Inside Politics - Julie Van Dusen

'Ten-percenters' scaled back

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 16:40:07 -0500

Liberal MP and Board of Internal Economy spokesman Marcel Proulx sends along this account of the board's decision on the future use of partisan "ten-percenter" mailouts.

("Ten-percenters" are the flyers MPs can send, at taxpayers' expense, to households outside of their constituencies. In recent months, they have been used more and more for aggressive partisan attacks, leading to calls for a cost-saving clampdown on their use.)

A Mexican travel warning... for MPs

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:42:57 -0500

NDP MP Bruce Hyer got a taste of Mexican retribution recently.

Hyer, the MP for Thunder Bay-Superior North, was traveling with his wife Margaret to Mexico about ten days ago. They arrived in Mexico City first, and then the plan was to keep going to San Miguel de Allende for a holiday. But their vacation plans hit a major snag right at the Mexico City airport.

"I got to Mexico City in all innocence," says Hyer, "and they said "no, no... go away... can't come to Mexico. If you had a regular passport, you could have a holiday. But since you have a special green passport [a type of diplomatic passport issued to Parliamentarians like Hyer], you need a visa."

Hyer became a casualty of the Mexican anger towards Canada over the new visa requirements announced by the Harper government last July. The new rule demands that visitors from Mexico obtain visas to travel to Canada.

'Fine-tuning' cabinet shuffle coming

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:03:43 -0500

There will be a small cabinet shuffle before the House returns in March.

According to sources, the shuffle is a "fine-tuning" and not an exhaustive restructuring.

There were no hints as to which ministers would be shuffled or when.

"You would have to get into the PM's head to figure that out," a source said.

The mini-shuffle, as well as Senate picks, an upcoming throne speech and budget, are giving Stephen Harper plenty to think about during this prorogation.

Natynczyk on Colvin

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:05:51 -0500

Gen. Walter Natynczyk says he probably saw correspondence from Richard Colvin in 2006, while he was Gen. Rick Hillier's vice-chief of defence.

But he says he didn't even know who Colvin was, and didn't relate to a Colvin. "Because it's a name, you get these messages, they're called a C4, it has a gazillion addresses on the top," he told reporters after his appearance before the defence committee on Thursday morning in Ottawa.

"There was nothing that I saw that crossed my desk in '06 that certainly got my attention or I would have walked into Gen. Hillier's office and said, 'Hey, we have something here we have to work on.'"