Feigning powerlessness

Robert and pogge have both pointed out the dishonesty behind the effort of some Lib supporters to downplay Michael Ignatieff's move toward a Harper-lite message on the tar sands.

But I'd think there's something even more worrisome about the argument that it doesn't matter what any party has to say about the issue. Do the Libs involved actually believe in the underlying premise that Canada's federal government is utterly powerless to influence how our own resources are developed? And to the extent they do, how could they possibly justify staying interested in trying to replace one set of meaningless figureheads with another?

Unresponsive

It takes some effort for an answer in question period to stand out from the Cons' usual litany of substance-free partisan blather. But Mark Warawa managed it yesterday:

Mr. Alex Atamanenko (British Columbia Southern Interior, NDP):
Mr. Speaker, the Americans are spending millions of dollars on a feasibility study to build a hydroelectric dam at Shanker's Bend on the Similkameen River. An 80 metre dam, if built, would flood 7,200 hectares in Canada.

The Okanagan Alliance of First Nations and the Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen have stated their opposition as has the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.

Will the minister notify the U.S. government that Canada is opposed to this project and will he insist that the government of British Columbia do the same?

Mr. Mark Warawa (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment, CPC):
Mr. Speaker, as the member well knows, this government is committed to a cleaner environment. We have invested $1 billion in green infrastructure, $300 million for eco-energy retrofits, and $1 billion for clean energy projects and carbon capture and storage.

Wherever we look this government is taking action on the environment. I encourage the member to support the budget.

Now, Warawa's answer is useless enough on its face. But it looks all the more so when placed in context.

Remember after all that the Cons are now trying to claim that their environmental plan is supposed to follow from what the U.S. administration is doing. Which would seem to give them an awfully good reason to pay attention themselves to what's happening south of the border. But their second-in-command on the environment is apparently completely unaware of the issues raised by the U.S.' plans on the one subject where the two countries are supposedly in agreement.

What's more, having been presented with an issue which would obviously demand follow-up one way or another, Warawa didn't even pay lip service to the prospect of looking into the matter. Instead, his answer offers about the strongest indication possible that the Cons are completely unwilling to deal with legitimate questions by doing anything but filibustering with their own PR material - whether or not it has anything to do with the topic at hand. And that may say more about the Cons' fitness for government than any substantive response ever could.

(Edit: fixed wording.)

But if WE say "wabbit season"...

Apparently the Libs' master plan under Michael Ignatieff is to parrot the Cons' talking points from the last year - with the seeming goal of wrong-footing the Cons themselves into forgetting what they mean to say. But what does it say about a party when its grand strategy is based on Canadian voters playing the part of Elmer Fudd?

The reviews are in

James Travers:

What the Prime Minister is proposing would create irresistible political temptations, won't effectively stimulate the economy and is dangerous to democracy. Apart from stirring sponsorship scandal memories, the plan for cabinet to distribute $3 billion behind closed doors is an acid test for public accountability. If Harper has his way, Parliament's defining responsibility to control public spending will be further diminished even as executive powers again expand.

"Trust me" is not a credible proposition from a prime minister who broke his word and law to force the fall election. Suspending fiscal oversight is not a reassuring response to a leader who ignored available evidence to campaign on the assurance that Canada would escape recession and as recently as November forecast surpluses.

It's no more prudent for taxpayers to leave politicians alone with buckets of cash than it's wise for parents to leave children alone with the cookie jar. One leads as predictably to abuse as the other to sugar fits.

Musical interlude

Everybody can use some trance for the weekend. Here's Chicane's "Saltwater".

An unintended insight

Promise? Prediction? Prophecy? One way or another, Warren Kinsella may be more right than he wants to be in describing what's to come for Deceivin' Stephen:

(Harper's) little press conference outside Rideau Hall on that snowy day in December was an act, nothing more. His pledges to work with others to find a way out of this terrible upheaval was the purest of bullshit.

For that, it will not be the Liberal Party that punishes him.

Of course, Kinsella adds, "It'll be Canadians". But I'd expect that anybody with his political background would recognize that the work of opposition parties tends to mean an awful lot in determining which issues filter down into the public consciousness such as to result in a government being punished.

In that vein, it was always doubtful that the Libs would be the ones to benefit from public dissatisfaction with a leader who they've worked so hard to keep in power. But there's all the less reason to think that Canadians who want to see Harper held accountable for his failings will reward a party which doesn't see itself as part of the solution.

Which means that when Canadians indeed decide to give Harper the thrashing he so rightly deserves, the Libs may end up taking a back seat to the party which has both recognized the emptiness of Harper's act all along, and done everything in its power to make sure he doesn't escape the consequences of his government's actions.

On rush requests

The Cons' demand for a $3 billion slush fund naturally figures to be a major story at least until such time as the Libs decide to cave in. So let's take a bit more of a look at just what they're asking for - and what it says that it's showing up out of the blue now:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is demanding MPs let his government bypass normal approval processes for $3-billion of stimulus spending, saying it's imperative to rush aid as the economy falters, and warning he's willing to head to another election should opposition parties block it.

The Tories are proposing the fund's cash be spent over 90 days between April 1 and June 30 and want to take shortcuts in allocating it – although they promise to report back afterward on its disbursement. Under normal procedures, money wouldn't have started flowing until June...

Details of government spending are normally reviewed by MPs before being approved by parliamentary votes.

In this case, however, a lump sum from the Budget 2009 stimulus package will be handed to Treasury Board, as Ottawa's cash manager, to allocate money as it sees fit. It will later report back to Parliament on how the cash was spent.

Treasury Board officials defended the accountability of the fund, saying departments are “better equipped” to oversee this spending “than in previous years.”

The $3-billion short-term stimulus fund unveiled by Treasury Board president Vic Toews is not earmarked for any specific program, but is set up so departments can draw on it to expedite stimulus projects, officials said.

Now, it's worth remembering the process that the Con/Lib budget has followed so far. Remember that last fall's fiscal update showdown was based in large part on the fact that Deficit Jim refused both to introduce any stimulus at that time, and to move up the timing of this year's budget. And in turn, the fact that the Cons introduced the budget in January was supposed to represent some acknowledgment on their part that Canadians couldn't afford to wait for stimulus to start flowing.

It would seem obvious that if the timing of the introduction and passage of the budget was being advanced for the sole purpose of getting money moving into the economy earlier, then the rest of the process to get money flowing would also have to be moved up from the beginning as well. But apparently the Cons didn't bother to do any such thing - so all we have now is a budget being passed earlier than usual, with no way to actually get money moving faster.

That would seem to leave two ways to explain the fact that the Cons managed to end up in the situation where they're now trying to change the spending process after the fact. And neither looks anything but damning for a government which is supposed to be trying to help resuscitate Canada's economy.

It could be that the Cons realized only recently that their hurried budget didn't actually include any mechanism to speed up the stimulus - making the new supply bill a panicked reaction intended to paper over the failure to plan ahead. Which could hardly inspire confidence that the Cons can be trusted to competently manage anything, let alone a $3 billion fund in the absence of oversight.

Or, it's equally possible that the Cons knew all along that they hadn't actually set up the process to move money faster than usual, but figured they'd like the convenience of not having to answer for the spending of billions of public dollars. Which would seem even more dangerous, since any premeditation in wanting to free large amounts of spending from any oversight can only serve as notice that Canadians aren't going to be happy with what the money gets diverted to.

If anything, the nature of the Cons' request would seem to suggest the latter. Rather than at least trying to set up some temporary but more flexible means of oversight, their goal seems to be to make sure that nobody but the Harper cabinet table has a clue how the money is being spent.

But either way, the latest demand should offer even more reason to doubt that the Harper government can be trusted to handle a blank cheque. And if Deceivin' Stephen expects any sympathy in declaring that he's prepared to force an election over a slush fund, any opposition party worthy of the title should be glad to call that bluff.

Deep thought

Michael Ignatieff's decision to prop up the Harper government in the name of avoiding instability and election brinksmanship is looking better and better.

Reason to worry more

Just when I thought things couldn't get much worse, Deceivin' Stephen lowers himself to the occasion - demanding approval of a $3 billion, zero-accountability slush fund and threatening an election if he doesn't get it yesterday. And all this while his government is outraged at being reminded that withholding money from deserving projects solely because they're located in opposition-held ridings might not be a good idea.

This may make for a great day in Canadian wingnut welfare. For the rest of us, though, it's looking more and more clear that continued Harper government is only going to leave us with more massive bills for zero positive results.

Edit: added link.

Learning About Partisanship

Shorter Learning About Parliament portion of the Parliament of Canada's website under the Harper Cons:

Did you know? Everybody who's ever done anything worth highlighting was or is a Conservative.

A trip down memory lane

Remember back when Stephen Harper was so deathly afraid of Michael Ignatieff that he wouldn't even consider a strategy of personal attacks? It seems so long ago...

Reason to worry

Could one ask for a more ominous set of signs about the ultimate results of than what's surfaced over the past couple of days? First, there's Deficit Jim setting the stage for waste and mismanagement:

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty acknowledged that Ottawa will foul up as it rushes to dole out $40-billion of stimulus spending, but said the potential for gaffes is acceptable because aid must be expedited to counter the economic downturn.

"There will be some mistakes made. But it's worth that risk to help the majority of Canadians during what is a serious recession," he said yesterday following a weekly meeting of Conservative MPs...

Mr. Flaherty didn't specify what kinds of boondoggles might occur as Ottawa signs cheques for an extraordinarily large amount of money over 24 months, including close to $20-billion in construction and infrastructure spending.

He said Ottawa is sidestepping traditional approval routes to speed up stimulus dollars and will provide Canadians a timetable for implementation on March 11. "This is urgent. This is an emergency situation of getting this stimulus into the Canadian economy to benefit Canadians, to benefit people who are going to lose their jobs."

For instance, he said, Treasury Board - the government's cash manager - is modifying how it handles spending, and the Tories are taking some plans directly to cabinet instead of the normal route for vetting ideas.

But making matters worse, there's the latest from Information Commissioner Robert Marleau - whose grim repord card on access to information includes Public Works as one of the departments which received an "F", joining the PCO which has always been one of the worse offenders.

This comes just two years after Public Works received a "B" the last time Marleau used the report card system. And it's also a report on a year where Public Works was doing next to nothing in terms of approving actual projects - rather than one where its staff will be in a rush to push projects out the door.

So to sum up...

We have no way of knowing who will be making decisions about billions of dollars worth of spending. And indeed those responsible aren't saying anything more than that they're making it up on the fly.

But we do know that the likeliest suspects are two departments which the Cons have ensured won't respond to access to information requests. So it may take years to even figure out who was responsible for any decisions, let alone what factors were taken into consideration.

This will not end well.

A study in contrasts

So which party figures to do the better job dealing with the environmental and social problems raised by unbridled tar sands development: one which goes out of its way to raise awareness of the issues? Or one whose leader thinks there's nothing to be learned about them?

A telling message

It's probably true that those hoping to revive the Republican Party don't have much to go on but wishful thinking. But Gerry Nicholls' spin is particularly amusing considering how the Republicans themselves handled last night's response speech.

While most of the commentary on Bobby Jindal's speech has revolved around the Kenneth comparison, take a look at what's missing from the transcript. Jindal mentioned the name "Obama" only once - and in the following sentence:

In all these areas, Republicans want to work with President Obama.

And from there Jindal went back to criticizing "Democratic leaders" generally before getting into the rest of his anti-government rant.

Now, given Obama's sky-high approval ratings it's understandable that the Republicans think they have a better chance of making short-term headway by trying to place the spotlight elsewhere. But as long as the party in general and 2012 contenders like Jindal in particular think they're best off not laying a glove on the most visible Democratic politician in the country, the odds of Obama facing a serious threat from either party in 2012 would look fairly remote.

Deep thought

It seems to me that an effective probation officer wouldn't publicly inform offenders that they aren't going to face any consequences for misbehaviour.

On rallying cries

Shorter Warren Kinsella, responding to Michael Sticking's evisceration of Michael Ignatieff:

A leader focused only on "his own glorification"? "Seems to lack any real passion for the country he intends to lead"? "An air of haughty detachment, an arrogant sense of entitlement to leadership, limited charisma, Bush-friendly positions on key foreign policy issues, hardly any record on (and relatively little knowledge of) social and economic issues"? All fine by me, as long as he's ever so slightly less horrific than Stephen Harper!

Shed a tear for your corporate media overlords

For clearly it's unfair that their control over content in multiple media might strengthen the CRTC's hand in regulating them.

Lib MP: Parliamentary democracy a "pointless exercise"

David Akin nicely chronicled the NDP's efforts to point out the need for some actual review of what Deficit Jim wants to push through in his budget. But perhaps the most telling line is the response given by one Lib MP as to why they weren't interested in bothering:

Liberal and Conservative MPs did not respond to the NDP attacks. Privately, they said their strategy was to speed the legislation through committee by avoiding what one Liberal MP privately characterized as "a pointless exercise" of engaging in debate with the NDP or the Bloc Quebecois.

Now, it's interesting enough that the Cons and Libs presented a united front - with the Libs not even expressing the slightest concern about being told when debate is and isn't appropriate. But even more striking is the Libs' apparent opinion that it's "pointless" to actually review legislation before passing it.

After all, the committee stage figured to be the one opportunity the other parties had to put some pressure on the Cons to accept amendments to a budget which even the Libs recognize to be flawed. But rather than doing anything constructive with that opportunity, the Libs not only joined with the Cons in running out the clock, but went out of their way to attack the idea that anything else could be done.

Needless to say, it shouldn't come as much surprise when the Libs once again end up feigning indignant surprise as the problems they've ignored in rolling over for the Cons come to affect Canadian voters. But for those of us who recognize the need for our elected representatives to actually do their jobs by scrutinizing the government's actions, yesterday's events should offer another strong signal that the Libs aren't up for the task.

On common interests

While yesterday's Burning Question was largely snark-based, there's a serious issue underlying it: namely, is there any chance of getting any of the Cons' gratuitous additions removed from the budget to be properly dealt with as separate legislation? And there might be an interesting possibility for cooperation between the NDP and corporate leaders who are thoroughly unimpressed with Deficit Jim's changes to competition and investment rules:

Embedded in a document that has principally drawn attention for its pledge to spend $30 billion to kick-start the sputtering domestic economy are sweeping changes to the fundamental business framework of the country. The abrupt overhaul of both the Competition Act and the Investment Canada Act without warning or consultation has the corporate community howling with outrage and opening their wallets for top legal counsel.

The approach used to introduce the changes reflects that for all the talk of collaboration in tough times, the gap between the government and the business community is as wide as it has ever been...

Their primary concerns are new measures that would exponentially increase the fines charged for anti-competitive behaviour and would freeze assets while a Competition Bureau investigation is under way. Accusations of conspiracy would lose the current "undue effect on competition" test, and leave it to the discretion of the bureau.

For large corporations which typically have hundreds of deals with other companies, it would require a massive and expensive audit and analysis of each one of those transactions...

Those who will be most affected by the changes argue that such important steps should be reviewed carefully and on a standalone basis, rather than being pushed through with the haste of emergency stimulus packages. But the political nuance behind the new rules makes any attempts at concerted objection particularly tricky.

Many of the key elements of the changes this time around first surfaced in Bill C-19 in 2005, which died with Paul Martin's Liberal government. Ironically, several of the Conservatives who were instrumental in fighting Bill C-19 at that time are now involved in pushing it through.

In November 2005, James Rajotte was the Conservative industry critic and he argued passionately against the passage Bill C-19 at industry committee hearings. Specifically, he is on record urging more thorough consultation before the measures (which are largely intact this time around) proceed any further.

Mr. Rajotte is now head of the parliamentary finance committee, which is attempting to push through the budget legislation as quickly as possible.

Of course, it could be that the competition and investment measures themselves are ones which the NDP would ultimately support in substance. But it shouldn't be that difficult to send a public message that even ideas worth pursuing shouldn't be suddenly imposed without consultation. And that goes doubly when the measures would cause uncertainty and instability in the corporate community just as an ineffective government is counting far too much on the private sector to pull Canada out of a recession.

From there, if a combined effort from the NDP and business leaders can pressure the Cons into pulling a couple of the elements of the budget out for further consultation, then it's hard to see how they'd justify doing otherwise when it comes to the parts of the budget bill dealing with pay equity and other issues. Which means that a temporary joint effort with corporate Canada may be the best way for the NDP to ultimately influence what does and doesn't get passed in the budget.

Burning question

Is today the day the Lib apologists' message on the budget officially changes from "it's too early to criticize" to "why bother when it's too late to do anything"?