sham.

Widows who form the group "Military Widows on the Warpath" told how they've been blocked from compensation because their husbands died before the government's arbitrary cutoff date of February 2006.

They also described layers of red tape that are preventing families from getting compensation, including demands for eyewitnesses and hefty archival fees to find documents.

Wedged in: soldiers as props?

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:36:32 -0500

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's comments aboard HMCS Quebec in Trinidad and Tobago last weekend raised some eyebrows.

"In a time when some in the political arena do not hesitate before throwing the most serious allegations at our men and women in uniform based on the flimsiest of evidence, remember that Canadians from coast to coast to coast are proud of you and stand behind you. And I am proud of you, and I stand beside you."

Wrapping oneself in the flag is one thing, but wrapping oneself in a military uniform in order to stifle debate is another.

But what, exactly, is the impact of the government's strategy to deflect controversy by suppressing questions about the Afghan detainee controversy and Richard Colvin's testimony?

Listen to Louise's radio feature for The House.

3 men tortured abroad deserve compensation: MPs

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:28:51 -0500

A majority of MPs has voted to compensate three Canadians who were tortured overseas.

Conservative government members voted against the motion, which would offer restitution to Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin.

Today's vote grew out of a public inquiry into the men's plight led by Justice Frank Iacobucci. Iacobucci found the Canadian government played a role in their torture in Syria by sharing key intelligence with other foreign agencies.

The government has argued that they can't compensate the men because the men are suing several government agencies.

The flyer fight

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:12:42 -0500

Elaine Bander is sitting in her bright kitchen in Montreal's Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood.

"So this is what I found in the mail," she says, looking at a piece of paper sent to her house by Calgary Conservative MP Rob Anders.

It's a special flyer known as a "ten-percenter", so named because Parliament allows MPs to send only a certain number of them outside their own ridings. That number is 10 per cent of the total households in the MP's own riding.

This particular flyer has generated a lot of controversy.

Listen to the audio of this documentary feature:

Opportunity knocks for the NDP?

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:21:50 -0500

Everybody knows it hasn't been the rosiest time for federal Liberals. A strident plan to bring down the Conservative government last fall has somehow mellowed, or melted, into a lament from leader Michael Ignatieff.

In Winnipeg this week, he spoke to supporters a chastened man: "We've had a tough time, no other way to put it. It's been a tough couple of months and we got knocked around pretty good," he said. "I take responsibility for what we are going through."

But how has the ongoing Liberal disarray affected the NDP -- the party which is often, and mistakenly, seen as a bit player in Parliament?

LISTEN to Louise Elliott's feature for The House.

Spotted in the Capital: new OLO staffers

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:23:23 -0500

At an Ottawa coffee shop beneath the Official Opposition offices today, an impromptu gathering of Liberals signaled the changes now underway in the office of the leader.

The sounds of hammers and saws could almost be heard from above as a parade of new staffers starting with Mario Lague showed up for their morning java.