Mr. Hill's prior statements are no longer operative

Kristen Shane highlights a fairly classic difference in spin between John Baird and Jay Hill over the latter's replacement as the Cons' House Leader which speaks volumes about why Hill may well have been frustrated by "excessive control":

"I think if you ask Mr. Hill, he would tell you he requested to step down," said Mr. Baird.

When asked whether he would have wanted to keep his government house leader job until the next election, Mr. Hill responded to The Hill Times last week: "I was willing and continue to be willing to serve in whatever capacity the Prime Minister would ask of me."

He was in a remote part of his riding late last week and unable to respond to further questions about whether he was indeed frustrated by a high level of PMO control over his office, as opposition members suggest.

Of course, the obvious contrast will lead to a rather interesting test of Hill's independence until the next election. Presumably there isn't much Harper can use against him now that he's been removed from any position of particular influence and doesn't need to worry about re-election - so he would seem to have a golden opportunity to not only stick up for his own views, but also provide some perspective on exactly how stifling Harper has been from the inside.

But on the other hand, the rest of Hill's partymates are still trapped in Harper's cult of personality, and may well prefer not to have to defend that fact in the face of somebody telling inconvenient truths. So it won't be too much surprise - and indeed would entirely in keeping with the Cons' practices - for Hill to either declare that he simply misunderstood his own intentions in order to protect the Supreme Leader's infallibility, or be permanently sent to "a remote part of his riding".

Can we get that in writing?

It's a cliche of Canadian politics that there's a reason why "question period" isn't called "answer period" - and the Harper Cons have taken the theory that their answering time should bear as little resemblance as possible to the topic of any given question to downright painful extremes. But it looks like one MP may have stumbled onto a way to cut the Cons' non-answers out of the equation:

Mrs. Alexandra Mendes (Brossard—La Prairie, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, the minister of fake lakes chose to make cuts to Quebec festivals like FrancoFolies, the New France Festival and the Festival Grand Rire de Québec.

The irony is not lost on Quebeckers who saw a significant amount of support for the tourism industry evaporate, despite the fact that the minister “forgot” to spend $12 million last year.

Can the minister explain how he found the money to drop gazebos into his own riding, but does not have a penny for Quebec culture, nothing for Maillardville and nothing for the people of the Saguenay region?

Hon. Jay Hill (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, CPC):
Mr. Speaker, we have no minister by that designation and until members actually address their questions in a respectful manner there will not be a minister answering.

In other words, all the opposition has to do to avoid the substance-free bloviations and personal attacks of John Baird or Pierre Poilievre is to impersonate them in framing the questions to be asked. And as an added bonus, they'll get to cycle through nearly twice as many questions for lack of any attempt to answer. So what's not to like?

Off message

I should have known there would be a twist to make the Cons' latest attack on accountability even worse. And sure enough, they unveiled a doozy this morning: apparently "ministerial responsibility" means having their choice of uninformed ministers answer questions about departments or decisions which have nothing to do with their knowledge or authority.

But while the Cons have surely managed to offer up a creative new form of unaccountability, I have to wonder whether the messaging around it really fits what they're trying to get across. Does a party whose base is committed to personal responsibility actually think that there's no problem with making "ministerial responsibility" referable only to a cabinet hive-mind? And is Jay Hill's extended waaambulance ride the best pitch for a party which normally tries to portray itself as strong and in control?

Then and now

Then:

Peter Van Loan, a fiery House leader who thrilled colleagues with his frequent finger-jabbing diatribes against the Liberals, moves to Public Safety.

Government insiders say his replacement by the less-partisan Jay Hill is in keeping with Harper's desire to strike a more convivial tone in the next Parliament.

Now:

Mr. Jack Harris (St. John's East, NDP):

Mr. Speaker, my point of order refers to the response of the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Hill) to the traditional question as to what will be going on over the next few days so that parliamentarians can prepare for debates. I did not understand that this was an opportunity for the government House leader to make partisan swipes at other parties of the House or engage in debate that cannot be responded to. Is that not an abuse of the traditions of the House?

Fine print watch

The Harper government is loudly trumpeting its desire to quickly pass a large budget bill which hasn't yet been publicly introduced. Is there a more obvious signal that there are some nasty surprises in store?

Misspoken

The Cons have already done plenty to twist language beyond belief where it suits their political purposes, in particular by extending the definition of "misspeak" to include a false statement of fact which is later exposed.

But Jay Hill's appearance on Question Period (see link to video from here) looks to be taking the redefinition a couple of steps further. As far as the Cons' talking points go, a statement made deliberately and interpreted in precisely the manner intended is also a matter of "misspeaking" when it later proves to be embarrassing.

As a result, it looks like the Cons' definition needs to be rewritten again to include absolutely any statement which hurts their political cause. Which only makes it all the more clear why Hill has been sent out to argue that the proper response is to begin ignoring any "misspoken" statement as quickly as possible - rather than to take a closer look at why the statement was made in the first place.

On co-conspirators

The Ottawa Citizen has the full list of Con MPs caught up in Conadscam.* And there look to be plenty more interesting stories worth considering:

Elections Canada has listed 17 sitting MPs among Conservative candidates who participated in a contentious scheme to channel $1.2 million through riding campaigns to pay for blanket regional television and radio advertising during the 2006 election, court documents show.

One of the Conservative MPs, cabinet minister and Government Whip Jay Hill, sits on a committee the opposition has forced to meet today to begin probing a series of "in and out" transactions the Liberals claim may have been used by the Conservative party to skirt campaign spending limits...

According to the court documents filed by Elections Canada, the list of other MPs who participated in what the party called a "regional media buy" include Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, Heritage Minister Josée Verner and Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon.

The other MPs are: Quebec MPs Sylvie Boucher, Daniel Petit, Steven Blaney, Jacques Gourde, Luc Harvey, and Christian Paradis; B.C. MPs Ron Cannan, Dick Harris, Jim Abbott and Colin Mayes; Ontario MP Patricia Davidson; and Saskatchewan MP David Anderson.

I'd discussed earlier the implications for the Quebec cabinet ministers on the list. But in addition to Hill and his apparent conflict of interest discussed in the Citizen's article, a few more names on the list are worth a bit more discussion.

First off, Day is obviously the biggest-name Con on the list. And it's particularly noteworthy that the minister responsible for the RCMP (among other law-and-order matters) seems to have had absolutely no regard for federal law when it came to his own campaign.

Second, Conadscam now offers yet another reason for Dick Harris' constituents to see him as thoroughly corrupted...and neither Conadscam nor the Pod People Plan figures to go away any time soon. All of which should at least put a serious dent in his margin of victory - if not sweep him out of his seat entirely.

Third, another of the Cons caught up in the scandal aside from the Quebec MPs figures to be a prime target in the next federal election. Patricia Davidson won Sarnia-Lambton by just over 4,000 votes in 2006, with the NDP also within striking distance in the riding. Which could make her particularly vulnerable to a a change in public opinion based on rightful distrust of the Cons - especially when she's caught up in the scheme personally.

This week's committee hearings figure to offer plenty more material about the scandal, particularly in assessing responsibility within the Cons' central command. But while there's more yet to be learned, it's already obvious that a number of the Cons' most prominent members were either unwilling or unable to recognize the problems with the scheme - raising all the more reason to doubt the Cons have anywhere near the judgment Canadians should expect from their federal government.

*While the "Con Air" name isn't a bad one by any means, I'll stick with Conadscam for two reasons: first, because that's the tag I've used for previous posts, and second, because the "scam" part seems to me an important part of the title.

Poor excuses

Shorter Jay Hill, trying to justify Deceivin' Stephen's extra month of summer vacation:
But being in government is hard work - especially in my job as whip. Why, just last spring I had to deal with one of the trained seals clapping out of time. So clearly I need another month off.

Do as we say...

It's been comical enough to see Con whip Jay Hill making the media rounds this week claiming to want the current Parliament to be more congenial and less partisan. But the Globe and Mail's followup on the official languages committee helps to highlight Hill's central role in the gridlock which he claims to abhor, as it was Hill himself who pushed for confrontation when even the former Con chair wanted to resign in order to keep the committee running:

After the opposition ousted official languages committee chair Guy Lauzon two weeks ago, the Conservatives barred their MPs from running to replace him - effectively shutting down the committee.

Yesterday, the Tories met with opposition whips and agreed to reopen the committee. Mr. Lauzon resigned from the committee, so a new chair can be chosen from the Conservative MPs...

Mr. Lauzon said he offered to resign when he was voted out by the opposition two weeks ago, but Conservative whip Jay Hill persuaded him not to.

It's certainly for the best that the committee is now being allowed to get back to work. But it remains to be seen whether the supposed attempt to work with other parties will be limited to allowing Lauzon himself to resign, only to be replaced by another chair with equally little interest in allowing real debate.

And the news on that count doesn't appear to be getting better. Any lingering doubt as to whether the Cons' constant standoffishness was primarily based on individual committee chairs or a product of top-down party discipline now seems to have disappeared - and it'll be essential to make sure that the blame for any continued contempt for democratic process is placed directly at the top where it belongs.

Speaking of coalitions

CanWest reports that Con Whip Jay Hill is putting on a public face of cooperation with the opposition parties. But it's worth noting that the Cons are sticking to an interesting message in trying to cast blame for their own attempts to shut down Commons committees:

Conservative government Whip Jay Hill has called his counterparts from all three federal parties to a special meeting this morning to attempt to make peace and strike some sort of compromise that will allow the work of Parliament to continue.

"We can just sit down and hopefully calmly discuss some of these challenges that we're facing," Mr. Hill said in an interview. "I think the end goal is to lower the temperature a little bit and to work together."...

"What we saw in the last few weeks was really a further breakdown of communication between the Opposition parties and the government and a power struggle, not only in the chamber, but in the committees," Mr. Hill said. "The Opposition has increasingly been behaving more like a coalition government in Parliament than a constructive Opposition, in my opinion."

The "coalition government" line is one that Hill himself has been using for quite some time. But it's worth asking why the Cons seem to consider the phrase a slur rather than something which Canadians would actually like to see.

Presumably the bulk of the Cons' strategy in using the phrase lies in the idea that the failings of Parliament in general are likely to be more strongly associated with the government than the opposition - a point made in Abbas Rana's article in today's Hill Times. But the Cons' odds of successfully deflecting blame are long at best given their constant attempts to make use of the "new government" brand. And any additional benefits such as the possibility of creating a siege mentality in the Cons' base appear minimal.

Meanwhile, the phrase has several effects that the Cons would presumably be smart enough to want to avoid. For one, it completely undercuts the Cons' attempt to present themselves as a "natural governing party", suggesting that a group of parties with far more seats and votes than the Cons is willing and able to act in concert. In addition, the phrase helps to link Stephane Dion into the forefront of a supposed governing structure - which can only undermine the Cons' "not a leader" claim later on.

Finally, and most importantly, the Cons' repetition of the phrase can only bring even further into the mainstream the prospect that a real coalition government could be elected - and get people talking about the likely effects of inter-party cooperation. Which figures both to offer yet another benefit to the "yes" side in Ontario's MMP referendum this fall, and to encourage the opposition parties to cooperate all the more in an effort to show that Canadians aren't stuck with government by Harper fiat.

Ultimately, if a diverse set of opposition parties is finding common ground in so many situations, that can only reflect the Cons' own failures as a government. And if the Cons want to raise questions as to whether Canadians would prefer to see absolute power in Harper's hands rather than a system which encourages cooperation and punishes blind partisanship, they don't figure to enjoy finding out the answers.

On disenfranchisement

Shorter Jay Hill:
Anyone who can't deal with our arbitrary barriers to voting doesn't deserve to vote anyway. Speaking of which, who's up for a poll tax?

(Note: the Hill Times apparently doesn't have direct links to its articles - see the headline, "Up to five per cent could be disenfranchised in election".)