Monday Morning Links

Assorted reading to pass a chilly Family Day.

- Your non sequitur of the day comes from Con MP Ed Holder responding to the concerns of Kevin Page and the opposition parties about the use of "cabinet confidences" to hide the actual costs of Harper policies:

Conservative MP Ed Holder (London West, Ont.) said it wasn't so much about resources, but rather a lack of time, and MPs focusing on "salacious" issues rather than what they're in Parliament to do. He said the Library of Parliament is an excellent resource for MPs who need help understanding the budget or estimates or any piece of legislation.

How that's supposed to help in the absence of estimates related to a particular bill is left as an exercise for the reader - at least, assuming there isn't a "cabinet confidences" section of the library where full information can be found.

- Susan Delacourt gives her take on why Bev Oda's forgery and cover-up - and the Cons' continued defiance - are well worth some continuing coverage:

You want to know why this government spends so much time controlling its "message" and its portrayal in public? Because it's trying to enforce power over who writes its history -- criticism is tantamount to taking the enemies' side. We reporters in Ottawa are used to this by now.

The Bev Oda controversy is not staying in the headlines because we journalists are trying to bring down the government (much as many Conservatives love to believe). Most of us actually aren't in that good-versus-evil frame of mind. It's being reported because it was an open, ham-handed effort to distort the record. And it's part of a pattern. (See cases above -- there are more.) So is it a big deal? Yes. Precisely because it's so ordinary, and it's being portrayed that way by Oda's supporters.

- And Brian Topp theorizes that there's somewhat more to the Oda ado than the Cons are letting on:

Given Ms. Oda's impressive background and real qualities, her first round of testimony on this matter was more credible than her second. Notwithstanding her belated fess-up, I doubt she doctored that memo. In changing her story and claiming that she did, I speculate, she is taking the fall for someone else.

Someone dumb. Someone who is cavalier about the integrity of public servants. Someone who has a notably loose relationship with the truth. Someone in a position to give orders to ministers – orders in contempt of Parliament – even at the price of their credibility and (possibly) their careers.

Who could that be?

- Though in fairness, it's worth noting that no mistake, offence or outrage is actually a career-ender for a right-wing ideologue. Just ask Tim Powers, who's taken up Russell Ullyatt's defence after Ulyatt merely torpedoed an entire budget consultation process for his own personal gain.

- Finally, Scott Feschuk notes that the Cons are also taking embarrassing steps to try to revise the language used to rewrite their history:

The Conservatives imported the expression “job creators” from Republicans in the United States, who are masters at putting a positive spin on negative concepts like cuts to social programs (“budget relief”) and extending tax breaks for the super rich (“Gimme!”). Since some in the media here have obligingly begun to use the term, we can expect to see more of the same from Conservatives. Farewell words with negative connotations!

Old term: Deficit.
New term: Aspiring surplus.
Used in a sentence: “Mr. Speaker, I am proud to say it was this Conservative government that presided over the largest aspiring surplus in our history.”

Old term: Tar sands.
New term: Money juice.
Used in a sentence: “Hey, how did these 3,000 dead ducks wind up in our money juice?”
...
Those expressions and more await us. For now, it’s just “job creators” and what we can do for them so that maybe they can possibly do something for us perhaps. And if they later slash jobs by the thousands to protect the bottom line, the government can praise them as “leisure creators.”